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Title
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Latimer, James Ferguson
J F Latimer
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Jim Latimer (1923 - 2020, 1551478 Royal Air Force) his log book, and photographs. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 102 and 462 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2019-09-28
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Latimer, JF
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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BW: Here we go. Right.
GBD: Ok, Jim.
JL: Yeah.
BW: This Is Brian Wright interviewing Warrant Officer Jim Latimer.
JL: Jim’s Ferguson Latimer.
BW: Jim Ferguson Latimer.
JL: Thank you.
BW: On Saturday 28th September 2019 at approximately 4.45 at his home in Salford.
GBD: Prestwich, Manchester.
BW: Prestwich.
GBD: Yeah.
BW: Manchester. Also with me are his friend Gary Bridson-Daley, and World War Two author, and Jim’s wife Joan. And Gary, you wanted to introduce, introduce Jim as well.
GBD: Yeah. Just for a little minute. I’m very privileged to know Jim Latimer and Jean Latimer and they are from the same church as myself. They’re the longest parishioners there. Over seventy years they’ve been there which is quite astounding. I’m Gary Bridson-Daley author of, “A Debt of Gratitude to the Last Heroes.” And as part of my Debt of Gratitude Project going throughout the UK interviewing some of the last World War Two veterans I’ve been blessed to have interviewed over one hundred veterans from all services and backgrounds now of which Jim is one of them and is in that first book.
JFL: A fair amount isn’t it?
GBD: It’s not bad is it, Jim. Eh? Yeah.
JFL: Yeah.
GBD: It’s great.
JFL: You’ve interviewed a lot of guys.
GBD: And ladies too. Yes.
JFL: Yeah.
GBD: And it’s been an absolute honour and privilege to do so. It’s also a great thing to be able to help the IBCC with, with introducing veterans such as I have done today and Jim now, to help with their fantastic work. And anything we can always do to help people that are doing things for our veterans and to capture these precious stories for posterity and for the future and for the country and generations yet to come is a great thing, and I’m very honoured to be a part of it in my project and in helping others with theirs. So I’m going to hand over to Jim Latimer who was Halifax bombers, forty six missions. Bomb aimer. And now handing over for the interview to be done with Brian. And I just wanted to have a little, little part of that. Just —
JFL: Yeah.
GBD: Because it’s so special and they’re such good friends. That’s it. Well, thank you. Brian, over to you. Jim, enjoy the interview.
JFL: Yeah. Ok, Brian.
BW: Ok, Jim. Just to start off for us could you give us your full name, date of birth and service number please?
JFL: Yeah. It’s James Ferguson Latimer. What’s the next one?
BW: Date of birth.
JFL: Oh yeah. 21 12 ’23.
BW: And do you recall your service number at all?
JFL: Yeah. 1551478.
BW: Great. Thank you. And where were you born Jim?
JFL: I was actually born in Scotland.
JL: Edinburgh.
BW: And how many people were in your family? I mean obviously mum and dad?
JFL: Yeah.
BW: But any brothers and sisters?
JFL: There was two brothers. One came, another brother came later but one.
JL: Who are you talking about?
JFL: We emigrated. Well, I was only a tot of four or five years old and my parents emigrated to Toronto in Canada. Ontario. My dad had a good job over there.
BW: What did he do?
JFL: He worked on tall buildings. I don’t know what, exactly what was, I don’t know what his trade or profession was or anything like that.
JL: Sheet metal.
JFL: It was what?
JL: Sheet metal worker.
JFL: Yeah. That’s what he was originally. Sheet metal worker but there was a lot of building. Skyscrapers going up in Toronto at the time which was way back in the 20s. And he had a good job out there. That was the reason for emigration. There wasn’t much in Scotland where they originally came from. So they wanted to emigrate which is what they did.
BW: So there was you and two brothers.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: Any sisters? Or did they come later?
JFL: No sisters. No.
BW: And where did you go to school out there?
JFL: In the York township which is just north of Toronto.
BW: And when did you leave school? It was common in the UK for people to leave school at fourteen but what happened with you?
JFL: I think I was fifteen when I left High School and when the [pause] when the war started, or it was just before the war started it was obvious there was going to be a war with, with what was going on with Hitler and our Prime Minister here. My parents decided to come back to, well they came back to England. So the war had just started I think when we came back to Great Britain.
BW: And did you look for work or were you working at that, at that time when you came back? Or did you continue in education or anything?
JFL: I was still at, still going to school then at that time. I can’t remember how old I was.
BW: Do you recall whereabout you moved to?
JFL: I was —
BW: Did you, did you come to the north west of the UK at all or were you elsewhere in the country? Where did your dad and the family settle?
JFL: Came from Edinburgh because my parents originally came from Edinburgh, and then went over to Canada and my dad had a job at Toronto. I was at school. My brothers were at school, and I was, I went to High School. I did five years in high school which is like, I don’t know the equivalent in England. Grammar School. Something like that. And then the war, the war with Hitler you can, it was on the cards there was going to be a war. So for some reason or other, I don’t know why, my parents wanted to come back to Scotland and I wasn’t, I wasn’t very old then, and I had to had two brothers at the time. And the war started and we came back with the war being on. German subs were having a ball out there. Torpedoed a lot, an awful lot of merchant, merchant ships. I always remember I was only, I can’t remember, nine or ten on the ship on my way back to the British Isles, and I went up on the deck with my brother just looking at the Atlantic Ocean if you like and this, this ship passed on its way to either the States or Canada and they only got as far as the horizon. We were stood watching it. It was torpedoed. It just blew up. So all the poor guys on it they never had a chance. A U-boat obviously torpedoed it. And then —
BW: Was it a civilian ship?
JFL: I don’t really know at the time. It was, it could have been a passenger ship that passed us but it might just have been a merchant ship. Difficult to know. But it just got to the sky line. The next thing the sun, the sun had gone down and it just lit up the sky with being torpedoed. Poor guys.
BW: And from living in Edinburgh what prompted you to join the RAF? Were you minded to join any other service or was it specifically the RAF you wanted?
JFL: I’m just trying to think now. Yeah. I joined, I joined the Air Force here in Manchester. I was at Heaton Park. That’s where [pause] young guys from all over the world came to Heaton Park. If they were in bomber, if they were going to be in Bomber Command, you know. They came from South Africa, Australia, New Zealand. They all came to Heaton Park. So I was at Heaton Park there for a while waiting to be sent out to whatever flying base was available. And —
BW: And was that for your basic training?
JFL: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I did quite a bit of basic training.
BW: And when did you move to your sort of trade training to become a bomb aimer?
JFL: A bit vague. A bit vague on it. I was aircrew for a start so I don’t know why or, why or how I became an air bomber but that’s what I did.
BW: I believe you trained initially on Wellington bombers.
JFL: Yeah. Originally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We went even, the Germans had occupied France so we were, we flew. Started off with Wellingtons. We used to fly over France. And when we were bombing armament factories in France because the Germans had taken over. That’s how I started with flying. And then later on went on to Halifaxes. Big planes. And —
BW: What do you recall of the Wellingtons? What were they, what were they like?
JFL: Well, they were alright. Two engines. They were a bit, eventually a bit obsolete. It was all four engines. So that’s where, where we got to. So the, it was four engined going over Germany.
BW: And your first mission. Your first operation was as you say over occupied France but —
JFL: Yeah.
BW: I wanted to ask a bit about your time while you were at the base in Yorkshire. At Pocklington.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: Because you joined 102 Squadron.
JFL: That’s right. Yeah.
BW: Now, there’s, you said you were starting on Halifaxes at this time.
JFL: That’s right yeah because of the —
BW: Can you recall the names of the other members of the crew? The pilot and —
JFL: I can’t remember them now offhand.
BW: Your pilot was Flight Sergeant Mitchell.
JFL: Yeah. I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. But the, the two gunners. The two gunners I can’t remember. One was Scottish. The other guy was, I think he was from South Africa. A lot of them came over from different parts of the world to join up.
BW: If I read some of the names of the crew would you recognise or know anything about them? William McCorkindale.
JFL: Yeah. He was the engineer I think. Little Scottish guy.
BW: And RW Scott.
JFL: I’m sorry?
BW: RW Scott. Flight Sergeant Scott.
JFL: No. I can’t.
BW: No.
JFL: Oh, Scott. I vaguely remember him but I’m not sure. No.
BW: Mitchell was your pilot.
JFL: That’s right. Yeah.
BW: Maguire.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: Who, where was Maguire in the aircraft?
JFL: Sorry?
BW: Where was Maguire in the aircraft?
JFL: I think he was the rear gunner I think.
BW: And Flight Sergeant Thornton?
JFL: What was that again?
BW: Flight Sergeant Thornton. AF Thornton.
JFL: I’m not quite sure now.
BW: And the other was Kellard. Sergeant Kellard.
JFL: Yeah. I can’t remember the names now.
BW: Ok. Do you recall how you met each other? Normally you’d be left alone to sort of crew up they called it. Do you remember how you met your other crewmates?
JFL: I’m a bit vague on it. [pause] We were stationed at Heaton Park. That’s where, from the British Empire they all, they all came to Heaton Park from South Africa, Australia, New Zealand. This is where they ended up. And from, from there then they were sent to different airfields eventually. And the airfield I was sent to was, I can’t remember the name of it now. It was in the Midlands. England. And we were on Wellingtons. The two engine Wellingtons. And we did quite a few ops there. Mainly over France. Germany had occupied France then and there was a lot of munitions workers in the south east of France and that, that was our target. So that’s what I was on to start off with. And then from there we graduated to [pause] that was, those were Wellingtons. Yeah. Then I was on Halifaxes then. Four engine bomber.
BW: What were they like to fly in as crew? How did you find it? Was it, was it pretty cramped?
JFL: Cramped? No. No. No, there was plenty of room. It was alright. Yeah. Yeah.
BW: I’m going to show you a couple of pictures. One is of a Halifax, and the other is of crew positions inside.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: And just see if these prompt any recollections for you.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: The one you’ve got in your left hand of the crew position. That’s the flight engineer.
JFL: Oh.
BW: And then underneath that will be the bomb aimer’s position in the front of the aircraft.
JFL: Yeah. Which is —
BW: Does that —
JFL: Which is the front? I can’t make it out [pause] Well, when we, when we got to within a mile of the target I had to go down to the nose of the aircraft, lie down flat and the bombsight had a few figures in it. We had to adjust the bomb sight and then when we got within a mile going near into the city we had to fly straight and level and it would probably sorry [noise] very slow. The speed, the speed was slowed right down in order to get to the target to make sure the bombs were in the right position. So when we got to within so many, a mile perhaps from the target the bomb, the bomb aimer or the air bomber he was called, the bomb aimer he took over. Guiding. He was guiding the plane then so he was telling the pilot, ‘Left. Left. Right. Right.’ whatever, to get, get the bomb, the bombsight so that it was directly in front of the target. And then when you got the bombsight steady at all you could visualise it. You could see that from the nose of the plane and once you got just before, just before the target you dropped your bombs. So as they were going down they were going that way as well and they hit the target hopefully. And then I always said, ‘Bombs gone. Let’s go.’ The pilot turned around and off we went back.
BW: You had to keep the aircraft straight and level.
JFL: Oh, very straight. Yeah. For a mile or so.
BW: Yeah. After you’d dropped the bombs.
JFL: Going on to the target. Yeah. Yeah. A Lot of anti-aircraft coming up as well. An awful lot. We were peppered with anti-aircraft. And I saw two or three of our own bombers, Fokke Wolf 190s, you know the German fighter planes, they were swarming around and I saw, I always remember two or three of our bombers were shot down. I saw them going down, and in one of them I think, a guy, a guy I was very friendly with and I saw him going down to be killed. Crashed. I always remember that. I knew it was. I could see which plane it was. It was a Halifax and he was in it. That was the end of him.
BW: Did you see any parachutes at all?
JFL: Oh yeah. The odd one or two. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
BW: That particular raid would have been detailed. That particular raid was to Braunschweig and that was in August.
JFL: Where was it?
BW: Braunschweig [pause] It was in August 1944.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: And it was a night raid.
JFL: Yeah. Well, most, most of them were night raids. Yeah. Of course —
BW: The, there were two sergeants in the aircraft you described who were killed. One whose name was Craig and the other Curphey. Do you know which of those two might have been your mate?
JFL: I’m not sure now. Very vague about it.
BW: Ok. I’m going to show you a diagram of the bomb aimer’s position in a Halifax. Does that bring back any memories?
[pause]
BW: It shows the position that you would have been in in the aircraft.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: You say laid down and looking out the Perspex nose.
JFL: Is the Perspex still here?
BW: Yes.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: And your control panel was on the left.
JFL: That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. So you used to lie down there actually ‘til a mile or so from the target. The air bomber more or less took over the plane. Guiding, guiding the pilot with, ‘Left. Left. Right. Left.’ Whatever. To make sure he was right on the target.
BW: Did you ever feel particularly vulnerable in that sort of position because you’re laid down, head practically out of the aircraft apart from the Perspex canopy in front? How, how did it feel to be in that position over a target?
JFL: Yeah. It did. Actually, it never, it never bothered me. I don’t know why. Used to be, you were busy guiding. Guiding the plane in to make sure you’re getting it right. ‘Left. Right.’ You just tell, tell the pilot move over to the left a bit or move over to the right a bit until you’re right over the target. And then just before you hit the target it’s bombs away, and you used to follow them right down. And nine times out of ten they hit the target. Mostly coastal targets. There was a lot of coastal targets. And then eventually it became routine.
BW: Did you ever have to tell the pilot to go around again to make a second run? Perhaps because there was smoke over the target or obscuring it. Did you have to make a second run at all?
JFL: No. I don’t think I ever had to do that. No. No. No. By then there was a lot of German fighters trying to get at us. They were all hovering all around. They did get quite a few but some of us were lucky.
BW: And could you see [pause] could you see the fighters around you? Could you make them out?
JFL: The German fighters?
BW: Yeah.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: Or were you just able to see the gunfire?
JFL: No, I could see. Could see the fighters.
BW: And —
JFL: And once we’d dropped the bombs it was a case of turn around, put the nose down and get away. Get as much speed as you could to get away. Then we had, the rear gunner was very good. The mid-upper gunner was also very good. And you could see the German fighters trying to get a bead on us but our own, our own bombers, the machine gunners they kept them, kept the German planes off as much as they could. I did see one or two of our own boys going down. One, one bomber plane that went down, one of the guys in it was a friend. A good friend of mine. And I could see him, I couldn’t see him but he was in it and that was the end of him.
BW: Could you see the searchlights at all? Were you, were you ever actually what they called coned in searchlights? Were you picked out at all and locked on?
JFL: Yeah, you could. There were, there were plenty of searchlights from the Germans. They had encampments with machine guns and bomber guns and anti-aircraft guns and they were usually lit up. They didn’t do a lot of damage but they sent up enough to catch, used to be a lot of holes in the plane. Fortunately, didn’t get to the right place for them.
BW: And the searchlights were coloured differently. Did you see any blue searchlights at all?
JFL: Any — ?
BW: Blue searchlights.
JFL: Blue?
BW: Yeah.
JFL: I can’t remember to tell you the truth. I remember lots of searchlights but I don’t know about blue searchlights.
BW: The gunners would occasionally if they saw a light coming towards them or a fighter coming towards them would instruct the pilot to take evasive action or corkscrew. Did that ever happen with you?
JFL: I’ve no recollection of that. No. Not really.
BW: So you were quite lucky that you never got properly bounced by fighters.
JFL: Yeah. I could see fighters. Not, most, most of the, it was mostly night flying. We did go on to daylight flying again when the invasion took place with the Yanks invading the French coast to get the, to make a start on getting the Germans out. And we did a lot of, we used to go low flying over the, over the Channel but then zoom up and bomb the German army. It was all daylight because the Yanks, the Yanks and the Canadians and the British were all on their way over the English Channel to get rid of the Germans. They suffered. They suffered a lot of damage then too. Our job was to bomb the German guns. The big guns up on the cliffs which is what we did.
BW: And when you were low flying over France on the way in to the target during the daylight. Do you recall much of what you could see? Whether there were any vehicles or movements on the ground or anything like that?
JFL: On the Channel?
BW: On the French mainland.
JFL: Oh, the French coast.
BW: On the French mainland when you approached the target what kind of things could you see?
JFL: Well, the Germans were, they were retreating. You could see that, and you could see the, the Yanks and the Canadians coming over on small, small boats to attack the Germans on, on the beaches. We could see all that. Then of course we had to, we got so far we used to climb right up because they had a lot of big heavy guns at the top of the hills and they were causing damage so we went up quite high. Came down to bomb them to knock their guns out. And that’s how it was.
BW: You were also as a air bomber or bomb aimer as they called them.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: To and from the target you’d also be manning the front guns wouldn’t you?
JFL: I’m sorry?
BW: You would also be manning the front gun wouldn’t you? The nose gun.
JFL: Yeah. I could. Yeah, they did that too. Yeah. Used to use that. Yeah.
BW: And did you ever have cause to use it on the way in? Keep a fighter away or anything like that?
JFL: Not, not so much because we had a mid-upper gunner and a rear gunner of course so they did most of the shooting against the enemy.
BW: So most of your ops were over occupied France, and there were a number into Germany.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: Would you say there was a noticeable difference between your targets in France and those in Germany?
[pause]
JFL: Well, the ones in France they were very, very military but when we went, when we flew to Germany there was a different sections of cities we had to bomb. A lot along the North Sea and mainly military targets. But that’s how it was.
BW: And were they quite long missions for you?
JFL: The night missions were very long. They were very long. And of course then it all changed when the Yanks came over. We did all daylight missions. And we, as the Germans were retreating we were flying during the day, bombing the Germans as, as they tried to get back to their own country. And there was pockets of British soldiers and Yankee soldiers that, they got cut off by the Germans. They were in big trouble and we were, had to go out to help them. I remember that. So —
BW: And were you bombing enemy troops?
JFL: Yeah.
BW: Fairly close to where the Allied lines were or —
JFL: That’s right. Yeah. Not far off. Yeah.
BW: And did, were you able to see the bombs land accurately?
JFL: Oh yes. We were quite low. Yeah.
BW: What sort of height would you think you were at?
JFL: Oh dear [pause] A thousand feet [pause] Over. Quite, quite low we were because we were. Yeah.
BW: And were there a lot of aircraft on those sorts of raids or was it just like a small number of aircraft from the squadron?
JFL: Yeah. There wasn’t a lot of raids. Not a lot of raids flying in it but as the Germans retreated we kept going in and, to try and stop them from getting back to their own Maginot, not the Maginot, that’s a French line, getting back to their own line. So we had to keep intercepting them and they had heavy guns all the way around everywhere they were and they did a bit of damage with those. But we got rid of a lot of the guns that the Germans were using, because the Yanks and the British Army and Canadian Army they were all coming in now to fight their way to the Maginot Line. And we helped out on that.
BW: So, on those sorts of raids I believe you flew on a couple of times in larger raids with Americans. A combined sort of RAF and American type raid. Did you see any difference in the way the Americans flew?
JFL: Oh, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Sitting ducks. That’s how you can describe them. Sitting ducks. They flew in a straight line and they didn’t, they didn’t do any manoeuvring. Just kept flying straight. And the German fighters they had a, took a lot of, took a lot of the Americans down with the [pause] We flew individually. We didn’t fly as a squadron. We flew in between different heights. But the Americans came in perfect they were but they never, never altered their position and the German fighters really tore in to them. An awful lot of Yanks shot down.
BW: So the looser formation that the RAF used allowed them greater manoeuvrability if you were attacked, whereas the Americans —
JFL: Yeah.
BW: Didn’t do that.
JFL: They didn’t have that. Yeah. Of course when we flew at night we didn’t fly as, we flew individually in the dark. The British Air Force. The Americans when they, when they started night flying they flew as a squadron and they were easy targets for the German fighters.
BW: And when you got back to base what kind of things happened then? What sort of things would happen on the way back from the targets and then landing?
JFL: Well, you got, you’ve still got the German fighters chasing you, trying to get a bead on to you. I remember the very first op we were on. We were up and down all the way back so this particular German fighter he chased us all the way back to the Channel, the English Channel. And we had to manoeuvre up and down just to keep him, so that he couldn’t get a sight on us and as we got within half a mile of the Channel he gave up on it and turned around and went back to Germany, thank goodness. But —
BW: So you were chased all the way home.
JFL: Yeah. I was. Yeah. Yeah. We were quite, this was what we were doing all the way back so he couldn’t get a sight on us.
BW: And when you eventually did land what kind of things would happen then?
JFL: When we landed, when we got out the plane and came over to, the CO was there and there would be, we were interviewed for, they wanted to know what happened and the medical officer was on site in case anybody was, anybody was hurt. And the —
BW: And what were the debriefings like? Did they give you a good interrogation about what you’d seen?
JFL: Yeah. A debriefing. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. They wanted to know various things. How it went and what happened. And the man with a collar. He was always there for, we had to, we had to have a prayer for safe landing. He gave us a prayer. We were very, very lucky I think. Very lucky.
BW: When you got back to your billets were you accommodated as crews altogether, or were you kept as say bomb aimers in one hut and flight engineers in another hut or did you all stay together as a crew?
JFL: We were more or less as a crew. Yeah. Yeah. Well, most, most of the, most of the flights up until the invasion when the Yanks came it was all night flying and we used to get back about 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning. And by then of course we were very tired. So after being interviewed by [pause] whoever we went to bed.
BW: Did you ever get a chance to socialise much as a crew? Were there events on at the base and dances and things?
JFL: Yeah. There was the odd one or two dances. Yeah. But unfortunately I had two left feet. At the time. My wife was a very good dancer so eventually when I became a civilian I picked up on the dancing and I did alright but during the war we used to, there was always dances going on and we used to go and mainly just stood there looking at them and watching it. That’s all.
BW: And you flew a few raids with 102 Squadron, and then you were transferred to 462 Squadron.
JFL: Yeah. That sounds about, yeah 462.
BW: And there was one of those where, one of those sorties or ops where you came back and the aircraft went off the runway.
JFL: Yes. It left. It left the runway [laughs]
BW: Was this on, was this on landing?
JFL: The brakes. I think the brakes must have gone. The brakes went on it so we left the runway at, we were doing almost a hundred miles an hour when we left the runway and we went over quite a few fields bumpety bumpety bumpety. And eventually when the pilot, he was, he’d given up. It was too much for him. So I was sat beside him. I just kept the plane straight and then —
BW: So the pilot bottled it and you took over the controls.
JFL: Yeah. Well, just I was steering it. Yeah. Yeah. And then when we got to, over two or three fields I turned the plane around and it stopped dead because we didn’t know what was going to happen otherwise because it was still moving at a good pace. Anyway, I pulled the wheel around and it stopped. And that was it. And then the fire, the fire people came over to make sure the plane wasn’t on fire.
BW: I mean if it’s gone over two or three fields.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: Off the end of the runway. That’s some fair distance.
JFL: Yeah. It was a fair distance. Yeah. Yeah.
BW: Did you still have any bombs on board or anything like that?
JFL: No. We had, I don’t think we had anything on board. I think we got rid of everything. Yeah.
BW: Because there was an instance in your logbook where you noted that you were loaded with the bombs on board. Landed with the bomb load. But obviously not on that occasion.
JFL: Yeah. I’m trying to remember. I know [pause] One. We were over Germany but we’d bombed the target, but one of the bombs was, was hung up. It hadn’t dropped and it was on the plane with us and of course you daren’t land with it. It would have blown us all up. So Joe, I climbed, I climbed down and got outside the plane, turned the trap door and I was outside. I managed to release the bomb and it went down and it landed. I could see where it landed. I was outside the plane and I could see where the bomb landed. Right in a German village. That wasn’t very nice. We couldn’t have landed with the bomb because it would have exploded, exploded on landing. We had to get rid of it. And the engineer, our engineer he wouldn’t go and do it. He should have done it really. It was his job. But he wasn’t going outside the plane to do it. I was at a high field so I never gave it a thought. I said, ‘I’ll go down.’ I went down, got through the trap door, I was outside and —
BW: This was in the bomb bay though wasn’t it with the bomb bay open?
JFL: Yeah. Yeah.
BW: Yeah.
JFL: Yeah. I managed to release the bomb. I can’t remember the details now and I followed it down and it, there was like a German village. It must have blown an awful lot of houses up. It was quite a big bomb. So I climbed back up again.
BW: And that’s, that must have been, I’m assuming that, that was after the target and this particular bomb had not released. So you’re still over Germany heading on the way home.
JFL: That’s right.
BW: That’s when you had to go down into the bomb bay.
JFL: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
BW: To sort this out.
JFL: Yeah. There was just this one bomb. I can’t remember how we knew. But we all knew we had to get rid of it. We couldn’t, we couldn’t land.
BW: And from moving from 462 Squadron you then went up to Leuchars in Scotland.
JFL: That’s right. Yeah.
BW: To join [pause] the Air Sea Rescue Unit there. Is that right?
JFL: That’s right. Just for a short period. Yeah. Yeah.
BW: And what do you, what do you recall of that? That period.
JFL: Not a lot really because it was very peaceful.
BW: It would be quite a change from where you had been before.
JFL: We went, there was two or three of us. We went out with the Air Sea Rescue Teams, and we were flying around, not flying, moving around the North Sea. And we didn’t have any incidents that I can recall.
BW: So how did you then come to leave the RAF?
JFL: Leave?
BW: Yeah. You left in 1946.
JFL: Yeah. That’s right.
BW: Were you just demobbed or were you offered the chance to stay in?
JFL: I think we may have been but there was also demobbing, so I think I’d had enough for four or five years. I can’t remember how. So I was very fortunate.
BW: So when, do you recall how you met Jean? Your wife. Was that during the war or was it after?
JFL: No. It was during the war. All aircrew from all over the world — Australia, everywhere, south, South Africa. They all came to Heaton, Heaton Park. Aircrew. Potential aircrew. And that’s where of course I was. Heaton Park. And this friend I had made, he was, he was just walking down to what they called Sedgley Park. That’s not far from here. He was billeted in this particular house. They’d taken over a lot of houses and they had to let [pause] let them, give them up, they had to give them a bedroom. They’d no choice. The house keeper. I just said I’d walk, walk down with him for a walk and the, when we got to the house which wasn’t, not that far, there’s the daughter of the person from the house she came out. She was speaking. She had already met him because he was, he was billeted in their house. And the next thing I know this other girl came along and she was a friend of this first girl. And it was Jean. Do you remember Jean?
BW: And so —
JFL: She doesn’t remember.
BW: You married I believe in, I believe you married in 1948.
JFL: I think so. Yeah.
BW: And what, what other occupations did you have after, after the war?
JFL: Well, I wasn’t, I wasn’t trained for anything. I bought the, there was a [pause] it was a shop and it sold magazines, books, cigarettes, that type of shop it was.
JL: Yeah. Like [unclear]
JFL: Sorry
JL: Do you remember?
JFL: What?
JL: The newspaper. The wholesaler.
JFL: Jean. Jean’s father, who was a business man he, he bought the good will of the shop for me. Which was very very nice. He was a [pause] he had a biscuit factory.
BW: And he had a biscuit factory in —
JFL: He did. Yeah. In Manchester.
BW: Yeah.
JFL: He was a very clever guy. Yeah. He built all his own machinery for making biscuits. He did. He did it all. And he did, he was quite wealthy. And he got me started on the retail shop and I had that type of business ever since.
BW: And how long were you in the retail trade for?
JFL: I’ve got a, it must have been, I was in my seventies when I gave it up. I never had a trade.
BW: And now that we’re looking at commemorations for aircrew of Bomber Command how do you think that’s been. Is it something you welcome?
JFL: What was that?
BW: Now that we’re having the commemorations for Bomber Command and such like and there are now Memorials and such like being built to them how do you, how do you feel about that?
JFL: Yeah. I think I quite like that. Yeah. Yeah.
BW: I suppose it’s about time really isn’t it?
JFL: Sorry?
BW: I suppose it’s about time.
JFL: It’s —?
BW: It’s about time.
JFL: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s my logbook over there is it?
BW: Yeah.
JFL: Yeah. I thought I’d brought it in for you.
BW: Well, what I’ll do is I’ll end the interview there and I’ll look to photograph your logbook as well.
JFL: Right.
BW: But I just want to say that, you know on behalf of the Bomber Command Centre to thank you very much for your time and for your recollections. It’s been great to interview you.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: And very helpful for the Centre so thank you.
JFL: Oh, you’re welcome. Yeah.
[recording paused]
JFL: Ontario. About fifty miles from Toronto. That’s right. I come from Toronto.
GBD: Ok. Yeah.
JFL: And that’s where we did the flying.
JL: You went to Jasper Park.
JFL: Sorry?
JL: That’s where you trained. That’s where you trained [unclear] carry on.
GBD: You trained at Jasper Park.
JFL: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
GBD: You won a special award for accurate bomb aiming. You were given an award for accurate bomb aiming.
JFL: Yeah. I got something for bombing. Yeah. I tried, I tried to go solo to be a pilot but yeah, they were very fussy about it.
BW: So you originally wanted to be a pilot.
JFL: Yeah. That’s what I asked for. So what I’d be, while I was being trained I didn’t quite make the grade for being a pilot. I went solo once. That was very brave of me [laughs] going solo. I managed to land a Tiger Moth.
GBD: Right. That’s good.
JFL: Yeah.
GBD: Which places do you remember on your bombing missions over Europe by name? Which, off the top of your head which bases can you remember flying to on operations?
JFL: Oh. The German city on the [pause] it’s, it was a coastal town.
BW: Kiel.
JFL: Kiel. You got it in one. Yeah. I think so. Did a lot of bombs there. A lot of bombing.
GBD: And I remember you told me as well that you were bombing in the Villers-Bocage in France.
JFL: Pardon?
GBD: The Villers-Bocage in France.
JFL: Yeah.
GBD: When the, when the allied troops were pinned down by the Germans in the battle of the hedgerows around there.
JFL: Oh yeah. That’s right.
GBD: You guys were sent to bomb Villers-Bocage as well.
JFL: Yeah. Yeah. Then we had to stop the, when the German army was in retreat, when the allies, the Yanks and the Canadians invaded across the Channel they eventually pushed the Germans back so it was our job to stop them. Stop the German army from getting to the bridge before they could all go over. Then they would have blown the bridge up and we couldn’t have got at them so we had to stop them doing that. Which we did do.
GBD: Because you were active around Falaise as well I think I remember you saying. Around Falaise Gap as the German armies are trying to escape out there.
JFL: Yeah.
GBD: You hit them very heavily there as well.
JFL: Yeah. A bit vague.
BW: Can you remember any other places at all where you saw action? Anywhere by name that might be of interest to anyone listening.
JFL: Well, I did a lot of night bombing of course. That’s what I did that for two or three years. Night bombing.
JL: Do you know, Guy —
GBD: Hmmn?
JL: We ended up with five shops.
BW: I’m going to show you this picture of a bomb aimer. Does that look like the sort of position and place in the aircraft you’d be? Does anything about that jog your memory?
JFL: Is it, is it the nose of the aircraft and he’s lying down?
GBD: Do you want to borrow these?
JFL: No [laughs] it’s alright.
GBD: Are you sure?
JFL: Yeah. Yeah.
BW: You’ve got your instrument panel, your control panel to one side, and the bomb release button in the other.
JFL: Yeah. Well, the release button was there. When we got, when I got in the nose of the plane and it was all set up. It was quite sophisticated as well. Very accurate. I remember something about this. I’m not sure what it was now.
GBD: Does that look like the position you were in though when you were — does that look similar to the position you were in?
JFL: Yeah. It was lying flat.
GBD: Right.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: Because it was said that the bombing was often inaccurate. But from your recollections and what you’re saying is that the equipment you had and from what you could see the bombing was accurate.
JFL: Oh, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Because just had to, well once you got down you got down a mile or so from the target. You got on to your stomach and you were lying flat and you were just telling, telling the pilot to go, ‘Left. Right.’ Whatever. Port. Starboard. Steady. And you’d just got to go steady until you got the what do you call it?
BW: The cross hairs?
JFL: They bombsight. Yeah. God. It was the very latest one and it was very accurate and you were looking through the bombsight and telling the pilot to do what he has to do. Left. Right. Whatever. And then when you get to the target the right position you pressed the button, the bombs go down and theoretically you should hit the target straight on which most of them did. But —
BW: Did you get any feedback or instructions say from a Master Bomber who might have been a Pathfinder aircraft or were they instructing you to bomb say on flares?
JFL: Daylight flying there was a Pathfinder. There was a, one in charge and you followed him but we didn’t do that. That’s what the Yanks did. Most of my bombing was night bombing and it was individual. The planes were all individuals. We were going to the same target but there was no formation or anything. But then we did some, went on to daylight flying with the, as it got well into the war we used to fly, fly with the Yanks. They —
[pause]
GBD: Did you not use any Pathfinders for your night time bombing? Was there not any kind of help from them on certain targets?
JFL: Yeah. There was, the Pathfinders. They went in first. They dropped their bombs which lit up the target and as you got close to it you could see the target then because there was a lot of fire going on. And the Pathfinders did a good job because they were, they had to circle around the city you know and the German fighters were there waiting for them and they still had to sit, circle round. They couldn’t do much else. So it was dangerous. A very dangerous job they had. The Pathfinders.
GBD: Absolutely.
JFL: Yeah. They lit up the towns or city for us so we had a target to see.
GBD: Got you.
JFL: Yeah.
GBD: And do you have any other specific recollections of anything quite significant that happened? Certain incidents or certain strong memories about a particular thing that happened during any of your missions that you can share with us?
JFL: I can’t. I’d have to think about it now. It’s long ago.
GBD: Does anything stand out? Any particular memory of anything that happened?
JFL: Well, each, each bombing trip was much the same as the previous one. You were still very alert all the time. Couldn’t relax. You were watching for German fighters. There was always German fighters about.
GBD: Right. And you were saying your aircraft was peppered with holes. A lot of it.
JFL: Yeah.
GBD: So you must have come under direct attack.
JFL: Yeah. Yeah. They came in sideways and underneath you, and over the top of you.
GBD: So that must have been very frightening.
JFL: Yeah.
GBD: For someone young. Of your age. All aircrews obviously. To experience that.
JFL: Yeah.
GBD: What was that like when you were under attack from German aircraft?
JFL: The two, two machine gunners in our plane, Halifax they, they did their best to keep them off. So the Germans fighters couldn’t get too close because we had two [pause] two gunners on the plane, the tail end and the mid-upper gunner. And they did good work keeping the German fighters at a distance. They couldn’t come too close. They’d get machine gunned.
GBD: They must have done a very good job because you’re still sat with us here all these years later.
JFL: Yeah. Yeah.
GBD: How do you feel to have actually survived forty six missions because that’s quite something? Forty six ops.
JFL: Well —
GBD: Some didn’t survive more than five. Many didn’t survive more than ten.
JFL: I think when you’re a youngster it doesn’t bother you too much.
GBD: But looking back now.
JFL: Sorry?
GBD: Looking back now how does that, any thoughts about that? How do you feel of all those operations and you saw your friends going down?
JFL: Yeah.
GBD: But you were very lucky.
JFL: Yeah.
GBD: Because I know Remembrance means a lot to you.
JFL: Yeah. I saw a good friend of mine. He was, he went down. That was, that was very upsetting but you seemed to take it in your stride. I don’t know. There were some, a lot of, a lot of aircrew refused to fly. Quite a lot of aircrew.
BW: Why did they, why did they refuse to fly?
JFL: When they saw the targets they wouldn’t go. And they were, they were put in the, in the station prison if they didn’t fly. I don’t remember what happened to them but they were locked up in the prison if they, if they, if they refused to fly. When they’d seen where the target was they wouldn’t go.
BW: So if you’re in the briefing room and the popular view of the briefing room is a large hall with a lot of young aircrew.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: Sat there waiting for the CO to brief for the target for tonight, if you like. And the curtain goes back. How did the guys make it known that they didn’t want to fly? I’m assuming they didn’t just get up and walk out but what?
JFL: Well, they probably waited until, until it was finished with. Then instead of going back to their bedroom or whatever you’d like to call it they went to the guardroom and gave themselves up to be locked up. And that took some doing as well. There was always three or four of them, but they just wouldn’t fly. So —
BW: So not necessarily the whole crew. Just maybe three or four from a crew.
JFL: Oh yeah. It could be, not necessarily the same crew.
BW: Ok.
JFL: Just very nervous. It was unfortunate.
BW: And was anything ever said about what would happen? Did for example the CO make any, or give any orders about guys who didn’t want to fly.
JFL: Do you know I’m a bit vague on that now. I always remember two or three guys which I knew they, they gave themselves up. They went to the guardhouse and asked to be locked up there. They wouldn’t fly. That took, that took some doing.
BW: But none of your guys. None of the guys in your crew.
JFL: No.
BW: Ever did that.
JFL: Not in our lot. No. No. I got in the line up to volunteer to go over to India.
GBD: Oh yeah.
JFL: To fly over there to bomb the Japs.
GBD: Ok.
BW: I think that was called Tiger Force wasn’t it?
JFL: That sounds familiar. Yeah. But I was, there must have been about ten or twelve of us in a line up just waiting to give our name and whatever and halfway, halfway through the line-up it came over the radio. The Japs had surrendered.
GBD: Ah yes.
JFL: So —
GBD: That was that.
JFL: No point. Didn’t have to go.
GBD: Right. Lucky you.
JFL: Yeah. Well, I volunteered to go because I was still in the Air Force but it, it never happened. Fortunately the Japs surrendered. Singapore.
GBD: And you ended up as a warrant officer.
JFL: Sorry?
GBD: You ended up as a warrant officer.
JFL: Yeah. Yeah.
GBD: So that’s good. You did quite well there. Yeah.
JFL: Yeah. I was certainly glad they surrendered.
GBD: So you didn’t have to —
[recording paused]
JFL: We were still in Germany. The next thing I know the nose of the plane, a shell had come right through it and I was stood halfway down the plane on the right hand starboard side. This German shell came through and just caught my ear and then hit the, hit the side of the plane. I’ve still got, I’ve got the marks here.
GBD: Wow. You were very lucky then.
JFL: Yeah. It just cut my ear off a little on one side. Yeah. It’s still, it’s still there to remind me.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with James Ferguson Latimer
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Brian Wright
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-09-28
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ALatimerJF190928, PLatimerJF1903
Format
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01:21:46 audio recording
Language
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eng
Spatial Coverage
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Canada
France
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
England--Manchester
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Germany
Germany--Braunschweig
England--Lancashire
Description
An account of the resource
James Ferguson Latimer was born in Edinburgh. His family emigrated to Canada when he was young but moved back to Scotland in 1939. He recalls witnessing a German U-boat torpedo a ship as they sailed back home. Latimer joined the air force and completed basic training at RAF Heaton Park, initially hoping to be a pilot, but qualified as a bomb aimer. He trained on Wellingtons, before converting to Halifax. Latimer was stationed with 102 squadron, based at RAF Pocklington, and 462 squadron, completing 46 operations in total. He details his duty as the bomb aimer during operations, the differing flying tactics of British and American forces, and recollects a night-time operation in August 1944, where he observed a close friend’s plane crash over Braunschweig. He also describes low flying over the English Channel and bombing the German army to support D-Day. Latimer recollects a number of eventful operations including, taking control of the steering when the aircraft left the runway and the pilot lost his nerve, and volunteering to climb out of the aircraft while flying over Germany to release a bomb that had not dropped properly. After completing his operations, he recalls a posting at an Air Sea Rescue Unit in Scotland. Latimer left the RAF in 1946 as a warrant officer, married his wife in 1948, and opened a shop.
Contributor
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Tilly Foster
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
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1939
1944-08
1946
1948
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
102 Squadron
462 Squadron
air sea rescue
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
Fw 190
Halifax
military service conditions
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Pocklington
shot down
submarine
training
Wellington
-
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f6b3bac684a11f7127d93f5570e15270
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1258/17169/ABarronAJK190510.2.mp3
592fca1b7e87ec021b88a698e656db66
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
Barron, Andrew
Andrew James Kelton Barron
A J K Barron
Description
An account of the resource
Three oral history interviews with Flight Lieutenant Andrew Barron (1923 - 2021, 163695 Royal Air Force) He flew 38 operations as a navigator in 223 Squadron at RAF Oulton flying B-24s.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-05-10
2018-04-19
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Barron, AJK
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
NM: Okay, so this is Nigel Moore, I’m with Andrew Barron and we’re going to catch up from where we started last time. So Andrew, can you tell me a bit about life on the squadron when you were off duty, when you weren’t on ops, what were you, how did you socialise, what did you do?
AB: I’m sorry, what was it you wanted?
NM: When you weren’t on operations, tell me about the squadron life, what did you do for recreation and down time?
AB: Drank too much and sang silly songs! Really, wasted my time I think would be the, the most succinct explanation. I had no social life really, on the squadron, as I’ve already explained. I was pitchforked into this half qualified crew in the Bahamas and I had really no sort of social contact with them. The captain had flown, as far as I know, half a tour in Coastal Command, so had the navigator and so had the, the chief wireless operator. The rest of us were all sprogs who were drafted in to the crew to make it up and we had no particular social contact. I don’t know what their, what they did. I don’t think Scotty Steele, the skipper, was very happy. He’d, his experience had all been Coastal Command long range patrols, flying at about a thousand feet, two thousand feet perhaps, over the oceans for twelve or thirteen hours, and he had no, he had, I don’t think he had any chums in the squadron either, they were all stranger to him and I don’t think he took to night flying in the, at high altitude in the Liberator, and in fact I think he had one or two rather dodgy landings and I believe [emphasis] he sort of disappeared from the squadron after a few weeks. The, I was pitchforked into this Canadian crew, and as I’ve explained, the skipper, his father had been in the British Army in the First World War in Mesopotamia, funnily enough the same as my father, and I think Tony used to go off searching up his English relatives up in the north of England. The co-pilot, Mervyn Eustace, his brother had just completed a tour in 4 Group, I think it was 4 Group, which was the, either 4 Group or 6 Group which was the Canadian bomber group and Mervyn used to go off to seek out his brother who was, um – god, what are they called - he was at Shawbury acting as an instructor to new crews coming over so that disposed of them and I just used to go home and as far as, when I was on leave, and as far as the rest of the time was concerned, I think we worked a rather more intensive pace in 100 Group than the average main force group. If you look in Middlemiss’s tome The Bomber Command Diaries you’ll find that, you know, a different, groups weren’t turned out, they didn’t operate at every night that Bomber Command was operating: 100 Group did. 100 Group went out with everybody. Either we went with the main force to jam the radars in the target area or else we were sent out with, as a diversionary force or if main force wasn’t operating we were sent out to stir up the Germans anyway. So you look at my log book and there’d be, perhaps, in a week we’d fly four sorties, maybe, five sorties; Bomber Command didn’t operate at that pace. So we didn’t have all that much of a social life in the mess anyway and some of us were bookish, and Ron Johnson, who was one of the squadron navigators, he studied music I think in his spare time in the mess. I just used to go in there and drink and when I’d had enough, or probably too much, I’d stagger off to bed and sleep it off until the next day. And we used to sing silly songs, you know, good night ladies and of course the WAAF officers never did go off to bed, they used to stay and listen to us. They were all schoolboy songs, just snippets of which I remember [chuckle] and that was it. I know, oh dear, think er, I’ve forgotten the chap’s name, but the fellow who more or less runs things in the little village of Oulton le Street organises the teas for all us chaps when we come up for our memorial celebration in a week’s time and he’s asked me sort of what were my impressions. I didn’t have any impressions of Oulton, you know, they were just houses there and we drove past the houses as we went to our various offices, the, there was an intelligence room which had digests of the previous night’s operations and you know, you could leaf through those and I remember my sort of impression of them was that if the losses had risen to two figures, you know, we hadn’t done a very good job, you know, we ought to have done better than that and it had various publications of, you know, trying to instil a better spirit in us I suppose, but I don’t think, well, as I say I [emphasis] don’t think, I don’t think, I’ve no idea what other people thought because we never discussed the previous night’s operations, we never discussed what we were doing. The jamming was highly secret and it was more than your life was worth to try to chat up anybody about what all these weird instruments were that were in the back of the aeroplane, you know, they’re not your business laddie, but would you like to have a spell in Sheffield in the RAF’s penitentiary for asking too many questions, so you didn’t ask any questions and we just wiled the, they er, wiled the, our life away if you know. One day some of us went up to town and bought ourselves revolvers and small arms of that kind and I know I got a Webley which had a 22 sort of insert in it and we used to go down and shoot at the trees on the Blickling Estate. It just really, wasted my time.
NM: Going back to operations, when you wrote to me, an email you described -
AB: Pardon?
NM: When you wrote to me an email recently you described how you were, on approach back to Oulton, you were overtaken by a German fighter aircraft on its way to shoot down a B17 ahead of you. Tell me about that.
AB: Oh yes, that was Unternehmen Giselle, trust the Germans to make Giselle into an unfortunate name like Giselle. Anyway, the Germans in, I think it was, it’ll be in my log book, but early March ‘45 they sent in I think about two hundred night fighters with the, they infiltrated the main force on its way back home and they kept schtum until they were over the UK and the planes were circling their bases coming in to land and they intercepted a B17 which was, of 214 Squadron, which was coming in to land and shot it down, literally, just about as it touched down and they were all killed, all the crew were all killed. And according to Mervyn Eustace the plane had actually flown past us as we were orbiting overhead, you know, waiting our turn to land, and of course as soon as the balloon went up we got the order to disperse and the, Tony said: ‘course for Brawdy navigator.’ Brawdy being somewhere down in south west Wales, so I gave him 270 as being the nearest westerly heading that came into my head and off we went. All the lights out, all the gunners at their positions and everything on an active basis and we stooged off into the darkness of the Midlands and after about twenty minutes I got a fix, you know, a Gee fix, not a, that kind of fix, and found a wind from that and did the job properly you know, and laid off a course for this place Brawdy and we got there about, oh I don’t know, about an hour later, something like that and kipped down for the night, flew back the next day.
[Other]: I’m really sorry to interrupt. Daddy, do you know what mummy’s pass code is for her?
NM: So you took part in the last operation of the war, tell me about that.
AB: Yes, we, it was um, a feint to Schleswig. It was when they thought that the Germans were going to mount an attack from the forces that they’d got in Norway. There were two things, there were, one was that they were going to launch an attack from Norway and the other one was that they were going to launch their forces from down in the Alps, I think, using Bertchesgarten as the operational headquarters but both failed of course and the Germans surrendered.
NM: So how many of your operations were in daylight and how many were at night time?
AB: Sorry?
NM: How many of your operations were in daylight and how many were at night?
AB: Oh, I only did four daylight, those were the Big Bens right at the very beginning, you know, when they thought that the V2s were radio controlled, but they discovered that they weren’t so that was finished. They realised that there was no protection against the V2s, no warning, nothing, they just came out of the blue, and er, ooh, and blew a, excuse me, I’ve got a bit uncomfortable there-
NM: Are you all right? Do you want to move?
AB: So, as I say, the Big Bens were closed down and we were put on to the, the ordinary Window diversionary sorties, well the, the three operations. One was the escorting of the main force, jamming whatever the special operators could pick up as we flew along with [emphasis] the main force and when we got to the targets, orbiting it for, oh probably eight or ten minutes, something like that and jamming anything that they could hear, they could pick up. That was the one operation then the second one was the Window spoof forces, where a couple of dozen or so mixed force of Liberators, Fortresses and Halifaxes went out from the Heavy Squadrons in 100 Group and they mounted a, a spoof; they would break away from the main force and pretend to be an attacking force on another target. I used to think at the time that it was all a big guessing game but in fact it was very carefully thought out and timed to convince the Germans that it was a genuine attacking force, it wasn’t just a, a spoof. And then if Bomber Command was stood down for the night, usually because of the weather, 100 Group would be sent out, a couple of dozen planes would go out, everything else, a Mandrel screen would go up to, to screen the approaching forces from the, from Britain and that was carefully timed and little gaps would be opened in it to allow the Germans to get a glimpse of the opposing forces coming behind the screen and we would be sent out to threaten some town or city. It was helped by the fact that one of the other squadrons, I forget what its number was, but it was an Australian squadron, they always carried a few bombs and markers cause as they said, [Australian accent] they weren’t gonna come half way round the world just to drop bits of paper over Germany! So they carried bombs but we never did. The Fortresses and the Liberators were both completely, all their bombing equipment had been all stripped out and so that was left to the Halifaxes and that was it and then on May 2nd it all finished.
NM: So when it all finished, what was it like on the squadron?
AB: I don’t really remember. I think everybody was sort of, you know, quite happy, have another drink. We were allowed to go on Cooks’ tours round the Ruhr, you know, to see what sort of damage had been done by Bomber Command and crews were left to pick their own routes. And I did a couple, I did one with Tony in a Liberator, they’re in here somewhere. [Noises of opening box, looking through papers] You see here’s November, November the 4th, the 15th, the 25th and then the 25th, 26th, 29th, 30th – well main force didn’t operate at that sort of strength. See the 25th of November was a Window, we had to climb to twenty four thousand feet. That was another of the advantages of the, the Fortress and the Liberator, they had a higher ceiling than the Lancaster. Then the next night it was a Window, again, and then three nights later another Window, and the next night another Window: busy, busy. And one or two other months were a bit like that. February: 20th, 22nd, 24th, 28th as I say you compare, and March 7th, 20th, 22nd, 23rd, if you compare that with the Bomber Command Diaries it would have been different groups would have been out and not all the squadrons in all the Groups would have been turned out, so that over a fairly [emphasis] short period I flew thirty eight sorties. Even April, 2nd, 7th , 10th. The 2nd was a Window, the 7th was a target, Malbis, which is an, sort of a outskirt of Leipzig, and the 10th again was a Window all way to Dessau to Leipzig. The Russians are coming – show ’em what the RAF can do. Well, there was an element of that. And that was, as I say the Meritorious Service and Good Airmanship in that a full operational tour. I was only once uncertain of my position and that was I think on the 1st of January 1945 when I’d been very late to bed the night before, celebrating the New Year, and found myself on the ops list on the 1st of January, rather hung over, and I made some gross navigational error, I don’t know what it was, I’ve not been able to discover what it was, but anyway it, we ran out of Window. We ran out of engines actually, we ended up on two and a half engines for a start, and then we ran out of Window and so Tony decided to cut it short and go home but we didn’t get penalised for it which was what counted.
NM: You made it back home on two and a half engines did you?
AB: Yes, yes.
NM: Running low on fuel.
AB: Yes, but then you say, at the, I never did get on to the Cooks Tours; here we come. May the 2nd, that was the last operational sortie; that was the Window to Schleswig aerodrome: uneventful, thirty two, and then on the 5th of May we did an air test and on the 7th of May with Tony, we did a cross country: we went to Gravesend, Dungeness, Cap Griz-Nez, Ypres, Brussels, Aachen, Koblenz, Cologne, Dortmund, Essen, Duisburg, Krefeld, oh and so on and back home and that was the one I remember. It was a nice clear day, sun shining and we flew all over the Ruhr and the whole thing was glistening with the broken glass and in the whole length and breadth of the Ruhr there was only one railway train to be seen operating, so you know, it was, it was flattened. Mind you it was a bit deceptive because of course what the bombs did, they blew out the windows, they blew off the roofs, but they didn’t in many cases, they didn’t destroy the heavy machinery so that a lot of production carried on. That was on the 7th and then on the 26th I was called in to, I was at RAF Swannington at that time – I’ll tell you about that in a few minutes - on the 26th of May I did a trip in a Fortress of 223 Squadron and that was a rather limited one. We did Cap Gris-Nez, Antwerp, the Ruhr, the Mohne Dam, Vimy Ridge and back to Oulton. I was rather keen on Vimy Ridge because when I was a boy, one of my father's friends in Wolverhampton was actually a Canadian who’d come over with the Canadian forces and had decided to stay in England after the First World War, and of course Vimy Ridge was a Canadian operation, they organised the whole thing themselves and it was a majority of Canadian forces who took part in it and they captured the Ridge and it put Canada on the map. After that Canada got its independence.
NM: When you flew over the Ruhr and places like the Mohne Dam what did, can you remember what you thought at the time looking down at all the damage?
AB: Pardon?
NM: Can you remember what your thoughts were when you flew over the Ruhr valley and saw the damaged cities?
AB: Not really. No, I, you know, I didn’t feel vengeful, or sort of there you are you bastards, you got what you asked for.
NM: Was it just professional detachment?
AB: I just noted the fact that the place was just a carpet of broken glass glistening in the sunshine. I don’t think, I mean, again, I can only speak for myself, I can’t speak for others cause I never asked them anything, but I don’t think, I don’t think many fellows had a vengeful feeling, you know, we got in to the war and we won it and that was it. You know, I don’t know if fellers whose fathers had been in the trenches in the First World War used to talk about it with their fathers or if they did, what they had to say about it. No idea, it was, you were just there and you did it.
NM: Tell me about your RAF -
AB: Pardon?
NM: Tell me about your RAF service after the war.
AB: Er, yes, well of course, I remember vaguely being posted up to Yorkshire, to, and according to my log book where you can record your units at which served as observer, 223 Squadron 7th of May ‘45 and then the 10th of May, 77 Squadron, Full Sutton, Yorkshire for a day: got 10th of May to 11th of the May and then the 11th of the May, of May I was posted to 102 Squadron at Pocklington until the 15th and I do have some record of that. RAF, 102 Squadron, 1st of June: local flying: circuits and bumps. And 7th of June: more circuits and bumps. And this went on until the 9th of June, was a busy day, flew four sorties, to, we flew to Snaith where we picked up a load of bombs, thirteen by eight by thirty pounds and we flew out to sea somewhere and dropped them in the sea, I ask you. We did three of those.
NM: That was in Halfaxes.
AB: And that was with, yes, in the Halifax, that was with Flying Officer Briscoe as the captain. Well Flying Officer Briscoe had been a pre war University Air Squadron pilot and had learned to fly, he’d actually got his wings as a cadet in the University Air Squadron and he was an ex, he worked in the Air Ministry as a Civil Aviation, came under the aegis of the Air Ministry pre war, and John Briscoe was a member of that organisation so the instruction came round that we were destined to be Tiger Force to go out to the Far East and teach the Japanese what was which, but obviously some time in June the decision was made that you had to be a volunteer to go out to the Far East and John Briscoe had decided he didn’t want to volunteer, so that was that. He disappeared. And then mixed up in the middle of that you see it says here, 102 Squadron: 11th of May to 15th of May, June disappears and then I was, on the 15th of May to the end of May I was sent down to RAF Swannington which was one of the 100 Group night fighter bases and was the home of 85 Squadron and 157 Squadron and I was sent down there to learn these Mosquito navigators how to do the job properly. I felt a right bloody lemon cause there was me, you know, nothing on my chest but a few hairs and half these blokes had got DFCs and DFMs, and DSOs and you name it and so as I say I felt a bit of a lemon and then I was, that was cancelled and I was sent back to, I suppose I was sent back to 102 Squadron. I remember one of the Mosquito fellers flew me up to Pocklington to rejoin 102 Squadron or whatever it was. And then Japan collapsed and I wanted to, I decided that I didn’t want to go back to college, that I’d stay in aviation, there was a future in aviation and I’d stay in aviation and become [cough] a civil navigator, little knowing of course at the time that the pilots were busy manoeuvring all the other crew members out of their seats; the pilots were going to take over the navigation, I don’t know what was going to happen to wireless operators, I think they were just going to disappear because it was all going to be voice transmission over the oceans and everywhere but anyway I decided that I’d stay in civil aviation and [cough] what I needed was experience of long distance flying, you know, to present to some prospective employer that I was the right sort of material that they wanted. So I tried to, [cough] I tried to get in to one of the squadrons that was doing these long range passenger work, I think I mentioned that the Lancasters and Halifaxes were re-employed to fly out to the Far East and come back with, you know, fifteen or couple of dozen squaddies who were due to be demobbed because the airmen and soldiers in India and the Far East were getting very restive because they knew that men were being demobbed in Europe and they weren’t and they didn’t like that and there were some near mutinies. But so anyway, I left Pocklington, presumably I left Pocklington, according to my log book it said 102 Squadron and actually the next entry, 102 Squadron, oh that’s right, Pocklington, 31st of May to the 11th June ‘45 and then I entered into an interesting period, during which I was crewed up with a, I forget what his name was, Purvis I think, who’d been, a man who had been flying Halifaxes and we were posted to Mashing, we were posted to Great Dunmow, Earls Colne, about a half a dozen aerodromes in 38 Group in Essex. We were posted to them and we’d get to them and they’d say: oh no you, you’re Halifax trained, we’re flying Stirlings in this squadron so, you know, go away on leave and so I stayed on leave until [laugh] until the 13th of November 1945 when we arrived at Shepherd’s Grove which is just east of Bury St Edmunds, 196 Squadron and it was flying Stirlings in 38 Group and they said, oh yes, you know, no problem old boy, you know, we’ll convert you on the squadron and this is in fact what they did because I stayed with them until March of 1946. And in March 1946 I was posted to the Empire Air Navigation School at Shawbury to become a specialist navigator which would hopefully improve my possibility of gaining a permanent commission in the air force. Well in fact, I didn’t get, I was turned down, I don’t know why. In those days you weren’t told if there was something unsatisfactory in your RAF career. There is now apparently, they have to tell you and you have the right to, I forget what the wording is, anyway, you can complain against the fact that you were turned down for a permanent commission or whatever but in those days you weren’t so I ended up at Shawbury and I spent probably two months at Shawbury, learning to be an advanced navigator, which in fact was a load of old rubbish because you know, we thought it was a laugh a minute you know, the RAF had got its fingers on all sorts of German navigation equipment and they thought it was a bit of a laugh but in fact of course, it wasn’t; the Germans, certainly in 1940 were well advanced on the RAF. The RAF’s pre war navigation was, well it wasn’t a joke, it was very much less [emphasis] than a joke, the RAF hadn’t got any idea how to bloody well navigate at night or at long distance and they would land near a railway station and ask them where they were all that sort of stuff. The Germans had this nichbein, bent knee, I think that’s what it meant, they had this nichbein equipment which enabled them to bomb Coventry with considerable accuracy in 1940. [pause] It erm, and they had various other bits of equipment; they had a thing called the kirskopler which was really just a method of following a defined track, what the RAF, when we were training in Canada, was look down on on its nose, called track crawling, where you, you followed the track that you’d been given to fly and when you’d found you were off track, you made a correction of course to get back on track, which I used to do, much to the disgust of our Navigation Leader of course, who used to call it guestimation. But we thought we were going to be the bees knees, but in fact of course I mean even at that time the airlines were busy phasing out the navigators, as I said, they were training pilots to be navigators and there were two or three rather advanced BOAC pilots who, who had cottoned on to this jet-stream business, you know, they had been transatlantic pilots and they had noticed that you got these very strong winds and they happened under certain meteorological conditions and I mean you know, proper navigation, it took off after that, but I didn’t know of course all that, it was happening. So I quite happily went to Shawbury and did the short N navigation course which didn’t get me a permanent commission or anything like that. So I left Shawbury and was posted to Tarrant Rushton down in Dorset which was within weeks of closing and I was posted in as deputy Station Navigation Officer, a high faluting title. My boss was V. J. Wright I think, who’d been a bank manager in Great Dunmow and he was the Station Navigation Officer and it was interesting, they’d taken part in Arnhem. Incidentally I forgot to mention that at 196 Squadron where we finished our tour round East Anglia and were given a home, every man on the squadron had been shot down over Arnhem, it was that bad, and one of them had got the MC and they reckoned he would have had the VC if he hadn’t shot his mouth off quite so much about his exploits once he’d been shot down; I forget what his name was. Anyway, and then when Tarrant Rushton closed down and I left there with a truck full of surplus instruments of various kinds: I had three or four sextants and that, because the worst thing you could do in the air force was to end up with a surplus on your inventory. When you came to close down an inventory you couldn’t show any surplus equipment because, well, where did it become surplus from? And then of course there was a long and tedious investigation as to why [emphasis] this particular piece of equipment was surplus to requirement? So in the, anyway, from there I was posted to Netheravon which was one of the first World War One RAF aerodromes and in the foyer of the officers mess they had a, oh I don’t know, one of these pre First World War rotary engines on a stand and the story was that when they were doing some [cough] excavating there they’d dug this engine up [laugh] and it was on display. The, the Chief Technical Officer, he was a bit more down to earth, he said, oh he said, you know what happened there, they found it was surplus to somebody's inventory and they buried the bloody thing. Well they might have done, but anyway, they had this thing on display there. It was an interesting unit. It was the Heavy Glider Servicing Unit of 38 Group and they had the Horsa gliders which was the, no, the, yes it was the Horsa glider, which was the man carrying glider in use in the British forces. They used to carry about, I think it carried about a couple of dozen soldiers, you know, volunteers, you, you and you, you – you’re all volunteers. They landed hours before D-Day on the west, on the eastern side of the British Sector and their job was to capture the bridge over the river Orne which bordered the western edge of the, of the zone, the landing zone, and they did this and it was abs, we, it’s worth a visit if you get the chance. These gliders, they landed these bloody gliders within feet, [emphasis] I mean feet [emphasis] of the targets that they were supposed to land the things on. Mind you, the chop rate was pretty terrible. I think about half the glider pilots were killed of course because they, it had made these heavy landings in the darkness and very often they came to rest on these steel girders which the Germans had buried in the ground as a deterrent to that sort of thing. But it was an incredible job, they, they, this glider force, who were, I think they were the Ox and Bucks Light Infantry, you know, they were just volunteered for the job and they did a, anyway they had these Horsa gliders at Netheravon and they used to do all sorts of experimental things, like snatching them. You know, you’d sit in the glider and the tow rope would be taken out in the front and a big loop put up on a pole and a Dakota would come roaring over the top trailing a hook and this hook would engage in this loop and literally pull the glider off the ground; it was quite exciting. I mean you, I did it both sitting in the glider and sitting in the Dakota and the glider took off with a bloody great jerk and the Dakota came sailing over and the airspeed indicator read something like about a hundred and, I don’t know, a hundred and thirty, a hundred and fifty knots and the hook would take and this bloody great drum in the, in the Dakota would start spinning round and the airspeed would go “eurgh” and fall down to about eighty knots, very exciting. But, er, I spent some months doing that and then where was I, at H, yeah, the Heavy Glider Servicing Unit, oh that’s right and then I was in June ‘47 I was posted to TICU, Transport Initial Conversion Unit at Bertram Newton which was very nice because that was a pre war station as well. I mean Netheravon was very nice cause it was pre First World War station and it was, that was very pleasant. I used to have a running battle with the adjutant there, Ross Beldin, because I used to go off every weekend, used to go back home every weekend and I was busy courting then and on Monday mornings I’d catch the local train cause Dorothea lived in the next town up towards London, so I’d catch this train and meet up with her at Hampton station and when we got to London I’d walk her across to her office in the city and say goodbye to her and then I’d get off to Waterloo station and catch the nine something to Salisbury, where I’d get out. I’d had breakfast on the nine o’clock train, very civilised, and I’d get off at Salisbury and the glider pilots, there were always a load of glider pilots on the train and they’d always got transport, you know, they’d got their own jeeps and that, so I’d get a lift up to Netheravon and I’d sneak in to Netheravon just about round lunchtime and the Adjutant, the Station Adjutant, Flight Lieutenant Beldin, he knew I was up to something, he knew I was absent on Monday mornings but he never managed to catch me and, until one day he saw me after lunch I think, and he ‘oh!’ he said, ‘the CO wants to know where you were this morning.’ So I gave him some cock and bull story, ‘oh well,’ he said, ‘he wants a report about it,’ he said, ‘so let me have it this afternoon.’ So I thought you sneaky bastard, he doesn’t know I’m missing in the mornings, so anyway I went back to my room and wrote this report and took it up and there was nobody in the adjutant ‘s office so I thought ha, I’ve got you you bastard, so I knocked on the CO’s door to give him this report and the bloody adjutant was in with the CO, he said: ‘oh yes,’ he said, ‘I’ll give it to the old man, thank you very much.’ And that was the last I ever heard of it, but he, later on, he got dismissed from the service for having hanky panky with a WAAF when, the days when it wasn’t allowed to do that sort of thing I think. It’s a bit, they’re a bit more open these days, but not in those days they weren’t. So anyway, I went up to TICU and that was quite pleasant, but it was just classroom work and I wasn’t getting any flying, and I thought well sod this so I deferred my leaving the air force by about two years I think, but I realised I was wasting my time, the air force wasn’t going to give me what I wanted so I packed that in and after about, I don’t know how many months at TICU, oh, about six months, 23rd of June to the 2nd of December 1947 I came out and I went to ooh, something aviation training limited and got myself a civil licence which again was full of esoteric rubbish, you know: how to construct a chart and all sorts of things that you, you never saw in a year’s, so anyway I got my licence. There weren’t any jobs going and I was very lucky, I got engaged and I got a job, I think it was advertised in the Telegraph or something like that, as a navigation instructor at one of the RAF’s Reserve Flying Schools. They’d reconstituted the Volunteer Reserve after the war and I got a job at Castle Brom with number, forget which number it was, it was either 5 or 18, 5, 5 RFS at Castle Bromwich, which is all blocks of flats now, and that was quite interesting, I learnt a lot there. I learned not to shoot lines, because I discovered that I was talking with, many of my reservists had forgotten far more about operational flying than I knew. One chap had been flying Vickers Wellingtons, which was a single engined RAF long range bomber pre war [laugh] an antiquated machine and he was flying with a squadron of them from, I think from Khartoum actually, and when Italy entered the war on Germany’s side, he said they had to go and bomb Eritrea and Italian East Africa and he said they used to get the wogs, they used to get the natives to light a bonfire at a deter, at a designated position sort of way out in the desert a hundred, hundred and fifty miles away from Khartoum and they’d fly to that and find a wind from it and then they’d use that to navigate round Italian East Africa. [Laugh] Very crude navigation, but that was the standard of RAF navigation, you know, I mean the first sorties that the RAF flew over Germany in 1939, 1940 were ridiculous. I mean the Germans were in fact well ahead of us. Well that’s it then.
NM: So, Castle Bromwich, what happened after Castle Bromwich?
AB: Pardon?
NM: You were at Castle Bromwich?
AB: Oh yes! I spent about eighteen months, two years at Castle Brom and the Chief Flying Instructor left and went down to Fairoaks, which is near near Woking, and he contacted me and he said he had a vacancy for a Chief Ground Instructor would you like to come down and have it? It was another, I don’t know fifty, hundred pounds a year pay better of, which mattered in those days. I mean you know, when I started my pay was about four hundred or four fifty a year and we lived quite happily on that too. So anyway, I accepted his offer and we bought a caravan and lived in that. Somebody towed it down to Fairoaks for us and we lived quite happily in that and I spent about another three and a half four years doing that, until - I’ll give you the date - until 19th of June ‘53, 19th of June ‘53 when the government of the day decided that the next war was going to be a push button war and there wouldn’t be time to call up Reservists let alone retrain them, so the Volunteer Reserve was shut down and we all had to look for other jobs and the best offer I got was as a flight navigator with Scottish Aviation flying Yorks all over the world and I did that for five years until they decided that they weren’t going to do that sort of flying any more, but I enjoyed it. Whether it trained me for married life I don’t know, probably not.
NM: So after Scottish Aviation?
AB: But er, pardon?
NM: After Scottish Aviation?
AB: Yes, I was flying Yorks. The York was the transport plane developed from the Lancaster in the, in the 1940s and of course it was basically the RAF’s only heavy transport aeroplane. Churchill used one for flying around about all over the world and it was extensively used. Wasn’t a bad plane. Climbed like a lead balloon, terrible rate of climb, you know, about five hundred feet a minute or something. So it took me a long, long time to get used to the modern aeroplanes’ rate of climb. You know, you get in the thing, you sit on the runway and the pilot calls out rotate and the next thing you’re about three thousand feet up in the air!
NM: So what did you do after Scottish Aviation?
AB: Pardon?
NM: What did you do after Scottish Aviation?
AB: I became an air traffic controller, which um -
NM: Where was that?
AB: Well actually I was flying from Stansted with Scottish and I became an air traffic controller and at that time one of the training stations was Stansted so fairly naturally they posted me to Stansted to do my initial training and from there I went to Gatwick. I didn’t get on very well with the Civil Aviation Authority. At the time it was, hmm, it was a government department then still, and I forget which government, I think, which department it was in then. Anyway, I did me training at Stansted and then I was posted down to Gatwick and did further training and you had to validate at the end of your second training station’s time and you passed the eagle eye of the deputy chief, act, in the, no I forget what, we went through department after we started out as the Ministry of Civil Aviation, then it became the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation, then it became the Ministry of Transport and so it went on as governments changed they changed the nomenclature of the thing, anyway I didn’t get on very well and I was very nearly thrown out, but given another lease of life and sent to Blackbushe, which was, which is west London, sent to Blackbushe to have another go and I did that and that actually passed out from there and then I was posted back to Stansted but -
NM: You stayed at Stansted for the rest of your career?
AB: Pardon?
AB: Did you stay at Stansted for the rest of your career?
AB: Well, no, I didn’t actually, I was posted back, I went to Blackbushe and then from Blackbushe I was sent back to Stansted and I qualified at Stansted and I stayed there and then they brought in the requirement that you had to qualify on radar before they would grant you permanent status and so I was sent to London to qualify on the radar at, not actually at the airport itself, but at the Area Control Centre. Civil Aviation was becoming more and more organised. When I first joined it was very much do it yourself, where do you want to go to old boy, oh so and so and so and so, well put the ruler on the map, draw a line on it then go, but then the system of airways percolated over from the States and controlled airspace, where you couldn’t fly, or you could only fly, in certain areas, you know, by obeying strict control rules. Well anyway the first such centre in, was established in the UK in London and I was sent there to train up on the radar and oh, it was interesting and it became a matter of domesticity. I used to spend my afternoons off driving round the countryside looking at houses which were as far the other side of Heathrow as I was living at the time, so ,I one day somebody said, ‘oh,’ he said, ‘would you like to go back to Stansted?’ I said yes please. Somebody who’d been posted away from Stansted needed replacing so back I went to Stansted and I got the radar ticket at Heathrow and Stansted had everything except [emphasis] radar, they didn’t have any radar! But that didn’t matter, I’d got the rating so I didn’t have to worry about. I stayed at the Heath, at Stansted all the rest of my time and I enjoyed it. It, for a junior controller it was a rather satisfying job, you had the responsibility. I mean at somewhere like Gatwick or Heathrow, if an aeroplane came in and called up some kind of emergency you had to call the watch supervisor and if it was a bad enough emergency you had to call the, the Chief Air Traffic Controller of the whole kaboodle, but if it happened at Stansted - [pause]
NM: So if it happened at Stansted you -
AB: Pardon?
NM: If it happened at Stansted, an emergency, you had to take responsibility yourself did you?
AB: Oh yes, you were quite a junior, I remember we had, we were still a civil, a civil service department and the boss man was the Commandant and he used to go home at five o’clock and he didn’t want to know about the place, he expected the duty controller to look after things when they were gone. We had a KLM aeroplane come in to refuel on its way to New York and they poured the petrol in and it started leaking out and so it ended up that they had to defuel it to the point where it didn’t leak any more and then fly it off to Amsterdam where they could either change it for a serviceable aeroplane or fix the leak and so normally Stansted closed at eleven o’clock at night but the duty controller had the authority to extend the hours for three hours, you know, under various circumstances, so I extended this and it got to three hours and this crisis had developed and as I said to the point where they could defuel the plane and then fly it off to Amsterdam, so I said well, you’d better do that and it ended up that I shut the airfield and I was passing, as I was driving home, I was passing the fellows who were coming in to open up for the morning and the next day when I was on duty the commandant rang up, and he said, well he said, who authorised [cough] all this and I said well I did, and I explained the circumstances and that was it, you know. Nobody else was involved. So, and you know those sort of things happened, you know, you weren’t expected to call in higher authority, you were [emphasis] the higher authority on duty and you were expected to get on with it, make your decisions and justify it, but the blokes at Heathrow used to think we were a load of drongoes, you know. Well Heathrow, of course, like all these big airports, it’s an entirely different thing: it’s time is what matters at Heathrow and New York and all these other places, you know, you’ve got to, everything’s got to go on time, you’ve got to, you can’t afford to have fifteen seconds’ time wasted between aeroplanes, I mean that’s how you don’t get the movement rate. I mean Heathrow gets its movement rate by the fact that the planes are coming in like that, and they’re fifteen seconds apart and that’s it. It’s got to be fifteen seconds, not fourteen, not thirteen, fifteen and if you don’t make that they don’t want you.
NM: Andrew can I take you back to something you told me last time we met. You mentioned a man called George Sidebottom. Was he in Bomber Command?
AB: Oh yes, George. I was at school in Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton Grammar School, George and I were in the same class in Wolverhampton Grammar School.
NM: And did you say he ended up in Bomber Command?
AB: That’s right, yes, a few years later. He ended up as my, brother in law’s skipper in Bomber Command and he was in, I think 100 Squadron in Grimsby, I’m not quite sure which group that was in, whether that was in 3 Group I think, but I’m not sure, Grimsby. And my brother in law was his flight engineer and they’d had to abort two operations due to mechanical trouble but the CO wasn’t very receptive to that and told George in no uncertain terms that if he did it again he might very well find himself down the mines, so they were pressing along, they’d got some mechanical trouble, I don’t know what it was, I’ve forgotten, and anyway they were on their way to Leipzig and I think about the about the 13th of February 1944, something like that, be in the book and well it’ll be in, I’ve forgotten, the chap who has the record of all the Bomber Command casualties. Anyway they were chugging along and they were attacked and they were shot up and they were badly enough shot up that George said look chaps, he said, you know, we’re not going to make Leipzig, let alone get back to base, so he said I give you the option of baling out now, so they all decided to bale out and they all got away with it and apparently when the news got back to Grimsby that they’d all baled out there was a bit of a oh yes, hmmm, you know, hmmm, he’s done it twice, got away with it the third time, but my sister in law told me that, or told us, that she was reading some book and it was a reminiscences of a German night fighter pilot and he quoted this, he quoted this plane, this sortie you know, serial number, everything and you know, it was proof that -
[Other]: Are you taking a plate and a fork please?
AB: Oh thank you my darling.
NM: Lovely. Thank you very much.
AB: And it was proof that George hadn’t just done a “come on chaps let’s finish the war”.
[Other] [Unclear] on the table darling.
NM: I’ll just grab that if I may, thank you very much, lovely, thank you.
[Other]: What’s wrong, take another piece.
AB: And it got back to the squadron that – thank you darling - that it was a genuine one that they’d all baled out and Vic and, Vic and one of the other crews, they were picked up about two days later, but two of the crew got all the way to the, I mean they baled out near, oh, well near Potsdam, quite close to Berlin, but two of the crew got as far as the Dutch frontier and they pinched a couple of bicycles and they’d cycled across this bridge into Holland and for some reason or other they were sort of unsure, they were uncertain of where they were or something and they turned round and went back and they were challenged and apprehended by one of the German Volksturm, one of the German Home Guard [laugh] and Vic ended up in Heidekrug which was as far north west as you could get in Germany, it was right up in the tip top tip of east Germany and of course when the Germans, or rather when the Russians started advancing seriously across Poland and then into East Russia, the, East Germany, the Germans evacuated and Vic ended up on the Long March. That was rugged. Couldn’t look a turnip in the face after that.
NM: But he survived and was repatriated, yes?
AB: Mmm?
NM: He survived and was repatriated?
AB: Hmm.
NM: So he was a prisoner of war until the end of the war.
AB: Yes, eventually, the, [eating] they ended up in central Germany somewhere, I don’t know where.
NM: So his name was Vic, and what was his surname?
AB: Mendelski, Victor Mendelski, I think it was 100 Squadron and it was about, round about, round about February 13th I think, something like that. And as I say, it’ll be in Bill Chorley’s books. You’ve got those have you?
NM: We’ve got access to them.
AB: You’ll find it in there, something through that.
NM: Okay, just to finish with then, you’ve been going to the 100 Group reunions for a few years now.
AB: As I said, when Scottish packed up we all had to find other jobs and a number of them got jobs with the Civil Aviation Flying Unit which was based at Stansted and which was responsible for, it was responsible for the flight checking of all the radio aids, the navigation beacons, all the instrument landing systems and so on throughout the country and some of them abroad and they also did the flight checking of applicants for pilots’ licences and then for instrument ratings because one of the things that devolved from the airways system and all the control zone system that I mentioned earlier on, was that pilots had to be able to fly on instruments, had to have an instrument rating, and Stansted did all the examining for that. Well I got to know a few of them who’d been at Reserve Flying Schools and after I retired these chaps said, oh he said why don’t you join the Aircrew Association, which was an association which was open to [cough] all aircrew, everybody, cooks, stewards, the lot of them if they’d been flying, one of the chaps his wife had been an air steward in the RAF, she was a member, anyway, but I did join but I didn’t take to it, it was a, perhaps I shouldn’t say this but it was full of air gunners for one thing! And they used to meet at a pub in Saffron Walden which was not really convenient for me and perhaps I’m not the club-able type, a great cry of I’ll say rises to that, but so I dropped out, but during my membership I saw a notice in their magazine of a memorial stone being dedicated at Oulton, you know where I’d flown from, so I thought oh well I’ll go and go up to that so I went up to Aylesham and stayed in a B & B there and I happened to meet a fellow Squadron Leader, Richard Forder, a retired engineer who was researching the fate of one of the three Liberators that was lost from 223 Squadron, it was, oh I forget, it was captained by, he was either Flying Officer or Flying, or Flight Lieutenant Ayres, nicknamed Lou Ayres naturally, who, one of whose gunners Richard Forder had met when he was a small boy, I forget where he was, he was somewhere in the West Country, Shropshire, somewhere like that, and he’d met this chap, this RAF sergeant who’d given him some toy trains as a souvenir and this chap had been one of the casualties of this, [cough] of this flight and Richard was researching it and I’d been on the same detail. We’d done a spoof, a Window feint to Cassel. We’d come out from, we’d split off from the main force which had gone on to somewhere in the east, Leipzig or somewhere like that and we’d formed a force which flew on up to Cassel which some of the Halifaxes had bombed and we turned back from Cassel and gone home and on the way back from Cassel, Lou Ayres was shot down and we passed over his, over the wreckage of his flight and I was able to provide Richard with all sorts of information, you know, flight times and all the rest of it and proved the accuracy of my navigation, [laugh] reasonably. So that’s how I got involved with the 100 Group Association, kept it up ever since.
NM: You’ve got the next one next week I gather.
AB: We’re meeting the next, what’s the date today?
NM: 10th. May the 10th.
AB: Next weekend. Come along some time.
NM: Really looking forward to it.
AB: We congregate at the memorial stone which is on the eastern end of the old Oulton airfield. It’s about half past three, four o’clock, four o’clock something like that and say a few words, and I usually get asked to, well there’s two things, there’s the one: When you go home tell them of us and say for our todays, we gave, for your tomorrows we gave our todays. I can relate to that. And the other one is, the better known one, is the, what is it, it’s the, oh I’ve forgotten, it’s the [pause] no I’ve forgotten. But I, to which I can’t relate because it’s the one that says about the fellows, for their tomorrows we gave our todays or something like that and I’m thinking I bet they bloody well wish they’d still got their tomorrows.
NM: I think that’s a very good point on which to finish. So thank you very much for your time Andrew. Shall we finish the interview there?
AB: It’s [crockery noise].
NM: Shall we finish it there?
AB: I think so yes.
NM: I think that’s a good place.
AB: Yes. I never, you know it was, I stayed in aviation, as I say, I met all sorts of chaps when I was in the Reserve and I learnt not to shoot a line and then after the Reserve I went flying with Scottish and there were a few occasions where I was rather more frightened than I had been at any other time in my aviation career and because I was a married man by then, I’d got responsibilities and I was rather more aware of the fallibility of aeroplanes and of course, in something like the York, you used to have to fly through it not over it and the prospect of having to fly through the Monsoon was not something which you exactly looked forward to, I mean the rain was so heavy that you could barely, oh haven’t got my civil log book with me, you could barely see the inboard engines, let alone the outboard engines, but I mean it was real flying and you had to do it yourself.
NM: Very good.
AB: Mind you, there’s still real flying going on as that Russian aeroplane the other day. Not very funny.
NM: No indeed.
AB: Has there been anything more in the press about it?
NM: I haven’t seen anything since the accident itself, sorry. Andrew, can I just finish by saying thank you on behalf of the IBCC for giving us your story. Much appreciated. You’ve given us a lot of time.
AB: What’s the next step now? You get 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
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Interview with Andrew Barron. Three
Creator
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Nigel Moore
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2019-05-10
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ABarronAJK190510, PBarronAJK1901
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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01:56:35 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Andrew said that during leisure time the crew drank, sang silly songs but didn’t really socialise much. He recalled an occasion when the Germans sent in about 200 night fighters infiltrating the main force on its ways home. They shot down a B-17 as it came into land and all crew were killed. The German aircraft had passed Andrew’s one as it was waiting to land. He mentions four daylight operations: over a fairly short period the squadron did 38 operations. Andrew remembered on 1 January 1945 he was on operations and made some gross navigational error – he had been up late on New Years’ Eve and had drunk quite a bit. May 1945 ended operational flights: on the 26th Andrew did a trip with 223 Squadron from RAF Swannington, in a B-17. When the war ended, they were allowed to go on one of the Cooks tours around the Ruhr to see what damage had been done. Andrew was then posted to 102 Squadron at RAF Pocklington doing local flying with circuits and bumps. They did three flights in a Halifax disposing bombs into the sea. Following various postings, he was demobbed and trained for a civil license.
Contributor
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Sue Smith
Anne-Marie Watson
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Norfolk
England--Yorkshire
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
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1945-01-01
1945-05
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
100 Group
102 Squadron
157 Squadron
196 Squadron
223 Squadron
85 Squadron
B-17
B-24
bombing
C-47
Cook’s tour
demobilisation
Halifax
military living conditions
RAF Pocklington
RAF Swannington
shot down
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1196/11769/AWicksteadE180621.2.mp3
203f6f41bcfbd6aad654cb037fc709c4
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Wickstead, Elizabeth
E Wickstead
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Elizabeth Wickstead (b.1928). She was a child in Sussex during the war. Her sister was a nurse at the Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead and used to bring burned airmen home.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-06-21
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Wickstead, E
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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DM: Oh, I know. [unclear] OK. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is David Meanwell. The interviewee is Elizabeth Wickstead. The interview is taking place at Mrs Wickstead’s home in Crawley, in Sussex, on the 21st of June 2018. So, Elizabeth, if could you start of by saying where you were born, a bit about your early family life and then the outbreak of the war.
EW: OK then. I was born in Brighton. My father was a Brightonian. My mother was from Surrey but they actually, er, lived, we then lived in, we lived to start with in a tiny village called Lindfield in Sussex, and Cuckfield as well. We moved to several local villages near Hayward’s Heath but at the time of the war, having been born in 1928, I was eleven years old and we were living in Lindfield. Now, I can remember the September ’39. I can remember the announcement to the war. I suppose at eleven I, I was very interested in what was going on and, um, well the first thing I remember is the family being around and then I can remember schooldays and the arrival of the London evacuees. That seemed to be the first thing that happened. They came by train, by bus, arriving at the little village hall with their little gas mask cases and very different to us, um, seemed to be a different world that they came from, likewise, you know. They were taught in the same school as us but separate, so the school became very full, of course, with teachers and children. They had their own little clubs that — and then we paid a penny and joined in the clubs and the fun and soon got friendly with each another. But they were kept separate from us because they had their own teachers and everyone with them. I suppose that was my first memory and then, naturally, at the same time the, er, Army arrived and the first, first contingent [?] that I remember was the Royal Scots Fusiliers who, er, had returned from India and they were wearing dress uniform at the time because it was the beginning of the war, and my father was very keen, ex-World War 1 soldier and used to go out and try and bring the young fellas in for tea etcetera, so we got to know one or two quite well. They were there for a while and there, there was lots of large houses that were taken over, um, estates, you know, estate hou— houses, various houses, and various places in the village. All their equipment came, all their lorries, everything and from a tiny village we became an Army barracks. And, um, even in our — well that’s the Royal Scots. While they were there they had to go into Army khaki uniform and they had to get rid of their dress uniform. Now, we got to know them and as school children they used to give us their buttons and badges and it was a collection that children had, tin boxes, and because they took the buttons off the uniform and hat badge— badges as they went into full khaki, and we used to be given these buttons and we used to do swaps. Another thing we did swaps with there were little cards that were, I don’t know, the boys seemed to get hold of these cards with pictures of German aircraft on and you used to do spotting because we lived under the flight path to London, you realise, so that was the first of the Army. Then they went and throughout the war it continued, one lot after another, one lot after another. The whole village became a complete barracks. Even in my own little road, off of Lindfield Common, it was a small road going in, backing onto fields and a wood. Houses there had just been built in 1939. In fact, ours was the last in the road. There were other houses further on that were still under — being built. The Army took them over and moved in. So, from our garden and our house the next house, which nobody had occupied, became full of Army. So — and our little lane which came out onto Lindfield Common and it didn’t go further than the woods, if you like, used to have a chap on guard. And of course no lights and it was, ‘Who goes there?’ Even the bungalow next, next to us on the other side became a sick bay, so we intermingled with the Army all round us and they were so jolly and as a child, um, they made you feel happy. You were happy to, to talk to them. They were full of life and only young chaps, you know. As a child it was really pleasant to — I would say, for a child almost, it was pretty exciting because we didn’t understand at that age. Now, my dad being a First World War — in the trenches, served right through his medical of course but he did, he did know a lot about war [slight laugh] and, um, he decided that he’d dig, he dug a trench in the back garden. He was a gardener. We had a lovely garden originally but he decided he would dig, dig a trench and he dug it T-shape, went down steps, on the top corrugated iron and he grew a garden on top. And he reckoned — well I don’t know — and the idea was if we were invaded we were going to go underground. I think he was going to take on his own war, quite honestly, because he had a, he had a shot gun and a tin hat. So then, then actually the, um, the aircraft started coming over, the bombing raids, I mean sirens, whatever, but it would always start in the evening, like as it went dark, and he’d go out in the back garden with his tin hat on [laugh]. “Dad’s Army” this was and, um, we could see for a long way because everything was black out, there wasn’t any lights at all, but he would see this flashing in the, in the distance and he’d come back and he’d say, ‘They’re coming in over Dover now.’ So, there’d be that, this way, so it was, ‘You’d better go down in the dugout.’ Well, I think I only went down twice and my sisters — I’m from five, five sisters and they wouldn’t go down. But my dad wanted us all down there. I think we only went down twice. It was horrific, you know. There was beetles and all sorts down there [laugh]. So, that died a death but he kept that dugout and he actually dug another one out, down in the orchard, but nobody ever went down there [laugh] and he would, he would be standing out in the garden talking to the next door neighbour. It was rather like “Dad’s Army”, you know. ‘Oh, I know where they are now. They’re coming this way,’ you know, but of course you’d hear this drone and drone and drone and going over and over and over. There must have been — well, I can’t imagine how many aircraft for such a long time. And they’d be heading for London, you see. They wouldn’t be shot at. There was nothing to shoot, nothing to fire at them with at that time, very early in the war, and I don’t think anything went on over there but then they’d go off and, um, all I know, all I can remember is, you would then see — because I suppose in Sussex, you see, you would see the lights of London. We would see London ablaze in, in the sky lit up. Then, of course, I can remember that — I mean, this went on quite a long time during the war didn’t it? So, I grew up with this going on and I would say when they were coming back there were one or two that were — the engines, you could hear something wrong with the engine. Or, even if they came in land from Dover and came in and they got damaged and they wanted to turn, turn round and go back they would jettison their bombs and, if I can remember, there would be a like a stick of three. I can remember this and, um, there would be quite a few dumped around in the fields and things. Nobody seemed to get hit because we were rural, you know. But there was quite one funny incident I would like to say. Someone had to be evacuated from, from Newhaven and lived at the end of our road and next to that was the fields and also a brook and a boggy water. Lindfield’s low-lying so it’s a lot of water there and I used to go with the a girl who lived there to school and when I went along to her one morning she — and we’d had a bombing raid the night before — she said, ‘Oh, my dad’s ever so cross,’ she said. ‘A bomb dropped in the big and all our tomato plants are buried under water and there’s all mud up the side of the house.’ So, um, I can always remember that one, um, and then, I suppose following that we got what was called the “doodlebugs”. Now, they were something different. They were a bit scary because they came over during the day. As kids, as I would say, I don’t think I was ever really scared during the war. It was a great adventure but, um, as the years went on and I got a little bit older I got a little bit more understanding about it. But, um, yes the, that was an incident when — in, we lived in a chalet bungalow, if you like, so there were two bedrooms upstairs and one down, and the stairs wound around from the hall, and there was a cupboard under the stairs. Now, I was put to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs because that seemed to be, apparently, the safest place and —
DM: Were you the youngest?
EW: Yes. I was very much the baby of, of older, older parents and, er, the only child in the house, if you like. My eldest sister had been married before I was born and, er, the second sister worked at, as a nurse at East Grinstead Hospital. She actually came home with the chaps, as you know, and my third sister worked, um, for the GPO, which she would have been a tele— telephone operator in charge of the local telephone exchange because they were telephone exchanges in local houses with three positons and everybody knowing everybody else. And she also had a little nursing training, as did most of my family because of my father’s medical background, and she was called for ambulance duty when she was available, but she didn’t actually go away to war. Now the fourth, fourth sister was at the begin— at the beginning of the war she would have been twenty, or nineteen or twenty, and she was conscripted, and you had a choice. You could put down whether you wanted to go in which service but it didn’t count at all really and she went into munitions, and at twenty-one she went away and she went to Staffordshire in one of — a very large secret destination there, where they made shells and bombs, and it was huge apparently. She ended up — that’s where the girls that came home were called, called, canaries. Their skin went yellow. She was put on making detonators and she was there all during the war. She, as I say, she was a bomb girl really. So she was away and me, being the baby, my memories are only of my childhood and the village and what went on and they were my growing up years. So, um, the continuation there is the flying bombs and, um, they made such a horrible noise. They, they were like a very loud motorbike sound, and I never really, I didn’t ever ever look up to see any of these things because either my mum and I would be under the table because it would be during the day, because it would be a big Victorian table that would have saved something, I don’t know, or me under the stairs. As I say, these things came over regularly and they just, they just cut out and then you would count so many [background noise]. I don’t know what was bombed round there, not many I think. Fields were well bombed I think. I do remember at my school [clears throat] we had air raid shelters that we had to go to, so at the time I was at senior school at the time of the flying bombs, so I can remember having to go in these long brick buildings and I can remember the story of the fact — now this is something different. It’s about the Polish Air Force ch— fellas. They came over to England and they set up their own and there was a racecourse at Plumpton, a small racecourse near us in Sussex, at Plumpton, and that turned into an airdrome and apparently these Polish fighters used to go up and try and shoot these things or whatever, I can’t remember. But the saying was when we were in the shelter — whether it was true or not I don’t know — but I always remember the saying after a week [clears throat] or few days there was a doodlebug that was heading to land on our school and it was said one of these Polish airmen wing-tipped it. Now whether that’s true or not I don’t know but we were all told that story and, as I say, we didn’t get to meet the Polish airmen but they were there [emphasis] during the war and that’s the only recollection I have of hearing about that happening, but I really can’t prove that it was true. So, really and truly, um, I suppose by — I’d stayed on until I was sixteen, which was quite unusual because you left at fourteen. But my father had decided to go back into the Services though he was too old. He volunteered. He said as a medical man he could do something, especially after seeing the chaps being brought back from East Grinstead and my cousin, being a Bomber pilot and ki— killed, my dad decided he’d got to do something, so he went back in. He joined the RAF and he was, he used to say he was on the blood wagon or something. He was on the air, airdromes and picking up — so he, he went off into the war and by, by 1946, 1946 when the war ended, I’d had been, I had been trained as a dancer and I was going to go on the stage but it never really took off. But I fell in love with the Serv— the ladies in the Services so I joined, I joined the WRENs, but it was a bit of a cheek because that was after the war, you see, but uniforms had become important to me and, as I say, I had experienced, I suppose I experienced the innocentness of childhood to start with. The reality during my growing up years what war was all about, the sadness of losing family and by the time I’d got to the age of eighteen I wanted to take part in it but it was all over. But, you know, really I haven’t much else to say. If there is anything you —
DM: You say your dad went off to join the Air Force and was obviously posted away?
EW: He volunteered, yes.
DM: Do, do you know where he went?
EW: Yes, I do. He — I know that he was at Skegness. I — because he didn’t go abroad, you see — I know that he was at Eastbourne at some time. I would have records of where he was but he actually, um, went straight back into his medical profession, if you like, and worked on the airfields. But he was in his fifties, you see, he was his mid-fifties, according to pop.
DM: What did he do between the wars?
EW: Ah, right. Now, my father came out. He’d been a regular before the ’14-‘18 war. He joined up in 1912. He’d got, he come right through his injuries. We heard the stories. Well, he’d been gassed and when he came out the only thing he was proficient at was his nursing and there was a very large mental hospital in Haywards Heath, and he went there, but his health wasn’t too good. He had, um, a problem, a chest problem and he was advised to go work on the land. So, he then retrained, because he’d had a quite a good education. He knew what he was doing. So he trained in, um, landscape gardening and he went the whole hog and he used to design and do the big houses and the gardens but had to work outside, you see. But when he came to join the RAF in the war he was A1. But I think they were desperate [laugh]. I’m sorry because he’d always coughed in the morning and coughed, what have you, but he was trained and he had that knowledge of the medical side and I think that was needed and that’s what he went for, you see, and that’s how he became RAF and very proud of it and very proud of what he did. He was a very Royalist, er, very much for his country. That was, that’s my father, you know. He was, his time in the Services was very important to him and, um, that’s what he did.
DM: Do you remember anything about the Battle of Britain? Did that register?
EW: Oh, yes. It went on over our head, didn’t it? Definitely. This nephew of mine from London, came down from London, he used to come and stay regularly, you know, to give them a break. They came from Hounslow and he was just a little bit younger than me, three of four years younger than me, but I had to look after him, and I think, as I’ve said, we had a big common area in Lindfield, green, and it was the end of the road, and I used to take him play on the common, but very, very often there would be a dog fight going on over the top. Do you know, we never — I had to look after him. It was perfectly safe in those days for children to play out. [clears throat] We would lie down on the grass and we’d watch a dog fight in — and we’d hear the machine guns and everything. Never, ever thought bullets might come down and land on us, you know, but we got very excited about these dog fights, because that’s what they were called, and we’d see them darting in and out and chasing one another other. But yes, the Battle of Britain when on over our heads. But I would say that the only memory I, I have with John is watching the fighting and machine-gunning. I hate to say, you know, we did see one shot down and we did see a parachute come out and, I mean, I just, I think, you know, everybody in those days if he was German you were happy. But, I mean, that’s wicked really but it didn’t really register to us as children the seriousness of the situation. It was a child’s brain thinking, you know, another one.
DM: Do you know — was Lindfield sort of — did you know when D-Day was coming up? Was there a lot of activity can you remember?
EW: Indeed, indeed because it — more and more and more Army came there. Now, I understand there was one landing before but it was — it didn’t happen. Now, when I say it didn’t happen, it was unsuccessful. Now, we had, um, at that time before Detail [?] we were completely Canadian [emphasis] forces. It was the Third Division of infantry, the first ones that went over, and they occupied most of that area of Sussex, the villages. It was just chock a block with the Canadians and I can remember one night a whole lot went and my sister, of course, was in the village, older sister, and she knew one or two and they didn’t come back. So that one I don’t know much about that but there was one —
DM: That would have been the Dieppe raid.
EW: Exactly, exactly. Because, obviously my older, older sister got to know one or two and I think she had a friend from, probably came from Ottawa or somewhere like that, but he never came back. And then, then of course it built up again. Very interesting, the Canadians. They were very — well it was all Canadians. It was the Third Division. I know that. It was on the side of their vans. I mean that they were the ones that went over from our village and all the villages around and the whole of Sussex I think, you know. The amazing thing was a tiny village with a high street, and the village common, and a beautiful pond with swans on got turned into a barracks, and the unbelievable thing is they used to bring the Bren gun ca— carriers, which were little tanks, and Army lorries down the village high street and wash them in the pond. And if they weren’t doing that they were they were doing Army drill up and down the, the roads, you know. What a difference for a country village. What things I’ve seen in my life. What amazing memories I have. And I mean, obviously, most of the village girls are now living in Canada, moved to Canada. I think they all went back there [laugh]. I think, I think the village girls of that age disappeared to Canada. Strangely enough I, I actually went to Canada in recent years, when, well, I would say about ten, fifteen years ago and I went to a very remote place near Winnipeg on holiday with a friend and there was, um, an elderly chap there and we started talking about the war and he said, ‘I was in Sussex during the war.’ So, I said, ‘Oh, where were you?’ And he said, ‘Well, you would never hear of it. It was a tiny little village called Lindfield.’ And she said, ‘Yeah and I, I married him.’ What a coincidence. Now I said, ‘Well, that’s where I come from.’ So, a great big country like Canada I suddenly bump into somebody who was in the village at a time I was a child. Well, dear, oh dear.
DM: Did you know much about what your sister did at East Grinstead?
EW: Well, she was, was only — she had trained in the Red Cross originally and she became what was called a VAD? She, she was just a nurse, if you like, but no doubt very caring and quite serious in her work. She couldn’t — she had to — she was billeted near the hospital. She stayed in East Grinstead but she could come home on her days off and that’s the story of her bringing home, um, patients who had to spend a very long time and I can tell you, I must, that must have been, it must have been about twelve I think, when I came in from school, and it may have been twelve or thirteen, it was quite a shock because the chaps were able to wear their, their RAF uniform, you now, but they had a red tie. But, I walked in and my mother was always afternoon tea, you know, and my sister would be there and I, I saw this, I saw this chap and he had no hands, he had no eyes, he only had two holes for his nose, his ears had gone and he was being fed by my sister and yet they could work, walk perfectly, because the understanding was that they landed those aircraft with the flames at them. They wanted to land them. That’s what —the stories I’ve heard but it was quite a shock for a child in a way. It’s something I would never forget. And, of course, my father was there at the time. So, I mean, the chaps could walk and full of life and quite lively, these RAF chaps, and, um, my dad would go to the bus stop. They’d have to go back on the 30 bus, you know, from Lindfield [laugh] and he would take my sister up to the bus stop and my sister would take them back again. I think I met two but my sister got to know an awful lot of the guinea pigs because they were quite a lively lot, you know. Even though they were going through hell they were a lively lot and we admired their, their courage and fortitude but, do you know, that’s a memory I have of her bringing home this one or two, twice I think she did it. But, um, it’s amazing how they got around, you know, and how they coped with all this. And I suppose little stories about her nursing and how caring they were and how long they had to go through the treatment to rebuild their faces. It was mostly their faces and there again, you know, its memories. She got their books written and signed and photographs of when the, um, Queen Elizabeth (it would be the Queen Mother) came to the hospital. I’ve got lovely photographs of that. And, um, as I say, everybody seemed to care for everybody else at that time. Everybody seemed to work together. There was no fear for a child of people, you know. It was — we all looked, looked out for one another. It was a wonderful comradeship. Mum, public and everyone I suppose really. They were really warm memories but it, you know, it must have been really scary for people a bit older or families but we all coped. But I would say a pretty exciting time for a young child growing up, in a strange way. A terrific experience.
DM: Oh, yes. Do you know much about your cousin’s story, the one that was killed in Bomber Command?
EW: Oh yes, yes —
DM: What was his name?
EW: His name was Kenneth Sherlock. And he was a pilot off— he had just got his qualifications. He, it was my mother’s sister. It was a cousin, cousin Kenneth. They lived in Haywards Heath. He, um, he was the same age as my next sister up. So he — she was twenty and he would have been twenty at the beginning of the war so he was twenty-one and he went into the RAF. He, strangely enough, he — well he was quite lively at that age and there were lots of parties which I was too young to go to and — but I do remember one time when he was at Pocklington, 102 Squadron? Yep, and he came home with his bunch, about six or eight of them I think, and he brought them home to Haywards Heath. I think they went off to some party and I met the other pilot officer and it was quite amazing at the time because he was, he was Ceylon or Sri Lanka, and I’d never met anyone from there before because I think they was one Canadian I think, there was, there was the one from Sri Lanka, and I just thought they were amazing chaps. But I didn’t see much of him because obviously my sisters were closer to him and then, um, he’d just got his wings. Is that what it’s called when he was — and it was announced in the local paper and in the next press cutting he was missing and, of course, nobody knew really what had happened to the aircraft. It was — this is the saddest thing I would think for me is that my — he was the only son and my aunt could never accept, never ever thought that, you know — but she died quite young after that but she never ever thought he was killed. There’s lots of little stories about that which I really don’t want to go into but she couldn’t accept that he’d died. And, um, nobody really knew but strangely enough, that was — I forget — in recent years I’ve been in touch with 102 Squadron and the son of the pilot from Sri Lanka came to see me. He’s just died recently and his daughter keeps in touch but, of course, he’s got his own website, hasn’t he? You know, 102 Squadron. So I’m actually a member of that group through my cousin and, of course, they have given me papers with the details of what happened to the aircraft. I have — I know myself now what happened and he came down in the sea and I think they were all killed outright possibly. But that’s a different story, which 10, is it 102? 102 Squadron there at Pocklington. They’ve got lots of details on all those aircraft. So, that’s that one.
DM: What did your mother do during the war? Did she do anything or did she just keep, keep you all in order and look after everybody?
EW: Well, I think I’ve said that my mother and father were much older. I was a very much younger addition. So, my mother was a bit older than my dad actually too. So she was a Victorian. She was born in 1884? 1884. I think he was born in about 1885 or 6. I can’t — anyway she was a business lady, strangely, before her time. She ran her own business and she was a high class dress maker with apprentices and what have you and we were — I was brought up by my older sisters and aunts and the girls that worked in the workrooms I suppose, you know. She was, she was a, a lady ahead of her times because in those days women just got married and had children but she was a businesswoman. And it was a great help because of my father’s health, that he was able just to work when he could work, but she’d already got into this work before but she was, she was of a different era which was quite unusual for a woman to stand on her own and [emphasis] have children at the same time. Because she just had children and children and we all got on and were OK.
DM: How long were you in the WRENs for after the war?
EW: Four years. Great.
DM: And where were you based?
EW: Ah. Well, I was — first and foremost I joined up, as everybody does at, at Burghfield in, near Reading. That was training school. I then had, I’d already trained before to be a telephone operator so I went into communications. I was sent from Burghfield to HMS Scotia in — it was the, um, Navy Signal School near Warrington and I did — trained all over again there. After that I was sent to Chatham and I worked on, in Chatham Dockyard on the dockyard gate. That was the — Chatham then was the barracks, you know, it was the Naval barracks. From there I was sent to, um, the north of Scotland to — I was then like I was Fleet Air Arm. I went into Fleet Air Arm. It was an airfield, it was Naval Air Station, Royal Naval Air Station Fieldfare, on the banks of the Cromarty in Ross-shire, as far north perhaps as you can go. I think before that it had been a small air—airfield at place called Wick in the north of Scotland but that had closed own. We were, we were still in Invergordon, on the Cromarty, so — but yes, I was there for a year, but while I was there they decided to close the base down and move all the aircraft down to Lossiemouth and, um, we used to hitchhike down to Inverness on the carriers carrying the planes. I’m only very small. I’m only five foot. I used to be able to get up on this aileron [?] and he used to have to go somewhere where there was a bank so you could jump out. On the way we would perhaps get off at, at, near Inverness for the day, or something. You did a lot, we did a lot of hitchhiking then. It was fine. But Fieldfare closed down and I understand that after that Lossiemouth became RAF as well but it was, you know, both. It was interchange. So, from there I went to HMS Gannet in, um, outside Derry. Again it was, um, it was a Naval Air Station. It was right on the banks of Lough Foyle, pretty wet. They couldn’t have a heavy aircraft to land there because it would go through the runway because it was on a bog. But the actual runway was laid out as if it was a, an aircraft carrier and the pilots and people that came, the different groups — had to practice landing and taking off, and landing and taking off and I can’t tell you how many ended in Lough Foyle or [emphasis] just across from Lough Foyle on the other side was, um, was the Irish Republic and if, for instance, they missed and they ended there they had to have to get perm— permission from Dublin to bring them back again. I can remember that because I was on the communications. Oh, it was quite funny. Lots of stories there. Lots of stories. It was the — oh, I can’t think. There were these mountains on the other side, in the Irish Republic, the name will come to me, and the saying was when you can see the hills of Donegal it’s raining and when you can’t see them it’s going to rain. It was always wet there, always wet. I think there was an RAF place that had closed down called Killane [?]. I can remember the name of that. So yes, there are very many memories of there because it was — I loved Ireland and Irish people but the weather is something else, so wet, and I remember we had a girl in the Met Office and they, they had arranged to pick an aircraft up at Hatfield? Hatfield. A jet was going to be picked up and she asked permission if she could go over because she came from there to meet her, and she went over and she was coming back with the pilots, but the aircraft crashed at Shannon and they were all killed, and she was just nineteen years old. So there’s lots of little stories. Liz Paxton [?] I can remember. And then I finished up at demobulation [?], demobbed at, um, Portsmouth. Needless to say I met my husband in the Navy so I married a sailor. [slight laugh]
DM: So you enjoyed your time in the WRENs obviously?
EW: I pretty well enjoy myself anyway. I’m that sort of person. But I make the most out of life. There’s always two sides of life. It, it’s what you make of it and how you can cope with it and, um, I try to look on the bright side and find all the beauty and the happiness but I know the other’s there, you know. It’s how you get through life isn’t it?
DM: It is. It is.
EW: Probably how I’ve got to be as old as I am, ninety [laugh]. There you go.
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 Elizabeth Wickstead
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Meanwell
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-21
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AWicksteadE180621
Conforms To
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Pending review
Format
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00:48:32 audio recording
Language
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eng
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Sussex
England--East Grinstead
Description
An account of the resource
Elizabeth Wickstead was born in Brighton, in 1928, and moved between villages in the Sussex area. Elizabeth remembers the announcement of the war in September 1939, and remembers the arrival of evacuees from London and the schools being separate from those that lived locally and the evacuees. Elizabeth’s father was a World War One soldier, and remembers the arrival of the first soldiers, the Royal Scots Fusiliers, who her father tried to invite round for tea. Remembers collecting buttons and badges given by the soldiers and trading them with other children in the village. Elizabeth recollects the village almost becoming a barracks, with the various estates being occupied with a military presence. She recalls being under the flightpath to London. Her father dug a trench I the backgarden, so if Britain was invaded, they would retreat underground. Recalls the blackouts and experiences of aircraft flying ahead, that would often jettison remaining bombs on the flight back. One of Elizabeth’s sisters was sent to work in a munitions factory in Staffordshire. Elizabeth also recalls the experiences of the doodlebug’s (V1 rockets). Her father volunteered to join the RAF in a medical background working at RAF stations, he served in World War One and between the war worked in landscape gardening, having to be outside, due to his injuries from the war. After the war Elizabeth joined the WRENS. During the Battle of Britain, Elizabeth and her relatives used to watch the dogfights. Her sister served in the red cross and often bought wounded servicemen home. Elizabeth talks about her cousin who was a pilot, who was killed whilst serving in bomber command. Elizabeth stays in touch with the squadron her cousin served in and corresponded with somebody from Sri Lanka who was related to anther airman who served with her cousin. She talks about her mother being ahead of her times, she owned a high-class dressmaking service. Elizabeth finishes the interview talking about her four years’ service in the WRENS.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Paul Baguley
Benjamin Turner
102 Squadron
childhood in wartime
Guinea Pig Club
killed in action
RAF Pocklington
V-1
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1183/11755/PWalkerS1702.2.jpg
babc0b9cbc0985d587cfa6760ef2ed9b
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1183/11755/AWalkerS170108.2.mp3
014f1bb7f6bf67b33c2a981c28d2f46c
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
Walker, Stephen
Stephen Michael Walker
S M Walker
Description
An account of the resource
40 items. An oral history interview with Stephen Walker about Ronald Cecil Walker (b 1924) photographs and documents.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Stephen Walker and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-05
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Walker, S
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 8th of January 2017 and I’m here with Stephen Walker to do a proxy interview for his father, late father, Ronald Cecil Walker. And they lived in the Salisbury area. So in practical terms what are the earliest recollections you have of your father and what he did?
SW: Well my first memories are really as a young boy. Mainly standing by or sitting by the back door watching dad walk up the garden path in his long grey raincoat having finished his day at work and looking forward to seeing him there. So that’s really my first memories of him as a boy. He was a keen sportsman. He liked his football and his badminton which he very much did in his early days as a lad and then through to being an adult as well. I did go and see one movie with him as a young boy which obviously would have stuck in my mind because it was the Battle of Britain. But that’s the only movie we ever saw as a father and son team. But he, those are my memories really initially as a small boy.
CB: Right. So the question next is what did father do? Where was he born and when? And what did the family do?
SW: He was born on the 19th of October 1923 in West End, Southampton. He was one of four boys and two sisters. Born to Frederick Austin Walker and Lillian Maud Walker. And Frederick’s — his father’s occupation was a shopkeeper. And again in Southampton. So that’s his father’s role. With regard to Ron in his early days he attended, school wise, he was at the Deanery School in Southampton. He spent, in fact all of his schooling time at the Deanery School. Whether it be the junior school or the senior school.
[recording paused]
SW: With regard to when dad left school. That was in December 1937. He left the Deanery Senior School and he went out into the workplace and secured work with an accountancy firm as a junior clerk. So that was his first steps in to the workplace which, I guess is probably linked to the fact, in some way that his own father was dealing with figures and shop-keeping and retail. That, that type of thing so, and that’s what he did. And then in 1941 he joined the Air Training Corps. Number 424 Squadron in Southampton.
[recording paused]
SW: So after joining the Air Training Corps in December 1941 he joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and he joined the RAF because two of his other brothers — family wise they decided that one would join the army, one would join the navy and one would join the RAF. And so Ron joined the RAF in December ‘41. He formed part of a process that was pilot/navigator/bomb aimer. So he was assessed as being most suitable for the bomb aimer role.
[recording paused]
SW: From Southampton, having joined the Volunteer Reserve he went on to ACRC at Lord’s. And then, I believe, on to Scarborough for his initial training. And post that initial training he was then sent out to Canada. A place called Defoe which was a Royal Canadian Air Force, 5 Bombing and Gunnery School. Exactly how much time he spent out there I’m not sure but on his return from Canada he went to the Climate Assimilation School and then to the Heavy Conversion Unit at Marston Moor. And from there on to 102 Squadron at RAF Pocklington in 1942.
[recording paused]
Both Marston Moor and Pocklington are in Yorkshire which is where he spent his time and then moving on from there as a bomb aimer flying Halifaxes with 102 Squadron. With regard to some of the missions they are currently being researched to get finer detail with regards to his ORBs and exactly what happened. I’m waiting for results. The information from Cranwell. But he did his full tour and the information that I do have would have included operations to Cologne, Osnabruck, Sterkrade, Nuremberg, Witten and Mainz and I have some details with regard to the Halifax that he would have flown on those occasions which would have been PP179. And MZ426 on the operation to Mainz. But subject to receiving more information from Cranwell I should be able to fill in a lot more details with regards to his ORBs.
CB: Do you have any information about whether the aircraft was hit by flak or fighters?
SW: I don’t. No. There is nothing that I have by way of the personal scrapbook that I made when he passed away that shows any aircraft that he was either in at the time but it could quite be possible but I don’t have anything that can confirm that.
CB: So accompanying this on a memory stick we’ve a lot of pictures and narrative.
SW: Yes.
CB: Which can be matched up and we’ll top up later.
SW: Yes. Yeah.
CB: Good.
SW: A lot of further information to come with regard to that. That background.
CB: Now, when he ended the war — what rank?
SW: He ended the rank as a warrant officer which we’ve identified from his uniform and the hats and in the photographs that I have. So yeah that was his leaving rank.
CB: Good. Thank you very much. Thank you Steve.
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 Stephen Walker
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
2017-01-08
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AWalkerS170108, PWalkerS1702
Format
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00:06:50 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Second generation
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen’s father, Ronald Cecil Walker, was born in Southampton in 1923. On leaving school he worked as a junior clerk with an accountancy firm. In 1941 he joined the Air Training Corps, 424 Squadron, in Southampton and in December the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve where he was accepted to train as a bomb aimer. He trained with the Royal Canadian Air Force, 5 Bombing and Gunnery School, at Dafoe in Canada. His next posting was to the Climate Assimilation School and then to the Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Marston Moor. In 1942 he joined 102 Squadron at RAF Pocklington where he flew Halifaxes with the same squadron. His full tour included operations to Cologne, Osnabrück, Sterkrade, Nuremberg, Witten and Mainz. He finally left the RAF as a warrant officer.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
Steph Jackson
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Witten
Germany--Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Saskatchewan--Dafoe
Saskatchewan
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
102 Squadron
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
RAF Marston Moor
RAF Pocklington
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1153/11711/AThomasJH180122.1.mp3
43e5b7f773f7c286c6aad8364097a955
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
Thomas, John Henry
J H Thomas
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. Collection concerns John Henry Thomas (b. 1923, 424515 Royal Australian Air Force). He flew operations as a pilot with 102 Squadron. Collection contains an oral history interview, memoirs of his service and other events and a painting.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Thomas and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-01-22
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Thomas, JH
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JH: Good morning, this is John Horsburgh and today I’m interviewing John Thomas. John was a pilot with 102 Squadron, Ceylon Squadron, flying Halifax heavy bombers 1944 1945. So this is one of the interviews for the, being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre in Lincoln, in UK, which is being opened this year, incidentally, and it’s part of the oral history project. We are at Foster in New South Wales, at John’s home. [Tone] Good morning John, thank you for being available for the interview.
JT: That’s fine.
JH: And perhaps we can start, as we always do in these, when you were born, your birthdate and where, and something about your childhood, your parents and schooling, and then we’ll talk about when you came to join up. So when were you born?
JT: 14th September, 1923, at Waverley, in Sydney.
JH: And so your parents, I gather your, your father came out from England originally.
JT: Yes, that’s right, in 1910, as a twenty one year old.
JH: Did he, did he see any service in the first world war?
JT: No, no, but his father had served in the Royal Navy and his grandfather had served in the British Army.
JH: So you were born in Waverley and were you brought up there?
JT: No, we lived in Woollahra, initially, until I was nine years old and then we moved to Bondi. And lived in Bondi until I was fifteen and then moved to North Bondi, into a larger house and I went to school initially at Woollahra to the Holy Cross Convent primary school,then at St. Anne’s Bondi Beach primary school, and then to St. Charles Waverley, Christian Brothers Primary School and then went to St Mary’s College in the city for high school.
JH: So a real Sydney-sider.
JT: Yes.
JH: And so when you left school what did you do?
JT: I was apprenticed as a cabinet maker to a firm called Ricketson Thorpe. At this stage, it was the start of 1940 and I left school in fourth year. And somebody had decided I should get some experience, they possibly foresaw that I’d be going into the services and instead of doing the final year at school they put me in amongst men to get some real experience. Unfortunately, when it came to joining up, enlisting, Ricketson Thorpe had become a reserved industry because they were making parts for aircraft. However, the foreman, who was a World War One Digger, said ‘Ignore that, if you want to go, go and enlist’. Which I did. But this brought me in to conflict with the commissioner for manpower, a Mr Bella, Bellmore, B e l l e m o r e, but because he was fat everyone referred to him as Mr Bellymore! [Laugh] He, he must have taken an instant dislike to me, I’m joking, he realised no doubt that an apprentice position was not being filled, so he was looking for an apprentice who would be full time there and of all places he sent me to was the taxation department where I got shuffled from branch to branch. But then the Army called me up, which they shouldn’t have done ‘cause I was on the air force reserve and I finished up in Ciara, and well the showground to start with Ciara, and then Albury. I missed two air force call up because of a cranky Army major who reckoned I was in the Army for keeps. But eventually a recruiting flight lieutenant came round and he had me on the train to Sydney the following morning.
JH: What was it that, early on, that you decided to sign up for the air force?
JT: The, I thought initially, the in time, no doubt, I’d be conscripted and I, it was going to be my choice not theirs and the best way that I could do the most was to, if I was fit enough, to join aircrew. It turned out I was fit enough, and that was the reason: it was I felt I could do the most there.
JH: So your training started at Bradfield Park I believe.
JT: Number two initial training unit. Three months there, or twelve weeks actually. And then in February, in January, sorry, in December, early December went to Narrandera, eight weeks at Narrandera on the BFTS on Tiger Moths, seventy hours flying time, and in early February went to Point Cook which was an eighteen week course, finishing in, on the, received my wings on 25th of June 1943, went on embarkation leave, went to, then went to Brisbane by train, embarked on the, an American transport ship the Nordern, eleven thousand ton ship, which made a eighteen day non-stop trip to San Francisco. Disembarked there, and went to Angel Island, an American Army base in San Francisco Bay, four days there, with trips into San Francisco, then went up to Oakland, got on the train and went across America, and the transport was far superior to anything in Australia. Got to New York, went aboard the Aquitania, two days later it sailed for Greenock, a five and a half day trip, solo, with four thousand aircrew and I think it was seven thousand, seven thousand eight hundred American troops on board. Two meals a day, rather cramped, but quite an experience. Landed in Greenock, overnight trip to Brighton. We were, went on leave, disembarkation leave, went over to Wales for seven days, came back and another chap and I by the name of Ken Jagger, who incidentally I had gone to primary school at Waverley with, we were sent to Hullavington, the Central Flying School, for testing, this was testing the standard of training throughout the Empire Air Scheme. So we flew there with squadron leaders and wing commanders. And that station had ninety six types of aircraft on it and we went, crawled over every one of them! Went back to Brighton and from there was posted to Church Lawford in, what county was that? I can’t remember the name of the country, anyway it was near Rugby, and did three months there, including a BAT course, where instead of flying under the hood flew normally because it was in fog and rain all the time, perfect conditions, did twenty hours on the BAT course, then was sent to a holding depot, drome course at Snettersfield, which we spent three weeks there, couldn’t fly because the weather kept getting, cancelling flying. From there went to Acast, went to Moreton in the Marsh and did a nine week course, Operational Training Unit on Wellingtons and it was there my instructor, Flying Officer Duncan Dobbie, known as Drunken Duncan, on one occasion we went over to the satellite to pick up an aircraft, arriving back at Moreton, on a wet, windless day, on the shortest runway, pointing towards the six hundred foot hill, says do a flapless landing. I objected, but under instruction, I took the order, under protest, did the flapless, flapless landing, and we aquaplaned all the way down the runway, ran into a ploughed field, furrows at right angles, aircraft stood on its nose, my harness was perished, safety harness was snapped, I was flung into, headfirst into the windscreen. Didn’t know it at the time, but suffered total spinal compression, for which later I became a TPI.
JH: Jack, what type of aircraft was that?
JT: That was a Wellington.
JH: The Wellington. Yes.
JT: I was taken up to the hospital, the young doctor dressed, put a field dressing on the cut on my hand, and gave me some headache tablets.
JH: A TPI for those who don’t know what a TPI -
JT: Totally and Permanently Incapacitated, the, which I got in, I received that in 1989. It took them all that time to find out what the problem was, with my spinal problem. So from Moreton in the Marsh we went to an aerodrome in Yorkshire, called Acaster Melbis which was a -
JH: Had you crewed up at this stage?
JT: Yes, we crewed up at Moreton in Marsh.
JH: Okay. Tell me a little about how that happened, and how you all came together and a bit about your crew.
JT: Well, the, you’re just all put in a room of all the different categories and it’s up to you to sort yourself out.
JH: Yeah. And you had some mates there already?
JT: No.
JH: Or you didn’t know these people, other pilots.
JT: I only knew other pilots.
JH: Other pilots. You didn’t know -
JT: No. I didn’t know any of the other people. Ross was the first one, Ross Pearson was the first one. I thought he looks a likely looking lad. And then the, flight, we picked up our bomb aimer who’d been older than us, twenty eight year old, Jack White, had done his bomb aiming, he was a scrubbed pilot, he had done the bomb aiming course in Canada and had been an instructor there on the bomb aiming for some seven months, so we thought we had an experienced bomb aimer, which he was. Then we, sorry, I’m wrong there. The first bomb aimer we picked up was a Polish, and we picked him up, then we picked up the rear gunner, then the navigator, then the mid upper gunner. But there was no sort of order to it, you sort of, you were grabbing people in case there, no one else was left. We only did a couple of flights when the Polish bomb aimer decided that he wasn’t, didn’t want to stay with a non-Polish crew, he wanted to go to a Polish squadron. He went and saw the Chief Ground Instructor who bowed to his wishes, and we stood around then for the next month, waiting for the next intake.
JH: Yes.
JT: And that’s when Jack White came along and we grabbed, as soon as we saw him we grabbed him straight away. So we did our training there in Moreton in the Marsh, went on to Acaster Melbis which was a ground training establishment there run by the Kings Royal Rifle Corps and the Grenadier Guards. And we had simulated parachute training, unarmed combat, and all sort of things went on there. And it was there that we did the, a test, a night flying, a night eyesight test, which was a four day thing where you wore these extra dark glasses all the time. I’m just going to get [paper shuffling].
JH: Just pausing for a short break here. Back again.
JT: Yes. We’re back at this point where we’re doing this night eyesight testing for night vision. It’s a four day course, you wear these extra dark glasses, where you can only see a metre and a half in front of you at the most, and you go through all these exercises, training exercises and tests, but also a physical test which is carried out in the gym, and you play a form of hockey, but instead of a puck you’ve got a rope figure eight. I believe its an Irish game, but in the RAF they called it shinty for obvious reasons. Hacked on the shins! People used to come from far and wide on the station to watch these matches ‘cause they were so comical. Because of your lack of vision, often you lost contact with where the figure eight was and you had a couple of blokes hacking away and then nothing there! It was comic to watch. People would hit go to follow it and they’d be running in the wrong direction! It was entertainment and but quite unexpected. However this was a very effective programme because the improvement in night vision could be anything up to four hundred per cent. Quite remarkable.
JH: Yeah. My dad told me once they used to eat carrots. They used to think eating carrots all the time would improve night vision. Did you do that?
JT: Yes, and the reason given later on was that the Ministry of Agriculture Production because they were growing such huge quantities of carrots in England, in Britain, they were encouraging people to eat them and so they put out this story that it was good for the night vision. However, in recent years research by food scientists has revealed that it does [emphasis] help night vision! Haha! Yes. So that was Acaster Melbis. From there we went to Riccall, 16 58 Heavy Conversion Unit.
JH: And by, by now you were becoming a crew, getting to know each other.
JT: This is where we picked up the flight engineer.
JH: The flight engineer, yes.
JT: And I had as my flying instructor there, Squadron, my rear gunner was John Williamson, and my English flying instructor at Riccall was Squadron Leader John Williamson, and one of the finest gentlemen I’ve ever met in my life. Wonderful man; wonderful instructor. And I had never liked the Wellington, I considered it, because of its geodic construction, because it wallowed and mushed a bit in the air. It was a pleasure to get on, back to an aircraft that was directing its controls. I took the Halifax like a duck to water and it, it was a very pleasant time there at Riccall, except for something we witnessed, an episode there that was quite frightening. We were marching back to lunch one day and, this was a number of aircrews, we, marching along, and in comes a Mosquito, making an emergency landing, and his problem, it was a night flying Mosquito, with Polish pilot and navigator, they’d been up for a test flight, the undercarriage had failed to come down properly, one leg had come down and locked, the other leg had come down half way, couldn’t, and neither could be retracted. So after some violent aerobatics to try and shake it down, it was decided he’d make a landing, and he came in, fire wagons and ambulance were waiting at the ready at the end of the runway, he came in, landed hard [emphasis] which snapped the leg that was down, it went up through the wing, he went into the belly landing position, but when it went through the wing it set the fuel tank on fire. Here it is scooting along the runway, and by the time it got down to about thirty mile an hour, they jettisoned their hood, were both out running along the starboard wing and jumped off.
JH: Still going along.
JT: And rolled on the grass safely. The aircraft burnt out, and the following, when the following day, they pushed the engines to the side, and the following day there were these two little molten masses that had been the merlin engines and they filled a hole in the runway that was about six hundred by six hundred and about eight hundred mils deep caused by the fire. So that was quite a thing to watch, but while it was scooting along the runway, it also, the fire had set the ammunition off and the twenty millimetre cannons and 303s were shooting straight ahead, which happened to be a railway line at right angles to the end of the runway and there was a train going past.
JH: Oh!
JT: And all the people were watching the, this display, until the guard ran along and told them there was ammunition and then the train appeared to be empty. However, nobody was hit, fortunately.
JH: That’s an amazing story.
JT: Yeah. So from Riccall, we went to Pocklington, to 102 Squadron and that’s when I converted there, in the first week, on to the mark three, which was noticeably, outperformed the twos that I’d trained on at Riccall, and from there we started our operations.
JH: So your first, I’m sure you’ll never forget your first operations.
JT: My first operation was unsuccessful. The first operation was a flying bomb site in France and -
JH: Poisson.
JT: It was a night trip, it was, the only night that I can remember the sky being totally black, because there was a layer of cloud at about four thousand feet, we were flying south at two thousand feet and shortly after take off, the Gee packed up. So when we got down to where the point where the point was where we turn eastwards towards the French coast and the bomb site, we were well west of where we should have been, in fact I think we may have been over London as we were lucky we weren’t fired upon. So when we turned east, suddenly the target area was all lit up and it was so far away, the raid was all over, we were still headed towards it, so all we could do was head back to base, which we did. And when we got back to base, the, er I, on the way back we asked Darky for guidance, and Darky guided us to base, but unfortunately being a first time operation pilot I was very green, I never thought to ask the controller should I go and drop the bombs out in the safety zone, and he never suggested it, he also was a beginner. So we landed with our full bomb load. Safely. Fortunately. But I got a bit of a bollocking from the Wing Commander. This was before Wing Commander Wilson had arrived. This was the earlier Wing Commander whose name I can’t remember.
JH: Wow! And I suppose if you return early you, you get an extra grilling at the debriefing to show why you, you turned back. Is that correct?
JT: Yeah, well we turned back, as I explained to them, we couldn’t find the target, and when we sighted the target it was all over, was too late to go there. We couldn’t find it anyway, by that time.
JH: So the next raid you did, the next raids I believe were daylight raids.
JT: Yes, day light raids.
JH: Yes. What was the target on those?
JT: Those were, if I remember correctly were -
JH: In Paris.
JT: The next one, that’s right, no, the second one was a bomb site, flying bomb site, and the third one was, Paris, the railway yards in Villiers, and that was a daylight.
JH: So what was, this is in 84, what was the morale like on the station? D-Day had happened, things were, the tide was turning.
JT: Well we were at Riccall. Ah, well this is interesting. We were at Riccall when D-Day occurred. We were in the hut getting ready to go to breakfast. And a chap, one Canadian had a radio, and suddenly we heard the announcer, he’s yelling and saying ‘D-Day, D-Day!’; we hear the announcement that troops had fought and landed on the coast of France. It was a vile day with south west winds and low cloud at, on the French coast, but at Riccall it was a lovely sunny day, very pleasant with a light wind blowing. Totally opposite to what was happening where the troops were. So when we got, by the time we got to the squadron yes, morale was quite good on the squadron. But we still had quite considerable losses. What, in my time on the squadron we lost thirty three aircraft. The worst being one time we were on leave, we were on our six day leave and on the Monday night the squadron lost five aircraft, on the Tuesday night the squadron lost five aircraft, and on the Wednesday night they lost three. They lost thirteen aircraft in three nights. And practically all of them were pilots, crews on their first trip.
JH: Hmm. People have told me that the crews tended to bond together quite a bit and not, not generally making friends with other crews so much.
JT: We did there.
JH: We did there, yeah, yeah. So, then, looking at the sorties looked like you were quite busy August, September, October. Perhaps you’d like to mention, you’d like to single out any particular raids there, in that period?
JT: The Duisburg raid. But before I get to Duisburg, 8th of August.
JH: Here we are, Belle Croix. Ah, yes! What about talking about the Falaise Gap.
JT: Yes. That’s it. This was the episode, the Falaise Gap. This was the British Army and the Canadian First Army were held up because the ground in between them and the town of Caen was so bomb cratered that the tanks couldn’t travel there. So it was decided we’d carry out a raid with thousand pound bombs which would level the whole area and we were carrying twelve one thousand pounders, flying at twelve thousand feet, there two hundred and thirty aircraft on the raid and we were in the first wave, and very much up towards the front of the first wave.
JH: How were the targets marked, Jack, on that?
JT: Oh, there was a sodium line of flares in front of the army which was called the bombing line which we had to be beyond and we were to be six hundred yards beyond that before any bombs were dropped. We had just released our bombs when there was a huge [emphasis] explosion in the forest the best of half a mile to the left of us. And as it turned out subsequent, there was a seven thousand pound bomb dump plus a Panzer bivouacked in the forest. The blast, the explosions of the seven thousand ton dump set fire to the forest and the Panzer was virtually destroyed and the personnel, for the most part, about two thirds apparently, and a lot of them were burnt to death. The raid was immediately cancelled because of the, the effects of this huge explosion of the bomb dump, and we thought we’d been hit by flak because we, I lost contro,l the air started to flutter down but it was the blast causing it and we flew out of it and we were safe. It took me years later to figure and I think I have figured it out that the aircraft that dropped its bombs on the bomb dump, at the moment that the bomb aimer was dropping his bombs, I think he hit the slipstream of the aircraft in front of him, it tilted the aircraft to about a forty five degree angle which skewed the bombs into the forest. And that’s my reading, understanding and reading of it anyway.
JH: Hmm. What was the, the outcome on the ground? Were they, they made rapid progress I presume.
JT: No, they, the raid was cancelled, see.
JH: Yes.
JT: No, what happened was, it was replanned for another day.
JH: Yeah. They still couldn’t get through.
JT: Still couldn’t get through.
JH: The bad ground.
JT: So the, another raid was planned on which Halifaxes and Lancs went in again, but we weren’t on it, and they cleared the ground and the troops were able to go through and capture Caen.
JH: Hmm. It’s an amazing story. What about, you were telling me about a near miss. Was that on one of these raids?
JT: No, Duisburg is the next one.
JH: Yes, let’s talk about that. Yeah.
JT: Duisburg, it was a, yes, October, 14th of October ‘44. Was a lovely sunny day, we were due on target at 10am. This was a massive [emphasis] raid, it was the ten thousand ton raid on Duisburg. Bomber Command in the morning at 10am, USAAF at around midday or a little later, and then Bomber Command back at eleven o’clock that night. We were on the 10am one and about twenty minutes before, we were on the approach to Duisburg, about twenty minutes before the target, looked across to, down to the right and here we could see five V2s on a hardstanding and just one of them, one of them took off but, and it headed towards England. Then a little later they fired a second one which took on a distorted path and flew away as though it was headed towards Sweden. Then the third one fired, and it went towards, right back out of control and headed toward Russia, the eastern front. Then the fourth one, by this time we were up level with them, the fourth one took off, rose about three hundred feet in the air, fell back and blew the whole place to pieces.
JH: My goodness.
JT: We applauded.
JH: My goodness. Yeah. Completely unexpected that incident, yeah. Hmm. Yes. Well, that, that’s an interesting one.
JT: Yes.
JH: You were telling me also, before we were chatting, um, a Halifax from 35 Squadron came up.
JT: That was on Kiel, not me. Back there on Kiel.
JH: Ah. You got a good tip on night flying.
JT: On night flying. How to avoid the night fighters.
JH: Perhaps you’d like to tell me a bit.
JT: Yes, I’ll go back to that one, that date there, which was the Kiel raid. There, there it, yes.
JH: Kiel, yes, August 1944.
JT: Yes. The Kiel raid was a night raid. It was a strange night, it was misty, but visibility was about half a mile, I think it, maybe there was moonlight, and it could have been moonlight. Anyway, we were flying through this, straight and level, along this there not an aircraft in sight anywhere, none of ours, couldn’t see any other bombers, then the rear gunner reported an aircraft behind us and coming up astern. He wasn’t sure what it was until it got a bit closer and then he said oh it’s another Halifax. This Halifax came up and overtook us and it was weaving all the time, weaving, weaving and undulating in flight, and I realised what it was, it was a Pathfinder flying up through the main force and he gave, I took the tip: do not [emphasis] ever fly straight and level because you’re a sitting duck target. Keep moving, skid, undulate up and do everything unexpected and that way you were a difficult target. Which I proceeded to do on the rest of my tour. I think that has a lot to do with me being here today.
JH: It’s a good story Jack. So, tell me a little about life on the base by then, Pocklington.
JT: Oh, Pocklington. A wonderful base. A very good, good mix of, very [emphasis] mixed crowd. The most mixed crowd of any outfit I’ve ever been with. I think I’ve a note of it here in one of. Now where is it. Where is it, I can’t find it. Anyway, I’ll do it from memory.
JH: Yes, that’s fine. Oh dear! The wind!
JT: The wind. I hope this, the wind isn’t interfering with your sound.
JH: I think it’ll be okay.
JT: Anyway, there were English, when I say English, they were Scot, there were Welsh, there were Irish, there were Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, one American, one from Trinidad, who, a black man who was a dentist: a navigator, South Africans, one Rhodesian. One Rhodesian, can’t think of any others.
JH: I think you’ve covered – quite a few countries!
JT: That’s an amazing mix and they got on very, very well, the silly jokes: the Rhodesian was Vernon Fitt, Flying Officer Fitt so they all asked him if his sister was Miss Fitt [laughter]. The Canadians called us the bike troops, we called them the redskins, we all called the New Zealanders the mud islanders, the and the showers was called the Commonwealth Club and, because no Englishmen went there, [laugh] we’re a bit derogatory and of course we called the Englishmen pongos in those days. But everybody did it in good spirits.
JH: Good spirit.
JT: And it was all a big laugh. And we had some extraordinary characters, there was Warrant Officer Dixon was a Canadian bomb aimer, a man of great wit and charm, and when he went up for his commission the Group Captain said to him, ‘I see you’ve done four years of university but you’ve only passed two years of arts. And I see on the record that your father is a doctor and your four brothers and a sister are doctors. How do you explain your situation?’ He said, ‘Sir, I am the white sheep of the family!’ It didn’t stop him getting his commission. [Laughter] And another episode, this was our first day, the first morning we woke up on the squadron and it gives you an idea of the humour and wit that was all the time there. The tannoy would go, the tannoy would go and play the bugle. Chief Engineering Officer, he was a world war one man, and one of his duties was, he was the officer in charge against black marketeering within the RAF, and associated, tradesmen associated with this. So, whenever he found any evidence of it, the black market items were confiscated. In some cases these were chicken, which we dined on in the officers mess. [laughter]
JH: Yeah, of course!
JT: So, he was a very useful man, this Wing Commander Hill.
JH: I’m sure he was.
JT: And most likeable with it. The Group Captain was a real character too, and I used to look at this old, old elderly man who would listen to our, come and sit down and listen to our debriefings, and as a twenty year old, of course I thought this, what I figured to be a fifty six year old man or thereabouts, you know, this is an old fuddy duddy, no doubt he was world war one. But I found out later that this Group Captain used to get in his car with a flying suit on, and a parachute, and drive out to the runway where the aircraft were taxying out towards take off point, and Ron Horton got signalled to a stop, and the Group Captain climbed aboard, and sat behind, beside him the whole trip, never said a word, thanked him when they got back and got out, and got in his car.
JH: Thanks for the lift!
JT: Shortly after the aircraft turned off the runway and went back so that he was in the debriefing room when the crews came in.
JH: How about that.
JT: What a character!
JH: Yes. And very popular by the sound of it. Yeah.
JT: Oh, and the, we were a base so we had a Air Commodore. Our Air Commodore was Air Commodore Gus Walker, later Air Vice Marshal Sir [emphasis] Gus Walker. He, he was an Air Commodore at twenty seven years of age, the reason being he was a Group Captain at twenty four and CO of a Lancaster squadron airfield, and the spare aircraft one night, the, the incendiaries dropped out of the aircraft and were burning on the ground, under the cookie. And he jumped in his car and raced towards it, got out and was running, his idea is he’s going to run and start up the engine and taxi it clear, but when he was a certain distance from the aircraft the cookie went off and it blew his arm off, at the elbow. Lucky it didn’t kill him.
JH: Could have been worse, yeah.
JT: Yes. But when he, when they came to, he was such a cool customer, when the ambulance arrived he said, ‘Find that arm, it’s got a perfectly good glove on it.’ That’s the sort of man he was. He was a most interesting character, and again, one of nature’s gentleman.
JH: Yes. So that, you were telling me before about a very near miss. Which raid was that on? Was that your first tour or the second tour?
JT: No, that was, I was just one tour. This was Hannover,
JH: Yes.
JT: If you turn up Hannover.
JH: Let me have a look here.
JT: It’s near the end.
JH: Okay, just looking through the list here. Here’s Hannover, in January, a night raid, near collision. 5th of January ‘45.
JT: 5th of January, ’45. Yes. It was a clear night, no moon, starlit. We were travelling on our way in to Hannover, and I think it was about ten minutes or so before the target, suddenly out of the corner of my right eye I caught sight of a fighter, of a, and it was an FW190 went straight across in front of us, travelling slightly [emphasis] down, and in that instant you, you’re not sure whether you saw it or not, but you know you did, but it’s happened so fast, it’s, everything is in recollection. And I though, goodness me, that was an FW190, painted black, shiny black, his canopy was open and I could see the pilot, I could see his oxygen mask, I could see his shiny black leather jacket, I could see the crease of the shoulder. And then I thought, how close was that, how far, that was a cricket pitch, no more. So when I, later on, on the ground I started putting it all together and figured it out there was point two of a second, and worked out the closing speed was roughly three hundred and eighty mile an hour. He didn’t see us, and when I, at debriefing when I went to the, said to the, told the story to the debriefing officer and said he was flying with his canopy open, ‘That’s impossible,’ he said, ‘no one could fly it’s too cold because it was minus forty five degrees.’ However, the following day in the mess, he came up to me at lunchtime and said, ‘you were right about that FW190. I’ve been in touch with headquarters in London and that you cannot fly a 190 at night with the canopy closed because the glare from the exhaust dazzles you, dazzles on the windscreen, and you can’t see.’ I said so they fly freezing. However, I was glad he was point two of a second ahead because if we’d have collided, he’d have killed the, immediately killed the flight engineer and myself no doubt about it, and no doubt about himself, and the others would have had to find their way out.
JH: I’m assuming most of the crew blissfully unaware!
JT: Totally unaware, I was the only one who saw him.
JH: Yes, so did you go down the pub that night and explain it with the crew?
JT: I explained it to them, I didn’t explain until the following day and the, and they were quite shocked by it.
JH: Incredible. And I believe you’ve, you’ve done a painting of it.
JT: I’ve done a painting of that.
JH: From memory obviously.
JT: Yes. And one, John, John, oh he was a geologist. John, a member of 466 Squadron, you’d know him. John Mac, I can’t think of his surname.
JH: Oh well, I’m sure we’ll find out later. Yeah.
JT: Yes. Anyway, what was I going to mention about him?
JH: About the painting.
JT: Oh yes, he got me to do, to get a print, a photo print of it, which he kept for some time and then sent on to the War Memorial in Canberra.
JH: Oh fantastic!
JT: Yeah, and I’ve shown John here a copy of it and shown the original that’s hanging in the hallway.
JH: Well, I’d like to see that after the interview.
JT: I’m going to rework it so it can be viewed without having to put a torch on it.
JH: Yes. That’s excellent. Well, we’re scanning through, we’re sort of coming, coming to the end of some of the raids here, are there any, any particular ones in the second, the later part of the tour you’d like to bring to mind?
JT: There was the, the one that, the last daylight on Gelsenkirchen.
JH: Yes.
JT: That’s a night.
JH: Do you realise that was the same day, seventy three years ago. 22nd of January.
JT: Oh right, right.
JH: How about that.
JT: Yeah. Now -
JH: Seventy three years.
JT: Seventy three years ago. Turn over to the next page, the Gelsenkirchen was one of our last. Is it there? Is it not.
JH: Well it’s here, it’s written down there, but just, there’s no details.
JT: No, that’s a night raid.
JH: Night raid.
JT: No, we went to Gelsenkirchen, that was earlier.
JH: Okay, let’s look back. Just looking back here. Here we are. The 11th of September, 1944. Gelsenkirchen, daylight raid on the oil refinery. Yes.
JT: The, this was the one, that we were approaching the target, this is a target which twelve hundred yards long, by I think it was eight hundred yards wide. Very small target, very [emphasis] heavily defended: eighty eight guns, eighty eight millimetre, ack ack everywhere. As we are approaching the target, we, we came up, and turned on to the target, so as we’re coming up I’m looking across at the target at about forty five degrees, and the flak is enormous, it’s just like patches everywhere in the sky. And at this stage Ross Pearson looks out the window and sees it and says to the navigator sitting alongside in front of him, ‘look at that, some poor bugger’s have got to face that,’ and the navigator said to him ‘we turn on to that target in three minutes time.’ Scared the daylights out of Ross. I turned on to the target and looked at it, and I thought we’ll never get through this, this is it, where we finish. However, when we got into the target area it, I realised this was a box barrage which was not aimed at any particular aircraft, and what we were seeing was all the puffs that had been fired at the earlier aircraft and when we got through it, when we got into the zone, it wasn’t that intense, but we heaved a sigh of relief when we got out of it.
JH: Was, were there any night fighters?
JT: No, that was a daylight.
JH: Oh, this was a daylight. Yeah, yeah.
JT: And of course we had fighter escort.
JH: Yeah. Which was the raid you mentioned you had heavy fighter support? Like four hundred.
JT: That was that Falaise Gap.
JH: That was the Falaise Gap. Four hundred fighters.
JT: Yeah, two hundred, two hundred Mustangs and two hundred Spitfires.
JH: Yes.
JT: But one other one, I’ve forgotten which one it was, it could well have been either that -
JH: Have a look through.
JT: I’ll tell you which one it was. It was a daylight. Ah yes, it was probably this one: Cleve.
JH Cleve, this is 7th October 1944, daylight raid.
JT: And our escort that day was two hundred plus Mustangs, basically American. So we’re on our way into the target in this great bomber stream, and suddenly the rear gunner said, ‘fighter four o’clock low’. So I look back and I can see this fighter coming round, and he said, the rear gunner says, ‘it looks like a FW109,’ then he said, as it got a bit closer he said, ‘oh no it’s a Mustang,’ and the mid upper gunner joined in and said ‘yes it’s a Mustang.’ So, but he kept coming, and I said if he gets too close, just fire a warning burst, I said to the mid upper gunner, ‘fire a warning burst, not at him, but just fire a warning burst.’ However, when he got to a certain distance he did a, he came right up like that, and did a barrel roll and went off. [Laughter] So he was a, some light-hearted, cheeky American fighter pilot who was having his, probably his first close look at a Halifax.
JH: That is interesting. So normally, you know, when you have a huge fighter escort like that for the raid on Falaise. How would they deploy? Were they to one side?
JT: You didn’t se. No. You didn’t see much of them because most of them were up high.
JH: They’re up high. Yes.
JT: Or way out to the left, way out to the right, or ahead or behind. He was the closest we ever saw. We saw, we did see them up high, quite a number, but, you know, they were probably six or seven thousand feet at least above us.
JH: Yes.
JT: Very interesting thing comes out of that, I picked up two: the FW190 which is a much-feared fighter, met its match in a very unusual way. The Thunderbolts, and this is interesting, the RAF tend to sneer a bit at the Thunderbolt because it was so heavy, but do you know they turned out fourteen thousand Thunderbolts, Republic, and the Americans were very happy with them, for good reason. On those massive Fortress and Liberator raids over Germany, the absolute top cover were Thunderbolts because if a Mustangs or others down lower got jumped by a 190 it would be a Thunderbolt come to the rescue because it was the only aircraft that could overtake a 190 in a dive, and a 190 knew once a Thunderbolt it got on his tail in a dive it was curtains.
JH: Yes, and the higher ceiling for the Thunderbolt. So they were sitting up there.
JT: Yes. It was up high, they flew top cover all the time.
JH: That’s an interesting comment, yeah. Okay, well, any more raids to talk about? Did you engage any fighters on any of these?
JT: Ah! We, we had a, we had a couple of oh yes, yes, there was, um, two, two things: there was, one of the last raids, one of our last raids was, there were that many fighters around I never stopped weaving. I was, you could see the, see aircraft being shot down, there were so many aircraft being shot down, you weren’t seeing the actual fighters, but you were seeing aircraft being hit, and you knew that they were - and they hung with us for about oh probably twenty, twenty five minutes on the return flight from the target, before we sort of flew out of it, and there was an occasion or there was an occasion when we were, oh yes, a couple of occasions, one occasion was where there was a burst of flak near us on the right, so I moved a bit further away to the left, and then there was another burst of flak much closer [emphasis] up on the right, and as I start to move away from it – tracer. 20mm tracer came through it, and unfortunately I got into a dive to the port and went over the top of us, but obviously a ME109 or FW190 had come through that flak and fired at us, and it was the flak that attracted my attention, tracer got out of the way
JH: If you hadn’t seen the tracer you wouldn’t have seen him.
JT: We’d have possibly been hit. The other one was, that on one raid, a night raid, I was asked to take Major, Major Bathgate, an artillery expert, on the flight, ‘cause he wanted, they needed to study the flak. So we were approaching the target and the flak burst over the right, he said, ‘can you go a bit closer?’ So very reluctantly I steered over towards the flak and then a burst ahead of that, another burst ahead of it. He said, ‘go closer if you can.’ So we went up two lots of flak that we went uncomfortably [emphasis] close to. I would never have done it without him on board, but it satisfied him. ‘Oh yes, its 88 mil, right we don’t need to look at any more.’ And I heaved a sigh of relief on that occasion. The other occasion that I haven’t mentioned, I don’t know which, I can’t remember.
JH: Yes. Is it Mulheim?
JT: No, that was daylight.
JH: That’s a daylight one. Yeah.
JT: No, that was a night raid with him. It was one of the late ones. It was -
JH: Have you had - we’re just looking through, um, Dusseldorf was in November.
JT: It could have been that.
JH: Or you had Wilhelmshaven.
JT: No, it could have been Dusseldorf.
JH: Yeah.
JT: Dusseldorf yeah, it was either that, either one of those.
JH: Night fighter firing and missing.
JT: Ah, that was, that, no it was Cologne was the one with Major Bathgate.
JH: Okay. Righto. You mentioned before the Mulheim raid, the daylight raid.
JT: That was the one where the air speed indicator failed on take off.
JH: Hmm. And you continued with the operation, with the raid, you were committed with the full bomb load.
JT: Yeah, we took off, it flew, the aircraft flew off fortunately, it wasn’t the engines, it was the airspeed indicator, but we, did a slow, climb slowly as a result of that, to avoid stalling, we got to operational height and of course we had no air speed indicator, no bomb sight and no Gee: navigational aid. However, because it was daylight and the bomber stream was visible, we joined it and went to the target. But when we got to the target, in order to drop our bombs I formated on another aircraft, I think he was new, and jumpy and I though he’ll be a bit early with his bombs gone, so I said to the bomb aimer, ‘I’ll count to four and then you release,’ which we did, and we got an aiming point, so he was well short with his bombs. The other occasion I haven’t mentioned, and I think this might have been, yes I think it might have been on that, on the Magdeburg raid. Pretty certain it was.
JH: Magdeburg, here we are, in January, a night raid. Yeah.
JT: It’s the only occasion which I was ever coned by searchlights. I got away from single searchlights quite easily. but this time the blue, the blue radar searchlight picked me up and it was absolutely dazzling, [emphasis] so I went into, did a couple of corkscrews, and realised how helpless that was, no help at all, hopeless. So I went to the top of the corkscrew and then suddenly went into a, almost vertical wingtip position, and put the nose right down and went into a screaming dive to port, and we lost something like six thousand feet, and got up to about well over three hundred mile an hour on the airspeed indicator, but we shed all searchlights. And thus I realised that’s the only way to get out of it, coning, was to put it into the steepest possible dive.
JH: Pretty extreme manoeuvre.
JT: Conversation with other pilots, post, after I’d been screwing, they had had the same experience and had got out of it the same way.
JH: Well Jack, that Magdeburg, that was your last but one raid, and then you, I think you did one more operation, correct? Correct, yeah. Would you like to talk about how it all wound up, that was the end of the operations. So what, what happened after your last operation?
JT: Ah, the, oh yes, this Wing Commander Barnard from Coastal Command, and the rigid disciplinarian; one of the customs when you’re on your last raid, is you don’t have to come back in your order, you can come back as fast as you like and be there as early as, home as possible. So what happened three of us were finishing on the one night. What happened was, we all called up bang bang bang I was the third one to call up.
JH: Do you call pancake? Is that the?
JT: No, the permission to land.
JH: Permission to land, yeah.
JT: And he is in the debriefing room, but they hear, can hear the, what is going on in the Tower, re broadcast. As soon as he heard me call up, ‘That man is not flying according to regulation, put him on a charge when he lands.’ The debriefing officers had considerable trouble persuading him it was a relished custom that on your last trip you come back hell for leather. So it gives an insight into the character of the man.
JH: So, you weren’t court martialled!
JT: No. So anyway you land. We were, it was quite interesting.
JH: By the way, did you know that was your last operation by the way?
JT: Oh yes. Yes, we were operating on a point system. Three points for a non-German target, four points for a German target and that took us to I think a hundred and nineteen points. And anyway, when you land -
JH: I think they call them fly-bys now – small joke, sorry!
JT: Good joke, yes, good fly-bys. When you got to the debriefing room, immediately inside was somebody with a keg of rum and coffee, and the idea was that you had a coffee royal. And the man dishing it out was always, on 102 Squadron, was Padre Paddy, gee, I’ve forgotten his name. Anyway, this was a Roman Catholic priest, a Queenslander, who’d been in Rome when Italy came into the war, and he was interned ‘cause he was living outside the Vatican, he was interned. However, later, under Red Cross, he was repatriated to England and he was sent to see a Bishop in London and he thought, ‘oh this is my, I’ll get my trip back to Australia.’ And he arrives at this Bishop, English Bishop and the English Bishop says to him, ‘right, well now, you’re going to the RAF Pocklington as the Roman Catholic Padre.’ ‘ I thought I was going back to Australia!’ ‘Well you can think again, you’re going to Pocklington.’ [Laugh] So he was, he was a character, a very fit athletic bloke, captained our football team and he was the disher out of the coffee and the rum, very heavy on the rum.
JH: That’s good to hear. I’m sure you appreciated that!
JT: Great chap. We appreciated him no end.
JH: So, that was your last operation.
JT: So having finished, you get, there’s this a great feeling of relief. You’re left four days on the, you stay there for another four days and soak it all up.
JH: Yup
JT: Take your ground staff out and to the pub and buy them beers as a thank you.
JH: Yes.
JT: And give them, as Australians we gave them tinned fruit, and tinned cake and stuff like that, on that night as well.
JH: Yes. And you had to hand over your Halifax to another crew.
JT: Crew. Which went on to do, V Victor, which I’d taken over as a new aircraft, because somebody lost the original V Victor, another crew, and then that V Victor went on and was, at the end of the war, had done fifty trips and was pensioned off.
JH: Pensioned off, yes.
JT: So we were very happy. We had a wonderful [emphasis] ground staff. The, our flight sergeant in charge of them was a terrific bloke. He was a man, I think, you know, he was no chicken, he was thirty four or thirty five. A very experienced man.
JH: Yes. Yes.
JH: Did they ever, tell me, did they ever come up on a trip?
JT: Ah yes, not on a trip, but they used to go on test flights.
JH: Test flights. Yes.
JT: Oh yes. We were always eager to have a test flight. We were always eager to invite them on a test flight.
JH: Yes. Good insurance policy.
JT: We also took them on a, on a, when we did a test bombing, you know, you’d practice bombing. We did a couple of practice bombings on the squadron, so we took along as many as we could.
JH: Yes.
JT: I enjoyed those trips.
JH: Yes.
JT: That was one of them. The one, the one trip that ended on a sour note.
JH: Really.
JT: One bombing raid. We went on this bombing raid, ‘cause at night you’re on oxygen all the time. Anyway, we’re on oxygen [sniff] – ‘oh god that tastes awful!’ Hmm, and next thing, you’re burping and then after a while you’re passing wind! And we got back, and I said to the chappie who’s looked after the oxygen, he was a, what was he? Was the electrical fitter was he? Or, anyway, he was one of the fitters, ‘What’s wrong with that oxygen?’ So he tested it; oh,’ he said, ‘its gone sour.’ ‘Oh get that out of there!’
JH: Gone sour.
JT: Yeah, the oxygen gone sour.
JH: Really. Never heard of that.
JT: And sour oxygen is no good for the intestines, plays up with them no end. [Laughter] So that’s, as I say, that’s the one trip that ended on a sour note.
JH: Yes. Literally. So, I expect you had some leave coming.
JT: Yes. Went on, the, you go in and see the adjutant, who was another charming gentleman, a flight lieutenant Englishman who’d been in world war, decorated from world war one, Mac somebody, lovely bloke, here’s your leave pass, seven days leave, and we’ll post your log book on to you ‘cause it’s getting a green endorsement.
JH: Right.
JT: And I’ll notify when you come back. No, wait a minute, ah yes, when you come back, we notify you your posting. That’s right.
JH: Yes.
JT: So and we’ll post your log book on to you wherever you’re posted to. So I get back, I go and have the seven days leave. Get back and I’m posted back to pock, Moreton on the Marsh, which I didn’t particularly like as a station, because Group Captain Elliot, stuttering Sam, was a very unpleasant CO, disliked by everybody, ground staff, aircrew. He was a, rather unpleasant character. He, there was a seniors officers mess, was a separate building. He commandeered it, and took it over, and confiscated all the cream blankets that the officers had and that became the home of he and his paramour, he had a live in girlfriend.
JH: Oh I see.
JT: And he was a problem. For example there’s a, example quoted of an aircraftsman who’d been AWOL goes up on a charge in front of him, and he, ‘I-I-I s-sentence you to-to-to se-se-se-se,’ and the aircraftsman made the mistake: he said, ‘seven days, sir’. ‘Y-y-y-yes n-n-now its f-f-four-fourteen.’ That’s the sort of bloke he was. And I’m in my flight office in one day. There were two Moroccan pilots, they’d, they were long, warrant officers, they’d been out in the middle east and been right through that campaign, they were instructors, and their surname was Al-Azraki. So I pick up, answer the phone in the flight office: it’s Stuttering Sam. ‘W-w-will you send down w-w-warrant officers warrant officer al-alza-alza-alza, he went on, alza-alza-alza, and I was so tempted to say Raki, no I’m gone, so I waited and waited finally he got Varaki out.
JH: Yeah.
JT: Sent them down They were going for their commission interview.
JH: Yes.
JT: The, he had, the sergeant in charge of the mess was a fat creep and he was, he was his spy. He used to report back to him everything that went on in the mess.
JH: I’m sure you soon figured that out, you chaps.
JT: So they, this bloke rode a motorbike, so they used to take his motorbike and hide it! Then he, then stuttering Sam decided the mess needed repainting, which it didn’t, so he got it done. So what they did, I don’t know who did it, but they got a boot, tied it on to a long pole, dipped it in mud and put footprints right across the ceiling. [Laughter]
JH: That’s in the officers mess? Yes. Wonder if it’s still there? We could go on for hours, you know. But let’s, let’s talk about how, repatriation do you call it, isn’t it, coming back here, finishing up there, demobilisation, repatriation.
JT: Right, we, we stayed at Moreton in the Marsh till the 22nd June 45, went to Brighton holding there, transit depot and I came home on the, left, left Brighton on the 15th of September.
JH: Yes.
JT: On the, came home on the ship called the Stratheden, which had just been refurbished for passenger use again - the dining room. So the dining room was serving passenger food.
JH: I wonder if Don Browning came back on that?
JT: I don’t know. I don’t remember him being on it. Anyway the cooks were Ghanese, and they served, on their menu every day was a curry, amongst other things.
JH: Yes.
JT: I had a different curry every day,
JH: Yes.
JT: I went and had curry every day, went right through their whole list.
JH: Yes. Menu.
JT.: Whole menu of curries, before I had something else.
JH: And you still like curry?
JT: I Love curry!
JH: I bet you do!.
JT: Their curries were fantastic. The whole, the meals were absolutely terrific. Came back here, land in Sydney, Bradfield depot, Bradfield as a transit depot.
JH: Yes.
JT: Was finally discharged on the, I think it was the 9th of December 1945. And in 1946 I took the opportunity of completing my schooling. On the CRDS, did twelve months and did the Leaving Certificate, Then went to Sydney Technical College and became a Quantity Surveyor, five year course there.
JH: Oh right. Yes.
JT: They don’t call them quantity surveyors any more, they call them, they became a degree course at University of Technology at the University of New South Wales and they’re called building surveyors.
JH: Yes, yes. And so what about family? You met your wife in Sydney.
JT: Yes. The, unfortunately, I had one daughter, only had one child the first marriage, my wife, first wife died.
JH: I see. Yes.
JT: And I married Elizabeth who had three children, so we put the two families together and we were all one family, that’s how I got a son. My stepson Bruce is my son Bruce.
JH: Geologist
JT: No, no, that’s my, that was my son-in-law.
JH: Son-in-law.
JT: My daughter Kit, my own daughter Kit married Michael Bonneybrook. He was the geologist. I wish I could remember the name of that machine they were using that he few with all the time. He went all over the world, he was in the, he went to America, Canada, Peru, Brazil, China, India, various countries in Africa, all over the place, all over the world.
JH: Geology, geologist is being a paid traveller.
JT: Unfortunately, his father - incidentally who was a quantity surveyor, and actually taught quantity surveying in Queensland at the university - his father suffered from cardiomyopathy and died at about, probably seventy years of age, but Mike got it at fifty eight and died.
JH: Oh, that’s sad.
JT: Very unfortunate because he was a wonderful bloke.
JH: Yes. It sounds like you had a successful career, and now you’re up here on the coast.
JT: I was, as a quantity surveyor, I retired, they finally found something was wrong with my spine.
JH: From that compression?
JT: I retired, not, they hadn’t found the full compression. I initially I went to the repat back in 1947 I think it was, or ‘48. But I struck an unfortunate doctor there and he was not interested in pensions or treating people, he was interested only in knocking people back; that was his modus operandi. But in 1957 I found a doctor who had the sense to send me for x-rays. But he – only upper back x-rays - and they discovered I had this problem, spinal compression and so in 1957 I retired - ill health. But the doctor who discovered this, he said, ‘You’re not to sit around,’ he said. ‘Go and pick apples,’ he said, ‘what I’m saying is, do something that’s physical, you’re not sitting down, but you’re doing something, you’re moving a lot,’ he said, ‘that’ll help your condition.’
JH: Yes.
JT: So that’s how we came to, we went to Bonville and we bought this property which was running horses at the time, the previous owner, next door, one side of us was a macadamia orchard and the other side was avocados. We looked at them both and we decided avocados was the way to go. But we put avocados in on the like a slope, a hill on the back, put them in on the slope, but on the other land, we got interested in peaches and nectarines, out those in, but towards the end of our time there I took all those out, because I’d reasoned out that if you reshape the land and the hills and valleys, you could grow avocados on the flat, on the hills, which I did, put in avocados there.
JH: Yes, okay
JT: And that was successful. But at 64 I’d had enough, and by that time I’d been to another doctor who finally said we’ll have a full [emphasis] spinal x-ray and he said you’ve had total spinal x-ray and that’s when he recommended me for the full TPI. And amongst those things they send you to a to a psychiatrist. And the psychiatrist says to me, he’s a character, he said ‘Do you know why you’re here?’ I said, ‘I suppose you’re going to decide whether I’m sane or not!’ He said, ‘oh no, that’s not the reason you’re here,’ so he said, ‘tell me how your accident happened.’ I told him. And he said. And I, ‘A strange thing,’ I said, ‘that man’s name will never leave me: Flying Officer Duncan Dobbie.’ He said ‘do you know why you remember that man’s name?’ he said, ‘Because he tried to kill you: your subconscious tells you he tried to kill you that day. It was such a foolish action, that could have resulted in death. So your subconscious says: he was trying to kill that’s why you’ll never forget his name.’ Interesting wasn’t it.
JH: Isn’t that interesting.
JT: He was quite a funny man, that, it was a very funny interview.
JH: You probably made his day, Jack.
JT: Ah, he said, something or other, but he said, you’re lucky he said, ‘cause they, if they break a leg they shoot horses! [chortle] Character.
JH: One question I’ve got is since you’ve retired and so on, how, have you kept in touch or did you, keep in touch with your crew through the years?
JT: Yes, we kept in, Ross kept in touch with the navigator, the bomb aimer, Jack White, the Australian who went early, ill health, he disappeared because, in Sydney, he was, he was a bit of a wild man in a way, we lost track of him completely.
JH. Yes. Yeah.
JT: The, Derek Turner became a solicitor, he died at 68, in England, he was from Newcastle on Tyne.
JH: That’s early. Yes.
JT: He, Ross kept in touch with him and through Ross I kept, you know, left messages, but he died at 68, so that’s a long time ago.
JH: Yeah. 1990. Yeah.
JT: He was a wild one, English boy.
JH: RAF. John Hughes. Yes.
JT: We lost touch with him from the day we, the crew broke up. Nat, now Nat was thirty six years old when he joined us as a crewman. So, he was dead a long time ago.
JH: Yes. What was his background? That’s a German sounding name.
JT: He was Jewish.
JH: Ah!
JT: He was a brave man. He was a Jew, flying over Germany, if we’d got shot down, and he had a lot of trouble, he was an orthodox Jew, because, with his food.
JH: Yes. Because I know some, from what I’ve read, changed their names, on their log book. Or in their name and number.
JT: Yeah, well he, I tried to get special diet for him, and he said, ‘oh no don’t bother, don’t bother, I’ll manage,’ you know. But he’d been a police, a physical training instructor in the London police.
JH: This is Sergeant Nat Goldberg, we’re talking about. A mid upper gunner, RAF.
JT: Yeah. Now Flying Officer Davis was the Welshman, and he only flew five trips with us, so we lost him pretty early.
JH: Yes. You mentioned that.
JT: John Williamson became, he was a Melbourne boy, became a bricklayer, we kept in touch with him. Then he went into a nursing home and suddenly he wasn’t answering our phone calls or cards, Christmas cards, so he’d died.
JH: So how many are with us, at the moment, of the crew?
JT: I’m the sole survivor now.
JH: Really.
JT: Ross was the second last.
JH: Yes, I knew Ross. Yes, yes. Another thing I often ask, and we’re encouraged to ask, is you know, reflecting back, about the, your thoughts about the campaign: how effective it was, you know, the controversies, lack of campaign medal. I’d just like to get your thoughts on that, if, if you would like to?
JT: Yes. I’ve got a few thoughts on this.
JH: Some people haven’t talked about it.
JT: The, there’s a few little points there. One is the, [cough] I’ve mentioned already to you, about the engineer who designed the bomb platform of the Halifax, should have been sacked and someone else redesign it, and it should have been lengthened and that, the shape of the fuselage or the seat. Now, early, fairly early on, well 1943, they put that smooth rounded nose on the Halifax. I often wondered why they didn’t cut out the gun turret and do the same to the Lanc, ‘cause it would have saved them all that weight of the turret, the guns, and ammunition and given the bomb aimer a better nose to the front of the aircraft and it would have possibly added slightly to its speed. Interesting, you know, interesting little one.
JH: They fell short didn’t they, to make things safer and more efficient and better aircraft, from what you say.
JT: Now, the other one that I really [emphasis] object to, when you look at it, in the American Air Force, the Liberator and the Fortress, they only had nine cylinder engines, which turned out twelve hundred horse power each. They were turbo-charged. They, the, they performed on that horse power way [emphasis] above by comparison with our engines, because of the turbo-charging. Now there was a mark four Halifax which was going to be with turbo charged engines, but it was abandoned. Now if the Halifax had turbo-charging as well as its later on fuel injection, the performance of those engines in the aircraft would have been considerably enhanced. Why? Question why. Now these things happen, or don’t happen. I have the suspicion there were some real fuddy-duddys in Handley Page and they should have got rid of them. And I’ll be a real heretic here: I’d have brought someone in, a couple of aircraft designers from Douglas, because of the Douglas Boston, the shape from very early in the war. They could have helped out no end. But, to get them to work as a team probably was, would have been a problem. The other one, this is now criticism Bomber Command planning, and this goes right back to, up to Bomber Harris territory here. You’re going into a target, there’s heavy flak around the target. Why didn’t they bomb the flak? [emphasis] Why weren’t certain aircraft sent in to bomb the flak, also bomb the searchlights. And I feel we didn’t bomb German airfields enough. These sort of things.
JH: Yes. Well, that’s a very interesting question, and I have thought about that, about the flak, why wasn’t that a target in itself? Was it because that if they bomb the flak, then the fighters know you know what the target is right away?
JT: But you’re already at the target, you know, they already know where, they’ve already worked that out because they’ve got the fighters there and they are anyway, once you’re in the flak range.
JH: TYes. hat is an interesting question you raise.
JT: There’s another point there, as I found out, one of the on a course with at Point Cook, Malandra, Point Cook, Jeff Rees, Jeff got to England and he had exceptional sight, he and a fellow called Ross Roberts, both had exceptional eyesight. They had these violet blue eyes, and they both had, the, twenty four was the number, maximum number on the eyesight, night vision test, these blokes rattled off the twenty four first go. What happened to them, while we were at Brighton, they were sent up to a room, and an Australian Squadron leader interviewed them, decorated bloke, said how would you like to fly Mosquitos, night fighters, and they didn’t go to where we went, they went straight through on Airspeed Oxfords, into Blenheims, into something else and into the Mosquito night fighters. He’s told me subsequently that they used to fly in, used to go out and strafe the German airfields as the fighters were starting to take off, and then after they strafed the airfields they would go up and join in the bomber stream, looking for German night fighters. So they did that much, but I think they could have done more in the strafing of night fighter airfields. And certainly, the bombing of the, with the searchlights and the flak, rocket firing Mosquitos would have been the answer. More accurate.
JH: Yeah. You raise a good question there, maybe that’s a line of research to find out just why that didn’t happen. What about the, your reflections on the impact of bomber command in the war, you know, the civilian casualties, this kind of thing?
JT: Well, the, I think it became apparent with the bombing of London, that it was total war. Civilians were not going to be exempt. So, if English, if United Kingdom civilians weren’t exempt, Germans weren’t exempt. It’s as simple as that. The fact that we were killing Germans, they were going to oppress us anyway, I had no second thoughts on that, and definitely when it comes to Dresden, I got no second thoughts on that because I have what I consider to be some inside information there, and if the facts, if they are facts, certain things explain it. Now, a chappie I know was deputy, his aircraft was deputy master bomber on Dresden. They were sent to Dresden because it was a major rail centre [cough] and Joe Stalin had asked Churchill to bomb Dresden, the railway yards, because it was the place where tanks were being, going through to the eastern front. Now not far from Dresden was a prisoner of war camp. There were two Australians in the prisoner of war camp there. They were at a Bomber Command reunion, and they said, for three weeks prior to the bombing, tanks were going through on flattops, endless stream to the eastern front. Now, okay they bombed Dresden, so that part’s okay. Now what caused the firestorm, and if this information is correct, it’s self explanatory, we used to use an incendiary bombing cannister, which was about that long, like that, and weighed about a pound and a quarter, and I think there was something like a hundred and sixty pounds weight in the cannister. On Dresden I was told, I don’t know whether it’s right or not, for the first time they were using a new incendiary, a thirty five pound bomb, that went in the, there were two, there were, in the cannister, there were three, and three are six and three deep, I think it was. No: that’s right. Eighteen. Eighteen times thirty five, yeah, that’s it. Now what happened: these created a much more intense firestorm than the little ones, and instead of just burning what they aimed at it just went right through it.
JH: Yes.
JT: Now that’s an explanation. Now all these people running around: ‘They should never have bombed Dresden. It was a sacred city of pottery and antiques’. Blah, blah, blah. Those people don’t know what they, they were never there. They were never, you know, anyone who was never on a bombing raid at night, shouldn’t talk, about the bombing campaign, criticise it. Because, you’ve gotta experience it to know what it was about. I think, overall it was very effective and two instances verify it. What was his name? The German?
JH: Spiers?
JT: Spiers? Told Hitler, and Goebbels, having viewed the damage, at Cologne I think it was, or in the Ruhr, he told them straight: we can’t survive this, we can’t win the war, they’re gonna wipe us out. Now I take that of Spier before, over anyone speaking English! The second one was - which I think is a classic - we all know the V!, we all know the V2, how many people know the V3? Do you know the V3?
JH: No. No I don’t.
JT: Right. I’ll tell you the story of the V3. There’s a town called Limoges, France. PRU aircraft picked up enormous [emphasis] activity taking place. A concrete structure was being built. This huge [emphasis] enormous thing, like that, mushroom shape. And it was obviously going to be something big, enormous. And then they started: the base went in and then they started putting in these barrels, gun barrels, enormous, hundred foot long gun barrels. All set in concrete. At different, all at varying angles, very slightly different angles, very slightly different angle that way, varying slightly in elevation, lateral elevation, And at that stage, British and American intelligence had a big meeting about it, and a lot of them were: ‘lets bomb it now!’ Someone very wisely said, ‘no, let’s wait until they’ve finished the last pour, the last pour, still all wet, then we’ll hit it.’ So, in, I think it was probably November. This is V3. What it was, there were all these hundred foot long gun barrels, all pointing at London, all slightly different angles and lateral and elevation so would have wiped out the whole of London. Number one fires, number two fires, number three -
JH: Like a salvo.
JT: One after the other. By the time they get back to number one it’s cooled, they can fire again. So it’s endless barrage. Would have destroyed London. This is V3. So, came the night, or day. I don’t know whether it was day or night. But this was the, I think it’s the same squadron that bombed the Tirpitz, 617.
JH: Yes.
JT: Given the job of bombing Limoges, with twelve thousand pounders. So, in they go, you can imagine the manpower. All these, also they said, we won’t destroy the workers because they’re all forced labour, foreigners, you know, they’re not German. But you imagine the number of barrows, trucks, the amount of concrete mixing mixers, to pour all that concrete, because it’s feet deep. So it’s finished, the last pour, in goes the Lancs with the twelve thousand pounders and I don’t know, I can’t remember if it’s six or eight went into it, just blew it to blazes, distorted it: the Germans abandoned it, couldn’t do anything with it.
JH: Wow, what an impact that had!
JT: That’s V3.
JH: Yeah, yeah.
JT: All that labour, all that concrete, all those highly prized gun barrels that were built at Krupps. All wiped out. Whoever that man was that, let’s wait till the end, could have been Eisenhower.
JH: End of the argument.
JT: It could have been Eisenhower. ‘Cause he was the one who, post war, when they were sending those balloons over Europe, over Russia, at forty thousand feet, and they came to him and said we’ve got balloons that’ll go at eighty thousand feet. No, we won’t use them, because they’ll develop the counter. Let’s, let them use all their efforts on our forty thousand. And not until we are totally exhausted, do we use the eighties.
JH: That’s an amazing story.
JT: So I reckon it could have been him at Limoges: we wait until then. Because his two most famous stories that sum up Eisenhower. Churchill, ‘Ike, I wish you would not say “schedule” I wish you would say “shedule.”’ ‘I will, when you say, tell me what, “shule, shule” you went to!’ And, and the other one, the big reception in London, some English woman said to, ‘General Eisenhower did you ever meet General MacArthur?’ Of course MacArthur was being the flavour of the month. ‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘I did dramatics under him for four years in the Philippines! I studied dramatics under him for four years in the Philippines!’ [much laughter]
JH: Well, Jack just to finish off, what about a comment on the campaign medal, the lack of campaign medal for Bomber Command?
JT: Oh, I think that was terrible and I can’t understand it, because you know, it, I think it’s because of Dresden. And unlike what he was in every other respect because he was as tough as old boots, Winnie lost his marbles on that one, he took fright at Dresden because in his victory speech he mentioned the boys of fighter command, he never mentioned bomber command.
JH: Correct. Yes.
JT: But I’ll finish with a top note with Winnie. This is a delight. He goes into a toilet somewhere in, one big club in London and he goes to the urinal, and this very posh English gentlemen comes in alongside and goes to the next urinal and Winnie turns round and just starts to walk straight out. The fellow turns round from the urinal and says,[clears throat] ‘At Eton they taught us always to wash our hands after going to the toilet.’ and Winnie’s at the door by this time, and looks back and says, ‘At Harrow, they taught us not to piss on our hands.’ Isn’t that a classic!
JH: [Laugh] That’s a classic. Well, what an incredible interview, Jack, I think on that note we’ll sign off. Oh, wait a minute.
JT: I’ve got two episodes.
JH: Oh, stop press! Hang on!
JT: Two comics. One of them: Jack White the bomb aimer was in the, as the three down the front. If they had to relieve themselves there was a flare chute in the step, you lifted a lid and urinated down the flare chute. Jack White does it and very foolishly gets too close to the metal, touched it [slap sound]. And of course at those temperatures, you freeze on. There’s an enormous scream. The bomb aimer didn’t bat an eyelid, he just picked up his, he had a coffee thermos flask, he just tipped it on him, the screams are even louder, but it released him!
JH: Oh my goodness!
JT: The other episode was, I mean this Jack, you know, he could be a pain in the neck at times see, the mid upper gunner had a quick release: he lifted his seat up and clicked it. Now if he wanted to get out in a hurry, he just hit this little lever and the seat just fell down. So if Jack White for some reason went down the back of the aircraft when we were training, walk past and [flick sound] he’d flip it and would drop poor old Ned out on the floor. He did it twice, Ned said, ‘that’s it, you do that again I’ll deal with you on the ground.’ So we, I think Munster, the first daylight on Munster, we were in the, the first time I heard flak, if you can hear flak you’re going to get hit: because it sounds like growling lions. The lions are growling and suddenly bang! We hear this, a piece of flak comes in through the starboard fin, the rudder, goes in, hits the floor, bounces up, hits the quick release on that seat, drops him on the floor. He screams out: ‘Jack you bastard!’ The bomb aimer in the nose says, ‘What did I do?’ It bounced up, hit the framework in the aircraft, hit the floor again, bounced up and in that photo I showed you, where is it? The spar, [paper shuffling] where is it? The one with the -
JH: Looking for the photo, I think you’ve got it there somewhere.
JT: Inside the aircraft. Or did you put it in the -
JH: No, I think you’ve got it there, in the pile. We’re looking for a photo. Oh, here it is, under here.
JT: Oh good.
JH: There you go. Photo is the cockpit of the Halifax.
JT: See that spar across there, it had hit the floor back here and flew up and hit the spar there, must have been very [emphasis] close to that, hit the spar there, flew back and landed on my helmet. It cut the leather, I put my hand up, in gloves, and I could feel the terrific heat through the glove, grabbed hold of it and threw it down on the floor. Put my hand up, again, felt the cut about that long in, about that long in the helmet and sort of felt inside it, and the leather shammy when I felt it, was intact. It was a piece about like that and about that thick, and it had part of the plywood floor where it had hit it embedded in it, and that’s the path.
JH: So it lost a bit of its sting by the time it hit your head.
JT: Yes. It had come to a stop by the time it hit me.
JH: Yeah yeah.
JT: But it went twang, bang, bang, BANG! I heard the bang when it hit that spar. And strangely enough it didn’t dent the spar. Which when I got on the ground later I looked up and I expected to see a dent in it. No dent. So that’s extraordinary.
JH: Yes. That’s amazing. Well, thanks very much Jack, I really enjoyed listening to this, and a really good interview.
JT: I’m now talked out.
JH: You’ll be on the records forever in Lincoln at the Bomber Command Centre now. Okay, thank you.
JT: Right, so if I am, Con, Jimmy Constaff, Jimmy, Jimmy Constaff, yeah.
JH: What’s this?
JT: I’m trying to think of a bloke’s name. I want to put it in there. So that if he’s ever, a very short Englishman, was a pilot in C flight with me, Jimmy, Constaff, if you ever, hear, listen to this Jim, my regards.
JH: Okay!
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with John Henry Thomas
Creator
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John Horsburgh
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-01-22
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AThomasJH180122
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:53:00 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
John Thomas was born in Australia and joined the RAF in 1943. After doing his initial training in Australia he travelled to the UK via America. Further training, including an accident and night vision tests, led to 102 Squadron and a full tour of operational sorties. He tells tales of avoiding anti-aircraft fire, fighter support, being coned by searchlights, V3, crew antics and rum rations. On return to his homeland he became a quantity surveyor then a farmer before a TPI award as a result of his earlier accident, in 1989. John also shares his views on wartime aircraft and policy.
Contributor
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Anne-Marie Watson
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
France
Germany
Great Britain
England--Gloucestershire
England--Yorkshire
France--Falaise
France--Limoges
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Magdeburg
New South Wales--Narrandera
New South Wales--Sydney
Victoria--Point Cook
Victoria
New South Wales
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-06
1944-08
1944-09-11
1944-10-07
1945-12-09
102 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
crash
Fw 190
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
Heavy Conversion Unit
Mosquito
P-47
P-51
pilot
RAF Acaster Malbis
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Pocklington
RAF Riccall
searchlight
Tiger Moth
training
V-2
V-3
V-weapon
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
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-05
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Horsham, ES
Access Rights
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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
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Title
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Interview with Eric Horsham
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-01-05
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ASymondsHorshamE170105, PHorshamES1602
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Pending revision of OH transcription
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02:07:40 audio recording
Description
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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
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Julie Williams
Andy Fitter
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--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
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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/560/11703/PStockerEE1601.2.jpg
dc2149cee1df664fefc275fb3f1a16c4
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/560/11703/AStockerEE150731.1.mp3
1ba2b80b055698b24ec2f4ad054d8be7
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
Stocker, Ted
Edward Ernest Stocker DSO DFC
E E Stocker
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Stocker, EE
Description
An account of the resource
Three oral history interviews with Flight Lieutenant Ted Stocker DSO DFC (b. 1922, 573288 Royal Air Force). He flew 108 operations as a pilot and navigator with 7, 35, 102 and 582 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-23
2016-08-30
2016-10-13
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AP: Tell us about yourself, Ted. Who you are and how got joining the Air Force?
TS: Oh, dear me. My name is Edward Ernest Stocker but for brevity call me Ted Stocker. I was born in August 1922 and I joined the Air Force at the age of fifteen in January 1938. I became, I went to Halton and became one of the Trenchard Brats. And from then on I was in the Air Force and life took it’s natural course with the war on.
[recording paused]
AP: On, on the aircraft. If you could talk a little bit about that, please.
TS: I started off as a flight engineer on Halifaxes. The Halifax really did need a flight engineer because the aircraft was originally designed to bomb Germany from advanced bases in France. The idea, before we really got into operations was we’d bomb, although you got our bombs in England then flew to France, refuelled so that we could reach Germany. Of course, when a little thing like Dunkirk arrived it was no longer feasible. So they modified the aircraft. Added extra fuel tanks. Eventually we had four fuel tanks in the Halifax. They kept squeezing little tanks in all over the place. And at the end of the time we had seven tanks on each side. And the management of those fuel tanks to keep the centre of gravity where it belonged and to ensure that they didn’t run out of fuel at an inappropriate moment kept the flight engineer extremely busy. That was great. But that’s how the Halifax developed and that’s how the duties of the flight engineer developed. Very much looking at fuel and obviously watching the engine instruments. Looking for any unfortunate things. The Halifax had very early Merlins. Merlin engines. Which were subject to internal coolant leaks which often resulted in having to switch the engine off. This again was the duty of the flight engineer to watch for this. When we changed over to the Lancasters only I did forty seven trips on Halifaxes. When we changed over to the Lancaster it was a whole different ball game. Now we had only four main tanks. Two in each wing and a little tank. Fuel management was simple and straightforward. The engines were Packard built Merlins which were not, they had a revised design of the engine cylinder block which reduced the chance of internal glycol leaks. So we didn’t have the trouble with the engine overheating or having to shut the engine down. The Lancaster was a whole better ball game. But so much so that on the Lancaster really the flight engineer was not fully occupied. Apart from being, acting as a cheap co-pilot. Remember, it takes a lot of time and money to train a co-pilot. You can get a flight engineer for a much lower price. Put him in the right hand seat. He can act as the co-pilot anyway. And that’s really how the flight engineers role developed.
[recording paused]
TS: But when you get on to the Lancasters where there isn’t the problems with the engines that we had on the Halifax the flight engineer was not as fully occupied. And Don Bennett, the chief of Pathfinders, Air Vice Marshall DCT Bennett had said that he wanted two navigators on a nav table and the flight engineers — he can still learn to drop the bombs. And so, on Pathfinders the flight engineer ended up very much as being both the flight engineer, and co-pilot and bomb aimer all wrapped into one. But there was duties spread through the flight. That made the flight engineer’s job much more interesting. Dropping, aiming bombs, particularly when you got on to flying with master bombers where you were putting the markers down it was a much more interesting job than as it had been originally on Lancasters.
AP: So if we talk a little bit about the actual Pathfinding squadron and what they did.
TS: Pathfinders were that developed. I was, I didn’t, I joined Pathfinders the month they started. I didn’t do the first Pathfinder raid but I did do the second Pathfinder raid and I stayed on Pathfinders until the end of the war. And I saw the developments as they happened. As I say one of the early ones was getting H2S. We had a decent radar picture. The important thing, the techniques developed we ended up basically with three basic types. There’s the visual mark. Visual marking where everything was done by looking at the ground, aided by the radar of course, which was the straightforward one. Then of course we had the problem with cloud cover and a load of other [unclear] which was led by radar particularly when we got, when Oboe came in close range. Oboe markers can be put down from the UK very, very accurately. And when we were outside radar range we had to develop radar assisted bombing which was bombing through cloud. Which worked up to a point. The worst, the most trickiest one was when we had very high cloud. No chance of seeing the ground at all. And we’d use these sky markers which were flares which burst at a very high altitude and gave a false aiming point. Obviously if you’re aiming for something in the clouds, on top of the clouds, the bomb doesn’t know it. It wants to go underneath. It goes through the marker, carries on falling so the sky markers, as they were called were very tricky for the main force to use because they were aiming at something and their bombs were going to hit something else. They were the three basic types. There were various variations on those three. But basically you’ve got the visual marking, you’ve got radar assisted marking and you had sky marking. They were three basic types.
AP: Could you talk a little bit about H2S and Oboe? What they are.
TS: Oh, H2S was the, if you look at a picture of a Lanc you’ll see a bulge. A bulge underneath. That conceal is made of material which is, does not interfere with radar. A fibreglass substance. And inside that is a scanner going around painting a picture on a cathode ray tube of what it can see underneath. It’s a very crude form of television really. It shows the sea and the land as separate colours. It shows built up areas where you’ve got a lot of windows and things. Windows and roofs and the sloping of roofs deflects the radar and that gives a different sort of picture. But that was the H2S which we were very lucky. We were one of the first. Pathfinders had H2S before it was in general use. And the other one I mentioned was Oboe. Oboe is, was originally used for Mosquitoes because it depends on line of sight from the UK and involves the development of the system the Germans had used to bomb Coventry where you have radio beams. It was the British development. It was more accurate and involved the bombs actually being released automatically by the Oboe system. They were, the pilot flew down one radio beam and when he crossed the other beam the bombs were released automatically. It was extremely accurate. We’re talking in sort of a hundred metres radius. It was very very good. Unfortunately, the range was limited by this line of sight. The Mosquito was, because it was able to fly higher than Lancs ever could could take the Oboe bombing further into the mainland of Germany. Or France anyway. After D-Day they put mobile Oboe stations on the continent and Oboe was able, range was able to move forward. We did have Oboe in a Lanc on 582 Squadron. And I went on the first Lancaster Oboe raid with Group Captain Grant who was the squadron commander of 109 Squadron. The Oboe squadron. And we did the first Oboe raid over France from a Lancaster. I must admit I did not enjoy it because having put Oboe into the thing the pilot and the Oboe operator had to have their own intercom system but nobody else could use it. So, about a few minutes before the target, something like six or seven minutes from the target the rest of the crew were off. Off intercom. And you just flew straight and level to the target. Fighters coming in. Ack ack. So what? You couldn’t tell anybody [laughs] That’s the bit of Oboe I didn’t like on Lancasters. But it worked. Fortunately, I did the first one to prove that it could. After that I let somebody else come [laughs]
AP: And this, this is just marking. You weren’t dropping any bombs at this stage were you?
TS: No. We were dropping the markers. The target indicators.
AP: Dropping the markers. Yeah. Yeah.
TS: The target indicators. I should have explained. The target indicators were a giant firework. You had a, the shell of a one thousand pound bomb. Inside it were a can, little canisters which were ignited when the bomb burst and they put down coloured candles. They burst normally at about three thousand feet over the target. So there was the cascade of coloured candles falling from the bomb over, over the target area. Hopefully over the target itself. This gave the main force an aiming point. Something to aim at. A coloured cluster of fireworks. Well the, if they were put down by Oboe initially they were in one colour. To keep the marking going because Oboe could only operate one aircraft at a time over the target we were main, on Pathfinders, came over with different colour markers and tried to aim at the original aiming point to keep the mark alive for the rest of the raid. You’ve got to remember some of the raids took us twenty or thirty minutes. The Pathfinders job when there was an Oboe raid was to keep the initial marking going on the same aiming point.
AP: Was this particular colours? Did they use particular colours?
TS: Oh yes. Primary. Usually the main colour was red. The primary marker was so that the master bomber could say, ‘Bomb the red TIs.’ When we’re backing up we were usually backing above a green. And there were yellows used for some things. Because we also used markers on the turning points on the, on the way in. When you’re going into a target you don’t go straight in because the Germans can see which way, where you are aiming. You do a dog leg or something. Well, to mark a turning point we used markers dropped by Pathfinders on the turning point. And they were usually yellow or something like that. Not, not reds. And that was basically what those TIs, as we called them. TIs. Target Indicators. They’re just giant fireworks but they seemed to work and they were visible from a long way away.
AP: And while you were doing this you’ve got ack ack and night fighters and all sorts of things.
TS: Well, you do. They do try and distract you a little [laughs] The gunners are on the, on the ball the whole time. Swinging their turrets and watching for everything. Providing the fighters are seen and are not too close before you see them the thing you’d do, there was a escape manoeuvre.
AP: Yeah.
TS: Corkscrew was the usual. The standard procedure. If you got a fighter high on the port side you corkscrew port down. If it was up on the starboard you corkscrew starboard down. If they were low down you still did a corkscrew. The corkscrew is just you are following the path of the corkscrew which keeps the gunner, the enemy’s shot on a constant deflection shot. And what you are trying to do really is just spoil his deflection shot. The deflection is changing the whole time in to the corkscrew. Hopefully that happens to miss. Ack ack. Well, it comes and goes. If it was close you could sometimes hear it rattling on the fuselage.
AP: What about predicted flak? Predicted flak.
TS: Well, predicted flak is, most of it is over the target they try to talk about predicted flak. But once they got the course in to the target they start filling the sky on the run in with flak from all sorts. Sometimes it gets you. Sometimes it doesn’t.
AP: Okay.
[recording paused]
AP: Okay. About the camera now. Right. Okay. Go
TS: You asked about how many raids I did. Well, I did forty seven on Halifaxes and then I, that is because on Pathfinders you didn’t do a single raid you did a double raid of forty five. Well, being me of course I did a couple extra. But my odd career really basically goes back to my second trip. The first trip I did was in a Halifax to Essen. Which is a good starting point. You know. They don’t come much tougher. And that was okay except I came back with a view that how the hell did he know we’d bombed Essen? But that was because early on in the war finding a target was a hell of a hit and miss affair. But anyway, for the next trip I was put on a raid to go to Nuremberg in a Halifax which at that time we’d only got five tanks. And I got together with the navigator and said, ‘Well, how many air miles are we doing?’ Because when you start thinking about fuel consumption in an aeroplane well fuel consumption depends on which way you’re flying. If you’re going downwind you go a lot farther than you do upwind. So work on air miles. That’s the number of miles you go through the air. Anyway, the navigator gave me the air miles and I looked at the fuel load and said, ‘It ain’t enough.’ And so being a cheeky eighteen or nineteen year old flight engineer freshly promoted from corporal to sergeant I went up to the squadron commander. The squadron leader in those days, and said, ‘Sir, I don’t think we’ve got enough fuel for this trip.’ To which he replied, ‘Nonsense lad. Group know what they’re doing.’ Silly lad. He believed anything. But anyway we were a little short on fuel. In fact we crashed nearer to base than anybody else in the squadron. We actually ran out of fuel about three or four miles short of the airfield and came down in an untidy heap. I had given an ETA, estimated time of arrival, of no fuel. And the navigator had given an ETA of when we should be at base. Well, the navigator had us at base about five, five, four or five minutes before I said we’d run out of fuel. There was a little matter of errors. I was right. We did run out of fuel when I said but we hadn’t reached base. It was just down there ahead of us. And when I said that we were going to run out two engines on one side stopped. One side stopped developing any power so I went down the back and put on the cross feed pipe which put, the empty tank was running the two port engines to supply fuel to the two starboard engines so we had four engines running for a moment. And the skipper, in his wisdom said, ‘It’s time to get out of here.’ Gave the order to bale out. Seemed sensible at the time. Well, it was sensible except the fact we were carrying a co-pilot who was a captain from Whitleys, the other squadron on the station and the Whitley is very poorly heated. So, if you fly in a Whitley you put all the full Irvin suit on. That sheepskin lined leather suit, jacket and trousers. And he was a tall boy. Quite a well-built lad. And so the first thing that happened when skip said bale out, the navigator lifts his table up, pulled the hatch up from underneath him, puts his parachute on and jumps. He’s gone. The wireless operator, Len Thorpe was underneath the skipper’s seat on the port side and he was getting ready to go. And this great big teddy bear of a man with his Irvin suit on, oh he didn’t jump out. He probably couldn’t jump with all that on top of him. And he sat on the back of the hatch and put his feet out. That was alright. And then he tried to put his head out but it’s a very small hatch. From my position in the co-pilot’s seat I could see his backside sat up in the air but he wasn’t going anywhere. So, I wondered what the hell we’d do. Len Thorpe, down there, he looks and he’s [unclear] he summed it up quite quickly. He pointed me to go back a bit. So, I had to move back a bit so that Len could get up on the top step. And then they jumped. He jumped. And two bodies disappeared out of the escape hatch. Well, my, because of the Battle of Britain the pilots in Bomber Command sacrificed their pilot ‘chutes to Fighter Command for the Battle of Britain and the pilots in Bomber Command flew with a observer type ‘chute which was a harness. There was a separate pack for the harness. For the parachute itself. And there was a stowage under the seat I was standing on which contained the pilot’s parachute. The flight engineer’s job, when the two have gone out or three have gone out the nose is go under that there and get the pilot’s parachute. Great. But I went down there. Oh dear. The elastics to hold the pilot’s parachute were not fastened and the pilot’s parachute must have been sucked out with everything else. It wasn’t there. So I went back up to the step. I’ve got my parachute on by this time myself. I go back and sit and said to the skipper, ‘Sorry. Your parachute’s gone.’ About that time all four engines stopped and so we were obviously going down. So I jettisoned the escape hatch over the pilot’s head so that he could get out and then I went back at midships where there was another hatch in the roof with a ladder up to it. And I, in fact opened the hatch and was pushing it back when we hit the ground the first time. And I was flung forward against this ladder and I found myself cuddling a ladder. We were in the air temporarily until we came down for the second time. And we slithered along a bit and came to a rest. So I go, with the ladder handy, I’m gripping it. Up on to the roof and there’s the skipper coming out. I think we might be the only two left. The rear gunner, he’s gone around the back. All he had to do was turn his turret around and jump. Oh no. Our rear gunner suffered from night blindness which is not a great help for a rear gunner. He couldn’t find his harness, his parachute anyway. So, he was still inside the fuselage looking for his parachute when we hit the ground. We didn’t know this of course. So, we got out. Skipper and I were on the wing and about to jump off and wondering about all these cows running and doing the war dance around the aeroplane. And a voice from behind us says, ‘Wait for me.’ It’s our rear gunner. He never did find his parachute. And so the three of us ran to the edge of the, edge of this field dodging all these terribly upset, terribly upset cows and got to the edge of the airfield. Got a little fire on each engine. Glycol and stuff. Nothing serious. As we were stood there, and then as I said we were very close to the airfield and two ambulances turned up. And then the CO turned up. He had a quick word with the skipper. He kept well away from me [laughs] and I think after that he’d got the idea that maybe flight engineers do understand a bit about aeroplanes. I’ll only say this. Many years later squadron leaders, our wing commander and squadron, and CO of the 35 Squadron in Pathfinders. I’m the flight engineer leader, a flight lieutenant and when the CO wanted to fly guess who he took as his flight engineer? [laughs]
AP: [unclear]
TS: But anyway we’d landed. We were in an untidy heap and this, of course this is, everything’s organised in the RAF. So there was a crash. Okay. Two ambulances turned up so because we hadn’t ,we were not really in walking distance of the base and so we go over to one of these ambulances, ‘Can you give us a lift back to the airfield?’ ‘No. I’m bodies only.’ ‘Oh’ [laughs ], ‘Catch the other one. You’re not injured are you?’ ‘No.’ I can’t lie. How am I injured? Eventually they sent out a guard party to look after the wreck overnight and one of those they, they, we got the driver out and he ran us back to the airfield. Another interesting thing is of the three blokes that baled out two of them ended up on the same train. The one had landed next to the railway, stopped a goods train and sort of, the driver said, ‘Well, what do you want?’ ‘I baled out.’ ‘Oh get in the guard‘s van. We’re going in to York,’ sort of thing. He goes a little bit further on. There’s another bloke waiting with a parachute waving. So he stopped, he said, ‘Your mate’s in the guard van.’ The other fellow hadn’t get a lift with the train but with the bloke with a car. He got back. Anyway, they all got back safely. The three got back safely. But that was my first endeavour. Rather gave me a reputation I think. Because the result of that I think was that when the Halifaxes were moved we were on the first Halifax squadron. When another squadron was going to get Halifaxes they had to be trained on how to fly a Halifax. The usual way was to take an experienced crew from one squadron, move them to the other squadron with one Halifax and they were to train the new squadron. Well, a good idea. So they got a squadron. 102 Squadron got, was going to get Halifaxes. And so they sent a qualified crew. Except I think the CO wanted to see the back of me. I’d only done four trips. I was not an experienced, but I was the flight engineer on the experienced crew that went to 102 Squadron. There I was. I had done four trips. I was on this new squadron teaching people how to, all about the Halifaxes. That’s how my odd career, career started. Because I was there and I was the only experienced flight engineer when the new squadron commander was going to do his first trip on the Halifax he wanted an experienced flight engineer. So, I went with him didn’t I? And when each flight commander wanted their first trip on the Halifax who was the flight engineer? So, and then I went down, down the list until I’d flown pretty well with every pilot on their first trip. And I was an instructor. Not what I’d intended to be. But anyway I ended up with a total of fifteen trips and Pathfinders started. Well, the Canadian crew, they wanted to go down, the Canadian pilot and navigator wanted to go to Pathfinders. They wanted to volunteer for Pathfinders. Their flight engineer didn’t and the silly bloke had talked me into joining him. So, that’s how I left 102 Squadron and went to, back to 35. On Pathfinders this time. That’s how I got onto Pathfinders. Okay.
[recording paused]
AP: The number of ops. Ops you did.
TS: Okay. Well, as I said I had done fifteen ops on 102 and 35 when I, this Canadian talked me into going to Pathfinders. So, I arrived at Pathfinders with just fifteen trips under my belt. I stayed on Halifaxes on Pathfinders until I finished my double, what was called a double mission. A mission is normally, for most of the main force was thirty trips. And then Pathfinders, when you volunteered to join Pathfinders you volunteered to do a double mission. A double mission was forty five trips. In fact I did forty seven on Halifaxes. And then I was screened and I went to the Navigation Training Unit of the Pathfinders and there was a bit of a problem on 7 Squadron. They’d lost the CO and a couple of flight commanders and all sorts of the top brass. They came to the Navigation Training Unit. They wanted a bit of strength back in 7 Squadron. I was asked to volunteer. I’d been screened for a couple of weeks by then. So I went back to, on to Pathfinders with 7 Squadron. The only thing was when I got to 7 is, well I knew before I went they were flying Lancasters. I’d flown in a Lancaster once. I’d read the book. So I joined 7 Squadron with no formal training at all having read the pilot’s notes. And I stayed on 7, on Pathfinders. Eventually did another sixty one ops on Lancasters. Giving me a grand total of a hundred and eight which is ridiculous. Nobody should do that. I don’t know how I did it. I know I changed, and I mentioned on 102, I flew with every Tom, Dick and every flight commander, CO and that gave me a number of different skippers. I then went back. Went on to Pathfinders and I did, I did, I think I did about thirty with this Canadian crew I went with. I did some odd ones. And then the turmoil started that they discovered 102 Squadron had put me up for a commission. Because they didn’t commission flight engineers early on. Because when I saw Wally Lashbrook, who was the instructor there called me in and said, ‘What do you think about taking a flight, a commission.’ I said, ‘Don’t be silly. They don’t commission flight engineers.’ He said, ‘Well maybe they’re going to. Would you? Can I put you forward?’ I said, ‘Yes. Why not?’ Well, actually, I did, I did ask him what he thought because I’m a Halton Brat. I went to Halton when I was fifteen. And the flight commander was Wally Lashbrook and he was a Halton Brat. So, on his advice I said, ‘Yes. Okay. Put me in for a commission,’ which led to the situation that I was on 102, I was now on Pathfinders. They didn’t know anything about commissioned flight engineers. I called in to the adjutant and he said, ‘They want you for an interview at the Air Ministry. What’s that for?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. Wait and see.’ Anyway, I was on ops one night and I was due to go to Air Ministry the next morning. Okay. So, down at Graveley, which is very close to London. It’s in Huntingdonshire and the railway station not far away. So anyway I did the trip, came back. Went in the uniform. Changed in the barrack. Changed in to my best blue, had a wash and a shave and caught the train to London. Which meant I then had to go in for this interview with the Air Ministry. Okay. Well, I’d been up all night remember. And they called me in. And one of those looked at me and said, ‘Where were you last night, lad.’ So, I gave them the name of the target. After that the interview was a walk over [laughs] Anyway, so I got through all that alright and I went back to the squadron. Several weeks later I’m called, the adjutant called me in. He said, ‘I don’t know how this happened but you’ve been commissioned.’ I said, ‘Yeah. I thought I might.’ He said, ‘You’d better go and get a uniform.’ So, I went up to London to one of the tailors. Bought myself a uniform. Go back. I’m a pilot officer now. The adjutant, they called me in again, ‘We’ve only got a [unclear] for a flight lieutenant. You’ll have to be a flight lieutenant.’ So, I’d been a pilot officer for several days and back to London to get some more stripes on my uniform. So, I was rather quickly a flight lieutenant and I got a job. I was obviously a flight engineer leader. Which again meant me flying with all sorts of odd bods. Which again meant that I went over, way over the odds. I flew with people, I said there was Hank Malcolm the Canadian I mentioned. I did thirty trips with him. That was alright. Later on I flew with a Welshman called Davies. Came from Swansea. I did thirty trips with him. I say I did all these thirty trips.
AP: What about Cheshire? Do you remember Cheshire much?
TS: Cheshire was my first flight commander on 35 Squadron. Didn’t like him very much. Never did.
AP: And Lancasters. Any particular missions that you remember? Operations that stick out?
TS: Very difficult. I can’t remember where it was, but once over the Ruhr Valley I didn’t enjoy life. We came, I think we’d been to Berlin and on the way back we’d gone a bit off course. As far as I remember we’d lost an engine or something over Berlin. Probably this oil stuff. It started again but we got radioed, the distant reading radio compass was not — distant reading compass sorry was not reading very accurately and keeping on course had been difficult. And instead of coming from Berlin just around the corner of the Happy Valley between Essen and Aachen and cutting through that way had got a bit off course and found ourselves over the Ruhr. There wasn’t a raid on the Ruhr. Just us odd bods coming back from Berlin. And they did rather catch us in the searchlights and flak for quite a long time. That’s one of the worst occasions of enemy opposition where it wasn’t so much that we were being shot at and we were being illuminated by the searchlights. We couldn’t get out of the damned things for about twenty minutes. Dashing around. I thought we were never going to get out of that. But anyway, Hank put the aeroplane in all sorts of manoeuvres and we got out of it but that was one of the worst occasions. Not being bomb caught over the target but caught off course on the way back. That was always the danger. You, you expect to be shot at over the target but you try and avoid it on route there and back. We hadn’t on that occasion. That was one of the worst trips anyway as far as that.
AP: Any raids in Northern France and Holland? Any raids there with Lancasters?
TS: Oh just before D-Day we were doing all sorts of silly things. I had the, this disputed honour of actually acting as master bomber on one of the raids on a little airfield in Northern France. What was the name of it? I can’t think of the name at the moment. I was flying with a Welshman on this occasion. And they wanted, around about D-Day there were all sorts of little raids. They needed a master bomber on a very small airfield and they suddenly decided that the skipper’s Welsh accent would not do. So I was then told to do the broadcast over the target, drop the bombs and sort of encourage people to come down and bomb the target. Tell them what to bomb. The cloud base was low. We got down low. We could see the target. I got my markers on the target. Could I persuade anybody else to come down to do it? No. They were all bombing from way up. Not doing very well anyway. We lost two aircraft on that trip. But I was actually, I think the only occasion when a flight engineer has held the microphone and acted as master bomber and told them where to bomb. It was a, have a change.
AP: And all those operations that you flew. Did, I’m guessing you must have seen other aircraft being shot down.
TS: Yeah. Of course I did.
AP: I mean, one of the things to try and describe to people is what it was like when you were flying through all that stuff
TS: Oh well —
AP: And what you saw. What people said. What they felt.
TS: It was very difficult early on. You get the odd one. Usually they caught fire and went down in flames and some parachutes would come out. You hoped more of them did. Later on, when the, towards the end the Germans had developed this, what they called musical jazz. Which was the night fighters were equipped with upward firing guns in the top of the fuselage. At an angle. And they did not use tracer. The idea was to fly on radar low down where you couldn’t be, where there was less chance of being seen by the top gunner or the rear gunner. Come up below the aircraft and when they were in the right position climb fairly steeply and let their cannons into the belly of the bomber. Very good idea. We’d had it years ago. When I was at Boscombe Down many years ago we had a Boston which had been modified with [pause] like bomb doors on the top of the fuselage and the bomb doors opened and there were four machine guns pointing upwards. Just like musical jazz, and there were only three of these. And we never developed it but the Germans did. That was what, that was the one of the games the RAF definitely lost. The main advantage having, before I started flying as a flight engineer I’d been an ordinary fitter who wanted to be a pilot. And I was fortunate in my postings. I was posted to Boscombe Down. Which meant I saw far more different aircraft than most people when they came out of Halton. And I worked on many including the first bloody Stirling bomber. Four engine. They had a position for flight engineer. ‘It’s your aeroplane. You fly.’ That was how I learned, you know, start flying. But I didn’t want to be a flight engineer. I’d been trying to be a pilot. But I was only an AC1. So I saw the flight commander. He said, ‘You’ve got to be an LAC if you want to go on a pilot’s course.’ So I did the trade tests and I got passed it and I was an LAC. Good. Go back to the flight commander, ‘Sir, I want a pilot’s course.’ ‘You have to be an LAC for six months. Then you can come and see me again.’ Five months later, ‘Oh hello Corporal Stocker,’ I goes in, ‘You can’t be a pilot now. You’re too valuable. You’re a corporal fitter.’ ‘Okay.’ I’m working in the hangar one day and the flight clerk comes up. And he’s got an AMO. He says, ‘The flight commander thinks you might look at this.’ It was the first AMO asking, Air Ministry Order, asking for volunteers to fly as flight engineer. If you’re a corporal or a sergeant in the group one trade you can volunteer to be a flight engineer. I think the flight commander had a clue I might be interested [laughs] and so I went back with the flight clerk and volunteered. And a few weeks later I was on an air gunner’s course. And that’s how I became a flight engineer. I don’t know how I did it. But anyway the basic thing is I did chance my arm rather more than most and got away with it with a hundred and eight raids. How the hell I did it I don’t know but I’m lucky. That’s how it happened. My first flight commander was Flight Lieutenant Cheshire. Oh dear. What can I add to that?
AP: Yeah. But let’s, let’s jump to that. Up the Island of Walcheren. Can you talk about that raid?
TS: Oh, one of the most interesting raids. The war was nearly over but there wasn’t a great deal of opposition anyway and they wanted to sink — the Island of Walcheren at the mouth of the Scheldt was really guarding the entrance to Northern Germany. They’d tried to get across. Across. Been an unsuccessful attempt by the army to do a landing on the south coast of Walcheren Island. They lost a lot of soldiers. And then they decided they might be better to, for a frontal attack but they need to get the Hun out of the way. So, we were, I was bomb aimer with the master bomber. The master bomber was Group Captain Peter Cribb. He had been on thirty. He took over from Cheshire as flight commander of 35 Squadron way back in 4 Group. Anyway, he was the master bomber, I was his bomb aimer and we went over to Walcheren Island. Oboe had put down a marker on the seashore and we put, put another marker beside it. And then we were getting, I think it was sixty aircraft every twenty minutes. I’m not sure about that number. It might have been less. And we directed them on to the markers right on the seashore and we managed to breach the dyke. And the sea water went through and started flooding the Island of Walcheren. There was an ack ack battery on the other side of the town from where we were which fired the odd shots but we had some thousand pound bombs. A couple. Four or something. So between two raids the sharp turn to port and I dropped my four one thousand pounders in the vicinity of this ack ack battery and had the good fortune to watch the brave German gunners get on their bikes and ride down the Island in the middle of the lake. They left us to it. So, really it wasn’t, there was no real opposition there. But anyway, we carried on with all these little raids and gradually made the dyke leak and the island was flooding behind. The last raid, the last batch of bombers we were getting were from 617 Squadron. They had their Tallboys. They were really going to knock a hole in that dyke. Well, we looked at the dyke and the sea was going in. The skipper called them up and said, ‘Go home. We don’t need you.’ Which, for the Pathfinders was always a good idea because Pathfinders and 5 Group which were Cochrane’s favourite Air Force were not really the best of friends. Cochrane didn’t approve of Pathfinders and Don Bennett who ran Pathfinders didn’t really approve of Cochrane because Cochrane had never actually been on a raid. Our AOC, Air Vice Marshall Donald Bennett had been on a raid. He’d been shot down in Norway. He knew what, he knew the score. That made the difference. He had a different outlook. But actually that was an interesting raid and when I was working in Holland after the war we did, I did go back there with my wife. And we went and had a look, and yes there’s a nice little puddle where we’d broken the dyke and there’s a bit of sand around the edge and somebody has opened a café there. So we got somebody in business anyway.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Ted Stocker. Two
Creator
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Andrew Panton
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-31
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AStockerEE150731, PStockerEE1601
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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00:52:44 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Edward Ernest Stocker (Ted) began his service with the RAF as a flight engineer on Halifaxes. He came to the attention of his Commanding Officer on his second operation, having warned before departure that they were carrying insufficient fuel to make it back to base. He was correct and he describes how some of the crew baled out before their Halifax crashed close to base with he and the pilot still on board. He joined the Pathfinders force after fifteen operations and remained with the Pathfinders throughout the war. He compares the fuel tanks of the Halifax and Lancasters, discusses the navigation aids Oboe and H2S and the process of dropping target indicators for the main bombing force to follow. He completed 47 operations on Halifaxes and then volunteered for 7 Squadron on Lancasters, completing a further 61 operations. He was commissioned as a flight lieutenant. He speaks of encountering enemy opposition whilst in action, of witnessing aircraft being shot down and directing the bombing of Walcheren Island.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Carolyn Emery
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Wiltshire
Netherlands
Netherlands--Walcheren
Temporal Coverage
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1944
102 Squadron
35 Squadron
7 Squadron
aircrew
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
crash
fitter engine
flight engineer
fuelling
ground crew
H2S
Halifax
Lancaster
Master Bomber
military service conditions
Oboe
Pathfinders
promotion
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Halton
target indicator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1109/11598/ASampsonJ150821.1.mp3
3a9de23e844b76ca7db04b57a6757550
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Sampson, James
J Sampson
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with James Sampson DFC ( -2018, 134703, 1321810, Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a navigator with 102 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-08-21
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Sampson, J
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JS: That one. Right. Let’s have a —
DB: That’s wonderful so far. Loving it so far. Because I can’t speak you’ll find my face is —
JS: Yes.
DB: Going up and down —
JS: Which one is on?
DB: Just press this one again.
JS: Press engage.
DB: And it should restart it.
JS: So come back to that. This will be getting cold.
DB: No. No. No. That’s —
JS: Is yours alright?
DB: Yeah. I’ve been, I’ve been able to drink while you’ve been talking but —
JS: Yes. That was a hell of a coincidence.
DB: A very very big coincidence.
JS: Yeah.
DB: So he was the pilot.
JS: Bill.
DB: Yes.
JS: But he was a sergeant.
DB: No, that’s fine. If you, when you restart it if you could mention that at some point.
JS: Oh, yes. Yes.
DB: So, but, because [pause] that would be wonderful. Actually, while, while you’ve got it switched off —
[pause]
DB: It does help if you take the cap off.
JS: Oh, yes. Yes. Don’t mean a thing if you don’t pull the string as they used to say.
DB: That’s right. The trouble with this lens is it’s quite big.
[pause]
DB: That’s lovely [camera shutter click] don’t play me up. Got that [camera shutter click] That’s lovely. I like to take photographs of my veterans as I call them. Take one of you and Joy together later as well. But it’s lovely with the clock just ticking in the background as well. It’s really, it’s really quite old fashioned and nice.
JS: Yes.
DB: So —
JS: Don’t be surprised if a fox suddenly appears out here or a muntjac deer.
DB: Oh. Oh, I like muntjac. Yeah.
JS: We had one in the garden yesterday.
DB: I live, I live on the edge of a training area just, just outside Thetford.
JS: Oh, my grandson used to go there regularly.
DB: Yeah.
JS: his picture’s over there. He was a captain in the Welsh Guards.
DB: Oh. Right. Okay. Well, basically we get muntjac, we get fallow.
JS: Yes. You would do there wouldn’t you?
DB: I’m sure we get foxes as well. Not that I’ve seen one. But I’ve seen a badger and I’ve seen stoats.
JS: My son in law was standing looking out of the window not more than about four weeks ago and he said, ‘My God.’ A fox leapt out and grabbed a rabbit.
DB: Oh. Yes.
JS: Yes.
DB: Yeah. We caught, well, my dog quite often finds dead rabbits which I think must be foxes or badgers. So I can understand what you’re saying but yeah it’s lovely and quiet out here.
JS: Yeah.
DB: So, but —
JS: Let’s go on shall we?
DB: Yeah.
[recording paused]
JS: I’ve lost my track.
DB: That’s alright. Take your time. Have a think about it and then —
JS: One day [pause] I’ll show you something. This is a lot of development work that I did on radar.
DB: Oh right. Okay.
JS: You know the principle of radar?
DB: Yeah. My, my dad was an air trafficker.
JS: Was he?
DB: Yeah.
JS: Yeah.
DB: In the air force so I know —
JS: They had a cupola under the aircraft.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Which sent out signals and they bounced back and you got a reflection.
DB: Yes.
JS: If they landed over water they kept on going. If they hit land —
DB: It would, it would bounce back up to you.
JS: We went, I shall come to it shortly. We went out one night —
DB: Yeah.
JS: This is Oslo. Look, there’s the Oslo fjord there.
DB: Oh right. Okay.
JS: Oslo’s there.
DB: Yeah.
JS: That is the [Horton] Narrows which are a bit further down and we laid mines there.
DB: Oh, you did some vegetable sowing did you?
JS: We did. Yeah. That’s right. Yes. Narcissus and daffodils. And apparently we bottled up troopships with twenty six thousand German soldiers.
DB: Wonderful.
JS: Who were going down to the, meet the boys coming up from Normandy.
DB: Oh, well you’ll have to mention that one when, at some point.
JS: Yes. Well, that’s the sort of work that I did. Which —
DB: Yeah.
JS: Gus Walker kept me back for.
DB: Oh wonderful.
JS: What we did was I’d, luckily I had a team. There was a warrant officer who couldn’t fly any more who was quite knowledgeable and the sergeant who ran the photo section. And I wanted to be able to demonstrate to new crews the new equipment. H2S as it was called.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve heard of it.
JS: And so eventually what we did was we had the screen there and we got a frame.
DB: Yeah.
JS: That fitted and we had a little Brownie camera on the end of it there.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And we got the right focal depth, distance there and when you got wherever you wanted to take pictures you just swung it around and it clipped on. This is all our thinking did this and you, the light time took to go around it was, twice round was the exposure time.
DB: Right.
JS: It went dunk dunk and we got these photographs so not only were we able to tell whether they’d been there and done the job.
DB: Yeah.
JS: But also we used this for the aiming point.
DB: Yes.
JS: What we didn’t, if you look at the middle where it comes down.
DB: Yes.
JS: You get a concentration of signal there.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And it gradually thins out as you come around there.
DB: Yeah.
JS: So, in the middle that’s where the aeroplane is. There.
DB: Right.
JS: In the middle.
DB: Yeah.
JS: That’s the distance ring.
DB: Yeah.
JS: That’s the bearing.
DB: Yeah.
JS: You turn that around and —
DB: Yeah.
JS: So what we used to do was in the middle like this it’s very difficult to see exactly in the mush there where the middle is.
DB: Yeah. Yeah.
JS: That’s not. It’s more like that there.
DB: Yeah.
JS: So you couldn’t be totally accurate so what we used to do we used to take a bearing in the distance from another point.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And fly the screen up there.
DB: So you’d triangulate.
JS: Well, yes but if we wanted to lay a mine there.
DB: Yeah.
JS: We had a headland that stuck out like that.
DB: Oh right. Okay.
JS: Instead of flying there.
DB: Yeah.
JS: The navigator was able to, ‘Left. Left. Right. Right.’ and fly a bearing in the distance which he set up before he took off.
DB: Yeah.
JS: When I look at that piece of land and it‘s at a certain angle and a certain distance away from me I’m there.
DB: That’s, that’s very clever.
JS: So we did that.
DB: Very clever
JS: I’ll show you that later. Anyway —
DB: Yeah. Well, that’s lovely. They’ll be really interested in what you just said there because that’s really unusual. That’s not the sort of thing that people talk about so —
JS: Well, no, it’s, it’s the work we did quietly just the three of us. We actually then developed a radar trainer for the chaps so that they weren’t very good on, look if you tried to find out the detail of which town is which there and which piece —
DB: Yeah.
JS: Of the town it is it’s a mess because this was very elementary equipment.
DB: No. That’s really, that’s really interesting that is.
JS: So, we had a link trainer for the pilots. Remember the old link?
DB: Yes, I’ve seen the link trainer at —
JS: We had one for the navigators where we actually had a crab that used to crawl across and so they could, and then we used to make a plate with the coastline and what, what they might expect to see based on what we’d already found out and so on. So that the, it appeared exactly the same on the screen over this tank of water.
DB: Yeah.
JS: With some sand in it.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Which sank to the bottom that it would when they got and saw the actual thing.
DB: Oh wow. Oh yes. You must tell them about, about what you did with that.
JS: Yes.
DB: Because that’s very unusual. That’s very unusual stuff.
JS: So —
DB: But —
JS: We ought to, let’s have a look at the notes here [pause] Yes. Because I haven’t said, I should go back and say a bit more about the lead up to the joining. I could do that later.
DB: Yes. Perhaps, use it as a, like a, almost like a conclusion. But —
JS: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[pause]
JS: Yeah. I haven’t said anything about weather, have I?
DB: You started to talk about it but you didn’t, you didn’t finish off talking about it.
JS: Can I play that bit again back then? Just that last bit.
DB: Let’s, let’s see if we can. Let’s see if we can play it back.
JS: When I asked you if you were a vegetarian?
DB: I’m just trying to remember how to —
[recording paused]
JS: I think we should say a bit more about the weather because it was so vital to the whole of the operation and people will have a good idea what I’m talking about because they look at their television every day, two or three times a day and they can see the kinds of charts and things that are produced. Particularly the ones with the biometric pressures shown on them and they can see the, where the low pressures tend to be more accurate than the high pressure systems and therefore the wind speeds are very much different as well. If you want an extreme look at a cyclone or a tornado they are acute low pressure systems. If you want to think about high pressure systems look at when you are getting five days or six days of sunshine, virtually no wind at all and you’ll know that’s a high pressure system. And so they tend to match each other out of the way. If they come from the northeast they’re usually pretty cold and, and, and sometimes damp. If they come from the northeast from Scandinavia or Russia they are usually damp, cold and dry and the reverse is true with the southwest and the southeast. So you can see the difference it made to us. I mean coming back from trips what was the weather going to be like? Were we going to be able to get in at base? Had we got enough petrol left in the event we were shunted off somewhere else? All these things came into play and particularly so in the case of when the Germans were pushing in the Ardennes with the Battle of the Bulge. It was foggy all over Europe so we couldn’t possibly operate satisfactorily. But fortunately, at Carnaby in the northeast and in Suffolk at Woodbridge we had two lame duck aerodromes where they could land God knows how many aircraft because it was about five aircraft wide and several miles long with overshoots and undershoots. They’d landed them there and they also had the fog dispersal apparatus there. FIDO. Like a row of giant Bunsen burners to lift the fog up high enough to get underneath it. So it wasn’t impossible to overcome it but for the ordinary chap coming in fog could be a hazard as it was the day we ploughed up the potato field landing at the wrong end of the runway when it clamped down. But people should understand the effects of wind. They should understand the effects of, of the whole weather system indeed because in truth our meteorological officers didn’t have a great deal at their disposal to forecast themselves. So we found out when we took off and sailed in to it. Wind, wind speed could vary enormously and with height because it moves faster up there than it does down on the ground. The most I’ve ever had was one night we were flying on a particular mine laying operation and we climbed above a dreadful cold front whereas the other four or five aircraft came below it and had lightning dancing all over the props for ages. And we had new engines on the Halifax at the time and up we went to twenty four thousand five hundred when we came out at the top and coming home it was like coming down Everest, you know. It was a giant white sheet in front of us of cloud and the windspeed believe it or not was a hundred and forty knots. We got home in record time. We were down, debriefed, had our meal, had a bath and gone to bed before the next aeroplane got back but it was also minus fifty five degrees centigrade. People don’t realise that the air temperature depreciates by an average of two degrees centigrade per thousand feet. So if you’re up at nearly twenty five thousand feet and it’s minus fifty centigrade less than it was on the ground when you took off and it was damned cold when we took off so, and there’s no heating in the aircraft. The rear gunner had an electrically operated suit but the rest of us shared a so-called hot air pipe that was, I mean our aircraft were only a thin skin of of aluminium or the like and acted like a refrigerator on the [unclear] without what was going on outside. So life could be pretty uncomfortable sitting there trying to use a pen and, a pen and pencil and various little instruments that required a rather delicate touch. And even now, today I can’t touch anything hot because the skin started coming off my fingers. However, the weather really and the weather systems are really a study all on their account but it was part of our training and part of our safety device that we should know all about it. There was another night and I think it was the night of the Nuremberg raid when losses were pretty high several of us who had the advantage of H2S we only had one flight out of three on our squadron that was equipped with it for a long time. Some squadrons had nothing at all. It was because we had that one flight that we got most of the mine laying operations but this particular night we were asked, the navigators who had the advantage of that to send, as they crossed the enemy coast back the wind speed and directions that they were finding. I think I sent back a windspeed of about ninety seven and it was a little bit more than that even but a lot of chaps were finding, saying, ‘Christ, I’ve gone wrong here somewhere. It can’t possibly be.’ And it ended up with a lot of Bomber Command losses because aircraft who received that information and used it were blown, I’m sad to say miles and miles and miles off to the portside and down into Europe and ran out of petrol. They must have done. There again we’ve said that the weather is really a subject on its own when of course so is radar. We were lucky at Pocklington when I arrived because the flight that my pilot was in command of as from arrival at Pocklington were equipped with H2S so I was learnt to use it willy nilly and was grateful to get it because every time we crossed the coast it was like reading a map sat there in front of me. It didn’t help you much once you got in line, in land because the definition as you’ll see from those pictures there isn’t all that wonderful. You know there’s a town there but it’s difficult to pick up the information you required to bomb accurately with it. I mean, now it’s so different. I came back from one of my journeys to the east and the pilot knew that I had been flying during the war with Bomber Command as he had, and he called me up and sat me down in the third pilot’s seat and he showed me their radar when we were leaving Cairo Airport. He was able to point and say, ‘That is the toe of Italy.’ He could see that the range was that good. Our ranges were nothing like that whatsoever and the definition certainly wasn’t so you could see they never really needed navigators on commercial airlines as we badly needed them in Bomber Command. We didn’t say as much as we should have done I think possibly about the efforts of Bomber Command in the early days of the war. We mentioned that they didn’t do very well because sadly they, they didn’t have the means of doing anything else. The poor old air observer. What could you see on the ground at night which he was trained to do because he was only a very elementary navigator but a very good map reader. If you can’t see anything you can’t map read. One of the, one of the most well known was, oh what was the name of that fellow who did, “The Sky at Night.”? Moore. He was an air observer and pretty proud of it too and always said he was an air observer and stuck to his old brevet with the circle and the O but the facts were that Bomber Command needed good navigators and in fact the whole trip was really a navigational exercise. They were all, everyone was a part of that operation in a sense but Bomber Command were landing bombs and decoys at the Germans in fields and never never it seems on the actual target and they had a script put under them that said, ‘Either you do better or you won't exist.’ And that's when we go back to the formation of the courses for straight navigators. Which even so it was very difficult to find a navigator on any one of the squadrons who was, got any higher than a flight lieutenant. I think now if you look you find one or two who reached the dizzy heights of perhaps a wing commander or a group captain. But of course, the pilots themselves are coming under attack now because we've got drones and other means of flying aeroplanes that don't require them. They fly a desk as they call it now. Sit there and twiddle knobs.
[pause]
We’ve done, we’ve dealt with Met. We dealt with the question of when the penny dropped in London to that they put paid to the, and I suppose now what we should really do is to talk about one or two things in particular. Pocklington. 102 Squadron. Because we had that H2S tended to land most of the mining laying operations. Now, the Halifax could cope with that. The Halifax wasn't designed as a bomber. The Halifax was designed as a transport and converted. The Lancaster was designed as a bomber and therefore built if you like around a damn great bomb bay where they could get really big ones in. We couldn't. But we could get four sea mines in if they gently wound up, not hydraulically raise the bomb doors because they didn't quite close. So we could take four sea mines and with that equipment, the H2S we tended to get most of the mine laying jobs which were all very well in their way but they were a bit lonely. They often took place when no one else in Bomber Command was flying because the weather wasn't good, the moon was up or whatever so you must have appeared on German radar as big blips. And we did three in particular. We did a trip to Oslo where we mined the entrance at [Horton] to the Oslo fjord and bottled up troop ships. We did one which was quite a trip to block up the Kiel Canal at the Hamburg end at Brunsbüttel which I know well because my career in shipping afterwards took me across to Hamburg quite regularly. But we laid mines across there and there were only the four of us on the, on the trip. We took mines and we took some bombs and the idea was that the mines would disappear in the water. No one would know about those but if the mines did go a bit astray because it was a very small target they were being aimed at and we had some bombs on the Germans might think this is a bombing raid rather than a mine laying raid. But apparently we did get one or two in between us. Actually, I’ll always remember that trip because the curtains parted when we were on the approach and the startled face of my bomb aimer said, ‘A Focke Wulf 190 missed us by that much.’ And we think he had been vectored on to us and we were in cloud. When we came out he came out but we were gone and so was he. He'd never be able to turn and get back at us. We reckon that was probably a narrow squeak. And then on another night we went down to Bordeaux and we mined the river and blocked in four German destroyers down there. So, you know minelaying was quite an operation and apparently a lot of ships were sunk in the Baltic because there was a big trade. The Germans with their ball bearings from Sweden for example. Mind you we had ball bearings from Denmark. My company was involved in running ball bearings from Denmark in a couple of fast torpedo boats and I talked to the captains about it. They sort of came out of harbour in the dead of night and at some enormous speed, belted their way across back home with the ball bearings. So there was that one but we did many many others and always felt quite lonely doing it. But apparently, we did them to the Navy’s satisfaction because as you know because you mentioned it the narcissus and daffodils and that was why we called it gardening. Not mine laying. It was always we were going gardening. So we're really coming to the point where we might discuss or look back perhaps more than anything. I will always remember Bomber Command came in for a hell of a lot of criticism and most of it totally unfairly. We were given the job to do by Churchill and the job was done most satisfactorily and if you read Albert Speer's book you'll see that he confesses in there that in the early days he could just about cope with the damage being caused to industry in Germany but latterly he didn't have a hope in hell of, despite what he did going into the mountains and caves and things of keeping up. It was a losing battle. You've had comments from Eisenhower, Montgomery, General Alexander, saying, ‘Thank you, Bomber Command for the tremendous cooperation we received from you.’ The Navy. We’d laid all those mines at the request of the Navy and it's clear from the records now that the Bomber Command sunk more German capital ships and submarines than the Royal Navy. Not disparaging the Navy's efforts in the North Atlantic which were marvellous but simply because we could get at them where they were gone in for supplies, where they had gone in for repairs, where they were being built, didn’t let them get off the stock and apparently we sunk a tremendous amount of shipping at the same time. So, you know, Bomber Command wasn't just a sweet face it was doing a hell of a job and that Dresden business was a debacle. Poor old Churchill came back with an earful of Stalin who wanted Dresden because Dresden, he was advancing from the east as much as we may have disliked it. But Dresden was being used as a giant marshalling yard. You also had people like Zeiss. Volkswagen had a place or there was a motor car industry there. So it was a legitimate target. But Churchill had come back and said to Harris, do Dresden. But the Americans did it the day before. The RAF did it at night and did it again after. So it wasn't just Bomber Command. So it was most unfair. But looking back well I was lucky I supposed to come out of it. I had moments. I was in three total write offs. When Bomber Command days finished or the war in Europe finished I was crewed up with the squadron commander to go and do another tour. But it meant that we were automatically on call to go to the Far East when the war in Europe finished. And that wasn't a very pleasant thought because the Japanese tended to chop your head off if you were an airman and caught. But fortunately, two atom bombs later and that finished as well. But in the meantime we had been posted from Pocklington to Bassingbourn where we became 53 Squadron. We converted to Liberators because they were a longer range and we were going trooping. They sealed up the bomb bays and put seats in there for soldiers. And it was on one of those trips landing at Tripoli in North Africa which was the first staging post. The wind caught us as we came in. The Liberator had, didn't have the strutted undercarriage we had like a fighter. It was just one big oleo leg and the starboard one hit the end of the runway which was about that much concrete and tore it up. So we careered along on one wheel until we lost speed and went around and around like a Catherine Wheel but we managed all of us to walk away from that one. I had the one where I explained we finished up in a potato field landing at the wrong end of Pocklington runway and we had another one where we did, the only time Bomber Command did a daylight raid we went to Homberg. It was basically 4 Group that did it and the flak was enormous. It was like a carpet of black. And when we got back it was dusk when we landed. Usual drill. Wireless operator went down to one of the side windows underneath the wing. ‘Yes skipper, the undercarriage is down.’ ‘Okay. Thanks.’ In we came and of course you know we still did the old three point landing. Not like the American tricycle undercarriage which was much better and we held off and held off and held off. We thought, God we've got to touchdown soon. And when we touched down it was on the hub caps. On the hubs. We’d had our tyres all shot away, both of them so we had nothing to land on and it was like having a pneumatic drill up your earpiece and we swung off the runway and eventually ploughed up and finished there so we walked away from that one. So having walked away from three write offs you know one shouldn't tempt Providence I would think. I think one or two other things I could go on to talk about but coincidences, yes. Yes, I was coming off a train at Kings Cross Station on the Metropolitan Line walking up the stairs and who should I come face to face with passing a corner but my old pilot, Squadron Leader [Gutcher] who was going home from his boring job in Air Ministry. Fortunately, it was right outside the door of a little bar so we went in there and and talked about old times but I don't think he was treated as well as he should have been with his record anyway.
DB: Perhaps you could tell me a little bit about the other characters in your crew.
JS: The other characters. Oh yes, there was, well as I said there was Bill Barlow, a big shambling man who was a ballroom dancing champion in his spare time strangely enough who really was a lovely man but was killed on that one trip that he did. The, Alan Gaye the pilot we finished with he and I corresponded. He lived in Brisbane in Australia. Very dour sort of a fellow but a very honourable gentleman. My wireless operator was absolutely the personification of Mr Barraclough in “Porridge.” He was determined because you know before the war we were coming through a most dreadful recession and life was pretty rotten for most people and jobs were hard to get. I left school with a school certificate which was a bit unusual in those days as there weren't very many of them around and took from July to October before I found a job and I joined a firm called the Ellerman Line. They were a gigantic shipping group with about eight companies in the group and was lucky to get a job there on a pound a week. When you think about it a pound a week and they said to me, ‘And Sampson each year you will get an increase of five shillings a week. So when you're four years into your employment here you will be earning two pounds a week and then the sky's the limit.’ Little did I know that the sky wasn't the one they were thinking about that I finished up with and it was about that sort of time that I was walking home with my mother from, we'd been out visiting, perhaps I was a few years younger. And it was a time when a little bit of gentle rearmament was in the air and there was a searchlight practising and eventually it caught a lone aircraft and lit it up in the sky and I said, ‘Look at that. It's amazing, isn't it?’ And little did I know about three years later I myself was caught in searchlights a time or two. And we had a wonderful drill the boffins said to us, ‘Now, if you're caught in searchlights,’ mind you they weren’t the ones going out to do it, ‘If you are caught in searchlights sit there and count fourteen seconds because that's how long it takes for them to transfer the information from the search, master searchlight to the gunners to lay the guns and pull the trigger.’ So we were expected, us boys to sit there counting and I must say first of all being coned it's like being lit up on a stage in a theatre that's totally unoccupied. Suddenly there you are for the whole world to see. And if they thought we were going to count to fourteen they had to think, we actually started religiously counting, we got to ten and we said, ‘We're going to peel off now. We're not hanging about here.’ And we lost the searchlights and that happened more than once. But being coned in searchlights was a great leveller. You suddenly felt totally naked. And unfortunately for us the majority of our trips were into the Ruhr which was the most heavily defended piece of Germany you ever invented. If you looked on our maps in the briefing rooms the searchlights were in yellow plastic, anti-aircraft in red and the Ruhr was a lump like that of red and yellow. There were odd patches in other places like Berlin, Hamburg and so on but that one. And we finished our tour with two trips to Duisburg in one night. Yeah, we gave Duisburg a real pasting. We were on target a winter’s night. We were on target the first time but I think I’ve got it here. In the late evening and we got back and they said ‘Don't go to bed you’re going back again.’ And they were the last two trips that we had to do so we did two in one night. We considered ourselves very lucky. I’ve marked one or two little bits here. Where was it? [pause] So we did our two trips to Duisburg and finished our tour. And it was rather amusing later in life when the 102 Association sent me a letter from the Mayor of Duisburg saying, talking about what had happened and would I care to comment on it. Expecting me to be conciliatory I think. And I said, ‘For a lad who didn't want to fight, who spent five years in the Air Force having to fight because of Germany,’ I said. ‘And who night after night after night after night had to come home in the Blitz. Crossing the river from Waterloo to Charing Cross where they closed the underground for safety reasons and having to walk across Hungerford Bridge.’ Do you know Hungerford Bridge by, it runs alongside Charing Cross mainline station? ‘Is a very lonely thing when you're on your own, the waters lapping down on your right hand side and there are aircraft bombing overhead and you're hoping to get in to the Charing Cross Station the other side keeping your head on your body.’ I said, ‘If you think I'm going to say I'm sorry. I'm most certainly not sorry. You had it coming to you and you got it. With a bit of luck you won’t try and do it again.’
An experience I would like to mention is that towards the end of our tour we were being supplied with American bombs. The short squat ones as opposed to our longer, what appeared to be more done streamlined version and when we came back one night in our circuit we had to get very close to the circuit at Elvington and we noticed there was a fire on the runway. And it transpired it was the commanding officer of one of the Free French squadrons who coming back had had a hang up, a bomb frozen up in the thing so to all intents and purposes it was hanging free and when they touched down it fell, came through the bomb doors and, and blew up. And so the next day two crews, one was ours was selected to go out into the North Sea with a selection of a thousand pounders and five hundred pounder American bombs and we were under instructions to drop fifty percent live, fifty percent safe, you know. When we were approaching the target the cry would go up and I would have to log it, ‘Bombs fused and selected.’ By selection a hook came down and caught in the loop of a wire which held a locking plate on the end of the bomb to stop the fins. And so when you got back they would merely open the bomb doors and look to see if all the bits were hanging there and see if you'd done your job and dropped them all out. So we had to drop fifty percent live and fifty percent [pause] What's the word I'm trying to think of? Safe. Live and safe. Which we did and you have to remember of course that when a bomb comes out of an aeroplane it travels forward at the speed of the aircraft for a while and then loops down in a, in a parabola and then you drop a bomb from twenty thousand feet it's two miles before it hits the deck. So our old lumbering Halifaxes by the time we had dropped them we were ordered to drop them from a thousand, or was it five hundred feet [pause] and each one we dropped, live and safe they all blew up. So it looked as though there were some fault which was a bit harsh because don't forget people were handling those bombs on the ground saying, ‘Alright they’re safe. Don't worry lad.’ And we got a terrible jolting from a lot of those when they went off I can tell you. And the other aircraft which was under the command of a South African didn't come back and we thought perhaps he’d had copped it from one of these bombs and gone in. We had a big sea search for them. Found nothing but I had, was brought into the discussion because relations of crew members got in touch with me to say, ‘You were on that. There were only two aircraft. What can you tell us?’ And I had to say what I've just told you but in later life it transpires whether old Tommy went on a crusade of his own but his aircraft wreck was found in Holland. So whether he said, ‘I've got a load of bombs on board some bugger is going to get these and I don't care who it is.’ And I've got the story written there because we had on our, we were a very cosmopolitan squadron 102, in brackets Ceylon Squadron, that's why Kularatne’s father was posted. He was the only Ceylonese we ever had actually. And one night we had eight South Africans arrived from the South African Army Air Corp. Lovely fellows all of them and Thompson was one of those. Eight came. Four didn't go back. If you look at this, the “War Diary of Pocklington” you'll find that on two nights Pocklington who operated twenty five aircraft as a maximum effort lost eleven and when you think there's seven in each one of those you go in and the mess is like a morgue. And then all the new crews arrive and you think Christ why are there so many of us new crews arriving? They’ve had a clear out have they? You'll find one or two like that when we lost five or four or three but you know we we didn't fly at any great speed. We flew out of the target at a hundred and forty seven knots. And the Rolls Merlin engines that we had they changed them. Being a base station with a big repair reception and repair hangar there we were one of the first to get them. They put Bristol radial engines in. The radial engine is where all the cylinders are on the outside instead of in a line like a motor car engine and they were absolutely marvellous. They made a fabulous difference to the old Halifax. When I told you about the mine laying trip that we did, climbed above it because we had those new, new engines that we could, instead of staggering to the enemy coast to try and get to ten thousand feet we could do it over the aerodrome by going twice around with them. I realise now that I got stuck on Jack Jarvis the wireless operator. We were explaining life was very difficult in the ‘30s in finding jobs and he had an uncle that was a prison officer and he was born out of wedlock which was something in those days. He would never apply for a commission because it might come up so we got him promoted to warrant officer very quickly and he said he’d got a job lined up. His uncle would get him in to the Prison Service so when he got back to his home in Battle, he lived in Battle down where the 1066 and all that sprung from he was going in to the Prison Service. And as I said if ever there was a Mr Barraclough it was old Jack telling us stories about how he had his leg pulled by these, some of these prisoners. There were different prisoners in those days. They didn’t carry knives and guns or anything like that and they used to call him Mr Jarvis you know which made him feel quite good I think. And they used to have to take them on jobs outside prison to do painting and decorating and that sort of thing and leave them while they got on with it and go back for them later. He said he met one of these chaps later on in town and said, ‘Mr Jarvis, you never knew that when you used to leave us doing that painting job for that lady my wife was still running my builder’s business and she used to send a bloke along to take over from me and while he was doing my painting I was learning to fly.’ [laughs] And whenever we saw, “Porridge,” we always called him Mr Barraclough was Jack Jarvis. So that was dear old Jack. Marvellous fellow. The two gunners. The youngest, I mean to demonstrate that we were really boys in a sense the mid-upper gunner we had Donald Blyth who, now here’s another strange job. He worked for an undertaker and he was the man who walked in front with the black clobber on with tapes, black tapes in the back of his hat seeing the coffins safely on their way. But when he finished his tour he was still only just about nineteen years of age. Our flight engineer. Yes, the other. We had a rear gunner of course who went a bit funny on us at the end. His nerves got the better of him but it was only for the last couple of trips and he visualised fighters and he got us corkscrewing across the sky with his gun in a fixed position with the tracer making coloured rings going around. And our flight engineer Leslie Coolidge was an East End boy who eventually came home and went to work for de Havilland. But otherwise, I lost total touch with them until quite late on when I was approached by Donald Blyth who was the mid-upper gunner who got me together with Jack Jarvis and the three of us became quite good companions. Donald unfortunately never made it up here but Jack Jarvis came to ours and stayed with us two or three times and we went down and stayed in his prison officer’s house just at the back of Lewes jail. So, that was my crew but we really were a tightly knit community as a crew and I would never hear a word against them by anybody at all.
DB: It must have been very frightening for your mother when you were, when you were in London.
JS: Yes.
DB: When you were in the air.
JS: I think a little more about the pre-war days is useful because it was a very difficult time. Not only did we have the back end of the terrible economic situation where as I said I had a school certificate but it still took me from June until October to find a job. When I did have a stroke of good fortune because an old school friend of mine who was in the first year in to the school which had only just opened, I was in the third year in to the school but his father had got him a job with the Ellerman Lines. His father worked for the Board of Trade which became the Ministry of Shipping and he’d heard of a couple of jobs which had two chaps in the second year in to the school who took with the Ellerman Line and I was the fourth. And I worked for a firm, one of the companies engaged in the Mediterranean trade and it was another world. I joined as a post boy which meant that that you ran letters all day long around the streets. You ran backwards and forwards to the cable office. You went around emptying all the out-trays, filling up all the in-trays on, on the managers’ desks. You literally were at everyone’s beck and call. If my managing director wanted a sandwich out you went and you got him a sandwich. If he wanted his library books changed at the smutty library that some of these businessmen used my job was to go there and hope I could get out with my tail of my shirt still where it ought to be because some of the girls always wanted to help you choose the books [laughs] It was quite amusing. And then you, what you did you got when the time came you filled the vacancies in the department so you paid your money and you took your choice but the wages were of course at that time a pound a week. If you asked somebody to work called Dave for that sort of money I don’t know quite what they’d say today. But this is a case of looking back and seeing an entirely different world in which people lived and strangely enough they weren’t all unhappy with their lay in life because they simply didn’t know anything different. We were pretty hard up and happy. My mother worked like a trooper to make sure that we didn’t get rushed off by some well thinking social worker in to the kind of a workhouse situation that she’d been brought up in. My sister worked in a factory in Hampstead. A big paper firm it was Mansell, Hunt and Catty. They made bon bons, they made serviettes, they made doilies all that kind of thing. My brother went off to work when he was fourteen and he worked for a firm called Curry and Paxton who made spectacles and ground lenses and that kind of thing which kept him out of the thing but he worked twice as hard as most people because every night he came home and went down to the ack ack battery down on Kingsbury Green as it were. Managed to get home in time for breakfast and then back to work again. So really that was the sort of life we were living. But I went back to Ellerman’s after the war. I came out of the air force as a senior flight lieutenant earning about seven or eight hundred a year and I went back to Ellerman’s earning two hundred and thirty five pounds a year which was a bit of a shock. Fortunately, in between times a friend of mine who also went in the air force with me, we joined up on the same day, he played the piano and we formed a band and we used to go out playing and in fact could have played almost every night of the week because everyone danced their lives away in those days. Played right up until I went in to the air force and we got together again when I came out because a couple of members of the band were in reserved occupations and didn’t get called up so they had things lined up for us and I did that again for a few years. So I managed to get by. I met my first wife in Jersey on holiday and we were married. Sadly, she died when she was twenty six. She had a diseased heart which they couldn’t do anything about in those days. And I can remember the specialist saying to her because they’d just done, old Barnard had just done the first heart transplant at the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town which in later years I passed by often when I was out there and he said to my wife, ‘If you could only hang on for a year or two I’ll give you a new heart.’ Sadly, she couldn’t and she died giving birth to our second child. We’d already had one son who was Richard but Christopher didn’t last more than a few weeks beyond his mother so he died too. And then I was very fortunate. A secretary came to work for me in Ellerman’s who has now been my wife for the last sixty years. Sixty next year actually, mustn’t boast and we finished up Richard my eldest son is still around. He lives down in Sheringham now he’s retired. A daughter, Ruth, who is a senior officer in the taxation business and a son who is qualified at just about everything. A barrister, a solicitor, he has got more letters after his name than the Pope I think. And so we are a very happy family. We’ve got five lovely grandchildren and now we’ve got two great grandchildren so we shall celebrate with all of them next year on our sixtieth and look forward to a happy time.
[recording paused]
But looking back on my brother and sister they were really children very much of their time because you could leave school at the age of fourteen then. As I said you couldn’t work before 7 o’clock in the morning if you were under eleven but that must seem rather strange to people when you talk about that. I did the paper round of course from the age of eleven to the age of eighteen but my brother and sister went into factories. In fact, I had a very large paper round and collected the money in every Sunday morning for which they paid me a shilling in the pound and I earned as much doing the paper round as my poor old brother did commuting down into Campden Town every day to grind lenses for Curry and Paxton. By that means I stayed at school and so at the end of the day it was very much worth it. Sadly, my mother only lived to see the first of the grandchildren because my brother had no children, my sister had one daughter who became a Tiller Girl. One of the old Tiller Girls who is now knocking on a bit herself of course [laughs].
[recording paused]
So back to my days after the war when I went back to Ellerman’s, I was lucky that I’d done well in the RAF and I was given a chance of going into every department in the company and I learned. I did every job technically that the company had to offer. All the way through the Accounts Department, the documentation departments. We were a large shipping company trading with most of the world and I eventually was put in to what we called the Far East Department where I became the assistant manager. I went to the Far East and I travelled the length and breadth. I was out there for three months to start with literally flying somewhere every second day and took over as the manager from there. I was given other managerial tasks including the prime South African trade and ultimately finished up as the managing director. So I went from post boy to managing director. So all the earlier privations were very much worthwhile. The only sad thing is that it wasn’t all done at the time when I could have done something a bit more for poor old mum who’d had a pretty hard life.
[pause]
JS: Can you think of anything I haven’t touched on?
DB: Perhaps life in the mess or in the local Pocklington area or, you know.
JS: Oh, I owned a local pub [laughs]
DB: Oh well that sort of thing. Perhaps have, have your sandwiches and you can have a think about what you’d —
JS: Yeah. Yeah.
DB: Seems to be a year for wasps. I had three in my room the other night.
JS: Hmmn?
DB: It seems to be a year for wasps. I had three in my room the other night.
JS: We just had a nest done.
DB: Oh right. Maybe we’ve got a nest in our block somewhere.
[pause]
DB: What made you choose this house?
JS: Well, we’ve always had a house up here. Apart from probably a gap of one year. The kids thought they’d got too old we virtually we lived on the beach in Sheringham. We lived on Cliff Road. Had a house in Cliff Road then.
DB: I know Cliff Road. Not very —
JS: We could just cut through down two ways straight on to the beach.
DB: Yeah
JS: We had a big dinghy I brought from a toy shop in Germany. Quite a big thing but we had a bloody great rope on it so we never let it go more than about fifteen yards.
DB: Yeah.
JS: But it we put everything in that to take to the beach.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Down to the beach and then back you know when we’d finished. Hot baths for the kids and a jolly good meal and they absolutely shone. They were. And they came up every day of every holiday.
DB: Oh wonderful.
JS: Christmas included. And we got to love Sheringham.
DB: I like Sheringham better than Cromer.
JS: No life in Cromer.
DB: There’s much more character in Sheringham because I used to live, I used to live in Walsingham so I used to go to to Wells on a regular basis.
JS: Yeah.
DB: So, so I knew Wells better.
JS: Our Lady of Walsingham. We haven’t been to Walsingham for quite a while have we? She used to live there.
JS2: Difficult to park there isn’t it?
DB: Oh, it is. Yeah. Right. I was a housekeeper at the abbey so —
JS2: Oh right.
DB: I didn’t have any problem.
JS2: The last time we went we went to there’s a new church, sort of out of town. We went there for a concert at night.
DB: Yes. I know, I know which one you mean. But —
JS: See that picture there.
DB: Oh, with the Queen Mother.
JS: The one nearest, the little boy nearest the camera is our grandson.
DB: Oh wonderful.
JS: He became leading soloist there in his last eighteen months.
DB: Oh really? Wow.
JS: So we had two grandsons went to St Paul’s.
DB: Right.
JS: My eldest grandson, his picture’s over there holding his little boy and he’s in that picture at the back where he’s passing out. The one on the right is him. The other one on the left is the other singing brother.
DB: Right.
JS: And the one in the middle is our granddaughter.
DB: Oh.
JS: Who has just presented us with a little grandson called Toby.
DB: Oh.
JS: But the eldest boy became a part of Prince Charles’s staff. He was an equerry to the Prince of Wales.
DB: Very nice for him.
JS: Playing football with Harry and —
DB: Harry and William.
JS: William up at Sandringham. Did his stuff in Afghanistan like most of them do these days.
DB: Of course. I did Iraq not Afghanistan fortunately so [pause] I was there for six months. That was interesting.
JS: When was that?
DB: 2003. I was there Gulf War Two. So —
JS: They never, I mean one has to say history repeated itself with the Germans. Which looking back on it now you can say how could they have made such a dreadful mistake? How could there have been so many appeasers and self seekers and people who never did any fighting anyway who led us into a position where we went to war against Germany totally unprepared? We had nothing.
DB: There’s a really good book called the, “The Right Of The Line.” And the guy who wrote that, and I can’t for the life of me remember what name, what his name is at the minute but he, he covered that in extensively and I just can’t believe like you say that we let it get that bad.
JS: We paid the price.
DB: Yeah. We can’t let it get that bad. Did you have anything to do with the Short Stirling at all?
JS: No. No. We didn’t.
DB: No. You didn’t. Because I know you were quite early on with your flying training so it wasn’t until later that they used —
JS: Stirlings were still going.
DB: Yeah.
JS: But nobody wanted to fly in the bloody things. They couldn’t get above about fifteen thousand feet. I mean we could at least get the old Halifax up to about eighteen. The Lancs were up around twenty thousand but of course at the end of the day the Halifax was faster and could climb better than the Lancaster. They were beginning to put Bristol engines in to the Lancasters, some of them.
DB: So I, one of the gentlemen who I visited who used to live near me he was, he was a Halifax pilot and he was saying that he was involved with the Halifax 3 when it was being tested and he said it was a really good plane.
JS: Yeah.
DB: The Halifax 3. Even in comparison to the Halifax 1. So [pause]
JS: The difference was phenomenal we started off and found that we’d got Hercules engines instead of the Merlins and within about it couldn’t have been much more than about another two months at the outside they were going. We’d got the Centaura engines.
DB: Right.
JS: Which was even better. As I said to get one up to maybe twenty five thousand feet was quite something.
DB: That’s stunning that is. Very unusual. So the, I presume the Liberator you didn’t like that quite as much as the Halifax then?
JS: No. No. They were very comfortable. They were almost palatial on the flight deck with carpet and God knows what else. But they could only do a hundred and thirty seven.
DB: Right. Mind you they were a different role weren’t they than the, than the Halifax?
JS: We were going up with a load. Latterly we could have gone out oh I should think probably twenty five knots better than we used to with the old Merlin engine.
JS2: You didn’t tell Dee where your escape hatch was on your plane.
DB: Oh, what? The Halifax one.
JS2: And how you had to get out.
DB: Oh yes. You must. You must tell me about that.
JS: What was that, Joy?
JS2: I said you didn’t tell her how, where your escape hatch was on the Halifax.
JS: Oh, I see. No.
JS2: And how you could have got out.
JS: You’ve been on a Halifax, have you?
DB: No.
JS: You haven’t been in the one at York?
DB: Not yet. I’ve been up. I’ve been up to Elvington because one of the squadrons that I have sort of adopted is 466 squadron and they were Halifaxes. So last year.
JS: But not in 4 Group.
DB: No. No. They were--
JS: Were in 6.
DB: They were in 6 Group.
JS: The Canadians?
DB: No. No. They were Australian.
JS: Were they?
DB: So I went up to, to Elvington because I’d never seen a Halifax but I’d like to go inside her just to see the difference.
JS: I put a little money in as most people or a lot of people did. And I asked, I was wanting to go up. Well, we were going that way and eventually after a lot of hoo hah because there was some bloody woman there whose husband had done quite a bit of work on the Halifax as a volunteer and she thought she owned it and she would decide who went in and who didn’t go in but eventually I got agreement which she tried to frustrate even at the last minute. And I took, we had our neighbours next door this way who were great pals he was a jet pilot and a friend just up the road and the six of us went over the Halifax. It’s rather strange. Everything looks a little bit toy. You know you go to an aerodrome and all the buildings look smaller than they did. Just imagination. So Joy’s been all over the Halifax.
DB: I’ve been, I’ve been inside the, I’ve been inside the BBMF Lancaster.
JS: Yes.
DB: I’ve also been inside Just Jane. The one at East Kirkby. And when I went over to New Zealand to visit some friends I actually inside the one at the Museum of Technology and Transport there as well. So —
JS: What have they got there? What planes?
DB: Theirs is a Lancaster as well.
JS: A Lanc. Yeah.
DB: Yeah. They’ve got a Lancaster.
JS: Yeah.
DB: But I’d love to fly in the BBMF Lancaster but it’s not going to happen. I might have to wait ‘til Just Jane. [pause] I know, I know the Lancaster‘s a different aircraft but it must have been nice when the Canadian Lancaster came over.
JS: Yes. The Canadians have got a Halifax too.
DB: I know they have. I know they have but unfortunately it’s just static isn’t it? They’re just like, just like, well, and although I think doesn’t Friday the 13th have working engines or, or am I dreaming?
JS: I don’t know.
DB: I’ve got a funny feeling her engines —
JS: You know how the one came about in York?
DB: Yes.
JS: A chap touring Scotland on a croft. He saw the central section being used as a chicken run.
DB: I’ve actually got a book about it.
JS: Have you?
DB: Yeah. When I went up there I bought. I bought the book. The book about how she came about which is why I’d like to go inside her because I’d like to compare the two. But so, but yeah it’s because in some ways they’re similar. In other ways they’re very different. So, but yes it was a bit of a labour of love. I think you can, I think you can just pay to go in her now.
JS: Can you?
DB: Yeah. But if you’re a veteran I think you get in free of charge. If you’re the family of a veteran you pay a little bit. But if you’re not connected to a veteran.
JS: [unclear] Yeah.
DB: Then you pay a lot more but you also have to arrange it before you go up so —
JS: But the Halifaxes they tended to have a flight deck whereas the Halifax the wireless operator’s down the step. Literally under the feet of the pilot. And then there was a navigation cabin. Or not a cabin.
DB: Yeah.
JS: But a piece. And then the bomb aimer was in the nose.
DB: Right. Okay.
JS: But the way out was under the navigator’s feet but that was alright in a sense. What you had to do was to lift the seat and clip it back.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And push the table up and clip it back.
DB: Yeah.
JS: So that you could get at the hatch.
DB: Yeah.
JS: But of course —
DB: That would have —
JS: What happened was, they put a radar set up there.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And a radar set up there. And another piece over the top here that we used.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And the table couldn’t be moved. So you had to crawl under the table and get this bloody great thing up and the aircraft might be upside down.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Trying to get out.
DB: Or going like this.
JS: Yeah.
DB: In which case the pressure is going to be —
JS2: [unclear]
JS: Yeah.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. And your, and your flight suit as well which wasn't exactly thin. It needed to keep you warm.
JS: Of course you had a Mae West and a harness on as well.
DB: Yeah. Not an easy, not an easy task at all. I got asked recently because the sole VC that was on our squadron he did wing walking and he was supposed to have gone out through this hatch and I got asked by somebody to find out whether it would be even possible in a flight suit et cetera et cetera. So, we knew roughly what height he was and all that sort of thing so I wrote to the people who, who’d got the Wellington at Brooklands and they said, ‘Oh yeah, it would be just about possible for him to get out with —' you know because they said he’d got his Mae West and his parachute on when he, when he did this wing walk and they said, ‘Yeah. He'd just about be able to squeeze through but it would be difficult.’ So —
JS: I could mention here that one day, we always got these jobs. I always thought, I'm quite sure we got a lot of these mine laying jobs because of my dexterity on the H2S set and virtually instructing on it. I don’t know whether my career would work that one out but we're all alive so it doesn’t matter.
DB: No. I'm glad you were all alive and you were all —
JS: One day the squadron commander grabbed us all. He said, ‘Got a job for you.’ And somebody had persuaded Bomber Command to give a trial to the American flak suits.
DB: Right.
JS: Have you ever seen them in them?
DB: I probably have.
JS: And they sort of lifted up at the bottom —
DB: Right.
JS: So you can sit down in the things. But we tried out. So the idea was that you had your ordinary flying clobber.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Then you put on this flak suit.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Then you put on a Mae West and then you put on a parachute harness as well.
DB: Oh my God, I would imagine.
JS: It’s impossible.
DB: Yeah, I should, I was going to say it sounds impossible.
JS: And I had the job of writing a report on it.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And at one of the big squadron meetings in the big meeting room there they were talking away there and someone said, ‘Could I ask you a question, sir?’ The CO said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘What happened about those flak suits? Didn't we carry out a trial and you got a report on it?’ ‘Report?’ He said, ‘It’s more like a bloody article for Punch.’ [laughs]
DB: Very, I like that. I like that. You'll have to tell them about that one. Oh dear.
JS2: You didn’t tell Dee how you met up with your crew. I mean not to start with. At the end.
DB: You did mention. He did mention that one of, one of the air gunners contacted him.
JS2: Oh, you did.
JS: Yeah. I dealt with that.
DB: It was while you were doing the sandwiches, Joy.
JS: Oh right.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. He mentioned that. Which is, I mean it is great that you managed to get together and at least you had some contact with your pilot as well because a lot of people they just bomb burst that was it. You never heard from them again so —
JS: The fault was in the system. We finished our tour of operations.
DB: Yeah.
JS: The Canadian crew finished the same night. We were the first two to finish in months so there was a big celebration.
DB: Yes, I can imagine.
JS: I can tell you how it finished. I was great friends with a warrant officer who worked with me. He lived out and he lived at the pub.
DB: Right.
JS: And so we took a big room that they had over the pub and we had a hell of a party. And it finished up with about four big hairy buggers grabbing hold of me, turning me upside down and said, ‘We’re taking you on your last flight.’ So zooming me around the room.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And suddenly somebody shouted out ‘flak flak flak’ and they brought bottles of beer shoved down the leg of my trousers and went wump wump wump. And Ethel the landlady said she could still remember me standing there and saying, ‘Ethel, can I come and pay tomorrow?’
DB: I think you ought to tell them that one. I like that story. I like that story. Hello Mr Squirrel.
JS: [unclear]
DB: Mr Squirrel.
JS: Oh, buggers. Yes
DB: Yeah [laughs] A pity it’s not a red one but —
JS: No. If it was a red one I wouldn't mind at all.
DB: No.
JS: Have I put in there anything about Sir Arthur Harris's speech?
DB: No, you haven't.
JS: We should because —
DB: Yes
JS: Posterity. It's on record.
DB: Yes, it is. Yes. Yes. Is that the, is that the one where he sat behind the desk?
JS: Park Lane Hotel.
DB: Oh.
JS: No.
DB: After. Post war.
JS: Yes.
DB: Post war one. No, you haven't mentioned that. I’m sure it probably is written down but it would be nice to hear your view on it, let's put it that way. Your reaction. That’s the word I’m looking for. Yeah
JS: Well, I think it’s something that's not repeated often enough.
DB: No.
JS: For people to realise exactly what it was all about. He summed it up very succinctly, I think.
DB: Yes.
JS: It was funny because he was, I was in shipping as I told you. And he was in shipping too.
DB: Oh right. Okay.
JS: He was one of the directors of the original, what’s, States Marine Corporation I think they called them.
DB: Oh right.
JS: Which eventually turned in to the national line for South Africa. South African Marine. Corporation.
DB: Right.
JS: And he’d been the director of it and I had a lot to do with SAF Marine people.
DB: Yes.
JS: Who had an office across the road from us in the city.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And great pals with a chap called Frank Smith who was their general manager.
DB: Right.
JS: And he used to come to me and say, ‘You wanna watch it. I’m having dinner with your old boss tonight.’ And they would go down and call on old Butch who lived down at Goring on Thames or somewhere down there.
DB: Bless him. Yes, he fought. Fought all the way for his, for his boys but unfortunately —
JS: It was a hell of a job he had to do.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Because when you think that at one period we were losing I would have thought perhaps on average seventy eighty aircraft a night. That must have played on his mind terribly.
DB: I'm sure it did. I'm sure it did. Because he, because he felt very strongly about you guys.
JS: Yeah.
DB: He felt very strongly but —
JS: But it didn't matter, I mean what part of it you were when people took off they all took the same chance.
DB: Oh, definitely. Definitely.
JS: Have you had enough dear?
DB: I’ve had plenty. Thank you. Shall I take these out to the kitchen for Joy. And there you go. I’ll pop these into the kitchen for you Joy.
JS2: Oh, thank you.
[pause]
JS2: I’ll have to show you as she goes out.
DB: I love the sign about the lovely old lady and the grumpy old man.
JS2: That’s my granddaughter did that. She came in with it one day.
DB: I think that’s brilliant. So [pause] it seems to still be playing. That’s not right.
[recording paused]
JS: Is it on? That thing on. Did I talk about Ellerman’s?
DB: Yes. You did.
JS: To you or to there?
DB: To there you. Yes, you did.
JS: Okay.
DB: Because you were talking about your family and you were talking about Ellerman’s then
JS: Yes. Yes.
DB: But perhaps you could talk about the incident you were telling me about when you finished your —
JS: Tour.
DB: Yeah.
JS: What else was it?
DB: That you were going to say about the next morning. You were sheepish, sheepishly talking to the —
JS: The night. That was the night.
DB: Yeah. Yes, because they had the two different types didn't they? They had the bomb —
[recording paused]
DB: Something interesting.
JS: Would it ever have finished?
DB: I don't know. I don’t know.
JS: I mean look what the Germans had up their sleeves. They had the V-1. They had the V-2.
DB: Oh yes. Mind you I suppose we were, I mean we were inventing our own things as well. I mean —
JS: Yes.
DB: It might have been they dropped an atom bomb on the Germans if —
JS: Yes.
DB: If it hadn't ceased before that.
JS: I mean, as it happened and I’m glad they did they dropped two on the Japanese and it demonstrated to the world what they could do rather than just write about it and people saying, ‘No. It won’t be like that at all.’
DB: No.
JS: It was like that.
DB: Yes. It was exactly like that.
JS: And because the Japanese would never have surrendered if their emperor hadn't taken the bull by the horns and said, ‘It stops.’
DB: One thing that’s, maybe you want to talk about is what happened, how did you celebrate VE Day? Were you at home or were you, where were you for VE Day?
JS: We were here. Oh, VE Day.
DB: Yes, the actual VE Day rather than, rather than the celebrations seventy years later.
JS: I don’t know to what extent it was over celebrated. I really don’t.
DB: Were you, were you still on the squadron at that point? No. You’d left at that point, hadn’t you?
JS: I was demobbed by then.
DB: Okay.
JS: Just been demobbed by that time.
DB: Right.
JS: I came out in midsummer and that was in —
DB: It was in August, wasn’t it?
JS: August. Yes.
DB: So, so you weren’t in London at that point. You didn’t go out to central London or anything.
JS: No. No. No.
DB: No.
JS2: You didn’t say anything about they wouldn’t let you have a medal until just recently.
DB: Oh.
JS2: And that Bomber Command wouldn’t be recognised.
DB: Oh, you mean about the Bomber Command clasp? I totally agree with you. Totally agree with you.
JS: I won't wear those campaign medals. They're the most disgusting thank you that anyone could, if you compare it with I'm lucky enough to have a DFC. But if you, how would you wear those against those bits of tin that the government.
DB: Yeah. One of my, one of my Warrant Officer friends, a guy called Jim Wright is still writing to the government and trying to get a proper medal so —
JS: We’ve got one.
DB: I know you’ve got the clasp but —
JS: No. I’ve got a Bomber Command medal.
DB: Oh right. Yeah.
JS: We’ve got our own.
DB: Yes. I know you created, created your own but he’s trying to get an official.
JS: Yes, I know.
DB: Government one.
JS: Yes, but that would be another piece of tin.
DB: Yeah. I don't think he'll succeed.
JS: No. No.
DB: I don’t think he’ll succeed,
JS: I'd rather not I'd rather not have it quite frankly. I won’t have mine made up in to a row.
DB: Yes.
JS: I've got the miniatures.
DB: Yes.
JS: But I won’t have them made up in to a row until such time as we can put the Bomber Command one in there.
DB: Yes.
JS: Next to the Aircrew Europe medal.
DB: Yeah. Sounds fair to me. Sounds very fair to me.
JS: Because they sound tinny when people walk along. Typical government response.
DB: Yes. Oh yeah. Definitely. It's all about these —
JS: They've got to do it so they do it in the cheapest possible fashion.
DB: Yeah. Yeah.
JS: So all the thanks people have got.
DB: Have you were you involved in D-Day because you, were you flying at that point?
JS: Yes.
DB: You were.
JS: Yes. But all we did and I say all we did was because it was just an extra doddle as it were we went over and we had a job of carpet bombing.
DB: Right
JS: Ahead of the British forces.
DB: Right. So have you.
JS: That went wrong with the, it was the Canadians who bombed their own troops.
DB: That’s right. Yes. I remember that.
JS: So fitted next to the navigator’s desk was a cut out switch and the bomb aimer couldn't drop anything until the navigator put that switch on.
DB: Right. Okay because have you, have you claimed your Legion d’honneur?
JS: [laughs] Are they lobbing them out are they?
DB: They're giving it to people who were involved in D-Day whether they be in the air, land or sea.
JS: Oh, I didn't know that.
DB: So I should claim it. If you were involved in any way you can put the claim form in for it.
JS: Yeah. How can you get a Legion d’honneur?
DB: Well, they’re basically, I think they’ve waited until there’s not that many of you. [JS laughter] But I don't think they realise just how many there are and it's taking some time. So but if you go onto the government website you can download the claim form and send it off so —
JS: Legion d'honneur.
DB: Yes. In fact, some of the —
JS: [humming La Marseillaise]
DB: Some of the, some of the Australian pilots had theirs given to them by the ambassador from France in Canberra the other, the other week.
JS: Oh really. Yeah.
DB: So, they’re doing it properly. They’re doing it properly.
JS: Yes. Well, we’ll give him a pennyworth if he comes up and does it up here.
DB: Why not?
JS: Yes.
DB: He’ll enjoy, he'll enjoy the countryside.
JS: Yes.
DB: The other thing is have you heard about Project Propeller?
JS: No. What’s that?
DB: Right. Project Propeller is a different, different charity and what they do is they arrange a day every year where they fly aircrew into a, a particular point and, and then they fly you back again. So for you they'd probably get you too, where is the nearest small airfield that a private pilot —
JS: Oh, the smallest? Is there one at Creake, Joy.
DB: Yes. I think there’s one.
JS: North Creake.
DB: Yeah. They'd get somebody to pick you up from, from there or from Norwich or wherever you, wherever you wanted to be picked up from and fly you to wherever the venue was and then fly you back.
JS: Do they fly wives as well?
DB: Yes. Yeah. Oh yes, definitely. Basically, it’s you and the person or carer depending on whether your carers —
JS: What does that do? I mean —
DB: Basically it —
JS: How does that benefit a charity?
DB: They, they raise the money for the charity to do this and it's to basically to honour you guys but if you like I'm quite happy to give your name to the guy who organises it who is a friend of mine.
JS: Yes.
DB: And I will get him to contact you and tell you and tell you all about it but I can also write down the website for you so that you can.
JS: Well, we're not great on websites and things.
DB: Okay.
JS: I won’t have anything, having dealt with all this —
DB: Yeah. Well, he’ll quite happily email you.
JS: Joy does a bit.
DB: Right. Okay. He will quite happily email you, Graham.
JS: Yes.
DB: Or ring you. Whichever.
JS: How are we supposed to get back to you by the way as a result of your e-mail?
DB: Oh.
JS: Because Joy looked at, looked at it and she doesn’t profess to be an expert.
DB: Right.
JS: By any manner or means and said, ‘I don’t know how to get back to her.’
DB: Oh, there’s a, there’s a little thing that says. Well, you click on something. It depends which, which one you use. But there’s something you click on that says, ‘Reply.’
JS: Oh [laughs] I didn’t —
DB: So, but basically, I wanted, I wanted — to contact you by e-mail to give you the chance to go and do exactly what you did do. Talk to Helen and just make sure I was exactly who I said I was.
JS: Yeah.
DB: So I was quite happy for you to do that actually. So that’s but do you, do you do you use it on a computer or do you do it on a tablet?
JS: Joy’s got a laptop.
DB: Oh, okay. So is it Outlook that you get your emails from?
JS: Don't be technical.
DB: Okay. Is it a separate software programme that you go in to or is it on the Internet that you go into it?
JS: On the Internet.
DB: On the Internet. Okay. Each of the, each of the programmes it is slightly different. But usually there's a little thing that says, “Reply,” and you just click on that. You can either reply to just one person if there is just one person or you can reply to all if there's more than one person. That sort of thing. So you just click reply, type your e-mail and then click send.
JS: We couldn't see anywhere and that's why I phoned and —
DB: Oh no, that’s fine.
JS: I left a message there to say.
DB: That’s fine.
JS: We're not that technical. We've never had to reply to these things.
DB: No. That's fine. It actually worked quite well that way anyway. So, let me see if, I don't know if I’ve brought my booklet from —
JS: Your colleague phoned me back.
DB: Oh, Helen. Yes.
JS: Oh, Dan.
DB: Oh, Dan.
JS: It was Dan, I think I spoke to.
DB: Oh, was it Dan that spoke?
JS: He phoned me.
DB: Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, Helen was the one, the one that emailed me but no, Dan’s lovely. Yes. Dan's lovely. Have you been invited to the unveiling of the Spire?
JS: Yes. I think they said something and I said if it involves a lot of walking and that sort of thing and it, I mean I had Joy and I had front row seats for the Memorial thing.
DB: Oh right.
JS: Which my son, old Charles there —
DB: Yes.
JS: Was attending because he was attending on the royal couple anyway.
DB: Right.
JS: And I said to him, ‘Where's the nearest toilet?’ And he said, ‘A long way away.’
DB: Yeah. The nearest, the nearest one was the RAF club but that’s that’s —
JS: Yes. That’s bloody miles away.
DB: Across the road. It is across the road but I’m sure, but they had, they actually had some temporary toilets there as well.
JS: Oh, did they? Well —
DB: Yeah. You would have loved it it was a fabulous day. An absolutely fabulous day. I was able because I’m a member of the Bomber Command Association.
JS: Yes.
DB: I got two tickets and I took the secretary of our 75 New Zealand Squadron Association. The secretary to it.
JS: Well, I phoned old Doug down at Hendon.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Because I used to live just up the road from there anyway.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And said, ‘Doug, you know from what I hear I don't think this is on for us. Thank you very much. Let someone else have them.’
DB: Oh, no. No. You would have been alright. You would have been alright but, but hey. Have you been down since?
JS: No.
DB: No. Oh it’s lovely. I go down as often as I can. And I’ve got friends who go down once month if possible as well. So –
JS: Yes.
DB: We have a little service every, every year on the anniversary and we had the third anniversary service this year. Then we go across the road to the RAF Club and have a chat to the veterans who turn up and that sort of thing.
JS: Yes.
DB: So there was a Polish gentleman there this year who was on 311 Squadron.
JS: Yeah.
DB: So he flew Wellingtons and Liberators.
JS: Yes.
DB: So, that, that was really interesting. So, but yes I’ll give you, if you’re happy for me to do it.
JS: Yes, thank you.
DB: I’ll give Graham your details.
JS: Just give me the option. Tell him that —
DB: No. No. That’s —
JS: Yes.
DB: No. He won’t. He won’t make the assumption.
JS: Yes.
DB: He’ll just say, you know this is what’s involved. If you're interested I'll put you on the list to be invited. And then you can say if you don’t feel up to it on the day because what they do is all the pilots are private pilots. They’re not military ones.
JS: No.
DB: They're all private pilots. They all, they pay for the privilege of taking you there to, with their own fuel and that sort of thing. The only thing that the Project does is pay for the landing fees. And last year we were at, well we were at this year sorry we were at Cosford so because I help him find people who aren’t already on his list he lets me go. So, but we flew from Cambridge to Swansea to go and pick up a veteran and his, and his brother and then flew from there to Cosford and then flew back to Swansea and then back.
JS: Yes.
DB: To Cambridge. But the pilots —
JS: What do they do when they've landed?
DB: They transport you in a minibus to where, the venue and then you chat to, chat to other people. They have, they have a buffet lunch, they have speeches and then when you when you’re all socialised out they, but they also take pictures of all of you and that sort of thing and, and then you come home.
JS: Yeah.
DB: So it’s, it’s a very social day. And you might catch up with people from 102 or from —
JS: Yes.
DB: Sorry. What was it? 53.
JS: 53.
DB: Yes. 53.
JS: I was only on 53 for a few months.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Because it was just playing out time to get —
DB: Yeah.
JS: Demobilised.
DB: But you might find that there are people from 102 or 53 and what he does do is he tries to get people who’ve been were on the same squadrons together so that they can talk about squadrons.
JS: I mean, you mustn't take this wrong at all but I’m not a great reunion person in that.
DB: Oh no. No.
JS: In the sense that Joy and I went to one at Pocklington.
DB: Right.
JS: And the first thing they want to do is have a march past.
DB: Oh no. They don't do that. No. They don't do that.
JS: That’s, that’s not up my street at all.
DB: No. Well, I think, I think a lot of the reunions nowadays don't bother with those sorts of things because —
JS: And also the other thing was —
DB: A lot of veterans can't do it.
JS: At the squadron reunion I think two thirds of the people there were not at aircrew.
DB: No. No.
JS2: They were ground crew weren't they?
JS: All wearing fancy blazers and with big badges and all that sort of thing.
DB: Right.
JS: I don’t mind.
DB: No.
JS: But —
DB: No, and the majority at Project Propeller are aircrew. There might be the odd ground crew member.
JS: The Aircrew Association closed, didn't it? I was a member of that.
DB: There’s a lot of the, some of the branches are still around because I know there’s one down in the Chilterns because a friend of mine is a member of, Tom Payne is a member of that one so there's the odd ones but a lot of them like you say have closed down because obviously there's just nobody to go to them now.
JS: I always laugh about my neighbour John who is a wonderful friend but he was, he did his national service learning to fly in Canada.
DB: Oh, right. Okay.
JS: Because the Korean War was buzzing around there.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And he was good company to talk to.
DB: Yeah.
JS: But I said to him, ‘There’s a difference you see’ I said, ‘Because when you went to Canada you were already a pilot officer.’
DB: Yeah.
JS: I said, ‘I wasn't. I was an aircraftsman second class.’ We travelled steerage. He travelled first class.
DB: Yes, I can —
JS: When I came back from Canada we were in a single cabin.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And there were, there must have been at least eight of us in it. In bunks —
DB: Yeah.
JS: Up the side of the wall. I know we were having, we were allowed one case.
DB: Yeah.
JS: They were stacked on the bath.
DB: Yeah.
JS: So when you had a bath you had to get a couple of blokes to come in and you slid in under the suitcases and they held the suitcases back in case the ship did a bit of that and you had to duck as the suitcases —
DB: Oh, I like that. Can you, can you talk about that for me? Yeah. Do talk about that one for me.
JS: Yeah.
[recording paused]
JS: That one. I pressed the wrong one I think.
DB: That’s alright. We’ve managed an hour and forty.
JS: Is that alright?
DB: Yes. Lovely. That’s absolutely brilliant. But I mean unless you, unless you can think of anything else that you want to talk about we’ll leave it at that. But —
JS: Well, do you want to lay your hands on that?
DB: I’ll have, I’ll have a look at it certainly but [pause] I’m sure I can probably pick up a copy from somewhere.
JS: Well, they have it at the library, sorry, in the museum at Elvington I’m sure.
DB: I’m sure. I tend, I’ve got about three different websites that I get books from. And —
JS: So are you permanently attached to Lincoln University?
DB: No. I’m, I’m just a volunteer for them.
JS: Are you? Yes.
DB: I’m just a volunteer for them. Dan is employed by them.
JS: Yes.
DB: And Helen is employed by them but I’m just, I’m just someone who has volunteered to help out. Sometimes I go along to air shows to help with.
JS: Yes.
DB: With veterans at those because sometimes some of them go for signing sessions.
JS: Yeah. Excuse me. May I please just have a look?
DB: Please do.
JS: I don’t know whether it was here was it? That was a different, a different one. Yes. The first bit of course is 102 were not there
DB: Yeah
JS: They moved. As I said the squadron were lodgers.
DB: Mary [Collingham]
JS: Yes. Well, when we had our reunion after the war I was one of the organisers.
DB: Yes
JS: With a pal of mine and one of our big guests we had there was Leonard Cheshire.
DB: Oh wonderful
JS: Leonard got his first gong as pilot officer on 102.
DB: Did he?
JS: Yeah.
DB: Yes. Before he went back.
JS: Yes.
DB: Way before he went to 617, wasn’t it?
JS: Yes.
DB: But you said it was about May 1942. But yes. Such a shame when the crews were killed. 405 Squadron were there as well.
JS: That’s right. Yes.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Pocklington’s being demolished bit by bit.
DB: Yes.
JS: To make way for a trading estate and that sort of thing.
DB: Yes. Unfortunately, it’s happening with a, it’s happening with a lot of them, a lot of RAF stations at the moment. Spilsby there’s not much left of.
JS: Well, of course our big one is Coltishall.
DB: Yes.
JS: And they’re still working out.
DB: What they want to do with it.
JS: Yeah.
DB: Yeah.
JS: We get announcements and you think well that’s it then.
DB: Yeah.
JS: What was the latest with Coltishall, Joy?
JS2: I can’t remember. A housing estate wasn’t it?
DB: I know at one point they were talking about doing a, doing a solar panel —
JS: Yes.
DB: Farm or something.
JS: That’s another one. Yeah.
DB: Solar farm.
JS: We’ve got one of those building.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Up the road or going in up the road.
DB: Yeah. “Mine laying.”
JS2: Then there was going to be a prison and they said it was too near all the people
DB: Yeah. I think it’s the people in Coltishall complaining I think. But I thought they had actually opened an open prison there or something
JS2: I think they have done something to it now. Part of it anyway
DB: “Corporal O’Reilly fell off her bike in Pocklington.” Oh.
JS: [laughs] It wasn’t Peggy O’Neil who had a bike with one wheel
DB: Oh really. “Corporal [unclear] which is in SSQ with a subarachnoid haemorrhage in spite of —” Oh dear. Bless him. But this is the one with [unclear] in it [laughs] I like that. Yeah. I like that. With an old —
JS: That was the old Halifax with the oath on it.
DB: Yeah. Yes, a very famous poem. “Lie in the Dark and Listen.” Was, was you mentioned about Patrick Moore. Was he was he at [pause] was he at —
JS: I don’t know where he was.
DB: You don’t know where he was.
JS: No.
DB: Okay. Because there was somebody else who died recently who was in the air force. He wasn’t aircrew though, I think. He was ground crew, I think. The man who played Arthur Daly.
JS2: Oh, George Cole.
DB: George Cole. Yeah. He was, he was air force as well.
JS: There’s a piece in there about the station was visited by the father of the Royal Air Force Lord Trenchard.
DB: Oh, yes.
JS: Well. it’s funny when they say that but I was I’d been on a long trip the night before and I’d sort of just got up and we’d landed well after dawn.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And had a bath and changed and was sitting in the mess all on my own.
DB: Yes.
JS: In front of the fire and something tapped me on the shoulder. And I looked around there was this bloke you couldn’t see for the rings around his hand. I leapt up immediately.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And it was old Trenchard. I received Lord Trenchard. They didn’t mention that. And he said could I organise him a cup of tea.
DB: Oh bless.
JS: Which I went outside and did.
DB: Yeah.
JS: But hurriedly got on the phone to the CO to say, ‘I’ve got news for you mate.’ [laughs]
DB: You’ve got a visitor [laughs]
JS: Yeah.
DB: I think he liked just turning up announced, unannounced.
JS: Yeah.
DB: Didn’t he?
JS: Yeah.
DB: Because I think that’s the way, the way he found about things. The way things were.
JS: Well, he was Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police wasn’t he before he got involved.
DB: Yeah. So he was like, he liked creeping up on oh probably taken to Coltishall. That’s a connection. Munchen Gladbach. My father was at RAF Bruggen and we used to go shopping in Munchen Gladbach.
JS: Yes.
DB: It’s a very modern city nowadays but [pause] Oh, I see. Yeah. The DFC came later while he was on the squadron. They put it on there.
JS: Who was that?
DB: You put Wing Commander SJ Marchbank DFC.
JS: Oh yes. Old Marchbank. Yeah.
DB: And you put, you’ve put, ‘Came later.’ They’ve grounded —
JS: You haven’t met him have you?
DB: No. No. No.
JS: He was a bugger.
DB: Was he [laughs]
JS: Yeah. To our great pleasure he was all mouth, rah-rah-rah.
DB: Was he? Oh, right.
JS: And he swung on take-off and broke the aeroplane up.
DB: Oops.
JS: He was lucky because they had a full load on.
DB: Really? Oh goodness.
JS: Yeah. it kept him quiet for a bit though.
DB: Yeah [pause] Castle. Yes.
JS: I was watching it. We’d only, hadn’t arrived on the squadron all that long.
DB: You, you mentioned about, oh God, not Hamburg, not Homberg [pause] began with a D.
JS: Duisburg.
DB: Not Duisburg. There’s another one.
JS: Dusseldorf.
DB: No. You said there was a lot of aircraft knocked down on that particular one.
JS: No. At Nuremberg there was lots.
DB: Nuremberg. Was it Nuremberg? No. I don’t think it was Nuremberg. It might have been Nuremberg. But we lost five aircraft that night.
JS: Did you?
DB: On 75 Squadron.
JS: Yeah.
DB: Yeah, that was, no seven aircraft.
JS: [unclear]
DB: We lost seven aircraft that night. Yeah. Kiel.
JS: Yes. That was the big one.
DB: And Magdeburg]. Yeah. [Magdeburg]
JS: Three. Four. Five. If you turn over —
DB: Yeah.
JS: They caught a packet the next night.
DB: Yeah. That was true.
JS: Yeah. The other way wasn’t it? [pause] There.
DB: Yeah. Not good. Not good.
JS: Two nights.
DB: Magdeburg. Yeah. Berlin. Pilot officer Kularatne.
JS: Kularatne. Yes.
DB: That was the Ceylonese gentleman.
JS: Yes. Yes.
DB: Oh right.
JS: He’d been in touch with my son.
DB: Control tower. “Post operations drink usually laced with rum.” I bet you needed that didn’t you? Just to, just to help to warm you up.
JS: We had a, we had a padre, crafty bugger.
DB: Oh go on.
JS: Used to dish out the rum.
DB: Yeah.
JS: But he made sure that umpteen of the blokes didn’t want it so all those went into his kitty [laughs] What’s that one there?
DB: Group Captain RH Russell DFC took over as station commander.
JS: Yes [pause]
And of course a lot of people in the war depended entirely on when they were born. I mean I had —
DB: Oh, here we go —
JS: In my class at school who were dead before I went in because they happened to be nearly a year older than me. They were at the other end of the —
DB: Yeah. End of the school year.
JS: Entry. Yeah.
DB: Lord Trenchard, the father of the Royal Air Force.
JS: Yes.
DB: Visited the station.
JS: Where I got his afternoon tea for him.
DB: Yeah. Met him in the mess. How about that?
JS: Well I didn’t actually. He met me in the mess.
DB: Yes. He came and tapped you on the shoulder.
JS: Yeah.
DB: I like that story. I like that story. Fort Leopold Military Camp. Kattegat in Norway. There are so many names here that I recognise.
JS: We went to the cemetery at Barmby Moor. Barmby Moor is just on the other end of Pocklington aerodrome.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And strangely enough the padre, or the priest was a lady.
DB: Oh right.
JS: And —
DB: Yeah, I always call them padres.
JS: Yes.
DB: Don’t worry.
JS: Was a lady and when I saw her name I thought I know that name and sure enough she was the daughter of one of our captains. Oh, what on earth was the name I’m thinking of? I think it would have been, sometimes I remember something and then immediately after if I’ve stopped I’ve forgotten.
DB: Yeah. No. No. I understand.
JS: He had a brother in the company as well.
DB: Yes.
JS: His brother was a senior in London.
DB: Right.
JS: And he was the captain who told me the story about the ball bearing run to Sweden because he, he was one of the captains on one of those trips.
DB: Oh right, okay.
JS: On the ball bearing run. Yes.
DB: Oh wow. It must have been a fairly unusual name then.
JS: This was a good old Yorkshire name they mentioned. I can’t think of it.
DB: [unclear]
JS2: I think they have a lot of RAF burials there.
JS: What?
DB: Oh.
JS2: The church.
DB: Yeah. Almost certainly.
JS2: Wasn’t it, wasn’t it the RAF church or something? We went and had a look at the burials.
JS: That’s right. Yes.
DB: Yeah.
JS: I was, I was going to say that. Of course, there are, oh [pause] I think there were probably twenty graves there of RAF personnel.
DB: Oh right. Okay.
JS: And I don’t think there’s one more than twenty three years of age.
DB: Well, the average age was only twenty one, wasn’t it?
JS: Yeah.
DB: I mean, I mean you were a lot younger when you started but most of the, and certainly most at the start of the war they tended to be older but as as the time went on they tended to be twenty one or twenty two.
JS: I mean in those terms I was becoming an old man. I was twenty three when I left the air force.
DB: Yeah. Yes. “We wrote our kit off.” Oh.
JS: Kite.
DB: Kite off. Sorry.
JS: Yeah.
DB: “Tyres shot away.” Oh, that’s the one you were talking to me about.
JS: Yeah, where we —
DB: Yeah. Opposition moderate. Some heavy flak.
JS: Yeah.
DB: Five aircraft damaged.
JS: It was like walking on a bloody black carpet, [ping pong ping!] I can remember the bomb aimer turning around to me and he’d got a dent in the microphone of his face mask where a bit of shrapnel had hit him.
DB: Oh gosh.
JS: It whizzed past us and whooo.
JS2: Have you told the one about was it the rear gunner that jumped out?
JS: No.
DB: No.
JS2: When you were in the potato field.
JS2: No.
JS2: He didn’t realise he was twenty feet up in the air.
DB: Oh right. He jumped out early did he?
JS2: He jumped out and he thought he was still on the ground.
JS: Oh yes [laughs] No that wasn’t our crew. No. It was, yes a different one. There was an aircraft that went nose up in a ditch at Pocklington.
DB: Right. Right.
JS: And the rear gunner opened the doors and threw himself out. Didn’t realise it was at that angle.
DB: Ouch.
JS: Thought he was never going to land and it was our own rear gunner who, I told you his nerves went.
DB: Yes.
JS: And towards the end he used to race out the aeroplane [breath] bang.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Bang.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Well when we got these radial engines because they hung round instead of in a line the ones underneath if you weren’t careful you might get a residual fuel left in the bottom there. When they started it could damage the piston.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
JS: Next to there. So the idea was you had to run them up and then cut it off.
DB: Yeah.
JS: So he was out there when the aircraft went ‘woooo’. When we went out he was in a hedge like this looking at the cricket ground of Pocklington Grammar School [laughs].
DB: Oh, wonderful.
JS: Poor old Dougie.
DB: I really ought, I really ought to record those. Those two incidents. I really ought to record those two. Those are the sort of little, little snippets. Another South African.
JS: Oh yes and the other. Another lovely one. Our sergeants. Our sergeants had their own site. Living quarters.
DB: Yeah.
JS: They were all in Nissen huts there with these big stoves.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And they shared it with another crew. The end of this one, and they’d lit the fire there. They used to light the fire when they got back in the evening so it warmed up nicely.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And all hell bloody well broke loose. When we went outside there was the stars shooting out of the chimney. A member of the other crew had been stealing Very cartridges from the aircraft.
DB: Oh no.
JS: There was going to be an inspection. He had them in a bag and he dropped them in the fire.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And forgot he’d dropped them in the fire. Nearly blew the bloody fire apart. You know one of these big iron —
DB: Big pot belly. Oh my God. Oh, we ought to.
[recording paused]
DB: Do you want to just quickly re —
JS: Oh, no. That’s the eight South Africans.
DB: The rear gunner, et cetera and the —
JS: Is it on? [pause] The change of engines on the Halifax from the inline Merlins to the radials did cause one amusing incident where our rear gunner had leapt out of the aircraft to light his customary after operational, soul receiving, nerve placating fag when the engines on the starboard side where he was standing were being run up as part of the run up run down drill. When we came out the aircraft we were not at all surprised to see him spread eagled in the bushes at the back of the aeroplane. Another little incident was a member of a crew who’d been helping himself to Very cartridges and had them in a bag which he’d hidden in a fire and to his great surprise he forgot to tell anybody and they lit the fire and they had the biggest firework display down on the sergeant’s side that I think they’d ever seen. And I’ve been asked to mention that the aircraft, the Halifax went nose down in a ditch with the tail standing feet up into the air when the rear gunner wondered what on earth had happened and decided the best way out was to open his doors and threw himself out little realising the height that he was falling from and he got a very rude awakening when it took him about three days to land.
[recording paused]
DB: That was wonderful.
JS2: Yes. It was very like him because if he’d been in the bed it would have, it was our own shell from that gun because when we took it in to the police station they said it was an English shell so obviously it had come, because we always used to go out in the road and pick up the shrapnel from all over the place. I can remember doing that with my brother.
DB: And all his toys were were —
JS2: Yes. He had little soldiers along his bedroom shelves and they were all on the floor and dust everywhere. Yeah.
DB: And then a land mine not long after.
JS2: Yes. But that, you could, you know, when they come down you’d hear the noise coming. Well all the bombs, a sort of whistling noise and then this complete silence. And that’s the end and you know it’s landed. And the doodlebugs were the same, you know when they came along because if you watched them and they suddenly stopped you knew they were going to come down.
DB: Oh dear. Thank you. Okay. I did wonder whether you’d had experiences because you were sort of just about the right age.
JS: Come here, you.
DB: Yes boss!
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 James Sampson
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Denise Boneham
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-08-21
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ASampsonJ150821
Format
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01:59:45 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
James Sampson volunteered for the RAF and trained as a navigator and became a specialist on H2S. He survived three write offs of his aircraft including once when the wheels had been shot away. His bomb aimer had a very near miss when shrapnel hit the microphone on his face mask denting it. On one occasion their aircraft ended up nose down in a ditch and the gunner couldn’t understand what had happened and so he threw himself out of his turret only to find himself on a very long fall to the ground. James also made tea for Lord Trenchard when he made a visit to the aerodrome. There are some technical issues with the recording.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Germany
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Duisburg
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Carolyn Emery
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
102 Squadron
53 squadron
aircrew
B-24
bombing
crash
H2S
Halifax
mine laying
navigator
perception of bombing war
RAF Bassingbourn
RAF Pocklington
searchlight
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1081/11539/APragnellJ160526.2.mp3
b1d5d9b341a280f4d84f05cf037014fc
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
Pragnell, Jack
J Pragnell
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Jack Pragnell (b. 1921, Royal Air Force). He flew operations as an observer with 51 and 102 Squadron. His twin brother was killed in action 16 December 1943 flying with 432 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-05-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Pragnell, J
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DK: So this is David Kavanagh on the 26th of May 2016.
JP: Yeah.
DK: Interviewing Jack Pragnell at his home. Ok. So if I just put that there. So if you just talk normally. If I keep looking over it like this I’m just checking that it’s still working.
JP: Yeah. Ok.
DK: So that’s out there. What, what I wanted to do was really just talk through your experiences before the war maybe.
JP: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
DK: What you were doing then. Why and how you joined the air force and what you did in the air force.
JP: Yeah.
DK: And then later on afterwards. So, to start with perhaps if you could just say what you were doing before the war.
JP: Well, before the war my twin brother and myself we were together all the time by the way. I’d got an identical twin.
DK: Oh right. Ok.
JP: So we worked at, at Manfield Shoe Factory. In the office. Until, well we had, we were quite poor. We had to leave school at fourteen although we were at grammar school. We caught up on night school and everything so we did all that. And then come the sort of seventeen or so when I was a bit of fed up and wanting to move couldn’t do it because I was coming on to eighteen. And nobody had got a job there.
DK: No. No.
JP: And jobs were scarce for people. So we, we did a lot. Played a lot of sport. Enjoyed life thoroughly. We were both pretty good at sport and did very well at school and we were in the Boy’s Brigade and went to camp with them. And it was a lovely time. And then come the time when conscription was being, when none of us — all I knew of conscription was the First World War.
DK: Yeah.
JP: The filth and the degradation and the death in the, in the trenches. And we sort of wanted the glory boys you know. So we said, ‘Let’s go,’ and four of us got together one afternoon. Packed up our work and went off ostensibly to join the Fleet Air Arm because we liked the uniform.
DK: Right.
JP: When we got to the depot at Dover Hall it was the RAF recruiting place. The Fleet Air Arm was at the Naval place. In a different place. So anyway, we were talked into joining the air force. We had a few tests and we were accepted on the pilot navigator thing. Three of us. One was ill and went away. He came twelve months later and was a W/op AG but he was one out. So the three of us then waited as you did. Signed on. Waited. And we went to the place where they — Cardington.
DK: Cardington.
JP: To be signed up. Funny thing there. We go through. People didn’t know the difference. Absolutely identical. So he goes, my brother goes through and I was taken ill. So I was parked in to sick quarters for a week. When I came out he’d already gone through and been accepted on the pilot navigator thing. So I follow through and did the tests and one of the doctors said, ‘Well, we saw you last week.’ I said, ‘That was my brother.’ ‘Your brother?’ I said, ‘My twin brother.’ He said, ‘What did we do?’ ‘Oh you passed him.’ ‘Alright, you’re through.’ [laughs] So then we waited. This waiting time of several months, you know as everybody had to wait. And we were called up to Babington in London there to be — no. It was in the south. To be kitted and equipped. Near Bournemouth. Equipped and marched and inoculated and equipped and marched and inoculated. Incessantly. And then we went to Stratford on Avon at ITW. My brother and myself shared the Venus Adonis Room in the Shakespeare Hotel. Absolutely stripped clean. You know what I mean. I’ve been since and had a look. It’s a different kettle of fish. So then from there, after a few weeks of this, ‘You’re going.’ Didn’t know where. We were equipped with tropical equipment and, a kit bag full of that. And one night we were, well we were then taken to West Kirby near Manchester there. We were there for, I should think maybe a week or so and suddenly one night we were taken out at night and marched into the Glasgow station and climbed on a train outside the station and straightaway to a boat. The Moortown. The tramp steamer converted. And the filthiest, dirtiest old shabby ship you never saw in your life. It was an army boat and of course we were cadets there with a white flash in our hats oh and they took the mickey out of us left, right and centre. And we had the, under the bottom. Five weeks on that boat. Trudging. We didn’t know where we were going. We set out to the middle of the Atlantic we thought. Then suddenly we turned to port. Half of them sheared off. And with that I understand they finished up in America or Canada. We then went, they said, ‘Oh you’re going to Rhodesia.’ Well, we’d heard of Rhodesia but it was a long way away. Well, we went through. We couldn’t get off the boat. We had salt showers. It was purgatory. So, and the food wasn’t great you know, out of a big cauldron. But we got there. We finished up in, we went around the Cape. We thought where the hell are we going now? Sailed around. Finished up in Durban.
DK: Right.
JP: Lovely place Durban. It was lit. The sea was dark there. All the lights and what not. But there on the sea front was a dance hall and fairy lights. It was like heaven. And we were there a couple of weeks or so and the people were marvellous to us. They were queuing at the gates to take us out. And my brother and myself being identical twins we were snapped up, you know.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And they took us all over the place. And we then got on the train. It took three days. One of these slow moving things with the old wagon at the back. We could get off and walk with it. Finished up in Bulawayo. It’s in Southern Rhodesia. Well after a few weeks there at the ITW again we were marched, we were inoculated. But we had a lovely time. People took us out. They queued at the gates to take people out. But then, being the two of us we got special treatment you know. So we had a lovely time. It was hard work. It was hard work but we still relaxed well and played well.
DK: So what sort of work were you doing in Bulawayo then?
JP: Well, that was a holding camp.
DK: Right.
JP: A sort of ITW.
DK: Right.
JP: It was, actually it was the old cattle market and we slept in the, where the cattle slept. With a blind down the front and —
DK: Yeah.
JP: Wooden sort of flooring. It was a bit primitive. And so were the quarters. But we loved it anyway.
DK: So the training you were doing there. Was that for, as a navigator or pilot?
JP: We were then on the pilots navigator.
DK: Pilot navigator.
JP: It was the top course. Yeah.
DK: Right.
JP: And we were doing navigation. We were doing star recognition. We were doing pilot recognition. We were doing aircraft. The whole gamut of night after night day after day.
DK: And did it include training as, flying?
JP: Oh that was all training. It was nothing but training with a bit of time off now and again. It was very hard graft. We loved it. We played a bit of football and a bit of, quite a bit of cricket in the spare time. Then we were picked out. ‘Right. You’re going off to pilot training.’ Went to Gwelo which was in the back woods of East London there. Of south, what’s the name? Southern Rhodesia. Well, I promptly had the bane of my life in the air force. Every so often I got tonsillitis. And it got every course I went on I had to have a few of days in dock with this tonsillitis. And I went in dock in the middle of the pilot training.
DK: Right.
JP: It was on Tiger Moths. I’d soloed but I was a bit ham-fisted. We’d only had a bike up until then. That hadn’t even got a three speed. So we trained and then they came along. The CFI came. I was behind because I’d had this week off and you could not get behind. It was push push push. This CFI, the Chief Flying Instructor came and he looked me up and down and said, ‘Well, come on.’ So I took him up. Landed him. Well, of course the tension of him being there and I was a very raw pilot. But he, he would have gone through the ceiling when we landed, you know. In a Tiger Moth on a grass field it was I thought. So I landed him. He looked me up. He said, ‘Well, what’s your navigation like?’ I said, ‘Well, quite good.’ He said, ‘I think you’ll make a better navigator than a pilot. You’ll be alright on these.’ The next step were Harvards of course. The killers.
DK: Yeah.
JP: He said, ‘You’ll kill yourself I think.’ And they were. A lot of people were. These decrepit Harvards. So, my brother got himself taken off and we were allowed to go together. We sat there and waited, oh two or three weeks until a course came and we were taken down, all the way down to East London. On the Cape.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And there we did the full observer course. Navigator, bomb aimer, air gunner. Again played a lot of sport. Again, taken around a bit. Again went out together. It was a lovely life because we did everything. See whereas if I had gone on my own I’d have had to look for a comrades.
DK: Yeah.
JP: I’d have had to look for a mate. There was two of us. We’d always got a mate.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And we were so much alike. We, well we were a part of each other. Absolutely. Dressed the same. Shared our money. Shared our clothes. Shared our uniforms. And got on ever so well together. Bane of the life of the instructors who didn’t know who they were talking to [laughs]
DK: Yeah.
JP: But anyway, we did well. We passed out from there. And then we had about three weeks at Cape Town waiting to come back. And then we came back alone. Not, we went out in convoy for the five weeks. Very slowly. Very tedious. The Prince of Wales and the other one going up and down. Of course they sailed on to the Far East and that was when they were sunk.
DK: Right.
JP: We were the last lot to see them when they went off.
DK: Yeah.
JP: But we came back alone on the Otranto. Which was a, was a merchantmen. In fact on the way back picked a boat load of survivors from [pause] from a boat from Argentina. Something Star. A meat boat.
DK: Right.
JP: And the women and children. We picked them up and brought them back. Then we got back here and due a bit of leave. And then posted to Yorkshire. To Driffield.
DK: Right.
JP: The main place there. And we were crewed up. Well. No. First of all we go on to a Conversion Unit.
DK: So which? Can you remember which Conversion Unit?
JP: In Lincolnshire somewhere.
DK: Right.
JP: It was Norfolk or Lincolnshire and I forget where it was.
DK: This would have been one —
JP: It’s a well-known one.
DK: Right. But this would have been one of the Heavy Conversion Units.
JP: Yeah. They were flying Harvards and the other things. The other four engine jobs. You know. The first ones.
DK: The Stirlings.
JP: The twin engine job. No. Not the — the two engine.
DK: The Anson.
JP: No. No. We’d done our training in Ansons.
DK: Yeah.
JP: No. Bigger ones.
DK: The Wellington.
JP: No. No. Different from them. Wimpy was there.
DK: Yeah.
JP: But the Wellingtons. They were ones that crashed a lot. They put four engines on them in the end and called them the Halifax.
DK: Right. The Manchester?
JP: Yeah. I think it was that.
DK: Manchester. Yeah.
JP: Yeah. So we as we got there we saw one plough in. Yeah. Now, the next morning they said, ‘Now look. We’re looking for bomb aimers. You’re a qualified bomb aimer and a qualified navigator. It’s equal pay. Equal terms.’ But you see then all the crews then were becoming not six crews but seven crews. And there was a great shortage of bomb aimers to add to the crews. So they asked for volunteers to go straight on ops, perhaps with the odd cross country, without doing a con-unit. So about ten of us stepped forward and within a couple of weeks we were crewed up at Driffield in a squadron. And a couple of cross country’s — ready for ops. Well then my pilot, we were the odd one in the crew then but we were in the crew. I was in the crew as a bomb aimer and in charge of the bombing and that. I didn’t have a bloody clue. So anyway the biggest bomb I’d dropped was the sort of five pounder in practice. Anyway, we soon caught up. They put us through the mill and so unfortunately they, the crew went on some operations. And the pilot went on his expertise, expert, expertise trip. You know, with a crew.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JP: And they were missing. So the crew was broken up and I was floating around. I was lucky because looking for a bomb aimer was a crew where four of them were on their second tour. The pilot was a flight lieuy. The navigator was a flying officer. The gunner was warrant officer and a whats-its name. And they were looking for — and there was I, a youngster, shovelled into this lot.
DK: With an experienced crew.
JP: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
JP: So I was lucky.
DK: Can, can I just check. Which squadron was this with then?
JP: 51 then.
DK: 51. Right.
JP: 51.
DK: Ok.
JP: And my brother, who was with me at the time.
DK: Yeah.
JP: On our, when we got there we had to, we knew we’d got to part. And we got a great pile of kit in the middle of the room and it was one for you, one for me. It broke my heart, you know. The first time we’d been parted or anything like. And we shared it. Now he got into a crew as well but it was a time when the Canadians were breaking away from 4 Group to form 8 Group.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And the rest of his crew were Canadian. Most of them. Four out the six. Or five out the six. And they opted to go Canadian. Well, he went with them. Now, strangely enough they were doing some operations. They were doing minelaying or what have you. And his pilot went on an expertise trip. Was missing. So, they again were crewed up. We stayed in the area and he got most of them together. They still stayed with the Canadian group but he got a bit behind then whereas I was straight on ops. I mean by January I’d done two or three ops to Lorient and places like that.
DK: So which type of aircraft were you on in 51 Squadron then?
JP: A Halifax.
DK: A Halifax. So —
JP: Halifax. It was all Halifax from then on.
DK: So all your operations were Halifax.
JP: And so was he. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
JP: It was Yorkshire.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JP: They were all in Yorkshire. Around about. Well Pocklington actually. Snaith.
DK: Snaith.
JP: Was the one we were at for 51. So we did, I did, we did about half a tour with 51 and we were doing well. We were one of the crack crews and I became, although I say it myself, pretty good. I went to learn. And we did, the farce of, you know observation star sort of things. Astro. Well that was a farce. A complete and utter farce. You couldn’t do it. You know the old joke goes about they were lost and the navigator, the pilot said to the navigator, ‘Go and take an astro fix will you?’ He said. So the pilot comes back, ‘Take off your hats. You’re in St Paul’s Cathedral.’ And it was about like that. That’s the old story that got around, you know. Anyway, half way through the tour we were taken from, our pilot was promoted to squadron leader so we went to Pocklington where he took over a squadron as a squadron leader. And finished my tour there. And I had a very hot tour. We all did in there. I mean I had a very very warm tour in the end of ’42 and ’43. That was the heat of the losses.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And I was one of the lucky ones.
DK: Can you remember the name of your pilot at 51?
JP: Yeah. Squadron Leader Hay.
DK: So he went on to Pocklington then with 102.
JP: Oh yes. And took the crew with him.
DK: And you went with him.
JP: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And he then went as an instructor. I understand afterwards he had a bit of a crash and nearly wrote himself off. He was a bit wild. He was a typical, you might say a very early pilot. Mad as a bloody hatter but brilliant pilot. And the navigator then stayed but the chap doing the bomb aiming, no he was doing the navigation. That’s right. And I was then then the bomb aimer. He was a second tour man. He’d done his first flying on single engine stuff in India. He hadn’t got a clue. He had not got a clue. So we got lost on the way back from [unclear] We called Mayday and we were flagged up by searchlights flagging us up to get us home. So after that he was taken out of the crew. They got a pilot, they got an officer who was already a qualified, well-qualified navigator to take over the navigation and I then took over the bomb aiming.
DK: Right.
JP: So, from then on, apart from the fact we had a very very hard tour. And we had the toughest of the tough it was good plain sailing until they finished their, about four of them finished their second tour. I’d still got ten ops on my first tour. So their second tour was twenty, mine was thirty. So I was an odd Joe and I flew with seven different pilots. Sprog pilots, experienced pilots, wing commanders, squadron, to fill the gap. I was lucky. I mean pure luck that that I came through.
DK: So, how many operations did you do all together then?
JP: Well, counting two abortive when we had to go, they counted. And in fact we’d done a bit of operational out in South Africa. Out in South Africa, looking for Jap subs. I did a total of twenty seven full ops but the other two counted and the others patched together so really it counted for the thirty ops. I say it was twenty seven. But it was about, when you take the, what they counted. And I was ill. I’d suffered from the tonsillitis. I’d been in and out of dock. And just until my last op came. My last op was to Berlin. The one before it was Peenemunde. So you can tell it wasn’t easy. So I was taken, I was booked in to go when my tour finished. So I was now, they told me when it would finish and I was ready. Waiting for this last op to come. I was to go in to the hospital the following week to have my tonsils out. They were the bane of my life. So I got to bed. Tannoy. Would I report to sick bay. They’d made a mistake. The hospital was the next day. So I go in and of course I didn’t realise my body was upset. I mean you think the tension and that. You didn’t realise. They nearly killed me. They apologised afterwards. They should not have operated. It wouldn’t stop bleeding and they had to go deep. And afterwards, after a week I was like a wraith. Lost no end of weight and, and I came [laughs] when I went out the doctor said, well he said, would you, I’d been to Berlin the night before. When I got in there it was on the news about the Berlin raid. I said to the bloke, ‘Yeah, it was pretty rough.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Well, I was there.’ ‘He was there. He was there.’ All the nurses gathered around. I was the hero [laughs] So ,so anyway it, I came home on a bit of leave.
DK: So you, so you survived a trip to Berlin and then —
JP: Yeah.
DK: Were in hospital.
JP: The next day I was having my tonsils out.
DK: Oh dear.
JP: Now, my twin brother was on the way and they’d transferred from Halifaxes to Lancs.
DK: Right.
JP: And their first Lanc trip was a Berlin which was the Berlin following the one I went on. The last Berlin in ’43. And I was on the one before when we lost a lot of aircraft. But he was on that one. The first trip in a Lanc. They were shot down and killed over Leeuwarden in Holland.
DK: Oh dear.
JP: So that was it. It broke my heart that did. I didn’t know what to do with myself. And I was shovelled around then.
DK: Can you remember which squadron your brother was with?
JP: It was [pause] an American in the Canadian air force. I did, well names have got me.
DK: Yeah. Ok.
JP: I think it was 425. It was something like that. One of the Canadian squadrons in the north.
DK: Yeah.
JP: Yorkshire. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
JP: We met from time to time. In fact the Canadian uniform was a bit better than ours and he came down one day with a pilot’s uniform on. I said, ‘What —?’ He said, ‘Well my pilot is staying with us but he’s a Yank so he’s transferred to the Yanks. Still as a pilot.’ Getting double pay sort of thing and more comfort, ‘And this is his uniform.’ So he swapped my old one for this and I had a new uniform.
DK: Oh well.
JP: Well, I said at the last thing when we were in East London we were qualified and we got pinned things on. Our things for South African officers to come around, a general or something, and pin them on and a band played. That sort of thing. So the last, we had a course dinner, the menu’s in there. And this flight lieutenant gets up and, words of wisdom, he said, ‘Now, there’s one thing I’d like to say.’ I’ll never forget this. ‘Before we go out tomorrow on parade you’ve got to look your best,’ and he said, ‘And Pragnells get your bloody hair cut.’ [laughs] See we’d both got double crowns. When you cut that short it stands up like a hedgehog [laughs]. And they didn’t know the difference anyway. We got away with blue murder.
DK: So, what, what was your feelings about flying in the Halifax then? Was it a [unclear]
JP: Well, we worshipped the Halifax. Yeah. See, it’s a lost machine now but it did more. It towed gliders, it did Met, it did bombing, it did transport. It did everything, the Halifax. Whereas the Lanc
DK: Yeah.
JP: Faster, higher, newer, only did bombing. And of course we hadn’t got all the equipment. We had to manage with the old Mark 9 bombsight where we set our own. And it was impossible to take an astrofix because you couldn’t get it steady enough. We set the bombsight ourselves. Well inaccurate because you can’t get the exact speed. Now the Mark 10, the last few I got, the speed, the speed and that was fed in, and the height, was fed in electronically. But we had the, the what’s the name box for a few but they had all the latest equipment. We just had DR and that was it.
DK: Yeah.
JP: So, we, I mean we worshipped the Halifax. It took us there. Got us back. And now mention the Halifax you’re treated with scorn, ‘that bloody thing.’ Yet it did all. It was like the Hurricane and Spitfire. Hurricane did the work. The Spitfire got the credit because of the name.
DK: Yeah.
JP: Hurricane. Lanc got the credit because new aircraft flying higher, faster than anything and got all the credit. But we did a hell of a lot of work. In fact we got to, say about twenty thousand feet. They were above us but below us were the Stirlings and the Wimpies and the Wellingtons. We did our bombing runs on them and they did their bombing runs on us [laughs] yeah.
DK: Could you, could you actually see much at night then? Could you see?
JP: Well, it depended on the cloud.
DK: Yeah.
JP: I mean the Peenemunde raid was a one off. It was absolutely clear moonlight. It was like daylight and we went in at fifteen thousand lower. And it was a must. It frightened the life out of us. They briefed us. They said, they locked the doors and you mustn’t breathe a word. If a word gets out we’re finished. It’s got to be deadly secret to get this place where they’re making the V-2s or V-1s. And so all this. It’s dangerous. And you’re going out at a lower level. And you’ve got to go whatever the weather. If you don’t go tonight you’ve got to go to it and then it will be twice as bad because by then the Germans probably would have known.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And they did a fake run to Berlin. So we got over Denmark and we got to Flensburg and we were coned. Now to get coned was suicide. When you’ve got a bomb load and once they got you in the cone of light you couldn’t see and the only way out was to get down below the angle. So you came down with a loaded bomber and you had a job to pull out. It was almost suicide to get caught. And they either fired up the flak or get the night fighters on you. But of course we were lucky. The night fighters had all gone —
DK: Yeah.
JP: To stop this, what was going to be a trip to Berlin. And they weren’t there. So that was just an incident where I had the luck, you know.
DK: At the briefing for Peenemunde —
JP: Yeah.
DK: Did they tell you what was being made in the factories?
JP: Yes.
DK: They did.
JP: Yes. We knew about this WAAF. WAAF had seen the photograph. And the, and the Poles had already, give them credit, the Poles were the bravest of the brave. They pinched a chunk of wood and they’d got it over through Sweden. So we’d got more idea and also don’t forget our Buckinghamshire team was taking the secret doc, the secret meetings of the Germans.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JP: They could learn. So we knew more than they thought we knew. They told us all about it and said what it was and said we’d got to wipe it out because it was the V-1 then and that was creating havoc. It was frightening. You know, putt putt putt and down it came. And it was creating a bit of panic. And when the V-2 came it didn’t even make that sound. Explode half a town you know. So, they told us we’d got to go and we’d got to get it. Now, the Yanks followed a day or two later. But the Yanks got all the credit. They weren’t even there. On that Peenemunde raid where we dropped people in to sort of stifle it and that, the RAF did it. Yeah. When we got there not a sound. It was way way way into Denmark. Past the Kattegat up in the Baltic and we went on in straight line as if we go up to Sweden or turn starboard to Germany. To Berlin. That was up there. And suddenly we were, we knew we’d got to find this place. They stuck out in the water. This sort of bulbous sort of bit of land. No searchlights. No flak. And as we turned to go in, oh then all hell was let loose. We were on the first wave. So we were through and out. Out the other side before too much trouble. But those that followed got hammered.
DK: Yeah. Could you see much of the target as you dropped your bombs at Peenemunde?
JP: No. You could see the, that raid yeah you could see the huts and the buildings.
DK: Yeah.
JP: But normally when you were at twenty five thousand and don’t forget you’re not going to a flat surface. You’re going to a sea of fire. Flames. Kites going down. Green and red, what’s the name of it on the ground and the searchlights and night fighters. So you, you didn’t see much. And it got all smoky if not cloudy. So, on a good night going in you could pick out the rivers and the main road. The [unclear] were light. They were like big white sort of lights. And the, and the woods. Well later on of course when I then went on to glider, glider towing, paratroop dropping at low level a different kettle of fish. We map read everywhere then on the shape of the woods and the rivers. But you only saw the minor ones up there. You could see enough. Well you could say look there’s a load of flak ahead. That’s probably, you look at your map, that’s probably the town of so and so. Go to starboard to avoid it. And then the pilot would say, ‘How far do you think we are Frank from — ’ and I’d sort of, ‘Ten miles.’ Alright. It was a good crew and they relied on everybody.
DK: Can you, can you still name your crew then?
JP: I can. Yeah. Well. Ron Hay was the pilot. Dougie Henderson was the rear gunner. John Garland was the w/op AG. The rear, the mid-upper gunner was a young lad who lost his life in a car, in a coach accident when we’d only had him a week or two. And then an Aussie joined us, Arthur Evans. And we were friends. And the navigator. I hardly spoke to him because he was in his little enclave and he was an officer. We were all NCOs except Doug. Well, when they finished the tour the pilot he had us in. He said, ‘Well, what can I do? Would you like me to recommend you for a commission?’ The rear gunner said yes. I said, he asked me, I said no because I was not going to get beyond my brother. Imagine. Identical twins. One walking down the street with a commission and one not. I couldn’t do it.
DK: No.
JP: So I said no. I was offered it. Only if I’d taken the chance I’d have done probably a lot better but I wouldn’t take it.
DK: Did you find that a bit difficult that your crew, some of the crew were officers?
JP: Yeah.
DK: And yourself NCO. So you wouldn’t mix socially or —
JP: Yeah. You wouldn’t mix socially unless they would. But they weren’t really allowed to. They did up to a point. We’d go out for a drink now and again but then we’d go our own way.
DK: But you didn’t see that as a problem in the crew itself.
JP: No. No. No. We were all mad and all equally sort of wanted to go. And I never saw, I did with a couple of crews I flew with, saw much panic. You see the bravery was not going on ops where you were shot down. Because you didn’t expect to be. You hoped not to be. The bravery was going the next day and the next day. I mean in successive. In there you’ll see I did four ops in five days. Absolutely tired out. It wasn’t just the op. The next day you had to go to get your aircraft ready. If there was not a malfunction you had to go and do a little flight test. Had to get all the equipment ready and be briefed all day. So you never got any sleep.
DK: No.
JP: And of course when you got to bed you were too tired to sleep and too exhilarated. There was a certain exhilaration when you got back.
DK: I was going to say how did you feel as you got out of the aircraft after, after the mission? After the operation.
JP: Happy. You know. Very contented. Very very pleased with life. And we used to, we didn’t feel boastful or anything like that. We’d got to go to be debriefed of course with the old padre there. And he used to hand out the fags and I didn’t smoke so I used to give mine away. And then we had, always looked forward to egg and chips. Egg and chips. And if any crews were missing we ate their eggs. But you wouldn’t know. See, you only knew your own crew basically. You knew the others in passing but everything was, everything was together. You trained together, you flew together and you went out together. Had a drink together. You see you were right out in the country. Not much you could do. So you got the old bike and went to the nearest pub. And if they hadn’t got any beer we’d go to the next one. And then we’d find a little social dance. That sort of thing.
DK: Yeah.
JP: You couldn’t do anything. Occasionally we got in to York. I went to Leeds a couple of times. And I believe, and I can’t remember how but I went to Sheffield once. Didn’t get on there because we hadn’t got time. We’d just go for the evening and wander around and have a drink and —
DK: And then.
JP: That was it.
DK: As you were then told the next day another operation how did you feel then as you were getting in the aircraft?
JP: Well, quite, quite glad really. You were getting through them. I remember I sort of started putting a number by my ops. And, and so they said, ‘We don’t count. We don’t count the ops. We just do them.’ But you did. In your mind. You knocked another one off. And it got more sort of you know the early, oh yeah but when you got in your twenties and people all around you were missing. You didn’t know whether they’d been shot down, whether they’d finish their tour, whether they’d left. And all this. It was come and go all the time. You couldn’t settle anywhere. Only with your own crew.
DK: Yeah.
JP: Because if you made friends because they were missing the next night. That wasn’t to say they were missing. They were posted away to somewhere else. It was a come and go. So there was that community of crew. They were more or less everything. And you got on well with them. Well most of them. Some, some you didn’t. But you were so closely knit together and there was a camaraderie about it. And I met two crews that panicked a bit. One of them supposed to be one of the, actually I flew with them a couple of times. And they’d done well on the thousand bomber raid and the pilot had got his, had got a gong out of it. So they were supposed to be a good crew. But they got behind somehow and the bomb aimer had gone, I reckon he’d gone to LMF. Lack of moral fibre. They used to take them out and strip them, you know. Lack of moral fibre they call it. Nerves didn’t count. None of this psychology or that sort of thing. You were whipped away. If you were an officer, reduced to, well kept your commission but reduced in rank to the menial jobs. If you were an NCO you lost your rank and everything else.
DK: And this crew. Did you think the bomb aimer then was, had had some problems?
JP: The bomb aimer had a lot. You see, I was the one who, well out of them I’d done a bit of flying on the Tiger and the Anson and whatnot. More than they had, some of them. And I was the one who used to help the pilot at his take off because you needed two. One to help push it up.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And I was the one that helped him on landing. And, and I was the one he referred to. Now, you see if you go to Berlin you’ve got over an eight hour trip. Well the pilot can’t get and have a quick wee. There’s nobody there. Now on one occasion he put it into George which was the automatic pilot, ‘Here you are Prag. Have a go at this.’ And I held this, frightened to death while he went and had a quick wee. But they relied on you so much.
DK: So your job also included flying the aircraft then when he needed a break.
JP: Well, it didn’t really but it depended on the pilot. He used to let me have a go now and again but when he was a, I didn’t, I wasn’t good enough to sort of take it on and like it.
DK: So, on, on a typical operation then as, as you as the bomb aimer.
JP: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: What was your role when you got on the aircraft and you took off? Are you helping the navigator?
JP: Well, the navigator. He was in his little sort of hut thing and I, I didn’t want to be a navigator because you couldn’t see what was going on. You could only hear. Whereas a bomb aimer you had the freedom of the aircraft.
DK: Right.
JP: And you were more or less in charge of that part of the aircraft in many ways.
DK: Did, did your job involve anything to do with the bombs before they went on the aircraft? Would you check them?
JP: No. The armourers did that.
DK: Right.
JP: You saw them and watched them winch them on but it was the armourers that did it. You knew how to, if it didn’t go off they’d was a little pannier thing you could undo and pull a toggle and get it, release it.
DK: Yeah.
JP: You’re not supposed to, you couldn’t bring them back because you couldn’t land with them or they’d have gone up and blown you up. And if you’d still got them when you got back you had to drop them in a dropping zone. Ours was in, in the North Sea. And —
DK: Did you have any that didn’t drop? That you, you had to —
JP: I believe, I didn’t know but the flight engineer, he was often, he was a Scotsman and he was often half drunk. He said there’s a couple of, a couple of bombs there. So I went down to look. I pulled the toggle but whether it released the bomb or not I don’t know. But I think once, yes in the North Sea there. See, you got, what’s-it Glenn Miller lost on a place like that when they came back and dropped their bombs. They reckon that’s where, how he lost his life.
DK: Yeah. As you, as you’re approaching the target then.
JP: Yeah.
DK: You’re in the front. You’re looking down.
JP: Yeah.
DK: And then what’s your role there? Do you arm the bombs and then drop them?
JP: Well, you do the map reading in. The pilot, the navigator’s supposed to get you within range and then it was yours and you do the, you see the target where the green and red flares were. And the Pathfinders above were saying bomb on the green flares because there had been an accident and the red had drifted away. Or bomb on the red. Or right between the two. So you directed it in between all the flak and the flame to where you think the target was. And you go on, you know, ‘Left. Left.’ You said, ‘Left. Left.’ And ‘Right,’ So if you said the same so you didn’t get the same tone.
DK: Right.
JP: ‘Left. Left. Steady. Steady.’ And when you were approaching you had the bomb doors open. You had to open them ready and you kept them open ‘til after you’d dropped your bomb for the photograph. As you closed the doors so the photograph was cut off. So you had to, as long as you, the time was how long your bombs would take to drop and each bomb had a different timing because they were different. Smooth or whatever. And they were different weights. So they had the speed they entered so all that had to be entered on your bombsight. So it was done automatically later but we had to enter it on a height bar and, and another knob here, another knob there. And then we got the information as we flew. And then you’d drop it as you said, ‘Bombs gone,’ And then you get the panic. ‘Get rid of them. Go.’ And you’d got you had to be cool, calm and collected until that photograph went off. The flash went off. Because that was taking, you see the bombs didn’t go down like that. They go on an arc with the speed and they were there. They’d say, oh bomb here. They’d land over by you, you see. So we had to wait that time. It seemed like an age. And you couldn’t turn around and come back because you were going in to your own people. You had to fly on over Germany and then so many miles they’d either turn. You didn’t know whether you were going to turn port or starboard to find the way out.
DK: As, as the bombs left the aircraft could you feel the aeroplane.
JP: Yeah. You felt it go. Yeah. Yeah.
DK: And what, what was the crews reaction as they’re waiting for you to drop the bombs?
JP: [laughs] Going mad. ‘Close the f’ing doors,’ [laughs] And I used to, I was the youngster you know. They were all older than I was. I was supposed to be cool, calm and collected. The pilot was good. The pilot would do everything you told him to do and yet he was probably the most experienced pilot in the Group. So we got all the big jobs. The Berlins and the Peenemunde and we got the Hamburg raid when we wiped it out with Window. It’s all in there in that book of mine. Yeah.
DK: Can I have a look at the logbook?
JP: Yeah.
[pause]
JP: Now, that’s precious. If you look in the back there’s all the stations, all stations of it and there’s a picture of myself and my brother there in that envelope.
DK: Can I?
JP: Have a look at that. Yeah.
DK: I’ll be very careful with it.
JP: That’s alright.
DK: You were alike [laughs]
JP: We were nineteen there. That was taken just after we got home from South Africa
DK: I don’t know how people told you —
JP: They didn’t.
DK: Yeah.
JP: They didn’t. You can see. You can see why we were known as, we were known as Prag by the crew.
DK: So are you on the left or the right?
JP: I think on the left.
DK: You think [laughs]
JP: From me it would be the left.
DK: Left. Right.
JP: Yeah. I think so. Yeah.
DK: Yeah. Lovely.
JP: Broke my heart when he was killed. Part of me went. And I had a hell of a time after that. I wasn’t happy.
DK: No. I can understand.
JP: It’s got all my qualifications in there of course.
DK: So I’ll read this out for the recording. So you were on Ansons here. This was in Rhodesia.
JP: Yeah. That was —
DK: East London.
JP: The Navigation.
DK: Yeah. East London.
JP: Yeah. That was South Africa.
DK: South Africa. Yeah. Yeah.
JP: And the Oxfords were bombing.
DK: So you were on Fairey Battles as well.
JP: Pardon?
DK: Battles. Fairey Battles.
JP: Yeah. That was the gunnery.
DK: Yeah.
JP: We used to fire at a drogue being towed by, what have we got here?
DK: And Oxfords.
JP: Oxfords. That was the gunnery.
DK: Yeah.
JP: That was the, you know, the bombing.
DK: That’s South Africa. So it’s 102 Squadron. And then it says 1652 Conversion Unit.
JP: Yeah. That, well we went there for a couple of weeks. That’s all. You see I didn’t get, I didn’t start until late in 1942. Yet I was doing my ops in ’42 and ’43. Yeah.
DK: And then on to 51 Squadron at Snaith.
JP: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
DK: So that’s Halifaxes.
JP: Yeah. See Pocklington was the holding unit then.
DK: Right.
JP: The head of the Group.
DK: So Lorient, so Cologne.
JP: Yeah.
DK: Wilhelmshaven.
JP: Yeah. Wilhelmshaven. Yeah.
DK: It says here Nuremberg. Engine. Engine u/s. Bombs jettisoned.
JP: Yeah. We had to come back. Yeah. We got there and more or less had to drop the bombs and had to come out. That counted as an op because we’d got more than half way I believe.
DK: So this is February 1943. And then there’s Cologne. And then St Nazaire in France.
JP: Yeah.
DK: So Berlin on the 1st of March.
JP: Yeah. I did three Berlins. And you’ll find there were ten Essens as well.
DK: Right.
JP: Three Essens in there.
DK: So the 1st of March was Berlin.
JP: Yeah.
DK: The 5th of March, Essen.
JP: Yeah.
DK: The 9th of March, Munich.
JP: Yeah.
DK: The 12th of March, Essen.
JP: Well, would you get a harder tour than that anywhere? Suicide.
DK: Well, you had a bit of a break here. It’s the 26th was Duisburg. And then 27th of March, Berlin again.
JP: Yeah.
DK: So then April. 3rd of April, Essen.
JP: Yeah.
DK: April the 4th Kiel. The 8th of April, Duisburg. The 14th of April, Stuttgart. And then they’ve given you another rest here [laughs] May 13th Bochum.
JP: Bochum.
DK: And then?
JP: Dortmund. Bochum.
DK: Yeah.
JP: Dortmund. Dusseldorf.
DK: And then 23rd of May, Dortmund.
JP: Yeah. They were all the Ruhr Valley.
DK: 25th of May, Dusseldorf. Sorry. So July the 24th was Hamburg.
JP: Yeah.
DK: So that would have been the big raid on Hamburg.
JP: That would have been the [pause] when we wiped it out with the firestorm yeah.
DK: And then 25th of July, Essen. August the 2nd , Hamburg. August the 8th Nuremberg. Milan.
JP: Yeah.
DK: Milan, Italy.
JP: We didn’t get there. We got, we couldn’t get over the, had engine trouble so we got as far as the Alps. Had to turn around and come back.
DK: So that, it actually says engine u/s. Bombs jettisoned.
JP: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: And then August the 17th Peenemunde.
JP: Yeah.
DK: And it says you landed back at Middleton St George.
JP: Yeah. Yeah. We couldn’t get in. We were fog bound. Our place.
DK: Right. And then August 22nd Leverkusen. 23rd of August, Berlin again. So that, that presumably would have been, oh it says you were then screened from operations.
JP: Yeah.
DK: September 1943.
JP: Yeah.
DK: Wow.
JP: In the further ops you will see, if you turn over, on the, when I re-mustered. I couldn’t stand Training Command after my brother was missing. And I had a row with the wing commander. So I volunteered for another thing and found out it was glider towing.
DK: That was with 298 Squadron.
JP: Yeah.
DK: Tarrant Rushton. So, you were, you were towing the gliders then.
JP: Yeah. Yeah. We took a Hamilcar in the big bugger.
DK: Hamilcars. Yeah.
[pause]
JP: Then I did an instructors course at Number 1 Air Armament School, Manby. Which was, by then, by that time the war was, we weren’t needed after that. They didn’t know what to do with us.
DK: Yeah. So, so, that’s May 1945. You’re on Wellingtons then.
JP: Yeah.
DK: What was that like? Flying Wellingtons after the Halifax.
JP: Wellington was probably the best aircraft of the war. It did everything.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And it was still going strong at the end of the war.
DK: And that was —
JP: Very strong. You know the geodetic construction.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And it stood up to any. It burned because it was fabric. You could reckon if a Wellington crashed it was going to burn. We did crash in it. Is it there we crashed? A ten minute trip.
DK: Was that at Manby?
JP: No. That was later on. During that time. So, when I was in Training Command. On one of the odd trips.
DK: Yeah. So [pause] so when, when did you leave the air force then?
JP: When? It’s in my book. My service book there.
DK: So would it have been about that time?
JP: No. It was —
Other: ’46 I think.
DK: ’46. Ok.
JP: It was a bit later. 1946 I think. Yeah.
Other: Yeah. May. May ’46.
JP: Yeah. I did just over five years.
DK: Yeah. And what did you do after that? When you —
JP: Well, I didn’t know what. I wasn’t going back to my job. I couldn’t stand the thought of a tin pot office job. And I had straight, I had a couple of months leave and about two hundred quid to spend. You know, as the generous air force. And I was walking home one day having told Manfields. They offered me a job. Offered me a good job. I couldn’t go back. Couldn’t go back indoors. So, I was walking home along St George’s Avenue which was by the technical college and out shot one of the teachers who was my old teacher when I was at school. And he’d been an officer in the cadets. So I used to meet him at the odd dance at the Salon and whatnot. And he used to speak. So he said, ‘Hello,’ he said. Well I was demobbed. He said, ‘What are you going to do?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. I’ve got a couple of hundred quid in the bank. I’ve got a couple of months leave and I don’t know what I’m going to do.’ I said, ‘I’m not going back to my old job although they said I could. It’s a waste of time. I’m not going back there.’ He said, ‘Well, why don’t you take up teaching?’ I said, ‘Well can I?’ He said, ‘Well, you’re a qualified instructor to start with.’ Which was better than a teaching diploma. He said, ‘And furthermore you were one of my bright lads,’ he said, ‘Yeah,’ he said. I said, ‘What do you do?’ He said, ‘Well, I’ll get the papers and I’ll sign. I’ll recommend you. You’ll have to get another recommendation and get the papers filled in and then wait.’ Well, I did this. Within about a fortnight I was accepted. And they sat down, ‘You don’t need to be qualified. You can start straight away.’ I was teaching within a month. A class of my own in a school. Well, I had that for about eighteen months. Then I went to college then and then after a few years I got a headship. Then a bigger headship. And that was it. Twenty odd years ahead. I was a magistrate for twenty seven years in addition.
DK: Oh right.
JP: And all sorts of other things.
DK: So how, how do you look back on your time in Bomber Command now? How do you feel about it after seventy odd years?
JP: A bit of a joke. And, you know, the bombastic sort of people there. Well one wing commander. I was introduced. When we went back for my second tour they were crewing up from all over. And I was the one who had done most. I’d done a tour of ops. None of the others had. So, we went through, ‘Now, what have you done?’ I said, ‘Well, you can ask the others. Well, I’ve done a tour of ops.’ ‘You did what?’ I said, ‘A tour of ops.’ ‘On what aircraft?’ ‘Halifaxes.’ I learned afterwards he’d flown Halifaxes. And he tapped his chest, the bombastic bugger and said, ‘And didn’t you get one of these?’ I said, ‘No. My name didn’t come with a NAAFI ration.’ He went mad. ‘These have to be earned,’ he said [laughs] He didn’t like that and I didn’t like him. I had a big row with him later though. You see I missed out through being ill. Immediately afterwards for two to three weeks I wasn’t there and that was when things were being disposed of. I was told I was getting a gong. I didn’t get it.
DK: Oh really.
JP: I was also told, I went up for commission but didn’t get it. I think it had gone before that I’d had a row. When my brother was finally reported killed my mother was suicidal. And we were on then glider towing. Now, that half of England nothing was allowed out. No phone call. No letters. No anything. You were not allowed out if you were in that, in the forces because of the secrecy of it for D-Day. This went on for several weeks. Well, my father sent a pre-paid telegram. And mum, they knew I was back on ops because his friend in the Bournemouth had told him. He’d got a friend there. But didn’t know what ops. And of course she got the wind up. Thought it was like my brother. And then she was suicidal. And I didn’t know what to do. So he wrote and said, ‘Look, you must come home.’ So, I went to the wing commander. This bombastic devil. He didn’t think much of me and I didn’t think much of him anyway. I let it be known. So I sat I’m on my own [laughs] frequently. So anyway, he, he was there in the crew room surrounded by people. I said, ‘Look, it’s important. Could I have a forty eight hour pass?’ ‘Forty eight hour pass. Why?’ I said, ‘Well, my twin brother has finally been reported killed and my mother’s suicidal.’ ‘Well, what good can you do?’ I looked him up and down. I said, ‘I’ll bloody soon show you what good I can do,’ I said, ‘For one thing my MP will know. Another thing the Daily Mirror, which was the forces favourite, that will know. And another thing you will be on the bloody grass.’ He looked at me and I turned around and walked away. I took the forty eight hour pass. And when I was home my mother made me promise not to fly again. I was heartbroken. I didn’t know what to do. I mean I was on my own. I was no longer had to, got a mate. I’d been a loner. When he was missing I became a loner because I couldn’t, couldn’t gel.
DK: No.
JP: So I went back and I said, ‘Look. I’m not flying anymore.’ Well, the crew couldn’t understand it. They could understand but they knew why. The CO, well the CO was the one I’d had the row with. But the one below him, the squadron leader, he was a lovely bloke. He was a bit older and a bit more understanding. And he had a bit more authority really. He was long established. And so I used to have to report to him every day. He said, ‘Will you fly?’ ‘No.’ He said, ‘Now look,’ he said, ‘Normally if they can’t fly they are stripped of their rank and that,’ he said, ‘Because you’ve done a tour of ops we feel we can’t do that to you but,’ he said, ‘Your crew is standing by.’ And D-Day was, turned out to be about a fortnight later. ‘Is waiting. And you’re one of the leading crews. But the crew can’t fly without you. So, at the moment the wing commander realises that he should not have said what he said. He hasn’t reported it. But Group want to know and they’ll have to.’ So anyway I was standing on my own in the navigator’s room just looking around. And nobody wanted to know me. I was a bloody pariah you know. And in comes this wing commander. And he looks me up and down. ‘Pragnell.’ ‘Yeah.’ No sir. I never called him sir again in my life. He said, ‘Well, I want to fly up to Wing.’ We thought he had a lady friend at Wing. Near Leighton Buzzard there. He used to go frequently. Perhaps it was a Group meeting. I don’t know. He says, ‘I want a crew.’ He said, ‘Will you fly?’ I looked him up and down. I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Right,’ he said , ‘We’ll get a crew together,’ and so and so. So, I had to go round and get a gunner and a what’s the name and we flew him up there. I flew him up there. Got him there. I didn’t bother to navigate. I map read him up because I was good at that by then. I’d map read over France and very good at it. So anyway I got off for the sake of the other lad I got a proper course. Flew him back. We got back to Brize Norton. That was our headquarters. And he said, ‘I know where I am.’ So, ‘Right.’ So he flew back and dropped us off and I then went back in to my crew. And then came D-Day of course. So then very shortly after D-Day, now whether it was because I was more experienced as I was or whether he didn’t like me as I think it was I was taken out of my crew within, with several others. But whole crews. To form a new Conversion Unit up near Nottingham somewhere. To train for the Far East.
DK: Right.
JP: And we, well as soon as we got there the war virtually finished so we weren’t, we were posted all over the place then. So I was taken out. Not, with this other crew and flown up to this place to help form this unit. Well, we got together, did a bit of instructing but then the runways apparently wouldn’t take the weight of the bigger aircraft. So we moved to Saltby, which you probably know. Lincolnshire way.
DK: Yeah.
JP: We went there in convoy and I was given charge of a couple of lorries. A handful of erks and a lorry load of stuff to go down and went through Burton on Trent and through there. And I got relatives in Burton on Trent so, ‘We’ll have an hour here lads.’ So we stayed there and I went and saw my relatives and had a cup of tea with them and we went back in to Saltby. And I got the best billet. Well, that didn’t last long. We moved on again. We went to Marston Moor. We went somewhere else. That’s all in there where we went to. And we weren’t wanted. Because they’d got so many like us that had finished their ops they didn’t know what to do with them.
DK: No.
JP: They made lorry drivers and engine drivers out off of lots of them. And I got a lovely little number myself. I I got in to a department. Only a flight lieutenant and he was in charge of the bombing equipment and the distribution of it. And the bomb dump was absolutely full. Old wings, parts of engines, mechanical stuff. And it was brimming over. And he gave me the job with a lorry and a couple of erks who knew what they were doing, and a driver to go out each day. And they sorted out the pick of the stuff. Expensive metals. And we’d go to York every day. We’d drop this off. And go back there the next day. Marvellous time I had. And I, and there’s all sorts of things going. You know you couldn’t get coat hangers for love or money. Now, there was, hanging all around this room where the gas capes had been there were three coat hangers on each peg. Little did the flight lieutenant know. A bit later there were only two of these coat hangers on each peg. When he came to me one day, he said, ‘Oh, you can have a coat hanger.’ ‘Oh, thank you very much.’ All my mates had got coat hangers. Another time he came and said, ‘Well we’ve got so much stuff.’ They’d got farming equipment, barbed wire, these stakes that went in and the farmers were crying out for stuff. He said, ‘We’ve invited some of the local farmers to come and have some. So,’ he said, ‘Go and see to it.’ So I went up there and there were these farmers with their tractors. ‘Well, what can I have?’ ‘I don’t know. Have what you like.’ They were loading on the barbed wire and I came in for a lot of eggs that day. It was a lovely time. I was completely in charge of myself and nobody bothered me.
DK: But the stuff was being used. It was being used usefully on the farms though wasn’t it?
JP: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
JP: Yeah. They were very friendly actually. The farmers. It was back up in Yorkshire of course see. Where I knew. All my flying. That was Linton on Ouse this was.
DK: Right.
JP: Yeah. Yeah. At the big one up there. But the rest of it was Pocklington and Elvington and Snaith. And my twin brother was Holme on Spalding Moor and Northallerton and around there. Yeah. It was in Northallerton that one of them took my tonsils out. That was a joke. He said, ‘Well, come on. You’ve got to go.’ So I had to get up and get dressed and I got an ambulance to take me. And it was the old ambulances. No sirens. It was ring bells. And everywhere we went for a bit of fun he rang the bell. And the people were lining the street. And when we got there he rang the bell. Pulled up. People were watching. And I climbed out [laughs] I saw life.
DK: Oh dear. Ok. Well that, that —
JP: Sorry to bore you but —
DK: No. That’s, that’s great. I’ll stop it there.
JP: Yeah.
DK: That’s been marvellous. Thanks, thanks very much for your time.
Other: When you’ve stopped it —
DK: Still going.
JP: Well, if you want to —
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 Pragnell
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Kavanagh
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-05-26
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
APragnellJ160526
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:02:19 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Training Command
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Description
An account of the resource
Jack Pragnell and his twin brother Thomas volunteered together for the RAF and trained together. Jack flew operations as a bomb aimer with 51 Squadron. His brother joined a Canadian crew. Jack was plagued with health problems and was suddenly told his operation to have his tonsils removed would be taking place the next day. It was only during his convalescence that he realised just how the stress of operations had already affected him. His brother and his crew were shot down and killed which devastated Jack. After his tour he joined Training Command before joining 298 Squadron towing gliders.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
South Africa
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
England--Dorset
England--Yorkshire
France--Lorient
France--Saint-Nazaire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Munich
Germany--Peenemünde
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Italy--Milan
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
102 Squadron
298 Squadron
51 Squadron
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
fear
Halifax
Hamilcar
lack of moral fibre
RAF Pocklington
RAF Snaith
RAF Tarrant Rushton
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/980/11391/AMartinA170830.1.mp3
e8835f22bcaa76fa9456d0867fa305fb
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
Martin, Alfie
Alfred Martin DFC
A Martin
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Alfred Martin DFC (1920 - 2017, 120240 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as an observer with 102 Squadron and was shot down and evaded.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-08-30
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Martin, A
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AM: Right.
JW: This interview is being conducted on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre. My name is John Wells and my interviewee is Mr Alfie Martin. The interview is being held at Mr Martin's home [buzz] Dunmurry. Today is Wednesday the 30th of August 2017 and the time is ten minutes past eleven. Also present are Mr, Mr Martin's daughter, Julie and my wife Helen. [pause] Right. I wonder if you could, if you could start by just giving me a little background to your, where you were born and where you went to school.
AM: Well, as you know my name is Alfred Martin. I was always referred to that at home but during my time in the services I was always known as Paddy. Anyway, I was born in Finaghy which is a small area just outside Belfast. And I was born in 1920 so my age now is ninety seven. I’ve been fortunate in having relatively good health all my life. I was educated in [unclear] Avenue and then a Friends’ School in Lisburn. And I passed my senior certificate at the age of sixteen which was about two years earlier than most. I got the first job I applied for which was in the insurance business and I started that on the 20th of July 1936. Towards the end of the ‘30s the British government was beginning to get a little apprehensive about the desires of Hitler and there was a strong effort to increase the Territorial and Reserve services. I applied for the air, air force by signing up at Ann Street in Belfast and I would have been flying on weekends but when I got home my mother insisted that it was much too dangerous in the Air Force and I should not go forward with it. So I went down the next day and cancelled it. However, I continued to have a desire to help the Services and in [pause] towards the end of 1938 I joined the Territorial Army. Royal Engineers Antrim Fortress Company. And I was stationed with them during the war. I was called up on 28th of August 1939 and I went to Grey Point first of all but I also served at Kilroot and at Magilligan. That was for twenty months I was in the army, getting more and more bored because — but at the same time I I learned how to dig trenches, dig latrines and in addition put up barbed wire. At least in later years the experience in putting up barbed wire was of some, some help. As I’ve said, I was called up in August ‘39 and I served until 1941, at which time I found that there was an edict in the office stating that the air force were looking for volunteers. So I, I volunteered after requesting permission from my officers and four of us were selected to go for interview. As far as I can know I was the only one who was accepted at Clifton Street. And I was, at the same time I was accepted to go forward as, as an observer. That was their, their request. I was prepared to be a pilot but I was so tired of being in the army that I was quite, very happy in fact to, to train as an observer. It was only about two weeks later after that that I was called up for a real push job in my first station with the Air Force and it was the first army intake of the war. The first lot of army people who were taken into the air force. We had a really, a very cushy life initially. Initially [pause] initially we were stationed in Stratford on Avon at the, put up in the Shakespeare Hotel. And from there I went to Scarborough where we were in the Grand Hotel. Quite a luxury life. And then it was to a little place called Wilberforce or Wilbur. Not sure. Anyway, from there it was obvious we were going overseas for, for training. We sailed first of all from Liverpool and I and a lot, a crowd of us aboard the [pause] the, I can't remember the name of the, oh the Ulster. The Ulster Monarch I think it was. It was a boat which normally went between Belfast and Liverpool but we were on it to Iceland where they tossed us off and we had to spend about three weeks there. It was the middle of August so it was light for twenty four hours and the weather was quite pleasant. We enjoyed swimming in hot springs which were nearby and a temperature of about eighty five degrees highs. I enjoyed it very much. The water from that was then siphoned off to heat the houses in Reykjavik which was about twenty miles away. From [pause] after about sixteen days I think it was we, we were told to return to Reykjavik and they put us aboard the, the Canadian Pacific liner Montcalm which, in effect returned to to Belfast to pick up a convoy and we went on from there. And that, that that was my first experience of sleeping in a, in a hammock. And it was a really [pause] while you were in it it was quite comfortable but to get out was a feat of great strength and persistence. And I wouldn't really say I had desire to get into having hammocks again. Anyway, from there we went to St John in New Brunswick, unloaded and from there to Prince Edward Island, to a little place called Charlottetown where we were scheduled to do navigation. From there we, after about six months we, we were considered to be fit and we were sent for bombing and gunnery at Lake Ontario in a wee place called Picton. There we flew in, in Fairey Battle aircraft and we were able to bomb from a bombsight in the floor of the aircraft and fire a Vickers machine gun from the open cockpit. It was quite a cold experience. The temperature was about minus twenty and standing up in an open cockpit was, was not a thing to be desired. Having graduated from that we were all sent on leave and we were all made, having been leading aircraftsmen we became flight sergeants. And we were promoted to flight sergeant and sewed on our extra stripes and then returned to the [pause] a Scottish friend and I went to Boston for our, our short leave. On return I was, I was surprised but not displeased after being granted a commission for us, six of us we were granted commissions out of about thirty in the course. So, I returned to, returned to Britain in the SS Bayano and [knocking noise] Here are my carers. In the SS Bayano, and it took sixteen days of absolute boredom. But we kept a look out for enemy submarines and were fortunate enough to not have anything happen. I’ll just break for a minute.
[recording paused]
We kept look outs. On return we were posted to Bournemouth where we stayed in a top class hotel. And then we were posted on to Stanton Harcourt, Witney which were satellites of Abingdon and we did cross country runs from there. Very often across the Irish Sea up to Scotland and back again. Low level flying. In fact, one pilot managed to get the tips of his wings in the water and bent them a wee bit. And it was lucky he hadn’t got bent completely but the, that was flying up to Wigtown. Later on it was, it was as if the, the practice flights and so forth we were sent up to Scotland one time and I, and we were crewed up and I had became a navigator for a Canadian pilot who was a great big hefty fellow but not the best of pilots I’ve got to say. Anyway, coming back he seemed to get tired of flying and we saw lights below us which were Berwick on Tweed and he decided he was going to land there. So we did. We landed all right but the trouble was we landed about three hundred yards short of the runway in little, among little trees. We were flying a Whitley. A Whitley bomber, which was, had a very low landing speed fortunately for us. We sawed off the tops of a few trees and we came to rest but we were uncertain whether we were on the ground or where we were. I climbed out of the [unclear] wing and I found a tree, tree stump and I slid down it to the ground. And all, in the distance I could hear the station ambulance and fire crew calling out to keep, ‘Keep shouting. Keep shouting. We'll find you. We'll find you,’ and eventually they did. They took us in and they gave us medicals and packed us to bed. And then in the morning they packed us onto a train and sent us back to, to Stanton Harcourt. But after that my first operation took, took place a few days later. It was one of the thousand bomber raids and we went in a Whitley aircraft to Dusseldorf. And then the second one was to, was about three days later and that was to Hamburg. From there I managed to do about a dozen operations. It was early in the bombing command and the targets were pretty dangerous. I’m just going to say I went to Berlin and I went to Stuttgart. I went to Happy Valley, that's the Ruhr, a couple of times. And Nuremberg, Hamburg and then on to Lorient, St Nazaire, Turin and Genoa. Most of them quite long trips. The thirteenth trip was to Pilsen in Czechoslovakia. And we set off about eight o'clock in the evening and had to cross a lot of Germany. And we did. I think we landed. Sorry. We, we got to Pilsen at sometime about midnight. Our navigation aids at that time were very limited. In fact it was mostly by [pause] by ground. Ground marks and so forth. But I would think our bombs were dropped about fifty miles short of Pilsen. However, it had been a long trip. We turned and set the way back and again it was long. At 4.05 in the morning we had noticed that there was aircraft, there was foreign aircraft and being very active. And anyway shortly after we heard bullets coming from a gun and hitting our aircraft. At that stage we, we gathered out into the front of the aircraft, a Halifax and I prepared to parachute out if required. Unfortunately, I, I was in the nose side of, of the escape hatch which was about that size. And the job was to take it off its hinges and drop it down through the aperture. Well, in our case the lid as I'd call it refused to go because the wind caught it. The air stream caught it and jammed it angle-wise across. I was unable to have enough strength to clear it. I tried to get one of the crew on the other side of the [pause] of the [pause] of the —
JW: Aperture.
AM: Aperture. On the other side of the aperture to, to hit it or kick or something but he didn't seem to understand. Finally the pilot came on again and he called out with great vehemence, ‘Port engine on fire. Port engine on fire. Bale out. Bale out.’ And it was a wee bit stronger than that and I looked out and there was, certainly there was just a blue flame like a blow torch coming from the engine. It didn't look very healthy. I saw that the crew on the far side were doing nothing about the, the door of the aperture and I disconnected my, but I adjusted my parachute and to remove my [pause] my intercom apparatus and I just stood up and jumped on the edge of the, of the aperture door and out it went and I went out with it. And that started me off. It was absolute silence for [pause] I don't know. While I was, while I was out. Up ‘til then I’d been hearing the engines roaring for, as I think I said to you it was four o'clock in the morning when we were shot down and we'd been hearing the engines for at least eight hours so the silence was very welcome but rather unexpected. Anyway, I floated down. I checked to see what was, I was coming in to. I tried to turn around in the parachute but couldn't get it to turn so that I could see what was happening. All I could see was that there was the aircraft was burning on the ground and I couldn't see any other members of crew. But in retrospect they all got out with the exception of the rear gunner. And we presume that he was killed trying to get out of his, his turret which was not an easy thing to do but we were uncertain. When I hit the ground I just rolled over on my back but it kind of came out to hit you. Everything seemed to be very slow until the last sixteen feet and going down. But then our training took over and we were, had been advised to hide our parachutes. So I sorted around and found a damp place in a corner a field and stuck it in but it was a very bad hiding job. But anyway it was out of sight and then I set off hoping to go in a westerly direction. But as the aircraft was in that direction I had to go south. And it was through the fields and for it, for a couple of, for all night I stopped up the next morning and sort of decided I’d rest and see what was what. So, I think that was a Sunday morning I believe. And I found a little place between two hedges where I was kind of covered. About one o'clock, having had a bit of a doze suddenly there was a great rustling nearby and a cow appeared. And behind the cow was a little boy aged twelve who was driving it. And he stopped and stared me up and down and I got up and kind of stared him up and down. And then suddenly he saluted me. And I was extremely touched by that because I don't know how he recognized that I was anyone other than a refugee of some sort. But that little boy was Andre [Lelu], and he looked, he was the first to meet me. To recognize me. He brought along his mother and father and they brought me some food and they tried to help me on my way but said they couldn't really help. It was too dangerous for them. So I left it until the next evening when I set off. Again, I said I would only walk in the evenings and I did the best I could that evening but I I approached a couple of farmhouses but every time I did there was a dog barking and I was a bit scared of it and I moved on. And late in the morning, or late in the night I should say I got a bit tired of that then looked for somewhere to rest. And the only place I was able to find was a broken down chicken hut in which I slept by some of my equipment and I did a bit of changing of my appearance. And I stayed there for an hour or two checking on my escape equipment etcetera. That, that morning I set off again and I was told to go to a place by the name of [Lessies] where I should be able to get a train, I'd been told. But when I did get there after walking and crossing a river or two I found that it was very remote. All that was in the railway station the only thing you could see were a couple of men sitting outside on a, on a bench and quite frankly I was too frightened to go up and look for a train. So I set off further down the hill. Following the line but off the road. And suddenly I came in sight of a couple of gendarmes talking to a lady down below. Maybe a hundred yards away. And I think they had spotted me but I had decided that it was, it would be dangerous for me to turn and retrace my steps so I decided to go ahead and walk past them. And I did get part way past when they, one of them said, ‘Attention monsieur.’ And I stopped and they asked for my carte d’identite which I didn't, which I did have but not for publication. And I I acted dumb and sort of appeared to search in my pockets and so forth and tried to answer their questions in what I thought was the best answer. After about five minutes of this silence and so forth they indicated they wanted me to come with them and they set off up the hill the way I had been coming and I I went up beside them. And what I thought was the senior one of the two looked at me and said, ‘Anglais monsieur?’ And I said, ‘Oui.’ And he said, ‘Allez. Allez. Vite.’ And I allez-ed vite very vite-ly indeed. I understood and got back on my journey down the hill until maybe an hour later I came across a railway crossing and I was, went out on the road to cross there. I saw a lady in, in a house and I [pause] saw a lady in the house and I decided to go and speak to her. She was very frightened but I persisted and finally she kind of took me in and gave me a little bit of beer or wine and so forth and she said she'd find me a place for the night. So about, after a short period we set off up the road about a mile until we came to a farmhouse which was off the road. I was taken up there. We knocked the door. A man answered and my guide explained the situation. I was brought in in the understanding that I would be looked after for one night and then they'd have to do something else. But that one night turned out to be six weeks. And I was there for six weeks with people by the name of [Collene] and they couldn't be better to me. I, more or less, I’ve been in touch with them all my life. Although now most of them have passed on. But anyway I’m going to say from there on during that six weeks I had my, some of my coats and things dyed black and I had my hair dyed black because I was a ginger type. And I was told that we would have, there would be a lady come for me on the following night. But that night passed and no one appeared. However, a lady appeared the next night accompanied by a man. And that lady was Madame [unclear]. And incidentally the man was Monsieur [pause] I’ve forgotten his name in the moment but unfortunately he was shot later for helping. But that wasn't connected with me. Anyway, we, they took me to the railway station and we got on a train later than expected. We went to Lille and stayed in a third class hotel there. And I walked around on the streets which were full of German soldiers having a Saturday night out. It was up about four o'clock next morning and we got a train off to Arras where Madame [unclear] had a house. A safe house. And I’m just going to say that from there on I had all sorts of, a number of different helpers. Some, mostly female but some male. I went on to Paris. From Paris to a place called [pause] from Paris to Bordeaux. From Bordeaux to Dax from Dax to [pause] Biarritz. And I’ve forgotten the name of the —
Other: St John de Luz.
AM: Pardon?
Other: St John de Luz.
AM: Yes. But another place from that where we stayed one night. The following night we went to St John de Luz. De luz. And I omitted to say that in the, this railway station in Paris, in the east Paris — Gare de l’Est I found a group of men talking. And I looked hard at them and there, one of them was my pilot. And I had expected that he wouldn't have survived because we were quite low in terms of getting out of the aircraft but he told me later that he got out about five hundred feet and he’d no sooner opened the ‘chute when he hit the ground. I was delighted to see him but we couldn't talk to each other because it was too dangerous to show any expressions. But one of them was Wally Lashbrook. He and an American by the name of Doug Hoehn. We formed a little group who went on to, as I say Bordeaux, Dax, St John de Luz and from there over the border to Irun and St Sebastian and into a safe house in San Sebastian where we stayed for about four days. We were taken out in the evening. A car stopped beside us and we were told to get in. And it was a consulate from, from Spain, from Madrid who picked us up. And he, he was with his wife and the three of us were in the back and we were driven all through the night to Madrid where we stayed in the embassy for three days taking, getting the first opportunity to write to our folks at home and let them know we were alive. And after a few days we were put on a train to Lleida in the south of [pause] or the west of France, west of Spain. And from Lleida we walked over the border and into a Gibraltar. About three days later, having been issued with new uniforms and so forth we flew by public aircraft to Bristol. From Bristol by train to London where we were interviewed and given leave passes. And Wally and I, and we couldn't, we didn't have time to get home on that night so we decided to go to Pocklington which we had been stationed when we left and we had a right nice get together with our pals. From there it was back to Belfast and a meeting, a very fine meeting with my parents and my friends. And that's about my story but —
JW: Do you want to have a rest. Hold on a sec.
Other: You might find it interesting to look at this. Have a read.
JW: I’ll have a look at it afterwards. Yeah. When did you actually leave the RAF then?
AM: Well —
JW: Oh sorry. Before that did, did you go on further operations?
AM: I did say, I don't know that I gave the date but the date of being shot down was the 17th of April 1943.
JW: Right.
AM: So there was a fair bit of time and we were not permitted to return to operations because we might give away the — we might be interrogated again and give away the names of people who’d helped us and so forth. That precluded what we were going to do but in my case I, I was actually, I was posted to Britain to do a staff navigator’s course. And I was, the staff navigator’s course I was posted, but I exchanged with one of my friends who had been posted to Canada. So in effect I went to Canada to do a staff navigation course which I did and I was out in Canada for about fifteen months at, mostly in Ontario but also out in Winnipeg. My demob came in the end of ‘45 and I was, and I returned to Britain and sent up to near Catterick and demobbed in December [unclear] but it wasn't effective until March. Anyway, my job in the insurance business had been kept open for me and in effect, and well, in fact they had made up my salary in the early part of my induced, my Air Force career when I was getting about one and, one and three, one and six a day which went up to seven and six a day. But anyway the insurance company made it up to what I would have been getting with them which was very good. They called me back and I, I went back in the beginning of ’46 and I was an insurance inspector for the counties of Fermanagh, Monaghan and Cavan for about a year. And then I, I got, I wanted to emigrate. I checked on South Africa and Australia but I decided to go to Canada because I knew it and I knew I could get a job. So anyway, I went off to Canada where Sheila was born. Julie rather. And my wife, who came from Benburb.
JW: Right.
AF: She joined me in Canada and we were married there in ‘53. Yes. That is about it, I think.
JW: Thank you very much for, I’m amazed at the amount of stuff you've been able to remember. Can I ask you what rank you were when you were finally demobbed?
AM: Flight lieutenant.
JW: Flight Lieutenant. Yeah. Yeah. And I was going to ask if you knew your old service number because what they —
AM: Well —
JW: Will be able to do is dig out your old record.
AM: 2068004. That’s, that’s my army one. The original. 2068004.
JW: Two —
AM: 068004.
JW: 2068004.
AM: That's my army one. In the air force I was, in the air force I was 120240. I did have another number in between but it wasn't —
JW: And your actual date of birth you said was —
AM: 26 3 ‘20.
Other: And did you mention the DFC dad?
JW: Oh that. We forgot to mention. So —
AM: I was awarded the DFC on, on return from, from the Continent. So was Wally.
JW: Yeah. Congratulations on that.
AM: That’s about 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
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Interview with Alfie Martin
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
John Wells
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-08-30
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AMartinA170830
Conforms To
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Pending review
Format
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00:49:16 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
British Army
Temporal Coverage
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1943-04-17
Description
An account of the resource
Alfie Martin was born near Belfast in 1920. He applied for the Air Force but his mother was worried about the dangers and so he withdrew his application. He joined the army and when the RAF advertised for soldiers to transfer the RAF he volunteered. He trained as an observer in Canada. He was posted to RAF Pocklington with 102 Squadron. On his twelfth operation their aircraft came under attack and he baled out. While in hiding he heard a rustling and a cow appeared in view along with a young boy. The boy saw him and saluted. Alfie was enormously touched by this. This was the start of his evasion and eventual return to active duty in the UK.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
France
Great Britain
Spain
England--Yorkshire
France--Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine)
France--Paris
Northern Ireland--Belfast
Spain--San Sebastián
Great Britain
102 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
bombing
bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942)
Distinguished Flying Cross
evading
fear
Halifax
observer
RAF Pocklington
RAF Stanton Harcourt
Resistance
shot down
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/918/11163/PLashbrookW1501.2.jpg
efbe291d350ae4303c5b1e5ad8128366
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/918/11163/ALashbrookWI150903.1.mp3
83b10ab78c695a348df8b6a334f3d6bc
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
Lashbrook, Wally
Wallace Lashbrook
W Lashbrook
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Squadron Leader Wally Lashbrook MBE DFC AFC DFM (1916 - 2017 Royal Air Force), his decorations and a poem dedicated to bomber pilot. He flew operations as a pilot with 51, 102 and 204 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Jessica Kelly and Wally Lashbrook and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-03
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Lashbrook, W
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
BB: Ok Wally. My name is Squadron Leader Bruce Blanche.
WL: [Unclear] in the hangar and unfortunately, when I went off to Singapore, he was carrying on with his motorbike, he killed himself straight after, in Southampton, when I was halfway to Singapore.
BB: Right.
WL: It was a dead loss to [unclear] He was a quaint little fellow.
BB: Yes. Yes.
WL: Yeah.
BB: He must have been a very interesting man to, to have known. Because he became very famous as you know, in Arabia and he joined the Air Force afterwards under a false name, as Aircraftsman Shaw.
WL: That’s right.
BB: Yeah. And he wrote a book called, “The Mint.”
WL: Yeah.
BB: But, so, you joined as a Halton apprentice in 1929.
WL: I joined in 1929.
BB: Yes.
WL: That’s right.
BB: And then you — you —
WL: Went to Singapore.
BB: Went to Singapore and then you at some stage you decided to be a pilot.
WL: Three years. Three years in Singapore and they selected certain lads — sent them home as pilots. Sent to be taught to fly. They all had that ambition. Some of us were fortunate enough to get selected. I was one of probably a thousand to get, and then four of us got sent back to Prestwick to learn to fly. That was 1929.
BB: 1929.
WL: We learned to fly. Yeah.
BB: So you learned to fly at Prestwick.
WL: Sorry in 1936.
BB: Yeah.
WL: I learned to fly in Prestwick, yeah.
BB: And what did you learn train on at Prestwick?
WL: Tiger Moths.
BB: Tiger Moths. So, it was an EFTS. Elementary Flying Training School. Yes. Ok. And —
WL: I was there and then of course [unclear] let’s think. What squadron was I? I can’t remember the squadrons.
BB: Yeah. That’s fine. But I gather you went with 51 Squadron for a while.
WL: Yes. I was.
BB: Yes.
WL: For a short time, but I don’t think I did a great job there. I broke the one and only Hendon.
BB: Yes.
WL: Landed badly on the undercarriage.
BB: Yeah. Hendons were a bit cumbersome as I remember. Not remember, as I know from my own research. So, you, you re-mustered as a pilot.
WL: That’s right. Re-mustered.
BB: And you completed your pilot training. And how long did it take you to go solo on the Tiger Moths?
WL: As I think it was a rather longer than most people.
BB: It would be in your logbook but — yeah.
WL: Probably [pause] I’d have to look at my logbooks.
BB: Ok. Most people went, went solo after about eight hours or so.
WL: Oh, well, I was much longer than that.
BB: Were you? Well. It’s ok, Wally. Don’t worry about it. We’ll get, we’ll get it later. But then you went on to, to ops. Did you fly — you got your DFM. Distinguished Flying Medal.
WL: Yes.
BB: So, you must have been obviously an NCO at that stage. Flight sergeant.
WL: I was an NCO. That’s right.
BB: Yeah.
WL: Yeah.
BB: And what were you flying when you got your DFM? Was it Whitleys?
WL: Hendons.
BB: Oh right.
WL: My DFM.
BB: Yeah. When you got your DFM was it, was it Halifaxes? I’ll have a look at the logbook don’t worry. It’s ok.
WL: Yes.
BB: And then you obviously got commissioned.
WL: I got commissioned. Yeah. Let’s see — I can’t —
BB: No, I’ve got the dates, Wally. It doesn’t matter. So, the transition from a, being Halton apprentice.
WL: That’s it.
BB: With all the technical knowledge and working on engines.
WL: Yeah.
BB: And meeting people like Aircraftsman Shaw — Lawrence of Arabia.
WL: Yeah.
BB: Re-mustering for aircrew. Going through all the aircrew selection. You were selected for pilot, so you must have been at the top. The top of the cream.
WL: Yeah. I managed to survive. I crashed in a Tiger Moth.
BB: Yeah.
WL: And I got stuck in fog.
BB: Right. And then —
WL: I false landed anyway.
BB: Yes.
WL: And a fellow, a flight sergeant, flew it out of the rocky place I’d finished up in.
BB: Carry on. Carry on. Just keep talking.
WL: Yeah. Well from there I went on to Hendons.
BB: Yes.
WL: Tiger Moths and then Hendons.
BB: Ok. And then, so you got, you got your aircrew cap. You went through pilot training.
WL: Yeah.
BB: You went on to a squadron and obviously got the DFM at the end of that tour. Was that with 51 Squadron?
WL: That’s right.
BB: Yeah. Was that Halifaxes you were flying?
WL: Oh, I’d have to look that up.
BB: Ok. Right. I think we can find that out. And you did a full tour of missions with 51 and then you’re obviously screened at some stage. Did you go on to instruct at an Heavy Conversion Unit? 1652 at Pocklington?
WL: I was, yeah, I was with 30152a.
BB: Yes, right. Ok.
WL: I got, I must have got my commission before. Before that.
BB: Yes. You did.
WL: Yeah.
BB: You did. Yes. And then you went back to a squadron again. Was it 102 Squadron?
WL: 102 Squadron. That’s right.
BB: And then you did, oh no, I beg pardon you did some time with the Pathfinder force too. With 35 Squadron. I believe.
WL: Well, no. It wasn’t Pathfinders. No.
BB: No.
WL: No, I was, well, look in my logbook.
BB: Ok. We’ll have a look in the logbook later.
WL: Yeah.
BB: So, and then afterwards, after the war you ended up with a DFC. Sorry DFM, DFC, Air Force Cross.
WL: Yeah.
BB: And then you went on and you stayed in the Air Force I think, until — was it 1953/54 something like that?
WL: Yeah well, I was. I’m stubborn and the old memory doesn’t —
BB: Don’t worry about it. It’s — your medals tell the story.
WL: Yeah.
BB: And you went on to 102 Squadron.
WL: That’s right. Yeah.
BB: And you finished the war with your DFC, AFC.
WL: Yeah.
BB: You obviously stayed with the RAF for quite a while. You came out of the RAF and obviously got involved with the Air Cadets.
WL: That’s right.
BB: The RAF VR [T]
WL: Yeah.
BB: Training branch.
WL: Yeah.
BB: And that’s — how did you find that? Very rewarding I suspect. Teaching young — young girls and boys to an interest in aviation and in flying.
WL: Well I was general duties more than flying.
BB: Yes.
WL: I enjoyed working with youngsters.
BB: Yeah. They are very rewarding. Working with young people.
WL: I was a keen. I was an athlete.
BB: Were you?
WL: Well I wasn’t —
BB: No, but what was your particular sport?
WL: Pole vault for one thing.
BB: Oh, excellent.
WL: Four hundred metres.
BB: Oh, that’s excellent. So, you were quite an athlete. Well of course that —
WL: I wouldn’t say I was quite an athlete
BB: No. But you were interested in sport?
WL: Hmmn?
BB: You were interested in sport.
WL: Very interested in sport.
BB: That’s what the RAF liked in those days.
WL: Yeah.
BB: I were.
WL: That’s how I got the DFC I thought.
BB: Yes. Ok. ‘Cause I remember when I was in the Air Force, Wednesday afternoons in the Air Force was sports. You had to go and play football or cricket or rugby, or something like that.
WL: Yeah.
BB: It was always Wednesday afternoon as I recall.
WL: Yeah.
BB: Every Wednesday. Station, station routine orders. Wednesday afternoon sport.
WL: Yes.
BB: And you couldn’t get out of it. No. You had to do it, otherwise your commanding officer was after —
WL: I used to organise the sport.
BB: [unclear]
WL: Inter squadron. That was —
BB: That’s right. Inter-squadron sports.
WL: Yeah.
BB: Yeah. Very, very important. It keeps, it keeps the body fit and the mind agile.
WL: Yeah.
BB: And that’s very important for the RAF.
WL: It’s very good for the morale.
BB: Good for morale, good for building team spirit. Which, in aircrew is very important. And teaches you discipline and all of that. So that’s good.
WL: That’s right, yeah.
BB: Yeah. And, now, after the, after your time in the RAF when you came out in the 50s, yeah, I gather you joined BOAC.
WL: The which?
BB: British Oversea Airways Corporation. Did you? You flew as a civil pilot for a while, did you? With BOAC
WL: Oh, I was, yeah, I was flying Halifaxes.
BB: Yes.
WL: And civilians.
BB: Yes. Oh yes. Yes. Called the Halton, I think it was called.
WL: Yeah. I went all over the world.
BB: How interesting. How interesting.
WL: Yeah.
BB: I remember as a child my, my father worked, my parents worked overseas and we used to go out to see them and it was always in a BOAC Super Constellation.
WL: Oh yeah.
BB: Or something like that.
WL: Yeah.
BB: It took something like twenty eight hours to get to Singapore, Wally. Could you imagine that?
WL: No.
BB: London Heathrow to Singapore. Twenty eight hours.
WL: Yeah. Got used to it.
BB: Night stop at Karachi. Changed crews at Karachi.
WL: Singapore was. Yeah it was. I went as far as Hong Kong you know.
BB: Right.
WL: And flew to America. America.
BB: Right. Right.
WL: Canada.
BB: Canada. Interesting.
WL: It was.
BB: And then you obviously left BOAC.
WL: Nearly all the bits of Africa.
BB: Lots of Africa. Yes. It must have been very interesting that flying after the war. Pioneering the air routes and flying the routes for BOAC, must have been very, very interesting.
WL: It was very interesting.
BB: And challenging too. Quite dangerous.
WL: Unfortunately it was quite dangerous as you say. We lost a few.
BB: I mean the weather. I mean the unpredictable weather. And meteorology wasn’t an exact science then as it is now, and you know, navigation aids were sparce, so it was all dead reckoning stuff.
WL: [unclear]
BB: No. Hardly any beacons. You know.
[motor running outside]
WL: What’s that noise?
BB: We’ll just wait while the —
WL: Eh?
BB: We’ll must wait while the chap cuts the grass outside.
WL: Oh, that’s what it is.
BB: Yeah. It’s alright. It’s not an engine running up. Somebody’s not taxiing out. It’s ok.
WL: Yeah.
BB: No. But you know what a splendid privilege it is to see you, Wally, and to be here. I’ve done a lot of research on you because there’s a lot out there on you. You’re really quite famous. And it’s a real honour to be here and you’ve served your country, and the Royal Air Force extremely well, and we’re all very proud of that.
WL: Well it was a job to me.
BB: Yes. It was a job to lots of people.
WL: Yes.
BB: But nonetheless, they don’t give you these things on the table for jobs. They don’t give you all of this stuff for just doing a job.
WL: No.
BB: You did some tremendous things. I mean, for example, you were shot down, you evaded, you escaped back to the UK when your Halifax was shot down on the Pilsen raid.
WL: Yeah. Oh well it was a pilot’s existence.
BB: Yes. It was. And you must have qualified for the Caterpillar Club because you had to use your parachute didn’t you? Oh no you crashed. Did you crash land or did you bale out? I can’t remember.
WL: Hmmn?
BB: Did you crash land that particular Halifax or did you bale out? Did you parachute?
WL: I’m trying to think.
BB: I’ve got a, I’ve got a feeling that you crash landed it and the guys got out.
WL: I crash landed.
BB: Yes. That’s right.
WL: Yeah. I think —
BB: After the Pilsen raid. When you got back to base, got back to Linton on Ouse. That’s right. Yes.
WL: Yeah. I was very fortunate in my landings.
BB: What?
WL: Very fortunate in landing.
BB: Yes, well there’s only good landings, Wally, are the ones you can walk away from.
WL: I’ll say. I was fortunate I never landed on the water.
BB: Yes. I, I was talking, I was talking to a Bomber Command veteran, not so long ago who had to ditch in the North Sea with his crew. And they were there, they were there for three days in this dinghy before the Air Sea Rescue people.
WL: Found them.
BB: Got to them.
WL: Yeah. Well I was fortunate.
BB: You were fortunate indeed. Yes.
WL: Yeah. I didn’t. I landed on the land if you like.
BB: Yes.
WL: I can’t remember which one we [unclear], but that was the —
BB: So, what, what I will do now, Wally, with this noise going on. I will have a look at your logbooks.
WL: Yeah.
BB: Oh, h’s finished now. So, we can carry on as normal for a little bit. So, when were you born, Wally? I mean.
WL: 1913.
BB: 1913.
WL: Yeah. January the 3rd.
BB: February 3rd .
WL: January the 3rd .
BB: January the 3rd .
WL: 1913.
BB: And where was that, Wally? Can you remember where you were born?
WL: Well it was my address [unclear] Devon.
BB: Ok. So, 1913. That’s just, just before the First World War.
WL: That’s right.
BB: So obviously your father might have gone off to the First World War, did he? Or —
WL: No. he was a protected.
BB: Oh, he was a —
WL: Farmer. Yeah.
BB: Oh, reserved occupation, I think they called it.
WL: I marched as a boy, five years old in 1918. You know, a wee boy.
BB: Yes. A wee boy. And of course, that’s, that’s during the First World War.
WL: Yeah.
BB: Air power came to its, its true meaning. You started off with balloons and then it started off with reconnaissance.
WL: That’s right.
BB: And then the fighters and then the bombers. So, and of course the RAF, the Royal Flying Corps — the RAF were formed so —
WL: The fascinating.
BB: So, all of that post war you grew up in, an age where aviation was, was coming of age.
WL: Yes.
BB: And there was all that, you know, guys like Cobham and flying circuses and all these wartime aces going around doing aerobatics at air shows at like Hendon and all these places. And so, you grew up in that air minded generation.
WL: It was balloons.
BB: Did that influence your interest in aviation? Did that spark your interest in aviation?
WL: I always, you know, was amazed with aviation. Watching the airships.
BB: Yes, those were amazing things. I, I — they were truly amazing things. You know, when you think of the zeppelin. Think about the zeppelin. How big they were.
WL: Yes.
BB: And then you know, of course, the Americans used them a lot more that we did, for surveillance over the ocean, but we did the same and, you know, we had these airship bases all over the place.
WL: All over France and that.
BB: Yeah.
WL: Yeah.
BB: And they were — but they were, I mean they were, you know, you were sitting on a balloon full of helium or gas.
WL: That’s right.
BB: They just went up like a light. But from what I’ve read, it took an awful lot of fighters to put one down. Yeah.
WL: Yes. I remember seeing the flying, the airships.
BB: Yes.
WL: Crossing Bude.
BB: Oh yes.
WL: Crossing Bude. Going out to sea.
BB: Yes.
WL: And coming back in again.
BB: On, on, on the Clyde.
WL: Yeah. And I remember the balloon, the airship going down on the way to France.
BB: Yes.
WL: And also one who caught up in America. US.
BB: Oh right. OK. No. It was and of course, they’re making a comeback as well now. The technology has been resurrected and twenty first —
WL: Is that right?
BB: Twenty first century being applied on the new technology so that down at a place called, what used to be RAF Cardington.
WL: Where?
BB: Cardington.
WL: Paddington?
BB: Cardington. The big balloon hangars used to be there and, near Bedford and there’s a company there trying to get airships flying again.
WL: For [unclear]
BB: No. No. For aerial surveillance, and agriculture, and all sorts of things.
WL: Yeah.
BB: It’s really — it’s gone, it’s gone in a big circle, Wally.
WL: Well I would never have thought they could find anything useful for them.
BB: Well, they’re small, I mean, they’re probably the size of the hall here.
WL: Yeah.
BB: But they are used for coastal surveillance, communication platforms.
WL: Yeah.
BB: They’re doing all sorts of things with them now. So, you know, it just goes in a big circle but of course, the technology now is a lot better than it was in the 1913/14.
WL: Yeah
BB: So that’s fascinating, but when you consider the changes in aviation in your lifetime, it’s incredible.
WL: Yeah. I know it’s —
BB: Supersonic flight, men on the moon, space travel.
WL: Oh I know it’s —
BB: You know. It’s amazing.
WL: Really is —
BB: When you were a boy, you probably couldn’t even visualise that.
WL: No. I mean I was really airships crossing over Bude. The seaside you know. Going out to sea.
BB: Yeah.
WL: And back in again. And then of course, the ones that crashed. The one that crashed on the way to Paris.
BB: Yes, that’s right. But coming back to the Royal Air Force, obviously you’re were a career, you’re a career officer. Once — when the war ended, and all the wartime people left wha,t what decided you to stay in the Air Force after the war? Was it because you just liked the flying?
WL: Well, it was a job.
BB: It was a job. Well it was a job. And you are quite right.
WL: Yeah.
BB: I mean, at the end of the war and the wartime Air Force was cut. Was drastically cut, and people had to go and get jobs. So, you were lucky to —
WL: A paid pilot was —
BB: Yeah sure, but I mean, you must have been very, very good at what you did as a pilot, which is testimonial in your medals here for the Air Force to say, ‘Ok Lashbrook, you can stay on, you know. You’re a good boy. You can stay in the Royal Air Force, in the peacetime Air Force. Was it very difficult? Did you have to go to interviews and be selected?
WL: I was peacetime farmer if you like. I was paid civilian.
BB: Right. Oh, a ferry pilot. Yes.
WL: A ferry pilot.
BB: Was that for Handley Page?
WL: Hmmn?
BB: Was that for Handley Page? The aircraft manufacturers.
WL: No. No. I forget.
BB: Oh.
WL: Skyways.
BB: Skyways Airwork.
WL: Yeah. I was —
BB: Oh right. Ok.
WL: I worked at Skyways.
BB: I remember as a teenager, Skyways DC3s taking the holidaymakers over to France in the early days.
WL: Yeah.
BB: In the 50s. A lot of — Skyways had a lot of ex-RAF DC3s. Dakotas.
WL: Yeah
BB: And they used to fly them out of Lydd, Lydd in Kent, and they just took these people across to France and you know.
WL: That’s right. I [unclear]
BB: And then they got the DC, DC4 I think, and they went a further afield.
WL: That’s right —
BB: It was a interesting company — Skyways. It was an interesting company.
WL: Yeah.
BB: I mean it was part freight, it was part airline, it was part, we’ll fly anywhere, anything, anytime you want.
WL: Anywhere. Yeah. Where we want to go. Unfortunately, we lost a few.
BB: Yes. Well as I said, most of the airliners after the war, initially, were either converted Halifaxes or Lancasters, or they were DC3s, which was a transport, or they were a DC4, DC6. So it was a lot of the wartime aircraft, whether they be transport or bomber, were adapted for aviation after the war.
JK: Excuse me. Alright. Is this an opportune moment to take you up for lunch?
BB: Yes. Of course.
JK: Alright.
WL: So, Wally. We’ll finish it here.
WL: Yeah.
BB: I will come back after lunch and take some pictures.
JK: Right. Ok.
BB: Or we could that now if you like. Before lunch.
JK: That’s ok.
BB: Ok. And we can talk over lunch. Ok.
JK: Ok. Has he been alright? Has he been —
BB: He’s been fine.
JK: Right, Dad. Do you want to have a wee sip of your sherry? I’m going take you up for lunch. I’ll just take you up in your chariot. Ok.
WL: Yeah.
BB: Well, Wally, thank you very much for sharing your adventures with me.
WL: [unclear]
BB: And I’ll peruse your logbooks and take some photographs after lunch if that’s alright.
WL: Yes. That’s fine.
BB: And then I’ll leave you in peace, but thank you very much for allowing me to come in and talk to you.
WL: Well, I hope it was [unclear]
BB: It is. Wally. Wally, you’re such a character and your medals tell your story really. And as I said my generation and a lot of other people owe you and your colleagues in Bomber Command, many of which are not here, a tremendous debt of gratitude. Particularly as after the war Bomber Command was, was forgotten, the achievements were forgotten. Mainly through politicians trying to distance themselves from the bombing campaign which was terrible. I mean them doing it. And now with the Memorial at Hyde Park Corner, The Bomber Command Memorial, plus the one that’s going up in, has gone up in Lincoln and this archive that we’re here today to record your history, is a testament and an oral monument to you guys. So, thank you very much. I salute you.
JK: Ok. And a personal thing, well not personal, that was Dad receiving his Bomber Command clasp.
BB: Clasp from Bob Kemp. Yes, I know. Bob was one of my COs in the RAF.
JK: Oh right. Lift your foot a minute, Dad. Right foot.
BB: That’s on the benevolent fund website.
JK: Oh right. Well you’ll know that one. And then above is when he was a hundred.
BB: Yeah. Yeah.
JK: This is —
BB: Letter from the queen.
JK: Yeah. And this was the Deputy Lord Lieutenant. His name is David Dickson.
BB: Right.
JK: His father was involved with the Cadets, Colonel Seton Dickson.
BB: Right.
JK: And his son is now the deputy lord lieutenant and visits my Dad quite often.
BB: Oh that’s great.
JK: And is a lovely person. This was Dad on his hundredth birthday with my older sisters.
BB: Right.
JK: Diane, who lives in Florida. And that was my two children Michael and Sarah.
BB: Oh, how nice.
JK: This is Sarah here as well.
BB: My daughter’s called Sarah.
JK: Yeah. Sarah’s thirty two, she’s a pharmacy technician. Sadly, Michael was killed in an industrial accident.
BB: Oh, I’m sorry.
JK: Four years ago, when he was twenty six. But he was, he and dad were rascals together.
BB: Is that right Wally?
JK: Yes.
BB: Rascals together. Eh.
JK: You and Michael.
WL: Oh aye.
JK: Right.
WL: We got on well.
JK: Right. We’re going to go up now and get into the chair. Ok. And we’ll take you up.
BB: Yeah.
JK: You’re going to go to the quiet tearoom to have your lunch with Bruce.
WL: I can leave my stuff here. Yes?
JK: Yes. If you want to take the logbooks with you to have a look at.
WL: When I come back. You lock this place presumably. It’s safe enough. I want to come back and take some pictures of the medals and just peruse the logbooks. Ask any questions that come from them but —
JK: Well what we’ll do is —
WL: I don’t want to tire him.
JK: They actually don’t. My Dad doesn’t use the key for his door so —
WL: Right.
JK: So what I’ll do I’ll put them, I’ll give them to Ann in at the office and you can get them when you finish lunch. Just in case anybody wandered in and out. I’ve discussed with Dad. These are — these are —
WL: Sorry.
JK: Museum pieces now.
BB: Oh they are. They’re very valuable.
JK: So — well not so much that but —
BB: Well I can tell you what they’re worth right now. I mean that little group with the logbooks, about twenty five thousand pounds.
JK: Oh really. Really. Well they will eventually go to — probably Halton.
BB: That would be a great thing to do.
JK: Because there’s not much point keeping them in a drawer at home is there? Once, you know —
BB: Well they might be good for grandchildren.
JK: Well I doubt if — they would have been Michael’s but —
BB: Right.
JK: As I say. That didn’t work out.
BB: Ok. Well, you have daughters.
JK: I know but I’d rather them be seen by a lot of people.
BB: No. I understand. I understand.
JK: You know. And there are so many people who now who are very, very interested.
BB: Yes.
JK: You know, and Dad and I was just discussing what you said earlier on about, you know, Bomber Command being kind of shoved under the carpet almost.
JK: You’ll be done by —
BB: Oh half an hour or so.
JK: Shall we say about 2 o’clock or something like that.
BB: Yes, that would be fine.
JK: I don’t know when —
BB: I don’t want to tire him out.
JK: Oh, he’ll be fine. He’s not going anywhere.
Other: I’ll do it, I’ll do all that Jessica.
BB: Thank you very much.
Other: You go and do what you have to do.
JK: That’s his logbook and medals.
Other: Right.
BB: I’ll look after them.
Other: Right. Ok. Yeah.
JK: And I’ll go down to Marie Curie and see what I can pick up.
Other: Thanks a lot.
JK: Alright Dad, I’ll be back after lunch.
WL: Right. Ok then.
JK: Bruce is going to have lunch with you and then take you back to your room for some photographs.
BB: Right.
JK: And then take you back to your room for some photographs, so don’t spill tomato soup all down your front. Ok.
WL: [unclear]
JK: I’m joking.
BB: I used to do — I do that.
JK: And then I’ll come back. Ok.
WL: Ok love.
JK: And take Bruce to the station.
BB: Yeah.
JK: Ok. So are you alright with that?
BB: Yes. Yes. Alright.
JK: Ok. I’ll see you in a wee bit. Behave.
BB: Yeah. Right.
JK: See you later. Bye.
Other: Would you like some orange juice or something as well.
BB: No. It’s fine.
Other: Are you sure? Wally, can I pour your wine for you?
WL: Yes please.
Other: Yes. How’s your morning been Wally. Ok?
WL: Excellent.
Other: Are you in good hands.
WL: Yeah [unclear]
Other: Are you alright with a little bit of wine.
BB: Of course.
Other: Help yourself.
BB: I’m not driving. I just get on a train. I’ve got the easy job.
Other: Wally likes a wee bit of wine or champagne don’t you, Wally?
BB: Well, I don’t blame him. So do I.
WL: Yeah.
Other: There you are my darling.
WL: Thank you.
BB: I go and see, I go and see my GP he says, or the nurse, and she says how many units of alcohol do you think you drink in a week Mr Blanche? And I go —
Other: Not much.
BB: Not much. So I say about fifty a week.
Other: Yeah.
JK: I’ll take that.
Other: Yes. Of course.
BB: She does the wee sums, ‘Oh that’s fine.’
Other: We always —
BB: But she know —
Other: We always fib about these things.
BB: She knows she can add another.
Other: Yeah.
BB: How does that come off.
Other: Shall I get it for you.
BB: Oh I see.
Other: Got it.
BB: Got it now.
Other: I’ll take it away. Right. Ok. I’ll leave you and Wally in peace.
BB: Thank you very much.
Other: And your lunch will be through in a minute Wally.
WL: That’s alright.
Other: Right.
WL: No problem. Thank you.
BB: Thank you, Wally. That’s really good.
WL: This is our secret room.
BB: It’s a lovely room isn’t it?
WL: Yeah.
BB: It’s a lovely place here? Anyway, Wally, here we are. Cheers mate. Happy landings.
WL: I’ve got one there now.
BB: Happy landings.
WL: Yeah. Cheers.
BB: Happy landings. Happy landings. Yeah, my poor old uncle. Twenty one when he was killed.
WL: Hmmn?
BB: My uncle was twenty one.
WL: Twenty one.
BB: Yeah. He, he was Australian. He left home when he was seventeen and a half.
WL: Oh that’s terrible.
BB: And joined the Royal Australian Air Force. Did his initial training in, at Point Cook in Australia on Tiger Moths and then he went to Rhodesia?
WL: Rhodesia.
BB: To do his, yeah, in the Empire Air Training Scheme. He was trained in Rhodesia where he went on to some other light aircraft. And he came to the UK, and then he went on to the Airspeed Oxford.
WL: Oh right.
BB: To do his twin.
WL: Yeah.
BB: On the Oxford.
WL: Oh.
BB: And then he went on to the OTU at Kinloss. Number 19 OTU.
Other: Sorry, excuse me. There we are Wally.
BB: To crew up. He crewed up there.
Other: There you go.
WL: Thank you.
BB: Then he went on to Wigsley. To the Heavy Conversion Unit.
WL: Where?
BB: Wigsley in Nottinghamshire.
WL: Nottinghamshire.
BB: 1654 HCU.
WL: I didn’t know him.
BB: No. No. No. And then he went on to 9 Squadron at Bardney. Completed his thirty trips. Was screened as an instructor at OTU. And then there was a mid-air collision and he was killed with members of both crews. So, it was a big shame really.
WL: Yeah.
BB: He was killed in a mid-air collision while he was instructing. So, it was —
WL: Oh dear, that’s sad.
BB: Yes. That’s terrible. Having completed thirty ops during 1943 early ’44.
WL: What aircraft was he on?
BB: He was in Lancasters when flying operationally.
WL: A Lancaster.
BB: Yeah. But when he crashed he was in a Wellington 10.
WL: Wellington.
BB: Yeah. They were used at the OTUs to train.
WL: I used to be on a Wellington squadron at one time.
BB: Yes. Did you? Oh right.
WL: Marham.
BB: Oh at Marham. What were the Wimpies like to fly? They were a very strong aeroplane. They took a lot of punishment.
WL: [unclear] you had to be careful with your landing. The undercarriage wasn’t all that good. But I had [unclear] a short time. I get lost with the the aircraft I was on. I flew eighty different types.
BB: Eighty different types. Wally, what a tremendous feat.
WL: Yeah. Including the Lancaster.
BB: What did you think of the — what did you —
WL: I didn’t fly a Lancaster —
BB: Operationally, no just fell in that sort of stuff. Hamlyns. Hamlyn squadron —
WL: Hampdens.
BB: Hamlyns. Oh. ok.
WL: Pilots notes.
BB: Oh, pilots notes. Ok. Yeah.
WL: Yeah.
BB: Well I mean, the Halifax, the Lancaster and the Stirling were the heavies. The four engine bombers.
WL: Yeah.
BB: When you speak to the Lancaster people they go — oh well the Halifax. Yeah. Then you speak to Halifax people and they go uh Lancasters.
WL: Well I was Halifaxes of course, but I always felt, shall we say, a little inferior to the Lancaster.
BB: It didn’t have, it couldn’t get the height could it? The Halifax.
WL: It couldn’t get the height and it couldn’t do the stuff. Not like the Lancaster.
BB: No. It didn’t but it was the mainstay of Bomber Command.
WL: But the Dambusters.
BB: The Dambusters.
WL: Yeah.
BB: I’m afraid I agree with Butch Harris on these panacea targets and these elite squadrons. Harris was very anti all of that, you know. He thought it was taking the effort away from the main task of bombing the cities.
WL: Yeah.
BB: Did Bomber Harris ever come to your station and meet the crews? As you remember.
WL: I’m trying to think. I don’t think so. I usually did the, sort of exhibition.
BB: Yeah.
WL: Circuit or whatever.
BB: He was an interesting character, Harris. You either loved him or you hated him.
WL: I don’t remember —
BB: Bomber Harris. He was the CnC of Bomber Command. Butch Harris.
WL: That’s right. I know who he was.
BB: Yeah.
WL: But I can’t remember if I did meet him.
BB: Well he didn’t — he very seldom left High Wycombe but when he did he usually went off to a squadron to show his face or whatever.
WL: Yeah.
BB: But he was, he was the face of Bomber Command and —.
WL: The Lancaster was on its own. I mean —
BB: Oh, unique. It was a beautiful bomber.
WL: Yeah. I —
BB: Roy Chadwick did a wonderful job.
WL: I always thought so. Compared with the Halifax.
BB: Yeah.
WL: We should have —
BB: The Lanc had the height. It had the speed.
WL: The secondhand type.
BB: Well you know yes, the Lancaster was the cream. The king of Bomber Command.
WL: Absolutely.
BB: But you know —
WL: We were all very jealous.
BB: Sure, but I mean the Halifax did a good job. I mean it was in 3 Group mainly. 4 Group. And it did, it did a lot of good work.
WL: Yeah.
BB: It just didn’t have the charisma of the Lancaster.
WL: And didn’t have the Dambusters to glorify them.
BB: I think, I think too much is made of the Dambusters but never mind.
WL: Hmmn?
BB: I think too much is made of the Dambusters.
WL: Yeah. Probably.
BB: Guy Gibson was not — I mean he wasn’t liked by everybody.
WL: Is that right?
BB: Some of the, some of the ground crews on the squadrons when he was —
WL: Hmmn?
BB: Before he was famous some of the ground crews didn’t like him very much, but a great, I mean a very brave man. No doubt about that but —
WL: I don’t think I ever met him.
BB: No.
WL: No.
BB: Well, it’s really nice being able to have lunch with you Wally. Thank you very much.
WL: I did a quick circuit and landing in a Halifax.
BB: I mean the Halifax was interesting because the — as I remember, correct me if I’m wrong, the navigator sat in the front. In that big glass dome at the front of the Halifax.
WL: Yeah.
BB: And the flight engineer was up with the pilot and then the wireless op was sort of behind.
WL: That’s right.
BB: And then the gunners were, were appropriately placed in the mid-upper and the tail.
WL: The rear turret. The rear turret. The rear turret caught it all the time.
BB: Yeah. It wasn’t, it wasn’t a very, very survivable position but I’ve talked to many —
WL: It was one of the most vulnerable.
BB: Yeah, very vulnerable, but the rear gunner really was the eyes of the aircraft and his diligence and eyesight often saved, saved the crew you know, you know. ‘Watch out skipper. Corkscrew port’. ‘Corkscrew right’. Yeah. I mean my uncles rear gunner had been — he was, he was a regular but he was a naughty boy. He was a warrant officer. Kept on getting bussed down to —
WL: Sorry?
BB: My uncle’s rear gunner.
WL: Yeah.
BB: Was a regular. A chap called Clegg, and he was always in trouble with the RAF police. And he went to the aircrew punishment rehabilitation centre at Sheffield many times because he was just a naughty boy. So, my uncle had to, my uncle had to deal with a spare gunner every time he flew on an op because his rear gunner was in the clink.
WL: [laughs]
BB: But in the air he was super. Absolutely super. Saved the crew on many occasions.
WL: Yeah.
BB: But on the ground, Wally, he just women, drink, song. That was the rear gunner. But can you blame him? His life expectancy as a Lancaster rear gunner was what? Three or four ops. If he was lucky. That was —
WL: Yeah. That sounds bad.
BB: It was bad. it was bad.
WL: [unclear]
BB: Anyway, bon appetite.
WL: Thank you.
BB: Bon appetite [pause]. Lovely.
[pause]
WL: I was very, I was going to say Halifax minded.
BB: Yeah. Well you would be. I mean, you are, I mean, I appreciate the sexy lure of the Lancaster but it wasn’t the only bomber in Bomber Command and the Halifax did a tremendous job not only in the bomber role but in Coastal Command. In towing gliders. You know, it was a very versatile aircraft.
WL: Very versatile.
BB: And
WL: A freighter
BB: And in many ways —
WL: It finished as freighter really.
BB: Well they did. I mean —
WL: I mean I took things like propeller shafts as far as South America.
BB: Yeah. When you were flying.
WL: Yeah. Take them. Suspended the load you know and they also ships, ships shafts I took to Singapore.
BB: What? Propellers? To Singapore?
WL: Yeah.
BB: In the Halifax, as a freighter.
WL: Yeah.
BB: Gosh, that must have been a long trip, Wally. How long did that take?
WL: I took, I took them to South America.
BB: Were you part of the British South American Airlines that were —
WL: No. No. I just — I just —
BB: Yeah. With Skyways?
WL: Took a placement crankshaft of a ship. Something like that. No. I suppose it was the heaviest freighter around at the time
BB: The Halifax could take quite a load couldn’t it? I mean if it could take a bomb load.
WL: Yeah.
BB: It could take heavy equipment.
WL: Heavy shafts underneath
BB: They’re all, they’re all practising for the Air Show tomorrow, Wally
WL: Is that what it is?
BB: Prestwick Air Show tomorrow.
WL: Prestwick Air Show is it?
BB: Tomorrow. Yeah. Over the weekend.
WL: What have they got to show.
BB: Yeah. Well I hope everything’s going to be ok there. I hope so.
[pause]
BB: So, when you got your DFM, DFC, etcetera, did you have to go to Buckingham Palace to get it?
WL: Yeah.
BB: And the King. The King —
WL: Wait a minute. I have a feeling that I got mine on parade.
BB: Oh, you got it on the station.
WL: Yeah.
BB: Someone came along and pinned the DFC on you.
WL: The Queen twice anyway.
BB: Yeah. Must have been, must have been very interesting to —
WL: She was quite, how do we say, very attracted by the DFM’s stripe.
BB: Yeah.
WL: And the DFC.
BB: The DFC is a thicker stripe.
WL: That’s right.
BB: The DFM is thinner.
WL: Yeah.
BB: And then the AFC is like a DFC, but red.
WL: Yeah.
BB: Yeah. It’s quite interesting.
WL: I remember the Queen saying, ‘Oh, you’ve nearly got your set.’
BB: You’ve nearly got the set. Yeah.
WL: Yeah.
BB: She does have a sense of humour. When I got my medal from the Queen, Wally, in the year 2000, I was amazed how knowledgeable she was about what I had done.
WL: Yeah. Amazing.
BB: She is tremendously well informed.
WL: [unclear]
BB: Well informed and you know I was looking for the ear piece in case someone was saying you know.
WL: Yeah.
BB: This is so and so and so and so. But no. No. No. She just - she was just amazing.
WL: Beautiful.
BB: Amazing. I had the privilege of meeting her just recently and very, very, you know interested in people and caring. Caring. She really is a genuinely very nice lady and works very hard.
WL: I remember she said how are the Cadets doing now?
BB: The Air Cadets are doing very well. They are an integral part of various schools and organisations. Both public schools and secondary schools. Government schools. No, it’s a great — all my, two of my children were Cadets. My daughter Rachel got an Air Cadet scholarship to learn to fly.
WL: Did she?
BB: Yeah. And my son was registered in the Cadets as well and they did — the Cadets is a wonderful organisation whether they be Army, Navy or Air Force.
WL: Yes, they —
BB: Because they teach youngsters initiative, discipline, be proud of themselves.
WL: Respect.
BB: Respect. And they go on whether they join the armed forces or not that training and that discipline stands them in good form for, for the future.
WL: Yeah.
BB: And it’s a pity there wasn’t more of that around. I mean, it’s not, it’s not for every child.
WL: I agree with you. Yeah.
BB: It’s not for every child but, you know, if you’ve got the aptitude and you like all the outdoors and the gliding and all the things that they teach you in the Air Cadets like, you know, social. You know, just to get on with people, do well at school, educate, be respectful and above all discipline. All sorts. And I don’t mean discipline in the straight military sense.
WL: Yeah.
BB: But just how you manage your life and how you, how you proceed with your life. It’s a tremendous opportunity and it’s a pity that more, more youngsters don’t have the opportunity to take advantage of it. In my view.
WL: I agree with them certainly.
BB: In my view. Because unfortunately, I’ve switched this thing off now, unfortunately, Wally there’s no discipline in the home and there’s no discipline at school anymore. And so, the kids essentially just do what they want. And that’s terrible.
WL: The only way they’ll get respect —
BB: That’s terrible.
WL: Is in things like the Cadets.
BB: I mean the transition from my son who was — he had two elder sisters. All very bright, Wally. The sisters were very bright at school. My son always felt, ‘They’ve, you know, they’re brilliant. I’m not so brilliant’, and it was trying to get him to get out of that mindset to think that he is ok as well. And that’s what the Air Cadets did for him. The Air Cadets brought him out. Gave him self-confidence. Gave him belief in himself a lot more.
WL: Definitely.
BB: That’s tremendous. And now, Wally and I’ll tell you when he goes out now, he presses his trousers, he cleans his shoes.
WL: Great
BB: He just looks, he takes pride in what he looks like and that’s good. And so, it’s done him a tremendous amount of — its boosted his confidence when he needed his confidence boosted, you know. And having two elder sisters who were good at everything, didn’t have to work hard at school. It just came naturally to them.
WL: Children.Girls.
BB: I’ve got two girls and a boy.
WL: [unclear]
BB: And the girls are much older. There’s four years difference between them and but my son always felt slightly put out by his elder sisters who used to, who were always, ‘You can do that. It’s easy. Why can’t you do that’ and that kind of thing.. Did you have any brothers and sisters, Wally?
WL: No.
BB: No.
WL: I had a sister. Well, I was in the Air Force when the girls two or three years younger than, younger than me.
BB: Yes, that’s right. I went to see a, I went to see a gentleman, oh, two or three months ago who had been a bomb aimer. Someone like you. I went to interview someone like you who had been a bomb aimer. And he was ninety eight. He was a youngster, Wally, a youngster.
WL: Ninety eight.
BB: Yeah, and he was on Halifaxes and he had started off as an erk and, and when, when the bomb aiming aircrew category devolved itself from the flying observer —
WL: Yeah.
BB: Category. He volunteered and he saw a thing in routine orders, you know, volunteer for aircrew and he became a bomb aimer and he did that, and became a bomb aimer. And he was saying he was never very popular with, with his crew, because if he couldn’t see the target, he made them go around again. ‘Sorry skipper. Target obscured. Got to go around again’. Now, you know what that’s like as a pilot. You know, ‘Let’s get the hell out of here. what the hell are we doing here. They’re shooting at us’. Yeah. ‘Go around again? You must be mad’, you know. But anyway, he and of course —
WL: If he was over the real target, he might be —
BB: Bomber Command had the photoflash. Right.
WL: Yeah.
BB: You had to get the picture. You had to get the picture and so, he went around and so his captain was always saying, ‘Hurry up’, you know, ‘We’ve got to go’.
WL: Shot down again.
BB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But he said what was the point of taking a bomb load all that way and not dropping it in the right place, but that was his view as a bomb aimer.
WL: Yeah.
BB: Yeah, I mean it’s why you’re there, you know. And he said, he said, ‘I really wanted to be a pilot, but they made me a bomb aimer’, and he said, ‘At the end of the day, I was glad I was a bomb aimer because’, he said, ‘The pilot had a drivers airframe. They take you from A to B. you drop your bombs and they fly you home again’. That was his —
WL: His.
BB: That was his concept of — you know.
WL: Yes.
BB: That’s how he rationalised not being selected for pilot training. That his job was — you know. But it was the crew, and the crew was cohesive, and sometimes you had, for example, going back to my late uncle, if the crew was disrupted by somebody being sick and they got a spare bod in to flying with them, they felt, ‘Oh this isn’t, this isn’t right. We’re going to be unlucky here. We’ve got a new bloke’, you know. And it was usually the rear gunner, Wally.
WL: Aye.
BB: So, they were all worried about, you know, is he as good as our regular gunner because you know. And it was amazing. I don’t know whether you found it in your experience. On every squadron.
WL: Hmmn?
BB: On every squadron on Bomber Command —
WL: Yeah.
BB: There was a pool of spare gunners. Now whether they had lost their crews, or had been sick with the crew went out and they never came back, but he was left — these guys were like, in a pool. They’d say to someone, ‘You got a gunner for tonight?’ ‘No’. ‘Well I’m free if you want, you know, want a gunner’. It must have been awful for them because you know they were a spare bod here.
WL: Yeah.
BB: Spare bod there. Not really part of any crew. Just spare bods.
WL: Not nice. Wasn’t as nice anyway.
BB: No. But of course, the gunners were very vulnerable, especially the rear gunner, as you know. I mean Lancs would come back shot up and the rear gunner still in his turret, you know, and dead and —
WL: Aye. My gunner was killed when we were shot down.
BB: That’s right, I saw that on the —
WL: Hmmn?
BB: I saw that on your —
WL: Yeah.
BB: Story. No, Wally. It’s all a long time ago, but the lessons of history — we ignore them at our peril, Wally. We ignore them at our peril. I mean I, when I served, we — I was thirty three years a reservist, and I was in intelligence. That was my role and so I was briefing and debriefing crews, you know, sending off and when they came back, sitting down and, ‘Did you get the target?’
WL: Debrief them.
BB: Yeah. Yeah. But this was during the war in the Gulf. The Gulf War.
WL: In the Gulf.
BB: Yeah. With Iraq and so on. And you know, aircrew, I love them dearly, but all these guys wanted to do was to come in, dump their stuff and go to bed. Natural enough. But I would say, ‘No guys. You’ve got to sit down, and I’ve got to write the debrief’. So you know. ‘Captain — did you reach the target?’ ‘Yes, we did’. ‘Navigator — did you drop’, because it was pilot navigator — ‘did you drop the bombs’. ‘Yes, we did’. ‘Do you have a picture?’ ‘Yes’. Of course, the picture now are all scanned television type pictures, you know.
WL: Yeah.
BB: But we lost a couple of aircraft. The guys had to eject and were taken prisoner by the Iraqis and so on.
WL: Not good.
BB: Not good but —
WL: Where were they taken prisoner?
BB: In Iraq.
WL: Yeah. [unclear]
BB: Sorry?
WL: [unclear]
BB: Sufficient to say the bad guys got them. The bad guys got them.
WL: Yeah.
BB: But they managed, one of them managed to escape and was in the desert. He did all his survival stuff. And he of course, nowadays, Wally, they’ve got something like this and they go, press a button and beep, beep, beep. All the helicopters and aeroplanes log on to this signal.
WL: Yeah.
BB: And they just they just go and get him. Winch him up in a helicopter and take him home. If he’s lucky. I mean, I was telling you when we were in your room about the guys in the dinghy. The ditched crew. I mean.
WL: Yeah.
BB: Awful. They by the time the Air Sea Rescue launch got to them, the medical officer on the launch, on the HSL, high speed launch, said to one them, ‘You’re lucky. A few more hours and you would have been [click]’. Just exposure.
WL: Yeah.
BB: Yeah. I mean, you imagine sitting in a five man Lancaster type dinghy.
WL: That’s amazing. These people.
BB: Hello.
Other2: Hello. I thought I recognised your face. Maybe. I’m not sure. I used to speak to Wally and tell him that I used to work down in the RAFA club many years ago.
BB: What? In Edinburgh.
Other2: No. In Prestwick.
BB: In Prestwick.
Other2: The RAF Club. And I wondered did you go to it?
BB: No. I live in Dunblane.
Other2: Oh. You’re up in Dunblane.
BB: Yes, I, apart from being down at Prestwick a couple of times when I was with the Royal Air Force, I haven’t been back.
Other2: Right.
BB: I’m here to interview Wally on his Bomber Command experiences.
Other2: Oh.
BB: But thank you for all your hard work with RAFA. It’s a wonderful organisation.
Other2: Aye. It’s great. And you’re up from England now. Have you come up from down south?
BB: No, I live in Dunblane.
WL: You are in Dunblane.
BB: Yeah. Yeah.
WL: No, the reason I was asking you that — such a coincidence. Wally, do you remember the day when I was talking to you about my brother-in-law and about the gentleman that’s coming up from England.
BB: Yeah.
Other2: To speak to him because, sorry Ann.
Other: That’s alright.
BB: Ann. That was lovely. I really enjoyed that. Really good.
Other: You’re welcome. You’re welcome. I’ll get a tray to clear away, Wally, alright.
BB: I’m very lucky.
Other: Are you alright.
WL: Yes. Thank you.
BB: Wally’s lucky to have such wonderful food. Thank you.
Other2: And because I remember him saying that he was a — oh what was the planes that they landed the pilots on. Oh, my God, my head’s gone dark.
BB: Don’t worry about it.
Other2: He phoned me and they’re interviewing men, and there’s somebody coming up to speak to him about it.
BB: Right. Ok.
Other2: About his experiences because he’s apparently, one of the few that get out of Armagh or something like that and then —
BB: Arnhem.
Other2: Arnhem.
BB: They used to tow the gliders into Arnhem.
Other2: The gliders. Ah huh.
BB: With the Halifaxes and Stirlings.
Other2: That’s it. That’s what he did.
BB: My uncle. My mother’s brother was a glider pilot during the war.
Other2: Yeah.
BB: And he flew into Arnhem.
Other2: Ah huh.
BB: And he was trained to fly by the RAF.
Other2: That’s right.
BB: At the glider pilot schools and then he flew a Horsa glider behind, towed by a Halifax and dropped, landed his glider. And he said it was like a controlled crash. It wasn’t a landing at all. You put it down as best you could in a field at night.
Other2: As best you could. Yes.
BB: You know, and everybody ran off and scrambled out. And then of course the glider pilots had to become infantry then.
Other2: That’s absolutely right. Absolutely. Well that’s what my brother-in-law did. And some great experiences, and him and Wally could have had so many —
BB: A very brave man indeed. Very brave men.
Other2: So much in common. They had great conversations, the two of them.
Other: Are you finished Wally?
Other2: But my brother-in-law is absolute deaf.
BB: Well, Wally is a Halifax man of course. The Halifax was used in that role.
Other2: That’s right. But my husband, my brother-in-law is so deaf, that he wouldn’t hear Wally talking to him.
BB: No. No.
Other2: A shame really.
BB: It is a shame.
Other2: Because they could have had some great conversations, couldn’t you, Wally?
WL: Definitely.
Other2: The two of yous [unclear] Sorry about disturbing you here.
BB: No problem at all.
Other2: Ok.
BB: Thank you very much. That was very —
Other: Oh, you’ve still got some wine left there, have you finished?
BB: I think so. Thank you.
WL: Aye.
Other: Are you still recording? You’ll be getting all these voices in the background.
BB: No, we’re off.
Other: Off.
BB: Yeah. We’re off.
WL: Good.
BB: No. No. There’s a limit, you know. I don’t want to push him.
Other: Yeah. Push him too hard.
WL: I don’t want to push him.
Other: No. Well, Wally’s got lots of stories. I love Wally’s stories.
WL: Ok.
Other: I love Wally in fact.
BB: What I’ll try and do then we’ll try and get you a transcript. A copy of the tape.
Other: A transcript. Yeah. That would be great.
BB: Just for, because it’s about preserving Wally’s story for the future.
Other: Oh, of course. Yeah.
BB: For posterity.
Other: He’s a hundred and three in January.
BB: Well I wish I’d look so good.
Other: I said to him we have to get a bigger cake every time.
BB: I wish I looked as good as him now.
Other: Oh, he’s fantastic. I’ve said to him, if I was ninety I would marry him. But I suppose it’s manners to wait till you’re asked, Wally. Yeah.
WL: Yeah.
Other: Yeah.
BB: Wally, you’d be baby snatching.
WL: Aye.
BB: See. She wants to marry you, Wally. How about that?
WL: Aye. She’s a character.
BB: Eh?
WL: Ann [unclear]
BB: Oh dear. You’re a character.
WL: Aye.
BB: Let me take a picture of these medals while I remember. What a lovely — I mean, you know, Wally, these are tremendous. These are tremendous. Military MBE, DFC, DFC. AFC, DFM.
WL: That’s right.
BB: Bomber Command clasp on your 1939/45 medal which Bob Kemp came and gave it to you. Aircrew Europe, Africa star, defence medal, war medal with mentioned in dispatches. Coronation medal and Air Cadet.
WL: How many mentions in despatches have I got there.
BB: One. One. One oak leaf.
WL: [unclear] Two actually.
BB: Well you’d better write to them and say give me another oak leaf.
WL: Yeah. That was way back.
Other: Do you wish to go back down to Wally’s room?
WL: No. I’m just going to, the logbooks and everything are here.
Other: That’s fine. Do you want to stay here then?
WL: Would that be alright?
Other: You can stay as long as you like. Are you comfortable Wally?
WL: Aye.
Other: Are you sure? Are you warm enough?
WL: Yeah. Fine. No problem.
Other: Ok. I’ll be back in about ten just to see you’re ok.
WL: We won’t be long.
Other: I’m not rushing you at all.
WL: I might go back to the room to take some pictures later.
Other: You want Wally down there? No?
WL: No, he’s comfortable here and I don’t want to disrupt him too much.
Other: Right.
WL: No. We can go back —
Other: I can take Wally down in his wheelchair.
BB: Ok. Well we’ll go back there.
Other: Well finish that. I’ll come back in ten minutes.
WL: Right.
BB: Finish your drink, Wally. That’s great. Thank you. You know I can’t, I can’t explain.
WL: Sorry.
BB: I can’t explain with how much — what a great honour it is to talk to you and others like you, Wally. Others like you. Because my uncle didn’t survive so I couldn’t talk to him.
WL: No. I’m a bit dumb too.
BB: And you know its, its just, you know, you guys, you guys in Bomber Command, you weren’t the brillcream boys of Fighter Command, you know, you were the guys that night after night got in your aircraft.
WL: Yeah.
BB: Flew over Germany. Over occupied Europe to get to your target. You had night fighters, you had flak, you had the weather.
WL: Navigation.
BB: You had — oh yeah, we’ll get on to navigation in a minute. But until the advent of Oboe and Gee and H2S, you know. I mean, one of the big problems with Bomber Command at the early part of the war, was actually getting to the target.
WL: Oh yeah.
BB: Until the boffins came up with all these navigational aids which, of course, were a double-edged sword as you know, Wally, because they put out a signal and the German night fighters could home on it.
WL: Oh my —
BB: And you had things to jam the night fighter’s radars and they had things to counter that. The electronic war. The electronics war. If we had lost the electronics war it would have been pandemonium. You know, Bomber Command losses were high enough, but you know the boffins. War is a great innovator. All sorts of things come out of the war that wouldn’t have happened if there hadn’t been a war.
WL: Yeah.
BB: Like take the jet engine. I mean, would we have had the jet engine in 1945.
WL: I don’t —
BB: Without Whittle and the need for a jet fighter to counter the German jet fighters. We probably wouldn’t have had it until the 1950s, probably the early 60s.
WL: Aye.
BB: You know I was talking to a chap in the RAF club in London not so long ago, who was a fighter pilot. An American. He was over. He flew the P51D. The Mustang which used to go and escort American bombers into Germany.
WL: P51 were a quick aircraft.
BB: Yeah. And he actually tangled with a Messerschmitt 262 in his, in his Mustang ‘cause these things came up high. Zoomed through the bomber stream, squirting away.
WL: Yeah.
BB: And then zoomed away with their rocket, you know, with their jet aircraft. Over the top, down again and he managed to catch one. He was flying along like this, it was just going up like that and he gave it a fifteen second burst. It was going so fast and he didn’t think he’d hit it but as it got to the top of its loop it blew up. So he must have, must have hit something.
WL: Caught a shell.
BB: You know, I was also speaking to a Luftwaffe pilot who flew them. And he said at the end of the runway you wind it all up - zzzzz - and he said none of the pilots of the Luftwaffe, when they first flew the jets, realised the thrust. They were kind of put back in to their seats like this and pushing back on the stick.
WL: Yeah.
BB: And you know how, in the Messerschmitt, you gently do this. In a jet, if you did that, it would just —
WL: Yeah.
BB: Straight up.
WL: Yeah.
BB: And he said it was very frightening. And, of course, the technology wasn’t brilliant. I mean it was, it was new but these things used to blow up, Wally. Just like that. The rocket engines just went and, of course, the fuel it was it was very very dangerous. This is your DFM. I’m just making some notes here. 563198 [pause] right.
[pause]
WL: I was in a twin engine — what do you call it?
BB: Mosquito?
WL: Eh?
BB: Mosquito.
WL: Yeah. Twin engine Mosquito.
BB: Yeah.
WL: I got up to thirty two thousand.
BB: Bloody hell, Wally that —
WL: And I throttled to go downhill. I throttled back and when I tried to open the throttles it wouldn’t. It wouldn’t work.
BB: Wouldn’t work.
WL: Apparently the jets wouldn’t catch alight again.
BB: No. No the —
WL: And there was me thirty two thousand feet.
BB: Nothing on the clock [laughs]
WL: No motors.
BB: Thirty two thousand feet. No engines. But you had the height, Wally, you had the height.
WL: Yeah.
BB: So you were able to do something. What did you do? Put it into a dive and just hope for the best.
WL: No. I did the old [unclear]
BB: Right.
WL: I tapped it, if you like, tactically approached the airfield.
BB: Right.
WL: So that I was fortunate enough — my judgement was such that I just come over the edge of the airfield and landed.
BB: Gosh.
WL: Aye.
BB: Yeah. So long as you walked away from the landing, Wally. That’s fine.
WL: Yeah. I walked away alright.
BB: Yeah. You know the old saying. There’s old pilots and bold pilots.
WL: Yeah.
BB: But there’s no old bold pilots.
WL: Right.
BB: This was at Prestwick.
WL: Yes. It would appear that the jets wouldn’t function.
BB: Yeah.
WL: At that altitude.
BB: Lack of air. Lack of oxygen.
WL: [unclear]
BB: Couldn’t reignite. I was privileged to meet recently the current Duke of Hamilton.
WL: Oh yeah.
BB: Who, of course, ran Prestwick. Scottish Aviation.
WL: Yeah.
BB: And of course, he was — the original duke was a pilot himself and flew over Everest and did all that sort of stuff.
WL: Was he the one who went — the first man over Everest.
BB: That’s the one. Yeah that’s him. That’s him. That’s him, Wally. Gosh. What a big logbook you have here. Lots and lots of aeroplanes. Lots and lots of aeroplanes. 10 OTU. That’s where you went. Jurby, Isle of Man. Number 10 OTU.
WL: Hmmm?
BB: Number 10, Isle of Man. Where you did your initial training.
WL: Is that right?
BB: Yeah. On such wonderful aircraft as — what was it? Let’s see. Whitleys.
WL: Whitleys.
BB: Yeah.
WL: Oh aye old Whitley.
BB: Yeah. Whitley 3s. My uncle flew at his OTU at Kinloss. The Whitley flew like that as you know. Nose down like that.
WL: That’s right. Yeah.
BB: Awful bloody aeroplane. Dear oh dear. So you were B flight. Gosh. What a tremendous history here, Wally. So what were your total flying hours at the end? Let’s have a look.
WL: [unclear] Six thousand I suppose [unclear]
Other: Wally, when you’re ready my darling. Have you enjoyed that, Wally?
WL: Very much so.
Other: Good.
BB: What a wonderful history .
Other: I know. It’s amazing isn’t it?
BB: You know he is unique. Wally is unique.
Other: Yes. He is.
BB: Absolutely unique. You know, I was just saying to him that my uncle was killed in Bomber Command and I was brought up with his picture on the mantle piece, and ‘cause I was brought up by my grandparents, my parents were abroad and separated, I went to a wee, I went to a wee school in the borders. One teacher for everything.
Other: Wow.
BB: You know.
Other: Yeah.
BB: And you had the strap.
Other: Yeah. Yeah.
BB: If I was a naughty boy. The tawse.
Other: Yeah.
BB: Naughty boy.
Other: I had the strap at school.
BB: But I went home to my grannys and this. I didn’t ask, but one Remembrance Sunday I was in the BB on parade and I said to my Granny, ‘Who’s that granny?’ Well that’s your uncle. He was killed in the war’. End of story. And when they died, of course, I grew up.
Other: Yeah. Of course . Yeah.
BB: Discovered girls.
Other: Yeah.
BB: All that sort of stuff. Went to university all that stuff. Got married. Had a career. Went home when they died. Cleared the place. And there was this picture still there. So I took it and I decided I’m going to find out who this guy is. Turned out it was my mother’s sister’s husband who was killed in the war.
Other: Right.
BB: They were married for two months and he was killed.
Other: Oh gosh. Yeah.
BB: You know he was in Bomber Command and he didn’t want to marry her when he was flying on operations.
Other: Yeah.
BB: Because he’d seen so many widows.
Other: Yeah.
BB: Been to so many funerals.
Other: I know its terrible.
BB: But they decided, at the end, that he would only marry her at the end of his trip.
Other: Yeah.
BB: And they got married. They were married I think three months when he was killed instructing but she was pregnant. So my cousin in Australia that’s his father.
Other: Oh his Dad. Right, Wally, shall we get you down to your room. Are you happy with that, Wally?
WL: Yes. Quite happy.
Other: Because Brian, you want to take pictures down there, do you?
BB: Lets get Wally back to his room.
Other: Yeah.
BB: Get him to rest. And then —
Other: I’m expecting the school kids in, Wally.
BB: Oh right ok. Ok.
WL: Alright.
Other: And Wally has a great connection with the kids. In fact, if you look at his zimmer frame, he’s got a Halifax on it and one of the kids made did that for you wasn’t it, Wally?
WL: That’s right. Yeah.
BB: Do you have a library here?
Other: No. Well, we have books but it’s not a library. No.
BB: Right. Ok. Well I’ve brought a book to give that I was going to give to Wally.
Other: Right.
BB: I’ll give it to the — to the —
Other: Right
BB: Somebody might want to read it.
Other: What is this book?
BB: It’s on Bomber Command.
Other: Oh right. Well. So who are you giving it to. The manager maybe.
BB: I’ll give it to you.
Other: Yeah.
BB: You look after him.
Other: Yeah. Myself and many others.
BB: Well exactly. But you can pass it around. It give an idea of what these chaps did.
Other: Yeah. Wally. Did you know Wally was friends with Lawrence of Arabia?
BB: Yes he told me about AC Shaw.
Other: Yeah. Yeah.
BB: Aircraftman Shaw.
Other: Ah Wally. That’s us. Alright sir.
BB: Yeah.
Other: It’s just too long a walk for Wally. All those —
BB: Yes it is.
Other: He doesn’t often use his chariot.
WL: [unclear]
BB: Chariots of fire.
Other: Chariots. Would you hold that door for me? Thanks. You’re alright, Wally. You’re Ok. Here we go, Wally.
WL: Right.
Other: We usually try and get a bit of speed up.
BB: You’re not getting take off speed yet though.
Other: We’re just going along the runway, Wally.
BB: Wally you’re just at the end of the runway,. You’re at the end of the runway. Brakes off. Let’s go.
Other: Here we are.
BB: P1. P2. Rotate. You’re airborne. You’re airborne.
Other: Coming through Samantha.
WL: Here we come.
BB: Where are we?
Other: Straight ahead.
BB: Straight ahead. Right.
Other: At the corner.
BB: Right.
Other: At the corner we’re going right.
BB: Right. Ok. Nearly at base now. RTB.
[unclear]
BB: Return to base.
Other: There we are.
BB: Here we are Wally. Back in the hangar.
Other: Yes. Here Wally. Here’s a nice comfy seat for you. You see his zimmer. Look. Halifax.
BB: So do you want to —
Other: The kids did that. Yeah. Wally. Take you time darling. Take your time Wally. Let me get to this side. In the comfort of your own home Wally.
WL: That’s it.
Other: That’s better.
WL: Home again.
Other: Home again.
BB: There you are.
Other: Oh. Thank you so much.
BB: “The Bomber Boys.”
Other: That’s great.
BB: It’s little stories. It’s not one book.
Other: I’d love to read it.
BB: It’s lot of little stories.
Other: Great.
BB: And it gives you an insight into what, you know.
Other: Thank you so much.
BB: Of what himself went through. No problem. It’s a pleasure. It’s an honour.
Other: Are you comfy Wally? Do you want to sort yourself a bit?
WL: I’m alright.
Other: Sure?
WL: Yeah. I’m fine.
BB: Is his daughter coming back?
Other: Yes. Jessica’s coming back to get you I think.
BB: That’s great. Thanks.
Other: Where were we Wally? Oh yeah. Here’s your stuff back. I’ll just take the photographs.
[informal chatting]
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 Wally Lashbrook
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Bruce Blanche
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-03
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ALashbrookWI150903, PLashbrookW1501
Format
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01:20:36 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Wally was born in February 1913, and joined the Royal Air Force in 1929 as a RAF Halton apprentice, where he completed pilot training at RAF Prestwick. He flew many aircraft including Tiger Moths, Hendons and Halifaxes, and served with 51 Squadron and 102 Squadron. Reminisces of Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, who he met under the name of Aircraftman Shaw. Wally was shot down on an operation to Pilsen, where he evaded capture and returned to the United Kingdom. Describes and incident when he was in a Mosquito at 32,000 feet. Wally got involved with the Royal Air Force VR Training Branch and worked with Air Cadets. Wally was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Force Cross. After the war, he joined the British Overseas Airways Corporation as a civilian pilot.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Czech Republic
England--Buckinghamshire
Scotland--South Ayrshire
Czech Republic--Plzeň
Contributor
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Vivienne Tincombe
102 Squadron
51 Squadron
air sea rescue
aircrew
bombing
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Flying Medal
evading
Halifax
Mosquito
pilot
RAF Halton
RAF Prestwick
shot down
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/711/11142/AJohnsonM160830.2.mp3
df35dcf4afe3dc4c1e866f46c7c804e2
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
Blair, John
John Jericho Blair
J J Blair
Description
An account of the resource
38 items. The collection concerns John Jericho Blair DFC (1919-2004). He was born in Jamaica and served in RAF from 1942-1963. He flew a tour of operations as a navigator with 102 Squadron from RAF Pocklington. The collection includes numerous photographs of him and colleagues, several photographs of Jamaica, a document detailing his life and an interview with his great nephew Mark Johnson.
The collection also contains three interviews with Caribbean veterans including John Blair recorded by Mark Johnson.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Mark Johnson and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-05-09
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Blair, JJ
Access Rights
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Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: Chris Brockbank and today we are in Witchford in Cambridgeshire and the date is the 30th of August 2016. And we’re speaking to Mark Johnson about Flight Lieutenant John Blair DFC and his life and times. Mark, could you just introduce how you fit in to this and the earliest recollections that you have of John Blair.
MJ: So, John Blair was my great uncle. My grandmother’s brother. And he was born in Jamaica. In the parish of St Elizabeth which is a rural parish and in those days extremely rural. I first met him, well I had met him as a child but I have no memory of that. The first, the first recollection was meeting him when I moved to Jamaica with my family. With my parents and my brother. I was aged eleven, and Uncle John was really the sort of senior figure I would say, in the family. He was highly respected by everyone. Former RAF course, a qualified teacher, a lawyer and did a little bit of farming on the side. And I can remember as kids we’d go to his house and they had the sort of what we called the veranda culture. You know, you would arrive at someone’s house and the adults would immediately be presented with a tray of rum and coke. And ice would be clinking away in little glass containers. And we’d run around in the back garden as kids. Play with, with our cousins, his children. And he was always very very kindly. Fairly serious. Very quiet man. Almost Victorian in a way but without the severity and just the sort of impressive figure. I didn’t know anything at the time about his air force service but I did spend a lot of time in the region where he’d grown up because we have other cousins down there. Relatives of his who still farm down there. And so I spent a lot of time in St Elizabeth as a child during the school holidays and got to know the area quite well. So I’ve got a good sense of what it might have been like when he was a child. A lot of the structures there were built almost of wattle and daub back in those days and they had thatched rooves. Very reddish. The soil is very red because of the Illumina content. There’s a lot of, or there has been a lot of bauxite and illumina mining there in the past decades. They grow watermelons, peanuts. A lot of goat farming. Mango trees scattered around. And then fishing is quite important down on the, on the coast. Areas like Treasure Beach. A lot of fish is consumed. Lobster. A lot of bammy which is a bread made from [pause] from a root, of what’s the name of the root again.
Other: Cassava.
MJ: Cassava. Cassava root. Which is poisonous unless properly prepared. Achi. Cashew from trees. And so it’s a really good, good way to grow up. Healthier perhaps then they realised. I think people felt impoverished. And they were impoverished. In 1919 when he was born there was no electricity. No such a thing as an aeroplane flying past. No trains. Very few vehicles. A lorry would have been quite a sight. But a good old fashioned healthy lifestyle with a good diet. And that shows in the people. The people are physically robust. And Uncle John himself with a very successful athlete. As were many of his relatives. So, now he, he didn’t grow up with his natural parents. He was sent to live with my grandfather. And he was raised by my grandfather and grandmother. So he was raised by his aunt. And my grandfather was a headmaster of a rural school at the time. In the parish of St Mary and Uncle John attended that school as a child. And I’ve got a photograph of my grandfather. Another very Victorian gentleman. And another separate image taken at the same time, in the same chair, of my grandmother. And it’s the sort of image you would associate with a Victorian grammar school. Dark suit and tie. Serious face. Not quite holding the bible in their laps but almost. You wouldn’t be surprised if they had been. And Uncle John. I don’t have a photograph of Uncle John in the school but I do have a picture of the school with my grandfather and his class. And most of the children are in short pants, shirts and bare foot which was quite notable. So they’re running around at the ages of eleven or twelve. I think that most of the schools in rural Jamaica in that period were a single room. And you would have all the children sitting in that one room working on their various assignments as handed out by the teacher. Now, Uncle John started school a few years earlier than he was supposed because his older sister was also a head teacher in a small school and she made sure that he was in the class. And then the school inspector used to come by occasionally. He was an Englishman. The Jamaican school system was managed by the Colonial government and was actually a very good system, they were – Jamaica had the highest level of literacy in the Caribbean and it was a higher level of literacy than the UK at that time. I think somewhere around an astounding eighty three percent if my memory serves me correctly. And so English school inspectors would come by and Uncle John would be pushed into a cupboard when the inspector arrived just to make sure he wasn’t discovered because he was only three and a half or four and the age in those days was, I believe it was a bit older. I believe five or six. So, so those are some of the sort of early memories. Things I was told by him or things that I witnessed and I can extrapolate from those experiences and have a sense of what life might have been like when he was growing up. There would have been a certain class division at play. If you were a nurse, a doctor, well you wouldn’t, you were less likely to be a doctor in those days but if you were a nurse, a police officer, a school teacher — an educated member of the middle class, you were quite separate from the mass of people in Jamaica and there would be certain tensions I suspect. They’ve always been there and they probably existed in those days. There may be certain attitudes that your family might have towards working people. And there’d be certain attitudes that working people would have towards you. And I think that’s significant. Becomes more significant later when you look at the selection process for the RAF and who joined the RAF as opposed to those who didn’t. So I’ll mention it now in passing but we’ll come back to that when we get to that stage of the things. But it’s important to recognise that class and race and mixed race family background are factors in the story. So those are some of the earlier pieces of information. John Blair decided to follow in his, the footsteps of many members of his family, if not most members of his family and become a teacher. So he went to Kingston where he attended the teacher’s college at Mico which was a highly regarded regional institution. Produced many many teachers. Many of whom ended up in the UK in fact. A large number of Jamaican educators were recruited to the UK education system. And he was at Mico along with one of his cousins. No. Correction. His brother, Stanley. His brother who won a track medal there and John ran as well and was very successful as an athlete. Later running for the RAF’s track team. And he made friends at the time with Arthur Wint who was a Jamaican Olympic gold medallist in ’36. Yeah. And they joined the RAF at about the same time and maintained that friendship. They trained together in Canada. I’ll come back to that later. So he was very much into athletics and sport and building up a good circle of like-minded friends. He graduated as a teacher and he started teaching in Kingston. I know exactly where he was teaching. It’ll come back to me in a minute. There a small airstrip there today near downtown Kingston.
Other: Greenwich. Greenwich Farm.
MJ: Greenwich farm. There’s an airstrip nearby which I think is actually the same as the name of the school.
Other: Tinson.
MJ: Tinson Pen. He started teaching in Tinson Pen and he was teaching there when [pause] is that incorrect? [pause]
CB: We’ll stop just for a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: Starting again.
MJ: So while he was teaching in Kingston war broke out in Europe. People in Jamaica were very aware of Hitler, Nazi Germany and the politics of Europe. The school curriculum given that we were a British colony at the time focussed very heavily on European history in any case. But the radio would broadcast clips of Hitler’s speeches. Of course the Queen’s annual address, or the King’s address in those days would have been, was widely listened to and still, the Queen’s Speech is still highly listened to today. And I’m assuming there was an annual address in those days but certainly there was a lot of awareness and a very, in some circles a closeness to the British system and the Mother Country as it was known. In other circles, hostility. There was a very active and strong independence movement already entrained. Communism of course was a factor around the world and there were left wing thinkers active in the Caribbean. But there are others who were very pro the colonial system. A lot would probably have depended on the circumstances of individuals and types, types of exposure they’d had. Family. Family attitudes and education. Incidentally, in case I forget to come back to it later many of the people who ended up joining the RAF from the Caribbean subsequently after the war became active in The Independence Movement. And in fact the later Prime Minister of Barbados Errol Barrow was a flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force. Michael Manley, I believe, was a member of the Royal Air Force. And many others. Dudley Thompson who was a Minister of National Security in the PNP government in the 1970 ‘s was was also a former flyer. And many many others. In fact the former RAF volunteers took up a whole range of positions in society. Not only in politics but in business. Karl Chantrelle who I worked with at the Jamaica Telephone Company, later Cable and Wireless was a president of Cable and Wireless and he had been a decoder. A Morse signals decoder on the ground in in the UK as a member of the RAF as well. So they joined the RAF for reasons we will come on to in a moment. They performed very, very well. RAF reports into the performance of black Caribbean and other Carribean aircrew commend them as being of a high standard. And then they came back home in many cases and used that experience and exposure and perhaps the confidence that they’d developed through having those roles to move into lots of key positions in local society and become the engine, I think, I sense part of the engine of the final steps towards Independence. So coming back to 1939 John Blair was working in the school. Teaching there. And he heard Churchill’s famous speech post-Dunkirk. This would have been 1940 now. We will fight them on the beaches and and the fields and landing grounds and so forth. And I was very moved by that. As were many people. And a lot of the volunteers, I have spoken to other Caribbean volunteers and a lot of them site that as, as a trigger but one of the triggers that caused them to volunteer. So you asked the question earlier why did they volunteer specifically for the RAF? Well not all Caribbean people volunteered for the RAF. There were fifteen thousand who volunteered for the merchant navy who were rarely mentioned. Of whom a stunning five thousand were killed during the war. So we shouldn’t forget them. But those who joined the RAF primarily appear to have been motivated by three, possibly four, different factors. I think there was a genuine concern, a well-founded concern about what would happen in the Caribbean if the Nazis invaded and defeated Great Britain. And the assumption was that given the fact that America wasn’t yet in the war that the Caribbean would become a Nazi colony and that black people in the Caribbean would return to slavery. And you’ve got to remember that when John Blair was born in 1919 he would have co-existed with people who would have been elderly but who would have been born under slavery which ended in Jamaica in 1834 and so he very likely sat in the laps of older people who had actually been slaves. And I knew John Blair for forty years of my life so that the link with slavery is very very immediate and not at all irrational for a Jamaican in 1940 to fear a return to the system that only ended ninety six years earlier. We also, I think there was a lot of sympathy, empathy for, or with the people of Europe who were already under the Nazi heel. The Poles had immediately been subjected to forced deportations, slave labour in Germany. Rumours were already spreading about the massacres that were taking place in Poland and other occupied countries. So the gen, this was not, you know a US invasion of Iraq or any of those things. This was this was a much more serious and significant thing that really did threaten people all around the world. I think we lose sight of that. So it was a world war in the truest sense. Another motivation of course was that these were young educated men who would never have had an opportunity to join any of the British military forces had war not broken out. There was a colour bar in effect for officers. That colour bar was lifted after the Battle of Britain because of these heavy casualties caused during the Battle of Britain but also Bomber Command had had very heavy casualties in its first forays over Europe. And so there was an official lifting of the colour bar which, when in place, had said that only British born men of pure European stock could become officers. It was not lifted at that time in the army or navy. And so the air force which had always drawn in, tended to draw in a sort of better educated, technically savvy adventurous spirit even for British society was just a no-brainer for Caribbean men who had some education and ambition. And, and to add to that the RAF was actively recruiting in the Caribbean. There was a recruitment drive that was launched across the Caribbean and also in West Africa. Was not very successful at all in West Africa. Only about fifty candidates who were successfully processed from West Africa but five hundred aircrew approximately. Four to five hundred and about five thousand ground crew were recruited from the Caribbean alone. Which, given that the population of the Caribbean was only certainly the British speaking Caribbean was only a few million people at the time was actually a very large number. The Caribbean had done other things. There were drives to raise funds to support squadrons. So there was for example a Jamaica squadron which was funded by contributions from the Caribbean nations which flew from Marham. And Uncle John as it happened ended up flying with Ceylon Squadron which was funded from the island of Ceylon which is now Sri Lanka. So there was, there was considerable amount of Commonwealth activity. Of course we know about the South African volunteers, we know about the Australians, the new Zealanders, the Indians who came over in very large numbers. And it was all part of the ethos of one — loyalty to the crown to an extent although many of the volunteers were hostile to the crown as a, in principal. Certainly fear of the consequences of a Nazi victory, sense of adventure and opportunity to further themselves in a way that never would have existed were it not for the outbreak of war. So I think that sort of summarises the main motives as I sense them. So he applied at Park Camp in Kingston. And he was accepted and he was then sent back home. He went home and awaited his movement orders. And he left on the fish truck from St Elizabeth to Kingston once he got those orders. And one of my, my uncles remembered saying goodbye to him as he climbed on to the back of the fish truck which was covered in ice. And he, my uncle could remember there was broken glass on the ground for some reason where the truck had turned and he thought that was where the war was happening. He was only about three or four at the time. And so Uncle John went all the way to Kingston on the back of this lorry which was quite a rough, bouncy ride in those days. Very hot. And then was put on board an American ship in Kingston Harbour which had been, which was enroute from somewhere else in the Caribbean. And one of the anecdotes he recounted was that when he boarded the ship along with I think about a dozen other Jamaican volunteers they were sent below. Down a ladder. They went down a ladder. And they saw hammocks hanging there so they started arranging their gear and grabbing hammocks hooks and a sailor came down. An American sailor said, ‘Not down here you —’ N-word, people. ‘Keep going down.’ And they ended up in the hold. So these were officer volunteers or officer candidates volunteering for air force service. They were put in the hold and they sat on metal floors in the hold as the ship drove, sorry, sailed westwards from Jamaica to Belize. And in Belize they picked up more volunteers. Volunteers from Belize who flew and they were put in the hold as well and then they sailed to the southern US. I think to New Orleans and they disembarked there and they were all put on a train to New York and things began to look up now. They spent some days in New York. They went to the Empire State Building. Took a photograph at the top of the Empire State Building with a candidate from Belize called Leo Baldorames who became a pilot. And from there they proceeded by train to Canada. To Moncton. M O N K T O N which was a large training centre in Canada. And they went through their initial basic training there which was essentially the same as basic training in any military force. Polishing lots of bits and pieces. Learning to march and to drill. Learning how to fire a weapon. It would have probably been the 303 Lee Enfield rifle and some people were filtered out even at that stage. So there were people who didn’t get through. They then went to their initial aircrew training. Well their initial RAF flying. Later training. Which involved selection and segmentation into different sort of competencies. And Uncle John was a, as a school teacher did very well on the maths test and so he was selected to be a navigator. Arthur Wint , his good friend was selected to be a pilot. And that was the, there were black Caribbean fighter pilots. There were, for example, Tucker who flew with the South African ace Sailor Malan. There were many of those. There were bomber pilots flying Lancasters, Halifaxes. And other aircraft and several navigators including one from British Guyana called [pause] it’ll come back to me. Very famous man who ended up on the BBC as the voice of Captain Green in the animated series that used to be on. Anyway, that’ll come back to me. So they were training in Moncton and they were sent off to various locations to do advanced courses after they’d done their basic. All very sophisticated. Then he, they had these regular medicals that they had to undergo. So it wasn’t just one medical. You had a series of medicals and as it happened Arthur Wint and John Blair had been out on the town. The medicals were not announced in advance. You were just told at 8 in the morning, ‘John Blair. Medical.’ And they’d been out in the town until 4am. Struggled in through the fence and that was the day that he was summoned for his medical which he then failed and he was washed out of aircrew. And he talks about everybody moved on. Left him behind. He was left in this huge hangar with about four hundred other people who had been left sitting on bunk beds. Who had all been washed out? Hundreds of men were washed out and being sent back to the UK because they were all UK volunteers who had been sent to Canada for training. And John Blair was now listed to be sent back to the UK although he had never been to the UK in his life and knew nobody there. And he would be sent there not as a aircrew as he’d planned but in some other capacity so he was pretty depressed about that. So he went in search of the medical officer, senior medical officer. Found him. Explained the story admitted to the fact that he’d been out drinking the night before and the medical officer said, ‘Ok. Look at this card. What do you see? Look at these colour dots. What do you see?’ And passed him as fit and he was allowed to re-join the training scheme but at this point he had lost all his West Indian colleagues. They’d all advanced and he hadn’t so he was now thrust into a group of British trainees. And this was really his first experience with British people on the same level because in Jamaica he had always, he had encountered British people but they had always been colonial representatives of some type or part of the managerial class. And so he’d never, you know bunked with and socialised with British people before and he found that interesting. But he got on very well and he never encountered, he said he knew of racism being encountered by people. He personally never encountered it. Although others I interviewed did so there certainly was racism but he was fortunate. And I don’t know what, I think it was just probably lucky. It certainly existed. I think he was lucky. It’s also possible he didn’t want to speak about it. But I sensed that he was, I sensed that if it happened it didn’t stay with him. He hadn’t, he hadn’t kept it. So he had Scotsmen, he had Canadians, he had all sorts of people alongside him now. He went and finished his navigator training. Because then on graduation put on to a ship, a convoy and they sailed in the direction of Iceland, avoiding the U-boats. Far to the north and then down into Liverpool. And from Liverpool he got on a train and sailed or took the train through the heart of industrial Britain which was an eye opener. He had had expectations of a green and pleasant land and the wet grey reality was a shock. But he ended up in Yorkshire which he spoke of in the highest sort of terms. With the highest praise. The Yorkshire people showed no sign of hostility whatsoever. In fact they were amazed that a black man, in fact he’d reunited at this point with Arthur Wint and another couple of trainees who he’d met again. And they’d go into pubs in Yorkshire and they’d be bought rounds immediately and people wanted to know what on earth they thought they were doing coming all that way from sunny, the sunny Caribbean to fight in Europe. And were very impressed that they had done it. So he seemed to feel very much at home there and as we’re hearing a little bit later he ended up marrying an English girl that he met. So they were then moving into the final stage of training which was to familiarise themselves with the terrain around their future bases in Yorkshire. He was going to fly from Pocklington. And also familiarise themselves with the Halifax Mark 3 which they’d never flown on before. And they were then, well at that stage I think they were formed into a crew. And that was, that simply involved sticking a couple of hundred people into, into a large hangar and having them pick each other. The pilot would walk around and just look at people’s faces. And John Blair was standing there knowing nobody. And a Canadian pilot walks up to him and said, ‘Will you fly with me?’ And that was it. He was picked and he was the only Caribbean person in that crew. And this is the distinctive feature of the RAF. Whereas the Americans had the Tuskegee squadrons which were, you know black squadron and they had black units. Sometimes with a white officer. The RAF integrated the crews from day one. There was never any separation of people on race or culture or creed of any form. And I think it’s actually incredible when you, when you think about what the situation had been merely two years before. And the fact that the RAF and its members were able to adapt so quickly to an integrated environment. And it’s something that I think is a lesson for society. Something which we somehow lost in the current era. And there’s a lot to be learned from the way that was done. What a crisis brought on in those days whereas a crisis today seems to drive people in the opposite direction. So he was now a member of a crew. They had finished their orientation and they were off on their first mission bombing Germany and other parts of Europe. He spoke at length to me about the experience of flying operationally over Europe and about the ethical dimension of the bombing campaign and it was clear to me that he had mixed feelings. They made best efforts to hit the targets that were assigned to them. But of course that was challenging. The technology wasn’t what it is today. There was wind to take into account. They were bombing from twenty or even a thousand feet or even higher. There was the effect of fires on the ground. And uplift that would, updrafts that would result from that. So the bombs could fall all over the place. And these were very large bombs in some cases. Two thousand pound cookies or even larger. Some of the biggest bombs ever produced in terms of conventional munitions. And they knew that they were bombing German cities. They were trying to hit city centres generally but they were aware of the fact that the strategy was to destroy the houses of the factory workers and that meant destroying factory workers in the process. And their families. So, so he talked about that. He knew what they’d been doing. I think that the, at the end of the day the feeling was that the war had been started by Germany. If not by the German people certainly by the German government. The German people had voted for that government. People forget that Hitler was an elected politician. He got the highest share of the vote in 1933 at thirty four percent. The German people had never rebelled against that government even when it had invaded all of its neighbours and other countries. And there were very few strategic or operational alternatives left for Britain. Isolated as it was from the continent by The Channel, to strike back. And Britain did its best with the resources that it had to fight a war and bombing was, strategic bombing was one of the only choices. So I think that’s where he left that argument. That was his view there. He was certainly very proud of his service. He flew a full tour over Germany of thirty three missions. They targeted all manner of sites. Not only cities but also submarine pens, they targeted Heligoland. Heligoland, off the coast of Denmark which was a large anti-aircraft bastion. They targeted a few sights in France but primarily it was Western Germany. The Ruhr and areas like Cologne and so forth. There were occasions on which the aircraft was hit. They flew back on two engines on one occasion. On three engines on another. His squadron and he flew operationally by the way from December 1944 until March 1945 on this first tour of thirty three missions. During that period one or two Ceylon squadron suffered fifty percent casualties in terms of aircraft lost. Four of those aircraft went down during John Blair’s first two weeks with the squadron so during his first two weeks of operations a quarter of his squadron went down. Most, most of the crew were killed. The chance of bailing out of a Halifax was twenty percent and the chance of bailing out alive out of a Lancaster was ten percent at that time. Because of the Lancaster had a smaller hatch. Escape hatch. They had to face many challenges. The weather was a huge challenge. Icing. Navigation over Europe in that era. You had as much chance of being killed by a mid-air collision as you were flying in a bomber stream with a thousand aircraft around you in the dark with no lights. And only a few aircraft had any form of radar. So that was, that was in fact it was so deadly that German night fighter pilots would use the trail of burning RAF aircraft on the ground as a marker of where the bomber stream was. He also had to deal with enemy night fighters equipped with upward facing cannon in the nose. They had to deal with the flak. The anti-aircraft fire. Searchlights. So all manner of threats and he was doing that sitting in a, at a desk on the aircraft plotting courses, giving instructions to the pilot about turns coming up and turns to be taken and altitudes to be arrived at while under fire and trying to ignore the noises around him. Aircraft exploding occasionally in the air nearby. The loss of people they’d met on their base. On a nightly basis. And at the end of that tour he landed on from his final mission. He was met by his wing commander on the ground who presented him with, it wouldn’t have been the actual medal I suspect but presented him with notification of the DFC. Distinguished Flying Cross. And he was then successfully accepted into Pathfinder Squadron. So he volunteered along, Arthur Wint also volunteered for Pathfinders and they were both accepted into the Pathfinder force. And they started training with the Pathfinder force and then the war ended. And John Blair opted to remain with the RAF. He transferred to Transport Command and he ended up flying casualties home from, well he didn’t end up there but at that point he was flying casualties home from what was then Malaya. I think this would have been the second crisis. Possibly the first but I suspect it was the second. And he met his future wife who was a senior nurse on the transport aircraft. And as John Blair put it, ‘I was working while she was gallivanting.’ They were flying out to Malaya with no casualties on board. Her work would begin when they flew back. So I should think she was sticking her head in the cockpit and having a chat. And they married and they had two children. John Blair Junior and Sarah. And this was in London. They subsequently moved back to Jamaica after Uncle John left the RAF in 1963. The RAF paid for his legal education so he became a lawyer before leaving and then he practiced law in May Pen in Clarendon. In South Central Jamaica. And there he remained until his death about ten years ago. Fifteen years ago. His children returned to the UK. They both, in fact I should have mentioned this to you before they both live in London.
Other: And Margaret.
MJ: And Margaret. The reason I haven’t mentioned it is that John Blair didn’t speak of his service to anyone. And in fact when I, when I interviewed him I managed to get him on tape because we’ve got the tapes, for about four hours. And the first question I got from family was how on earth did you get him to talk about it. And I think the answer to that is I was in the local defence forces in Jamaica and that gave me, the uniform service gave me that connection with him that nobody else had. And so he felt I would have some inkling in what he was talking about. So, so I’m not sure that his children would know a great deal. They’d obviously know about his personal life after the war but I’m not sure they have much inkling what happened during the war years. So those are my memories sort of verbatim. Or off the top of my head. I don’t know if you have other questions.
CB: We’ll take a pause there.
MJ: Yeah.
[recording paused]
MJ: His Gazette.
CB: So my question from that thank you very much is if we can just fill in the bit. When John came back to the UK he would have to be familiarised in the British weather and operations so where did he go?
MJ: So he, sorry can you pause it?
CB: Yeah.
MJ: Sorry ‘cause —
[recording paused]
CB: Right. We’re just recapping really on his return to the UK.
MJ: So, well this wouldn’t have been his return because he hadn’t been to the UK previously so this is leaving Canada. Coming to the UK. Following his training in Canada. He was initially posted to an Operational Training Unit in Kinloss. RAF Kinloss. Where, if I’m not wrong he would have been crewed up. And six out of the seven crew members met there including the pilot who picked, who picked the crew. And although Uncle John remembered it the other way around — as the bomb aimer joining them later other research suggests it would have been the engineer, the flight engineer that joined them later. After they’d gone through that process there they were flying on the Whitleys. They were transferred to a Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Riccall. R I C A L L where they converted to the Halifax 3 bomber. And at this point they’d already been assigned to 102 Ceylon Squadron which flew from Pocklington. So once they’d finished their conversion to the Halifax 3 they arrived in Pocklington and as Uncle John put it on arrival there they were told there’s your plane, this is the target tonight. Off you go. And they were in the thick of things. Following the [pause] his tour the entire crew volunteered or requested transfer to the Pathfinders and were accepted. I’m not sure whether the process was they were accepted or whether they were identified and asked. I suspect it’s more like the latter. And they were in the process of training on Lancasters when the war ended. John Blair, the award for his Distinguished Flying Cross was published in the London Gazette of Tuesday 4 December 1945. But he remained in the RAF until 1963 as I mentioned earlier. Initially he, post war he served in capacities with Transport Command which I haven’t asked him any details of. And he then did a period from 1950 at Martlesham Heath where he was involved in experimental high altitude bombing trials or tests. And in November of the same year he was posted to the Colonial Office where he was tasked with looking after the interests of Colonial servicemen in the army and air force. In parallel with his career as I mentioned he studied law. He joined the middle temple, inn of court and was called to the English Bar in April 1954. Then in August 1954 he was posted to Transport Command. May have been re-posted to Transport Command because I’m pretty sure he was in Transport Command immediately after the war. In 1946. And he was involved in transport flights then in 1954 and through to 1958 including flights to Christmas Island during the very controversial nuclear tests and to destinations such as Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Aden in the Middle East. I think he was stationed briefly in Aden and Malaya where he was involved in casualty evacuation back to the UK. And as I said earlier that’s where he met his wife Margaret. On one of those flights. Then in 1957 the piston engine aircraft was replaced with the de Havilland Comet and in 1959 John was appointed chief navigation officer of 216 Squadron flying Comets until 1961 when he was posted to the Air Training School. He then left the RAF and returned home to Jamaica in 1963. He joined, where he joined the Jamaica Bar Association and he served as Deputy Clerk of Court for the parish of Clarendon. In June 1966 he returned to aviation and this time as the Deputy Director of Civil Aviation of Jamaica and later acted as Director of Civil Aviation from 1975 to 1979 when he retired. He, however continued to serve when needed as Jamaica’s Inspector of Air Accidents while also running a small legal practice in the town of May Pen. Other interesting points are that in 1995 John Blair was invited to represent Jamaica at the fiftieth anniversary celebrations of the end of the war held in London. Along with several former members of Jamaican and other Caribbean aircrew. Including his close friend Johnnie Banks who was a navigator in Mosquito aircraft. They marched from Greenwich to Buckingham palace. And he recalled that people were standing twenty deep and in fact I asked him when speaking, when he spoke about that about some of his thoughts in terms of his motivation and I’d like to quote a paragraph. Literally they were the last words he spoke to me when he said, “While I was fighting I never thought about defending the British empire or anything else along those lines. I just knew deep down inside that we were all in this together and that what was taking place around our world had to be stopped. That was a war that had to be fought. There were no two ways about that. A lot of people have never thought about what would have happened to them in Jamaica if the Germans had won. But we certainly would have returned to slavery. If a youngster today should ever suggest that we had no business going to fight a white man’s war I would just kick him where it hurts the most.” John Blair DFC, died in Jamaica in 2004 aged eighty five after a prolonged illness. His first operational aircraft MA615 Zulu survived the war but was struck off charge on 7th of October 1946 and scrapped.
CB: Thank you very much. That was a really good, thorough background and I know it will be very valuable with the other documentation that we’ve got. Thank you.
[recording paused]
CB: With your background Mark there are a large number of other people that you’ve been involved with and I wonder if you’ve got one or two snippets of that. That could be really interesting.
MJ: Yes. Several. Several snippets. A few of these are people I spoke to while they were still alive. Others are based on research I’ve done but those people pointed me in the direction of. So I’ve read other interviews or transcripts or books by people. I picked out some I think are representative and I want to deal with the issue of racism as well which I think is important. So the first is Johnny Banks who I met at his home in Kingston in 2004. He flew with a Mosquito squadron. I do have the number. I’ll have to look the number up for you in a minute. Out of an airfield near Cambridge. I also have the name of that in my records. I’ll have to dig that up in a moment. The anecdotes that he gave me one of them was the fact that around the first time he walked in to the officer’s mess on arriving at his squadron. And several people at the bar turned their backs on him and one man started to walk out of the mess because this was the first time a coloured officer had every appeared in this particular officer’s mess. And immediately, within seconds the squadron leader jumped up and said, ‘Now, all of you get back to the bar and stop this nonsense. I’ll have none of that in my squadron.’ And so he was he was then bought a beer and then from that point onwards had no further problems. But that was the initial response. He had, he was a navigator in a Mosquito which is a two, there are only two crew in there. So a pilot and navigator. Navigator bomb aimer was his function and he had one experience when the bomb wouldn’t release and the pilot said, ‘Well we’re going to have to ditch. We can’t land with a great big set of bombs underneath.’ In fact I think that a Mosquito carried the same bomb load or more than a Lancaster. If I’m not wrong. It was capable.
CB: It could take four thousand pounds.
MJ: it could. Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
MJ: So he, - they were over the North Sea and he looked at the North Sea and knew there would be no survival. It was winter and he said, ‘Well I’m sorry. I’m not jumping out of this perfectly serviceable aircraft.’ And they descended, descended, and he kept trying to release the bomb and finally when they’d come quite low, still over the sea it actually detached from the aircraft. So they deduced it must have been ice that was the problem and they were able to land safely. So it just shows the sort of knife edge that they were flying on. Then there was Cy Grant whose name I forgot earlier. He was the the volunteer from one of the many volunteers from British Guyana. He was shot down over Holland on his third op in a Lancaster and parachuted to safety which was a rare event in its own right. And landed in a Dutch farm. And he hid in the field all night. He wasn’t injured. And no idea what he was going to do as a black man in Europe. And eventually was spotted by the farmer who was working his fields and the farmer took him to the farmhouse. Fed him. He had a bath. He had some cuts and bruises that the farmer’s wife looked after and then they chatted about things and decided that the safest option for everyone was for the farmer to call the Dutch police. So they called the Dutch policeman came along on his bicycle and stuck Cy Grant on the bar and they cycled back in a very romantic fashion to the police station. And the police then called the German authorities who sent a couple of soldiers over to pick him up. He wasn’t abused but he was stuck in solitary confinement. Then he was one of the first black aircrew ever to be shot down. This was 1943. 25th of June 1943. He was at 103 squadron flying from Elsham Wolds in North Lincolnshire. And they were on a mission when they were shot down. Their target was Gelsenkirchen in Germany. He, so as I said, was stuck in solitary confinement. And he was then photographed by the Germans and the photograph was published in the German newspapers over the caption, “An RAF airman of indeterminate race.” As Grant was in fact mixed race. He was dark but he had some European and Indian blood in him. He was then taken Stalag Luft iii and at every point of course he imagined the next move was going to be his last. He didn’t imagined that the Germans would take care of a black airman. He was taken to Stalag Luft iii and at the entrance to Stalag Luft iii he was met by the commandant whose name I’ve recorded [pause] who was Colonel von Lindeiner. His full name was a little bit. Here it is Colonel Frederick Wilhelm Gustav von Lindeiner Genannt von Wildau. Who was a real old school German officer of the best type. And he met Grant at the entrance to the camp which was quite unusual and he had in tow a couple of his guards and he said, ‘Now, where are you from?’ And Grant said, ‘I’m from British Guyana.’ And he said, ‘Wonderful. I’ve been there. Lovely place.’ ‘Now you and you look after this man.’ And the guards took Grant in. And Grant saw the commandant on many occasions. He was there for two years in Stalag Luft iii. And every time the commandant saw him he saluted him with his riding crop. And he never had any problems with any of the Germans. The only problem he had was with an American airman from Texas who simply couldn’t handle the concept of a coloured officer. It just didn’t fit in his universe and he used to insult him every time he saw him. Call him the N word and so forth. So, so that was that was interesting. Grant stayed in Stalag Luft iii. The time of The Great Escape he obviously didn’t participate but he was there when they were taken on the Long March at the end of the war. Through the snow to move them away from the advancing Red Army. And he spoke of seeing SS men preparing to defend a wood and he was very intimidated as he walked past the SS men. He said they were huge, well fed men dressed in white and very well equipped and he just found that very intimidating. But he was, he was eventually rescued by the Red Army and then they sent him back to the west. Another person who had a similar experience was Johnny Smythe. Johnny Smythe wasn’t a West Indian. He was actually from Sierra Leone. He was the only volunteer out of ninety from Sierra Leone who was successful. The reason why many West Africans failed was that they had, had malaria within the last twelve months. If you’d had malaria in the last twelve months you didn’t qualify for RAF service and by definition most West Africans therefore were ruled out. Johnny Smythe had two interesting stories to tell. The first was when he arrived he trained in the UK and when he arrived at, the name escapes me. It’ll come back to me. At his UK location he was assigned a batman. And the batman he said was everything he’d grown up to expect of a British batman and he instinctively called his batman sir. And the batman turned to him and said, ‘No sir. It is not you who calls me sir but I who calls you sir. Sir.’ And they got on famously after that. And the batman had been the batman to a member of the royal family who had trained at Henlow. Henlow?
Other: Yes.
MJ: RAF Henlow. Trained at Henlow previously. So there was quite a culture shock for Smythe. Smythe was shot down. He ended up at Stalag Luft i and he recalls the Red Army tanks actually breaking through the wire and he said that the tanks had women soldiers on the back. Riding on the back who smelled of violence he said, they just. The violence. They were reeking of violence and he was then in stages transferring. They were treated well by the Soviets by the way and they were transferred to the west and returned to allied forces. Another little anecdote. Errol Barrow who was, who became the Prime Minister of Barbados was serving member of aircrew and his gravestone actually reads, “Flight Lieutenant Errol Barrow. Formerly of the RAF.” And then in small print below that — “And former Prime Minister of Barbados.”
Other: That’s interesting.
MJ: Yeah. There’s a one little further anecdote. The last one which I think is this gives you a little insight into the day to day reality of the attitudes raised and so forth and so forth. So there were at least three Cuban volunteers who flew with the RAF during the conflict. Although I was unable to identify their names but I have found Cuba RAF shoulder flashes online. And there was a Canadian who had contact with the Cubans in Jamaica. A Canadian called Tom Forsyth who was stationed in Jamaica with one of the Canadian regiments during during the colonial period, during the war. And he tells this story. Says they were playing softball against the Canadian troops. Forsyth, I should say was very very in tune with Jamaica and Jamaicans whereas some of his colleagues were not. And so he witnessed this particular incident. So the Cubans were talking exclusively in Spanish. Talking away at a great rate. And one of our men was up to bat and had one strike on him. He turned to the Cuban catcher and said, ‘Why can’t you talk a white man’s language?’ At the same time the pitcher shot a straight fast one across the plate and the catcher remarked in perfect English, ‘That’s two on you brother.’ The more things change the more they stay the same so.
CB: You mentioned earlier Neil Flanagan.
MJ: Yeah.
CB: So what can you say about him.
MJ: I don’t know Neil well. I’ve met Neil at one event in London that I attended. In fact I gave a short presentation there on my uncle. On the topic of my uncle. And so Neil was the, and still is I believe the president of the Ex-Servicemen’s, the West Indian Ex- Servicemen Association. And seemed very supportive and very active. My prime contact there is actually a former colleague of mine in the Jamaica Defence Force called Paul Chambers who is the secretary of the Association so it was he who introduced me to Neil. So I’ve only had the one.
CB: Who was the man who nearly hit Lincoln Cathedral?
MJ: So that was Billy Strachan, Strachan.
Other: Strachan.
MJ: Strachan yeah we say Strachan in Jamaica.
Other: Strachan.
Other 2: Strachan.
MJ: Yeah. Yeah Strachan in England. And he, he was a pilot. He had actually started out as a wireless operator, and he was, was, was able to switch to flight training, and so I think he did, he did several missions as a wireless operator, switched to flight training, became a pilot and then he flew if I’m not wrong it was fifteen missions as a pilot. And it wasn’t Halifaxes or Lancasters. It might have been Stirlings. And he had a very near miss taking off fully laden, heading for Europe and thought he had cleared Lincoln Cathedral and when he asked his flight engineer to confirm that, the flight engineer out pointed that the spire of Lincoln Cathedral was just at that moment passing in the mist about three feet from their wing tip. And that was it for him. He was not shy about admitting that he just couldn’t do any more. I think, I think he’d done a total of about twenty five missions altogether. Fifteen as a pilot. But I stand to be corrected on those numbers. But it was in that sort of region.
CB: Good. Thank you very much.
MJ: You’re welcome.
[recording paused]
MJ: There may be different perspectives.
CB: That’s what I mean.
MJ: Oh yes.
CB: I’ll pass it around.
MJ: Yeah. Ok.
[recording paused]
CB: We’re now on part two where we’re going to talk about the topic of the racial perspective because we have a situation where people from Jamaica clearly looked fundamentally different from people from Europe and not really understand what was the social fabric from which they were coming. So Mark if we start with you your perception therefore you described a bit earlier. What were, what was the structure of society? As the hierarchy.
MJ: So I think it’s very complicated. Because there’s, you could cut it and dice it in different ways. You’ve got, there’s a racially obviously element in that the bulk of the population in Jamaica – eighty, ninety percent are of black African origin. Many of them are what people would describe as pure African people even today. And traditionally of course they arrived as slaves. At the other end of the spectrum — you have those whites who were either landowners or in some position of governance and then there was a tier below them of overseers because many of the landowners didn’t actually want to live in Jamaica. They had property there but they found it too arduous so they appointed largely Scottish and Irish overseers who were of course it was a rough and ready time but more likely to integrate with the local population. With the slave population. And that integration had a sexual dimension which is very rarely discussed. My perception, having done a fair amount of research into the topic is that in fact I have facts to back this up. So I can use as an example my family. So my origins on one side are from the product of a slave owner named James Blair who originated in Ayr in Scotland and who was the fourth son of James Blair of Dunskey who was a distant descendant of James the 1st. He arrived in Jamaica, and in the mid-1820s and he first took up position as a Scotsman as one of his overseers. So he was running a sugar estate belonging to an Englishman. He later acquired his own lands in St Elizabeth. And an estate called Hopeton. Now, James Blair had sixteen children with three slave women but the interesting fact is that the slave women he had children with were not his property. They were the property of the adjacent estate. And the owner of the adjacent estate had a number of children with slaves who were Mr Blair’s property. So what and this is over a period of years and what, by the way those women were all twelve years old at the time they first conceived. So what appears to have been happening was that when a female slave child reached a certain age – twelve, thirteen. The owner of that slave would let his neighbour know that the time was now ripe. And that person would jump into his horse and buggy. Ride over to the adjacent estate, have relations with the slave girl who was somebody else’s property and then that favour would be returned in due course. And from that I surmise, this is all educated guesswork that an important motive was probably not to undermine authority. So you don’t want to have, you know ripped a girl from her parents on your own estate, had children with her at a young age — even by the standards of the day was a young age and then have to deal with, first of all you’ve had relations with this girl who is your slave. Secondly you’ve got the girl’s children running around. And thirdly you’ve got her brothers and sisters and parents on your estate as well. It will just create too complex a situation to manage. So they had this routine in place where they, they made this transaction. And it leads me to wonder whether, to an extent and, given human nature the slave market wasn’t as much a place of assignation as it was a commercial market. That men would go to the slave market with two things in mind. Acquiring property but also acquiring attractive young girls who they could use or have others use and get their own benefit from that in the future. So, so I think this is never it’s not in any of the books that you read at school. Ok. It’s never really spoken off but given what we know of human nature and given what we know of the world today it would astound me to learn that that was not an important motive for slavery. And that leads you to think that a lot of the feeling that remains in society because Jamaica is still a society. Even you know hundreds of years after the abolition of slavery in which slavery is mentioned routinely. In which animosity towards white people on the part of black people is frequently uttered and in which there is a stark divide between the mixed raced primarily middle class part of Jamaica and the primarily black working class. And I think that a lot of that stems from that time when people were seen as being favoured. People were seen as being exploited and an exploitation that goes beyond labour. It’s not about the exploitation of labour. It’s the molestation of an entire people by another people. And even though it’s been erased as a clear memory that feeling remains. So everything about Jamaica that needs to be understood in terms of the war and volunteering and attitudes towards volunteers as many people did not like the volunteers. A lot of black Jamaicans thought they were traitors. A lot of that has its roots in the period of slavery and can’t be understood without that context.
CB: So now fast forward to 1930s and the time when John Blair was at home.
MJ: Yes.
CB: At school. What was the social hierarchy in the schools?
MJ: So in the 1930s not a lot had changed from the 1830s. So, we were still a colonial nation. We still had British masters. A white man and this was, this was true when I was a boy. You know, when I, when I returned to England I was intimidated by the postman [laughs] because he was white and I’d grown up in a country in which if you were white you are superior unless you just happened to be a drunk. With the odd exception but generally speaking white men are superior. And that’s how they’re regarded and that would have been very much the case I suspect in the 1930s, that the white men were the teachers, the lawyers, the doctors, the government ministers or whatever they were called in those days the secretary for this and the secretary for that, and of course representative of the Commonwealth Office or hierarchy. The governor general. The governor. So, so it would have been this and this is one thing that I’m not being negative I’m actually, as I said earlier — this is one thing that amazes me about the transformation that occurred because they weren’t, they weren’t say going through a transformation that would be needed even today for say, you know a black underprivileged boy from London to join the RAF and become an officer. That would be a challenge today. They were going through a much more challenging process than that. Ten times more challenging. As a, and it was also of course a time of course when hierarchy and status were much more important than they are today and face and honour, and these sort of concepts. So you had a very stratified society. It wasn’t just stratified as black and white. There were other dimensions. In addition to having African and mixed race and European people you had Indian and Chinese populations. And in some islands and on the mainland you had native American populations. In Guyana they had what they called the bush Indians who were basically not even included in the census but who formed a large part of the population. So you had divides there. And the Chinese and Indian populations had taken up different positions in society when they arrived. The Chinese had, and both had arrived post slavery and had been brought in by the British because many former slaves, African slaves, refused to work on the British estates any longer. The Indians, to a degree sort of remained in that labour version for a long time. They were still cutting sugar cane a hundred years later. Some of them had gone in to business but in the main these were lower class Indians. Working class Indians who would only cut sugar cane in India and were continuing to cut sugar cane. The Chinese on the other hand didn’t adopt those positions for long at all. They very quickly moved into owning shops.
Other: Shopkeepers.
MJ: Yeah. Primarily and other forms of business. But shop keeping initially and even today anywhere you go in Jamaica you will find Mr Chin running the shop and he’ll have three or four Jamaicans guys working for him. And Mrs Chin will be doing the accounts. And they keep it in the family. Coincidentally I was in Mauritius a couple of weeks and it’s exactly the same arrangement and Mr Chin runs the shop in Mauritius too. And so very similar.
Other: And Mr Chin runs —
CB: And so —
Other: Sorry.
CB: So just moving on we’ve also got here Maurice Johnson who is Mark’s father. So it’s a great pleasure to see you here as well. So from the generation shift.
MJ2: Sure. Sure.
CB: How did you see, what was the structure of society in the 30s.
MJ2: Yes.
CB: And into the 40s?
MJ2: Yes. I was going to say that the Chinese [pause] they came as indentured labour and much more progressive and business oriented. As a result on a public holiday if the Jamaican hadn’t shopped it would be a problem now. If the Chinese man hadn’t opened his grocers shop he’d starve. Just a simple thing like that. Today there’s a big debate going on about reparations for our, should we — David Cameron came down not long ago before he left office and parliament tackled on him on that reparations. Some people have not accepted that there’s a need for that. They want to move on. It’s a big debate. I’m not sure where I stand but what, what, what’s the population is very concerned about this. Who is going, how are you going to get reparations. Who’s going to receive it? How’s it going to be distributed? Who will benefit? You know. But the whole question of colour — it’s the people who came to the RAF for example in the officer strata would have the benefit of being properly educated. Sometimes colour —
Other: Lighter complexion.
MJ2: Lighter complexion, texture of hair, all those little intricacies but so they would naturally be more confident in you know, how they presented themselves. The people who would probably come into that what do you call it the ground crew order wouldn’t have that benefit. I mean that started from the whole slave scenario which Mark outlined about the interfacing with the light complexioned girl. That is still very important there, you know. The texture of your skin.
CB: So the structure of society was partly based on a racial —
MJ2: Yes or a body.
CB: Component. That is to say the more manual workers were the blacker ones.
MJ2: Yeah.
CB: And the middle class were the more —
MJ2: Yes.
Other: Light ones.
MJ2: And if you had a mixture would reflect in the hair.
CB: Right.
MJ2: So hair was, not so much now, it’s dying out but the texture of your hair was more important than your complexion.
CB: Ok. So what are we talking about texture of the hair?
Other: Curliness.
MJ2: Either curly or –
CB: The length of it?
Other2: Yes the —
Other: Straightness of it.
Other2: Straightness of it.
CB: Right. Ok.
MJ2: A mother of an attractive girl would be very reluctant to have, they would call it unruly hair. You know. Or unmanageable hair.
CB: Right.
MJ2: As well as with racial but it was very complicated and islands differ as Mark said. Barbados – straight line between white and black. And black were much more educated than white. In Barbados, Barbados white persons were merchants but not very savvy with Latin. You had people in Barbados speaking Latin.
CB: So you both mentioned —
MJ2: For orderly society.
CB: Yeah.
MJ2: Boring in a way but very orderly.
CB: You both mentioned mixed race so how –
MJ2: Yeah.
CB: So in Barbados for instance how does that get differentiated between black and white?
MJ2: Not much mixture. No.
CB: Ok.
Other2: I mean they get on well together but hardly any, not like Jamaica where you have —
CB: Quite a lot of mixed race.
MJ2: A variety of colour schemes.
CB: Ok. Now we’re also lucky to have Sidney McFarlane here as a trustee of the Lincolnshire Bomber Command Memorial Trust, and born in Jamaica. So Sidney how do you see this point about the education and the splits that we’re talking about. Particularly in the Blair context. So in the 30s and into the 40s how was the education sectored? Were certain types of people in certain types of school or did everybody go to the same school?
SM: Oh it all depends on — family incomes start to play an important part in this because the 1944 Education Act in the UK didn’t extend to the colonies. Where everyone could have a free education from beyond primary school to secondary school. So unless you won a bursary or a scholarship you left school at what we call elementary school or primary school. Some colleges offer half bursary and if your parents could afford it Kingston Technical College which had a night school. You could go there. And in fact I was, part of my education was Kingston Technical School. But society in Jamaica much to what Mark and Maurice had just said it’s split between racial lines. The lighter your complexion the better your chance you have of getting a job or whatever. Your background. Parents. I was fortunate that because of my connection with the church I remember my first job was a result, and this was during the school holidays a letter from my priest to a store and I was employed. Another person of my ilk or complexion without that would not be even looked at because all the people in the store were light skinned and I was dark. So that played a very important part. Certainly pre-independence all the top jobs were always a Jamaican could rise to deputy but he couldn’t go beyond deputy. All the top jobs were by an English colonial civil servant who was in charge. It was something that I, growing up as a lad I always sort of noticed. With aspiration you’re thinking I’m never, I’m never going to be the Chief Education Officer because that post was reserved. And this is why I think a lot of Jamaicans even know we are independent have a certain amount of resentment how things have developed. But certainly the racial element — you mentioned Barbados. Barbados is what we used to call and still call the island of all of us and we have poor whites. But they could have integrated and they haven’t moved on to society. To other colonies it’s reversed where the whites are on top in Barbados. They have the big strongest colony of sort of white people who are just ordinary people. Haven’t sort of made it.
CB: Right. Going back to mark now. How do you see in this case John Blair from the society of Jamaica and how he was in the hierarchy there? Then coming to Britain to join the RAF. What sort of racial or foreign aspect, considerations were there in his reception shall we say?
MJ: So John Blair in Jamaica prior to leaving Jamaica was a solidly middle class educated man. A teacher as I said earlier. And self-confident and highly regarded by the bulk of the population. He then travels to Britain. Certainly the experience on the American ship would have been a wake-up call. And in fact I need to quote Cy Grant who spoke about this particular issue. Cy Grant said that when he arrived in Britain it was the first time he realised that he was black. Because in the West Indies he was regarded as relatively light skinned. And suddenly on arrival in England it was brought home to him that he wasn’t. He was just another black man. And I suspect that John, and John Blair described himself at one point as just a little black boy caught in a certain situation in the barracks. So, so this recognition of one’s own blackness I suspect was an awakening for many. Others arrived and I mean there were some very dark skinned aircrew and ground crew who would have had no doubt that they were black throughout their lives and they would have probably had less of a shock. But then what I, what I imagined from my own experience of life is that all of those men would have actually found themselves bound closer together then they had been previously. Some of the class distinctions between them might have softened a little bit. Certainly for the duration of the war because now they were all part of one minority. However, John Blair is a very and many of the others being an educated man, being a thoughtful man, a very good communicator he was certainly the kind of person who wouldn’t be prevented from engaging with his white peers and colleagues. And, and certainly he adopted many British mannerisms. He became very, very RAF, you know. Talking about kites and prangs and all that sort of things and seems to have integrated. And to a very great extent while remaining Jamaican. He was always Jamaican. He came back to Jamaica in the 60s but, but he seems to have done a good job of integrating and being accepted. So it’s a barrier but it doesn’t necessarily have to be an insurmountable barrier unless you make it one yourself.
Other: That’s right.
CB: One of the interesting points about the heavy bomber crews is how they were the family.
MJ: Yes.
CB: So they did everything together.
MJ: Yeah.
CB: Particularly if they were all NCOs.
MJ: Yeah.
CB: How did John Blair feel about his crew and relationships?
CB: He was very attached to his crew. His pilot was Canadian. Ralph Pearson. John Blair, even fifty years on, one of his first comments was the fact that when the war ended they were broken up so quickly that he was unable to track his pilot down before he returned to Canada. And he actually on an RAF flight ended up in Vancouver where Pearson was from and went to the home address. The family had moved on and he searched for him and couldn’t find him. He was very upset about that even fifty years later. He did tell another anecdote. He was walking down the street one day. A black man in London. And a policeman tapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘Excuse me, sir.’ and he immediately thought he was going to be arrested and then he realised it was one of the rear gunners. The tail gunners.
Other2: [unclear]
CB: From his aircraft.
Other2: Ok.
CB: And they had a reunion in a pub.
Other2: Fantastic.
CB: But his first reaction was fear because he was wearing a police uniform. So he was very attached to the crew and there was no sort of racial element to that. That they were just the crew.
CB: And now going to Maurice. What’s your perception of, as the nephew, what’s you perception of his acceptance of the RAF and by the people in the RAF.
MJ2: Yes. And that would have started me observing him from when I was in my teens.
CB: Right.
MJ2: Come back on leave.
CB: Yeah.
Other: Although he didn’t share much I realised he was a deep person. Very observant. Very intelligent. And when I came to live over here and still here and he was the one who sort of facilitated and my brother who came ahead of me. We really looked up to him. Almost like a bigger brother. He, we had the same approach to leisure time if I can put it like that. We’d meet him in London. He’d show you around, show you the ropes, have a drink. No airs about him. Still didn’t tell us much though. I only learned that because of your research. All those things about him. We knew he’d been through a lot of danger but I really admired him and he was my mother’s youngest brother. And she almost adored him. I, later on in life when he came back to retire, you know. Well came back to do law and then retired I was very upset about his whole health deterioration. You know, became almost a shadow of himself and in fact I think the last time tears came to my eyes when I had to take him in to the nursing home where he had his last days. And that was really you know, yeah. He took it stronger than everybody else but you know that really hit me.
CB: Having returned to Jamaica did he, after many years in the RAF because he joined in ‘42 and left in ’63 – did he feel in some way a fish out of water when he got me back?
MJ2: Not really. He didn’t become secluded because he did interface with some of our ex-RAF personnel although he wasn’t, I got the impression he didn’t like going to — they have a place where they have a club almost. Where is that?
Other2: [unclear] Place.
Other: [unclear] Place.
[unclear] place. The Legion.
Other: Yes.
Other: Fairly close to the camp, right?
CB: British Legion Club.
Other: British Legion. Didn’t get the feeling that he was relaxed there.
Other2: No.
Other: Couldn’t put a finger on it. Possibly. I don’t know if I should say this but some of the other people in there I don’t think they saw active service. They were pretending to.
CB: Yeah.
Other: And I think he he took a dim view of that.
CB: And he’d been decorated as well.
Other: Yes. I don’t think he was being snobbish but —
CB: He felt at a disadvantage.
Other: Yes. He didn’t feel at home there.
CB: Yeah.
Other: That’s the impression I got.
CB: Ok then changing to Stanley. You’ve seen people from joining the RAF in the mid 50s who have had experience of lots of things. How many people did you come across who had served in the RAF who were West Indies born?
SM: A great number actually because most of us emigrated here just after Windrush. Post Windrush. In fact, I came to England with four other youngsters in our sort of late teens, early twenties and they all went in to the air force eventually. Some migrated since. I came at the back end of National Service and was called up for National Service. Most of my mates escaped it but one or two joined voluntarily later on. But moving forward from those days although there are still problems of racism I think because of the air force law, the Air Force Act and Queen’s Regulations it was subdued or oppressed. Or if you handled it rightly people would be taken to task. One of the problems we had with some of our countryman is that West Indians tend to be a little hot headed and don’t suffer fools gladly. They’d have their rights and lose it because they’d try and punch or be aggressive to a senior NCO. Someone with an extra stripe on their hands and you could end up on a charge and I spent a great deal of my time actually doing some mentoring. Some of my fellow West Indians to let them develop a reasonable career. Because they were getting into trouble by just being their gestures or shouting. Could quite easily in those days if somebody has two chevrons on your arms and you haven’t you could be in trouble. Because a corporal could put you on a charge. It could be very dangerous. I think I was very fortunate that my wife then was my girlfriend when I got called up insisted we got married before I went in. And my issue sometimes I was upset but I didn’t take it out aggressively because I was always thinking about what would my wife say if I’m chucked in to the guardroom. So I was always very careful and able to manage it in a way that my career prospered. So I completed thirty years without being charged for any offence. Having gone through the ranks and got commission at a time, which was a bit of luck and management. And having the ability to look at a strategy how to bypass certain people like the sergeant who tried to give me a hard time. Didn’t want to give me a trained trade a wind up about certain administrative procedures. And my wife, then I went home and my wife says to me, I said, ‘I’m not going back.’ I’d paid thirteen, thirteen shillings it was from Bath to, to Shepherds Bush on a long weekend. We used to get what we called a command stand down every month. Where you have Saturday mornings off so you can leave on Friday. And I was put on duty clerk and I was told, just as I was about to leave that I would be on forever more. I noticed up until that time there was a weekly roster. And I thought this can’t be right. So when I got home and explain to my wife. She said, ‘You’ve got to go back.’ I said, ‘Well I’m not going back.’ She said, ‘You’ve got to go back. There must be somebody else you can speak to, you know. Above the sergeant.’ So I got back and on a Monday morning they should say to me this was a wind up. There’s a new roster out. You did it last week. But nobody said anything. So I went off to early lunch as usual still really quite worked up. So after lunchtime because part of your duties as key orderly you do the teas. In those days the youngest or junior man in the post does the tea. You can’t do this today in today’s air force with an airman. There was a flight lieutenant I took his cup of tea in to him and I said, ‘Sir, can I speak to you for a moment, sir? I’ve got a grievance.’ And he said, ‘Sit down McFarland. What’s the problem?’ And I explained to him about this duty clerk thing and he said, ‘Tell Sergeant Wilkins to come in and see me.’ Well the sergeant went in and when he came out I was supposed to be preparing to take what they called a trade test because I was supposed to be on the job training as apart from going on a course. Formal course. And he came back and he opened the bookcase and he showed me all the Air Ministry orders and all the other bits and pieces and he said, ‘What you need to know for your trade test can be found in these books. You’ll be trade tested in a week’s time.’ So he was setting me up for failure wasn’t he?’ There was no time for preparation. Well what he didn’t know that you know I had other strategies. There were other people that had done the courses and I did a lot of research. And in the week’s time I took the test and passed it. And when you passed the trade test you had a choice. Either you go clerk administration or clerk personnel and part of my research when I was preparing for the trade test I had to go to station headquarters where you look after personal records, careers and so on and that part interested me. Dealing with people. So I said, ‘I’ve done equally well in personnel. I’d like to transfer to personnel.’ Because that got me away from the sergeant in to a new environment and that’s how I overcame that. But that was thanks to the wife really. Where a lot of young, a lot of us weren’t married and were single. You could have said the wrong thing to the sergeant you were in the guardroom so you’ve lost your case.
Other: Yeah.
SM: So from the early days I was still unhappy with the air force for a number of reasons as a National Serviceman. But nonetheless you were being given incentive to sign on because it was post-war and they were building up the service again. And so you had financial incentive. So by signing on my marriage allowance went up so my pay went up from two pounds fifty a week to seven pounds fifty a week with marriage allowance and signing on. You get an extra railway warrant for being a regular and an extra week’s leave. So everything was an improvement. Signed on for three years and then things were looking good. First child was on its way. Signed on for five years but still think, insisting that I’m coming out. And then it got a change. I was posted to, for one year, an unaccompanied tour in Bahrain which I tried to get out of and couldn’t. So I went and said look this is like real punishment. I might as well throw in my lot with this organisation. And thereafter I signed on for twelve years and so it went on.
CB: Let me just go back to this comment about this sergeant and what he was doing to you. What was the basis of his wind up? Was this a, was this is a racialist? Is that what you’re saying?
SM: Well he didn’t do the wind up.
CB: Or the others?
SM: This is difficult to tell. The others did it but he was aware of it and he did nothing about it.
CB: Right.
SM: And Mark said earlier about leadership and he didn’t have the its either deliberate and you expect a senior NCO to have better leadership qualities. It was either deliberate because he was a racist or B he shouldn’t have had the rank that he had because he should have said on the Monday morning you’d better tell McFarland that he’s no longer duty clerk. It was a windup. He let it go on.
CB: Yeah. Sure.
SM: He let it carry on you see.
CB: Because some windups are actually nothing to do with one’s origins.
SM: Absolutely. Absolutely.
CB: So I’m just trying to differentiate between one of those practical jokes that goes wrong and the possibility that this was a racially motivated.
SM: The moment I got back on the Monday morning after the long weekend he should have said to the corporal, the lads stood down. They had a new roster already prepared but it just wasn’t up on the poster.
CB: Right.
SM: And he said you’re on this until the next man is posted in.
CB: Right. Going back to Mark now. You’re going back, if we may, to John Blair. As a final point here. To what extent do you think he felt throughout his RAF career that he was differentiated in some way with other people in terms of his rank or his opportunities or whatever? Because he was in till ’63 still as a flight lieutenant.
MJ: Yes. I asked him that question. He was very clear in his response that he never felt that he ever suffered any sort of racism in the RAF. Hence his loyalty to the organisation. And although his rank didn’t change there were other members of black aircrew who achieved quite impressive ranks at the same time. So there certainly wasn’t an institutional bias. I think there was a Coastal Command officer who became a group captain. And there was a prominent gentleman at Marham who became a, he was a squadron leader.
CB: There were several wing commanders.
MJ: Several wing commanders. Ulric, Ulric Cross, Ulric Cross.
Other: Ulric. Became a squadron leader.
MJ: Ulrich became a squadron leader.
Other: DFC and Bar. DFC and Bar.
MJ: Yeah. And the most decorated of the black aircrew.
Other: Yeah. Yeah.
MJ: And so I don’t think they were in any way, you know being favoured.
Other: No.
MJ: You got promoted based on circumstance and performance and other factors. I think being in Transport Command might have limited his prospects to an extent. So no. He was, he was very clear that he had never felt that.
CB: Ok. Thank you.
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Interview with Mark Johnson
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Chris Brockbank
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2016-08-30
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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AJohnsonM160830
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01:33:57 audio recording
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Second generation
United States Army Air Force
Description
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Mark Johnson reminisces about John Blair. He discusses family life in rural Jamaica as a mixed-ethnicity person, highly respected by everyone. He was a qualified teacher, a lawyer, and a farmer. Reminisces other Caribbeans who volunteered and served in the Royal Air Force and other armed forces during the war. Mentions Winston Churchill’s and King King George VI’ speeches; stresses the ethical dimension of the bombing campaign and discusses the differences between American and British air forces in dealing with ethnical minorities. Mentions Arthur Wint, Jamaican Olympic gold medallist who joined the Royal Air Force and became a pilot.
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Jamaica
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Pending revision of OH transcription
102 Squadron
103 Squadron
African heritage
aircrew
bombing
Distinguished Flying Cross
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
military ethos
Mosquito
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
pilot
prisoner of war
RAF Elsham Wolds
RAF Kinloss
RAF Pocklington
RAF Riccall
Stalag Luft 1
Stalag Luft 3
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/888/11127/AHughesWH151021.1.mp3
33613f53da69484a983e122f2ed1e463
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Hughes, Harry
William Henry Hughes
W H Hughes
Description
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An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Harry Hughes DFC DFM (- 2023, 159079 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a navigator with 102 Squadron and then with a Mosquito Squadron.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2015-09-21
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Hughes, WH
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HH: It’s all in the book, I think, mainly, isn’t it?
AS: Most of it is, but we need to get it on tape. I think. This is an interview with Harry Hughes, flight lieutenant Harry Hughes DFC DFM, a navigator in wartime Bomber Command on 102 Squadron and then later on Mosquitos. My name is Adam Sutch and the interview is being conducted at Harry’s home in St Ives. Harry, thank you ever so much for agreeing to this interview. Perhaps we can start by going over a little your early days. I believe, you were born in Dorset.
HH: Yeah.
AS: Okay. Did you have brothers and sisters?
HH: A sister, yeah. But I went to school in Sherborne, the Grammar School in Sherborne not the big school, not the public school. And, it was a good school but there we are, I think it was a good school anyway but they’ve, in their wisdom they’ve closed it down now and they amalgamated with the Lord Digby school, ‘cause the Lord Digby school is gonna cost too much to repair or something and I think some builder wanted to get hold of their building anyway and make flats out of it. You know, usual thing.
AS: Yeah. How did you get on at school? What were your subjects? What did you do well at in school?
HH: Mainly in maths. I got a distinction in Maths and a distinction in Physics and Chemistry. Otherwise I got all passes except English language in which I got, I didn’t fail, I got a pass, just got a pass so I didn’t get my ‘tric. Did so⸻
AS: Sorry.
HH: Anyway that’s beside the point. Anyway I left there in 1940 and my very first job was a night watchman for some lady at Lewisham Manor near Sherborne, who lost all her staff and she wanted somebody to be in the house at night and to patrol the grounds. While I went round the grounds once, no, never again, it was too bloody scary [laughs].
AS: Things that go bump in the night.
HH: Yeah, there was hooting and things [laughs]. Anyway that’s beside the point.
AS: But this was 1940. Was this, was the Battle of Britain going on over your head or had that finished?
HH: Yes, yeah.
AS: What, was that what pushed you towards the air force or?
HH: No. Well, I think. Well, what pushed me towards the air force was the fact that I went, my father wanted me to join the navy and I, I went down to Portsmouth to sit an exam to be a writer or a supply probationer [unclear] his own clerk, and I didn’t fancy that, but anyway they gave you twelve blocks of pounds, shillings and pence to add up that way and then you had to add up that way and then you had to add them all up across and then the figure you got down here and the figure you got down here should have been the same. Mine was nowhere near. Anyway.
AS: But your maths were good so, you threw it really, didn’t you?
HH: Pardon?
AS: Did you deliberately mess up, because your maths were good.
HH: Yeah. Yes, I know, but not the accountancy type [laughs]. Anyway, we then, coming back on the train, I was pretty certain I’d failed, so, coming back on the train, I had to change at Salisbury and I had about an hour to waste, wait at Salisbury so I went in the town and I saw an RAF recruiting office. So I went in there and saw a sergeant there and I signed on for aircrew.
AS: Just like that?
HH: Yeah. And they took me on as a pilot or navigator and then I had to go to Oxford for attestation and I went there and with all the gunners from South Wales and what have you became gunners rather, from the mines, you know, and so that’s how I came to be in the air force.
AS: Okay. Did you go through the aircrew recruiting centres in London at Lord’s and?
HH: Yes, I was the first one there.
AS: Really?
HH: Very first one to go there, I think. In July ‘41, I suppose, yeah.
AS: That’s pretty early. What, what happened then? They’ve taken you into the air force at that stage, I suppose, you didn’t know what you were going to do.
HH: Well, we went to ITW and⸻
AS: Where was that?
HH: Down Torquay, which is very nice and, I’ve got my bloody reading glasses on, no wonder I can’t see, and then I was sent down to America to train.
AS: Okay.
HH: In the United States Air Force.
AS: Straight from Initial Training Wing.
HH: Yes. Straight from ITW. We didn’t get a chance. Later on they used to, they did a little course on Tiger Moths up on somewhere in the world, somewhere up that way.
AS: So, you hadn’t actually flown in an aircraft when you went to.
HH: No.
AS: How did you, obviously they wouldn’t fly you over, but how did you get across the Atlantic, in a convoy or?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Okay. What was that called?
HH: I went out on a ship called the Highland Princess, which I ended up selling. I sold the Highland Princess, the Highland Brigade and the Highland Monarch.
AS: Presumably not during the war when you got there.
HH: No. Four of them, I sold them in about ’51, or ’52, something like that
AS: Okay. So, you’re going across the Atlantic in convoy. Was the ship crowded? What was the conditions like?
HH: Well, we were in hammocks, you know, on meat hooks in the, you hung your hammock on meat hooks in the lower hold, you know?
AS: Gosh.
HH: And we are right up on the stern of the ship because every time the, I think she was twin screwer if I remember rightly, because every time the ship rolled the prop shoot [mimics a sound] [laughs].
AS: Is that the prop coming out of the water?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Gosh! Gosh, and so, there must have been hundreds of men on the ship with you.
HH: Yeah.
AS: All [unclear]
HH: The one thing you found out, you had to hang on to your four and a half hat because one went missing, what did he do? Go and pinch another one. So, it went all round the ship [laughs]. [unclear]
AS: Like measles, isn’t it? Yes, yeah, absolutely.
HH: Yeah, I remember that so, I hid mine, anyway.
AS: So, you went across in uniform with
HH: Yeah.
AS: Hundreds of other people.
HH: No, when we got to, we were being issued with, at Wilmslow I think it was in Cheshire, we’d been issued with a grey flannel suit to wear in America, ‘cause we all had to go down grey worsted suits, you know.
AS: Ah, ‘cause America wasn’t in the war then.
HH: ‘Cause they weren’t in the war then, yeah.
AS: Right.
HH: So, and so we went down to Maxwell Field in Alabama first of all for acclimatization.
AS: Wait, where did the ship come in?
HH: Halifax.
AS: Oh, so you landed in Canada.
HH: Went to Canada first, yeah.
AS: Okay.
HH: And then, I think, yes I think we were there, we were trained down to Toronto, I think, and then we went from Toronto down to Alabama, to Maxwell Field, to Montgomery, Alabama.
AS: Okay. Was the whole journey really well organised⸻
HH: Oh yeah.
AS: Or was is the usual service mess up?
HH: No.
AS: No. It was good?
HH: It was good, yeah, everything seemed to go to plan I think, pretty well.
AS: How were you received at Montgomery, at Maxwell Air Force base?
HH: Oh, pretty well. In fact, the very first Sunday we were there, first weekend we were there, the American officer came round and, when we were having lunch, and he said, there’s a fair in town at the moment and they’ve heard that you boys are here, so we’d like you, they’d like you to come along and be their guest. So we thought we were going there but no, it was a scam, we were all scammed out of our money. Yeah, so we woke up in the morning, everybody had lost all their money, it was a real American type scam you know and I saw a coach loading up with American service people all in uniform. So I said, ‘Where is this coach going?’ ‘Oh’, he said, one of them said, ‘We are going to a little village called Prattville just outside of Montgomery and we’re going to church and if we’re lucky we will get invited out for lunch afterwards.’ So, I said, ‘Can we come along?’ Then the three of us got on board anyway. And we went in and sang all the hymns [laughs] and, real gospel stuff too it was, yeah.
AS: Deep South, isn’t it?
HH: You know, happy happy-clappy type of fellows, kind of stuff, you know, and anyway afterwards all the American were all invited out to lunch and we were there, standing there, wondering what the hell to do, because it was a long walk back to Maxwell from Prattville ‘bout twelve miles I should think and then suddenly this lovely blonde comes up, she says, ‘You all from Maxwell?’ I said, ‘Yeah, as a matter of fact, we are.’ ‘Oh’, she says, ‘Matter of fact what sort of language is that?’ she says. ‘Well’, I says, ‘Well, you probably wouldn’t understand but we are English’ [laughs]. ‘Oh’, she says, ‘English, you are English?’ And she rushed around and she got all the Americans to cancel so that we were all invited to and she was a daughter of a, she collared me anyway and the other two were taken off somewhere else, I don’t know where. And then, we had lunch and her father was the local judge and he said afterwards, after we had lunch, he said, ‘I guess you would like to take my daughter out for a drive, would you? We gotta a nice Buick in the back. Buick with a steering column for your change’ and I didn’t even have a licence [unclear] never mind [laughs]. Never mind, and I got in anyway and I drove her out, bit of snogging and came back. And that was that and I never saw her again, she, I heard later she married an American navy pilot, who got killed in the Pacific. Yeah. So I could have followed it up if I wanted to but I didn’t but by that time I was back in Canada anyway.
AS: So when did the serious business of learning to fly start and how did that go?
HH: Pardon?
AS: When did the serious business of learning to fly start and how did that go?
HH: Well, when I go to, we went down to, we were posted from Maxwell Field down to Albany in Georgia to an aerodrome called Darr Aero Tech, that was the owner of the aerodrome, I think, Darr Aero Tech. And it’s still there, I was there not long ago. And so, I suddenly had to do a flight commander’s check and he decided, he decided to wash me out so I went back up to Canada and trained as a navigator.
AS: On the flying piece, how much flying did you do? Do you think it was fair that you got washed out?
HH: No.
AS: How did that come about?
HH: Well, they wanted, they, the Air Ministry wanted as many people washed out as possible who could train as navigators, bomb aimers and gunners and what have you. They weren’t too short of gunners but they.
AS: I believe you had an instructor with a German sounding name.
HH: Oh yeah. Schmidt.
AS: Schmidt.
HH: Yeah, that was a joke really. That was in the book, wasn’t it? Yeah.
AS: So maybe he sabotaged your flying career, your piloting career. So, I presume that a lot of people were washed out at this stage.
HH: They were, but [unclear] was never washed out.
AS: Wow.
HH: Over eighty percent. I know it was a whole lot of us came back. And on Pearl Harbour, the day of Pearl Harbour we were giving an exhibition rugby match in the town. And suddenly over the tannoy came an announcement that Pearl Harbour had been attacked by the Japanese and so everybody went home, they all packed up and went home. So we went home as well. And that night, I had a place I used to get under the wire and go into town at night, you know [laughs] and when I came back to get under the wire there was a man there with a gun [laughs]. And he was trying to shoot me because he thought I was a Japanese. He said, look mate, I don’t like your look, you look like a bloody Japanese [laughs].
AS: Did you go out of through the gate after that?
HH: No. Well, I didn’t bother after that.
AS: So.
HH: I went back, well, the following day we were on the train to go back up to Canada.
AS: Is that quick?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Flight commander’s test and then pack your kit and off you go.
HH: About for, about a week later I suppose I was back, I was on the train going back up to Canada. And it’s quite an experience travelling by train out in America, isn’t it? In those days with the dining cars and everything, and the bars and but we had to change, we were on what was called the Chattanooga Choo Choo, but going the wrong way [laughs]. We were going there, were going north but the Chattanooga Choo Choo goes, comes south, doesn’t it? But we were on that line anyway. And I remember we stopped off in Boston and we had a bit of a wait there so we decided to go into town, we never did see Boston because we got on the way into town, we got attacked by these Irish Americans.
AS: For being British?
HH: We had taken them into the war.
AS: Okay.
HH: It’s our fault but [laughs]. And they were at war now. And they’d be getting called up and be killed. And then anyway we got away with that alright.
AS: You were physically attacked?
HH: Yeah, yeah. They had knives and God knows what. They weren’t very nice people. Anyway, I say Irish American but I imagine they were Irish Americans, being in Boston, wouldn’t you?
AS: Big population there, isn’t it?
HH: So, then I went to Trenton where I was interviewed by a group captain and he was Raymond Mass‘s brother.
AS: God lord, Raymond Mass of the Agfa?
HH: Yeah. It was his brother. He looked just like him too. Yeah. And.
AS: Was that a sympathetic interview?
HH: Yes, yeah.
AS: You wanted to be a pilot and then suddenly that stopped. Was the system generally sympathetic to you?
HH: Oh yes. So they were quite keen to take me on as a navigator. And so then I went from there to Quebec City, L’Ancienne-Lorette. And from there up to Rivers in Manitoba. Which was a dry town, that was, Prohibition there.
AS: Oh dear. Good lord.
HH: Yeah.
AS: Were you in uniform by this time? RAF uniform?
HH: Yeah. Wearing a Canadian uniform in fact [laughs]. They issued us with a Canadian uniform, which were quite smart actually. And they were very similar to ours but the cloth is a little kinder, shall we say?
AS: So, you’re in Prohibition and you went out, presumably looking for a drink, do you?
HH: Well, we knew that Mont-Joli was dry but there was a little, there was a port just down the river called Rimouski, which was a timber port mainly. I remember when I took my Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers exams, one of the questions was, could you explain what were the, how many and what sort of cargo was exported from Rimouski, well everybody else thought it was in Russia, didn’t’ they? [laughs]
AS: But you had a clear mental picture.
HH: Yeah, I’ve seen it. Anyway, we were trying to, we were drinking some, we went to a bar and we were drinking this clear liquid, we had asked for whiskey but they served us up with this clear whiskey, clear liquid and when we were coming back in a taxi we were, we’d had about two each of these, we were all very sick we had to stop the taxi we were really sick and we saw afterwards that [unclear] don’t drink anything that is given to you because there is a stuff called alcool which is made from wood alcohol and it’s can make you blind.
AS: It’s like drinking anti-freeze, isn’t it?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Gosh, lucky escape!
HH: And so that was that. So then from Mont-Joli we went to the staff end course at Rivers in Manitoba which was astronavigation, advanced navigations course it was.
AS: What was the basic navigation course? What was your basic navigation training like? Was it mostly classroom or?
HH: A lot of in the air.
AS: What were you flying in?
HH: Ansons. Yeah. Mark 1 Ansons you had to wind up the undercarriage, you remember?
AS: Yeah. Did you take to it easily, to the navigation, because of your maths proficiency or?
HH: Oh yes, yeah.
AS: And you found it easy to be an accurate navigator?
HH: Yes, I mean, you’re training all the time of course and right the way through when I came home from Rivers, came home over on the Union-Castle ship, called the Cape Town Castle, which I didn’t sell. And, what’s the time?
AS: Now.
HH: [alarm clock rings] The taxi, yeah.
AS: Okay. We’ll pause at there, shall we? [recording paused]
HH: Yeah. Astronavigation course A and it was mainly a flying by using star shots yeah. But when I got on the squadron, I mean you had to carry about three sets of books, you know, and a naval almanac as well. Had to work out your star shots. But when I got to the squadron they had a marvellous bit of equipment, a little projector over the navigator’s tail [unclear], which about that high off the table and you had to measure it up with a special stick to make certain it was in focus and on this astrograph there was three stars you could use and, two stars rather, two stars plus Polaris you use to get a three star fix, and you worked out a datum point for the time before you, before you got airborne and drew it on your chart and then you lay your chart down on the table and lined it up with the astrograph and then this projected the position lines of these stars onto your chart. So all, so, the bomb aimer, all the bomb aimer had to do was to take the star charts, he was, my bomb aimer was a trained navigator anyway and I think he’s still alive, I’m not sure, and.
AS: So it was very much team work.
HH: Yeah.
AS: Between you and the bomb aimer but actually on astros. So, you, we jumped straight on to being on the squadron. Did you know, as soon as you started navigator training, that you would be going to Bomber Command?
HH: Well, it’s pretty obvious I would be. Yeah.
AS; Okay. And, so, you finished your training in Canada, came back to the UK by ship, and what happened next before you got on to the squadron?
HH: I went to [unclear], is it Cumberland?
AS: I think Scotland.
HH: Up near Carlisle, north of Carlisle then, between Carlisle and Keswick I suppose. And a little aerodrome there and we learned to fly in wartime conditions, you know, where the balloon barrages were et cetera. Where to avoid them.
AS: And is this when you stepped up from Ansons to bombers?
HH: No, no, this is still on Ansons. And then from there we went down to Hampstead Norris still on Ansons and then we went to Harwell, Hampstead Norris was a satellite of Harwell at the time and then we crewed up with our pilot and wireless operator, I think we already had a wireless operator and we crewed up with bomb aimer and engineer, no, no, we didn’t have an engineer at that time, this is on Wellingtons and.
AS: What were they like the training Wellingtons, were they in good nick, were they ropey old kites or?
HH: No, no, pretty ropey, they were draughty as hell, oh God they were draughty. The wind used to whistle through that fabric, you know. [unclear] construction, wasn’t it?
AS: What was, was there a step up in gear going on to heavier airplanes and operational tactics?
HH: Oh yeah, yeah.
AS: You are moving much more quickly in your calculations and navigation than perhaps when you were training?
HH: We did quite a lot of cross countries and Bullseyes we did in OTU.
AS: What’s Bullseye?
HH: Bullseyes we did down, we’d go down to, say the Channel Islands and experience a little bit of flak there and then we’d come back up again and fly across to Portsmouth or somewhere and fly across the coast there or else we’d fly, out to the North Sea towards Denmark and come back into Hull.
AS: So this was almost a simulated bombing mission, was that?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Training, for training. Okay.
HH: They were called Bullseyes anyway in cooperation with the army, I suppose, with the the ack-ack.
AS: So, when you’re at OTU, you’re on Wellingtons.
HH: Yeah.
AS: Okay.
HH: Then we went up to a place called Riccall in Yorkshire, near Selby, and we had to, we trained, we converted onto Halifaxes.
AS: What, can you remember what year, what month this would be when you?
HH: Well, that would be about Christmas of, just around Christmas in ’42, I suppose.
AS: Wow, so what type of Halifax would this be? The Merlin one or the?
HH: The Merlin one, yeah.
AS: Okay.
HH: Yes, so the Hali, Hali 1, what’s his name? Not Gibson, what the hell was his name?
AS: Cheshire?
HH: No. Gus Walker.
AS: Gus, oh yeah, yeah.
HH: He was a lovely man, Gus was, and he’d taken out, all the mid upper turret and the front nose cone as well, there is a very big heavy turret in the front nose and like the Lanc was, you know. And then, it’s pretty useless that front turret was but anyway. Then, eventually we got the Hali II.1 A which had a four gun [unclear] turret on the top, yes, same as on the Hali 3.
AS: So your mid upper then got his job back.
HH: Yeah.
AS: So, Gus Walker he took these turrets out to save weight, to carry more bombs?
HH: To save weight, yeah. Just to save weight, to make it improve performance a bit. And get a better height. I better ring up my taxi.
AS: So, by taking the turrets off, Gus Water was giving his aircrews more of a chance really, wasn’t he?
HH: Yeah, but then later on they improved the, we still had the Merlin 22s, same as the Lanc had, you know. Merlin 22s, but the Mark II.1 A was a much better aircraft, you could get up to, you know, eighteen, twenty, twenty one, twenty two thousand.
AS: Loaded?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Which is, you were at the same height as the Lancs. And the Lancs had the habit of dropping their bombs on you. Which happened on our very first trip. We went to, we were waiting to have a nice easy trip but no, we got Essen. And then, when we were over the, when we were over the target on our bombing run but a whole lot of bombs dropped on us, a whole lot of incendiaries dropped on us and the engineer and myself had to go back and kick them out the door [laughs] and which is good practice actually, because it happened to us again over Wuppertal.
AS: Really?
HH: But that time there was a, I think it was a two thousand pounder or a thousand pounder, I don’t know, and it came and took our port rudder right off, and the port tail and the port tail blade yeah.
AS: And what sort of problems did that give the pilot?
HH: Mh?
AS: What sort of problems did that give the pilot?
HH: Well, we found, she was, it was still flying alright but I found that we were crabbing a bit. And I remember seeing a light below and I said, take a drift on that, would you? And anyway we found that we were crabbing quite about ten degrees to port, I think, yeah.
AS: So you do all your sums again and take that out by adjusting the.
HH: No, I just took ten degrees off every course [laughs]. Yeah.
AS: That must have been quite a hairy landing I would think.
HH: No, [unclear], yeah. I can’t remember it being anything but normal.
AS: Wow.
HH: And when we got back, the little corporal in charge of our ground crew, he came out, what the bloody hell have you done to my aircraft! [laughs] as if it was our fault, you know.
AS: Did you fly your own regular aircraft that you got attached to?
HH: Yes, yeah. D, we always flew in D, until one time we let, we were on leave and I think it was an Australian pilot took it and he was very conscious of saving fuel. So he throttled right back coming back and the result was that the, when we went to run the engine up the following day, the engine started to shake, port engine started to shake and suddenly the prop came off and went right through where I’d be normally sitting and sliced my table in half, but I was in the rest position now for take-off you know.
AS: Wow. So that was one of your nine lives gone?
HH: Yeah. I tell that story I say, as you can see I’m still here [laughs]. I wasn’t sitting there at the time.
AS: So, did they repair the aeroplane or was that the demise of D-Dog?
HH: But that was it finished, D-Dog was finished then and we got the Mark 2.1 A then.
AS: Still as D-Dog or was there a superstition about that?
HH: No. We were still with D, yeah. But, Jackie Miles, he was our mid upper gunner, he was really pleased to get that. We got four guns, he was really happy [laughs]. But it was much safer to have somebody in a blister looking down underneath.
AS: Is that what he used to do before he got the target?
HH: Yeah. Yes, and he used to put it in his log book, duty, rear gunner’s me [laughs].
AS: Yeah. On, when you were on ops, had the idea of the bomber stream come in by then?
HH: Oh yes. Yes, we were on the very first time they dropped, the Pathfinders used Oboe on the Essen raids. I think it was first used on the 5th of March, wasn’t it?
AS: I don’t know, 1943. This was.
HH: Yeah, ’43, ’43 by this time, yeah.
AS: So, it was quite early on in the idea of the Pathfinders.
HH: Yeah.
AS: So, you went on ops just as the stream and the concentration were starting to take place. I know you were deep in the bowels of the aeroplane at your navigation table. Did you, did the crew see other aircraft around them, feel the other aircraft around them?
HH: No, you are in the slipstream the whole time. Especially when you got near the target, when you’re on your final run, you sort of you feel the slipstream and you have got to remember that five percent of our losses were due to collisions, it has been estimated.
AS: That’s a high percentage.
HH: I think we were told that at the time to be extra vigiliant, you know.
AS: Against the dangers of collision. What about enemy aircraft on your first tour? Did you have any encounters with the German night fighters?
HH: Oh yeah. [unclear], he shot down two, he shot down a Ju 88 and an Me 110 I think it was, yeah.
AS: And this, this was your rear gunner.
HH: And he had a problem as well. A lot of Battle of Britain pilots would have given their eye tooth for a score like that. Probably would have gotten a DSO and a DFC.
AS: [laughs] there are a lot of unsung deeds in Bomber Command.
HH: Anyway then we finished up in October ’43 and I got sent up to 6 Group, it was a Canadian crew.
AS: With the Canadians. How did you?
HH: And they wanted everybody to be Canadians, you know. They didn’t want an English instructor so I got, I quickly got posted down to 3 Group. And
AS: Somewhere along the way you, you picked up the DFM. Was that during your first tour?
HH: Yes, was the first tour.
AS: And what was the story behind your DFM?
HH: I don’t know really. It’s not in the book even, not even in the, my citation is not there, there’s a book of DFMs in the RAF, book of DFCs and DFMs. And I think there was an Australian, called Cameron, he found this book of DFMs but I don’t know, I think Gus Walker probably. You see, I’d broken my left foot, I’d broken a bone in my left foot and what with having leave, we were due for leave I went on leave on with my foot in plaster, came back and had the plaster taken off and then I fell off my bicycle [laughs]. Didn’t help. So, the doc said, ‘Right, I’m going to keep you in hospital until your foot’s cured. I don’t want any arguments.’ And the following day Sam came in, he said, we are on tonight, [unclear] and they want me to take a spare navigator and I said, ‘No way, Sam, let’s go and see the doc.’ The doc was in a good mood ‘cause he was going on leave. So, have you read all this before?
AS: No.
HH: So, [pause] he said, ‘Alright you, you can go this time, but’, he says, ‘Provided you come back into hospital as soon as you get back. If you get back’, he said, ‘If you get back.’ So, he then went on leave. Anyway, I duly arrived at main briefing, done my navigation briefing, I think we came at main briefing and Gus Walker was on the door. And Gus said, ‘Where are you going?’ I said, ‘I’m on crutches you see. I’m going on ops.’ And he said, ‘Why?’ ‘I don’t where my crew is going, I don’t want them to go without me.’ ‘Well, oh alright then.’ So I went in and we went to Berlin that night. And when I got back, Gus was still on the station. ‘Cause he was in charge of three squadrons, wasn’t he? Up there. And he said, ‘Right, young Hughes,’ he says, ‘I’ve been hearing all about you, he says, ‘It’s alright, I’ll take you back to the hospital myself.’ And then I got in his car and he tore me off a bit of a mild strip for being irresponsible and some of that and then as I got out, he said, ‘Bloody good show anyway, Hughes.’ And I think it was he who recommended me for a DFM, I don’t know, probably.
AS: Excellent. It’s a wonderful, wonderful story. What happened, you said, you tried the book in the RAF club to find your citation. Have you explored anywhere else, to try and find the DFM citation?
HH: I did write to some time ago, I don’t know, I think they did, you get from RAF records I think.
AS: Okay.
HH: Because I wrote to them the other day and asked them if, ‘cause I had a letter from them to say that I could retain the rank, substantive rank of flight lieutenant when I finished in the reserve and use the courtesy rank of squadron leader. But I’ve never used it. So I thought it would be a nice thing to have on my tombstone, so I wrote and asked them if that still pertained, shall we say.
AS: And you are still waiting for a reply.
HH: Well, they wrote back to me and said that I’d have to give them some more proof of who I was, you know, passports, et cetera so I sent them up a copy of my, one of my utility bills and my council tax demand.
AS: Well, hopefully that’s good enough.
HH: It only went off last week, so we will have to wait and see.
AS: You mentioned briefings. I know the targets were different and the weather was different, but could you give me some idea of an average preparation for a mission from waking up in the morning to taking off. Is that possible, that sort of things that?
HH: Yeah, because you went down to the, you went down to the flights and you stood in the apron outside the squadron offices and at ten to ten on the dot, if you were on that night, the phone would ring. You knew you were on that night then and then, but if you waited and waited until ten past ten the phone would ring again to say the squadron’s stood down by which time we had all disappeared ‘cause we’d all. Didn’t want to go to on a bloody route march or something [unclear].
AS: So it was all incredibly secret but the routine gave it away.
HH: Yeah [laughs].
AS: So if the phone call came at ten to ten, you knew you were on ops that night, what would happen then?
HH: Well I did, we’d go down to our aircraft and check all the equipment in it and then if necessary you take it up on an air test and then you were back on the ground again by, about eleven, eleven thirty, and then you’d either come back and go to lunch and or else you’d and then after you’d had lunch you’d go on for navigation briefing at about two o’clock.
AS: So the navigator was the first person in the crew to know where you were going, what timing was.
HH: Yes, we knew where we were going, yeah.
AS: Was that a very full briefing, with weather? Is this when you drew up your courses, you got your turning points and what not?
HH: Sorry?
AS: Was this a very full briefing?
HH: Oh yeah, well, the navigation briefing, yes, you got your various tracks you had to go on to and hopefully they’re taking you around the defended areas you know.
AS: The flak and the searchlights, yeah. Was there a lot of work involved for you to prepare your charts?
HH: Yes, it took quite a time. You were mainly with your bomb aimer to help you, you know. Harry Hoover, my bomb aimer was a trained navigator, he trained in South Africa I think.
AS: So, you two were the only ones that knew at the navigation briefing the target. Was it difficult to keep it secret from your skipper and your crew?
HH: Oh no, you didn’t have to keep it secret but you just told the rest of the crew where we’re going so all this business about being a gasp when they, when the curtains were pulled across from the map.
AS: Probably you already knew.
HH: We all knew where we were going by that time, at least my crew did.
AS: So, you’ve done your navigation briefing and what happened then? Just sit around waiting for the main crew briefing or did you have duties to do?
HH: No, we just, by the time you finished doing the nav, it’s about time for the main briefing and then having done the main briefing you then went for an ops breakfast. The ops breakfast, which was bacon and eggs, baked beans, all the things you shouldn’t eat.
AS: Baked beans?
HH: Yeah.
AS: And you’re flying at twenty thousand feet.
HH: Yeah.
AS: Oh, that could have been interesting. What was the atmosphere like? Was there a lot of tension? Was there a lot of horseplay? Was there a lot of fear? What was the atmosphere like?
HH: I don’t know, I can’t remember now, there was a feeling of are we gonna make it or not, you know.
AS: Was that a personal thing or something that you talked about with the crew?
HH: I would never, never, never, never, my mid upper gunner, he, one day, we were in our room, I shared a room with him and he packed up all his biscuits on his bed and folded up all the blankets and sheets. What are you doing that for? And he said, ‘I don’t think we are gonna come back. So I’m putting the things in order now.’ And he got all his paperwork out and everything, letters and everything to his wife and things.
AS: What did that do to your morale?
HH: Well, I wasn’t, I wasn’t very happy about it but it was a scrub that night anyway. Then he said, afterwards he said, ‘God, good job we didn’t go to [unclear] because we weren’t going to come back.’ He knew.
AS: But after that on future trips he was fine.
HH: Well, I said, ‘Don’t you ever do that again, Jackie, I said, ‘You never do a thing like that again.’
AS: Tempting fate. What about off duty, what sort of things did you, you guys get up to that you can talk about?
HH: Sorry?
AS: Off duty, did you get much time off to yourself? Or to yourselves as a crew?
HH: Yeah. We, I used to go out with, mainly with another crew ‘cause all our crew, our skipper was commissioned, so we were all and the rest of them, Jackie Miles he lived in Leeds so when he had an evening off, he went back to Leeds and the rear gunner was the same, he was somewhere just outside Leeds. Sam was from Leeds as well, the pilot, so it was only the engineer and myself.
AS: So you latched onto another crew for the,
HH: Yeah.
AS: The social element.
HH: Yes, [unclear] crew, yeah. I was pretty friendly with his navigator but he got killed.
AS: And did the rest of the crew come back?
HH: Yeah.
AS: And brought him back?
HH: They brought him back, yeah.
AS: Your, we were talking about your navigation training and astro, during your time, your first tour on ops, did you start to get Gee in the aeroplane or any other navigational aids that you used?
HH: We had Gee.
AS: You had Gee.
HH: Right from the start, yeah. We had the Mark 1 Gee which was, used to have to tune it, the narrow knobs on the side and you had to tune it to get a signal and it’s like tuning one of those. Televisions, you know.
AS: Keep wandering off. Did you, was it as a big revolution in navigation as people say?
HH: The Gee was, yeah.
AS: The Gee was, it really did make a difference.
HH: Yeah, well, it did make a difference because, but you didn’t get it beyond the Dutch coast, it wouldn’t work beyond the Dutch coast but you had we, well, you had LORAN later, in Mosquitos we had Gee and LORAN. In fact, it really annoys me now to hear the met men talking about the jet stream because we found the very first jet stream. I found a wind of a hundred and ninety five knots at thirty thousand feet.
AS: Tailwind.
HH: Hundred and ninety five knots and when we got back, I told the met man, I said, ‘I got a wind of a hundred and ninety five knots and you were forecasting forty five to fifty knots.’ He said, ‘I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it!’ So he went to Group headquarters and the Group headquarters said we don’t believe it. They went to Command headquarters and the met people up there said they didn’t believe it either. But then everybody else came back with these winds and they suddenly realised what was called jet streams but now they talk about jet streams all the time. And what they mean is where the warm front, the warm tropical front meets the polar maritime front and all the way along that you get depressions form and then, and with it you get this so-called jet stream would form as well. Ah, so which comes first? The frontal systems or the jet stream?
AS: Must be the fronts, must be the fronts. So, when you are doing your tour, you’d had the nasty experience of being bombed twice by your own people, probably 5 Group above you.
HH: Yeah.
AS: Was that the limit of the difficulties you had? Was the aeroplane mechanically reliable or did you suffer?
HH: Oh, we, came back on three engines more times than we came back on four.
AS: Really?
HH: Yeah. I think we came back on three engines eleven times out of our tour.
AS: And what did your ground crew chief say to that?
HH: Well, it wasn’t their fault, necessarily, well, he didn’t think it was anyway.
AS: It’s just overstraining them, is it, full fuel, full bombload climb to heights. Coming back from the raids, what was your pilot like? Was he one of those that, wanted to pour on the coal and get home early or did he stick to heights and courses as briefed or?
HH: Well, he couldn’t do much else with a Halifax. But when I was on Mosquitos, with our New Zealand pilot, we were always first back [laughs]. Yeah.
AS: Becomes a matter of pride. On your first tour still perhaps we can talk a bit more about that. As you got towards the end, did the, you knew presumably you were going to stop on, what, thirty trips?
HH: Well, I did twenty six in fact.
AS: Okay.
HH: Which we were screened two trips early. I would have done twenty eight for my first tour, ‘cause the pilot had already done two second Dickey trips to start with. [door bell rings] That’s my taxi now.
AS: Okay.
HH: So I’ll just pause this. [recording paused] We were just talking about your tour length. The question I was going to ask is did you feel a real rising tension as you got towards the end of your tour?
HH: But we didn’t know we were towards the end, we thought we had another two trips to do.
AS: Okay.
HH: But, I remember Sam coming in and he says, ‘I have some good news for you, we’re screens and you’re off on leave from tomorrow. You are all going on leave tomorrow.’
AS: What did that feel like?
HH: Mh?
AS: What did that feel like?
HH: Ah, it was good feeling but I forget what happened now. When I was on Mosquitos I think when I was doing my last trip on Mosquitos ‘cause you had to do fifty on Mosquitos you see for a tour.
AS: So, you finished on 102 Squadron and were there many crews that went all the way through like yours did?
HH: No, not a great deal, I wish I had the [unclear] I’ve got it somewhere, might be in that case there, book of all the losses, you know. 102 Squadron losses.
AS: Oh, perhaps we can look at that tomorrow or now if you like.
HH: Well I, it might be in that case, I’m not sure.
AS: Let’s pause this and we’ll go and have a look. [recording paused]
AS: Harry, good morning, it’s day two of our interview sessions. It’s very good of you to agree to this interview. Can we start by going back to your first tour of operations during the Battle of the Ruhr on Halifaxes. Were you conscious at the time that this was a major battle or was it just one job after another?
HH: We were trying to hit Germany where it hurt, ‘cause we didn’t only go to the Ruhr and we went to places like Pilsen, and then we did Nuremberg and Munich and.
AS: Were you briefed on specific targets in these cities and told what you were going after?
HH: Oh, we knew that Essen was the Krupp works, yeah, and we were given a good, pretty good briefing by the intelligence officer what we were gonna hit because one time we went, we were going to. There was almost a mutiny one day because they were sending to some place I forget, Gelsenkirchen or somewhere, I forget where it was now, and [pause]
AS: What happened then? What was the mutiny all about?
HH: Well, the intelligence officer said that he didn’t know why we were going there, there was nothing there, there was just a spa town that we were going to hit but what we didn’t know, of course, it was a leave centre for the Gestapo and the place was full of the Gestapo officers and but you know initially we said, no, why are we going there, you know? And there was almost not exactly a mutiny but it was a fear of you know, why are we bombing this place, we probably would just hit a lot of women and children.
AS: So, this was 1943. So even at that stage.
HH: This is ’45. ‘43 rather.
AS: So, even at that stage there were some concerns amongst the crews about what you were doing and where you were going.
HH: Yeah, we didn’t, the Hamburg raids for example. That’s the first time there was a real firestorm and we went on three or four of those raids, I forget now, it’s in the book, Hamburg in July ’43. That book is falling to bits, isn’t it?
AS: Well, it happens to all of us, doesn’t it? As we get older. Here we go, 24th of July ’43 and the 27th of July ‘43. Ops Hamburg, yeah. And then the 2nd of August.
HH: Yeah, the 2nd of August when we, we’d already realised that the firestorms, you know, in then, we were dropping our incendiaries first and setting fire to places and then dropping four thousand pounders, two and four thousand pounders on top of the fires which, that’s why it’s called the firestorm, the blast from the comparatively thin-cased two thousand pounders and what have you, would suck in the air and the oxygen, you know, and cause these firestorms.
AS: So, the thin-cased bombs would blow the roofs off and then the incendiaries would go inside and.
HH: Well, you know, in that, wish I could find that, you could sit and watch that, the CD I’ve got somewhere in there of.
AS: Is it of a Hamburg raid?
HH: Pardon?
AS: Is it of a Hamburg raid?
HH: Yes, the first or second of the Hamburg raids which caused the firestorm. And I remember watching this from over the bomb aimer’s shoulder and watching these fires spreading and I remember saying, I felt very sorry for the people down there.
AS: At that time.
HH: At that time, yeah. In fact I said a little prayer for them.
AS: Is this something you discussed with the crew or any of your friends?
HH: Not really, no. I just said a prayer to myself, yeah.
AS: And was that really specific to Hamburg or to?
HH: Just to Hamburg, yeah. ‘Cause that was where the firestorms first started. Well, it was worst then Dresden actually.
AS: I believe so in the numbers lost. So, your first tour was absolutely in the thick of what we call the Battle of the Ruhr and extremely, extremely difficult and dangerous missions.
HH: The people who came after me, they’d done Hamburg and the Battle of the Ruhr, and then they had to follow on doing the Battle of Berlin. You can find my very last trip was to Berlin I think, no, it was Hanover. It was one of my last trips was to Berlin, that’s when I went on crutches, yeah.
AS: Home on three engines, that one?
HH: Was that Berlin?
AS: Yes, 23rd of August. And then you did a Munich and a Hanover. What was Berlin like? Was it special, was it the
HH: Pardon?
AS: Was Berlin perhaps the best defended target? What was Berlin like?
HH: It was the length of the trip really. You know, on heavies, on Lancs and heavies it took us eight and a half hours there and back. What’s it say there? [paper rustling]
AS: Seven hours fifteen, that’s still an incredible time. People talk about eight hour days, and that was a full day’s work at night.
HH: Was a full day’s work was being shot at too.
AS: And, I mean, was Berlin the best defended target, do you think or was that the Ruhr, perhaps?
HH: No, I think, I don’t think it was as bad as the Ruhr but it was, there was plenty of activity there but mainly a lot of fighter activity there over the target, over Berlin.
AS: And you, you could see the enemy?
HH: Oh yeah. They were coned and searchlights one time I was on Mosquitos, there was two Mosquitos, an Fw 190, and an Me 109, all on the same cone.
AS: Wow!
HH: And there is a painting of that somewhere. I described it, you know. And there is a painting somewhere that is called Berlin Express. And [unclear] have got the original.
AS: Okay, I’ll look for that.
HH: [unclear] then.
AS: Okay. Some trips to France as well. Le Creusot. You weren’t after a saucepan factory there were you, what was, can you remember what that trip was about?
HH: Oh yes, that was, they were manufacturing parts for tanks and things, I think.
AS: Gosh, here, after Le Creusot, Muhlheim, home on two engines.
HH: Yeah [laughs]
AS: What’s the story behind that? Did they just pack up or was it flak or?
HH: Yeah, they just packed up on us yeah, these Merlins were you know they were way overstressed on the Halifax and we came back on two on that occasion, yeah.
AS: After a lot of, after the Hamburgs that we talked about and Berlin, Munich. Now, can you remember that trip? September ’43 to Munich.
HH: Yeah.
AS: First off, first back, in your log book, eight hours, fifty five minutes. Did the stream hold together, the bomber stream hold together over these long distances?
HH: Yeah, you we were all given certain times, you know, you had to be at certain times on all the way along the track, at the various turning points, you know. And I think it did help, you know, no doubt about it and then with the advent of Window of course, it just threw their ground tracking, we had a little device, did I tell you, a little device called Boozer in Mosquitos.
AS: No, you didn’t, no.
HH: We had a little device which, when they were tracking you from the ground, a little yellow light used to glow. But when they were tracking from the air, a red light used to glow. And one night, we were coming back, and somewhere around about the Hamburg, sorry the Bremen Hanover gap, and this red light came on very bright and we knew the red light meant we were being tracked from the air you see. And then suddenly over the top of us, about the height of this building, just came two, I think they were Me 263s,
AS: The jets?
HH: The jets, yeah. Right over the top of us. And they didn’t see us. I got a photograph of a Mosquito somewhere I don’t know what she’s done with it now. I meant to ask her that when she was in last night.
AS: No worries, maybe today. So, this, the 262s had the speed, they were the only ones with the speed to catch you, really.
HH: Yes. They were doing about a hundred knots faster than us. Fifty to a hundred knots faster than us. And they just sailed over the top of us and disappeared in the distance. There were four jets, two of them.
AS: So they had radar airborne in the jets.
HH: Yes.
AS: That is a pretty dangerous development, isn’t it? That was another one of your nine lives gone, really, wasn’t it?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Your slices of luck. Back to your first tour, you, when did you come off ops?
HH: I went to a conversion unit, at a place called Wombleton.
AS: Okay, was that Stirlings?
HH: No, it was Halifaxes actually but.
AS: Okay.
HH: Canadian group, they are mainly on Halifaxes.
AS: In 6 Group, how did you get on with the Canadians?
HH: Not very well.
AS: Really?
HH: No. They are very, they didn’t want to know us, you know, they just wanted to get rid of us as quickly as they could.
AS: I’ve heard this that they were running,
HH: They wanted to run their own show.
AS: [unclear] as part of the Canadian.
HH: I remember getting one crew and I said, I wanted to send them back for further training because the navigator was absolutely hopeless. He really was, he couldn’t, it was like putting, I don’t know, he was thick as two planks, he couldn’t. So, I said if you’re sending this crew with this navigator they don’t stand a chance of getting through, not a chance at all. They’ll be shot down on, within their first five operations, they’ll be shot down.
AS: And do you know whether that came to pass?
HH: No. They didn’t like this, you know, the fact that I’d criticised one of their Canadian crews and I was posted down to 3 Group and, which suited me, and the crew got to squadron, got to a squadron and they did one trip and got hopelessly lost and I heard it afterwards that the CO of the, I think it was Lane, what was his name? Lane. He said, what the hell are you doing sending us crews that are, they should have been send back for further training. And I had recommended that.
AS: Had you been commissioned by this point?
HH: Yes, yeah.
AS: Okay.
HH: I was commissioned at the end of my first tour, I think.
AS: What sort of process what that? How did that take place?
HH: Pardon?
AS: How did, what sort of process what that? How did that take place?
HH: I just had an interview, I don’t know, who I had an interview with now, I can’t remember. And I mean after the interview I was then a pilot officer but I was a flight sergeant before and my pay was sixteen shillings a day as a flight sergeant but as a pilot officer I was only going to get fourteen and four pence a day. So they said, oh, we can’t have that so they gave me a six pence rise, six pence a day rise so I was getting fourteen and six a day as a pilot officer. And then eventually when I was a flight lieutenant after a couple of years, I was out in India by that time, and I got, well I was on Indian rates of pay anyway so, it didn’t factor.
AS: Back to the instructing. You finished an operational tour, had some leave and presumably your crew dispersed.
HH: Yeah. Pilot went to Rufforth converting many French Canadians and to go to Elvington, French, I mean French crews rather, French crews to go to Elvington, to 77 Squadron.
AS: Did you keep in touch with any of your crew members after?
HH: I came up to York a couple of times and met Sam, Jackie Miles I used to see and my gunner and Harry [unclear] the, the last time I’ve heard from him, he was up at near Shrewsbury.
AS: You all went to instructors jobs, do you?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Did they teach how to be an instructor or did they just send you off?
HH: No, I just went in and just talked to them and told them where they were going wrong, you know, and how to waste time and things like that.
AS: In the air this is.
HH: Yeah.
AS: So, did you do any formal classroom training of these chaps or was it just, what, supervising in the air and on the ground?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Supervising?
HH: Yeah, just going through their logs and charts individually with them and showing them where they’d gone wrong.
AS: And I believe the same sort of thing used to happen on ops, that when you came back your nav leader would go through your charts, is that right?
HH: Yeah. Yeah.
AS: Okay.
HH: They’d assess your, that’s the assessment on each one there.
AS: That we saw before.
HH: The little design on his wall, Charlie had, he had sort of a little square beside each one of you and you had two dots for very good, one dot for reasonably good, no dots at all for
AS: Average.
HH: Just average. Yeah.
AS: That’s his way of keeping track. So, on 3 Group, is this when you went to Stirlings? When you were training?
HH: Pardon?
AS: When you left the Canadians and went to 3 Group, that was, what was that, Stirlings, was that the Conversion Unit there?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Okay.
HH: Yeah, it’s down at Chedburgh.
AS: Okay.
HH: And, yeah, Chedburgh, near Bury St Edmunds. There was a beer drought down at that time and we used to cycle miles to find a pub with beer [laughs]. Then we’d keep very quiet about it [laughs].
AS: It’s not too bad.
HH: Me and a Canadian called Connors and we wanted to, we’d heard about that 8 Group wanted Mosquito pilots and navigators, so, we both applied to go, we both applied to go back on ops together. So, our first application, we were turned down because, being in 3 Group on Stirlings, you know, they were rather short of crews, and so we were turned down anyway. So we waited a couple of weeks and we applied again and we got turned down again. So that night, I got a tin of black paint from the stores and I wrote a message, a letter on the ceiling of the mess to the group captain, quite a polite letter, would you kindly pull your finger out and get us posted back on ops. We’re fed up with this instructing so could we please get back in so and so and signed it Connor and Hughes. The following day we were up in front of the old man and he said, ‘Right, you’re both going back, no way you’re going on the same crew or on the same squadron. In fact, you go back first, Hughes. Connor will follow you in about two- or three-weeks’ time.’ And this is what happened.
AS: It’s amazing. So you weren’t actually instructing for very long, were you?
HH: No, from October until July, so I suppose six months.
AS: Okay.
HH: And you’re supposed to have six months, at least six months rest, you know? From operations. Between tours.
AS: Okay. And then, in July having arranged your own posting really, you arrive at 1655 MCU. What’s MCU?
HH: Mosquito conversion unit.
AS: Okay.
HH: At Warboys, yeah, and Weston [?].
AS: I imagine this must have been a completely different sort of navigating. Was it?
HH: Oh, just very quick, but you, you wouldn’t think it now but I was very, very neat and tidy in what I did. I knew exactly, I used to keep my pencils in my flying boots, my dividers as well, [unclear] my Douglas protractor I kept in my hat with my dividers, which was behind me and my Dalton and, and then we used to take as your [unclear] fix, as soon as you got airborne, you got to operational high I’d take fix, fix, fix, every three minutes, then work out a tracking ground speed wind velocity and then another three minutes later another fix, a nine minute tracking ground velocity plus the sixth, the latest sixth one and another one, further on, six, and I can tell you exactly which way the wind was going, how far out the met was on their winds.
AS: And these fixes would be visual fixes or Gee fixes or both?
HH: Gee fixes.
AS: Gee fixes.
HH: So I’d take fix, fix, fix, you worked really hard to get the timing, you know, of the.
AS: Whereabouts was the Gee screen in the aeroplane? You were sitting on the right in the [unclear]
HH: I was sitting on the right and the Gee was behind me and LORAN as well.
AS: Okay. So.
HH: Gee and LORAN which was behind me.
AS: So, could you operate the equipment with your harnesses done up?
HH: Oh yeah.
AS: ‘Cause you just turned your head and⸻
HH: I just turned my head. It was just like there, behind me, there, but I could turn easier then and it was there, you know, just behind about there, about that angle to me.
AS: And it is just, as you say, second nature, three minutes, three minutes.
HH: It didn’t take long to take the fix but it took a long time but we, we had charts with the letters, lines of the Gee chart superimposed on top of it. So, this really worked very well.
AS: So, what came up on the Gee screen? What allowed you to compare the screen to the map?
HH: Pardon?
AS: What was the presentation on the Gee screen? What actually came up? Was it numbers or?
HH: Yeah. Well, you just, you could, you worked out, you knew what, you strobed the whichever signal you wanted to take, you know, and then you, you strobed the two of them and then fix and then you just read it off.
AS: I guess it’s, so you gotta an alphanumerical printout did you virtually.
HH: Yeah.
AS: Wow. So that could be done quickly.
HH: It’s quite, it’s very quick to work it all out, yeah, to work it out to get, to actually calculate the winds on your Dalton.
AS: How did you operate at night, because I imagine you had no lights in the cockpit?
HH: Well, we had enough.
AS: Okay.
HH: We had a red light and then, what’s his name? Anderson, our group navigation officer, he found that red, you couldn’t see the red markings on your chart. So, that was all orange and green.
AS: Which was easier to see.
HH: Yeah.
AS: Okay. So, when you’d done your Mosquito conversion unit or at the Mosquito conversion unit, you must have crewed up with a pilot, how did that go?
HH: Well, I had already wanted to fly with this Australian so, when this New Zealander came along, I thought, he’ll do, I crewed up with him.
AS: As simple as that. And did you do, did the aeroplane Mosquito take some getting used to it, so different from a heavy bomber, with different performance and.
HH: Oh yeah.
AS: What was she like to fly in?
HH: It was nice and reasonably fast. And I don’t think you really noticed it until you were doing some low flying.
AS: Shall we take a pause there? Okay. [recording paused]
HH: The Mosquito was, it was terribly difficult for a navigator to get out of.
AS: Why was that?
HH: Well, you had to, first of all you had to get hold of your chute and you kept that on, then you had to jettison two hatches to get out,
AS: Underneath.
HH: Underneath, yeah. Slightly forward towards the nose, yeah. And but by which time your pilot probably gone out of the top and you were spiralling down and the chance of you getting out was pretty slim.
AS: This hatch underneath must have been very close to the starboard propeller.
HH: Yes, we, yeah. Yes, it was quite close, yeah.
AS: Did you practice this on the ground a lot?
HH: No. I don’t think they thought you were, it was worth the risk. But the, a friend of mine used to fly with a man called Gill and he went down, got killed, Ronnie Knaith went down with his aircraft, and Gill got out and came home and he went to see Ronnie’s parents and they just slammed the door in his face, they wouldn’t talk to him. ‘Cause they had thought that he’d should have stayed onto the controls until Ronnie got out. Which is really what one was supposed to do.
AS: I hadn’t realised that the drill for the pilot was to go out of the top.
HH: Yeah.
AS: Because there’s a tailfin behind.
HH: Yeah, you jettison, you jettison the hood I think, the whole hood went. And theoretically the navigator could’ve gone out after him, I suppose, but.
AS: I think overall the losses were less on the Mosquito.
HH: Oh yeah.
AS: I think you were safer flying in a Mozzie than in a Halifax.
HH: Yes, I mean, there’s somewhere I got the losses in Hamish’s book, in Hamish Mahaddie’s book, all the losses in 8 Group and you will see that 692 do feature quite regularly, you know.
AS: Yeah, so you were posted to 692 Squadron after the conversion unit. You’d had, I suppose, eight months away from ops by then, ten months, had things changed a lot in that time?
HH: I don’t think they’d changed all that much for the heavies, no. And we operated separately and we used to do Window opening for the heavies, we used to do, we used to fly out with the heavies and used to meet up with them at Reading, they’d all congregated there, what’s that? There is something squeaking, did you hear?
AS: I don’t know, let’s pause the tape.[recording paused] Well, Harry, we discovered what the squeak was, it was the smoke alarm. We were talking about Window opening and you meeting the heavies over Reading.
HH: Yeah. We used to fly down with the and meet up with the heavies and then we’d weave in and out of them, stream, you know, and you could see the strength of the stream then because, you know, there was just a whole block of them all over the horizon.
AS: And these are daylights.
HH: Yeah, in daylight, yeah, it would be. And then somebody in one of the heavies would be signalling to us, you lucky bastards or words to that effect. So I was sent back, been there, done that [laughs].
AS: Fair do’s. Because you could fly a lot faster and a lot higher than they could.
HH: Well, we used to be, weave in and out of them, you see. And then, then when you got to the coast, you climbed very rapidly above and you got to your operational height. If we were going to say, if we were Window opening say for Stuttgart, we’d probably do a, you go to Cologne first and drop a few bundles of Window there making them, making them think that was the target, you see. And then we’d go along to wherever, Stuttgart, and where the main force were going, and we’d, we’d do Window opening for the first wave of Pathfinders going in.
AS: Okay. This was the, was this the main role of 692 Squadron?
HH: Pardon?
AS: Was this the main role of 692 Squadron?
HH: Yeah, well, we were the light night striking force, yeah.
AS: Okay.
HH: But our main role was to bomb Berlin every night.
AS: Oh, you were involved in this Berlin shuttle?
HH: Yes. So, we used to drop our cookie, we used to drop Window for the heavies and then we’d go along to Berlin and drop our four thousand pounders, keep them awake.
AS: Ah, so, did you have those special Mosquitos then?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Those with the pregnant bomb bay?
HH: That one there, isn’t it?
AS: Yes. Yeah.
HH: Yeah.
AS: So, who got to drop the bomb? Was it you or the driver?
HH: Me.
AS: You.
HH: Yeah. Unless we were doing low level. And even then it was me up on the front, up in the nose.
AS: How did you, how did you drop Window from a tiny little aeroplane like Mosquito?
HH: We had a chute, little wooden chute which used to go through the two doors and we just dropped bundles of Window through that. Remember to grab the string as it went down, otherwise you’d just drop bundles [laughs].
AS: You don’t want them falling on someone’s head and hurting them, do you?
HH: No [laughs]. So, it’s a nice day now, isn’t it?
AS: It’s wonderful out there. It’s great. So, sometimes you were operating with the main bomber stream and sometimes as 8 Group by yourself or squadron by yourself?
HH: Individually, yeah.
AS: Individually too?
HH: We used to fly, we used to sing, I made up, there was a song going round at that time sung by Hildegard, I walk alone, to tell you the truth I’ll be lonely, I don’t mind being lonely, when my heart tells me you are lonely too. So, I made up the words for our squadron, we fly alone, when all the heavies are grounded and dining, 692 will be climbing, we still press on, it’s every night, though they never will give us a French route, for the honour of 8 Group, we’ll still press on.
AS: That’s fantastic.
HH: It’s always a [unclear] no matter how far, one bomb is slung beneath, it’s twelve degrees east, one engine at least [laughs]. It’s a pretty horrible little song.
AS: it’s brilliant. It sums up what you felt.
HH: Not as good as some of the songs, you see, erks used to make up in India and down in Burma, you know. One they used to sing, rotting in the jungle, on a [unclear] marshy shores, dysentery, malaria and bags of jungle sores, living around in a bloody great heap, our beds are damp, we cannot sleep, we’re going round the corner, we’re going round the bend, two trips to Meiktila, maybe three or four, AOL’s a keen type, he thinks we’re doing more. When we get back as you can guess, we’ll put this effing kite US [laughs] and we’re going round the, and there’s about two more verses to that, I can’t remember, that’s when the mail arrives, and there’s two for you and f.a. for me you know [laughs].
AS: I think we will have to try and get you a recording contract. This could be an excellent CD on the wireless.
HH: I don’t think they’d allow it to be broadcast.
AS: Probably not, probably not. But see, you, it sounds as you had very high morale on the squadron.
HH: Oh yeah. But, yes, this was when I was on ferrying.
AS: And on 692, as you say, opening with Window and then lots and lots of trips to
HH: Berlin.
AS: To Berlin. Did you ever get involved in a double trip, I believe some people, some crews did two trips to Berlin in one night.
HH: Yeah, we did, on one occasion we did. I think we did Duisburg in the morning and Berlin that night. Came back, and refuelled and bombed up again and we were away again.
AS: There must have been, I would expect, a cumulative tiredness at that level of operations. I’ve seen your ops on your second tour are very close together.
HH: Yeah.
AS: First of October, third, fourth, fifth, two on the fifth, very, very very close together and then Berlin followed the next night by Cologne. Did you, were you conscious of getting tired?
HH: Well, no, because when you’re off, you went into town and into Cambridge and I met up with my girlfriend and she was lovely, my girlfriend, I must have a picture of her, I did have a picture. She was beautiful, she was lovely red hair and creamy skin, you know, and green eyes, oh, she was beautiful. I used to walk down the street with her and everybody would stop and stare, at her, not at me [laughs].
AS: I was going to ask that. And you met her when you joined the squadron?
HH: When I joined 692, yeah. Yeah, we were walking, you remember, do you remember the Red Lion in Cambridge?
AS: I don’t know Cambridge well. I know where the airfield is.
HH: There used to be a passage where you could go through, you’d start off in the Baron of Beef, down by the river there and, and then you go from there to the Bun Shop and to get to the Bun Shop you have to walk through the Red Lion right, right the way through there, the foyer, there is a bar, two bars there and when I walked through there one night, there was Red sitting there with two of her friends and as I walked through, I said, ‘Cor’ to who I was with and I caught red hair and no drawers, and I said, ‘I’m in’ [laughs]. And she followed me through to the Bun Shop and that’s how I met up with her [laughs].
AS: Excellent. Probably best not pursue that story too much further, I think. So, you’ve got here on a trip to Berlin, landed Woodbridge. Now⸻
HH: Yeah.
AS: I know that Woodbridge is one of the emergency landing grounds.
HH: Yeah, well we, very often we had to land, when we took S-Sugar, which is a bloody awful aircraft with a terrible fuel consumption, if we took that to Berlin, we would end up, always end up landing short of fuel at Woodbridge. In fact, one night, when Harris was on this station, we were the only squadron operating that night, so he came to our briefing. [phone ringing]
AS: I’ll pause there. So, after the phone call, we were talking about S-Sugar and its ability to drink fuel.
HH: Yeah, on this night Harris was at the and [unclear] Northrop, our CO was reading out the battle order, you know, and he said, came to, flying officer Mormo, S-Sugar, ‘S-Sugar?’ said Roy, ‘What’s wrong with our Robert?’ ‘Well, that’s got a mark drop on the starboard engine, you’re going to have to take the spare.’ ‘But S f for Sugar, sir, that bloody kite flies like a brick shithouse!’ [laughs] and old Harris was standing there, and he was trying his best not to laugh, you know, his moustache had a twitch and [laughs] you could he’s gonna laugh every minute, you know. But he didn’t, he held it in [laughs]
AS: What was Woodbridge like? Is an emergency landing ground very different from a normal airfield?
HH: Oh yeah, you, huts with the roof off, you know, half off and snow would come in, on a snowy night, yeah.
AS: Not finished?
HH: No, they had just blown off. That’s a nuisance that thing, isn’t it?
AS: Your smoke alarm, yeah. As we got to this time or you got to this time in the war, this was late 1944.
HH: Yeah.
AS: Had the scene changed in terms of aids to navigation, things like Sandra lights and Darky and ground organisation, was there a lot to help you?
HH: [unclear] Much on the ground I think, mainly H2S, Oboe, things like that, you know. And G8, wasn’t it? G8.
AS: G-H, yeah. I didn’t, I don’t know how that worked, I never had that but we were quite content with LORAN. In fact, I got a wind over, going down to, I forget where I was going, Berlin I suppose, but yeah, we were going over to Berlin I think and I got a wind just north of the Ruhr, a hundred and ninety five knots.
AS: Wow!
HH: And what we’d done, we hit a jet stream, you see, and but when I came back, I said to the met man, I got a wind of a hundred, impossible, impossible, impossible, and it went to Group and Group said impossible as well, went to Command and Command said impossible well then when everybody started to get them, they suddenly realised there was something in this jet stream. Now they talk about nothing else but the bloody jet stream and it annoys me that because they ignored their existence during the war, the met people did and we kept telling them, look there is something up there and it didn’t last very long, you see, you were in it and then you were out of it, you know. So you couldn’t use it as a general wind to carry on to Berlin, shall we say for example, and nor could you use it when you were coming back. You might hit it again but it’d be in a different place slightly and.
AS: It must have meant that you had to be on your toes with your fixes all the time.
HH: Yeah. Anyway we,
AS: In your logbook, it suddenly goes from duty as nav to duty nav b. What was the significance of?
HH: Well, I stood in as bomb aimer as well.
AS: Ah, okay, that’s what it was. Tremendous number of operations over the winter of ’44-’45.
HH: Yeah.
AS: So I presume you must have flown in most weather with the nav aids that you had.
HH: Oh yeah, I remember one night, I don’t know if I should say this because it’s a bit derogatory to somebody who’s now dead, and that’s to Don Bennett. He was in the control tower on this particular night and we were getting hoarfrost all along the wings of our, as we taxied out we were getting hoarfrost develop all along the wings, so Roy got onto control and he says, ‘Could we have the de-icing bowsers out, please?’ And Bennett said, ‘Never mind about the de-icing bowser, just get off the deck.’ Well, we didn’t go, we said, ‘No, no. It’s too dangerous.’ Anyway, another aircraft came after us and they ploughed into the end of the runway and they were both killed of course when their bomb blew up. And Bennett never said a word to us afterwards, he was, we came back for briefing that night and he’d left the station. We came back and got the de-icing bowser and got cleared of the hoarfrost. He literally left, you see. And then we went to Berlin that night, I think.
AS: I should think, with fuel and a four thousand pounder you must have needed all the runway to get off.
HH: Yeah, well, there is another tale attached to that, the, you see, we started off with four thousand pounders, I think we were the first squadron to have four thousand pounders, and then they put fifty gallon drop tanks on each wing which were increased eventually to seventy five and then a hundred and then, and then we ran out of four thousand pounders and we had to borrow four thousand pounders from the Americans, which were four and a half thousand pounds. So another five hundred pounds to get off the deck. But the old Mozzie just used to take it all in its stride. No bother.
AS: You had no concerns.
HH: No, and I remember one day when I’d finished tour. I was sitting in the crew room minding my own business and the CO, a Canadian called Bob Grant came in and he said, ‘You doing anything Hughes?’ I said, no. He said, ‘Grab yourself a ‘chute would you and I’ll see you out at the aircraft.’ I said, ‘What do you⸻’ ‘Just bring a local Gee chart and local maps, would you?’ So when I got out to the bay, they were loading a four thousand pounder and I said, ‘Well, what fuel have we got?’ ‘You’ve a got full load of fuel and two hundred gallon drop tanks.’ And there’s a wind blowing right the way down the 330 runway which was fourteen hundred feet or something compared with two thousand feet on the main runway. I said, ‘What are we gonna do then?’ He said, ‘We’re gonna see if we can get off with this wind, the scale blowing, see if we can get off on this, on the fifteen hundred runway.’ So, we got to the end of the runway, and he waited until there was a gust of wind blowing, until the airspeed indicator was indicating about fifty or sixty knots. And we went. And I dropped the cookie on the live bomb target in the Wash and then we came back. And he got a report and said it wasn’t possible. I said, ‘Well, thanks for telling me.’ [laughs] it wasn’t possible. And he said, ‘No, no, no,’ he said, ‘I don’t think the crew, you could expect the whole crew to wait’, the whole squadron rather to wait until there was a lull, that’s turned till there was a gust of wind which would get them off the deck.
AS: It’s a good example of leading from the front though, isn’t it?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Doing the test himself.
HH: It was old Bob Grant, he’s dead now, he married a Yorkshire, he was CO of 105 Squadron, amongst other things and he was, when he got back to Canada, of course he was made up to brigadier, I think. He was a group captain here, so he was a brigadier. That was equivalent to air commodore, wasn’t it?
AS: I think so, yeah, yeah.
HH: I don’t know.
AS: And, ah, there it is Group Captain Grant, 19th of March 1945, bombload take off fourteen hundred yards. That was pretty much the end of your operational flying, I think, wasn’t it?
HH: Yeah.
AS: On the Mosquito. Last trip, February, February ’45.
HH: Hanover, wasn’t it? Or Hamburg, Hanover.
AS: Frankfurt, I think, Frankfurt in your log. And did you know that that would be your last trip or you’re just told you’re screened?
HH: Yeah. You knew you had to do fifty on Mosquitos. So.
AS: And what did happened after that? Did you go back instructing or?
HH: No, no, we were sent on leave and when we came back, we’d been posted, several crews had been posted down to Pershore to ferry Canadian built Mosquitos across the Atlantic. And I crewed up with a different, Lloyd had gone back to New Zealand and he used to fly with Air New Zealand after the war. And thanks to me, because someone had put a bottle through his hand and all the tendons had gone. And so he couldn’t, when we were taking off at Whiten once doing a cross country, we got airborne and suddenly the throttle went back and he grabbed hold of them and held it with his hand and because you had to keep the throttle up so loose ‘cause of this weakness in his left hand. So I said, ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do, Roy, from now on I’ll tighten the throttle knot for you when you’re ready. As soon as you want, you just say, throttle knob and I will reach through and grab the throttle knob and turn it and tighten it for you.’ And we did that every trip. And but I, ‘cause I had to reach over, I couldn’t strap in, so I did all my trips without strapping in [laughs]. I never strapped in again, not with Roy flying. So he’d of never, I mean, he was flying with Air New Zealand afterwards he’d never have passed their medical if he’d of disclosed it, you know.
AS: But eventually, not in a Mosquito, but he’d be flying with throttles on the other hand, wouldn’t he? So the problem,
HH: Yeah.
AS: The problem would go away. So you’d had some leave, you were posted to fly to Pershore to fly Mosquitos.
H: Yeah. And we were sent on indefinite leave, Pershore sent us on indefinite leave. And I thought, oh God, I’ll be grounded for sure. So, I got on a train and went up to Air Ministry and saw a wing commander there and I said, look, there is a war going in in the Far East [unclear] aircraft ferried out there, coming back for maintenance and what have you. And he said, what a good idea, you know, come back in the morning, will you? And I got the whole lot posted out to the Far East. Fifteen or eighteen, I think I told you this before, didn’t I?
AS: I think so but we didn’t get in on the tape, I don’t think, no.
HH: No.
AS: I bet you were popular.
HH: Fifteen, oh God, when I got down to Lyneham they were moaning, ‘I’m just due for demob for God’s sake, why the heck do I have to, due for demob any day now.’
AS: I bet you kept quiet.
HH: And here I am, so I kept very quiet. And so, I mean I wasn’t due for demob for some time.
AS: So here we are, Lyneham in July ’45. A huge trip as a passenger on a deck. Thirty two hours flying.
HH: Yeah, back to Karachi, yeah.
AS: So by going, going East, you, did you, before you went, did you see, did you go on any of these trips over, over Germany to see all the destruction?
HH: No, no.
AS: Okay.
HH: I missed all that.
AS: You’d said earlier that you said a prayer for the people of Hamburg. What, at the end of the war, did you reflect at all on the, or during that, on the bombing? And what were your feelings about being involved in it in the war?
HH: Well, I’ve spoken to our vicar about it, you know, and said, do you think Saint Peter’s gonna let me through the gates? Or not. So she sat and he said a prayer for me. Lady vicar of course. Anyway, but I was invited out to Hanover as a guest of the mayor and the local newspaper to commemorate the 60th anniversary of when we bombed them.
AS: And you went?
HH: So I went over, yeah, well, I was asked to volunteer and I remember, at the Bomber Command meeting they said, did anybody go to Hanover, I said, well, I did. When I got home, I found out I’d been to Hanover about eleven times and [laughs] so I was well qualified.
AS: And are you pleased you went, did it turn out well?
HH: Yes, they were very, very, very nice, I like German people.
AS: So do I.
HH: I got two of them coming over now. Here any day now. I think. They stay up at [unclear] castle, ‘cause he’s paraplegic, he can’t get down my steps.
AS: Yeah.
HH: He’s, he had polio when he was a youngster. But they come over by air this time so he couldn’t bring his invalid scooter with him so I don’t know whether he’s gonna hire one when they’re here or not, I don’t know what they’re gonna do to get around.
AS: That should be possible, I think.
HH: Yeah.
AS: And these are friends you made when you went to Hanover?
HH: Yeah. Well, they were both reporters with the Hamburger Allgemeine. And anyway I was, the last day I was there in Hanover I was there for about three or four days, I had to attend a meeting of all the survivors from the raids and all the students from university there and the colleges and what have you and a little girl gets up and question time you see and she gets up and says, can I please explain what was the duty of the navigator? Well if you ask me a stupid question like that, I’m gonna give you a stupid answer, for sure. So I said, ‘Well, the reason why we carried a navigator, because we had to have someone on board who could read and write’ [laughs] and their mouths fell open, he went like this, everybody, so I said to my interpreter, I said, ‘Tell them, it was a joke, will you?’ ‘Ah, a joke, yeah, we got no sense of humour, we Germans, we’ve got no sense of humour at all.’ [unclear] So then, later on somebody, one of the survivors said, ‘Why did you bomb the city?’ So I said, ‘To be perfectly honest, we couldn’t hit anything smaller but just remember this,’ I said, ‘Right in the centre, almost within half a mile from the centre of Hanover there was the biggest rubber factory in Germany, so it made Hanover a very legitimate target.’ ‘Yes’, this man says, ‘But you didn’t hit it, did you? ‘Cause it’s still there!’ [laughs]. I said, ‘Well, and you tried to tell me that the Germans got no sense of humour?’ [laughs] And then I was on their side from then on.
AS: I’ve lived there for eleven years. I’m with you. I’ve lived there for eleven years.
HH: Have you?
AS: Yeah. They’re great people, great people. I think.
HH: In which part were you?
AS: I was in Munich for five years.
HH: Yeah.
AS: And then in Bonn and Cologne, in the Rhineland for about six altogether. Some of the places you visited by air, in fact. That’s the feelings of the Germans. How, there’s been a lot of controversy about how Bomber Command were treated after the war. Have you got any views on that?
HH: Well, I think, first of all, we should never, never have bombed Dresden, I think that was the biggest mistake we made. And Portal should have stood up and said, no! But he didn’t have the guts to do it, he didn’t have the guts to stand up to Churchill and it was Churchill who, on his way to Yalta, he stopped off at Malta, And they’d agreed to bomb five cities within reach of the Russian lines, you know, and I think Dresden was one and what’s that? And Leipzig and one other I think. Anyway he sent back this signal to Portal saying, from Malta saying, where is my spectacular, get on with it. So, Portal looked at the charts and he consulted the Met people and the only target available that night was Dresden. I didn’t go to Dresden, I went to Magdeburg, Magdeburg that night, you can see it on there, in that book there.
AS: You believe it was, that Dresden was the turning point and that?
HH: Mh?
AS: You believe that Dresden was some sort of turning point?
HH: Yeah.
AS: How Bomber Command were treated?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Did you, do you feel now that it’s changed with the memorials and the clasp?
HH: Yeah, I think so. I think, there was a time just after the war, when the people who were against us were the people who were in the Air Force or in one of the forces and they felt that we were, they didn’t want us to have any publicity, you know.
AS: After the war.
HH: Yeah. And then, and then since then, they’ve suddenly realised that you know, we had the highest losses of any unit in the, our forces, fifty five thousand killed, which is quite a lot, wasn’t it?
AS: Yeah. Fifty five thousand, five hundred and seventy three.
HH: Yeah.
AS: And you’ve seen a, well, or you see a change in attitudes now.
HH: Yes, I think, younger people are much more inclined to want to hear about it and talk about it and understand why we did it and there is no good saying, well, we were under orders to do it, because that’s what the Germans excuses were, you know, for their treatment of the in the concentration camps. We were under orders.
AS: And you did it because it was right?
HH: Well, we did it because we thought we were, ‘cause we were shortening the war and therefore less people would be killed.
AS: Is it, I agree, you say, that now people want to hear about it, is it good for you and other veterans to be able to talk about it after all this time?
HH: It’s getting more and more difficult, there’s so many books have been written on there, now.
AS: And you are actually in one of the books.
HH: Yeah.
AS: Steve Darlow’s book. How did all that come about? Did you get involved with him?
HH: I don’t know. He wanted, I think I was recommended by probably Bomber Command, you know, Dougie Radcliffe.
AS: Oh, the Bomber Command Association.
HH: Yeah.
AS: Have you always played a big part in that?
HH: No, no, I was mainly in the Pathfinders Association.
AS: Oh, okay.
HH: We were separate from, we were separate from the Bomber Command Association, but I’d already joined the Bomber Command Association when we disbanded. I’d already been a member for several years.
AS: And do you belong to your squadron or 102 Squadron association as well?
HH: Yeah. Yes, it’s, I’ve written a letter to, when I went to the VJ-Day celebrations⸻
AS: Yes.
HH: We had to fill out a form travelling expenses and I got three hundred pounds from the Lottery Fund.
AS: Excellent.
HH: And my son Jeremy, who’d driven me up there and then he got three hundred pounds as well. And I don’t, I hope he hasn’t. So I wrote a letter to the Big Lottery and said, thanking them for their, I said, so, twice a year I’ve got to go to, up to Pocklington in Yorkshire, which is rather expensive for me now ‘cause you got to go up Virgin cross country you know, right the way up to York and it’s a long journey that. It’s an interesting journey but there’s no, there was a little old lady pushing the tray along, pushing the trolley along, you know, that’s all that you get to eat with some coffee and a fruitcake or something.
AS: It’s not the same as a full dining car.
HH: I like the dining cars on, I’m going up on the 22nd of October I think, coming back on the 23rd, I always travel back down on the dining car which, on a train with a dining car which leaves at seven o’clock in the evening.
AS: Do you still have wartime comrades that you’ll meet in Pocklington?
HH: Oh yes, yeah. Most of them are dead now but.
AS: So, a lot of reminiscing and’
HH: Yeah. There’s a friend of mine, who was a previous chairman, Tom Wingate, who, he wrote a book called Halifax Down, ‘cause he was shot down on his second tour, and I used to have a copy but I can’t find it now. I don’t know what I have done with it, I lose things all the time now.
AS: I have a copy at home, I can send you one.
HH: Pardon?
AS: I have a copy, I can send you one.
HH: You got a copy of that?
AS: Yeah, I have.
HH: Halifax Down, yes, it’s not a bad book, actually. Except that he joined the squadron the same time as I did, his crew did. And he’s quoted in his book, as if he was there three or four months before me. He’s quoted various trips and he’s got these out of those old war diaries, wish I could find that. I wonder where I put it?
AS: Well, you’ll have to take your logbook the next time you meet him.
HH: Oh no, he’s dead now.
AS: Okay.
HH: That’s why I’ve taken over as chairman.
AS: After you came off ops, you did this trip out to the Far East, did you then get involved in ferrying aeroplanes?
HH: In what?
AS: Did you then get involved in ferrying aeroplanes?
HH: Oh yes, yeah.
AS: Okay.
HH: It’s quite a lot really. My very first trip was down to Akyab, on the Arakan coast. I think I told you, didn’t I?
AS: Yes, but not into the tape. So, what happened on that trip?
HH: I don’t think that particular trip’s in there, actually, I looked for it the other day and I can’t find it. I must have left it out for some reason.
AS: This was the trip with the Japanese.
HH: Yes, all the way around us were Zeros, you know. We could hear them yacketing away and then this Indian crew comes on with their Hurricanes and the Japanese just disappeared.
AS: What was the radio conversation about with these Indian squadrons, red flight?
HH: Pardon?
AS: What was the radio conversation story about the?
HH: Oh, well, the Indian crews? ‘Yes, red leader to yellow leader, how do you read me, over? Yellow leader to green, you are not red, you are green, you know? Red leader to yellow leader, I am not green, I am red. And this Aussie voice comes up by the blue, you are black, you bastard’ [laughs].
AS: So, it’s still a combat area that you’re flying replacement aircraft I suppose in to the squadrons?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Did you get involved in flying damaged aircraft for repair?
HH: Oh, I used to fly back from say Kamila or with two Pratt & Whitney’s engines in the back and a load of ENSA girls as well amongst them [laughs], sitting where they could and trying not to get greasy, ‘cause these, and yeah.
AS: Yeah. Shall we, pause there I think?
HH: Yeah.
AS: And wind it up. Thank you that, It’s been absolutely wonderful to hear.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Harry Hughes
Creator
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Adam Sutch
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-21
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AHughesWH151021
Format
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02:28:15 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Harry Hughes volunteered for the Royal Air Force in 1940 and trained in America, where he was washed out as a pilot and then retrained as a navigator in Canada, flying Ansons and Wellingtons. In 1942 he converted to Halifaxes and flew operations with 102 Squadron over Germany, being awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal for flying an operation to Berlin whilst on crutches. He recounts the routines of preparing to go on operations and his use of navigation aids including Gee, LORAN and later, Boozer in Mosquitos. He was bombstruck twice during operations. He completed 26 operations including the bombing of Hamburg which he describes as a firestorm and recalls saying a private prayer for the people of Hamburg below. After his tour finished, he then instructed before applying to go back on operations with 8 Group, flying Mosquitos with 692 Squadron and dropping Window for Pathfinder forces in 1944/45. In 2004 he visited Hanover and discussed the raids with survivors of the war. He was a member of a number of post war service associations and kept in contact with his crewmates.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Peter Schulze
Carolyn Emery
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Germany
Great Britain
Southeast Asia
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Essen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
United States
Alabama--Montgomery
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1943
1944
1945
102 Squadron
3 Group
6 Group
692 Squadron
8 Group
aircrew
Anson
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bomb struck
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
briefing
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Flying Medal
faith
Fw 190
Gee
ground personnel
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Halifax Mk 2
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
incendiary device
Ju 88
Me 109
Me 110
Me 262
medical officer
meteorological officer
military service conditions
Mosquito
navigator
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
Portal, Charles (1893-1971)
promotion
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Harwell
RAF Riccall
RAF Wombleton
Stirling
training
Wellington
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/887/11126/AHughesJ171123.2.mp3
33dfe3a2b506d35007a636f6c426d4e4
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
Hughes, Janet
J Hughes
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Janet Hughes (b. 1958) about her father Reginald Charles Wilson (b. 1923). He served in Bomber Command.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-23
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hughes, J
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewer is David Meanwell, the interviewee is Janet Hughes. The interview is taking place at Mrs Hughes’ home in Farnham in Surrey on the 23rd of November 2017, and is the second interview with Mrs Hughes. If we could perhaps pick up from where we left off, where they’re now continuing to fly as spare bods without a settled crew?
JH: Okay. Well, a month elapsed, I don’t know quite why that was for operational reasons since the previous flight, and dad’s next operation as a spare was mine laying, which I think was fairly uneventful, that was on the 11th of November 1943, which coincidentally is seventy-three years before his death. The next one was a trip to Mannheim and Ludwigshafen; this was one of the diversionary raids which were organised to- As a decoy to deflect the German attention from the main target which was Berlin. So, they did it hoping that the, the fighters would think that was the main raid and therefore the less- Berlin would be less heavily defended. The next one, on the 22nd of November was a very big one, very famous raid, it was the second of the battles collectively known as the Battle of Berlin. It was the third heaviest of the entire war, and also the most successful, because there was considerable damage to industry and munitions factories, in particular. An interesting point of that raid from my point of view, as Reg’s daughter, is that the Kaiser Wilhelm church in the centre of Berlin was badly damaged. Now the Kaiser Wilhem Gedächtniskirche was a, a two-towered cathedral-like church in the centre of Berlin with many precious artefacts and, and paintings, and it was almost completely destroyed, and it was big landmark and still is a big landmark, was one of the iconic landmarks of Berlin that you think of when you think of Berlin. After the war the decision was made to keep the ruins as a reminder of the destruction of war, and the, and the, and the heartache that it causes and a brand new cathedral was erected by its side, not in any way trying to replicate the original church ‘cause it’s very modern and I think the tower is- Well certainly I think the main church is hexagonal and it’s very sort of geometrical- Looks like a hat box, and it’s entirely glazed with glass which I believe was a gift from Chatres in France as a sort of peace thing, and it’s very, predominantly blue, and when you sit in the modern church you kind of have a sense- Almost a sensation of being underwater. It’s very beautiful, I mean it’s very stark in many ways ‘cause it’s very modern but it’s also very beautiful, and like Coventry Cathedral it sits aside the, the, the original church. One little point of interest here is that in 2005, when we were back on a, on a research visit to Berlin about which, more later, I asked my father what he wanted to see, you know, what he wanted to visit in Berlin ‘cause we’d- I was teaching at the time and it was half term, we didn’t have very long. So, I said, ‘Look, you know, we’ve got a couple of days, what are your priorities?’ and straight away he identified that church as a priority which surprised me ‘cause he wasn’t in any sense a religious man, and when I- I kind of said to him, well, you know, ‘Why do you want to see that, do you want to see the outside or do you want to go inside?’, ‘No, I want to go inside,’ and when we got there, I’d seen it before ‘cause I’ve been to Berlin many, many times and dad just sat there for- with my mum, for quite a long time just, you know, staring into space seemingly, and the significance of it wasn’t lost on me because it was a church which theoretically, he could’ve bombed personally, because he was on that raid and I think he was making his peace. He never said so, but I think that’s what was going on. Anyway, dad’s plane on the mission of the 22nd of November,that particular bombing raid, dad’s plane was unscathed but it did have a near miss on the way back to Pocklington in Yorkshire, when two other planes that were very close to dad’s plane, collided on their attempt to land, and with the loss of all lives of both crews. So, you know, you could, you could return from a hair-raising trip like that and then get killed over, over the Yorkshire countryside on your way home, that was, that was the lottery of Bomber Command. So, three days later dad did another trip to Frankfurt, on the 25th, which I don’t think was a particularly eventful trip, but then they were called again [emphasis], the following night and pepped up with caffeine and pink gins on the 26th of November. That was another diversionary raid, because the main bomber thrust was going to Berlin. So that’s the 22nd, the 25th, and the 26th, so what kind of physical and mental state they must’ve been after three raids in four nights I cannot imagine. Dad was due to do another flight as a spare and I think this must’ve been shortly afterwards although the date isn’t specified in his, in his notes, and that one was aborted because the plane on which he was flying as a spare taxied into mud, and was unable to take off, and dad was quite relieved about that because I think he, he just didn’t have any confidence in, in the crews that he was flying with as a spare. That turned out to be the last mission that he flew with as a spare because not long afterwards they crewed up again. December ‘43 was quite a quiet month, that’s because there was a full moon, now earlier in the war when there was a full moon, they all used to think, ‘Oh good,’ you know, ‘We’ve got good visibility,’ and it was even known as a bomber’s moon. But as the German defences improved, they learnt that it was not a clever idea to fly when there was a full moon because not only could they see very much more easily, but they could also be seen, and there were quite a lot of occasions when they entire bomber stream was, was identified early on by the, the flak and the night fighters with catastrophic results, so, you know, they basically learnt not to, not to fly on those nights. Also, during December there was a period of poor weather, of other kinds that, that made flying not a good idea. So, they’d gone sort of quite a long time before they were crewed up. Now, the final crew, and this is important because this was, this was my dad’s, you know- This is the crew that I’m still in touch with, or at least I’m in touch with the second generation, because my late father was the last member of this crew alive, and he died a year ago. So, the full crew was- The pilot was Flight Officer George Griffiths DFM, he was on his second tour so he was a very experienced pilot. There was a second dickie pilot, with them. Now, second dickie pilots were those who’d completed their training but who flew as spares in the sense that they were observers, and I think they had to do two of these before they were allowed to, to command their own crew. So, the second dickie pilot, who as the eighth member of what would normally be a seven-man crew, was Sergeant Kenneth Stanbridge. Then there was the flight engineer, Sergeant John Bremner who had done previous ops, the wireless operator, Eric Church, who was a flight sergeant, he had done previous ops, and the mid-upper gunner, Flight Sergeant Charles Dupueis, who was a Canadian. It says in dad’s notes that he was a French Canadian but I’ve, in- Since I’ve published the book, I’ve been in touch through Facebook with relatives and it turns out that he, he wasn’t a French speaker at all, and that also perhaps accounts for the misspelling of the surname, because it’s not the conventional spelling of Dupueis, and I think if there was French blood it was obviously several generations back because he wasn’t a French speaker. Dad found it surprising that now these five people had, had been teamed up for that night’s operations, and theoretically for future operations with the exception of Stanbridge, with the original crew, or the remains of the original crew that is, Johnny Bushell the rear gunner, Laurie Underwood the bomb aimer, and my father the, the navigator, you, you would’ve expected that a new crew would’ve been given time to gel and would’ve been sent on some training flights, or some reconnaissance flights or something before they were sent off on an important mission. But that was not to be, and on the 29th of December, which again was the third anniversary to the night of the bombing raid on the city of London which provided my father’s inspiration to join the RAF in the first place, that’s the famous raid with the, iconic picture of St Paul‘s with everything around it in ruins, and this was exactly three years to the night from that raid and my dad was bombing Berlin, you know, getting them, getting. them back if you like. Although, he was not a vindictive man, it’s somewhat of an irony that three years later he was bombing Berlin. So, it was the eighth raid on Berlin by the RAF, it was the fifth heaviest, seven-hundred-and-twelve aircraft took part, two-thousand-three-hundred-and-twelve tonnes of incendiaries and high explosives were dropped in twenty minutes. From dad’s point of view, it was uneventful, from the point of view of not being shot at. He remembers seeing the Zuiderzee on the radar screen, using H2S on the way out. Bad weather had restricted the German night fighters to sixty-six, but due to two spoof raids by RAF Mosquitos the night fighters reached Berlin too late to be effective and this, this contributed to the success of the raid, in terms of the damage that it caused. They dropped their bombs from seventeen-and-a-half-thousand feet, on the target indicators but they couldn’t see whether or not they’d caused any damage. Sometimes you get these photographs where you can actually see the, the fires. That was due to the fact that there was ten-tenths cloud cover. The overall losses that night were only two-point-eight percent, which is lower than many of the other Berlin raids, but 102 Squadron, dad’s squadron, yet again managed to beat the average with two aircraft missing, and on one of the aircraft that was shot down, one of the crew members was named Harold Par, and he was on his first op, and he later became a POW in the same camp as my father, Stalag 4B and he was in the same hut as my father, and about- Let me think, this would be about twenty years later, he was living in Chigwell in Essex, and his son was in the same class at Buckhurst Hill Boys Grammar School as my brother. So, my brother and Howard, who was Harold’s son became good friends and when, their fathers met, so that’s my father and, and Howard’s father, they realised that they’d been in the same POW hut, and in the same squadron, and on the same raid. So that’s, that's a pretty good set of coincidences, such is life. So, we move into 1944, and January ‘44 began as another month of inactivity, bad weather, another full moon, and the combination of these two events meant that there was a reluctance to send Halifax Mk 2’s to Berlin because they were being recognised by then as increasingly vulnerable, and in many squadrons they were already being replaced by the Mk 3’s which were less vulnerable. However, another maximum effort to attack Berlin was required, so dad’s second operation with the full crew including the second dickie pilot, Stanbridge, was scheduled for the 20th of January 1944. This was six days before my father’s twenty-first birthday, so he’s twenty. So, dad was responsible as one of the four navigators operating HS2, sorry H2S, get it confused with the railway H2S equipment in 4 Group. 4 Group comprised fifteen squadrons, totalling between two-hundred-and-fifty and three-hundred aircraft. Dad had to radio interview- intervals his calculated wind velocities back to Group, to 4 Group, and they would average the readings from the four navigators and rebroadcast them to the whole of 4 Group to, enable them to concentrate the bomber stream. Dad was also due to do his own blind bombing that night. Now blind bombing means, when they weren’t bombing on Pathfinder markers using H2S, to identify the homing point, for a timed run. Now they only gave this to navigators with a good track record obviously because most of the others would, would follow the Pathfinder markers. So, dad was effectively a Pathfinder. The bombing raid was to be the ninth raid on Berlin, and the fourth heaviest. Seven-hundred-and-sixty-nine aircraft took part, two-thousand-four-hundred tonnes of incendiary and high explosive bombs were dropped in twenty minutes. It was considered to have been successful, although less concentrated than planned, and perhaps less successful than the one in December, which I mentioned earlier. Due to bad weather again over Germany the night fighters were limited to nighty-eight but they were experienced crews, and they were equipped with something called Schräge Musik which is- It means jazz, jazz music. That was code for upward-firing cannon, radar interception and critically H2S homing devices, and I think at this stage, they weren’t- They didn’t realise that the night fighters could home in on the H2S. It was a kind of cat and mouse scenario with the technology because each side would produce something new and then the other side would find a way to disable it, and so if you happened to be in the period where they just learnt how to intercept your new piece of technology and you didn’t know, it would make you very vulnerable. The night fighters, which were all twin engined were operating a new technique called tame boar. This meant they were directed by ground control into the bomber stream at intervals and over the target, and after this they were on their own really, they could fly freelance and use their own equipment to seek out bombers, fly beneath them out of sight of the gunners and fire cannon shells into the petrol laden wings, completely invisible. Additionally, on this night thin cloud covering Berlin with tops at about twelve-thousand feet was illuminated from below by many searchlights, so it’s, you know- It meant that they were effectively backlit, and the night fighters flying above the bomber stream could, could locate them, silhouetted against the bright backcloth, like back projection. So despite the limitations of night fighters, it was a highly successful night for them. They claimed thirty-three victories, nine of them over Berlin, out of the thirty-five bombers lost that night. So presumably the other two were flak but it meant that the night fighters had a fiesta, and in fact, there is some footage on YouTube from a, a German propaganda film bit like Pathé news which features the pilot responsible for the demise of five aircraft that night, and I’ll come back to him later. So, preparations; dad’s plane LW 337 Halifax Mk 2 Series IA took off at sixteen-thirty-hours GMT, in, in the- The plane was, as I’ve just said LW 337 was nicknamed Old Flo by the ground crew, something to do with the red- With the, with the numbers that were painted on the side, and they were soon flying above the ten tenths cloud. So first they used Gee, radar, and then H2S to map read. They flew uninterrupted on a northerly route into Germany turning south east sixty miles from Berlin. Berlin is a large city and there were too many stray reflections on the H2S screen to be able to identify the target position. Dad was instructed personally at the navigators briefing in Pocklington to identify a turning point. Taking a precise bearing, and distance on his screen of a small town doesn’t name it about ten miles north of Berlin and that was the commencement of a timed bombing run to the target which was Hitler’s chancery, and they flew in straight and level at eighteen-thousand feet, maintaining a pre-calculated track and groundspeed at the time set by stopwatches, and they dropped their bombs at twenty-hundred hours, GMT. Unfortunately, this procedure made them a sitting target for the night fighters because they’d hardly closed their bomb doors when they were hit by one of these aircraft. We had- They had trailed behind, this is the night fighters, this particular one had trailed behind and below dad’s plane waiting for the bombs to be released, obviously they didn’t want to be shooting at you before then ‘cause they might get in the way of the bombs, and then they fired the cannon shells upwards into the starboard wing, where there were more than a thousand gallons of petrol still aboard. A lot of petrol obviously needed for the return trip, so two-thousand gallons to start with, and if you got them over the target, half of that was still in the tanks, and it was only seconds before the whole wing caught fire. Dad can remember Griff, the pilot George Griffiths shouting, ‘Graviners engineer.’ The graviners were switches used to activate the fire extinguishers for the engines, but it was to no avail and the blaze was so fierce that Griff realised that the aircraft was stricken, that there was nothing he could do, and so he immediately called, ‘Parachute, parachute, bale out’. Now dad was already wearing his parachute I think in an earlier interview I explained that after a near miss he used to put it on over the target and pull up his navigation seat to facilitate quick access to the escape hatch and so, he lifted the escape hatch door and dropped it diagonally through the hatch itself, but it caught in the slip stream and jammed half in and half out. With dad’s efforts combined with those of the wireless operator Eric Church and Laurie Underwood, the bomb aimer, they did manage to kick the door clean. So, he- Dad sat on the edge of the escape hatch and dropped through immediately, followed closely by Laurie. This was truly a leap of faith, a leap into the dark with fingers and toes crossed. They had no idea what would happen next. They were surrounded by flak, searchlights, well-illuminated, very vulnerable. The wireless operator had no time to follow them, although he’d helped to kick out the escape hatch, he perished with the plane. Dad believes that after Laurie dropped out the blazing aircraft went out of control and into a spiral dive. So, dad and Laurie baled out at seventeen-thousand feet. Dad spun over a few times and then pulled the ripcord. The canopy opened, and when the harness tightens around his crotch this is in his own notes he said it brought him to his senses in double quick time. Sure all the men amongst you can understand why that might be. Below him and to his left he could see another parachute and to this day he doesn’t know whether it was Laurie’s or not but, obviously we know that Laurie survived, and Dad and Laurie didn’t actually see each other again until Laurie’s wedding after the war, in June 1945. So, dad was floating on a layer of light cloud, or over, over a layer of light cloud I should say, and he could see the glow of the fires beneath it with heavy flak, tracer shells, hose piping around in the sky, and he floated down for ten to fifteen minutes, which is incredible when you think of being that vulnerable for a whole ten to fifteen minutes, it’s quite unthinkable. He said he didn’t feel cold, doesn’t remember feeling cold, although at the altitude when he, where he baled out it would’ve been about minus thirty-four Celsius. There was a sixty mile-an-hour northerly wind prevailing, and this was, you know, 20th of January so, pretty damn cold. But because of the wind he drifted away from the centre of the city which, which might well of saved his life, because he was out of the hot spot so to speak. His, his sensations were of silence. The deafening noise from the aircraft’s engine which was present all the time during the night, during the flight, had gone, and once he’d blown away from the target, there was, the sound of the flak had died away too, so there’s this uncanny silence, and blackness as he descended through the cloud, and as he got near the ground, he thought he was gonna land in marshes because in the light that was available it looked like marshland. So, he thought he was gonna need his Mae West life jacket. So, as he, as he got closer it- He realised that what he could see beneath him wasn’t actually marshland but a canopy of trees in a small wood, that turned out to be a southern suburb of Berlin. So, he crashed through the trees, fell the last fifteen feet and his injuries amounted to a grazed face and a sprained ankle. Remarkable that these were the only injuries he sustained. So, in fewer than twenty minutes his life had gone through a dramatic change. He survived by a hair's breadth, a mix of emotions, elated at being alive but then what of his crew? He had no idea whether any of them had survived. He thought about his family, and how they would suffer when they were informed by telegram the next morning that he was missing. A few hours beforehand he’d been eating egg and bacon only available before operational flights in the mess at Pocklington with his aircrew colleagues all around him, laughing and joking. The friendly town of York, twelve miles away, and imminent home leave to get his officer's kit. Well, that wasn’t going to happen now. He was in hostile Germany, in south eastern suburbs, he wondered what would happen if he were caught by civilians, having just bombed their city. Nobody here would care whether he lived or died. It was the depths of winter, he was in enemy territory six-hundred miles from home, and on him he had some French francs they weren’t going to be much use, a handkerchief with a map of France printed on it equally useless, and a magnetic trouser button with a white spot on it, which when cut off the flies and balanced on a pencil point would point north, so that’s his compass, high tech. Oh, and a tin of Horlicks tablets, which was all he had to sustain him while he evaded capture and made his way back to England. He was still in his flight sergeants' uniform, in spite of having been commissioned on the 1st of December, nearly two months previously, and he was five days away from his twenty-first birthday. So, he walked because he had nothing, there’s nothing else he could do, and about eight hours later he disturbed a dog while trying to hide in a barn, and at this point he was captured by the civilian police. What had happened to the crew? Well, we now know that Laurie had blacked out during part of his parachute drop, but landed uninjured and he was captured by the military. Also, something that dad didn’t know till later only four of the crew of eight came through the ordeal. So, the two survivors that we, we suspected were dad and Laurie, the one who followed him out through the escape hatch. The other two survivors had an even more miraculous escape because Griff, the pilot, and Johnny really, just, just benefitted from extraordinary good luck. Because after Laurie and dad had baled out, the aircraft had gone into a spiral dive and Griff, the pilot, was thrown forward onto the controls and he was held in his seat by the, the g-force of the spiral dive and he saw the altimeter this is in his own notes which I also have, he saw the altimeter unwind past seven-thousand feet, and basically wondered how long before the end came, and at that point he lost consciousness, trapped in, in the cockpit. Dad believes that the petrol tanks exploded, ‘cause there’s no other explanation, there was no escape hatch, and Griff was blown out and he had his parachute on, at some point he must’ve put that on, and he regained consciousness just in time to pull the rip cord, a couple of hundred feet from the ground, and he knows this because his parachute was still swinging like a pendulum when he landed. What normally happens is it swings like a pendulum and then eventually reaches equilibrium and then you go down straight, but he was still swinging, so, you know, it must’ve been a matter of minutes, maybe seconds since it opened, and he thumped down among debris from the aircraft on waste ground, in Berlin, quite a long way from dad ‘cause, you know, they didn’t obviously get out at the same time and the aircraft continued to travel. He was uninjured but in shock, he wrapped himself up in the parachute and went to sleep under a bush, and he was discovered the next morning by a party of civilians, led by a soldier. Now Johnny the rear gunner, he was thrown over his guns during the spiral dive and also lost consciousness and he came to in the air. So, he must’ve been blown out as well. In similar circumstances to Griff, he opened his parachute near the ground but he landed close to a searchlight battery and so he was captured immediately, so there was no delay as there was with dad and the other two. He had a bad cut over his right eye and a bruised face but otherwise was alright, and one thing that dad always stressed was that the four crew who were killed were those who were, were new to them. He believes that the bond that he and- Certainly that he and Laurie and Johnny had had, had somehow kept them safe. The wireless operator- So of the four who perished, the wireless operator and the co-pilot were eventually buried in the British war cemetery in Charlottenburg in, in Berlin, having previously been buried just, you know, where, where there was a space. So, one was buried in, I think in Spandau and the other one was taken to a civilian graveyard about fifty miles east, ‘cause basically they just had to put them where they had spaces, and then later they were, they were exhumed and buried in the war cemetery. An interesting point is that when Griff, the pilot, was asked by the German military, ‘Tell us the name of your wireless operator, so that we can bury him with a name’. So, you know, I expect, Griff must’ve thought well, you know, ‘should I give them this information?’ But otherwise, he would’ve been buried, you know, in an unmarked grave, and because of Griff he, his name was on his grave. Now the flight engineer, and the mid-upper gunner were neither found, nor identified, and having no known graves, they were remembered only on the war memorial at Runnymede. Another point, the mid upper gunner the, the Canadian, Dupueis he’d avoided an assignment to Berlin on his thirteenth operation because he’d been, he’d been drafted to a comparatively safe mission instead and so, the one to Berlin turned out to be his fourteenth operation but it turned out to be just as unlucky as thirteen. He carried a lucky rabbit's foot with him, but it didn’t help him. Another thing, the, the flight- The wireless operator, Eric Church, had taken some milk from the sergeants mess for his own use, and my father had seen this, and had criticised him, saying you know, that’s not for civilians, that’s for us. What dad didn’t know at the time was that he, he had taken the milk for his young wife who was living near Pocklington and who was expecting a baby, and, my dad was destined to meet that baby later on in 2008. He lives just outside Southampton and I am in fairly regular contact with him, so that's a nice little story. After the war, dad realised that not only was the 20th of January 1944 a big night for him, but it was recorded by both sides as one of unprecedented activity. Fifty years later, through the help of a German archivist, they discovered that the plane had been shot down by an ace night fighter Pilot Hauptmann Leopold Fellerer, in a twin-engine Messerschmitt Bf 110 G-4. He had forty-one victories to his credit, over the war, he was awarded the Knight’s Cross, and that night had shot down five aircraft including dad’s. He became gruppenkommandeur of the night fighter group and later became a high-ranking officer in the Austrian air force, and ironically was killed in a Cessna flying accident in 1968. In 2005 the German archivist had provided dad with a map of Berlin showing approximately where the aircraft had crashed, which was about seven miles southeast of Hitler‘s chancery, at [unclear] and this confirms that they were on target that night as the crash point was on our track less than two minutes flying distance from the time when they’d released their bombs. So if you do all the maths you can see that they must’ve been bang on the target at eight o’ clock. So, there’s an extract here from the 102 operational record which is held on the microfilm at the public records office in Kew so it says, ‘Weather: foggy, clearing later. Visibility: moderate to good. Wind: southerly, 20 to 25 mph’. Sixteen aircraft were detailed to attack Berlin on what proved to be probably the most disastrous operation embarked upon by 102 Squadron. It’s- Who suffered the loss of five crews, Griffis DFM, that’s dad’s crew Dean, Render, Wilding, Compton. Two other aircraft were lost in Britain, so one had to abandon the aircraft because they ran out of petrol and another one crashed near Norwich, and the bomb- The air bomber died of his injuries. So, seven of the sixteen aircraft from that squadron were lost that night. That’s nearly fifty-percent, and five crews were lost, and this exceptional night of misfortune was never repeated, within that squadron anyway. So that was the end of dad’s time in Bomber Command, so after reforming as a full crew, they’d only done two operations, and that for dad made ten in all. But in spite of that they’ll go down in the annals of 102 Squadron as having been shot down on the night when the squadron suffered the loss of seven out of sixteen operation aircraft, or forty-four-percent of the planes that flew that night, and that’s a loss which is greater than any other operation in the squadron’s history in both World Wars. Dad also appended that 102 Squadron was not a lucky squadron. After that disastrous night another four aircraft were lost the following night to Magdeburg, so that was 21st of January, and shortly after this as the losses continued, they were stood down. Too late for dad, but they were stood down from operations over Germany. So, they did, you know, perhaps mine laying and, and trips to France, but they took them off the really perilous missions, and then the Halifax Mk 2’s were withdrawn, and they were replaced by the Mk 3’s, which were equal to the Lancasters of that time in their operational efficiency. But for dad’s crew the new aircraft arrived too late, otherwise they might’ve had a better chance of survival and they might’ve been able to complete at least one tour of thirty ops, and they might’ve been able to avoid ending up in captivity for the rest of the war. In the Second World War, 102 Squadron suffered the highest losses in the whole of Group 4 of bomber command, that’s fifteen squadrons and the third highest losses in the whole of bomber command, that’s ninety-three squadrons. [Beep] So, dad said that he’d disturbed a dog and the dog drew attention to dad and a farm worker, who was waking up- It was early morning, I don’t know exactly what time but this, this farm- He was a kind of overseer and he was going round and knocking on doors of all the agricultural workers to wake them up, and he handed dad over to a couple of policemen, one of whom had a revolver and the other one had a pair of handcuffs, but they indicated to dad that, you know, they wouldn’t use any kind of restraint or violence as long as he behaved himself. So, they walked him to the police station where my dad remembers being exhibited like a trophy to the policeman’s wife. He was searched and they took all his possessions away. Interestingly, they asked him if he was Jewish. My dad could’ve been Jewish if you look at the photograph in the book, you can see that he had very dark hair and quite a prominent nose although that was because he got hit by a cricket ball when he was twelve, but, you know, they wouldn’t know that, and it makes you wonder why they wanted to know because even if he had been Jewish, as a British POW, you know, they weren’t- There was a German Jew actually in my father’s POW camp, who was incarcerated there rather than in a concentration camp because he was a British POW and therefore under the protection of the Geneva convention. Anyway, another person who interviewed him was a very attractive young woman who had perfect English and appeared with, you know, very long legs and very long hair and dad said that, you know, she definitely improved his morale. Then he- They returned, I think, his cigarettes and he offered one to the policeman and they smoked them together. I don’t- They were clearly trying to get information at this point, but they weren’t- They were very correct. I don’t, I don’t think- They might’ve been a bit smug but, but, but he certainly wasn’t ill-treated by the police, he was fortunate to have been apprehended by authority rather than civilians because it’s well known that people who were initially found by civilians, if the civilians weren’t being monitored by anybody else, they sometimes, you know, applied their own sanctions and put pitchforks through people and so on, and that apparently increased towards the end of the war. But everybody knew that you were better off being apprehended by authorities particularly, well, military rather than gestapo. Then he was given a sandwich, which was wrapped in a newspaper with a very prominent piece of propaganda on it about the American [unclear] as they called them, and he said, you know, to his dying day he didn’t know whether that was a coincidence or whether it was deliberate. It gave him something to think about. Then he was taken by car to Werneuchen which was the night fighter station and, on this journey he, he was driven through the, the less damaged parts of Berlin. Again, I think that was deliberate to show him, you know, you haven’t actually inflicted any damage on our city. The route was very carefully chosen. From there he was in a guard house cell and he was, interviewed by a guard, who had been a bomber pilot over London, or so he claimed, and had you know participated in some of the Blitz raids, and my dad apparently quipped to him, ‘Now we are quits’. These people all had pretty good English and I’m sure he understood. He remembers a meal of macaroni pudding being given to him at this point, which was the first decent meal he’d had since he was shot down several days previously, and he said it was like a feast, never have macaroni- Tasted so good. From Werneuchen he was taken by underground to Spandau, and he said this was a very frightening experience because there were several captives and I think only one guard or two guards, certainly not enough to protect them if the civilians got nasty, and this was a very, very frightening experience because, you know, he thought he was gonna get lynched at any minute and they were all spitting and gesticulating and, you know, dad said he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t of wanted to be without the protections of the guards. In Spandau they were kept in a bunker to protect them from the bombs, their own bombs. There are- There were still no sign of his crew at this point but there were lots of others and obviously they shared stories, but at any moment they didn’t know whether they were being watched or listened to, so I don’t suppose the conversations were very natural. The food was very poor, in the bunker. Then there was another incident where they took all his possessions off him and a guard offered him one of his own cigarettes. From there they went by train to Dulag Luft at Frankfurt-am-Meim. This is where they were kept in solitary confinement in cells with a straw palias and the notorious electric heater, which was not just for their comfort but also for their discomfort because the temperature was intermittently turned up to, I think one-hundred-and-twenty degrees Celsius dad said, in order to try and make them crack. Here he met the notorious ‘Red Cross representative’ in inverted commas who asked them for lots of personal information over and over again, weren’t aggressive, but dad would’ve been warned about these people, they weren’t really anything to do with the Red Cross and he persisted in only giving his name, rank and number. So, there he is in the cell with a cigarette, which he couldn’t light because he didn’t have any matches, and he said he remembers picking a piece of straw up out of the palias and sticking it in the fire to see if he could make it light enough to light the cigarette, but it didn’t work. The interrogators showed him pictures of things like H2S and asked him what it was for and he said, ‘I don’t know,’ and they seemed to know an awful lot about the RAF and they knew which squadrons people had come from. Dad later realised that they were able to identify- They were able to work this out from the numbers painted on the sides of the planes which they could then link with squadrons. So, you know, they, they made it seem that they knew more about you then they actually did, but it was all done, well partly to demoralise you and partly to make you think, ‘Well they know that much, it won’t hurt if I tell them some more’. On my father’s twenty-first birthday, he asked- He told them it was his twenty-first birthday and he asked them if he could have a shave, and they duly provided him with a towel and hot water, and soap and a razor, and so on, which was a nice gesture, but not really what one hopes for their twenty-first birthday present. One of the interrogators told him that 102 Squadron were ‘one of our best customers,’ which dad just thought was bravado but when he got- Later when he was looking at the statistics, he found that they were right. His astro watch was never returned to him, it was formally confiscated and he, he had a receipt for it, which we still have, you know, and he did joke when we were in Berlin that he was going to go to the authorities and say ‘Right well here’s the receipt, can I have it back?’. Some of the other possessions, not the watch, were returned to him at this point, but not the rest of the cigarettes, and not his photographs. But, at this point he did meet up with Johnny, Johnny Bushell, his rear gunner, and he was overjoyed. They had no news of any of the others but they knew that at least two of them had survived. At the Dulag transit camp they were presented with a cardboard suitcase, by the Red Cross which contained basic items of underwear, toiletries and so on, and funnily enough a pair of pyjamas. At some point there was a cartoon with a- I think this was probably somebody in the prison camp, who, who did a cartoon of a guy coming down, you know, in a parachute having been shot down carrying a suitcase containing a pair of pyjamas as if, you know, they’d jumped out of the plane with them. In the transit camp the food was good, because it was provided by the Red Cross, and at this point dad was also able to send a postcard home to his parents, which we still have, saying that he was safe and they, that they mustn’t worry. Obviously wasn’t able to tell them where he was, and in any case, he was still in transit, he didn’t know where he was gonna go. So, from this, this transit camp, they were transported to, the prison camp that Johnny and my father were allocated to, which was Stalag 4B. This was in a series of cattle trucks, very similar to the ones that the Jews were moved to the concentration camps, that were marked forty men and eight horses, or something like that, in French. They were obviously rolling stock that had been commandeered and been taken from France because the signage was all in French, and that was a terrible journey taking a couple of days with only a bucket to pee in, in the corner. They couldn’t sit or lie down because they were rammed in so that they had to stand up. Every now and then the train would stop and they would all have to get off and defecate next to the line. The only slight relief that they had during that time was that they were able to eat some [emphasis] of the contents of the Red Cross parcels, but only that which didn’t require a can opener. Now, dad’s theory at this point was that he missed Griff and Laurie at the transit camp because they’d either arrived earlier or later, probably earlier, than Johnny and, and my father, and because they were both commissioned officers and could prove it, they went to a different camp anyway, they went to Stalag Luft 3, the scene of the great escape in Sagan which is in modern day Poland, but dad because he couldn’t prove his rank, and that was a critical point, that he couldn't prove that he had just been commissioned because he went with Johnny to Stalag 4B which was not an RAF camp specifically, and there my father remained for a year, until his commission came through at which point he left Johnny behind. Which I think cut him up quite a lot because they were muckers together, which meant they would share their rations and cooked for each other, but dad said at that point that Johnny was a very sociable type, unlike my dad actually who’s quite reserved and that dad felt sure that he would team up with some other people. Dad then went on to- Initially to a camp in Eichstätt in Bavaria which obviously was a long way away, and then towards the end of the war when everything started to fragment there was, there were a series of movements, all of which is described in great detail in my father's own words in our book, which is entitled “Into the Dark: A Bomber Command Story of Combat, Survival, Discovery and Remembrance.” It’s published- It was published in 2015 by Fighting High, and the authors are Janet Hughes née Wilson, myself, and Reginald Wilson, who was still alive at time of publication. [Beep]
DM: Do you have any idea how his time in Bomber Command, being shot down and later becoming a captive effected your father in later life?
JH: Well yes, I, I- My grandmother always said that he’d never been the same after the war, and yet I know other people who went through similar experiences to my father who, who, who had a more positive and optimistic view of life. So I think some of it was down to his personality. I think he as a child was a very shy little boy, he was very meticulous, he wasn’t very adventurous, he was very studious. You know, perhaps a bit reluctant to join in, that kind of thing, and a combination of that and the horrific experiences that he went through kind of shaped him forever. I, I keep meaning to ask my aunt, who’s still alive, she’s ninety-eight now, if she’s got any recollection of, you know, her impression of how he changed when he did come back, in 1945. During the prisoner of war as a- days, as I’ve said it was a, it was a, it was a Stalag, well the first year anyway it was a Stalag, they didn’t have enough to eat, they were very cold, they were quite bored a lot of the time although they did have an opportunity to study, and, you know, they, they put on musicals and that sort of thing. They weren’t badly treated really, they were just very, very hungry and cold and a lot of them succumbed to- As the place got more and more overcrowded, a lot of them succumbed to, you know, typhus and typhoid and, and TB and things like that, so certainly the people that were prisoners of war for a long time dad really only had a year in that very bad camp suffered more, more than he did. But- And then the, the second camp that he was in was, was, was much more comfortable but I think really the worst thing was the complete lack of privacy, that’s probably the worst thing of all, you know, never being able to be on your own, to do your own thing, being permanently surrounded by other people, and obviously you needed them for moral support but there must have been times when you just wanted to get away, you know, imagine going to the toilet with, with forty other people. Not even, you know, the most basic human, human functions being witnessed by thirty-nine other people. It must have been awful, and, and he was very private, always very private, you know, my parents never walked around without their clothes on, you know, like I sometimes do or, you know, they always locked the door of the bathroom and that kind of thing, and, and they were very kind of- Well that, that might’ve been a generational thing I don’t, I don’t know but I think when my dad did get home he cherished, you know, the ability to, to, to have privacy when you wanted it. When I was a child in the 1960’s his mental wounds were still too raw to allow him to talk to me about his experiences. He occasionally still had horrific nightmares which I remember really clearly. They caused him to sit bolt upright and scream, and I had an adjacent bedroom and I would wake up, it would be loud enough to disturb us even in a well-built house, you know, with brick walls not like in these days, the partition walls and I can remember, you know, going round and knocking on the bedroom door and saying, ‘Mummy what's happening,’ and she’d say, ‘Oh it’s alright, daddy’s had a bad dream, go back to sleep he’s alright now,’ and I must’ve thought, you know, that daddies had nightmares, that’s what daddies did in bed. I didn’t know any better, and I suppose I must’ve thought that it happened to all my friends’ fathers as well, I didn’t realise that dad was different, in that respect, but also, he was a bit older than a lot of my friends’ fathers because he was thirty-one when he married my mother, having been dumped by the woman who he was going out with before he got shot down, and he was thirty-two when my brother was born and thirty-five when I was born, so he was quite a lot older, probably ten years older than some of my friends’ fathers. So, by the 1970’s, I was at grammar school and I was studying German. He never had any objection to me studying German, I had a choice between German and Latin, my parents let me choose what I wanted to do. I don’t ever remember him questioning my desire to learn German or thinking it was a strange thing. He, he wasn’t anti-German, he never had been, he was anti-Nazi and he always made a distinction between those two things. He had a lot of respect for the Germans actually, because they were generally very law abiding and because dad was law abiding, he liked their formality in the fact that, you know, they always did things by the book. I think that kind of had a resonance with him really. In the sixth form, when I was studying German A-Level I also, as part of the course had to study modern history, as it related to Germany since the war and, and during the division of Germany ‘cause of course at that time the wall was still up and Germany was two countries, and you know, my father who had all these amazing stories to tell, couldn’t or wouldn’t share them with me and I don’t know whether that was because he couldn’t or because he didn’t want to or just because he was so busy because he had a, he had a very prestigious career. He was eventually a management consultant with Unilever and he travelled all over the world and, you know, he worked hard and he commuted into London and to be honest he wasn’t there all that much and when he was, he wanted us out of the way, you know, so that he could spend time with my mother and he travelled a lot, you know, he was sometimes away for weeks on end. So, I just thought, ‘Oh well what a shame,’ you know, he didn’t want to look at my photographs of Berlin taken in the late seventies when the wall was still up and I went there as a student. I thought he never would talk about it but I was wrong, fortunately, and it all happened on the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day. Well actually a bit before that in, in the run up to January 1994, you know, dad realised it was a big event, he’d kept in touch with the other three survivors, they sort of, you know, occasionally met up and exchanged Christmas cards and things, and they decided that for that fiftieth anniversary they would all meet up. So, they all met up three of them had wives, Johnny had never married, and they met in a hotel in Peterborough because it was central for all of them to kind of, you know, reminisce and toast the fifty years of life that they’d had unexpectedly afterwards and, you know, share artefacts. The pilot by this time had started to do a bit of initial research into where the plane had come down, but he died not all that long afterwards, about four years afterwards, and he hadn’t completed this research, and, you know, the whole thing- The whole of the country was suddenly talking about the war. In the summer of 1994 there was a lot of TV coverage of the anniversary of D-Day and by then dad was, what was he then? Seventy, seventy-one, and he was developing a growing sense of time passing and the compelling need to share his story with others and he started to talk and write about his experiences. He’d always wanted to find out where his plane had crashed and having inherited some of- copies of things that the pilot had discovered, he went to the RAF museum, he went to the public records office at Kew. He slowly gathered bits together but it was, it was a bit of a patchwork, it was a, it was a jigsaw with quite a lot of pieces missing. So, in July 2005- So that was another ten years later, I think he’d written his, his memoirs by then and, well partly written his memoirs, and put it on a floppy disk so that we all had copies. He, he suddenly started using the internet an awful lot, you know, for a man of his age he was, he was quite competent with computers and, he discovered Google Earth, and this meant that he was able to compare this map that he’d got with the, with the approximate crash site marked on it, something that the pilot had given him. He tried to compare the two and I was over there in the summer and he said, ‘Look at this,’ you know, ‘We might be able to find out where my plane crashed,’ and I told him he was bonkers but humoured him, and he decided he wanted to pursue it and I didn’t see that it could do any harm, so I agreed to help him, when I wasn’t teaching ‘cause I was busy teaching full time. He contacted a German museum curator and an archivist, and the curator put him in touch with a journalist, and the journalist together with the archivist sort of launched a campaign in a local newspaper on his behalf, and appealed for witnesses to the, to the crash. They knew approximately where the plane had come down, they knew the night, they knew the time of the raid, and they asked for witnesses, and, you know, a lot of people replied who didn’t really have all that much to say, or it was interesting but not directly relevant. But there were sixty responses and these lead to an incredible discovery which nobody could have anticipated at all. Just incredible. So, Ralph Dresser[?] was the investigative journalist and he collated these sixty responses and some turned out to be eye-witnesses, one in particular had actually seen the wreckage of my further- my father’s plane. He’d been a schoolboy, he was now a retired dentist, and he remembered going through the wood on the morning after the crash, and seeing this plane which was being guarded, what, you know, until they could take it away ‘cause of where it had crashed, it wasn’t an easy thing to move ‘cause it had all woodland all around it. So they gave- The journalist organised a reception for us at the townhall in Köpenick on- In October, it was half term, October 2005, and- The atmosphere was amazing because, because, you know, here are all these people that had been bombing each other and they were all sitting round the table and telling anecdotes and the atmosphere was, was wonderful it was a, it was a atmosphere of, entirely of friendship and reconciliation, and towards the end of this reception this guy came forward and he had kept a diary as a schoolboy and in the diary was a record of, you know, his thoughts when they were in their cellar during the raid, during which my father's plane was shot down, and, you know, finding the plane the next day and there was a little sketch showing the plane and where all the bodies were, and it just seemed too much of a coincidence not, not to be connected but obviously we had no proof at that point, that it was dad’s plane. So, we went back in May 2006, again we had to wait until I could, you know, dedicate some time to it, school holidays. We didn’t want to do it during the winter, obviously. So we went back in May 2006, and we finally identified- Visited the site, identified by the main eye-witnesses as the crash site, and with the help of local historians, who’d all climbed on the band wagon, and a metal detector, one of them was a research, you know, a researcher into historic aircraft and had done a lot of these excavations and he had a metal detector, and we unearthed fragments of metal which had been buried underneath the leaf mould, and, you know, lots of bits of hinges and pipes and tools and, you know, it got more and more exciting until we eventually got to one fragment which had a reference number on it, which is a bit like the vin number on a car, and the researcher took it away and linked it to a particular series of Halifax bombers that were made in the English electric factory at Preston and it narrowed it down to a series of about fifty planes, and then we cross referenced that list with the list of losses for that night and we ended up with two planes, and then later dad established that the other plane had crashed on the other side of Berlin. So, we, we knew, you know, ninety-nine percent sure that it was dad's plane and he was so excited. I can remember him in the bathroom with the fragments of metal that we'd found and a nail brush and a tube of shower gel, you know, cleaning them up and he thought- He, he was just like a little boy at Christmas. But the story didn’t end there you know, I thought ‘Oh great, we’ve got some closure,’ you know, ‘Dad’s visited the crash site, he’s met these people, perhaps he’ll, perhaps he’ll have peace now’. But, the journalist carried on nibbling away and he told the Berlin police and sort of wound them up a bit and said ‘Oh,’ you know, ‘Maybe there’s some unexploded ammunition there,’ you know, ‘You really ought to go and have another look in case there’s anything that could be hazardous’. So they waited till November 2006 and went back with metal detector again, they found further fragments of the plane, various tools, part of a parachute harness with the instructions turned to unlock on it, and then near the parachute harness, they found human remains, and I can remember having, you know, being given this news by the German journalist on the phone and then having to sit by the phone and plan how I was going to tell my father because I knew it would open another can of worms and part of me didn’t want to do that. Anyway, so having ascertained that the human remains were probably linked to the plane crash. They handed them over to the British authorities. This took a while because Berlin police had to satisfy themselves that it wasn’t a crime scene. So, the British authorities had them for quite a long time, they went at one point to Canada because one of the people that had been missing and didn’t have a marked grave was a Canadian, and dad got frustrated because things weren’t moving fast enough and he was getting older. So he wrote a speculative letter to a newspaper in Newcastle because he knew that the other chap, whose remains had been- never been found, who was buried in an unmarked grave or probably not buried at all, he’d come from Newcastle so my father had tried to find out, you know, if any of the family were still in the area, and he had traced, through this speculative letter to the Newcastle Chronicle, a lady called Marjorie Akon [?] who was the sister of his missing flight engineer, John Bremner. Efforts to close-to trace close relatives of the other missing crew member in Canada had proved more difficult, although I did actually make contact with them after the book was published through Facebook and I am now in, in touch with a distant relative of the Canadian, and I sent her a book so that she wasn’t, you know, so that everybody's now got copies of the book. So in April 2008 so this was two, not, no- one-and-a-half years, eighteen months after the bones had actually been found mitochondrial DNA testing finally established a definitive link between the remains found at the crash site and Marjorie Akon[?]. So after sixty-odd years of not knowing what had happened to her brother, she was told definitively that these were remains of her brother, and she was eighty-eight, so for sixty-four years she’d not known what had happened to her younger brother, and the result was a full ceremonial, military funeral in Berlin on the 16th of October 2008 with the Queen‘s Colour Squadron officiating. The surviving crew members and their closest relatives were invited, most of them attended, I think only Laurie Underwood wasn't represented. Huge efforts were made by the MOD to trace the families of the two crew members who were already buried in Berlin, so that was Eric Church and Stanbridge. Stanbridge’s daughter actually came over from Australia and she had never visited her father’s grave before, and the- Eric Church’s son, Michael was discovered literally a few days, that he was finally traced- Literally a few days before the funeral and he had to actually take someone else's place on the flight in order to get him there on time, and again he, he’d never known what had happened to, to his father, not definitively. So, it was hugely emotional. So, six of the crew of eight were represented by their own family members and the Canadian was represented by somebody from the Canadian embassy, so that was seven out of eight. Only Laurie Underwood sadly wasn’t represented ‘cause he was too frail to travel, and none of his children or grandchildren were there, but I - Again I’m still in touch with them on Facebook. The most important mourners at that funeral were- Well the most important one, was undoubtedly Marjorie Akon[?], John Bremner’s sister, she was finally able to say goodbye to her beloved brother and in an interview with the BBC, or it might’ve been ITN, anyway I’ve got the footage, she expressed the deep gratitude that she’d at last been able to do this, to, to say goodbye because she’d not wanted to spend the remainder of her days believing that John had never been accounted for, and she actually died herself three months later at eight-nine, just, just after her eighty-ninth birthday. Because of my father’s efforts she didn’t have to go to her grave without knowing the outcome, because John was buried with great dignity and ceremony, so she died almost exactly sixty-five years to the day after her brother, also in January, and although she was sadly missed by her family they were unanimous in saying that she’d experienced a great sense of closure and relief at the end of her life having been able to say that last goodbye, she actually said- I can’t remember the exact words but she said something like she’d been spared long enough, to see her brother laid to rest. But I think what is important to stress is that none of this could’ve been achieved without the internet, the internet was absolutely pivotal to all of this research. We could never have made any of these links without the internet, so the internet, you know, we couldn’t’ve done in, ten years- If the bones had been discovered ten years earlier, they would’ve, they would've just buried them in an unmarked grave, you know, just ten years. The technology had all, all come on stream, we- Everything was available on, you know- In time for the internet and the DNA profiling and before she died because once we’d lost Marjorie Akon[?]- I think that her daughter could've also given a DNA sample because the, the mitochondrial DNA goes down the maternal line and she in turn has got daughter- No has she got daughters? Yes, yes, she’s got two daughters, so probably we could’ve used the, we could’ve used the next generation but it was much nicer for it to be a sibling. So, the internet was pivotal. The MOD were obviously pivotal, we couldn’t’ve done it without them. We couldn't've done it without the Germans because the- Our German friends, I’m still in touch, you know, almost daily with the journalist. The museum curator, who himself had been a prisoner of the Stasi during the cold war. So, he was an interesting man. Historians, eye-witnesses, it was a group effort and the ability to communicate via the internet had even enabled us to trace the Austrian grandson of the ace fighter pilot who shot my father’s plane down, and incredibly he visited us in August 2007 and we all drank champagne in my parents' garden in Essex. This was before- After we’d found the bones but before we knew who- Exactly who, whose they were, and although my father wasn’t a religious man, he did once say that somebody else had a hand in, in the discovery because it was too much to be a coincidence. In the opening- In the preface to the book I’ve, I’ve quoted Byron and said, ‘Truth is stranger than fiction,’ because if you’d made it up, you know, if somebody had made it up as a, as a plot of a book, people would’ve dismissed it and said that it was too perfect that all the things linking up, you know, it was too good to be true, and that made me think of the Byron quote. So, contacts that we made during the course of the research led us to friendships, new friendships in the UK, Germany, Canada, Australia and I’m in touch with the second generation of the entire crew, including the second dickie pilot. It reminds us of the horror of war, but also shows us how coincidences like this can lead to deep and lasting friendships between former enemies, and the crew and their families have achieved a sense of closure. So, I'd like to dedicate this interview to the crew of LW 337. Their survival rate exactly mirrors the chances of any airman in Bomber Command, because only half of them came back [voice breaks with emotion]. The average age of those who died in action was- Well here it says twenty-one, I’ve read twenty-two somewhere else, so I don’t know which is right. So, the crew were; the pilot George Griffiths, POW, died in 1998, navigator Reg Wilson, POW, died in 2016 on the 11th November ironically, the rear gunner Johnny Bushell, who was a POW and who died in 2013, the bomb aimer Laurie Underwood, taken POW also died in 2013, the wireless operator Eric Church, killed in action, identified and buried in Berlin shortly after the war, the second dickie pilot Kenneth Stanbridge, also killed in action and identified and buried in the German- the Charlottenburg war cemetery in 1947 I think it was after the war, when they were moved, then the flight engineer John Bremner who was killed in action whose remains were not found until 2006, and who was buried in 2008 in the same row as the two others in the Berlin war cemetery, and last but not least the mid-upper gunner Charles Dupueis, the Canadian who was killed in action and whose remains, as far as well know, were never found and so he remains to this day commemorated on the Runnymede memorial. Although it’s possible that he is in the Berlin war cemetery but in an unmarked grave, that’s, that’s entirely possible ‘cause there are some unmarked graves in the same area and they did tend to, to bury the- whole crews together if they could or part crews together, and of course now the four who died in action will all be commemorated on the ribbon of- On the stones at the IBCC, and we have funded stones in the ribbon of remembrance for those who did survive but have now all passed on. So that’s George, Reg, John and Laurie, whose, whose stones we have yet to, to see because they're being laid as I speak.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Janet Hughes. Two
Creator
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David Meanwell
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-11-23
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AHughesJ171123
Format
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01:28:18 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Civilian
Second generation
Description
An account of the resource
After flying as a spare, Reginald Wilson (Hughes’ father) formed a new crew and completed their first operation to Berlin on the 29th December 1943. During their second operation to Berlin on the 20th of January 1944, the aircraft was shot down. Upon baling out, Wilson was captured and became a prisoner of war at Stalag 4B. Despite Wilson’s initial reluctance to open up about his wartime experience, Hughes describes the process of researching and publishing a book together. She recounts their discoveries including the fate of his crew (George Griffiths, Kenneth Stanbridge, Erich Church, Johnny Bushell, Laurie Underwood, Charles Dupueis) and the excavation of the crash site which resulted in the burial of John Bremner in 2008.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Poland
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Oberursel
Poland--Tychowo
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tilly Foster
Carolyn Emery
102 Squadron
4 Group
aircrew
bale out
Dulag Luft
final resting place
H2S
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Me 110
memorial
navigator
prisoner of war
RAF Pocklington
Red Cross
shot down
Stalag Luft 4
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/887/11125/AHughesJ171102.1.mp3
f3de320ee01bc0b2759aeccd5626621c
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
Hughes, Janet
J Hughes
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Janet Hughes (b. 1958) about her father Reginald Charles Wilson (b. 1923). He served in Bomber Command.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-23
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hughes, J
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DM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewer is David Meanwell, the interviewee is Janet Hughes. The interview is taking place at Mrs Hughes home in Farnham, Surrey, on the 2nd of November 2017. So, Jan could you say your father's name and then say a bit about his early life and growing up?
JH: Yeah sure. My father- My late father’s name is, was Reginald Charles Wilson. He was born in 1923, on the 20th of- 26th of January, 1923 in, Hackney in East London. He was the third of five children, and when he was about ten the family moved to Ilford, or the outskirts of Ilford in Essex, where he lived until going off to war basically, in, in 1940.
DM: Right, do you know why he joined the RAF as opposed to anything else?
JH: Yes, I, I have a very clear recollection of what he said there. Basically, when war broke out he had only just left his grammar school, and probably I think he left prematurely because of the war, and he did a couple of admin jobs. First with the railways I think and then with Unilever, and he experienced first-hand the seventy-eight consecutive nights of the Blitz, when East London was particularly badly affected and when they missed the docks, you know, the bombs and the incendiary devices would quite often fall on the roads surrounding where my father lived. So it was, it was something that he- It was a daily thing, and one day when he went into Blackfriars to, his job, it was the 30th of December 1940, the night after the notorious second great fire of London, as it has become known, when the city of London was bombed very heavily, and the firefighting operation was limited by the low level of water in the Thames. It’s said that the Luftwaffe had known this and chosen that night to do the bombing because they knew that the low level of the Thames would hamper the attempts to quench the flames, and London- The City of London was extremely badly affected, and there’s an iconic photograph of St Paul‘s standing defiant amidst the surrounding devastation, saying ‘You’re not going to get me’, and when my father referred to this photograph, which he often did, he said that’s- That photograph it captures exactly what he saw, that the surrounding area was still smouldering but St Paul‘s was still rising, you know, like the phoenix out of the ashes, and he said at that moment he, he decided that he had got to do something, that he had got to fight back, and he, you know, like lots of young men at the time had a dream of being a Spitfire pilot, and indulging in dogfights and basically shooting them down before they got as far as London. So that was his plan, and you know, he knew that eventually, when he got to the age of eighteen, he would be called up anyway, and I think he decided that by joining the RAF volunteer reserve he would be more likely to end up doing something that he wanted to do rather than something that he’d been forced to do.
DM: Okay, so, he joined the RAF, the reserve, he got called up, what happened about his training?
JH: Right, well the training was quite long and convoluted. It’s described very well in his own diary, and, and in the book which I co-wrote with him in recent years. The early part of the training was sort of square bashing and general fitness for the armed forces, and he subsequently went to the United States on a troop ship for the early part of his training. So, it says in his notes here that he joined the RAF volunteer reserve in August 1941, by which time he would’ve been eighteen and a half. I’m not quite sure why there was a delay, perhaps you know, took that long to do the paperwork. He joined the aircrew, and they- The first part of the training was in, at St John‘s Wood in North London, and then in Torquay in Devon, and that was the basics of- The bit in Devon he learnt meteorology, air navigation, aircraft recognition, wireless telegraphy, and then the usual square bashing and clay pigeon shooting, and then he was promoted from AC2 to LAC, and this is the critical bit I think, he was posted to Marshalls airfield in Cambridge for a flying test, and this was in a Tiger Moth [chuckles], and after about eight hours he convinced them that he had the necessary skills to join the Arnold training scheme in the USA. So then, he joined the troop ship Montcalm, at Gourock on the Clyde, and this took them to Halifax in Canada. He commented that it was quite funny that he went to Halifax for the first part of his training ‘cause he ended up flying a Halifax, and, the crossing was quite eventful, bad weather because, you know, January seas and the ships weren’t very stabilised in those days, and half a dozen other- They weren’t torpedoed or anything, but half a dozen other ships that were in the same area were sunk, and at that time, about sixty ships a week were being destroyed by the German U-Boats in the North Atlantic. So, when he got to Halifax, they- Which was a sort of mustering area I think, they went to the USA and they travelled in uniform, and this is significant, they were the first aircrew trainees to be travelling in uniform, because America had only just become an ally, following the bombing- The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour on the 7th of December 1941, so basically that brought the Americans into the war, and that kind of was a game changer in terms of the way everything was organised. So then, they went to Albany in Georgia, a place called Turner Field, and that was an acclimatisation month. During that month dad celebrated his nineteenth birthday. Turner Field was run on the lines of the American army, so it was an American army air corps training centre, so they wore their [emphasis] uniforms, American air corps clothing, and they were treated like cadets. So that meant drilling and physical training, calisthenics at six o’ clock in the morning, apparently, they were given literature that told them how to behave and how they were expected- You know behaviour and etiquette, how they were expected to conduct themselves, and the bit that I think dad found the most memorable was marching behind a brass band, which was playing American air corps music, this was on the way to all meals and also before retreats, which was the lowering of the American flag in the evening. Now these young men had come from Britain, where rations had been in place for quite a long time, and when- America was the promised land, you know, they were waited on hand and foot by, and these are my father’s own words, ‘coloured waiters’, and that was something again that was quite strange to British people because, this was, this was the south of America, and at that time coloured people were not considered equal to whites and there was a kind of apartheid, like in, later in South Africa, they had to sit at the backs of busses and, in different parts of the cinema and they were generally treated as second class citizens, so this business of having them, you know, at their beck and call was something I think, quite a lot of the British people found quite difficult, because they just weren’t used to- Although, Britain was more racist then than it is now, they, you know, you still treated everybody with, with dignity. So, I think he found that, you know, quite, quite a shock, and also you know, in Britain they had to queue up for their meals, get all their meals on one plate, take your own cutlery in your gas mask case, and wash it up afterwards in a tank of greasy water, so to be waited on hand and foot, you know, and be served amazing food, was, was, was quite nice given what they’d been used to, you know, up to a month beforehand. So, after this month of acclimatisation, he went to Lakeland, Florida. This was a civilian flying school, which presumably had been commandeered because they needed the capacity, and it was for primary flying training, and that, this was a great experience. Dad went solo in a Stearman biplane, and before that the instructor had had to buzz off a herd of cows from the landing field by diving at them, and here dad completed forty hours of solo flying, including acrobatics, stalls, spins, loops and so on, and underneath them were the lakes and orange groves of Florida in beautiful sunshine, so what a change from Britain, and, they had a lot of hospitality with local American families and lots of contact with their daughters, so I think really this, this felt like a very long way from war. There’s some lovely pictures of dad during that period, you know, carefree existence, and then, at the end, the end of the course they had a few days leave and so, you know, not wanting to waste this amazing opportunity, dad and a colleague hitched off to West Palm Beach, and they booked into a hotel but while they were there they were invited to stay with an American lady called Mrs Hubbard, who turned out to be the daughter of Rockefeller, and she had an English woman staying with her who had a son in the RAF, and so they were spoilt by these two ladies who were trying to sort of do for them what they wish they could do for this lady’s son. And they were looked after for the next couple of days as if they were long lost sons, the house had an amazing swimming pool with an Italian style garden and an arcaded drinks bar, and they were, they were - I think they thought they’d died and gone to heaven. He- During this time dad met and was photographed with one of the few surviving Fleet Air Arm pilots, who had- Was one of the people who, the previous year had torpedoed the Bismarck, and enabled the British fleet to sink, sink it, and he was touring America as a hero, and he had also been invited to, to this lady's home, so they, they met him, and somewhere in dad's album there’s a picture of these, him with this chap, and my dad looks very diminutive in that although he was quite a tall man, ‘cause the other guy was much taller. So anyway, after this period they went to another- No, this, this was an American army air corps flying school, so not a civilian one this time, and that was in Georgia, again, for intermediate training, so he’d done the basics, this was the immediate training, and he started a course of flying on a basic trainer which would have been a more sophisticated plane than the Stearman biplane, but this is where dad’s fortunes changed because- And he was quite bitter about this, actually in later life, ‘cause he said after a lon- A number of flying lessons he was unable to convince the instructor that he was safe to go solo, so that was the end of his pilot training, and he, he, he did say that in his opinion had he been trained in an RAF flying school in the States, he might have passed. Anyway, he was disheartened at the time but he tried to make the best of it. One of his friends had been killed in Georgia on a, on a simple training exercise, so you know, it might’ve given him a stay of execution, and he said at least if he eventually died in combat, which he didn’t, it would be for a just cause. So then, by this time we’re in June 1942, so he’s been in the RAF for nearly a year, so he took the train back to Canada and this time it was to the Royal Canadian Air Force camp at Trenton, in Ontario. He did some interviews and took an exam, and was remustered to navigator, and the transfer gave him a chance to see some more of Canada. He visited Lake Ontario, Toronto, and Niagara Falls, so lots of travelling that a man of his age would not of had the opportunity to do had he not joined the RAF and left civilian life behind him. So, there’s - Then in his notes there’s quite a lot of very colourful description of, of the geography of various parts of Canada. So, then he was posted to the Winnipeg air navigation school, by which time it was August ‘42. The school's services were run by civilians but the teaching of the subjects was carried out by the Royal Canadian Air Force. Winnipeg’s in the grain growing area of Mani- Manitoba, which is flat as a pancake, so the relevance of this for flight training is that when you're flying at a few thousand feet you’ve got an unrestricted view as far as the horizon, and you can pick, everything out very easily because there’s no hills, or, or forests or anything to obscure your view, and the towns were marked by grain elevators and water towers that have the town’s name printed on the sides, so you couldn’t get lost. And they were spaced along the railway line so, you know, it’s like having a Google map underneath you. And these, these water towers were visible from any cross-country route so you just couldn’t get lost, because even at night there was no back- blackout in Canada ‘cause they had no need for it. So, they were there for three months, half of the time in classrooms and half on air exercises. There they flew Anson aircrafts, with civilian pilots. These were great big cumbersome things that had to be manually wound up, the wheels had to be wound up on take-off on a winch, and down again on landing. But one thing that marked him, during this period was the crash of a light aircraft only a few yards away, and the raging fire that ensued which made it impossible to rescue the pilot. So, he actually saw somebody fry, even at that stage, and the nights were very cold. They used to practise astro-sextant shots, one of the applications of a navigator, at night-time, but the leisure time was- As in America, eating Christmas-like turkey dinners every Sunday, and going to dances, socialising, probably a bit of womanising as well although he hasn’t been too explicit about that. He got his navigator’s wing on the 20th of November 1942, and at that point he was promoted to the rank of flight sergeant, just a few marks, a few short marks, again something he was a bit bitter about, off getting a commission. Although, that happened later as I will say later on, and then they travelled by train to Monckton in Halifax, stopping on the way in Montreal, and they returned to England on the Queen Elizabeth. Fantastic experience. It had been converted into a troop ship, so they had two meals a day on board, seventeen bunks to a state cabin, they travelled without escort and it took them only four days to cross the North Atlantic which was amazing, given the technology of the time, and they were on home- At home on leave for Christmas, and basically, by this time he had done, he’d been in the RAF for just under eighteen months, and was now back in the UK.
DM: So once your dad got back to Britain what, what happened next with his training?
JH: Right, well this was the beginning of 1943. So dad would’ve been just coming up for twenty that month, and there was- At that point there was a glut of trained aircrew coming back from the North American and Commonwealth training schools, so lots of them were held in holding centres in Harrogate and Bournemouth to await postings, and to fill the time, dad and a few others were transferred to a regiment training course, an RAF regiment training course at Whitley Bay, near Newcastle, and that was the February 1943 when it was pretty damn cold up there. So, it wasn’t until 19- April ‘43, so that’s three months later that they took up flying again. So I suspect they were a bit rusty by this time, and a party of them was posted to the RAF navigation school at Jurby, which is on the Isle of Man, still flying Ansons, and during this time my dad brushed up on his navigation skills because he hadn’t flown for five months, and this was achieved by means of day and night cross-country exercises around the Irish Sea, the East Coast of Northern Ireland, and the West Coast of Britain, and the weather was quite cold. He remembers using the toast rack railway on his days off, which ran from Jurby to Douglas, and he remembers all the hotels along the sea front which were wired off because they accommodated many of the so-called aliens, who’d been interned there for the duration of the war, in case they engaged in espionage I suppose. Anyway, so when this course was finished, he got some more leave, and then he went to the RAF Operational Training Unit at Kinloss, in Scotland, on the Moray Firth. So it’s sort of late spring early summer by this time, and he was now set for crewing up in Bomber Command and getting nearer and nearer to operational flying. This I think was a, was a, was a very, satisfying period. He said he arrived at Kinloss in the first week in June and the weather was fantastic, and stayed like that for the whole six weeks that they were there, (early summer in Scotland is often lovely), and for part of the time, they were housed in a mansion like property, where- Just for sleeping, and they were each given a bike to get to and from the airfield. So, they were cycling through the beautiful countryside with the lovely weather and the birds singing in the hedgerows, and he said the war, the war seemed very far away at that point, they couldn’t actually believe what they were training for because it all seemed so remote from what they were experiencing. Kinloss had Whitley bombers, these had been withdrawn from operational flying in ‘42 and they were known colloquially as flying coffins because they were very sluggish, in responding to the flying controls, that’s a major defect, as they were to discover when flying in formation over Elgin, to celebrate a special occasion. He doesn’t say what it was but I suspect it was someone's twenty-first. So after a few days they were crewed up, now, in his notes he hasn't actually said how this achieved, but somebody else told me that they just put them all together and let them pick their own, their own teams because I think it was thought that if they, effectively chose their own crew members they would, they would, they would gel better, as a crew. They would have more in common, and they would, they would be more likely to work well as a team if they, if they hadn’t been imposed on each other so they were basically told, you know, find you, find your - I don’t whether the pilot went round and said ‘right I need a navigator and a bomb aimer,’ and so on, I’m not quite sure, but this- And I’ve heard this from more than one source, that they, that, that somebody decided, very sensibly actually, that that was a better psychology then just teaming them up arbitrarily. So dad’s crew at this point was Flying Officer Vivian, S. R. Vivian, known as Viv, he was the pilot, my father himself, Flight Sergeant R. C. Wilson, as he was then, navigator, known as Reg, Flight Officer L. A. Underwood, that’s Laurie, whose the bomb aimer, Sergeant Ross who was the wireless operator and air gunner, he had two, two roles, ‘cause different planes had different requirements in terms of crew, some of, some of the roles were- In some other aircraft I think the bomb aimer and the navigator was combined. Anyway, Sergeant Ross was a wireless operator/ air gunner, known as Bill, and Sergeant John Bushell, Johnny, the rear gunner. So, for six weeks, they flew day and night, in this crew, just five people, carrying out exercises such as cross-country and formation flying, air firing, fighter affiliation and bombing practice, and they had to do some ground work. At this point dad was introduced to something called the distant reading compass, this was located near the tail of the aircraft away from magnetic influences, which otherwise would have corrupted it. It was a gyro-controlled compass, it was very stable and it could be adjusted by the navigator for the earth's magnetic variation, to give true north readings, and this thing had electric repeaters for the pilot, the navigator and the bomb aimer, so they could actually access the readings from the front of the plane, although the actual gadget was at the back. He can remember flying at night, trying to practise astronavigation, and this was difficult because they sky was barely dark. You’ve got to remember this was around the time of the summer solstice, mid-summer, in the north of Scotland and at ten thousand feet the sun’s glow was present on the horizon for most of the night so it never got completely dark, but the Grampians and the Highlands below looked gaunt and forbidding in what was basically a kind of twilight, I suppose. So, as was the case with many crews by the end of the training, the crew had become great friends, they’d spent time together at Findhorn Bay, on the Moray Firth, and on some afternoons, in the pub in Forres town on some Saturdays, and he recalled that he- They’d spent one entire weekend confined to the mess. They’d been confined there by the CO because they’d landed in error at RAF Lossiemouth which was an adjacent airfield, instead of Kinloss, and they drank a lot of beer, not surprisingly. They left Kinloss for some leave, but they never saw Viv, the pilot again because he had been borrowed to, to fly with another crew, this happened quite a lot, and he was killed three weeks later, tragically just a few days after he’d got married, while, whilst on leave, and again a lot of people did that, got married perhaps prematurely because they thought they might, you know, might not get another opportunity. So, this was before they even reached RAF Rufforth in north- In Yorkshire, which was the conversion unit for Halifax heavy bombers. So they got to Rufforth in the middle of August, discovered that Viv had been reported missing, on the 10th of August, whilst flying as a second pilot, second dickie pilot, which they had to do to gain operational experience before they could take their own crew out on operation. Anyway, so Viv had disappeared on the 10th of August while flying as a second dickie on a raid to Nuremburg, and dad subsequently found out that his pilots' aircraft had crashed near Ramsen Bolanden in Germany, and six were killed including Viv, and two became POW’s. So, Viv, dad’s pilot actually never got to head up his own crew and that left the rest of them a headless crew. So they then had to wait the appointment of another pilot, and this is when, you know, the party was over at this point, they’d had all these wonderful experiences in Canada and the USA, and Scotland, lots of travelling, lots of leisure time, lots of laughs, but at this point it became- It began to look, look very serious, it became a lottery. There’s no way they could tell from day to day, even in the conversion unit, before operations started whether they would live or die, because during their short stay at Rufforth, sixty air crew were killed due to mechanical failure of aircraft or accidents, and dad recalls an incident of the collision of two aircraft in mid-air, and another aircraft crashing when its propeller fell off into the fuselage, and another one came down at night on a practice bombing raid. So after a few days they got a new pilot, so flylan- Flight Lieutenant P. G. A. Harvey was appointed, and Sergeant A. McCarrol as the mid-upper gunner, they hadn’t had a mid-upper gunner before by the look of it. So, Sergeant McCarrol had been a drummer previously in murricks[?]- morris wennix [?] dance band and was well known on BBC radio in the pre-war period. The flight engineer was Sergeant J. McCardle, and that completed the crew for the Halifax bomber, which normally had seven members unless they had a second dickie pilot on board, in which case there would be eight of them. Now, the new pilot, Flight Lieutenant Harvey was a very experienced pilot, he’d survived two operational tours but these had been in the Middle East in 1941 and on Wellingtons, and they couldn’t really understand why this man would want to take on another tour. But anyway, he did, maybe he was after a, an award of some kind, but anyway he’d volunteered, but, dad points out that flying on operations deep inside Germany in ‘43 was a different dimension, it was a different ball game, and this is because cities in Germany were heavily defended by ack-ack, and night fighters armed with cannon, and equip with radar homing devices were everywhere. So, this was very different to flying in the Middle East in 1941, where a lot of the missions, although in a warzone weren’t actually bombing missions, they might’ve been deliveries and, you know, service flights. Now because Harvey was a seasoned pilot, they decided that they could fast track the process. So the minimum time was taken to crew up, to get familiar with the Halifax and to take on the new disciplines, which they needed in the Halifax, of a flight engineer and a mid-upper gunner, and dad had to learn how to use Gee, that’s spelt G-double-E. This was a radar device, for measuring pulses from two transmitting stations, and these were displayed on a cathode-ray tube which you then plotted on a special gridded map, and this gave pin point accuracy of the ground position, and this was a new gadget as far as dad was concerned. So, they had air exercises for bombing, air firing, fighter affiliation, and the latter exercise, so that’s fighter affiliation, was one to remember. This was the 2nd of September ‘43, they flew at ten thousand feet and a fighter would attack, that’s in inverted commas because it’s a mock up, obviously, training exercise, from behind and the two gunners would then co-operate with the pilot so that he could take evasive action. So, they would depart from the plotted route to dive or, or, or change course suddenly in order to get out of the way. Now in taking evasive action, Flight Lieutenant Harvey, managed to turn the aircraft on its back, and it was seve- several thousand feet later before he succeeded in righting the aircraft. Dad, the navigator had spun round in the nose of the plane, there were broken rivets rattling round everywhere, and the chemical Elsan toilet at the back of the aircraft had emptied its contents all over the rear of the plane. Not pleasant experience, and they were all shaken up by this, especially because, you know, Flight Harvey- Flight Lieutenant Harvey already had nearly four hundred operational flying hours to his credit and they didn’t expect him to lose control, they thought he knew what he was doing. But the good thing that came out of it was that John, the rear gunner, Johnny, Johnny Bushell, he decided from then that he wouldn’t- Then on that he would store his parachute in his gun turret [emphasis], rather than in the fuselage which was required by regulations. So, a maverick, and this action would later save his life, and dad decided as well that he would try and minimise the risk to himself, so he, he kind of devised this routine to cover baling out. So, point one, this is like bullet points, point one, helmet off, and the reason for this was you could break your neck if you had the helmet still attached to the oxygen supply and the intercom, so the first thing he did was take it off. Parachute on, for the obvious reason that it’s not a good idea to jump out without it, and then, this is one special to dad, handle on the left hand-side. Dad was left-handed, and aircraft was sometimes due- killed due to an unopened parachute with the d-ring, the handle, on the ‘wrong’ that’s inverted commas side. So, if you were right-handed, obviously the right side would be the right-hand side, and for dad it was gonna be the left-hand side. So dad had also decided that, as he had a minute or so to spare while over the target, he would fold back his seat, lift up the navigation table clear of the escape hatch and be ready to bale out immediately, if necessary because this was the point at which they were obviously at their most vulnerable over the target, and because the navigator’s job was very cerebral and was, he was constantly occupied throughout the whole flight, unlike some of the other crew members, this was his only opportunity really, to take a break. So he basically got ready to bale out on every single operational flight, just in case, and he said that he believed that these plans, together with the action taken by Johnny the rear gunner, gave them and Laurie, or gave dad and Laurie, the bomb aimer, additional vital seconds when the three of them were to save their lives nearly five months later. So Laurie and dad were saved by dad having folded up the, the table, and Johnny by having his parachute more accessible than it would otherwise have been. So, a week or so after this, this last training flight, they were posted to 102 Squadron in Pocklington to commence their operational service, so quite a long haul from joining at the beginning, quite a long process. So, Pocklington, is twelve miles south-east of York, it has eight-hundred foot hills, three and a half miles north-east of the aircraft- airfield. So while dad was there, two Halifax bombers complete with bomb loads, crashed into the hills after take-off, so the result of that was that they didn’t use that particular runway afterwards, because of the, the, the risk of running into the mountains. Pocklington was a wartime airfield, some of the others had been in use before the war, and the ones that were basically, got ready just for the wartime, only had temporary accommodation so they were all billeted in Nissen huts. These had semi-circular corrugated iron roofs, roofs and walls and concrete ends, not very comfortable, dispersed in fields, near the aircraft- Sorry, in fields near the, near the airfield, and they were pretty dreary, inhospitable places. The heating was only a central coal burning stove, so whenever they weren’t on duty they went for refuge and relaxation in the relative comfort of the sergeant's mess, or the pubs. Or famous places like Betty’s Bar, in York, or the dance halls like The De Grey Rooms in York. Pocklington had three affiliated airfields, Elvington, where there’s now an air museum complete with a, model of a Halifax which has been made from parts of Halifax bombers welded together, because none of the Halifax bombers were saved after the war, unlike the Lancasters, something else he was- Dad was quite miffed about. So anyway, there was Elvington, Full Sutton and Melbourne, and they were all sort of in a group, and they were commanded by Air Commodore Gus Walker, who was the youngest air commodore in the RAF at the time, only thirty-one years old. He’d lost his right arm when a Lancaster had exploded on the ground at Syerston, the airfield which he’d commanded in 1942. So mid-September, Pocklington, 1943. Flight Lieutenant Harvey, was promoted to acting squadron leader in charge of A flights, so this meant that his crew would not fly as frequently on operations as other, other crews. That was a mixed blessing, because it meant a tour of thirty operations would take longer if they were under his command. So, over the next two weeks they completed a number of cross-country exercises, mostly for dad’s benefit to practise his navigation skills with the new equipment. So he learnt how to use Gee at Rufforth, but in the meantime the Germans had learnt how to jam Gee. So as the aircraft approached the coastline of continental Europe, the radar pulses were obliterated. So the navigator then had a race against time to obtain as much data as he could before they crossed the Dutch, or Danish coast, and at Pocklington they had a, what was then, state of the art, new piece of radar equipment called H2S, height to surface. It was located in the aircraft itself and it sent out pulses to the ground, around the aircraft for ranges of fifteen to twenty miles, and the reflections that were received back were shown as bright specks on a cathode-ray tube, and the density of the reflections depended on whether the aircraft was flying over sea, land, hills, rivers, cities or lakes. So from this, a rough typographical map of the ground was, was translated, the quality of the picture varied but it was much better than what they’d had previously, and the map, was displayed on the cathode-ray screen. The best results were produced between land and sea, but if the navigator factored in his, his awareness of the ground position he could recognise coastlines, large rivers, lakes, sizeable towns, and other prominent features, both on the way to and back from the target. So he could use this information to plot the bearing and distance from these landmarks, and he could recalculate wind velocities, required tracks, ground speeds, and the ti- Critically the time that it would take to reach the target. So, with the help of H2S some more experienced navigators would have the ability to blind bomb, which- Blind bombing meant that you could reach your target without the need to use the markers dropped by the Pathfinders, and the Pathfinders incidentally also used the H2S equipment. H2S couldn’t be jammed, but the night fighters could home in on the H2S frequency if it was on continuously, and unfortunately this is something they didn’t know at the time, and some aircraft were shot down because of it and probably that accounts for the, the demise of dad’s aircraft later on. Another new piece of equipment was the air plot indicator, and this was available to the navigator by this time. That linked the gyrocompass and the airspeed indicator, gave a continuous read out of the air position in latitude and longitude, used for navigators, a navigation device but, you couldn’t rely on it entirely. So basically, the navigator had to use a combination of all the things that were available to him, and you know, his common sense and sometimes just basic geometry, when everything else failed. They had a handheld Ican that’s I-C-A-N computer, computer used in the original sense of the word there, something that calculated. It was a manually operating vectoring device, so they used that to plot a course, geometry really, calculate airspeed, make good their desired track and ground speed, and then they added that information into the main chart, and they also had radio bearings that were taken by the wireless operator and astro-sight shots[?], and they were converted into position lines by the use of almanacs, so basically, using the stars. But neither of the, these methods were practical when off- operating over enemy territory, because operational aircraft were growing faster, and the need to take evasion action at any moment because of flak or night fighters would mean that you, you didn’t have time to use these devices. And when no navigational aids were available, for some reason or some technical mishap, and map reading over cloud or at night, especially at high altitude, they’d have to resort to something called dead reckoning, and that required accurate plotting of air position, the use of wind velocities which had been supplied by the MET office officer, at the briefing before they left, and sometimes these were updated on route by radio, or the use of those calculated by the navigator en route. So they need to be modified all the time for changes to the forecast weather, to take account of wind velocity changes and any alterations in altitude, which might be caused for reasons that couldn’t be predicted. So, how did they prepare for a bombing mission? Well, it, it was a lengthy procedure, it occupied a good part of the day prior to the night's operation. So, the first thing that would happen would be mid-morning, ‘ops on’ would be announced, if there was to be a raid that night. So the ground crew would be busy checking each aircraft radar, guns, engines, filling the wing tanks with over two-thousand gallons of fuel. Armourers would load the guns with ammunition, and bring up and mount a mix of high explosive and incendiary bombs ‘cause there were two types in the bay, in the bomb bays for that night's target. So these bombs were stored in a remote part of the airfield for safety obviously, behind blast walls, and they had to be fused for the target and towed along on long low trolleys you see that a lot in the old films, and towed by tractor to the des- The aircraft dispersal points, and although the target wasn’t disclosed at this point, because of the strict security rules, you know, walls have ears and all of that, ground crews would have a good idea from the amount of fuel loaded and the type of bomb load where the target would be. So more fuel meant further east, further north, further away. So about the same time as the ground crew were doing all these things, the aircrew would be briefed, so I will try- I can’t remember where it was, I think it, I think it might have been at, at Elvington we, we went to a re-enactment of one of these briefings and dad said it was very good, so I’ve actually experienced this as well because, you know, you have the sort of flip chart with a map on it and then, you know, they lift up the blanket and you see Berlin and everybody gasps and, you know, Dad said it was, it was just like that. Although it is actually done quite well in some of the films as well. So, there’d be a leader for each discipline, so the pilots would have a speaker, the navigators, the bomb aimers and so on, and the navigators would be the busiest, they’d be issued with flight plans, meteorological information. They’d be the first to know the target, because they’d have to plot the route on their chart and smaller topographical maps, and then they would highlight towns, lakes, rivers so that they, you know, could, could recognise them when they were flying over them, familiarise themselves with the territory. Initial courses and airspeeds would be calculated from the wind velocities supplied, and these would be modified as more information was gained from Gee and H2S during the flight. So, the navigators- It was essential that they kept, were kept to their prescribed altitudes, tracks and timetables. This was to maintain the concentration of the bomber stream, in order to keep to their time slot over the target, which was no more than three minutes long so, it was really important that people, you know, did exactly what, what they’d been told to do and didn’t deviate from it. So, the aircrew would then go to the mess, have their operational meal of eggs and bacon, which was a treat because civilians were lucky to get one egg a month, they’d fill their thermos flask with coffee, draw their flying rations of chocolate and orange juice to sustain them, during the long night, and they’d also have available caffeine tablets to keep them alert. Then they’d get the briefing, so everybody due to be on operational duty that night, about a hundred-and-fifty personnel, were assembled in front of a large war map of Europe showing the route and the target. If it was to be the big city, Berlin, a gasp would go round the hut. This was considered to be the most dangerous target of all. The briefing was carried out by the squadron commander, the intelligence officer, the MET officer, and any other specialist whose views were pertinent to that night's raid, so that could depend on what the target was and what the purpose was. So the briefing would cover the size of the bombing force, the objective, of any diversionary raids taking place, ‘cause sometimes they’d have a decoy to put the Germans off the scent, the weather expected en route, and when returning to base, the forecast wind changes, the extent of cloud cover en route and over the target, and icing risks at various altitudes and obviously that would depend on the time of year as well, how the Pathfinders would be marking the route and the target, and any hot spots, danger spots for flak and night fighters, and then all personnel, especially navigators were asked to synchronise their watches to the second, to GMT. Then they would draw their parachutes and their Mae Wests, their life jackets, they left any personal items in a bag to be picked up if and when they returned, and departed by truck to the dispersal points and there they had time to smoke a cigarette outside, not frowned upon in those days, and then to check their equipment thoroughly before they took off. The air gunners would check their guns over the North Sea, and there’s a, there’s a nice little line drawing somewhere of the, the crew all having a pee against the side of the aircraft which was partly ‘cause it was more difficult to have a pee once you were inside the aircraft, but also, I think it was a kind of macho good luck, you know, boys' game. There’s a great little line drawing of it somewhere, I can’t remember where I saw it. Sometimes they’d get to this point and they’d have to wait for clearance of fog, the MET officer would’ve guaranteed that it would clear otherwise they wouldn’t have gone through the whole process, but sometimes it didn’t, and if it didn’t the whole operation would have to be aborted, and I think that must’ve been one of the most frustration things because they’ve all- The adrenaline’s flowing and then you’ve got to come down and you haven’t actually got anything to show for it. So, assuming it wasn’t aborted, at last it was time to take off, the crews were directed by the airfield controller to the runway. Many of the ground crew would then wave them off into the darkness, I think they felt a sense of ownership of, whatever plane they’d been working on, so they’re very much part of the team although they weren’t in front line. Then for the people in the air commenced the long ordeal, five to eight hours of freezing cold, heavy vibration, incessant roar of the four Rolls Royce Merlin engines in the case of the Halifax, in an unpressurised aircraft until they returned, hopefully unscathed, in the early hours of the following morning. When they got back they were debriefed, they were given hot coffee, a tot of rum by the padre, and again, this, you see this in some of the better films, and the- They had to be debriefed by an intelligence officer, who took notes about the bombing run, any details of flak and night fighters, information that could all be used to improve safety on subsequent flights, and then they had egg, bacon breakfast and trekked back to the huts, crawled into bed and tried to get some sleep and wait for the next one. Okay, so, they- Their first operation was a mine laying trip, called- Also known as gardening and planting vegetables, that’s the kind of code for it. This, that, that, this was supposed to be an easy, an easy option ‘cause it was not as dangerous obviously as bombing raid over a major city. So this was the 2nd of October 1943, and they- When they got about half way across the North Sea, towards Denmark, the flight- The, the pilot, Harvey, asked Laurie, the bomb aimer to take over the controls while he went to the toilet, and Laurie had never, he would’ve had some training to assist the pilot but not in flying the plane, and Laurie had never sat in the pilot seat of a Halifax before, and there he was on his first ever mission at the controls while the pilot went to the toilet. So, as they, as they approached the enemy coast, Laurie, the bomb aimer is at the controls never having- I don’t even know if he could drive a car, and Harvey had this urgent call of nature, and- Anyway, so, you, at this point there were no events, dad said if they’d actually thought about the magnitude of what was going on, you know, they’d of all jumped out, but anyway, when they passed over the cloa-, the coast there was a loud bang, which lifted up the aircraft, and at this point the Gee and the H2S went out of action, so they got to Denmark without these navigational aids, and they opened the bomb doors and they made their, their dropping run at eight thousand feet, tried to release the mines but they wouldn’t drop. So they tried to liberate them manually, but they couldn’t get them out, and Harvey the pilot, at this point decided to return to base with the mines on board, and he tried to close the bomb doors but they wouldn’t shut, so it was obvious that their hydraulic system had been damaged, as well as the radar equipment probably by flak. So they went down to two thousand feet to get under the cloud base, and got caught up in some nasty electric storms. But without technical navigational aids, dad had to pick out land fall as soon as possible, it was down to dead reckoning, and this was his first flight [chuckles], operational flight. So they didn’t need oxygen at this height, so dad decided he’d got to the loo as well. So he went to visit the Elsan at the rear of the aircraft, and he took a torch and he groped his way to the back, and he was just stepping over the main spar when he noticed a gaping hole beneath him, and had he completed the step he would’ve fallen two thousand feet into the North Sea without a parachute. So at this point he decided to wee through the hole, rather than complete the journey to the Elsan, and he returned to the nose to confirm to Harvey that there was no doubt that they had been hit by flak. So he had a drink of coffee to restore his nerves, but the damage was quite considerable. So, when the flaps and the wheels were lowered for landing, the bomb doors, flaps and wheels could not be raised again, which meant that if they were to overshoot the runway on landing, they would crash with two mines still on board. So they knew, you know, that, that, they were in great danger, and so they crossed Flamborough head on the north, North Yorkshire coast, and dad’s dead reckoning brought them back on course and they landed safely. But on landing one of the mines fell out onto the runway, and at the dispersal point the ground staff were amazed that in these circumstances they’d survived without a scratch. They thought the aircraft would be scrapped because the damage was very considerable, there was a lot of shrapnel holes and so on, but it was repaired and it went off to be used in other missions, and eventually was shot down with the loss of all crew, but that’s not dad’s crew, that was, this was another crew. So the upshot of this was that dad- After the war dad read flight- The pilot’s statement on that, this mission and he found it to be totally inaccurate, there’s no mention of the flak damage, or having to bring the mines back, although it is in the Pocklington station records, and dad believed that Harvey wanted to have an unblemished tour of operations on his record, you know, so dad, dad was very much a man of honesty and everything was meticulous and he was- That’s why he made such a good navigator, but he lived his whole life like that and he didn’t like- It disturbed him to think that other people could, could bend the rules for their own purposes which is what this amounted to. Having had a near miss, the mid-upper gunner reported sick before the next operation, never flew again, and sadly was labelled LMF, lack of moral fibre, reduced to AC2 and posted to Elvington for general duties. So, he said that because the losses were so high at the time this was at the peak really of the dangerous period, one crew hardly got to know each other before- One crew hardly ever got to know another crew at the base before one of the two crews went missing, you know, you’d notice, you get back to the base there’d be a number of empty beds and you’d learn that they’d not come back, and you wouldn’t ever necessarily know what had happened to them. Every mission to Germany, especially to Berlin was like going over the top, in the First World War, according to Dad, that risky. A success- A succession of these raids could bring on exhaustion, nerves, to anybody however strong they were mentally, and the threat of being branded LMF was made to avoid the eventuality where aircrew would just refuse collectively to, to fly. He said only 0.4% of all aircrew were branded LMF but it’s surprising actually, and he, he thought it was a huge injustice when you considered there were many civilians of military age in reserved occupations, who’d never have been exposed to such risks. Anyway, after this, first operation, the squadron navigation officer decided to check my dad’s log and chart, and he found both completely accurate, commended dad on the results, which he knew had been made under testing conditions and subsequently informed dad that he was recommending him for a commission, so it looked like he was going to get his commission after the war. So it made up for having missed it before by a few marks. So, the next operation was supposed to be to Frankfurt but the pilot decided to turn back, less than a hundred miles from target. It, it was frustrating for everybody else, being so near the target, because the raid turned out to be the first serious blow to Frankfurt and, later the flight engineer went sick and did not fly again. The next flight was to Hannover, this one preceded without mishap, and then they thought, okay things are looking up, we’ll- Looks like we’re gonna be successful crew, but then they didn’t fly on any more operations in October, remember that the position of Harvey as a, as a, as a- His promoted position meant that they didn’t fly perhaps as frequently as other crews, and they, in fact they never flew again with him, because he, although officially he did remain the A flight commander until the end of November. So dad got his commission, Gus Walker confirmed that dad was being recommended for it and he was interviewed for it, and during that meeting my father learnt that the pilot Harvey was being withdrawn from operational flying because he’d had enough. But he did get his DFC, and that was described as long overdue for his tours in the Middle East, but dad had a different view. So, now they’ve lost their second pilot and they’re a headless crew again, so during that period they all flew as spares. Dad hated this. Flying as a spare meant you replaced a crew member in another crew who as sick or otherwise unable to fly. It was very demoralising because you didn’t have any of the team spirit and trust in each other that you had when you were flying with a regular crew. You were just a floating part, you had little or no faith in the crew that you were joining for that night and they probably didn’t have any faith in you either, ‘cause they didn’t know you, and it was bad for morale of everybody. So, Laurie, the bomb aimer, John the rear gunner, and Dad, the original three, flew as spares for the next five or so operations and the wireless operator had disappeared. So-
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Janet Hughes, One
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David Meanwell
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-11-02
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
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AHughesJ171102
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01:06:41 audio recording
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eng
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Civilian
Second generation
Description
An account of the resource
Janet Hughes’ father, Reginald Charles Wilson, volunteered for the RAF in August 1941. In January 1942, he was posted to America under the Arnold training scheme and was later remustered to train as a navigator in Canada. After forming a crew at RAF Kinloss in 1943, the pilot was killed in action, so they located another pilot while converting to Halifaxes at RAF Rufforth before joining 102 Squadron. Hughes describes Wilson’s use of Gee and H2S, and how anti-aircraft fire damaged his navigational instruments during his first operation, forcing them to land with mines on board.
Contributor
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Tilly Foster
Carolyn Emery
Spatial Coverage
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Canada
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Moray Firth
United States
Georgia--Albany
Temporal Coverage
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1940
1941
1942
1943
102 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
bombing
briefing
Gee
H2S
Halifax
lack of moral fibre
mine laying
navigator
Operational Training Unit
RAF Kinloss
RAF Pocklington
RAF Rufforth
sanitation
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/544/11121/AHookerFJ170826.2.mp3
34e7b8ab3c905449d0e448d8867cb8ed
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Hooker, Fred
Fred J Hooker
F J Hooker
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Hooker, FJ
Description
An account of the resource
31 items. Two oral history interviews with Sergeant Fred Hooker (b. 1924, 1850487 Royal Air Force) and his scrapbook containing photographs and documents. He flew operations as a mid-upper gunner with 102 Squadron and became a prisoner of war on 12 September 1944.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
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2016-05-25
2017-08-26
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
TO: Ok. Good morning, good afternoon or good evening, whatever the case may be. This interview is being recorded for the International Bomber Command Centre. The gentleman I’m speaking to is Mr Fred Hooker and my name is Thomas Ozel and we are recording this interview on the 26th of August 2017.
FH: Yeah.
TO: Can you tell me a bit about where you grew up and where you were born?
FH: Yes. That’s about four miles away from where we are now in a village called Hartley Wintney back in 1924. Did all my schooling in the same village and I joined the Service from the actual village which I [pause] getting stuck now. I joined the Air Training Corps when that was first formed in 1941 and that was the, really the start of my liking to, in wanting to join the RAF and join the bomber crews because we used to go to RAF Odiham for different lectures and that in the Air Training Corps. And while we were there we were often had flights in various aircraft having the written permission from the parents to fly and my first aircraft was a Tiger Moth that I flew in. And on another occasion I went up in a Blenheim aircraft sitting in a gun turret. Of course, the gun turret was made safe, or the guns were made safe and from there it got me bugged and I wanted to join the Air Force. Not only that around the same time one afternoon in the garden I was actually digging a shelter for the bombers and there was a whole load of aircraft coming down across the sky from the Reading area and it turned out to be the first attack, thousand aircraft raid on Cologne. They come over the village and I stood there along with other neighbours watching these aircraft. I could see the gun turrets moving, the guns moving, the chaps waving to us as they were flying over and that really gave me the bug to join the RAF and hopefully become a member of a bomber crew which eventually I did and joining up in the actual Air Force on the 29th of March 1943. And I had to report to Lords Cricket Ground for my, well I joined the Service and where I had all the inoculations etcetera. I think there was about a fortnight I was in London after which I was posted to a place called Bridgnorth in Shropshire as I was under training as a wireless operator/air gunner at the time and fortunately during the training I enjoyed Bridgnorth. All the square bashing, PTs, never so fit in my life as I was then. And as I say I was posted to Bridgnorth. Done that and then from there I went to RAF Yatesbury for wireless training in Wiltshire which I thoroughly enjoyed. With regards the Morse Code I’d done some in the Air Training Corps and I improved my reading and sending of the messages but unfortunately when it got around to technical details I’m afraid Freddie came unstuck ‘cause we used to have tests every so often to make sure that we could carry on in the course. But as I say I failed one test and I remustered to a straight air gunner. That was, I had to go to Sheerness for the remustering and there I met some other chaps that had been on a pilot’s course and a bomb aimer’s course and become very friendly with them. In actual fact the Les, Les Duncan from Sunderland, we palled up very well very quickly and in actual fact in the end he became our tail gunner on the crew that I was flying with. Which was quite exciting because we were inseparable in those days. We’d both done another course of physical training etcetera in Bridlington, Yorkshire along the sea front. There was no, no parade grounds or anything so it was all done along on the promenade which was a bit drafty at times as we were there in the winter months. But anyhow we, from there we were posted to Number 7 AGS in Stormy Down, South Wales. And of course, we didn’t know until we both arrived there that we was going to meet again because the various chaps went to various units of the gunnery. Different Gunnery Schools. But fortunate for me Harry and Les came to the same Gunnery School and we got on marvellous and although we weren’t actually in the same classrooms for our lectures etcetera we became good friends. And when it come around to we had to start using guns to fire which was quite exciting really thinking we was going to go straight into the aircraft and use Browning. 303 Browning guns. Instead of that we went on twelve bore shooting at clay pigeons as the start of our firing which, that led to flying in an Anson after that with camera guns which to me was quite exciting. I always fancied cameras but never really got around to studying photography to that extent. But we had taken the photographs of the, no the Faery Battle, sorry. The Faery Battle aircraft used to attack us and we used to, that was towing a drogue which we used to have to fire at. And from there from the films taken they could estimate whether we hit the target or not which was pretty good at times. I must say it myself I was, quite enjoyed that. And then we moved on to firing 303 guns which was mounted into, this was on the Avro Anson we were flying in those days which had a turret fitted not normally used on an Anson. Just for training purposes and we finally passed out at, well I say Stormy Down actually we’d been diverted or posted to a satellite of Stormy Down. A place called Rhoose which now I understand is Cardiff airport. Some difference. But from there we was transferred or posted I should say to Moreton in the Marsh, Gloucestershire. Of course, we went from home to Reading Station on the local bus and sitting on the station I met another chap. We had our greatcoats on because it was pretty fresh and talking to this gentleman there, he was a warrant officer, I discovered that he was going to Moreton in the Marsh as a pilot to crew up the same as I was. So we had a nice long chat on the platform and we sat together in the, going down in the train, got to know each other, about each other’s family etcetera and I eventually crewed up with him as his mid-upper gunner. Of course in Moreton in the Marsh we were trained on, no, crewed up on a Wellington bomber but once again we were put to a satellite station called Enstone which, which was quite enjoyable. And Les and Harry they both in the same group we all went to Enstone which was just what we wanted because Les and I had made up our minds that if possible we’d fly together. And while we were there we had do dinghy training and believe it or not that was in Blenheim Palace grounds. The grounds of Blenheim Palace. There was an Avro Anson parked in the middle of the lake which was great fun because some of us, though fortunately I could swim but some of the crew couldn’t swim at the time. But we had a row out in a little boat to the aircraft and sit in the positions as though we were doing a crash landing in the sea and had the instruction. And as we hit the water we heard a noise in the aircraft. That was the time we were sitting in the aircraft and of course that was the time we had to open the dinghy, get the dinghy out, open it up, blow it up and sit in the dinghy. That went on for a couple of days but after that we passed out as a full crew. We had Phil the bomb, sorry Phil the pilot came from the Salisbury area. Jock the navigator he was from Aberdeen, Taffy the bomb aimer from Wales and Les, my old mate he came from Sunderland and of course, myself from Hartley Wintney. And we got on quite well together as a crew and eventually we passed out having done various cross-country flights firing at different targets in selected areas in the North Sea and I suppose it would be the Irish Sea as well. But from there we went on to Halifax bombers in 6 Group which, transferred to 6 Group thinking we were going to remain in 4 Group but no. It was a Canadian unit we went to at Dishforth and there a flight engineer joined the crew which, he was a chap from Romford in Essex. Old Charlie. Charlie [Warderman.] He was about the oldest member of the crew in actual fact. He was an old London bus driver. From there we became good friends and made up the crew but unfortunately, we lost our wireless operator while we was at Dishforth. He got in to trouble with the police. Never heard proper details about that but anyway we were joined by a French Canadian chap from Montreal as a wireless operator and of course as we introduced ourselves all the way around to him and he told us about his Service life which apparently he’d been, already been on operations flying as a wireless operator air gunner on Marauders from Blackbushe. So I kept quiet and let him carry on talking about Blackbushe and that. I asked him about different pubs in Hartley Wintney and he discovered that I’d come from Hartley Wintney and we had a quite nice old chat from that. But we’d done all the similar things we’d done at the OTU when we were at Dishforth and we finally got transferred or posted should I say to 102 Squadron. But prior to that we were actually told we were going on leave for a fortnight and being, joining a squadron in South Africa [knocking noise in background] But that all fell by the wayside, what that noise was I don’t know but here we go. We eventually got to RAF Pocklington, Yorkshire, 102 Squadron and the sight that greeted us as we turned in to the entrance of the aerodrome was a Halifax bomber sitting in the field where it had failed to take off which rather, you know put funny feelings in our stomachs seeing a crashed aircraft, you know. But we got over that and we finally started our bombing and that was 18th of August 1944. And we’d done our first bombing raid on the 3rd of September and the target was Venlo Airfield in Holland which was all new to us. The actual being informed of what they expected of the crews and telling us, warning the gunners to keep a good eye open the whole time from the time when we took off ‘til we came back but we didn’t encounter any aircraft, or any enemy aircraft at the time and the bombing trip went well. We had a small amount of flak but we didn’t take a lot of notice of it. But unfortunately, when we came back, flying over the North Sea we were diverted and we had to land at a ‘drome in Cambridgeshire which I never really knew the name of strange as it may seem. But we were there, we had to stay there a week before the weather was changed and we could land back at Pocklington and while we were there I witnessed an American pilot shooting the ‘drome up because he had finished his tour of ops in a Lightning aircraft and he shot the place up twice and on the third trip he was flying over and he went under some cables and caught the fins of the aircraft and he shot up in the air, baled out and the aircraft crashed. But we did, as I say finally get back to Pocklington but prior to that while we were there the night we landed we were interrogated. After two unsuccessful attempts at landing and the third one the pilot took, took a chance and went in because low on petrol. Short of petrol. And we had a nice meal but I didn’t enjoy mine so much as the others because on medical instructions I had I was flying without dentures and we had a nice partridge and I couldn’t gnaw the bones like the other lads. It was quite a laugh really. Anyway, finally we got back to our own ‘drome and that was on the 11th of September. On the 12th, the morning of the 12th we were on orders for a briefing, I think it was about 10.30 in the morning and to go on another bombing raid. This was quite an extensive [pause] what’s the word? Briefing. That’s the word. Briefing on the target and the amount of aircraft that was going to be flying that day I think was about two hundred every so, every half hour on to the target. And it turned out to be the Ruhr. Gelsenkirchen. And of course, from the old memories of the crews that were on the squadron a big ‘Aaaargh,’ went up and we realised that they’d been there before and it wasn’t a very happy place to be. So of course, warned again by the gunnery officer after the briefing what he expected of all the gunners, you know to keep a sharp lookout. Watching out all the time, not just for the enemy aircraft that may attack but making sure there was nothing above us or that the other aircraft weren’t getting too close which we’d got used to doing. Anyhow, the, as we were going over the North Sea near the, getting near the border of Germany we, I could see smoke in the distance as we got closer and closer and realised it was the target area that we were approaching. And flying in formation we were the, one began to feel, you know wondered what was happening. I know I did. And still keeping an eye open watching what we had to look out for and the ack ack was firing away and the only way I can really describe it myself the firing of the German guns was in the modern day fireworks. You know the, with modern day fireworks they explode in the air all different colours. Varying coloured lights and that. Masses of them and imagine that was the shells bursting around us and believe me it was, well put it bluntly hell. And we, we carried on. We dropped our bombs and after there was the Pathfinders on the, guiding the bomb, the bomb aimers in and we saw two aircraft go down while we were on the bombing run and one, the Pathfinder we heard him say, ‘Take over number 2. Take over number 2. I’m going in. I’m going in.’ That’s the last we heard of that. But the, to see these other planes at the side of us going down it was a bit unnerving but you just got on with your job and it seemed to disappear from your mind you know because you’re thinking about yourself and guarding yourself. But anyhow we eventually got through the target and the navigator gave, flew on the new course to fly to come home which we did and we gradually got away from the flak and eventually landed back at Pocklington. [banging noises] It may be the workmen outside. I don’t know.
TO: [unclear]
FH: Anyhow, we got out the aircraft. The ground crew were waiting for us. Welcoming us back. Of course, we looked around the aircraft and it was just covered in holes and we thought we were rather lucky getting back. When Taffy got right under the nose of the aircraft, looked up there was shells gone up right through where he had been laying with his legs open. Straight up through the centre, between his legs and out the top and he just more or less fell to the ground with his hands closed and I think he said a prayer same as we all did thinking we were damned lucky to be back home. And the old aircraft had a load of holes in. Since then we wondered how we did manage to get back. But anyhow the following day oh we had a nice time. We had rum when we got in for debriefing and we all debriefed as a crew, then individually by the, like with our case Les and I, had the gunnery officer. We went to bed that night and the next morning looking on orders we was on orders again for another raid. Of course, we’d been trained for this so we, we knew what to expect, you know. That’s why we were sent to a squadron. To do these bombing raids. Anyhow, same procedure as normal and after the briefing of course you weren’t, you made no contact with anybody outside on the ‘drome. You kept to yourselves so that no, anybody around the place to get the information to send off to the enemy, you know. Everything was all secret which we got used to after a couple of trips or a couple of briefings. This time the target was Munster in Germany. Crossing across the North Sea was ok. Normal flying except that when the navigator asked the pilot to climb to nineteen thousand feet which was the bombing height that day we found he couldn’t get the height. Only eighteen five hundred feet high. A discussion took place between the crew and we decided that you know we could carry on without. Didn’t want to turn back so we carried on to the bomb site and as we approached we had a bit of flak. And on the bombing run Taffy was giving an order to Phil to, you know, ‘Steady. Steady. Left. Left. Right. Right.’ Anyway, all of a sudden I discovered I was sitting in fresh air. It made me smile a bit at the time but I thought how has this come about? And as I had come to my guns were trailing over the tail turret and the ammunition was being pulled out all along the fuselage. Thinking to myself well it’s no good sitting here. Can’t. No good without guns. I’ll go up front with the pilot which I did or attempted to do. Disconnected oxygen etcetera to go up the front and the aircraft was one mass of flames. So at the same time I saw somebody disappear through the hatch, front hatch so I picked up my parachute. It was burning and I guess through the lack of oxygen these things were happening but I just dropped the parachute back down thinking well that’s no use to me. And all this happened in a matter of seconds I guess but it seemed ages but I’m sure Charlie at the front, he was the flight engineer he come, seemed to be running back to me over the spar. He picked up the ‘chute. I remember him doing it. I can see him now as I’m talking putting his arm across the flames on the ‘chute, clipping it on and somehow he got me over the spar in to the front of the aircraft into the cockpit where the exit was and the last thing I saw before he pushed me out was my pilot Phil sitting there with the stick back into his stomach. Very white. I can remember that and I can see him now. And Charlie pushed me out and I came to proper then coming down in the fresh air and while I was coming down I could hear psst psst psst and I assumed it was bullets being fired from the ground by the troops that I could see as I was coming down, surrounding me. And a Spitfire circled around as well while I was coming down. Didn’t see any other ‘chutes and I just hoped and prayed that everybody was out but I did see the plane which I assumed was our plane making a perfect belly landing away in the distance just one mass of flames. Of course, that disappeared out of sight and this Spitfire was circling and he must have been within five hundred feet of the ground and he dipped his wings and then shot away up in the air enough to say, ‘I’m on the way home.’ And that’s when I really first felt lonely. Just for a split second and then I was on the ground. And of course, I could see as I was landing that there was civilians and troops running in to this field that I was about to land in which I discovered, well in my opinion was a field of sugar beet and of course landed a bit heavy not having a full ‘chute. Anyway, I disconnected it and I had no chance of escape. It was 6.30 in the evening. I stood doing the hands up and a couple of German soldiers were within what fifty yards of me by that time and they gave me a search all over, make sure I’d got no firearms etcetera. And from there we marched across a field which was as I say was a bit of rough walking because it was some kind of root crop. I said it was sugar beet but anyway I’m carrying my open parachute and the guard put his foot on some barbed wire at the end of the field and I had to crawl underneath this wire which was not the easiest of tasks being open parachute carrying. They put me in to a coach there where I was strip searched and the parachute and flying jacket suit were taken from me and thrown into the back of a coach. While that was going on Charlie arrived with his. He’d been picked up, and also Taffy and they went through the same treatment as I did. But shaking hand with Charlie as he got in and you know didn’t speak at all. Just shaking hands we got hit across the wrist with the butt of a rifle which was a little bit painful. Same as the kick I had as we got through the barbed wire. I stopped like an English gentleman as I say to allow them to get through because I didn’t know where I had to go and he, the jackboot went right in my rear which I felt for several days afterwards. So anyhow finally we got put into some Army barracks where we were [paused] we’d been walking along this canal bank and were being beaten up by the civilians with broom handles and forks and if it hadn’t been for the guards protecting us and tempting to fire at the civilians I don’t think I’d would be here now. But anyhow, we finally arrived in this Army barracks where we stood in a big hall. A kind of a dining hall place or assembly hall and after we were standing there I was on the right, Taffy in the middle and Charlie was on the left and we, all of a sudden a door opened directly in front of us. Taffy started falling so we instantly grabbed him to stop him falling on the ground and the chap in the doorway says, ‘It’s alright Taffy. The war’s over for you.’ And he disappeared. Of course, we couldn’t talk to each other and we didn’t find out until we got into the actual camp, Luft 7 in Poland what it was all about. And it turned out that in 1938 this chap was working with Taffy in South Wales and he’d left there to go to Cambridge to improve himself and I guess he went back to Germany. But from that there we were put into a cell for in Munster for three nights. Three of us in one cell. And from there we had to go to Dulag Luft, the Interrogation Centre which was a bit [pause] a bit much at times but anyway we were in separate cells there for the first time and that was quite a lonely spot then. But anyhow as soon as I, we’d been warned at briefing not to take any notice of any voices or anything we heard when we were in the cells and I hadn’t been in there five minutes before a Yankee voice come I could hear. He said, ‘Are you a limey?’ I didn’t answer. He said, ‘Where did you catch it?’ I kept quiet. Didn’t answer at all and apparently, he said he had a gangrenous foot but I just didn’t answer and I just sat on the old bench that was there. But eventually after about a week I was called for and was taken, marched out from the cell along the corridor down the flight of steps, outside in to the, well, we were passing a parade ground. Then I had to go down some old steps in the building and this had doors all the way along either side of the building and the doors was open. I was told to stand there or indicated to stand there where I stood for forty five minutes actually with a pistol in front of me. There was two officers, I assumed they were officers of the German force and one, one was asking questions. Where we come from, what my trade was and all the rest of it. Still just answered number, rank and name and he kept fiddling with his pistol. The safety catch went on and off and I got like that I remember saying to myself, ‘Why don’t you pull the trigger? Get me out of it.’ I said, ‘Nobody knows whether I’m alive or dead so why don’t you do it?’ Anyhow, after forty five minutes he says, ‘I can let you go back to your cell now, Sergeant Hooker.’ He said, ‘You’re too young to die yet.’ Went back and I sat, I remember sitting on that bench, wooden bench, collapsed out to be honest. And anyhow the following morning I was called again. I thought oh no. Not again. This time went the other way. Went into an office. ‘Sit down, sergeant.’ ‘No. I prefer to stand.’ ‘Oh, have a cigarette.’ ‘No. I don’t smoke.’ Although I could have done at the time you know. I did used to smoke a bit but we never, we were warned against it. Not to smoke, you know or to take a cigarette but I could have given anything to have one. But anyhow after a while he started asking questions again and then he went on the phone. I remember this clearly. Went on the phone and presently a chap came through the door with a book. Put it on the desk in front of the officer and there he started turning these pages over and every page he turned over he mentioned a name of the RAF stations that I’d been at. Right from the time I joined up in the Lords Cricket Ground back to where I was born. It was amazing. Whether it told on my face or not I don’t know but once again he said, ‘You see Sergeant Hooker,’ he says, ‘We know all about you so what’s the point in shooting you.’ Still didn’t say anything. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘By the way Wing Commander Wilson is on our list. He’ll be the next one. We’ll get him. We knew he was supposed to lead the attack today,’ he said. ‘When you attacked.’ He said, ‘But he was standing at the end of the runway when you took off wasn’t he? Saluting the aircraft.’ It shook me something shocking that did. Knowing that. And that is actually what happened. Wing Commander Wilson’s plane went u/s on the way around to take off. And he said, ‘So, there we are.’ He said, ‘You go back to your cell.’ He says, ‘And in a few days’ time you’ll be sent to the prison camp.’ And I went back to my cell and sat there on this old wooden bench which we used to sleep on as well and I couldn’t take it in. That he knew all about us because my own crew didn’t even know where I was born apart from the fact that they knew I lived in Hartley Wintney. But I was actually born in a little hamlet a few miles away from there and he actually knew this. Anyhow, a couple or three days after we were called out again and there was Charlie and the bomb aimer over there and the navigator and the Canadian W/Op. They were there as well so we hadn’t been in touch with them at all. And there were several other men, two chaps we started talking to or Charlie and I did. A flight engineer Sergeant [Mead] and a Sergeant [Beech] from Kent. Anyway, we became very good pals then once we got into the prison camp which was in a place called Bankau in Poland. Took several days I believe if I remember right getting there but once we was there we, we was put in to what we called dog kennels. These garden sheds. And there were seven in the one I arrived in. We were only there for a short while. I can’t remember exact dates but from there we were put into proper huts and there was, that was divided off into small rooms and there was eight of us in a room in four double bunks. We became very friendly altogether and for exercise like all the rest of the lads we used to walk around the perimeter track day after day just to keep a bit of fitness together. The food was a bit rough and in very short supply as it had been during the whole time I’d been in the Interrogation Centre. But there we are. We got through. We had a bit of German cheese and their soup which was, well we called it whispering grass. That’s what it looked like. Bits of grass boiled up. Sometimes there was skinned potatoes boiled up. But the bread I got used to in the end. Eating their dark bread which was horrible to start with. The one thing in passing towards the end of the time we were in Luft 7 we were issued with bread that had been baked in 1937 for the Spanish Civil War. It was on the wrappers of the bread. Like we get our bread nowadays in wrappers. It was just like that. It was some of the finest bread I’ve ever eaten. It really was. Of course, during that time in Luft 7, through the Red Cross I had a set of dentures made because I was flying without mine. And there again they didn’t cost me anything apart from we were allowed to give the dentist a tablet of soap for hygiene purposes which I did and they were a lovely set of teeth. I had them on for a number of years after. After the war. Anyhow, from there of course, the Christmas ’45, sorry ’44 we heard that we were about to be moved from one camp to another. And over the Christmas period there the Yankee aircraft we could hear up in the sky we actually could see them. They were flying quite regular. But on the 17th of January we were informed because we used to have a parade every twice a day for number count, make sure no one had escaped, etcetera. We were informed that we’d be leaving the camp later that day to a destination which the Germans couldn’t tell us. Anyhow, we stood out in the snow and cold with what personal items we had in a Red Cross case which we’d been given in [pause] not in the Interrogation Centre, a transit camp which we went to after we’d been interrogated and that had new clothing, underwear, pullovers, towels, shaving gear which was very acceptable because I hadn’t had a shave or wash for over two weeks. And but from there as I say we were on the parade ground for a number of hours on the 17th then sent back to our billets. On the 19th we were to call again 3 o’clock in the morning on parade. Everybody woke up. Snowing. Breathing very cold. We eventually moved off. I think it was about 8 o’clock if I remember right. Over twelve hundred of us. There were sixteen hundred of us in the camp. Anyhow, there was way over twelve hundred and we, the marching didn’t much. It got into a walk and we stopped a few hours afterwards and put up into a farm building for the night. Then we walked again the following morning for a short while. And then we stopped outside a brick yard, a disused brick yard and we spent the day there. Some were lucky enough to be under cover. Others were in the open. Resting. We were told we were staying there for the day or for the night I should say and early evening we were called out again. We were on the move. The word went around. There were about, so we hesitated whether we’d get out or whether we’d stay there hoping we could get away with staying there and perhaps make contact with the Russians as they were making their push. As we were about to move we saw a pile of pallets. The four of us. There was Charlie, myself and Frank and Tommy. So nobody spoke. We all seemed to go to these pallets and start moving them, a big pile of them and we laid behind. Thought now we’re safe. Nobody will see us here. And we just moved them back in position probably and we were spotted, it turned out by a dog seen the pallets move. A dog. A German guard was checking everybody was out. Anyhow, he controlled the dog. It didn’t attack anybody and we, he ordered us out and in that time he pushed us up near the front of the queue that was forming to make the night march as it turned out. Well, that night it was really snowing and being in front of the queue, or almost in the front we were in sight of the German guards and the chief officer of the camp and the interrogator, not the interrogator, interpreter I should say of the camp and we was walking through snow up to our waists. So we were literally sort of digging ourselves through. And this went on all night. We left there at 8 o’clock at night. The march started and during the night we were informed that if we didn’t get across the River Oder by 8 o’clock in the morning we’d be left to the mercy of the Russians because they were getting so close. For some unknown reason we got over the river, over the bridge which had big holes drilled in them ready for being exploded. You know, exploding. And during the night, I can’t quite remember if it was before that incident or after we found ourselves, the four of us sitting on our cases. We had these Red Cross cases which we had fixed on a piece of an old broken ladder we found in the brickyard and used it as a sled to pull these cases along, you know. We had our towels and a little bit of personal stuff, clothing left. Most of it we was wearing to keep us warm. But we suddenly discovered we were all four of us sitting on this case. Nobody else in sight. I can’t remember who spoke, or if anybody spoke first but we eventually got up and we linked arms as we had been before helping each other along trying to keep each other up. Standing up. And of course the snow was flat and icy where all the lads had gone before us but we eventually did catch up with the group, on the tail end of it but after we’d got over the river, when did I say when it was? About 8 o’clock in the morning. Tired out of course but a short while afterwards we heard the explosions of the bridge being blown up. And that night or that morning we waited outside a farmhouse for like about an hour while the farmer finished milking his cows. You could see them in the stalls. And they turned them out into the snowy field and all of a sudden there was a mad rush and everybody was rushing inside so they could lay down and have a rest. Well, the four of us we spotted the old [unclear] where they used to milk the cows. The stalls. The cow stalls. Just room for four of us to lay down. Well, there was, the cows had been in there all night and we had a good old job trying to clean them out using our boots to move the droppings. We got a bit of straw or hay and managed to lay down on it but it wasn’t very thick. It was very hard and cold but that’s how we spent our night or the rest of the day I should say. But again, we’d no food and this went on for a number of days. I can’t quite remember how many there was. The memory is going a bit. But we were sleeping in cow farms, cow stalls, open barns. Sometimes the barns had hay in. I know in one instance we were sleeping on some hay that was in a barn down the bottom. Others had climbed up on top of the rig. But in the morning we couldn’t find our shoes and where the hay had moved, people moving about at night going to loo etcetera but we did finally find them. But another instance we got to, we were about to move again from the farm and had a short march that day and got to another farmhouse. And this was in the evening time and I could see, or four of us could see shadows moving about in the distance in this farmyard and I went to investigate because we had a feeling. We could see the shadow of a house in the darkness. Over the line, I took a couple of mugs with me to get a drink of water for the four of us and when I got there I was ushered inside and told, you know, told not to speak. It was in broken English. It was some Polish people and there were two of the lads, Polish lads who were on march they’d come up and found out there were Polish people in the house and two of them were going to stop there and hide and they had the floorboards up and they were going to hide in to, underneath the floorboards when our lot moved off. And I was warned you know not to say anything other otherwise you know, you’d be finished. I eventually got back with this water and they wanted to know where I had been and all the rest of it but thankfully we were eventually told we were going on a, the end of the march was over and we were being transported by train.
TO: Sorry. Can I just ask what is that noise?
Other: That’s the fridge.
TO: Ok. I just wondered.
FH: Are you alright?
TO: I was just wondering what the noise was that was all.
FH: Hmmn?
TO: Just wondering what the noise was. That was all. Sorry. Carry on.
FH: Yeah. We, we were informed we were going to be travelling by train for a while but we had another small march. But once we got on the train or on the train there was trucks, goods trucks and there was sixty five of us in one truck which in normal circumstances would have been a bit crowded to say the least. But it wasn’t long before people wanted to relieve themselves. Of course, we couldn’t open the door. That was locked from the outside. There was a crack in the door and various chaps stood at the door trying to relieve themselves but in the end a corner was used to, they wanted to do number twos as they call it. And eventually no. It was, I don’t know how to describe it. The stench was terrific. Everybody was wanting to relieve themselves and using the corner and of course that meant chaps were getting closer and closer together because during the, a couple of days before we got on the train we’d been at a farmhouse and somebody found a tub of what they said was molasses. Of course, everyone being hungry and thirsty put their mugs in and had some of this molasses but it was what they called farm molasses and of course Canadians used to love molasses. Similar to treacle in our case, you know. But this turned out to be farm molasses which they used to use to make sileage for the cattle. Dysentery set in with nearly everyone on the train and believe me it was no, no holiday sitting in that train. We did finally stop and then we were allowed out of the trucks and some of us got out. I think most people got out but a lot of us couldn’t get back in on our own. It was on a slope and it wasn’t on the, it was out in the country so there was no platform and we went down the slope and done what we had to and got back up the slope to get in and the Germans were actually helping us into the trucks. The guards. And some of our own chaps who were a bit fitter helped each other up. Anyhow, we finally got to the destination which was Luckenwalde and there we had a short walk to the camp and crowds of people were, or a crowd of chaps were getting near the gate anxious to see who we were and what. What we were. And it turned out it was an Army camp that we were arriving at. Stalag 3A. And again, we had to stand outside, be photographed again for identity cards. We eventually got into this camp. Into huts. There were no bunks and just the open hut and I think it was just over two hundred to a hut. And we were fortunate. Fortunate to find a place near the side of the hut where we could lean against. There was no, you couldn’t really lay down there was so many. The crowd was so, you know intense and so close together. But anyway, that went on for a while and it was there that I discovered two lads. One from Aldershot, and one from Blackwater and the third one from Basingstoke. And the lad from Basingstoke unfortunately was taken to hospital one night and he passed away with a gangrene stomach. And the following morning or the morning after the padre come around asking if anybody knew him that was in the area where he was resting and sleeping, this chap. He’d been taken out of the room. But I imagine that he was in the same Air Training Corps as I was in Basingstoke so I was allowed to join the party for the funeral which part of the way I carried a imitation or homemade paper wreath with paper flowers on. And halfway along outside the camp, it was quite a walk we changed over bearers and I helped carry the lad to the cemetery which all were under oath not try to escape, you know on that particular occasion which we all agreed to, you know the padre and everything. Anyhow, finally on the 22nd of April [pause] Yes, the 23rd of April we woke up and then, no. That must have been about the 22nd we discovered that the German guards had gone and a senior, I think it was a Norwegian officer had been put in charge of the camp and he gave the instruction no one to leave as the Russians were very close. And on the 23rd these Russian tanks arrived and it was a sight I’ll never forget. They, these tanks went straight down the main road I suppose you’d call it of the camp, the barbed wire either side knocking it down. Everybody was cheering I remember and they turned around, the tanks did and come back up and with the tanks, on some of the tanks were Russian prisoners. They were you know a compound further down sitting on the tanks and some were walking and it was said that they were continuing with the troops to Berlin. They were in a sad state I must admit. And the next thing another follow up troops as they moved off further on the second wave of Russian troops come which had women in them, amongst them as well and we were treated just like prisoners as well by them. Short of food. Not allowed out. But some did venture out I agree. On one occasion, one day there we were, several of us walked down to the Russian compound where they’d killed a cow. We tried to get some of this meat to cook up but didn’t get much luck. They gave us a bit of a tripe which we couldn’t do anything with. It was horrible really. But anyhow, eventually word went around that American trucks were arriving. Everybody was quite pleased and excited looking for them. When they did arrive we rushed to them. I know I did to get on one of the trucks. They were going to take us back to the American lines which turned out to be about eighteen kilometres away. But waiting there in the trucks then some of the guards got very close and ordered everybody off the trucks. ‘You’re our prisoners. You’re going home. We’ll send you home through Odessa,’ they were saying. Anyhow, we got turned off the trucks, put back in the camp and the word went around they’d come again in the morning, the Americans because they didn’t want to make bad friends or cause trouble with the Russians. So they said they’d return again in the morning which they did and again I was one of the lucky ones to get on the trucks. This time I’d somehow or other, I don’t know how I’d lost, lost contact with Charlie and the two new mates, Frank and Tommy. But anyhow again we got turned off the trucks with the Russians firing at us. So the message went around anybody fit enough to walk eighteen kilometres the Yanks would wait there for twenty four hours waiting for us. I joined up with three other chaps who was in the, got off the same lorry. We went into the woods that was close by heading in the direction that we were informed that, we were being fired on then by the Russians as we were trying to escape I suppose you’d call it. But we weren’t the only ones. There was a load of others as well but we was dodging in between the trees. But eventually the firing stopped and we carried on and met up with four or five other. And in the end there was a group of ten of us that after some chatter amongst ourselves five of them decided to return to camp but we decided, you know we started and we’d finish. And that night, well during the day I don’t know how far we’d covered I’m sure but we were very tired and hungry we come across this little village and we could smell new bread being baked and of course that made us worse. Made us feel hungry and we sorted out some and spoke to some Russian guards and took a chance that we’d speak with them and they indicated, or we made them understand who we were after a while. Ex-prisoners of war, English and they cottoned on to who we were. They took us into a house and ordered us to sit down and they disappeared. Well, it was only a matter of ten minutes I guess and they came back with four or five jars of bottled meat and a big bucket of milk and indicated to us to eat and drink and then to lay down and sleep. So we really got tucked in to this bottled meat. It was good. And the milk. So we finally said well we’ll stop there and we slept through the night. And then the following morning we thought well we’d better say thank you to these Russians but we didn’t know where they were but we went outside and eventually we saw these chaps coming back to us pushing bicycles. We thought are they the same men or aren’t they and it turned out they were and they’d got bicycles for us to ride instead of having to walk because we were informed we were going to America. And there was four bicycles so we shared one. Gave one a lift so far and then changed over you know. Five of us on four bikes. Then eventually we got to [unclear] where the German, a load of German civilians and we were trying to get through to the bridge and couldn’t get through. But eventually we made contact with the Russians that were guarding the bridge which was the entrance for the Germans to get across into the Yankee zone but they weren’t allowing that. There was quite a few men their side. But eventually we got in contact with them and told them we wanted to get over and, ‘No. No. No.’ Then they indicated they realised who we were and I pointed to my bike, flat tyre, no good. So they took this bike away from me and more or less snatching it away from me give it to a German lady and snatched her bike away from her and told us, indicated for us to go across the bridge. Which we did and it was long, not long after we got over the bridge we turned. I remember turning left and going along this road. We heard grenades going off. We thought have we done right? They’re still fighting. Anyhow, suddenly three or four Yanks came out from the woods away in front of us, a hundred or a hundred and fifty yards in front of us. They looked and we put our hands up and we called out, ‘English. English.’ Anyhow, we gradually met up and from there they, we threw our bikes on the grass and they got transport for us and took us to their headquarters where we was given some food and drink, cigarettes. And then we moved on from there to a place called [Halle]. I think it is. Anyhow, there again we were given some more cigarettes, more food and it was there that there were some other lads, some Army lads who had been prisoners and had got that far and of course my feet was terrible with blisters. So one of these lads seen me hobbling. He asked what was wrong and I said, ‘Oh, blisters.’ He said, ‘I’m a medical man,’ he says, ‘From the Medical Corps.’ He says, ‘I’ll have a look at them.’ Anyhow, he looked and he disappeared somewhere. He’d been there several days apparently but he came back and I think he must have pricked one of the blisters and it was all running out you know. And then he put a padding on it which was a little bit uncomfortable to start with but after a while it made it easier for me to walk. So I thanked him and then we didn’t see him again. We got, I got moved on to Belgium to an Army, a British Army camp where we had a good shower and a wash, a shave, tidied up again. And from there they gave us some what they called [Banff[ money. It was money that was issued to the occupying forces during the war and we bought a couple of little gifts in the evening. The following day we were told, we had breakfast there of course amongst the troops and we were told that our names would be called out and we’d have to go to a certain point they indicated to us. An assembling area where we’d be flown back to England. Well, waited all the morning. Nothing happened. And we had lunch or I had lunch and I realised I was the only RAF chap there. So waited and waited and mid-afternoon I heard the name, ‘Sergeant Hooker, RAF.’ So I hurried to the assembly point and met up with a crew of a Dakota and they said, ‘Well, you’re on our flight,’ and there was a load of Army chaps there as well so we all got aboard and I discovered sitting in the aircraft a contingent of RAF chaps. Anyway, we took off. I was very pleased you know to be taken flying again and I just got settled in my seat you know and thinking that the White Cliffs are over there and I see a chap coming down from the cockpit, one of the crew members. And he’d been sent down by the pilot asking if I would like to go and fly home in the cockpit along with them which I grabbed the opportunity and I sat up there coming over the English Channel could gradually see the White Cliffs getting nearer and nearer. And the pilot was asking where I lived and said that he was landing at Dunsfold near Guildford. I said, ‘Oh well, that’s not too far from home.’ I said, ‘In fact, I’ve got relations in Guildford.’ Anyhow we got there and we landed and the first chap oh I sat back in the fuselage of course for landing and the first chap I met when the door opened being the first one off the aircraft was a Salvation Army officer who welcomed me home. Shook hands. Then the next chap in the line was a senior RAF officer who, you know shook hands. Again, welcoming me home. Then there was the Army chap. Anyway, we finally got into the hangar in Dunsfold. We had a short interrogation there. Wanted to know when I was shot down and about the crew and if they were all alive. Eventually we were transported that night into Guildford Railway Station and going on the platform thinking it was empty there was a load of women and of course there were a lot of other RAF chaps with me this time. You know they’d landed earlier and that. I forget how many there was but anyhow we were sent there or driven there by transport to go catch a train to Cosford, near Wolverhampton. So, I said, ‘Well, why can’t I go home?’ I said, ‘I’d be home in no time.’ ‘No. You’ve got to go to Cosford and get re-kitted and that. Well, these woman as we, the group walked on the platform a woman grabbed us and this particular woman had grabbed me or took hold of my arm and we walked away from the others. She said, ‘We’re all here to take information from you.’ She said, ‘So we can contact your parents or relatives to let them know that you’re home safe.’ I said, ‘Well, I had sent a telegram to them.’ ‘Yes, but we’ll, we’ll let them know exactly what’s happening and how you are.’ So I told them everything. I said, ‘Well, I’m not on the phone at home,’ I says. ‘My parents haven’t got a telephone.’ ‘Don’t worry. We’ll ring the local police station.’ Which she said they would do and get the police to go to the house and tell mum that we was on the way home, or on the way to Cosford like, you know. Which apparently happened it turned out. After I’d got home they told me all about it. But while we were there there was a big shout. One of the girls quite close to us yelled out loud and disappeared. And it went quiet, everybody went quiet, saw this girl running and she’d spotted her brother entering the platform and after a while everybody cheered and that kind of thing, you know but it was a very moving moment actually. Anyhow, he was allowed to go straight home. We went up to Cosford on the train. Got there in RAF Cosford and could have a wash and shower and all that kind of thing and laid out on the bed was the old RAF blue uniform. Hospital uniforms. Clean pyjamas. Nice white sheets in the bed and we enjoyed our nice night’s sleep. Then and during the day we, the following morning we had breakfast and had a proper interrogation of what had taken place from the time we’d left the ‘drome until we got back to where we were then and asking about the deaths of the different ones you know, the pilot and the tail gunner. Anyway, we finally got rekitted, smartened up and I travelled down to Reading by train with a lot of London boys and we were allowed to travel that night providing we could get home. Well, I looked at the timetables and things and thought well I can get to Reading and catch the last bus as I thought but anyway it was, unfortunately the last bus had gone when I got there. Very quiet of course. This was midnight and I eventually plucked up courage and rang a farmer that I knew in the village not knowing whether they had petrol for cars or anything like that. Anyway, the son answered the phone and I was a bit choked up and he couldn’t understand what I was saying for a while and he said, ‘Did you say Freddie?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ And he, I can remember him saying, ‘Calm down, Fred. Calm down.’ He said, ‘Wait a minute.’ And then he said, ‘Are you alright?’ and I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘What are you doing? Where are you?’ And I explained I was just coming home from a POW camp and this was my first visit home and I was stuck in Reading. And he said, ‘Well, alright.’ He says, ‘You stay where you are,’ he says. I remember this as plain as life. ‘You stay where you are.’ He says, ‘I’ll have a word with dad. Wake him up.’ Anyhow, it turned out that they had petrol enough and David was allowed to, excuse me come in to Reading and pick me up which was quite a moving, a moving moment when he did arrive and we drove back across what we call Hazeley Heath and made me think of the times when I used to go on leave and walk from Reading to Hartley Wintney but this time it was, I felt I wasn’t fit enough and I’d a full pack and everything. But anyhow, as we turned in our local road and thinking it was all going to be in darkness I could see lights in our living room and in the kitchen and as David pulled up outside the house there was mother and father at the gate waiting for me. And I was at last home and met up with the family who was there. There is only one thing I regret because when I, while I was in the camp I cut the tops of my flying boots off so they were ordinary shoes and I used the silk to make a silk scarf but while doing, one of the flying boots, the leg part of them was covered in shrapnel. Bits of metal and I filled a matchbox full of these and had carried them all the way through and everything and they was in my hands while I was waiting at Reading Station. I found them in the matchbox but I never saw them again because when we’d been hit I mean I wasn’t injured in any way but my left toecap of this shoe, flying boot had a split from one side to the other and it didn’t even touch my sock. Just the shoe and I’d saved them. When I got new kit in Cosford I put them in my kitbag and brought them with me. But that I’m afraid was my life in the Service. Apart from the fact that I did stay on for a while and joined the Motor Transport Department. Did my training up at [Wittering] just outside Blackpool. And eventually I went back to France to a Repair and Salvage Unit travelling over France recovering broken down vehicles. That I say is my memories of service life but I often regret not staying in. There we are. That’s another tale. Thanks.
Thank you so much.
[recording paused]
FH: Right.
TO: So when you were growing up were you interested in aircraft?
FH: Not until I got involved with the Air Training Corps when that first came about in 1941. Yeah. That’s the only interest I had before. When I was a young lad at [pause] what age would I have been? I’d have been about eight years of age my sister worked as a housemaid in a private house and an aircraft, a private house and private aircraft used to land there. A chap by the name of Fielding and it was in the field next door actually to where Lord Alanbrooke finally arrived at and lived. A house called Ferney Close. And I always remember it was a red aircraft and my sister used to come home on her day off she used to tell us about this. Usually flying around the area then it would disappear for parts of sight and it would land in this field and they were allowed out to see it after it landed. Otherwise, no. It was the joining the Air Training Corps and seeing these aircraft we mentioned earlier coming over on the first, what turned out to be the first thousand aircraft raid on Cologne that got me really in to flying. Yeah.
TO: And when you, in the 1930s do you remember anyone being afraid of Hitler?
FH: Being afraid of Hitler?
TO: Yes.
FH: Let me think [pause] Not until, well ’38 I suppose, ’39 time. I can’t remember anything before that. Not really. No. No. I don’t think so. Can’t give much of an answer there.
TO: And do you remember the day the war started?
FH: Yes. I was standing in our living room in what is now Priory Lane, Phoenix Green and I was standing near, between the window and the living room door and father had ordered us to keep quiet. There was three or four of us children there at the time and he put the, had the wireless on and he says, ‘This means we will have to go without things for a while.’ I remember him saying that. But I can remember the Prime Minister saying, ‘We are now at war with Germany.’ Now, was he, what was his name?
TO: Chamberlain.
FH: Sorry?
TO: Chamberlain.
FH: Chamberlain. Because he lived quite local over at Heckfield, a few miles from home and his sisters lived in Odiham if I remember right but not that I ever knew him or met him you know. But I hear his voice now in my head saying, ‘We are now at war with Germany.’ Yeah.
TO: And what do you think of his policy of appeasing Hitler?
FH: Come again?
TO: What do you think of Chamberlain making the agreement with Hitler in 1938?
FH: I don’t know. I’ve never really thought on that really. But thinking back I don’t think it should have taken place. No. But I can’t really give much of an answer to that one.
TO: And do you — sorry, were you going to say something?
FH: No.
TO: Do you remember the preparations people were making for war?
FH: Oh yes. Digging. Digging big holes in the garden. Filling it with corrugated iron walls on the inside of the big hole with steps leading down to it. That’s what I was doing myself in our own garden on the day the thousand pound, [laughs] thousand pound [laughs] the thousand plane bomber raid was to take place. Some people had done it much earlier of course. And then there was you could purchase the Anderson shelters and there was another one.
TO: Morrison.
FH: Morrison. That’s right. Yeah. I know while I was on leave once I went down to my sister in Folkestone and we had to get in this, this shelter that was in her living room in the corner under the table. The table was over the top of it. And because there was a bombing raid on I’ve never been so scared in my life sitting in there because if a bomb had come down I think you would have just been buried, you know. I could never quite work out the reason for such places like that. I can understand the huge, larger underground shelters that they had but for the individual having one in the house I couldn’t quite see that but there we go. That was about it I think.
TO: Were there any air raids where you lived?
FH: Yes. There was one. Now, this would have been when? They weren’t that, it wasn’t an actual raid on the village or area but a bomb was dropped and landed in a field right on the outskirts of the village which I actually saw leave the Dornier aircraft while I was working as a gardening boy. This would have been in what? 1942, I guess. I was working at Winchfield House owned by a Colonel Cherington and this lone aircraft kept flying over in daylight one afternoon and we saw the actual bomb doors open and see the bomb leave the aircraft and it landed in a field close to what we called Mount Pleasant in Hartley Wintney. And no one was injured or anything but we did, I did view the crater later in the evening and there was a few windows, I believe broken but no casualties and that’s about the only one I can remember local. Although when I was at home at the time I don’t know but I understand there was a few found or that had been dropped along the, near the railway line at a place we called Elvetham. A couple or three miles from here but I don’t know any details on that one.
TO: And once you’d joined the Air Force what kind of rations did you have?
FH: Rations? While in the Service do you mean?
TO: Yes. In the Service in general.
FH: Well, I think we used to have a sweet ration. I don’t think cigarettes were rationed. I can’t remember that. But food of course. I mean, we had them supplied to us. You know, from the mess. Although in Civvy Street there was the usual rationing going on but once I was in the Service that didn’t affect us except that when we went on leave we were given a ration card with little coupons on that the shopkeeper used to have to tear off. Was it two ounces of tea a week? An ounce of cheese or a couple of ounces of butter. I forget the exact amount. A very small amount but of course that helped, assisted mother with feeding me when I was on leave. That kind of thing. Yeah. That’s about it I think. Yeah.
TO: And when you were volunteered for the Air Force what was the process for becoming air crew?
FH: Well, first of all I applied I don’t know whether it was to Oxford or where it was but I had to go, travel to Oxford. I had the reply after writing and I had to travel to Oxford for an interview and an assessment test. And that was, I’d done my first one in 1941 but unfortunately I failed that and very disappointed. I came home again but in 1942 [pause] yeah late ‘42 I reapplied and got through it ok. I was quite chuffed. Most of the local people I spoke to said, ‘You haven’t got a chance on earth. You’ve got to have a proper education. College or university education.’ I said, ‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘But I’m going to have a damned good try.’ Which I did and I studied hard in the Air Training Corps. We had various lectures from people from the RAF Odiham and we used to visit, excuse me, visit RAF Odiham for lectures as a group in the ATC. And that is where I gained a lot of information that was needed with regards discipline. We were shown all a number of different forms which we learned numbers of because the Service life was all numbers on forms and as I say that’s where I really got the liking to and wanting to join the Air Force. Yeah.
TO: And what medical tests did you have to do?
FH: Well, we had the general medicals and well they checked you for everything in those days, you know, wanting to know the illnesses one had had but, and a load of injections of course. Things I’d never had before apart from having been vaccinated as a kiddie but they just took it in your stride you know. They asked questions and you answered them as best they could regarding your medical health which in those days I was quite fit, you know. Just have the normal measles and mumps when I was a kiddie. That’s all. Nothing serious. Yeah.
TO: And did you hear about events in the war like America becoming involved?
FH: Yeah. We heard this on the radio, you know. All the time he was at home dad always had the 6 o’clock and 9 o’clock news on the radio and nobody dare speak in those days while the news was on. If you did you got a clip around the ear because he was interested in what was going on, you know. He himself had only been in the Army a short while during the previous war, the First World War. He was just a short chappie. He was refused on height for a long time but he was for a few, a couple of years I think it was in what they called the [unclear] depot near Southampton but the guards knew it was quiet 6 o’clock and 9 o’clock at night and he mentioned about the Yanks being late coming in to the war I remember. ‘Just like they were last time,’ he said. But otherwise, no. And of course, we heard early on of the so many aircraft didn’t return from a raid. That kind of thing on the news and it didn’t cross my mind when I got interested in planes that it might happen to me. Just one of those things. Yeah.
TO: And what did you do for entertainment in the RAF?
FH: Oh, that would be telling wouldn’t it? The [pause] well I don’t know. Just carried on normally. We used to go out for a drink sometimes or spend the evenings in the NAAFI along with friends and I’ve known when we’ve gone out for a stroll around the camp you know in the local villages. But otherwise, we spent a lot of time doing the old, [unclear] we called it in those days. Cleaning the brass and the webbing and actually we didn’t get a lot of spare time. Not in our case. No. We were always studying in the evenings. Checking what we’d been through during the daytime you know. Sometimes you’d get assistance from a mate. Another time he wouldn’t speak to you. But normally the friendship in the Services was terrific. Something I did miss when I finally left. Yeah. The comradeship. Yeah.
TO: How would you describe morale in the Air Force?
FH: Good. Very good. Yes. I think so. From my experience it was very good and there’s no other word for it. The comradeship and the morale was good. You missed that kind of thing when you come into Civvy Street.
TO: Were there ever any problems with teasing or bullying?
FH: With bullying?
TO: In the Air Force.
FH: Never come across it myself. No. I must admit it was if one was in trouble or say in trouble perhaps couldn’t afford to, had spent the money and couldn’t afford to have a cup of tea or a pint of beer in the NAAFI one of your mates would always buy you one you know. It was the same when we was on the Conversion Unit. It was a Canadian unit as I mentioned earlier. We used to join them in the gambling sessions sometimes. I think they called it Sevens. Throwing the old dice. Well, many a time I’ve been broke from about an hour, an hour and a half after being paid same as Les and we always found somebody to give you a drink or a cup of coffee and loan you a quid if you wanted one. You’d always be paid back. The comradeship was terrific. Yeah.
TO: Did you ever visit the cinemas together?
FH: I think we used to go to a cinema occasionally. Yeah. I can’t say what. We used to have one on a camp, on the camp where you could go but what the films were now I don’t know. No.
TO: And what did you think of Churchill?
FH: It’s a job for me to describe that. At times he was, I mean he got us through the war from that angle but I don’t know. I daren’t say what I really think I don’t think. Not towards the end. I mean he didn’t have much, didn’t have much to say about Bomber Command boys after the order to really as far as I’m concerned came from him in the first place for these bombing raids etcetera. Red Arrows going over.
TO: Oh yeah. There we go. There we are.
FH: Sorry about that.
TO: No. No.
FH: A perfect time to do a fly past.
TO: They’re doing a fly past for Odiham Aerodrome.
Other: No. That was Thursday.
TO: Oh, was that Thursday.
FH: Oh, there they go. There there go.
TO: Yes. [pause] marvellous.
FH: Couldn’t ask for any better interruption.
TO: There they go again.
FH: There they go.
Other: [unclear]
FH: Wonderful.
TO: Wonderful.
FH: That reminds me seeing those go by the window now the last day or supposed to have been the last hour the Vulcan flying. That comes just a few feet, well a few hundred feet I suppose it was above our road and come straight down the road. It was a beautiful sight. But anyhow that’s beside the point.
TO: Ok. So would it be ok if we put [unclear] for us so they don’t crease. Sorry. Just that is creased. And what did you think of Arthur Harris?
FH: Bomber. Yes. Well, he carried out instructions didn’t he from the higher ups and like the rest of us in the Service he was carrying out orders as far as I’m concerned. And that’s, that’s it. He was a good leader as far as I’m concerned. Yeah. But otherwise, never met him of course. No. I can’t say much more.
TO: And what was your opinion of Halifaxes?
FH: To me they were the finest aircraft ever made. I enjoyed every trip I took in them and to compare it with the Lancaster well it’s a job to because I only went into a Lancaster aircraft once and that was only about eighteen months ago when I visited the flight station at Coningsby. We were allowed, I was allowed to climb in there and go over the Halifax, the Lancaster and I still think the Halifax was a nicer aircraft. Yeah. It’s one of those things. They’d both done a good job. One may have carried a heavier bomber load, bomb loads but in the war effort I think they were both the same. Yeah.
TO: Were you aboard a Mark 3 Halifax?
FH: Yeah. We operated on the Mark 3 from the squadron. Yeah. It’s [pause], I’m not sure what Mark it was. Whether it was a Mark 3 at Conversion Unit or not I wouldn’t be too sure on that one. The old memory fades sometimes.
TO: And what were conditions like in the mid-upper turret?
FH: Very cramped as far as that goes but then you didn’t want to move about. You were sitting there and your turret moved with you and you looked, gazed and looked all around. Up, down all around. It was, it was a lovely flying position I think for seeing things as well, you know. Yeah. Beautiful. Boulton Paul turret. Yes. Many days ago now but I did manage to get into a Halifax. It would have been last year I think it was. We went up to RAF Elvington in Yorkshire and I was allowed to climb aboard there which I had to have a little assistance getting in but it was, well it brought back a load of memories to me. Good and bad. And I was only disappointed that Elizabeth couldn’t, wasn’t allowed into the aircraft there although she didn’t climb aboard the Lancaster as did our friends. But my friend, Chris, from Worksop, he helped me in and out of the aircraft same as he did with the Dakota but the Halifax it’s a shame they didn’t save one so it could have joined the what was the Memorial Flight. Why they never come back I don’t know. Except they are rebuilding one in Canada which I sometimes get little whippets of news from but I haven’t had one lately. No. Lovely aircraft.
TO: And did you ever know of any cases of people who refused to go on bombing raids?
FH: No. I heard that some people did and then they were classed as LMF in initials. Lack of moral fibre. And I think it was disgusting for those chaps to be labelled with such a thing because believe me I’d only done three trips and as I mentioned earlier the one in the Ruhr it was hell let loose. So, I can’t, I don’t wonder of some chaps not having the nerve to go again but being labelled LMF I think was wrong. Yeah. But I knew, never knew of anyone.
TO: When you were aboard the Halifax how did it compare to being aboard the Wellington?
FH: Well, quite a different experience in a way because with the [pause] when I was flying in the Wellington on training when we were crewing up mainly my position was looking out of the astrodome unless it was my turn to do the firing exercise. Then Les and I would change over and I’d sit in the tail turret to do the, carry out the firing exercise. But the experience of looking around and searching the sky which I practised in the astrodome was about the same except it was a much smaller area to look around. The Wellington I think could take a lot more punishment than the Halifax I think in as much that, how it was constructed. The framework being criss-crossed or whatever the wording is because I was flying in the Wellington once I was in the astrodome and actually saw the wings literally flap up and down which any other aircraft I think they’d have snapped off at the time. There was a, we had a Polish screened pilot instructing our pilot on the Wellington and he told him to dive down over base. We was over Reading at the time and he said, ‘When I say dive I mean dive.’ But Phil just did a gentle dive and he just took over the dual aircraft control and whoof. I was just in the astrodome dumbfounded. Mouth wide open. But we didn’t see him afterwards after the pilot reported him while we was debriefed. Yeah. Because that is one thing the pilot if possible excepting emergencies of course has to warn to the crew, or has to warn the crew on if he’s going in to a steep dive. Yeah. That’s about it I think.
TO: What was the process for moving the turret about?
FH: What was?
TO: The process for rotating the turret?
FH: The purpose.
TO: The process.
FH: Process. Oh, you’ve nearly got me beat now. Nearly forget it’s so long ago since I’d done it. It was a, we had a handle there, you know and port to starboard. Dip or raise on the handle. I’m trying to I remember if it was just a single. I can’t remember now. It was a single handle I think. You’d go port to starboard. The normal position for take-off and that kind of thing would be facing tailward. The turret would be, you know. Yeah.
TO: And what was the process for take-off?
FH: Well, everybody would be checking before we took off and check all particular instruments you know. The positions. We’d ensure the guns were loaded and the safety catch was on and that it worked of course but you always would be in a safe position on take-off. And at times I believe we used to, I used to have to sit in the fuselage for take-off. I can’t quite remember whether that was the actual rule. I’ve got a feeling it was during the training and once we was airborne you’d climb aboard and when you was on ops of course as soon as you got airborne you put your safety catch off and start the business of rotating. Searching the sky.
TO: And when you were on a raid could you see anything beneath you?
FH: Oh yes. For instance, our first raid was the airfield, an airfield in Holland and actually saw the bombs dropping. You know, landing on the airfield, yes. But when we were at Gelsenkirchen of course it was so, the area was full of smoke from the fires and the exploding of the bombs. We were actually bombing, in our case a red target which the Pathfinders indicated to the bomb aimer to bomb on and so we didn’t really see the bombs hanging there except that some times you’d be next to, pardon me, next to a puff of smoke. But it was so dense you just, your bombs exploding joining all the rest of the chaos that was going on. Yeah, then we were going to the Munster raid. Well, I don’t know because we were hit. I say we were hit. I don’t know even to this day whether we were hit from a bomb above us, whether it was ack ack or what the reason was but we were hit, you know. And whether the bombs had been gone I don’t know. So it was all, all very blank that side of things was. How long as I said before I was knocked out I don’t know. I shouldn’t think not long. Being in fresh air. I don’t know. Yeah. That’s about it I think.
TO: Could you actually hear the explosions of the flak?
FH: I can’t recall that one. No. No. I saw plenty of it. Yeah. Yes, it’s so one got hit and he started diving in flames but no I can’t recall whether I heard them or not. Saw the puffs of smoke all around us. Oh. Yeah. Glad to get out of that anyway. But hearing them I don’t know. I can’t, can’t say.
TO: Could you ever see fires beneath you? Could you ever see fires on the ground?
FH: On the ground? [pause] No. Well, when we were going into the Ruhr the second trip I mean there was a mass of smoke. The whole area was. So we didn’t actually see the flames there. I don’t [pause] On the first one I don’t remember seeing fires at the airfield no. We saw the explosions but no we didn’t actually see a fire start. No. Definitely not and probably did because we were carrying incendiary bombs. Yeah.
TO: And what about searchlights?
FH: No. We did all daylight raids ours was so they didn’t —
TO: Ok.
FH: They didn’t play havoc with us but I believe they did with some chaps. Yeah.
TO: And did you ever see enemy fighters?
FH: Didn’t see one enemy fighter. Not on, not while we were on bomber trips. No. No. The first one I saw was in Farnham funnily enough before I joined the Air Force. One that had been shot down or something and was on show in Farnham but otherwise, no.
TO: And did you hear about the bombing of Hamburg in 1943?
FH: Well, yes, we heard of the different raids taking place but I couldn’t, couldn’t relate any actual details. No. No. It’s you used to listen to the news you know about so many of our aircraft missing. The target was Hamburg or wherever it was we’d hear on the news you know. But you didn’t feel as though you was taking a risk. You didn’t think of that happening to you and being shot down until it happened.
TO: When you saw the planes for the Cologne raid were you aware, did you learn later it was the first thousand bomb raid?
FH: Yeah. Yeah. We learned later on it was. Yeah. Yeah. But it was a sight which stays with me. Where I was in our back garden with a spade in my hand digging and the neighbours was in their gardens and all of sudden this noise approached from what we called the Reading area over to us and they seemed to be turned right about our heads and heading towards Southampton. And plane after plane after plane. I can’t tell you how long it took for them to all go by but there were the boys with their waving their guns and looking because they weren’t very high. I couldn’t tell you the exact height but they could certainly know and they would see people on the ground and waving and they were waving. Moving the guns up and down to the people below. It was a wonderful sight but I can’t remember how many returned the following day. I don’t know. But it was a wonderful, wonderful sight. Yeah. There we go.
TO: When you were in the POW camps did you ever hear about the raid on Dresden?
FH: We had, someone had a wireless in the camp and we used to get snippets of news sent around to us by a group of chaps who was, nobody, well we didn’t, nobody in our hut knew where the wireless came from except I was told once a chap had a crystal set made into a set of false teeth. How true that was I do not know. But we used to get the little newsflashes most days. And someone would stand just casually at the door of the hut when the man came. A different one each day bringing around the news, you know that he’d heard on the wireless because the guard used to walk around the camp as well so if anybody was about nothing was spoken of, you know. Just casual everyday conversations like, you know. And on several occasions heard little bits of news while we was on the march. So whoever he was, whatever he was he did deserve something in recognition of what he’d done and kept the morale up of, of the lads in the camp. Yeah.
TO: And what was your opinion of the Browning guns you were using?
FH: Of course, I didn’t fire them in anger but they were, the four were synchronised together to fire together. Of course they were so synchronised if I was facing tailwards or frontwards over the wings the bullets wouldn’t hit them. They were so synchronised that you missed the tail turret or the tailplane, you know. Good thing. But no I think they were good. In fact, I think towards the end of the war they went to a .5 millimetre but ours were 303s. Four of them. Yeah.
TO: And what’s your best memory from your time in the RAF?
FH: My best memory? Now, that makes me think doesn’t it? Best memory. I suppose was when I flew back in to Dunsfold. Yeah. And the worst memory was there at the same time when they told me I had to go to Cosford instead of going straight home. So, it all turned out right, ok. Yeah.
TO: Do you think there is anything Bomber Command could have done to reduce its losses?
FH: Well, I don’t know. I mean to send a thousand I know it only, I think it only happened about twice, a thousand planes raid but I mean averages. Men had to be shot down or failed to return for some reason but I mean, I think it was in our case I think there was about two hundred planes on the target every half hour, you know. Which I would have thought was sufficient because the more there are there the more chance you’ve got, or the more the Germans had I think of hitting us and of course another thing with regards ourselves we were informed that if an aircraft, which in our case we were lower than we should have been when we were dropping our bombs the gunners on the ground picked out single aircraft out and put a box barrage up so, all around us so whichever way you turned up, down, sideways you were bound to get something. And it’s possible that’s what happened with us.
TO: Were you ever, when you were a prisoner were you ever worried that the, that the Germans might start killing captured airmen?
FH: Killing?
TO: Captured airmen.
FH: Well, we did hear of a case actually in our camp. I can’t say that I witnessed it but I have got a photograph of where it had taken place in my collection of photographs that was actually when the chap found this camera in the offices after the Germans left and the offices were ransacked for different ones to see what they could find as souvenirs. This one chap from London found a camera and he notified us that the, one of the films had been taken and he was going to include it on there whatever it was and it turned out to be where these two chaps were being shot. Yeah. Attempting to break out.
TO: Had you been taught the procedure for baling out during training?
FH: As far as I’m concerned the only training I had was in the Air Training Corps. We was over at Odiham and we was in a hangar one day. We’d been, been to a classroom and we’d been taught about parachuting. How they were folded and all the rest of it. And we were taken to one of the hangars and in one corner of the hangar there was one a platform right up in the ceiling and there was a rope hanging down and a ladder going up the side of the wall and we used to, they instructed us to, the corporal there, we climbed up the ladder. They’d feed a harness on us and explained that we’d be dropping at the same rate as though we were coming down in an actual parachute. It was geared towards a certain speed and we were told we’d got to hit the ground, to be in a ball and to roll over on our shoulder as we hit the ground. They had a mattress down for us to land on, you know. Not the concrete. And we’d done the rolls in PT and that kind of thing but the actual training from an aircraft? No. I can’t remember anything taking place. No. Except being told not to pull the ripcord while you were still in the aircraft which happened sometimes.
TO: What do you think was the most important battle of the war?
FH: I’ve no idea. I wouldn’t like to comment on that. No. They say the Battle of Britain some people but I don’t know. Without the help of the other Services no one Service could have won the war on its own. It was a joint effort as far as I’m concerned.
TO: When you began operations and were in 102 Squadron did people ever talk about comrades they’d lost?
FH: About?
TO: About friends they’d lost on raids.
FH: No. The simple reason we weren’t on the squadron long enough. We arrived there on the 18th of August ’44 and as we moved into our billets there were several airmen picking up the uniforms and belongings of another crew that had failed to return the previous night. And we thought that was quite a good omen. Or a bad one. Yeah. We just settled into the billet and we were there from the 18th to the 3rd of September which isn’t long really. And then as I said before on the 3rd of September we had to land away from base and when we come back we was on ops the next day to Gelsenkirchen and the next day on the fatal op so we didn’t really know anybody else on the squadron. Which is a shame really because we, we spoke to our own gunnery officer, I forget his name now but no, we didn’t know anything about other chaps.
TO: And did you remember hearing about the Dambuster raid?
FH: Yes. Vaguely. We heard about it but I can’t tell you quite where or when it was off hand. No. No, I can’t give you a date or where it was I heard it.
TO: What did you think?
FH: I’m bad on dates.
TO: Ok.
FH: Remembering dates.
TO: Do you remember what you thought when you heard it though?
FH: Oh, we thought it was quite a unique invention really because it was something entirely new as far as we was concerned and it had done its job. And we were rather surprised it was never used again but there you go. Yeah. You see various parts of it are supposed to have been part of a bouncing bomb in different places I’ve visited since the war but that’s about all.
TO: And what was everyday life like in Luft 7?
FH: In the camp? Well, it was just the same old routine. Up in the morning. Make a hot drink whenever possible. We used to make these home made what we called blowers with a bit of metal, with a tin with water in and turn and make the fan underneath the flames of odd bits of wood or cardboard. Then we used to go for, oh in the, pardon me the usual parade which was messed about with sometimes. They used to be counting the prisoners every day or twice a day and we’d line up on the parade ground and often somebody would decide to play up and move about in the parade while they were being counted and then they’d have the wrong number. Spent hours sometimes on the parade ground waiting for the Germans to say, ‘Alright go back to your billets.’ Which we used to do to play cards. Sometimes there was somebody would give a lecture or a talk on what their job was pre-war. And there would be the vicar, he was an Army chap funnily enough gave a, always took a church service on a Sunday. And one that he was second in command to [pause] the pilot officer, an Australian chap, of the camp, he was a Methodist minister and he used to give a Sunday service on a Sunday which I used to go to very often. And strange as it may seem I met up with his navigator back in 2015 at my first reunion and I met again where are we now? Last year. ’16. No. This year, sorry in Gloucestershire. I met with him again down there. Not that I knew him then but we got to know each other through the man that organised the reunions. Yeah.
TO: And can you remember what your room was like?
FH: What? In the prison camp you mean?
TO: Yeah.
FH: Yeah, it was a normal size. Well, like the English military huts divided in small rooms. It had one, what type of stove they called it? The round stove with the chimney going out through the roof which was never used because you couldn’t get the fuel for it. But there were four double bunks so each room after we left the garden sheds or dog kennels as we called them was eight. Eight to a room. Yeah. And we, you know sort of palled up in there and become good friends but unfortunately the only one I kept, could make contact with after the war was Charlie but he passed away in ’68. But the rooms were quite nice from that angle. Had a small table in and a bench seat to sit on. Yeah. Yeah.
TO: And what did you do to pass the time?
FH: Play cards. Chat about home life. Different places we, you know different ones come from. That kind of thing. We used to do quite a bit of walking around the perimeter track when the weather was suitable to keep exercising. Try to keep fit. Yeah.
TO: And what rations did the Germans give you?
FH: Very very little but I don’t think I can actually quote the one you, sometimes we’d get a slice of bread or a bowl of so-called soup which as I mentioned earlier I believe sometimes consisted of what looked like grass boiled up. Sometimes it would be potato skins where they’d been scraped and boiled up. Occasionally we’d get a jacket potato or a whole potato. I wouldn’t say a jacket potato. Oh, sometimes you’d get cheese or so-called cheese. It was about the size of a fishcake and you’d bite into it. It was like chewing gum and you could pull it out. Right out. It was horrible stuff. I don’t think everyone ate those. No. That was terrible stuff that was. But no, the rationing, the food could have been a lot lot better. No. that was one thing we did suffer.
TO: And did you ever get letters from Britain?
FH: I didn’t receive one. I sent several. The first one was at the transit camp after we’d been there and had a wash and which was a good one we were given a Red Cross letter and a Red Cross Card and it’s a period that said you would send one to your parents or wife whichever the case may be. And the other one you would send to the Irvin Parachute Company and notify them that you’d saved your life with one of their ‘chutes which I’d done. I sent one to mother and father of course but I never had a reply whatsoever. No. We sent several others but after the war they were a number of them were returned that mother and the girlfriend had sent. They were returned to me at home but not when we were a prisoner of war.
TO: Could you tell me that story again please of the, your friend on the train who managed to get hold of the Luger?
FH: Oh yeah. We’d travelling from Munster to the interrogation centre with the two guards. There were only the three of us. We hadn’t met up with the other two of our crew that survived but Taffy, the bomb aimer Charlie, myself was on the move. Charlie sat by the side of the, one of the guards. I sat next to him. Taf was on the other side of the carriage along with another guard and we’d been travelling for quite a while and they seemed to doze off. Of course, we didn’t speak because having been warned to be wary of such things you know in case something was said they picked up on. I saw Charlie who was looking sideways at the side of his, I saw Charlie, saw his hands down near the guard and the next time he had his luger in his hand and he opened it up. Just shook his head. And there was no bullets in it. I was shaking. I don’t mind admitting it. I was absolutely shaking because I was only a young kiddie I was. Charlie was about eleven years older. And eventually he put it back in the holster. Just carried on. The train journey went on. Of course, we couldn’t say anything to each other about it. And unfortunately, Charlie never mentioned a word about it afterwards. What his intentions were if there had been bullets in there whether [pause] I don’t know. But later on on that journey we were stopped at a station and we were on the one line and on the line to the left of us a train pulled in and there was all the German personnel covered in blood and bandages all over on one of their hospital trains. So one of the guards pulled the blind down in our carriage and the door was locked and they indicated to us that if they didn’t, if they hadn’t rolled the blinds down they would attack us and they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. I realised, I did at the time well they had no bullets in their guns. But anyhow in the end there was quite a noise on the platform and in the end it seemed to quieten down with the civilians and we were let out and we had to run across the platform into a, well a kind of a waiting room and we were shoved into this room. The door slammed shut on us the three of us and I don’t know how long we were in there but quite a while and then the train, we heard the train start up and we were then, the door was opened. They looked around the door backwards and forwards and one guard had gone out and opened the carriage door and we were rushed in there. The door was shut shut and off the train went but there were a few people still on the platform but of course the train was on the move. They couldn’t do anything about it. We were safe for a bit longer. Yeah. Funny experience it was.
TO: Did you, well you already knew Normandy had happened by the time you were captured but did you think the war would soon be over when you were captured?
FH: Yeah. I think we, if we speak the truth we had a feeling you know we were getting to the end of it. Yeah, because the bombing was what’s the word? Quite, well the trips were quite regular and in numbers. Quite a high number of bombers coming out every day and the casualties you’d hear on the wireless we didn’t think we’d be there too long but we had no idea really. Wondering at the same time whether it was going to be years or months you know. Yeah.
TO: Did the mood of the guards change as the war turned against Germany?
FH: Hmmn?
TO: As the war, as it became, as the war went on did the mood of the guards change in how they treated you?
FH: To a certain extent yes because the very first night we were put in the cells at Munster and we were there for three, three days and on the day before we were sent to the Interrogation Centre one of the guards came in with our coffee so called and he stood chatting. He spoke English. He said we, ‘We should not be fighting each other. We should be fighting the Russians together.’ And we didn’t make much comment because I mean we still didn’t know whether it was a put up job you know being weary for our own sakes. But no, in the actual camp there was an Irish, well we called him Paddy, he was a German guard but when we was on the march he actually had civilian clothes underneath his Army uniform so that if they dispersed because he could get rid of his uniform and become a civilian or a prisoner of war, you know. Or, you know join our ranks. But what happened to him in the end I don’t know but, yeah because he was alongside us for quite a while but of course in different speeds, you know walking, ambling along you know. They were as bad as us. The guards, because they had to keep going you know and they didn’t really want to. No. [pause] Yeah. That’s about it.
TO: How did the guards behave in Luft 7?
FH: Well, they was reasonable really. I mean they were doing a job that they were paid for the same as we had been. But no, the higher ups they were a bit more severe you know. The old sergeant, and I forget his name but they were very firm. They wouldn’t stand any nonsense you know. But the ones who was patrolling the camp, ok you didn’t tell them anything and, but they were quite friendly in a sense. Inclined to speak to you or, in their broken English, you know. But they were doing a job they had to do. Yeah.
TO: And did you ever get Red Cross parcels?
FH: Yeah. We had a few. More Americans than English which I think once we had one each. They weren’t very regular the whole time I was a prisoner of war. Often one partial where they would be shared between perhaps four or six chaps and then at one stage it was one box per room which was eight men. And it would consist of what do you call it? Chocolate. Very hard thick chocolate. Some butter or margarine stuff. Tinned milk. A bit of tinned meat. What else was in them? Oh, prunes and sultanas. That type of thing boxed up. And cigarettes. There was always about two hundred cigarettes in each parcel which to some people you know was food to them you know. In fact, I used to have the odd occasional cigarette but it was while I was a POW that I started smoking in earnest if you’d like to put it that way because there was always plenty of cigarettes. Some chaps used to trade their food for cigarettes but I didn’t get to that. I often bought food, bartered food you know for cigarettes you know but unfortunately, I didn’t give up smoking when I came home. I carried on until 1995. But yes the food parcel was good. It was good food. The English parcels were slightly different but unfortunately, we didn’t get many of them. Either of them. And didn’t get any at all after we left Luft 7. No.
TO: And what were the weather conditions like during the Long March?
FH: Weather. Way below twenty degrees. And as I mentioned a number of night marches you could call them and the snow and blizzards we apparently marched around so they tell us Breslau, Breslau a couple of times around the autobahn and it was just a complete blizzard the whole time. They had no idea where they were taking us to. The Germans hadn’t. And well now when I see a little bit of snow I shiver. I really hate the stuff. I’ve seen enough of it in my life. Yeah. But of course, we was walking in our boots. These fine shoes we had on. Yeah. We used to have a, we took them off at night but in the morning they were still frozen. Just walked in frozen shoes and that. But I went to the Medical Centre on one occasion with my toes and they said it’s a touch of frost bite but whether it was I don’t know but I’m still to this day suffering with my toes at night. They seem to get warm and sometimes go numb my two big toes. But there we are. We’re still here. Still telling the tale.
TO: Did anyone get, did anyone get hyperthermia?
FH: Well, I can’t honestly say about that, no. No. I can’t really answer that one.
TO: And were there any prisoners who were unable to go on when they got ill?
FH: Oh yeah. During the march, well those that were sick when the march started they were left behind or taken to a Medical Centre. But on the march they had a horse and waggon where they, anybody took queer was put into this horse and waggon you know and carried on on the march but what happened to them in the end I don’t know because there were so many that didn’t arrive in the camp at the end. Luckenwalde. Either gave themselves up or jumped in the river as we crossed over. Through the holes. Things like that. It happened I’m afraid. Yeah.
TO: Were you ever worried that Allied bombers would attack you?
FH: Well, we were concerned put it that way but I don’t think we ever encountered any.
TO: And did you ever wish that the Germans had left you in Luft 7 for the Russians to take?
FH: Well, we did actually. Our little group. Because it really took it out of us on the march. We lost a lot of weight. And of course, the only snag was the Russians, our RAF uniforms were very similar to some of the Germans uniforms in colour and the fear was that they would shoot on sight. Ask questions after, you know. So that was one of the reasons that there was nothing on the march but I think perhaps we might have been better off if we had stayed where we were. But on the other hand those that were like myself I said earlier we’d been after the Germans moved out and the Yanks arrived with their vehicles and they stopped the Yanks taking us out. They said they were evacuating us via Odessa. And the things I heard afterwards a lot of those chaps did go that way and were never heard of since. But how true we don’t know but it was a long way around or would have been, you know. Yeah.
TO: What else can you say about the morning that you were liberated?
FH: Well, I mean it was all hand waving and trying to contact, get in touch with the Russians because they were on the move with the tanks, you know and there were troops following by foot you know. But word was going around stay where you were you know because the Russians weren’t going to stop with their tanks. They was on the move you know. But yeah, it was joyous I suppose for a while. But when we realised that they was basically holding us as prisoners it changed. The mood changed completely because we was a number of days with them when the food was worse than what it was with the Germans, you know. So that was one of the reasons why we had, the others with me to leave the camp and get near the Yanks if we could you know. To get food and help because we, when I come home I was just under seven stone and in fact I was putting weight on so much I went to the doctor and queried, you know. But they sort of explained that it would be a thing to do but not to overdo the eating but it all worked out in the end you know.
TO: And how did you feel when you heard that Germany had surrendered?
FH: Well, we were quite pleased naturally and of course that’s when we thought we were on our way home but that was on the, was it the 8th of May wasn’t it? Yeah. I’d just had my twenty first birthday on the 3rd of May and that is when some of the chaps well we were actually, no I beg your pardon we were actually on the trying to contact the Yanks because they’d arrived at our camp on the 23rd and the war was still on when we, when we heard [pause] Sorry when we were on the march, on the move to get in touch with the Yanks is when we heard that the war was over. Yeah. And because when we heard these hand grenades going off in the lake after we got over the bridge, the River Elbe we thought there was some in-fighting going on you know. But it turned out that these Yanks were passing time away because they were bored and they was killing, blowing up all the fish in the lake. Yeah.
TO: And when did you get your first proper meal after leaving the POW camp?
FH: Well, we had food from the Yanks but I suppose if I remember right the first real meal was at the Army camp in Brussels right before I was flown back home. I was there basically a couple of days. Yeah. We had plenty of cigarettes given to us on the route but you know we weren’t really interested in those in a way we had so many of them. Yeah. I know we sat down to the meal in the Army barracks. Yeah. Amazing.
TO: This is just going back slightly but can you tell me how you actually felt during the bombing raids?
FH: What?
TO: Just —
FH: Us bombing them do you mean?
TO: No. When you, when you were above in the turrets.
FH: Yeah.
TO: You were on the raid.
FH: Yeah.
TO: What were your general feelings?
FH: Well, I must admit I didn’t think about getting shot down. It’s a, it was a strange feeling. You knew that chaps were being shot down. The planes not returning. Every day you heard it on the news you know but when you was actually doing it at least I didn’t think of being shot down. Not until I was sitting in the turret without any guns. Well, the first day I mean it was nearly a normal run. There was a few ack acks but over the Ruhr that was a different kettle of fish altogether. That was, well hell let loose is my opinion. As I said the only way, the best way I can describe it is today’s fireworks when they’re all in full swing and a load of them going off in the sky all different colours and that. Imagine that those were shells exploding and an aeroplane flying in between them and that’s as near as I can get for that. They weren’t coloured of course. They were just puffs of smoke you could see you know exploding all around you. Yeah.
TO: And how did you feel about the bombing campaign itself?
FH: Well, I suppose we thought it had to go ahead to win the war, you know. I mean I joined up to fly and that meant you’d be on bombing raids, you know. But you didn’t think, or I didn’t think personally that I was bombing people. I was bombing targets. I mean until we were walking along this canal in Munster after we’d been shot down and we had these two guards with us and on our left was a row of houses all burning. It would be about a hundred yards from where we were on the canal bank and they were running towards us when they realised there was English people being walking along this towpath. I mean that is when I realised or I realised I don’t know about the others that we may have killed people. When we saw the row of houses being burned and you know and they were running after us with pitch forks and broom handles which some of them got through and hit us across the back which well we’ll say no more. And we were pleased to get off that canal that night. Off that tow path. Yeah. That’s it.
TO: And how do you feel about the way Bomber Command was treated after the war?
FH: Terrible. They weren’t recognised at all for the work they’d done in my opinion and it took, took the authorities a long time to realise that, this is why I didn’t speak much about Churchill and I think we’ll leave it at that because he was the one who was leading the war. He was the one that followed instructions who made and gave instructions to the powers that be to do this and do that but he didn’t speak of us after the war when so many people was talking about Dresden. But what about Coventry and places like ours. Southampton and London. Yeah. There we go. But as far as I was concerned we were bombing military targets you know and it never entered our heads that we were killing people. No.
TO: Why do you think Bomber Command was treated that way?
FH: I’ve no idea except that [pause] I suppose they spoke about [unclear] so much that well they gathered it was wrong to do it. I think so but I don’t know. I think Bomber Command was treated very badly or the personnel were. That so many thousands gave their lives for and then not being recognised for what they’d done. Terrible. So that’s only one individual’s opinion. Yeah.
TO: And how do you feel about the Memorial in Green Park and Lincoln?
FH: I like that. I think it’s something well worth supporting and I admire the people that thought of it and that were running the whole scheme. And I hope and pray that I can get back there again and just place a poppy against my good friend Les and Phil’s name on the monument one day. Whether that would be possible I don’t know but what we saw of it on that opening day it’s a terrific place. Well worth the money being spent. Yeah.
TO: How did you feel when you heard about the Holocaust?
FH: Well, how can I word it? The shock to think anybody could literally do it. I mean ok soldiers were being killed in battle and that kind of thing on both sides but their whole lot of them just being put in a chamber. Oh. It don’t bear thinking about. And on our march we passed very close not knowing it at the time to Auschwitz. Of course, we knew nothing of it until after the war. You know, it made us, well made me think, well, you know we’re so close to where it happened you know. But there we go.
TO: How do you feel about Germany today?
FH: Germany?
TO: Today. How do you feel?
FH: Well, I think Mrs Merkel or whatever her name is is a funny woman but on the whole the Germans and I mean we’re doing the right thing to get together and that. When we first moved over here in this area from Hartley Wintney to Church Crookham in the bungalow just a few doors away from here our neighbour was a German POW over here and we used to have chats about it. We got on well together and I mean that is the only thing that’s going to stop another war I think. I mean we’re so intermixed now I think they were after the last war as far as the First World War but they’ve intermixed other countries have. More now over the last decade or so that I mean it nearly goes against the war. If it didn’t, well it would be a different kind of war and your air gunners wouldn’t be needed for one thing. But no I think it’s a good thing that we are getting together. Yeah. No, I mean we carried out our instructions. The Germans carried out their instructions. The troops. Airmen. So there we are.
TO: Did you, I probably should have asked this one before but did you feel any animosity towards Germany during the war?
FH: Well, I don’t know. I mean, we realised that the authorities had declared war against each other and that we had to do our [unclear] memories of England to bring an end to it in some form or other. And that’s, I chose to join the Air Force. Yeah. But I really think so many of us were so young we didn’t realise what we were letting ourselves in for, you know. But no regrets. No. We helped to bring peace to the world again. Although it makes you wonder whether if it was ever worth it with all the loss of life. There we go.
TO: And what do you think of films that have been made about the war?
FH: I’ve watched one or two but you cannot in my opinion [pause] now, what’s the word?
TO: Recapture.
FH: Yeah, the actual fighting and bombing I mean. You can’t recall in actual words. Now some have been sort of highlighting the humour and that put in them but no. I don’t. I don’t think, well they can’t capture the actual meaning of the battle. No.
TO: And what have you done since the war then?
FH: Not a lot. No. I’ve had numerous jobs but mainly shop work and selling which I enjoyed which I was doing before the war. I had one spell of lorry driving which I’d done for a major [unclear] in Hartney Wintney. And from there I travelled all over Scotland, Wales and England of course delivering shrubs. We worked for a wholesale. It was a Dutch firm actually operating out of Bagshot, just outside of Bagshot. He used to grow all types of shrubs and trees and we used to transform to various nurseries. Yeah. Quite interesting. He got me about a third of the country. But I was a member of Toc H which was formed after the First World War. And what else? Oh, when I retired yeah, sorry about that.
TO: That’s alright.
FH: When I retired and moved over here I joined the, I worked voluntary for a Day Centre for eleven years. Yeah. But otherwise just normal. I didn’t really have a trade. That’s why it is I’m not rich but I’m happy and I always have been and will remain so I hope. We moved into this flat what almost eighteen months ago now. Yeah. A brand new flat and we’re happy and cosy. Contented. Yeah.
TO: Have you ever been back to Germany at all?
FH: Unfortunately, no. I would love even to this day to be able to go back to Germany and visit the graves of my two friends. Yeah. But as I say not being a millionaire it’s always been against me but never mind. I always think of them. And although I do attend the local Memorial Service in the village where I was born and joined the Air Force throng on the 11th of November but if I can’t get there through bad weather I don’t have to go there to remember them. It’s the same with my brother that I lost. They’re in there all the time. Yeah. Never mind. Who knows what will happen in the future? Nobody does. No.
TO: Anything else you want to add at all about your experiences at all? Any stories that you didn’t mention before?
FH: No. Where are we? No. I don’t think so. I think it’s really been well covered. I will probably dream away tonight although I didn’t last time.
Other: No, it’s —
FH: But often when I’ve been to [unclear] not exactly nightmares but I kick my feet about and but I think I got over that one. We’ll let you know in the morning. No.
TO: Just one last question now to finish off there. What’s your thoughts on Britain’s involvement in events in the Middle East?
FH: What? The present day like you mean? Yeah. Well, personally I mean we do poke our noses in things quite a bit but on the other hand I feel that perhaps we missed out when the trouble in Syria started. We should have gone there and sorted them out there and then and prevented a lot of this that’s going on today. That’s my opinion for what it’s worth. But no, it’s [pause] I don’t know, the world’s got to get together somehow but how it’s going to happen I don’t know. If ever it will. There has always been wars. There’s always a weaker member. We learned that at school didn’t we? But I’m quite pleased that a lot of the schools I believe in England now are talking about the Second World War and what went on and that kind of thing. I mean for instance my granddaughter she’s a schoolteacher at Lee on Solent. No.
Other: Bexhill. Bexhill.
FH: Bexhill in Sussex and she’s got one of my books. Oh, she’s got this one. I think she’s got the one I showed you earlier, the first one. And on Armistice Days she brings that out and puts it on her desk. She talks to the class about it and tells them what her grandfather had done and she’s done that now for, well ever since 2009/10. But now she’s just given birth to her first child, my great grandchild. The photo is behind you. And so whether she’ll be back there in time for this year I don’t know. But she has done her part as a teacher to inform. And a number of the local schools have had photographs of my war years but that’s about all I think. Yeah. Thanks.
TO: Thank you very much. It’s been a pleasure.
FH: Thank you. Thank you for coming so far to speak to me and hopefully it’s not been a waste of time.
TO: It’s been an amazing way to spend my time. Thank you.
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Interview with Fred Hooker. Two
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Tom Ozel
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2017-08-26
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AHookerFJ170826
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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03:02:20 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Fred Hooker was a mid-upper gunner on 102 Squadron at RAF Pocklington, where he flew three operations before being shot down. Born in Hartley Wintney in 1924, Fred’s first experience of the RAF was visiting RAF Odiham as a member of the Air Training Corps where he flew in a Tiger Moth and Blenheim. Enlisting in March 1943, Fred‘s initial training was at Lord’s Cricket Ground. Gunnery training was undertaken at RAF Stormy Down where he was introduced to clay pigeon shooting before being flown in Anson aircraft and firing at drones with a camera gun and eventually using ammunition. After qualification, he crewed up at RAF Moreton-in-Marsh before converting to Halifaxes at RAF Dishforth. In August 1944, his crew was posted to 102 Squadron at RAF Pocklington where Fred recalls witnessing a Halifax fail to take off as they arrived. Upon return from their first operation, they were diverted due to bad weather and remained at the diversion airfield for several days so Fred was relieved when they returned as he'd left his dentures at Pocklington. During their third operation, the aircraft failed to reach the briefed height but the crew decided to continue and were hit by either enemy anti-aircraft fire or a bomb dropped from above. Fred was in his position in the rear turret when he suddenly found himself sitting in open air as his turret had been blown away. When he reached for his parachute it was on fire and the rest of the plane was just a mass of flame. He saw the engineer rush to him and put out the flames on the parachute before guiding him to the escape hatch and pushing him out. As he descended a Spitfire was circling and the pilot dipped the wings before departing. Fred describes being captured immediately after abandoning the aircraft and the interrogation that followed. He was transferred to Stalag Luft 7, and the Red Cross supplied him with another set of dentures. Fred provides a graphic account of the conditions during the long march and the overcrowding in Stalag 3A. Upon waking up on the 23rd of April 1945, they discovered the German guards had disappeared. Russian troops arrived later and continued to treat them like prisoners but Fred's group managed to escape and join the nearby Americans. After being transported to Belgium, he was flown home and landed near Guilford. Despite being frustratingly close to home, Fred was taken to RAF Cosford for debriefing. After the war, Fred retrained and spent time travelling across France salvaging abandoned vehicles.
Contributor
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Ian Whapplington
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
Poland
England--Gloucestershire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Luckenwalde
Poland--Tychowo
Wales--Bridgend
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943-03-29
1944-08-18
102 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
bale out
Halifax
Initial Training Wing
lack of moral fibre
prisoner of war
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Dishforth
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Pocklington
RAF Stormy Down
recruitment
shot down
Spitfire
Stalag 3A
Stalag Luft 7
the long march
training
-
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fba28ca5ac9f92459c6855059c21f6a0
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/856/11098/AHarbuttLN180514.2.mp3
205fec38ff652d170f3c6400f23fa90f
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Harbutt, Laurence
Laurence Norton Harbutt
L N Harbutt
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Laurence Norton Harbutt (b. 1921). He flew operations as a wireless operator with 77, 102 and 39 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-05-14
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Harbutt, LN
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JH: My name is Judy Hodgson and I’m interviewing Laurie Harbutt today for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive. We’re at Mr Harbutt’s home and it is the 14th of May 2018. Thank you, Laurie for agreeing to talk to me today. Also present at the interview is David. Now, Laurie, can you tell me your date of birth and where you were born and something of your family and early years?
LH: Yeah. I was born on the 12th of August 1921. I went to Raynham School in Edmonton. When I was eleven I passed the eleven plus and I went to the Grammar School at, called the Latymer in Edmonton. I was there until 19 — when did the war start?
JH: ’39, wasn’t it?
LH: Well, when the war started I went to the recruiting office at Eltham to join up, thinking I would go in the Navy. Unfortunately, being a Civil Servant I was unable to join the Navy so the recruiting officer offered me, ‘Or you can go in the Air Force if you wish.’ And he said, ‘Exactly what do you do?’ I said, ‘I’m a wireless operator telegraphist.’ ‘Oh, that’s just what we want.’ So from there on I was sent up to Morecambe to do foot training. Done several weeks there, and then I had an interview regarding going on aircrew. I said to them at the time, ‘What’s aircrew?’ Because at that time I’d failed to see many aircraft. They said, ‘Well, you’ve got fighters and bombers. Bombers obviously have more than one and you would become one of the crew.’ So that was what happened. I joined, joined 77 Squadron in Yorkshire which were Whitley bombers and we’d done, done all the raids of, leaflet raids in Europe, Germany, Italy. I’d done that for possibly about four or five months, then I was posted overseas. I joined 77 Squadron in Aden and the war escalated in Egypt, and we was all sent up in to Egypt which was the Middle East and I was stuck in the Western Desert for three and a half years. From there went into Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia. All those countries. I was there ‘til January 1945. When I returned to England I went to Number 13 MU which was at [pause] oh, where was it now? I forget. In actual fact I forget. I forget the name of it at the moment. Henlow. Henlow, was that. Yeah. I was Henlow until April ’45. I was, I left the Air Force in 1945. About April ’45, went home, and then shortly after I joined the Metropolitan Police. I was in the Metropolitan Police twenty five years. Coming out of there I became a publican and was a publican in the Pilot Public House, Greenwich, and I done seven years there. Having done seven years there I moved to Brandon here. Brandon and then Thetford. And I had a opportunity to join a security unit, Abbey Security and I was there for twenty years. I retired there when I was sixty three, and thinking that I’d, I’d done enough. So since sixty three I’ve enjoyed my full retirement and here I am.
JH: So did you do any other things through your retirement then? Did you —
LH: Pardon?
JH: In all those years since you’ve been retired have you been active in anything in particular? Have you followed any hobbies or —
LH: Well, I’m a keen fisherman. I like trout fishing, and shooting which I’ve got guns and things. Yeah. Oh, I like fishing but unfortunately through health now I’ve got rheumatism or whatever in my knees and I’m unable to do it. So walking is out of the question. So, unfortunately I’m a bit home bound.
JH: And going back to when you were in the war did you actually have any particular special mates that you remember in your crews? Or —
LH: Well, I had so many but they changed so quickly, you know.
JH: Right.
LH: It wasn’t a good business my business.
JH: No. No. No.
LH: No. No it wasn’t.
JH: So there wasn’t, there wasn’t anybody you kept in touch with.
LH: I was detached from the squadron in 1943 to a fighter squadron because I’d had an accident. I’d had an accident and hurt my knee and my hands and I couldn’t use my hand for signalling, so I went to this squadron. A fighter, it was a fighter bomber squadron. 94 Squadron. Sir Ian and Sir Alistair were two of the pilots that flew on there. Both got killed. And I was on that for about two years I suppose.
JH: Yes.
LH: I think they forgot about me and then suddenly they remembered and I joined 55 Squadron and was operating in Italy then. And that’s when I came home. Yeah.
JH: And you didn’t get shot down in any of that?
LH: Pardon?
JH: Were you shot down ever in any of your —
LH: Well, yeah. In Fort Cassino. We were bombing Fort Cassino about every half hour sort of thing and we got hit and I had to get out rather quickly at night. Not very good, not knowing how high you were or what. But the skipper said, ‘You stand more chance of getting out then you do with standing by.’ So I baled, out and no sooner had I pulled my cord I hit the deck. Of course, I hurt my knee very badly, and all of a sudden there was a load of foreigners around me and I thought they were Germans but they weren’t they were Poles. Fortunately for me.
JH: Yes.
LH: And then I was taken to hospital and had a few weeks in the hospital prior to coming home, you know.
JH: So, how long was it before you had to go back up flying again?
LH: I didn’t go flying any more after that.
JH: Oh. Not after that.
LH: That was the end of it.
JH: Right. Right.
LH: Yeah. My flying days were over because as I say radar had taken over and I was not, well wanted any longer, you know. I went to this gun turret maintenance unit and of course obviously I knew all about gun turrets. Gun turrets used to come there, stripped off, reassembled. They used to test them and then they used to go back to the squadrons, you know. That was the job I did there. You know, an important job, but I think I made more photo frames there than I did anything else.
JH: And what were the actual planes like that you were on? How did you, you know the, was it the Whitley was it you were on?
LH: The Whitley.
JH: And which other ones?
LH: The Whitley was, you had at that time the only heavy bombers you had was the Whitley and the Wellington. They were the only heavy bombers we had and they had a crew of five men. You know. They were the only ones. No, no others. All the others were medium bombers, you know. Nothing really. The Blenheim. All around here. There’s a Blenheim. That was 108 Squadron. That was the one. The Liberators. You know.
JH: So, what did you, what were you on after the Whitley? Which, what plane did you go to next?
LH: I was on Blenheims.
JH: The Blenheim.
LH: The Blenheims. Yeah. I’ve flown in Blenheims, Marauders, oh several actually but what were the others, one? Yeah. It’s funny how you, when you’re put to the test you start forgetting, you know. Well, its seventy years ago now.
JH: No. That’s fine.
LH: You can’t remember your shopping list then can you? But anyway, you know I had a good trip around and I’m thankful for whoever was responsible for my [laughs]
JH: Yeah.
LH: Safety to be here.
JH: Exactly. And did you get much leave? Were you sent back home when you went out? Very often?
LH: Oh yeah. When I got leave I had weeks and weeks of leave.
JH: Oh. Did you?
LH: Yeah.
JH: Oh.
LH: That was it. I got in the way I think then. Yeah. My wife was a WAAF but she came out the services.
JH: Right.
LH: When I retired, you know.
JH: Yes.
LH: And —
JH: Did you have family?
LH: Pardon?
JH: Did you have family?
LH: Oh yeah. I have three girls. One lives at Harlow. One lives in Holborn, London. One lives in Canterbury, Kent. The one in Canterbury, Kent comes and sees me quite regularly and the one in Harlow. Yeah. They’re quite good. Yeah. My girls. Three girls. I always wanted a boy but there we go. Oh yeah, I’ve got, my family is alright. Yeah.
JH: Do you have grandchildren? Or —
LH: Oh, I have grandchildren. Yeah.
JH: Yeah.
LH: But again, they’re in New Zealand. Yeah. My oldest daughter’s son’s in New Zealand. He’s just come to see me last week or so. And then my second daughter, her daughter is in New Zealand. Yeah. All away, you know.
JH: Yes.
LH: Very unfortunate but there we are. I’ve got a boat out there but I shan’t get there in that. Yeah.
JH: So, after the war did you actually go on planes again? Did you fly again like? To go on holidays? Did you ever go in a plane again?
LH: Oh, I’ve been on holiday.
JH: Yes.
LH: I’ve been in.
JH: You did. Yeah.
LH: Flying. Flying in passenger planes. A bit different than wartime.
JH: Well, yes. Yeah.
LH: Do you know what I mean. Everybody says, ‘Oh, I’ve been flying there. Flying there.’ But there’s no —
JH: No comparison.
LH: You can’t compare.
JH: No.
LH: That with wartime. Well, nothing in wartime. You can’t compare, you know. It was a hazard there which obviously you don’t have now. You know, you go from here to wherever you want to go. It’s safe. But when you’re in an aircraft in wartime there’s bits of metal coming up at you.
JH: Was it —
LH: To knock you out the sky.
JH: That’s right. Was it difficult to go? Keep going back up during the war, you know? To actually keep getting up there again?
LH: No. I didn’t have any difficulty.
JH: No.
LH: Because I was young and probably stupid, you know.
JH: Everyone was so young, weren’t they?
LH: I don’t think I could do what I did.
JH: No.
LH: I couldn’t do today what I did when I was eighteen. That’s obvious. There are certain things we saw that you’d find very upsetting, you know. Obviously, I don’t try to dramatize anything like that. I don’t even speak about it.
JH: So, so you actually did finish at the end of the war did you? You didn’t —
LH: Yeah.
JH: Stay in the service for any length of time.
LH: In April. April ’45 I finished with the RAF.
JH: Right.
LH: That was my lot. Yeah. And I faced the horrors of peacetime [laughs] No, I enjoyed my life in the RAF. There were obviously good times.
JH: Yeah.
LH: And there was also bad times. But you overlook the bad times because you had such good mates. Good comrades. You know. Comrades that you don’t get in peacetime. You know. You’d get a chap, if you weren’t there he was there for you. Which is great, you know. Yeah.
JH: Are there any sort of particular sort of exploits that you remember? That you —
LH: I remember going to Driffield in August. August the 15th 1940 when we was expecting a dummy run from Catterick. Fighters. Instead of that there was Ju 88s and thirty five people got killed.
JH: Gosh.
LH: That was when I got to Topcliffe. Two weeks later we moved to Topcliffe which is near Thirsk and Ripon. I don’t know how many miles away but a few miles away. So that’s where I left before I went overseas. Yeah.
JH: Yeah. Because I think that I’ve written that down.
LH: But —
JH: It was the 15th of August, wasn’t it?
LH: In all the history —
JH: Yeah.
LH: Of like —
JH: It was called Black Thursday wasn’t it?
LH: That’s right.
JH: Yeah.
LH: That’s it, and I remember that. August the 15th it was.
JH: Yeah.
LH: And I was at Driffield at the time. Yeah.
JH: Because I believe that was the last time then that they did, that the Germans did the daylight runs after that.
LH: Well, they didn’t do so many.
JH: No.
LH: Didn’t do so many.
JH: Yeah. It caught them out didn’t it?
LH: Pardon?
JH: Caught them out.
LH: Caught them a bit of a hiding. Yeah.
JH: Oh.
LH: But only through the courage of those few in fighters that did the trick, you know. I mean to say I know without fighters you can’t get anywhere but I think by virtue of the fact of the bombing that we did in Germany done the trick. That done it. Yeah. You know. Because I had friends that were in the RAF with me, they were different navigators or something, and they went back to Germany quite a bit and they were devastated by what they saw, you know. But —
JH: What did you think of, I think they called him Butch Harris, Bomber Harris. What were your thoughts on him? What were, what were the people thinking at that point?
LH: Well, no we always thought he was a good leader, you know.
JH: Yeah.
LH: Good leader. Definitely. He had the right, right thing in mind. These people who say you shouldn’t have done that to Berlin. Shouldn’t have done that. But let’s face it they started. They were the first ones to do the bombing. I mean to say, even though they were bombing us we was dropping leaflets instead of bombs. Couldn’t find the target. We used to drop the bombs in the North Sea. But they used to put the leaflets down the flare chute. On all the aircraft we had a flare chute where you dropped the flare to lighten up the target, you know but you used to drop and push them down there, you know. Used to, I used to come off the desk and the bomb aimer used to give me a hand and that’s the job we used to do. Yeah.
JH: Yeah.
LH: Yeah.
JH: Yeah. To Adolf.
JH: And what, what were the, what was your duty as a wireless operator? Just sort of —
LH: Well —
JH: For the people who are listening, you know. What —
LH: Obviously, over the target was silence. If necessary I’d call up base and let us know, you know we’re ok and we’re coming back. Invariably we’d go off about half seven at night, 8 o’clock at night and come back half three or four in the morning. And I will tell you it’s cold in the winter but you come across the North Sea and get on the Yorkshire flying field you feel the cold. Oh, it’s terribly cold.
JH: Really?
LH: Terribly cold. And admitted you had Irvin jacket, Irvin leggings, silk —
JH: Gloves.
LH: Gloves. Yeah. But you were freezing.
JH: Freezing.
LH: You’d have probably a tin of soup and a Milky Bar. You know.
JH: Wow.
LH: Yeah. And for those who were sick there was the toilet that you’d use. Yeah. You know, sometimes. But I’d only been sick twice. What reason I don’t know. I was in a Miles Magister.
[Telephone ringing. Recording paused]
LH: One of our, one of the fighter pilots on 94 Squadron, he said, ‘Coming out for a trip? We’re having a shoot around the landing grounds.’ So, I said, ‘Yeah. I’ll go up.’ I got up. Oh, I felt sick. And of course open cockpit. So vomited and of course the vomit was going all around me. Anyway, we landed and I was all, my appearance were always smart. My flying boots were always. And of course the ground crew come up to the aircraft, took the mail. I said, ‘The mail’s in the back.’ There’s a little box at the back of the aircraft. Take the mail out and of course we got airborne again but of course my handkerchief was full of vomit, wasn’t it? So I threw that out and of course he saw it flying out and he probably thought it was some letters or something, you know. Must have been a horrible shock. Yeah. And that pilot, a bloke called [Boshov], he was South African.
JH: Yeah.
LH: Later on in Yugoslavia they were hitting the trains as they were going out and of course he was too low and he got blown to pieces, you know. Yeah. Only a young bloke he was. Yeah. Yeah. There was two COs there. There was one there, MC Mason. They called him MC, because he had a beard and he was the only officer in the Royal Air Force that had a beard. He looked Jewish. A very good looking man really. He got shot down in Matuba in the Western Desert. And then there was another bloke called Foskett, Squadron Leader Foskett, he was CO of 94 Squadron. He got the chop in October ’44 out at sea off Greece. Engine trouble. Baled out and the canopy of his parachute got caught around the fuselage and he went down. Oh, I don’t know. An ordinary vessel picked up the wreckage and buried him at sea. Yeah. Yeah. Foskett. A bloke called Foskett. Yeah. Yeah. We had some, as I say we had some very nice people and, you know they just came and went, you know. But as I say I’m glad to be here. Not always glad to be here but [laughs] there are times when you feel you should be happy instead of sad. Well, you know being on your own for twenty years is not very pleasant. Well, I was explaining to our friend here, you know. Summertime’s not too bad. You know, you’re able to get out into the garden probably you know and, but the wintertime when it gets dark at 4 o’clock at night you know and there’s nobody to make a cup of tea except me. Oh, by the way would you like any refreshments?
JH: Well, we can do. Yes.
LH: What would you like?
Other: I can do that if you like.
JH: Yeah.
LH: What do you want? Tea? Coffee?
JH: Yeah. Just pause it a minute then.
LH: Beer. Whisky.
[recording paused]
JH: Ok. Yeah. So —
LH: I was adopted by my grandma and grandfather and [pause] what were we on about?
JH: Well, I was on about different diaries and things.
LH: Oh yeah.
JH: Yeah.
LH: And in April, February 1945 I’d left my, my kit bag and all my, my logbook, all my gear at my grandma’s and that particular night a rocket, it was the gas works next door to where she lived. Took the roof off and the house was demolished, and I lost everything I had. Photographs and things. All my personal stuff all gone. And that was a blow. So, you know I can’t ever refer to anything. I mean to say my memory, most of the time my memory’s quite good but you have days when you’re, you’re not so good, you know.
JH: Yeah.
LH: Well, I suppose the yellow matter’s drying up a bit you know if you can call it that. Yeah. Yeah. But as I say I’m quite happy. Happy clappy I suppose you’d call it.
JH: That’s lovely. But do you remember any other incidents and exploits throughout the war? Do you remember anything else?
LH: Yeah.
JH: That happened.
LH: I remember coming home on leave in 1940 and my grandma and grandfather obviously went down in to the shelter but I wouldn’t. I’d go to bed upstairs and I’d watch the, the what do you call it? The [pause] The German candles. What were they?
JH: I don’t know.
LH: Illuminated.
Other: Oh, they struck. Was it —
LH: Yeah. What did they call them?
Other: God. Flares.
LH: Flares. I’d watch the flares hanging on the gasometers. Hanging on the gasometers, but I thought to myself well, what I, what I’m doing, I’m near head office anyway then. I couldn’t be any nearer there then laying in this bed. At least I’m getting a good night’s kip, you know. Yeah. I’ll always remember that. Yeah. The street was hit quite, well Edmonton was hit quite a bit.
JH: Yeah.
LH: I lost a lot of people I knew, you know. As a boy you know. Yeah. Yeah. My grandfather was in the army for thirty odd years. Yeah. I don’t know much about my mother and father. They were wasted anyway. Yeah.
JH: Right. Were you an only child then?
LH: Pardon?
JH: Were you an only child? Did you have brothers and sisters?
LH: No. I’d got had a brother.
JH: Oh yeah.
LH: And a sister.
JH: Oh, ok. Yeah.
LH: But they’re both dead. It’s the way they, they were brought up, you know. Well, that’s what I put it down to. Yeah. They had a hard life they did. I had a good life being with my grandma. Because then my grandma had a daughter. Obviously my aunt.
JH: Yeah.
LH: She’s dead now but she was kind to me. Yeah. Yeah. I know I couldn’t have had a better parent really but it’s not the same as your mother and father, you know.
JH: No. No. And you enjoyed your education did you? You enjoyed it?
LH: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I used to go to the church which was adjacent to where I lived. St John’s Church in Edmonton and we had boys dos and things. We used to play cricket and football on the vicar’s lawn, you know. We were all in the choir and all that sort of thing. I used to be in the choir. I suppose until I went in the Air Force really. And I was confirmed as you were in those days and during the week I used to help the vicar out and all that business, you know. And sometimes I thought I might have been a man of the cloth. I suppose I was thinking about going around knocking at the bride’s seeing whether they were all right [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. No. I’ve had an interesting life really. Yeah. But anyway, as I say I think good luck to both of you. You’re both doing a good job, you know. It’s nice to think that people do what you do. Actually, I never get involved with any of this to be honest, you know. People say to me, why don’t you do this and do that? You know. Somehow or other I can’t imagine myself parading up and down with my medals and all that. My medals are still in a box over there. Still as they sent them to me, you know. I can’t. No. I can’t.
JH: Do you know what medals you’ve got there?
LH: Oh yeah. I’ve got, well I’ve got the lot haven’t I? Yeah. ’39/45, Italian medal, Alemein, Western Desert Medals, Italy medal, you know. Yeah. But I’d have rather had the cash [laughs] All my grandfather’s medals all in South Africa now. Yeah. Yeah. All in the Services except my father and he was a dodger. He’d dodge anything he would. Waster. Proper waste. Proper waster.
JH: Did you, did you regret that you didn’t get in to the Navy? Or —
LH: Oh yeah. I did.
JH: You know, that was where you wanted to go.
LH: I wanted to go in the Navy. Yeah.
JH: Yeah. Yeah.
LH: My brother was in the Merchant Navy. That’s my brother there. And my cousin. Do you know we were all in the Services? Well, the war came on and when you were seventeen and eighteen the average bloke wanted to get in the Army or do something. They didn’t want to walk about not, not being in it. Whether right or wrong I don’t know but that was the general feeling, you know and I wanted the Navy. But didn’t have it of course. As I said to most of these sailors, I said, ‘I’ve squeezed more salt water out of my socks then you’ve seen.’ You know. Well, I did. We, when, now the beginning of the war there was no such things as aircraft carrying people to the war. They were all troop ships. And I’ll tell you this if anybody has experienced a troop ship they’ve experienced something. I’ll tell you. I was fortunate. I had a, a quarter on the boat deck and that’s on the level. But on these big liners you go down to about X Y Z. Right down in the hold. And all the old squaddies, you know all the army blokes were all piled down there, you know, cor terrible. And of course on all these ships you have watertight doors every hundred yards and they posted men on those all the time. Twenty four hours. In the event of a torpedo hitting which was there all the time they closed that so all those blokes in there had had it. Nothing. You couldn’t do nothing about it. So fortunately, I never had that trouble. I was on the boat deck. Not as though you would have survived. I mean to say if you were out in the North Atlantic. We started off at Gourock in, near Glasgow. Almost went to Canada. Zigzagged all the way down. Got down to the west coast of Africa, Freetown, and then zigzagged all the way down around South Africa. Got off at South Africa. Had a couple of weeks in South Africa and then I went up to Aden which was on the Persian Gulf and operated from there because the war was still in Abyssinia and Eritrea where the Eyties were there. But of course as soon as Rommel got up in to the Western Desert pushing everybody about, wanted all the squadrons up there. And that’s what happened. I got on HMS Isis. Destroyer. It took me out to Egypt in seventy two hours. Yeah. So went from a hundred and thirty degrees in the shade to well, weather almost like this, you know. Yeah.
JH: Did you manage the heat ok? Was it —
LH: Oh yeah.
JH: You liked it.
LH: I’d rather have the heat than the cold.
JH: Yeah. You were happy. Yeah.
LH: I can’t stand the cold now.
JH: Right.
LH: No, I can’t stand the cold. I can’t have the cold at all, no, but of course it’s different here. When you’re cold, you know I’m allowed a drop of Scotch if I want it, you know [laughs]. Yeah. Yeah. But as I say I do admire, well the work, the work you do because you don’t get paid for this, do you? You get petrol allowance. Don’t they give you that?
JH: They will do, yes.
LH: Do they?
JH: Yes.
LH: As they should do anyway. But there’s so many people that just put themselves out for various things you know which you are an unknown quantity. You are actually. You know what I mean. People don’t, they say all the chaps.
JH: Yeah.
LH: Blokes were regulars. Done seven or eight years and were still LACs, AC1s, but us young blokes going in to aircrew were sergeants straight away, but the difference being they had two their feet on the deck whereas ours were airborne, you know. That was the difference. And it took them a long time for those blokes to realise the dangers, you know. Nobody wanted to be a w/op AG I’ll tell you. Not after, not when the war got going. When there was say fifty bombers going out and ten, twenty coming back. That’s a lot of blokes gone. Yeah. I mean to say when you got in the mess in a morning. When you came back. The little tables where Dick, Tom and Harry used to be. Nobody. No. But you tried to not talk about it, you know. Yeah.
JH: Didn’t you used to have a special, was there a breakfast when you came back?
LH: Oh yeah. Always. E and B, weren’t it?
JH: Yeah. Yeah.
LH: Yeah. And it depends who the WAAF was you know. If she was a nice bird, you know.
JH: Yeah.
LH: See her down the pub. Yeah. Yeah. I visited a pub that we used to go in to at, when I was at the last station and of a night of course it would be crowded didn’t it? They used to run out of beer didn’t they? You’d get, I had, had a mate who played the piano. Didn’t have to have music. He could play anything. He came on the piano and while he was playing we’d take the hat around, ‘A drink for the player.’ He never got a bloody drink. We were doing all the drinking, you know. Oh yes.
Other: That’s how you paid for your night out [laughs]
LH: Yeah. Oh, Christ yeah. Anyway, that was good but anyway I revisited the pub after the war, you know. Dead. Dead as a doornail, you know. You just couldn’t visualise the activity that used to take place there, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So where do you go from here?
JH: Right. Thank you, Laurie for allowing me to record this interview today. Thank you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Laurence Harbutt
Creator
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Judy Hodgson
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-05-14
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AHarbuttLN180514, PHarbuttLN1801
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Pending review
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00:38:19 audio recording
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Description
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Laurie Harbutt was born in Edmonton, London. Before he volunteered he worked as a wireless telegraphist which was a Reserved Occupation. He wanted to join the Navy but because of his occupation his only option was RAF aircrew. He was posted to 77 Squadron on Whitleys. He witnessed RAF Driffield being attacked by enemy bombers on the 15th of August 1940 during the Battle of Britain. As the war in the Middle East escalated, he was posted to Aden. He spent three and a half years in the Western Desert. In 1943 he was attached to 94 Squadron, and subsequently 55 Squadron in Italy. At Monte Cassino he had to bale out of the aircraft and was badly injured in the fall. Fortunately, he was found by Polish soldiers and was sent to hospital. When he returned to the UK he was posted to 13 MU at RAF Henlow. Laurie recalls the sight of empty tables in the mess as so many didn’t return from the operations.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Italy
South Yemen
North Africa
England--Bedfordshire
England--Yorkshire
Italy--Cassino
Temporal Coverage
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1940-08-15
1943
1945
102 Squadron
108 Squadron
77 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
Blenheim
bombing
mess
military service conditions
RAF Driffield
RAF Henlow
training
Whitley
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/811/10791/AEdwardsM171030.2.mp3
142ddf72834f10eaaf105dc74359073d
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Edwards, Megan
M Edwards
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Megan Edwards (1923). She was a telephonist during the war. She is the widow of Arthur 'Eddie' Edwards (1339587 Royal air Force) who flew operations as a pilot with 102 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-10-30
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Edwards, M
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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RP: This interview is being conducted on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Rod Pickles, the interviewee is Megan Edwards. The interview is taking place in Mrs Edwards home in Weymouth, Dorset on the 30th of October 2017. Also present is Caroline Print. Good afternoon Megan and thank you for inviting me to your home. Could you tell us for starters, you’re going to give us the history of your husband and what we would like to know is when and where you met, and what persuaded him to join the RAF, if you know that. So, when did you meet?
ME: We met in a geography lesson in [unclear], our local school, the teacher was doing her best to give us a geography lesson but at the back of the class was a path leading from a meadow where a farmer used to drive his cows every afternoon back to the [unclear] to be milked and this one particular afternoon they were very noisy cows and they were just all the time they brought to the path and poor Mary Porter, Ms Pot as we used to call her, she nearly had to give in because the cows out bellowed her and we were, well, we were all in hysterics, the children and there was suddenly this boy in front of me just [unclear] off and turned around and smiled at me and that was it and he’d been in my life ever since. We were at sunny school together, we were at Cayton’s Camps together, we were at [unclear] together, we churched together cause he was originally in the choir, then he blew the organ, then he rang the church bell and then he used to come and sit behind me and I had a pretty gold bracelet with a heart-shaped lock on it and it acted like a mirror so when he sat behind me I could pick up my bracelet so I could sit and watch Arthur Edwards all through the service, which was quite something when you are only, what, ten or eleven, something like that and then when he needed to earn some money for his pocket, he became my father’s Friday boy cause my dad was the local baker, so he was always around and he was always around to pick up the pieces and whatever I wanted to do if it was a date with another chap, he’d take me along, then leave and then pick me up afterwards but he was always there.
RP: Where was this?
ME: This was in the Forest of Dean and then his mom had a baby girl when she was just about forty and prior to that her husband had broken his leg in the mine and no money come in, no parachute leave because they had a piano which was counted as [unclear] so Arthur had to leave, the, three months I think it was after his sister was born, he didn’t even have time to take his full certificate, he had to go and earn his own living, and he went to London where he was in a hostel and worked for the Fifteen Shilling Tailors for a short while, didn’t like it particularly, sawing on buttons wasn’t his metier at all so he applied to join Sainsbury’s and he trained in the Sainsbury’s setup, learning to pat butter, learning to slice meat, pack your [unclear] proper packets with the flats all down, quite an intensive course in those days and then he got posted down to Brighton when the Germans started their bombing raids on the south coast. By this time I think his mother was [unclear], maybe things that picked up at home I don’t know but suddenly Arthur was back home, determined I think then to volunteer for the RAF, I mean he would’ve been what then, seventeen, coming eighteen? And he used his skills if you can call them that learned at Sainsbury’s and he went into one, a large local shop [unclear] time until he could volunteer, I think maybe he’d been spurred on by another local lad, who in the thirties was in the RAF, and at that time there were two quite well known songs, one was [unclear] Airman, and the other one was Amy, wonderful Amy, Amy Johnson, I think, maybe that had something to do with it, I don’t know, because when I was growing up, I wanted to be a pilot, but I don’t think I would have suit it cause I was always air sick when I flew anyway so that wouldn’t have helped. Anyway, he volunteered on his eighteenth birthday with a lad that sat by him in school and they both went the same day and the other went to the instructor eventually and Arthur obviously went to aircrew and he trained in, I think, Turner Field in America originally and I think it was going to be fighter pilot and then he had an attack of appendicitis which had dopped him all through his teenage years but then the thing to do was to scatter it with glucose or something and once the pain had gone away, that was the end of that, well at Turner Field this one day he had this awful pain and decided he had to go sick and so they would take him away in a hospital and do an operation and as the ambulance doors were closing, the pain just went but he thought, I’ve had enough of this, I’ve it scattered enough times, I’m just gonna let them do the job, which he did but of course that put him back on his course so but the course he was originally on had finished by the time he got out of hospital and convalesced so he was then taken up to [unclear] in Canada and then out to [static interference noise] [unclear] near Neepawa and that is where he got his in Neepawa and then came back to Harrogate where they were all sorted, they were, by the time he got back to Harrogate, the need for fighters had diminished and it was bombers that were needed.
RP: What year was this?
ME: Uhm, he’d volunteered in ’41, by the way nothing to do with him during those [unclear], just
RP: He just disappeared
ME: Just, well yeah, he disappeared and there was nothing, nothing really sort of settled between us, I mean, yeah, you know, if he was on leave, yes, he’d be around some times, but I wasn’t duly bothered, except when he was, well, I remember, I received two and I don’t know why, two aerograms from him because in those days you had like a A4 sheet of paper which you put your letter on and took it to the post office and then they sort of brought it out in miniature, so it was about that size, when you got it, and I had two of those but they were facsimiles each other, I mean I don’t know how I managed to get two but somebody was making a point I think, anyway by that time, I’d been round and round the orchard a few times anyway and uhm decided
RP: Did you pick up many apples on the way?
ME: Yeah, they were good ones, they weren’t rotten,
RP: Oh, it’s alright.
ME: Just the fact that they were too young was the excuse but typical teenager, you don’t know what you want to do when you are a teenager really, I mean, you love and yeah everything’s gonna be beautiful, but doesn’t work out that way, anyway I was by this time a telegraphist [unclear] and I can remember one day I tried to exchange was Dursley, all our phone calls went to Dursley so that if a call ring the callbox needed a phone call you put them through to [unclear] which is to Dursley, well this particular call box was [unclear] as I recall, and Dursley came through to me on the other line and said, Calford, there is somebody wanting you on 3115. So I thought, I missed the fact that the previous caller had obviously put the phone down and Arthur walked straight into the box and picked it back up again and I was probably busy doing something I missed that clearance so that Arthur was through to Dursley so when I went in on the line, and I said, covert exchange, what the hell do you think you are doing? Arthur, oh my goodness me, Arthur Edwards, well, I’m an innocent here, because I didn’t do anything, I was just not too observant, [unclear] the clearance from the other call, anyway, invited me out, had ascertained beforehand from my next door neighbour beforehand who was a [unclear] pilot who I’d grown with as well was [unclear] with going out with anybody so this lad [unclear] and said no I don’t think so, she had a bit of a relationship but it’s collapsed I think so I should think she is free as air so he got straight to the callbox then you see, what the hell do you think you’re doing? [unclear] cause you know he’d been a couple of years in Canada so and wasn’t [unclear] how he expected me to react I do not know. However we did get together and that was, that must have been sort of towards August ’43 I would think and then by January ’44 he [unclear] onto OTU yes, he came home on leave as we got together and I was in [unclear] telephone exchange then and because the contrast between Bristol telephone exchange and the country exchange was enormous but when D-Day arrived, I walked into the switch room there was no activity at all in that switch room, it was as quiet as a grave, and previous to that, we’d been like hats in a toy shop, there were lights everywhere, you couldn’t, you didn’t have enough hands and enough [unclear] to be able to answer anything that you needed to answer, but you knew that day [static interference noise] when you walked in why you would be working so hard because it was all the preparation for D-Day and I mean we in Bristol, you know, there was lots of activity round Wiltshire, Devon and Cornwall, it was just that activity for those three months and more prior to D-Day and yeah, so he came, he came down to Bristol just before he started ops in May and he had a leave in July which was when we decided we would get married because by then he’d worked out that his ops would have finished so it was a better time to do it but it didn’t work out quite that way, we had arranged it was gonna be October the 7th and we, had I known, I’d, well, I may not have been a bride that day because I can’t think what the name of the op was but it was the one where they were carrying gallons and gallons of petrol in jerry cans across to Brussels, the name of that place, it’s a main airport now, something like [unclear] Melstock or something, can’t remember but they were supplying the British army with petrol, that, 4 Group were asked to do that and it was just jerry cans in the fuselage and they had to practically hedge-hop because they had to be under the German radar so that they wouldn’t be noticed and I think that was from about September the 25th until when he came home when we were married on the 7th so that he should’ve been I think home on the Tuesday and he wasn’t, didn’t come to the Thursday, which was two days before we were getting married, and I came off [unclear] which I’d just done from you dad, and when I walked in the living room there’s a huge bunch of black grapes [unclear] where they come from? Cause, I mean, fruit during the war was a real luxury, I mean, you could get lemons, and I liked them and actually used to be very, very naughty cause I’d take them to the pictures with me, and [unclear] and all around you could, you [unclear] people, smacking their lips you know, [unclear] lemon, which I thought was funny, I was enjoying it but they weren’t, anyway
RP: I can tell you the name of the airport is Melsbroek
ME: Melsbroek,
RP: Melsbroek
ME: Yeah, that’s right, it
RP: 25th of September 1944
ME: That’s right, it was
RP: So, where was he flying from at that time?
ME: He was flying from Pocklington
RP: Ah, right, that’s where he’s based
ME: It was 102 squadron
RP: He was based at, he was based at Pocklington
ME: He was based at Pocklington
RP: On 102, yeah?
ME: Yeah, 102, Ceylonese, Ceylon Squadron. And I’ve got a feeling I can’t really remember the name of the secretary in the association, Tom something beginning with a W and I know Rog didn’t like him, Arthur said, the engineer, he didn’t like him, he told somebody and I was talking to Air Commodore Graham Pitchfork last weekend because I know there’s a tape in RAF A archives which Arthur made about his time in the RAF. There’s one in Canada but I don’t want to impose that task for my son at the moment but I could get him to copy it but I spoke to Air Commodore Pitchfork and he said he, you know, if you like to contact him, he can probably manage to get that one out on loan if you want it, I mean, and there you got Arthur’s own version of [unclear]
RP: I remember, yeah, I know the name cause I’ve read some of his articles, is Graham Pitchfork?
ME: Graham Pitchford. I’ve got his telephone number if you want it.
RP: I know the, yeah, I know the name.
ME: Yeah and because I remember going to an RAF association open meeting at Hereford, the wives used to go sometimes, it was mainly the lads but the wives were invited sometimes, and that day it was the Air Commodore and he was really upset the thing that a lot of the history was being lost and being confined to skipt.
RP: Yeah, well, books like that will recover it and we will make sure we contact these people, don’t we?
ME: Yeah, as I said, it’s a tape.
RP: Yeah, that’s fine.
ME: That is Arthur and he must have done it between 1996 and ’99, because when we came back up from West Wales, we joined Gloucester RAF Association and we weren’t too impressed so we went across to Hereford cause we, distant forest from the Forest of Dean
RP: Yeah
ME: By this time, we’ve gone back to forest anyway
RP: Oh yes
ME: And they were really, really nice up there and I know it must have been, I would’ve said, ’97 to ’99, he was dead by June ’99, so that should pinpoint the date,
RP: Yes
ME: If they [unclear] the date order
RP: Ok.
ME: As I said, Graham Pitchfork said, get in touch with him and he did his best.
RP: Well, thanks for that, yeah, we will make a note
ME: [unclear]
RP: I’ll make a note of afterwards, so, yeah
ME: Yeah, fine.
RP: So, after having taken all that petrol, what did he do after that? Did he resume normal flying then, after the petrol?
ME: Uhm, yes, he still then had a couple of ops to do, didn’t he? Because they weren’t considered ops, they were only [unclear] or something, so he still had some more to do, so he, we got married on the 7th so he must have had a week’s leave, so that was back on the 14th or something, and he’d still got these couple of ops. It’s all in there, it’s all in that book actually, they set off on this raid and I can, whether it was to Cologne or not, I’m not sure and as they were flying, they were seeing aircraft turning round and going back but as I said, he probably realised that failure is not part of Arthur’s vocabulary and no, he wasn’t going to abort. He didn’t abort when he lost his escape hatch, he didn’t abort when with the bee, [unclear] but [unclear] could understand why these aircraft were turning back, and then he suddenly realised that they’d lost an engine, and that the [unclear] of that engine was so [unclear], and then they lost another and Roger [unclear] said you know and I’m happy about this, so the, something’s happening and I think we should turn back but Arthur said, just [unclear], just stop, not, we’re doing what we set out to do, but then he lost another so Rog comes down in the cockpit with his parachute over his shoulder and said, what? If you don’t turn back now, then I’m walking home. So, Arthur realised something was really up and yes, they did turn back, cause they hadn’t got to target, so they got their bombs on board and then because the army was still going up through, they weren’t free to drop their load anywhere, it had to be over the sea, I think they were down for about three thousand feet something when they managed to drop it and they just got into Manston because the engines were pouring and all the oil had sort of thinned out
RP: Yeah
ME: Yeah, so,
RP: Yeah, sounds like the major problem
ME: [unclear] it sort of was [laughs] they put themselves down and Roger looked at the aircraft and he was quite disgusted cause it was covered in oil from propeller to tail and he’d nursed that aircraft through all those ops, you know. Anyway, Arthur went up to the control tower to report that to base to say that they had landed away from base, they were at Manston and [static interference noise] came back down and he said to him, that’s it. That was the end of their tour. So,
RP: How many ops was their tour?
ME: Say again.
RP: How many ops did they do on, was it thirty? It was thirty [unclear]
ME: It was something thirty-nine and a bit.
RP: Was it more?
ME: Yeah, was like thirty-nine and a bit, I think, it’s on the nose of the aircraft
RP: Right.
ME: The daylight ones were in white, I think, the night ones were in brown I think, they various symbols for what they did and it’s all recorded on the nose of the aircraft which was why when Tim wrote that book he could tell when that picture was taken, bit amazing, I don’t know how he worked it out but he did.
RP: It’s good, isn’t it? Amazing!
ME: Yeah, uhm, anyway, I guess Arthur took himself off to the officers’ mess but Rog, the flight engineer, and Walker, the rear gunner, and [unclear] it must have been Mason, wireless operator air gunner, they decided, right, they were going out on the town, so people in Manston gave them a real good night out cause they realised that they just come off an op so they didn’t pay for any drink that night but they were well and truly away with the fairies I would think there is a word that they would use but I’m a lady so I won’t use it. Anyway, they decided then because they’d finished all, all the way off [unclear] they were going down onto the beach so these three [unclear] down to the beach and they heard a lot of commotion, an awful lot of shouting and the police arrived because the beach was a minefield, wasn’t it?
RP: Oh dear!
ME: They had just escaped from that aeroplane and went down on the beach. Anyway, the police took them away, put them in jail, bedded them down, gave them supper and they slept it off and I think [unclear] went down the next day and retrieved them. But they had to wait then for major things to be done before they could fly back
RP: So, they flew the aircraft back to Pocklington.
ME: They took the aircraft back to Pocklington, yeah.
RP: So, he’s finished the tour, so what did Arthur Edwards do then? Where was he
ME: What did Arthur Edwards do then? What didn’t Arthur Edwards do? Arthur Edwards, something was going on like, oh, he had [unclear] weeks leave, he kept having cables to say, your leave has been extended right and they were sent another new squadron, a transport squadron, to fly casualties out from the Middle East and it was, that was gonna be converted Halifaxes I believe, according to Tim in the book, it turned out to be Dakotas and they only went as far as the Middle East, they were all round the Middle East. Then they went from there to India, then to Burma, then to Malaya, and that is when he was in Malaya that he became personal pilot to
RP: [unclear]
ME: Air Vice Marshal
RP: Bouchier, did you say?
ME: Bouchier, was a photograph I have here somewhere and
RP: So, this was flying Dakotas before that when he was, in the Middle East he was flying Dakotas
ME: He was flying Dakotas, it was Dakotas with Transport Command, because I can remember they were in a place called Mithila, in Burma, I remember, uhm, that’s right and then, oh, and there was an op that they were going to do at [unclear] in Singapore and they were going to fly down to Singapore, they were glider towing [unclear]
RP: Because they, it’s all part of Operation Tiger, wasn’t it?
ME: That’s right. But they would not have enough fuel to get back and they were going to have to ditch and hoped that the navy would be at hand to pick them up.
RP: But in the end Operation Tiger was cancelled.
ME: It was cancelled, that’s right, so,
RP: A very large bomb went off in Japan and ended
ME: Exactly, that’s right, well then, Arthur went then and they were at a place called Iwakuni
RP: So, going back to his Halifax days,
ME: Yeah
RP: You mentioned the DFC, when did he, when was he awarded the DFC?
ME: On the February after he’d gone abroad.
RP: So, he’d finished the ops and then he was awarded, so, when did he actually receive it then, if he was abroad?
ME: By post.
RP: Really?
ME: It was sad
RP: There was no presentation?
ME: It was so sad because the King had started to be ill and he wasn’t doing the presentations, so they were sent out by post which was very sad. The same thing happened with his uhm, QC, oh what’s it, Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Services, QVSIA, he didn’t go to the palace for that, it was presented to him in the [unclear] hall Gloucester by the Duke of Beaufort.
RP: But this was obviously, Queen Elisabeth.
ME: That was when he was flying with the Guinea police air wing.
RP: So, if you go, if we go back to where we were,
ME: Yeah,
RP: Operation Tiger is cancelled and he’s in India
ME: Yeah
RP: So, what happens then?
ME: Well, that is when I got a feeling that the Air Vice Marshals was asking for a pilot and that’s when he volunteered to be that pilot. So, he flew then from Burma to Iwakuni and they, all stations up through the Pacific, which were manned by the Americans, weren’t they? And I don’t think they could believe their eyes, when they realised what luxury the US Air Force had compared to what our lads had and on their way, when they got to Singapore, where they had a night stop obviously, a burglar entered Air Vice Marshall Boucher’s quarters and took everything. So, that Arthur would then going around sort of not actually beg, borrowing and stealing, but trying to get the Air Vice Marshall kitted out to get him up to Japan, he took his uniform and everything and Arthur said, he arrived in Japan in [unclear] of clothing, you know, for an inspection of the Commonwealth troops so I don’t expect he was very pleased at that.
RP: So, he was away quite a while then from England, from you.
ME: Oh yeah, he was away from the February until August ’46.
RP: Gosh!
ME: Yeah, well
RP: That’s February ’45 or
ME: That was February ’45 until August ’46. Yeah, well, you just accepted that.
RP: So, what, you mentioned he joined Guinea police, so what year did he leave the RAF?
ME: He left the RAF in ’46, then he went in civilian life for ten years and then he decided he wanted to join the Guinea police.
RP: So, did you all move out to Guinea then?
ME: Just me,
RP: Yeah
ME: I didn’t have any children.
RP: [unclear]
ME: No. Just me, he went first and I went nine months afterwards and yeah, he had some nail-biting moments then I can tell you or when he was in Burma, he flew part of the peace commission across to Ceylon because it was Mountbatten in charge of that area then and he flew the peace mission from Rangoon across to Ceylon, oh what’s the other place in Ceylon? Kandy, is it?
RP: Kandy is in Ceylon.
ME: Yeah, possibly, yeah, uhm, and they were about to set off, uhm, with all the [unclear] and that that were necessary to take with them for signing papers and as they were walking to the aircraft, one of Arthur’s crew said, oh skip, we’ve got, we’ve got a problem, and Arthur said, what, what kind of a problem? He said, well, one of the PA’s, one of the naval officers, it’s a lady. And there were no facilities for ladies, for toilets on board because they have tubes, don’t they?
RP: Oh yes
ME: Right, yes.
RP: Yes [laughs]
ME: So, Arthur had to send another of his crew to the store to get a bucket, ready for the use of.
RP: Life was tough then.
ME: Yeah [laughs], it was, but, uhm, yeah, he was, what can I say,
RP: But you mentioned he recorded this tape in the late Nineties so between the time he’d finished flying and then, did he ever talk much about his war experiences?
ME: Occasionally.
RP: Cause most of them have, most people didn’t,
ME: No
RP: it’s only later in life that they
ME: Occasionally, not often, I mean, I knew, he told me about the bee, because he was telling me somebody else about that but, I mean, that was years and years afterwards and the escape hatch obviously.
RP: What was the one about the bee then?
ME: The bee was the one when they were on this op they started off and everything was ok and then suddenly his instruments weren’t working so he called Rog up and Rog came in and he had a good look round to see what the problem was and he couldn’t solve anything and he said, I cannot make out why you’re not getting anything from your instruments. So, Arthur had to fly in formation with another aircraft all the way to the target and back, no instruments of any kind at all, to tell him where he was, what he was doing and what height he was at or anything and, as I said, when they got back down and the ground crew took a look, it was a bee in the instrument panel.
RP: Doing what [laughs]?
ME: [unclear], it just caused something.
RP: Right.
ME: That was the explanation Arthur had from, it was a bee that had caused the problem, and I think, well, you know, what on earth?
RP: I can only think it must’ve been quite a large one.
ME: Well yeah, could’ve been a hornet I suppose [laughs], it could’ve been a hornet, but he said it was a bee. And I did try to find it in, but it may well be there I don’t know because Rog may have told uhm, you see, because Arthur was already killed before Tim wrote that book
RP: Oh, alright.
ME: So, a lot of the things he got from Roger match
RP: So,
ME: And I would have thought that Roger would’ve said about that one.
RP: Yeah, so, Arthur never read this then. Arthur has never read this book.
ME: Arthur has never that book
RP: Alright, I see.
ME: That is what is so sad,
RP: Yes.
ME: He’s never read that book and
RP: Because he could well have added to it of course.
ME: Oh, yes, of course he would. Ok. Because all [unclear], because I’ve got a lot, I have got a lot of information about the book, what, why it was written,
RP: Oh, we can have a look at that,
ME: Yeah and then he, you see, afterwards, when Arthur was killed, I was, uhm, yeah, I was in a flat in Gloucester then, uhm, which Mason, [unclear] and that is when Roger rang me and said, there’s this chap in Yorkshire who’s writing a book about the, is it ok if I give him your telephone number, because he’d like to contact you? And Rog he still contacts me
RP: Ah, that’s good.
ME: He rang me a fortnight ago to say, when is it convenient for us to come down to see you at Christmas? [unclear] come to see me at Christmas they’ve always kept in touch.
RP: That’s [unclear]. Would you happen to know if he’s been interviewed?
ME: Pardon?
RP: Would you happen to know if anyone has interviewed him?
ME: Nobody has. And I think he deserves to be.
RP: Well, I’ll take his address from you afterwards.
ME: Yeah, I, he deserves to be because that
RP: Oh absolutely. Well, if he’s done that book, he certainly does. He must have a good memory.
ME: Well, it’s the fact that, I’m not denigrating miners or anything because I was brought up in a mining community but he was only secondary school, he was a miner’s son, lived in Pontefract, uhm, he didn’t have any body, uhm, oh what do they call it? When they check read a script, he’d nobody to do that for him, what he got there is what you see, I mean, as I said to Arthur’s niece, grammatically there are a few flaws, and she said, it doesn’t matter Megan, he has recorded his [static interference noise]
RP: That’s a page of history, that’s the main thing.
ME: Yeah, that’s it.
RP: That’s exactly what you want.
ME: Yeah, so uhm, and you see, his niece’s husband, Martin, was RAF, air sea rescue, uhm, he was in the Iraq war, uhm, when he retired from the RAF, he went to fly for Monarch, so a fortnight ago he had a shock during
RP: [unclear] go well there?
ME: No, he didn’t. He said to me, Megan, it’s a good job, I didn’t realise when I put that aircraft down on Friday on the runway and I’m glad I didn’t know that was the last time I was landing an Airbus but he didn’t, he only knew during the night by an email, but now he’s had an interview for WOW and another one for Titan.
RP: Yeah, well, they are always interviewing.
ME: Yes.
RP: Ok, I think we can leave it there cause I think we’ve surely captured the essence of Arthur and I thank you for all the information that you’ve given us, it’s been lovely listening to you, thank you.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Megan Edwards
Creator
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Rod Pickles
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-10-30
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AEdwardsM171030
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Pending review
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00:38:31 audio recording
Language
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Description
An account of the resource
Megan Edwards talks about her husband, Arthur Edwards, who served in the RAF with 102 Squadron. Tells of how they met at school and always kept in touch through the war, until they married on October 7th, 1944. She remembers working at the Bristol telephone exchange on D-Day. Arthur took on various jobs before volunteering for the RAF in 1941. He initially went to America to train as a fighter pilot, but then was moved on to bombers. He was stationed at RAF Pocklington on 102 Squadron, with which he flew thirty-nine operations. Remembers when Arthur and his crew had to abort what was to be their last operation and land at RAF Manston because of a widespread oil leak. From 25 September to 7 October, Arthur and his crew dropped fuel canisters over Brussels to supply the British army with petrol. Tells of when a bee got stuck in the instrument panel, jamming it. Towards the end of the war, from February 1945 to August 1946, Arthur was posted to Transport Command, flying Dakotas to the Middle East and the Far East, in preparation for Operation Tiger. Mentions him being awarded the DFC by post and the Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air. Arthur left the RAF in 1946, went back to civilian life for ten years and then joined the Guinea police air wing.
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Kent
England--Yorkshire
Temporal Coverage
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1944-09-25
1944-10-07
102 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
C-47
Distinguished Flying Cross
Halifax
pilot
RAF Manston
RAF Pocklington
Tiger force
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/668/10072/AAllenWH170331.2.mp3
b7e86ee136f31e0cba975ebbd6344a9b
Dublin Core
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Title
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Allen, William Hubert
W H Allen
Bill Allen
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Sergeant William Allen (b. 1923, 1585749, 197351 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a wireless operator with 76 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-03-31
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Allen, WH
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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MH: Ok. Good afternoon everybody. My name is Mark. I am a volunteer with the International Bomber Command Centre which is going to be located on Canwick Hill in Lincoln. I’m one of their volunteers that has the pleasure of coming to carry out interviews with veterans of Bomber Command. Today I have the great pleasure on the 31st of March 2017 of interviewing flight sergeant, as he was during his campaign time, Mr William Allen who resides in the fair country of Wales. And I have the pleasure in interviewing him this afternoon regarding his recollections both prior to the war and during it and then afterwards as well. But first of all we’ve managed to find out and to elicit from Bill some additional information from him regarding the service that his father undertook during the Great War ’14 to ’18. And I’ll get him to give us a brief resume of what he understands that his father’s service was in the Royal Naval Air Service. And then of a very romantic thing that his father got one of the personnel from the seaplane carrier the Ark Royal to do for him as a momento of his romancing what would have been Bill’s mother. So, good afternoon Bill. Thank you very much first of all for making yourself available for interview today. It’s greatly appreciated. So, I understand from your daughter, Wendy who’s given me a bit of insight into her grandfather and your father about where he served during the Great War. If you’d like to tell us about that first off.
WA: Right. As far as I know it his wartime service on the Ark Royal — 1914 he sailed from Lincolnshire to the Dardanelles. The Mediterranean. And the Ark Royal stayed there until she came back into home waters in 1918. During that time dad was courting a young lady from Surrey where he lived, or had lived at the time. And an engineer on the Ark Royal said to father to be, ‘What are you going to do with those letters?’ And father to be said, ‘Well, I suppose I’ll have to get rid of them.’ So this engineer said, ‘Let me have them and I’ll do something with them.’ And he made a walking stick which I’ve now still got. Which will be a hundred years old next year.
MH: Just for the people listening Bill has very kindly allowed me to see this lovely momento and to describe it for you. The best way to describe it Bill — would you just say it looks or it reminds me of a tree and the rings of a tree. It’s like somebody has done a cross carving across the plain of a tree trunk and you’ve got all the individual pages of the letters that you can see, and it’s a fabulous item. And it’s got a beautiful handle on top of it. And it’s such a fine momento of the Great War and of your parents courting, of course.
WA: Yeah.
MH: Of which you were then produced. So, tell us a bit more about yourself Bill. When were you born? Where were you born? A bit about your childhood. A bit about your interests before you saw service in the Royal Air Force.
WA: Well, I was born in Surrey, a place called Lingfield, on the 22nd of September 1923. Of course, I didn’t know much until about well four or five when you sort of realise things were going on. Dad was a head gardener on the estate in Dormans Park just outside Lingfield racecourse, but what shall we say? Nothing happened really. School was just normal. But in about 1937 things started going wrong. We thought well although I wasn’t, I was only what seventeen or sixteen. You think, well there’s a war coming. You could feel it. And I thought, well what am I going to do? And I thought well I know radio and I know Morse code so I think I’ll go in to Abingdon and volunteer for aircrew. So, I went to Abingdon, to the RAF Recruitment Centre and I said, ‘I wish to join up as aircrew.’ They said, ‘What as?’ So I said, ‘Well, radio. He said, ‘Well, go back. We’ve got your address. We’ll contact you when we can take you into the air force.’ So I went back, worked with dad on the estate until I got this call to go to aircrew selection. So I went to aircrew selection at Weston super Mare. I was passed as a wireless operator/air gunner, given a service number and they said, ‘The Army or the Navy won’t call you up. But,’ they said, ‘You’re a bit late getting here. What happened?’ I said, ‘Well, I left Abingdon this morning. Got a train to Oxford where there was an Aircrew Selection Board. I got a train to Didcot where there was another aircrew selection board. Another train to Bristol where there’s an aircrew selection board. And then on to Weston super Mare where I am now. And at the interview, and they said, ‘Right, you’re, you’re ok for wireless op/air gunner.’ And of course I found out afterwards the senior was a wing commander and he said, ‘Why did you go, why were you late getting here?’ So I told him why. All these stations. And he said, ‘Well, you’re not travelling back tonight. You’ll stay in a hotel tonight.’ So the next day I travelled back to Abingdon. The reverse direction. [laughs’] Stops all the way.
MH: So, you returned home having been selected. How long a period then between your selection at the aircrew selection and your eventual call up? How long a period do you think that was?
WA: So, as I, when I went for aircrew station I was sixteen and a half. I was finally called up just before my eighteenth birthday and I went to Padgate for initial kitting. From Padgate I went to RAF Yatesbury where it was the Number 1 Radio School. Of which there were funny tales about Yatesbury but never mind. We passed out at Yatesbury. I then went to North Wales for my gunnery. Passed out as an air gunner. Then I was posted back to Abingdon to crew up as, for a crew. Where I was crewed with a pilot, a bomb aimer, two gunners, and a navigator. But at the time because Whitleys only had two engines there was no [pause] excuse me my voice is going. There was no —
MH: Flight engineer.
WA: Flight engineer.
MH: Yeah. Yeah.
WA: We passed out at Abingdon. Then we went to Heavy Conversion Unit, Riccall in Yorkshire where we converted on to four engine Halies, or Halifaxes I should say. We passed out there. We were posted to 77 Squadron, Riccall in Yorkshire. We were there, well by the week because our skipper had to go as a second pilot on a raid in Germany. He never came back. So, we were a crew at 77 Squadron without a skipper. But at 102 Squadron, Pocklington was a squadron leader who wanted a crew. So we were posted to Pocklington. Crewed up with a squadron leader who was an excellent pilot because he he got shot in the tummy but he was an ex-Spitfire pilot. So he knew how to fly a Hali. And so we teamed up there. Got on well. And often we used to say on raids if it wasn’t for our skipper who knew how to treat the Germans we wouldn’t have got back. But of course sometimes we were damaged but the thing was coming back if the skipper, if the tail end, Tail End Charlie said, ‘Skipper, there’s a Mossie coming,’ We knew we were safe because the Mosquitoes had cannons and the Germans didn’t like that. But after we’d done about twenty one ops at 102 we, our skipper was made up to a wing commander so, we were then posted to Holme on Spalding Moor. 76 Squadron. And there we remained until the end of the war. And after of course 102 was then converted to Transport Command, onto the old Dakotas.
MH: Ok. Right. I’ve got a few questions for you Bill regarding your service. Ok. Going to take you all the way back then to your wireless operator training when you said there were a few tales that occurred at Wireless Training School. Are they repeatable, these tales? Or are they too naughty for the listener?
WA: Well, they’re a bit naughty.
MH: What happened? What did you get up to?
WA: Well, because on the, between Calne and Yatesbury on the big hillside there was carved a big horse. A white horse. And one day the boys, the RAF got blamed because the White Horse was a big stallion.
MH: Ah. Right.
WA: So, they were sent to grass it over a bit [laughs]
MH: Ok. Ok. And were you involved in that additional?
WA: No.
MH: No. Right. Ok. We’ll save the confession. So, basically they’d put an additional leg to the horse.
WA: Correct.
MH: Ok. So, you started your training on Whitleys. It’s not an aircraft people are very familiar with because not a lot of people know about the Whitley in all honesty. Can you give our listeners your impressions of the aircraft? How you found it. How you found it for the specific tasks that you had to carry out.
WA: Ok. She was a twin-engine. She was a main bomber before the Halies and the Lancs came in. Or the Lancaster was a Manchester before it was a Lancaster. But the dear old Whitley was, was always for us, a flying coffin. A job to get out of if there was any trouble.
MH: Right.
WA: She was slow. We did our first op from Abingdon to — on a leaflet raid into Germany but [pause] well we got back. The thing was that because my father, mum we lived at a place call Sutton Courtenay which was just outside Abingdon and of course I was back at Abingdon and I said, ‘Well, I won’t be able to see you tomorrow. I might be away.’ And all the aircraft, fourteen Whitleys went over our bungalow and dad said mum wouldn’t sleep until she counted fourteen back.
MH: Right. Ok.
WA: But [pause] well she was a, well I suppose what you’d call a medium bomber. Not much. But when we left Abingdon and got on to the Heavy Conversion on to Halies — a different aircraft. Four engines. But the Mark 1s and Mark 2s were a bit slow. But because the Hali was designed for Bristol radial engines she had to go, the Mark 1 and 2s had Rolls Royce and she wasn’t designed for those. But because the Hali couldn’t have the radial engines, the Bristols until the Battle of Britain was over because they were all wanted for the Hurricanes. But once the Hali got the radial engines Butch Harris, the boss of Bomber Command said, ‘Ah the Hali is now a better bomber than the Lancaster,’ and she was. She was a damned good aircraft. So, the only thing was with the Hali she was fast. She was faster than the Lanc. When the Tail End Charlie used to say, ‘Ah, there’s a Mossie coming up.’ A Mossie, for the listeners is a Mosquito. And that Mosquito aircraft was wooden but she had cannons and if we were coming, if we were damaged and the Mossie came beside us no German fighter would come within fifty miles of us because he could, that Mossie could blow him out the sky. And coming back the skipper always used to say to the mid-upper, ‘Make a note of the two, the marks, the letters on the aircraft so I can phone up the squadron when we get back.’
MH: So, thinking about when you did your first operation on the Whitley. It was a sort of postal run for leaflets. How did you feel about that? Instead of taking cargo that would have been of more use should we say.
WA: Well, we didn’t know. It’s a line of duty and that’s it. It was. As I say you put all these leaflets down the flare ‘chutes and that’s it.
MH: So, none of the crew had thoughts of — I’m putting my life on the line basically to be postie.
WA: No. No.
MH: Right.
WA: I can tell you about that later but it’s on. No. You didn’t.
MH: Didn’t think about that.
WA: No.
MH: Just saw it as part of service.
WA: I mean, we’re going on our first op so big deal. Big day. But when we got to our first, what we called our first operation with 102 with the new squadron leader, it was different, you see. Well, we did our first op over Germany. Come back ok. So, the next op one or two of us used to have a cigarette. So, we sat down and had a cigarette and we’d say, ‘Well, there’s ops tonight. Some are not coming back. But we are coming back.’ That’s the way you looked at it. You were coming back. You gave your packet of cigarettes to the ground crew. The old sergeant there and say who looked after our aircraft, ‘Here’s the cigarettes. If we don’t come back smoke them. Think of us.’
MH: So [pause] Now, I did some background reading in to Halifax Mark 3s. It’s not an aircraft that I’m very familiar or I wasn’t very familiar with but I am now. It quite surprised me I must admit that the wireless operator found themselves tucked beneath the pilot’s feet. How, how was that for you? Because they were above you. The flight engineer was above you. You had two other crew members technically behind you with the mid-upper and the tail gunner but there was yourself, the navigator and the bomb aimer all stuck in the front altogether. How did you find that because of being bulky, bulky aircrew kit and all the rest of it? How did you find that?
WA: We didn’t notice it because we thought this is, this is my cabin, here’s my wireless, that was it. You didn’t think about, well the skipper’s above us. The bomb aimer, as you say was sat at the second dickie until we were over the target and went up front to take the bomb aimer’s position. But the navigator was almost alongside of me. So, we didn’t bother.
MH: I was quite surprised also to find out, Bill that at the point where you sat in the wireless operation desk etcetera and where the pilot was, the aircraft was in fact nine foot tall at that point. So that’s quite an expanse when you think about it. A nine foot tall, you know at the side of the fuselage as such. I was quite surprised by that. But it was all comfortable for you at that time.
WA: Oh yes. Because from where the pilot was you went down steps. A couple of steps, and as you were going down the steps you hung your parachute because you each had a place to put your parachute. So you didn’t think about much about the cramp. You put your parachute on the clamp and got into your position.
MH: And in your position as well the way the radio set was set up was slightly different to other heavy bombers, I believe. In that the receiver set stood on its end. And then you had the main transmitter in front of you and then your Morse key was clamped normally on the right hand side.
WA: Correct. Yes.
MH: And then you had a small desk for keeping your radio log and everything.
WA: And of course you had a trailing aerial by the side of you.
MH: Right.
WA: If I was to unwind it.
MH: Right. How did you find, did you find that — was that a good set up for yourself being the, the receiver set being there to having a — are you a right handed gentleman? Were you having to reach across or, to change the various wavelengths as such?
WA: No, it was a — because I’ll show you the photographs later. Up there.
MH: Right.
WA: Of the wireless operator’s position.
MH: Right. Ok.
WA: The only lights you had for eight hours if you were on a night raid was the lights from the radio.
MH: Right.
WA: There weren’t no other light because the Germans could pick it up.
MH: And the operational ceiling I believe of a Mark 3 Halifax was about twenty thousand feet. How did you deal with the cold?
WA: Oh. We had three pairs of gloves on. And, but they were so soft. Silk gloves, a very nice woollen and then a leather. Soft leather that you could always, you could bend your fingers and you didn’t realise they were on. But most of the trips were ok over Germany. But if we were sent on mine laying up in the Baltic then it was mighty cold.
MH: Because the difference or I understand with the Lancaster the same sort of position for the radio op in the Lancaster. They were fortunate in having the heater by them. Did the Halifax not have any heating as such? And if so where would it have been? Was it by yourself or was it elsewhere in the aircraft?
WA: Well there was a little bit of heating coming through. So as long as you didn’t get iced up.
MH: Ok. When you went to Holme on Spalding Moor it’s not a station that I am familiar with. What can you tell us about it? How was it when you got there?
WA: Well, we got there because our skipper had been made up to wing commander. He was the CO then of the, of 76 Squadron flying. So everybody at [unclear] and at briefing, our first briefing it was funny because we were at our briefing table without a skipper. And some of the crews looked as us as to say, ‘Where’s your skipper?’ And of course the skipper did a briefing and said, ‘This is our target for tonight.’ And of course when he finished the briefing he came down and sat with us. And of course some of the crew looked at us, ‘Oh, you’ve got the wing commander have you?’
MH: Did that give you any privileges at all? Were you treated differently? Or —
WA: No. The one bad privilege. We could only do one op a month.
MH: So —
WA: So, we were slowed down.
MH: Right. Due to, due to your pilot’s rank. They didn’t want to lose him as such.
WA: Yeah. But the thing was that the AOC, God he was a rugby player for England before the war. He used to have to do a monthly flight to get his flying pay. And he always used to come to the wing commander and say, ‘I want your wireless operator.’ He didn’t want a navigator, nobody. He only wanted the wireless op.
MH: So, you found yourself with the AOC for 4 Group. Doing his monthly pay flight.
WA: Yeah [laughs]
MH: And that was just you.
WA: Yeah.
MH: When you went up. So, it was just you.
WA: And the, and the pilot, you know. He was —
MH: What aircraft did you do that on? When the AOC had to go up.
WA: That was the Mark 6s. They were good aircraft.
MH: Right. So he was, he was, the AOC was still —
WA: Yeah.
MH: Keeping up to the date on the, on the aircraft type as such.
WA: Yeah. That was the CO. Not me. Gus Walker.
MH: Gus Walker. Right.
WA: Everybody knows Gus. One night he’d had, because he went out to two aircraft. What they tried on one squadron where he was they decided to, to use two runways. So that one aircraft went that way. The other one went that way. And of course this time the two hit in the centre.
MH: Yeah.
WA: And he went from flying control to see what was happening and when he got there one of the bombs went off and blew his arm off.
MH: Oh crikey.
WA: His right arm.
MH: Oh dear.
WA: So, every time you saw him you always shook left handed.
MH: Right. Crikey. Oh poor chap.
WA: But his — but the first time, well no. The second time he said, ‘Do you mind flying with me?’ When he did his flying test. I said, ‘Sir, you are safer than some of the pilots I’ve flown with.
MH: With the one arm.
WA: Yeah.
MH: We’ll leave those. We’ll leave those dodgy pilots out of this interview then, just in case they happen. We’ll leave the names of the dodgy pilots out of the interview just in case.
WA: That was, well we had posts.
MH: So, you’ve now gone and you’ve reached into your cupboard. What have you brought out for us? What have you brought out from your cupboard? What have you got there? Ah. Right. Bill’s just bought out his form 1767 which for those of us in the know is his flying logbook. So we’re going to use this as a bit of a reference with you listeners as Bill’s going to take us into his logbook now. And we appreciate you can’t see it but in Bill’s neatest handwriting I’m looking at a page which is headed up Yatesbury. The 21st of May ’43 and he was flying on X7517.
WA: Dominie.
MH: And that was a Dominie. And that was up for air experience by the looks of things. I suppose, what was that? To check and make sure that you weren’t going to be sick.
WA: Yes.
MH: And that sort of thing. Ok.
WA: Then we went on to radio then. Direction finding loop, homing training, calibre training.
MH: But I look then, Bill. I look at the time that you were up and the actual flying times that Bill’s referring to during his training. They’re not very long are they? They’re only about an hour or so.
WA: Yes.
MH: And during that that allowed you time to go through thoroughly the training that you had to go through.
WA: That’s right.
MH: Or do you feel that it was rushed?
WA: No. No.
MH: To get, to get you through.
WA: No. It was ok. There was, you still carried on. This is when then they go to Mona, North Wales for my air gunnery.
MH: Right. Yeah.
WA: That’s my hits [laughs]
MH: And Bill’s now got in September sort of time 1943 he was at the Air Gunnery Course Centre and firing off approximately two hundred rounds at a time on his training. And that was, ah the aircraft type listed that Bill was flying in then was an Avro Anson during his training for air gunnery. With all different pilots by the looks of things. Yeah. But so how much training? What sort of weapon were you taught to fire? What was it?
WA: The 303s and the drogue which was being dragged behind the aircraft.
MH: So that was, would that have been a single 303 or would that have been a pair or —?
WA: No. A pair.
MH: A pair.
WA: That was on the old —
MH: Ah. Now, this is going to bring recollections to me. Halfpenny Green.
WA: Yes. That’s right.
MH: Yeah. Now, for listeners if you ever get the chance there’s a John Mills film that basically shows him in Bomber Command and then eventually this particular place called Halfpenny Field gets handed over to the American 8th Air Force. And it’s called, the film is called, “The Way to the Stars.” So, if you get the chance have a look at it because the gentleman I am sitting with actually served at a place called Halfpenny Green. So, this, this is where you did more wireless operation training. Yeah?
WA: That’s right. The training.
MH: And we’ve got cross country exercises and navigations and you were the second wireless operator. And again on Avro Ansons. How did you find that aircraft Bill to be in? Was it good?
WA: It was a good aircraft. The old Aggie as they called her. Aggie Anson.
MH: Was it a good training aircraft then?
WA: Yes.
MH: Yeah. Ok.
WA: This was Abingdon or satellite Stanton Harcourt.
MH: Right. Ok.
WA: Yeah. She was number 10 OTU.
MH: So, on Bill’s page now we’re up to the period now in his logbook and right at the top of the page is the 25th of January 1944. Bill was on wireless op duty and flying with Flying Officer Ford in a Whitley T4131. And on that particular occasion out of 10 OTU he was doing circuits and landings for an hour and a half. And then this was at Stanton Harcourt where Bill looks like he’s done a mixture of, he’s done the odd bit on an Avro Anson but the majority of it has been on the two engine Whitley. However, he has been the wireless operator duty for the whole of those. That’s lovely Bill. That’s a lovely book. And then we continue. And then I’ve got — you’ve got fighter affiliation there. Which is quite interesting because I found out later when you were with, when you were at Holme on Spalding Moor you had 1689 Bomber Defence Training which were Hawker Hurricanes doing fighter affiliation on the same, the same airfield. So you’ve continued that there. And that’s March ’44. And — right, here’s something I’m going to question. What’s Bullseye, Bill? What does that mean when you see that?
WA: A Bullseye was a six hour from Abingdon. We went through London. And then to another Birmingham. So it was across country. But the thing was at London they hadn’t informed, they hadn’t been informed that we were coming. So they thought we were Germans and we were fired at [laughs] So I had to flashback the Morse at them.
MH: Right. Ok. So, was that a specific? Is that why you’ve noted it as Bullseye? Or was Bullseye for a specific target?
WA: No. It was called a Bullseye.
MH: It was called a Bullseye. So —
WA: So, if you completed a Bullseye you were ok.
MH: You were ok. Ok. But on that particular occasion the anti-aircraft decided to fire on you. Ok.
WA: Because they didn’t know. But they, I think afterwards it was a bit better then.
MH: Ok.
WA: As a nickel operation.
MH: Right. So Bill’s showing me here, on the 14th of February which for us gentleman we all know is a rather painful day in pockets-wise, being Valentine’s Day. Back in 1944 Bill was doing a nickel operation to Laval which was a four and a quarter hour night operation. And then the following month looks like that’s when Squadron Leader Legatt, you did some fighter affiliation with him and the flight commander’s check. So that was good. Ok. Then you go to 1658 Heavy Conversion Unit.
WA: Riccall, in Yorkshire.
MH: Riccall, in Yorkshire. And that’s on a Halifax Mark 2. And Bill’s started in his logbook, he’s got that noted on the 10th of May 1944. And his first flight was at 0900 in the morning. The pilot was Flight Lieutenant Warren. And that was familiarisation for the Halifax Mark 2 of two hours and five minutes. And that was a daytime familiarisation flight.
WA: We were on three engines.
MH: Was that because the aircraft had a fault, Bill?
WA: No. Had to do it.
MH: Oh, you had to do it. Right. Ok. So that was a test of skill as such for the pilot. As Bill’s pointed out there whilst at 1658 HCU in his logbook he’s noted on the 18th and 19th of May ’44 that they did a three engine test on both of those days. And as you heard him say that was a requirement at those times. I see there you did another Bullseye operation as well. Down the bottom of your page. But one engine wasn’t working.
WA: No.
MH: So that made it even harder than. So, yeah. Crikey. Circuits and — yeah.
WA: That’s when it was.
MH: And then on the 1st line of Bill’s book for the 15th of June ’44 Halifax Mark 3. Circuits and landings with 77 Squadron at Full Sutton. And then —
WA: We lost our pilot.
MH: Was that Mr Ford?
WA: Yes.
MH: Mr Ford went so —
WA: Flying Officer Ford.
MH: At this time listeners we would like to note the tragic events that at this point we lost Flying Officer Ford. And he was your first pilot that went as a second dickie on an operation.
WA: So when he didn’t come back we were a crew without a pilot.
MH: A crew without a pilot. Yeah. Then you got your new pilot.
WA: So we went to 102 Squadron, Pocklington with a Squadron Leader White.
MH: Squadron Leader White. And your first operation with him was eighteen thousand feet. Foret de Nieppe. NE — sorry. N I E P P E and your bombing height was eighteen thousand feet. It was a day operation of three hours and forty minutes. And then your very next operation being routed but written over your shoulder you were hit by flak and that was — oh you were, oh V-1 launch site. But you were quite down low then.
WA: Yeah.
MH: At ten thousand feet. So, Bill’s next op was on the 8th of August. A Halifax Mark 3. Again, the pilot was Squadron Leader White. His new pilot. Bill was the wireless operator and that was [unclear] where the aircraft was hit by flak. And they were bombing a V-1 launch site. You seem to have quite a few trying to tackle the buzz bomb problem.
WA: Yes.
MH: Yeah.
WA: Still carried on.
MH: Still carried on. So, for those in the know or those that are new to this regarding knowledge to Bomber Command Bill with Squadron Leader White then carried out an operation on the 7th of September. Again in a Halifax Mark 3. On this occasion it was gardening to the Frisian Islands from fifteen thousand feet. Now, for those in the know the gardening sorties were to be mine laying. So, in and around the Frisian Islands Bill and Squadron Leader White and the rest of the crew would have been laying, doing mine laying around the Frisian islands. And you did some more then. You went off to Mecklenburg Bay in the Baltic. That would have been very cold.
WA: Yeah.
MH: That would have been a bit raw. Especially in September. Even in September wouldn’t it? So Bill then did one on the 15th of September as well. Gardening to the Mecklenburg Bay. And then you did some ferry flights.
WA: No. September ’44 the army was held up on going into Germany. So 76 Squadron was loaded up with 22 Jerry cans which, one Jerry can is mighty heavy but when you get twenty two. But the thing was that get to my position we had to crawl across all these petrol tank things to get. But we, what I can’t make out, we were given a parachute but we could never have get out if anything had happened. And if Germany knew that we were full of petrol they would have been after us. But the thing was we used more petrol in our engines than we were carrying.
MH: Carrying. Yeah.
WA: But they wanted, the army wanted this petrol so we had to do it.
MH: Now —
WA: It was quite a few.
MH: So, you were ferrying fuel at the time of Arnhem. But burning up more fuel in doing it.
WA: Yeah. That’s the, that’s the way it went.
MH: And then you went to Kleve in the October. Bochum on the Ruhr in November of ’44. And then again back to the Ruhr. Sterkrade.
WA: They had a —
MH: Oil plant.
WA: Box barrage, and you flew, they set their guns from ten thousand feet to twenty thousand feet and you flew through it.
MH: How did you feel about that because —
WA: Well, we didn’t know until later. But there you are. We knew it was somewhere close because you could smell cordite in the, in the aircraft and golly, that was through the oxygen masks.
MH: So, you were picking up the vapours.
WA: Yeah.
MH: From the exploding rounds. Then you went to Zoest. The marshalling yards. In the December. That would have been cold as well, Bill.
WA: Yeah.
MH: And then, just for fun in the January of ’45 they sent you back to the Baltic. They obviously didn’t think you’d been cold enough before. But —
WA: That’s where we went to.
MH: Holme on Spalding Moor. So, Bill —
WA: The wing commander there.
MH: Bill’s just showing me in his logbook now that Squadron Leader White had been made up to wing commander and they went to Holme on Spalding Moor. And the first noted operation come practice on that was the 3rd of February ’45 on a Halifax Mark 3 where you had a practice bombing session before going off and you were going to — is that Goch.
WA: Yeah.
MH: Yeah.
WA: In the Ruhr.
MH: Goch in the Ruhr on the 7th of February ’45. However, it does look like was that operation scrubbed by the master bomber at that time. And you were at twelve thousand feet and that was due to come in to contact —
WA: Heavy cloud. You couldn’t see the target.
MH: With the chemical plant. Oh, and then in March ’45 Bill, with Wing Commander White went to one of the big ones — Cologne where you were bombing from twenty thousand feet. So you were up. With the Halifax that’s towards its upper operational ceiling isn’t it? The twenty thousand. So, that’s quite high. And then Wuppertal in the March. And then practice bombing in the March as well. And then I’m going to pronounce, I’m going to pronounce this wrong, Bill. I’ll tell you now.
WA: Wangerooge.
MH: Wangerooge Island, from eight thousand feet on the 25th of April ’45. Again with Wing Commander White. And that was to assist in taking out a gun emplacement.
WA: And that was the last raid of the war.
MH: The very last one.
WA: Yes.
MH: Right. Ok. And that was for a gun emplacement causing problems. And that was a daylight operation on those occasions. On that occasion.
WA: Eight thousand feet.
MH: Eight thousand feet. That’s nothing. Eight thousand feet.
WA: And on that one was twenty four aircraft from our squadron. As we were going in two of our Halies collided. One [pause] one went straight down and with all the seven killed. The other one went down in the sea but only the skipper got out. The rest of the crew were killed. But he came, he was only a prisoner of war for a few days because the war was virtually ended. But when he got back to our squadron before we transferred to Transport Command he said when he came out the, out of the sea a German officer was waiting for him. And, but while he was marching him up to, to their office I suppose, to interrogate him a farmer came rushing up with a pitchfork and he was going to stab the RAF pilot. And the German pulled out his revolver and pointed it at this farmer. Told him to shoo off.
MH: Because you do hear don’t you of a lot of, a lot of parachuted aircrew that were turned on by the civilians. You do hear quite a bit of that having occurred which is very sad. But again fortunately then, we can actually say fortunately there was a German officer there to save him.
WA: That’s right.
[pause]
WA: That was the last one. The ops we did. Different pilots. Bombs had gone. Dropping bombs in the North Sea to get rid of them.
MH: What’s interesting, I’ve got to point this out to you, Bill. What’s interesting, Bill’s just pointing out to me a couple of entries in relation to May 1945 in his logbook. Now, you were in then the up to date Halifax Mark 6. Flying Officer Thrussel. It’s got here duty rear gunner. Did you go on that one there with the ferry flight because there was no other option? That was the only seat available or what took you to the rear turret on that occasion?
WA: It was just, you know because we lost all the air gunners because we didn’t need them. War was finished. So, when the Halifax went off and they said, ‘Well look, If you want to fly as a rear gunner, see what is happening,’ because when you’re a wireless op you couldn’t see much. So, you jumped in.
MH: Having changed your seat then for that particular time were you able to gain any sort of thoughts about what it would have been like to have been a Tail End Charlie as such?
WA: No. No.
MH: During your ops.
WA: No. You got Wingco, look [pause]
MH: Ah. So here, June, 5th of June 1945 in a Halifax Mark 6. The wing commander. Cook’s Tour. Ah, I’ve heard about these. Is that where ground personnel —
WA: Correct. We took them on.
MH: And they got to see the great, you know the work that you’d done. And the work that you’d carried out because they were unaware of it other than —
WA: That’s right.
MH: Movietone News etcetera. So, in August 1945 we appear to have an aircraft change.
WA: Transport Command.
MH: Transport Command. What, what made them— any ideas what made them change at that point? Was there more of a necessity for transport aircraft? I mean —
WA: Well, we didn’t need bombers. War was finished.
MH: The European one. But the war against Japan was, you know —
WA: Actually, what we were [unclear] we were flying to go to India to meet aircraft coming from Japan with Prisoners of War. And at Poona, India. And from that, the ones from Japan landed at Poona. The aircraft then flew from Poona to Cairo where they were put on York aircraft with a medical officer and a nurse. And from there they were transported back to England. And the pilots used to say, ‘Boys, we’re back in England.’ And I think they stopped it because some of the POW got so excited they expired. And we did hear afterwards that their, well their legs were like your arms. You know. Nothing.
MH: Yeah. I think, I think, I’d like to think that we’ve all, we’ve all seen the horrific photographs.
WA: Yeah. They used to come in to Hullavington which is now upgraded isn’t it? It’s Royal Hullavington. Is it?
MH: So, did you actually take part in any of those repatriation flights, Bill? Back to the UK?
WA: No. Because this is where I got this typhoid in Cairo. And also I found out that I’d been flying with a perforated ear drum.
MH: Oh dear. Oh —
WA: That’s why I’m completely deaf in my left ear.
MH: So, how long, how long did they think you’d had the perforated ear drum?
WA: Don’t know.
MH: Don’t know. Oh right. Ok.
WA: But that’s when they found out as I said. No more flying.
MH: So, that might have happened way way way way way back. Possibly on your first or second operation.
WA: Yeah.
MH: You’d gone all the way flying to the Ruhr and back with one ear drum.
WA: Well —
MH: Wow. That’s, that’s quite extraordinary. That, you know. That’s, you know. Because you managed to, you managed to hold down, you know the career that you had then. So what, when, what happened to you when you did your service Bill? What did you do post-service? What did you do after? What did you do after your service?
WA: I still carried on because I kept doing that, because when I came back to England up to Air Ministry, flying officer, he said, ‘Ah, Yatesbury. What do you know about medical?’ So, I said, ‘Not a lot. Nothing.’ They said, Right. You’ll go to RAF Yatesbury as a [pause] looking after transfers.’ Right. So, I goes down to Yatesbury for the third time. First of all as an airman. And later on. But I had quite a nice time at Yatesbury. Got into the football team. Got an injury. And one of the nurses looked after me who later became my wife. After a while they said, ‘Well, because you can’t fly and you’re only for a home,’ or they used to call it, France and Germany, ‘But you can’t go Far East because of your eardrum. We’ll have to transfer you to the MOD Air Force Department. But you won’t be in uniform. But they said we’ll help you out. We’ll count your service.’ So, that’s why when I retired at sixty I had a service commission, err pension.
MH: So, if I’m recollecting this correctly for our listeners you joined, you first of all went for air crew selection at the age of sixteen and a half. Got selected. And you retired from the Air Force technically at the age of sixty. Forty four long years of service to this country, Bill. That’s a long time.
WA: Yeah. But I enjoyed my time with the Royal Air Force. No regrets. My only regret is I had a perforated eardrum and I couldn’t carry on flying.
MH: What’s your, I’ve got to ask you an opinion, Bill. What’s your opinion on the way that Bomber Command have been treated?
WA: Grim.
MH: Grim. What makes you say grim?
WA: Because there was no medal for Bomber Command. The other services had something. I don’t think even Fighter Command had any much, you know. They saved us. The same as Bomber Command. They always said that Bomber Command was the only one of the three services that was operational. The poor old Navy couldn’t do much. Only look after home waters.
MH: Yeah. Yeah. How do you feel about the way that the young people of today view Bomber Command? With what we’re trying to achieve to bring it to their attention.
WA: I don’t think a lot of modern realise.
MH: Right.
WA: Because this what they’re building at Lincoln. The height of a, wingspan of a Hali or a Lanc. They had to ask for extra money but I don’t think they got much response from that. To me, a lot of people, well from once the war was ended things went quiet. It was forgotten.
MH: Ok. Right. I’ve got to ask you, going back to my list of questions. Your dad was in what would have been known during World War Two as the Fleet Air Arm. Why didn’t you choose the Fleet Air Arm, Bill over — what was it that turned you off the Navy and on to the Air Force as such?
WA: I don’t know. Aircrew to me was RAF.
MH: Right.
WA: That’s why.
MH: And you’d always wanted to fly. Where did that passion come from?
WA: Because I knew Morse. And I thought well there’s always a radio on bombers or aircraft.
MH: So was it your interest in radio at that time?
WA: Well, because Morse code was radio wasn’t? That was it.
MH: Leading on from that then I was reading about a particular aircraft the other day where they had a problem with the intercom on the aircraft. Got shot through during the war on a mission and they were using some sort of signal like Morse code tapping through the airframe so the rest of the crew knew what was going on. Because the pilot had designed a system where they knew that three taps mean bale out and all the rest of it. Did you have anything like that?
WA: No. No.
MH: So, when you went off you were basically reliant on the intercom system working all the time. Right. Right.
WA: And we, we knew what, alright we took off. Twenty four aircraft, we knew some of them wouldn’t be coming back but we were coming back. So that’s the way you looked at it. I’d think I know where my parachute is. I can soon grab it. And that’s it.
MH: Do you count yourselves as brave?
WA: No. Lucky.
MH: Lucky. Right. Ok. Alright. Because there would be a lot of us that would say what you did and your colleagues etcetera what you did and the young age that you were when you did it —
WA: That’s right.
MH: Was very brave.
WA: Twenty, twenty one, twenty two. That was it. And most of the names on that what they’re building at Lincoln opposite Lincoln Cathedral. They were all twenty, twenty one, twenty twos.
MH: People in the prime of their youth. Yeah. But it never worried you.
WA: No.
MH: Never scared.
WA: No. [unclear] that’s it.
MH: Positivity.
WA: Well.
MH: And you had a good pilot.
WA: Well, you’ve got, well yes. We had a damned good pilot. And it was the job. We had to do it. Someone had to do it.
MH: No, you’re right. Someone had to do it. Ok. Did you ever run across or come across Group Captain Pelly-Fry?
WA: No. I’ve heard about him.
MH: What can you tell us about him?
WA: Hi de hi Pelly-Fry.
MH: What can you tell us?
WA: Is that right?
MH: Yeah. What can you tell us about him?
WA: He was 76 Squadron before we got there. So, I don’t know. All I know that is he was known as Pelly-Fry. Wing commander.
MH: So, he then eventually went up Group Command didn’t he? Up to 4 Group.
WA: Yes.
MH: So, out of all the aircraft then that you served on and in, in what order would you put them as favourite to least favourite?
WA: My favourite. Well, it’s got to be the Hali. Damned good aircraft. She could take punishment and if she crashed she broke in to six pieces so you had more chance of getting out. Whereas the Lanc didn’t because the Lanc was an old aircraft. A twin-engined Manchester. Put two engines on it and called it a Lancaster. But it still had a thin fuselage and useless to get out of.
MH: Right.
WA: I suppose the worst aircraft was the old Proctor. With the single engine.
MH: Why? I’ve got to ask why.
WA: I don’t know [laughs] to me, so I say it didn’t have the guts like a Lanc, or a Hali I should say.
MH: Right. Yeah. So in all your time with Bomber Command you’d have seen sights that a lot of us wouldn’t want to see and would have lost friends, colleagues that sort of thing. But you were stoical throughout in your approach and you feel that you were lucky.
WA: Yes. Because often we used to say if it wasn’t for our skipper being an ex-fighter pilot he got us out of a lot of problems.
MH: After the war did you stay in touch with your crew or with your pilot or did you all go your separate ways?
WA: No. We all drifted away and that was it.
MH: Right.
WA: I met, the person who I kept meeting was Gus Walker, Air Commodore, who, he said, ‘I saw your old skipper in London last week,’ when he used to come on the station to the annual AOC. He’d say, ‘I met your old skipper in London. He’s still ok. Yeah.’
MH: Ok. That’s fabulous. Is there anything else, Bill that you’d like to add about your recollections?
WA: No. Just [pause] No. It was one thing I went through. No regrets.
MH: No regrets. Good. Lucky charms? Did you have any lucky charms that you carried about your person? Because I know a lot of aircrew used to have a teddy.
WA: A rabbit’s foot.
MH: And a rabbit’s foot.
WA: That’s right.
MH: And all that. Yeah. That sort of thing. Or a lucky coin, didn’t they? And that sort of thing. Clover leaf and what not. But no. What I’d like to do Bill is thank you very much for your time today.
WA: That’s nice. Thank you, Mark.
MH: I’m sure that people will thoroughly enjoy listening to this.
WA: I’ve got a bit of a throat, perhaps my voice doesn’t sound good today. It’s a bit throaty.
MH: It’ll be fine. It will be fine. But thank you very much for this afternoon. And I will be turning the tape recorder off.
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 William Hubert Allen
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Mark Hunt
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-31
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AAllenWH170331
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:08:00 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
William Allen’s father had served with the Fleet Air Arm during the First World War. William also wanted to fly and so volunteered for the RAF at the earliest opportunity. He trained as a wireless operator. The crew arrived on the squadron and the pilot went as second dickie on a flight but was killed on the operation. William and his crewmates were now without a pilot and were transferred to 102 Squadron to continue operations. William and his crew were very conscious of the statistical chances that they would not come back but over cigarettes they would say that they would be coming back. However, they also left their cigarettes with the ground crew with the instruction that if they did not return to smoke them and remember them.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
10 OTU
102 Squadron
1658 HCU
76 Squadron
77 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
Cook’s tour
Dominie
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Heavy Conversion Unit
mid-air collision
mine laying
Operational Training Unit
RAF Abingdon
RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor
RAF Pocklington
RAF Riccall
RAF Yatesbury
training
Whitley
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/656/8929/AWilsonJ161231.1.mp3
930df0a00d934d17a8714a098fe71eb3
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
Wilson, Joseph
J Wilson
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Wilson, J
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. An oral history interview with Flying Officer Joseph Wilson (1923 - 2019), 1486434 Royal Air Force), his log book, identity card and a photograph. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 102 and 76 Squadrons before being posted to 624 Special Duties Squadron where he dropped supplies and agents to the resistance in Southern Europe.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Jenny Wilson and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-12-29
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
BW: This is Brian Wright interviewing Flying Officer Joe Wilson at 3.15 in the afternoon on Thursday 29th of December 2016 at his home in Billinge. Joe, can you confirm for me please when and where were you born?
JW1: When and where? Oh, I was, I was born in Orrel Road, Orrel, 18.5.23.
BW: And how many other family members were there in, in your family? Did you have any brothers and sisters?
JW1: Oh yes. I had, I had a brother and sister.
BW: And were you the middle child or —
JW1: I was the youngest, the youngster [slight laugh].
JW2: You, you had step-sisters and brothers.
JW1: But they weren’t —
JW2: They were older, weren’t they?
JW1: Oh yeah, they weren’t — as you say, step-sisters. They weren’t my —
JW2: They weren’t yours but they all lived together.
JW1: All lived together, yeah.
BW: With me during this interview —
JW1: I beg your pardon?
BW: With me in this interview is Joe’s daughter Jenny, who will also be, um, prompting further information and assisting Joe with, with some of the answers just to help his recall of memory. So what was your early life like Joe, growing up round here?
JW1: What was?
JW2: What was your early life like? How would you describe it, growing up round here? Was it a normal happy childhood or —
JW1: You mean, as a civilian you mean.
BW: yes.
JW1: I had a very, very — I was getting five bob a week as a —
JW2: As a child?
JW1: As a child, yeah.
JW2: As a child — is it OK for me to — as a child you, um, your father was a miner.
JW1: Pit. Yeah.
JW2: And your mother —
JW1: A school teacher.
JW2: Was a school teacher.
JW1: Yeah.
JW2: And your mother married her sister’s widower.
JW1: My mother married —
JW2: Your mother married your sister’s, your, sorry, her sister’s widower.
JW1: Who was that?
JW2: So, um, that was Nellie died and William married Agnes, your mother, and then had three more children and you lived in a semi-detached house, 176 —
JW1: Orrel Road.
JW2: Orrel Road. That was when you were five. Before that you’d lived in a, in a terraced house. So when you were five you lived in 176 where you stayed for quite a long time.
JW1: That’s OK.
JW2: That’s right, yeah. But you had a happy child — would you say you had a happy childhood?
JW1: [slight laugh] Not really.
JW2: No?
JW1: No.
BW: Were your parents strict Joe?
JW1: I beg your pardon?
BW: Were your mum and dad strict with you?
JW1: Not really. My father worked in the pits, down the pits, five shillings a week and my mother was a school teacher, wasn’t she?
JW2: Yes.
BW: And where did you go to your school yourself? Do you remember?
JW1: Nearby, yeah. It was a Catholic School, St James’s, Orrel, yeah.
BW: And what did you like learning there? Were you there until age fourteen or did you leave? Was it a primary school and you left to go to another school or what?
JW1: I was, I was there most of the time I suppose, yeah. Not altogether.
JW2: Do you recall that you, er, left — when you left St James’s do you remember which school you went to then?
JW1: After St James’s. You mentioned the name [unclear].
JW2: I think there was three children from St James’s from your year that went to West Park Grammar School.
JW1: Grammar School, St Helens, yeah.
JW2: And one of them was John Orell, who was your friend from Rock House in Upholland, and the other was Brenda Green.
JW1: Brenda Green.
JW2: And John Orell also went into the RAF during the war.
JW1: Was he lost in the war?
JW2: He was. You told me that the, um, time you had at the grammar school was limited because a lot of your teachers were conscripted. Would you like to say something about that?
JW1: Conscripted? What do you mean by that?
JW2: They went into the war. They, they had to sign up for the war when you were at West Park Grammar.
JW1: Oh yeah, yeah.
JW2: You told me that you wanted to leave school because you didn’t like art and you had to do art and lost some of your favourite subjects.
JW1: That’s true.
BW: What didn’t you like about art Joe?
JW1: I couldn’t draw.
JW2: Didn’t like it.
BW: Didn’t like it. What were your favourite subjects then?
JW1: Mathematics, I suppose. My mother was a school teacher.
JW2: And her nickname was?
JW1: Eh?
JW2: What was her nickname?
JW1: I don’t know.
JW2: Mrs Metric.
JW1: Was it? I’d forgotten.
JW2: And she was very literary, as you are, and you loved poetry.
JW1: Oh yeah. Loved poetry. Yeah.
BW: Do you recall what were you doing when war was declared? Were you at home that day?
JW1: Well, I was at school that day wasn’t I when war was declared?
JW2: I don’t know.
JW1: 1939. Born ’23. I was probably in the top class, sixth form, er, sixth form. I was —
BW: This is Brian Wright interviewing Flying Officer Joe Wilson on the afternoon of Thursday 29th of December 2016 at his home in Billinge, Lancashire. With me is his daughter Jenny Wilson who will also be adding information, prompting and asking questions of Joe to help clarify some of the information. So, we were just talking before, in the first part of the interview Joe, about you being a trainee pharmacist and you’d heard that war had been declared and you decided to join the RAF and there were two reasons. One of which was pay and the other of which you thought was glamour. Is that right?
JW1: Probably.
BW: And you thought the uniform would help you attract more girls?
JW: Yeah.
BW: I believe you wanted to train as a pilot?
JW: Yeah. I was, I was in a reserved occupation there but yeah, pilot only, yeah. In fact I wasn’t allowed to — because I got, I got [unclear] I wasn’t allowed to apply for anything else. Pilot or observer, they were both the same, er, price, wage, same wage.
BW: And it was more money than what you were on as a pharmacist?
JW1: As a pharmacist. It was do you mean fully trained?
BW: Yeah.
JW1: I was about, I was getting about two pounds a week then but, er, I worked till half past seven through the week and, er, 9 o’clock Saturday night. That was what I should have done but I, I always had plenty of — what do you call them? What do you call them where they —
JW2: I’m not sure. Oh, they had a lot of outlets?
JW1: The Air Force.
JW2: Oh, the Air Force. I’m not sure. Barracks?
JW1: Eh?
JW2: The barracks.
JW1: Before I joined — I’ve forgotten. I was, I know I was a, I was a, so they say a laughable airmen [?] really.
BW: Where did you sign on or sign up? Did you sign you in Wigan? Was the nearest recruiting office in Wigan?
JW1: Yeah, oh yeah.
BW: And where do you go from there? Do you remember where did they send you for training?
JW1: It, it was overseas but I can’t remember where?
JW2: Initially, I don’t think it was overseas. I think you started your training in this country.
JW1: I probably started, yeah, but I didn’t finish.
BW: Did you actually get on to do pilot training in the first stage or were you drafted to be an observer instead?
JW1: Well, I was, I had, um, I wasn’t considered good enough to be a pilot really.
BW: Did you actually get to learn to fly a plane at any stage or were you just told that at the beginning?
JW1: No, I never saw, never saw an aeroplane in those days.
JW2: He did [emphasis] get to fly.
BW: I think you said you flew a Tiger Moth, didn’t you?
JW1: Oh, well yeah. Yes. What do they call it when you do a couple of hours just to see whether you were going to be air sick or, you know, not suitable, really. That was the idea. It wasn’t, it wasn’t to teach you anything really. [JW2 talking quietly in the background]
BW: So, you started on a flying course in this country doing a couple of trips on a Tiger Moth and then you were told you weren’t suitable to be a pilot. Is that right?
JW1: Yeah.
BW: And from there you went on to train as a bomb aimer instead. Is that correct or did you go into air gunnery?
JW1: No. I wanted to be a — no I wasn’t a gunner because the pay was terrible. It was terrible as a pilot but it was better than an air gunner’s pay.
JW2: Joe, your grandson recalls you saying that you learned, you were learning how to fly in Hamptons and Wellingtons?
JW1: Hampdens.
JW2: Hampdens, sorry. And Wellingtons. Is that correct?
JW1: Yeah. I know I went solo as, as, er, training to be a pilot when I was about, well I’d only be eighteen, that’s all.
BW: You were flying solo?
JW1: I was, I did, to be in a flying job really. I was but I only did a very, very short time.
BW: What do you recall about your training to be a bomb aimer?
JW1: I didn’t like it [slight laugh]. I didn’t like joining it but after a while it became a better, better paid job, slightly paid better, but that was about all really.
BW: And I believe you went up to an Operational Training Unit at Lossiemouth, number 20 OTU?
JW1: Number 20. Yeah.
BW: Would that have been 1942?
JW1: Probably. Yeah. ’42. I was born in ‘23. I was nineteen then.
BW: What do you recall of your time up in Scotland? Anything?
JW1: Well, I had relatives close by. My wife was a Scot, eventually.
JW2: Event— but you hadn’t met her then.
JW1: No. I hadn’t.
JW2: You hadn’t met her then. Later on you had relatives in Scotland but when you were nineteen I don’t think you had relatives in Scotland.
JW1: I didn’t like it then [slight laugh]. I’m surprised anybody cares these days about it.
BW: From then on I believe you went to a Heavy Conversion Unit at Pocklington, 1652 HCU is that right?
JW1: Pocklington. Yeah.
BW: And do you recall the people you met there? The crew you met there?
JW1: I don’t recall it but some— somebody, one of them was here and mentioned it to me to bring it back to me, I suppose. That’s all. Five bob a week wasn’t much working about fifty hours or more. That was all I got. Five shillings.
BW: Your log book shows that you were training on Wellingtons and your pilot was Sergeant Griffiths.
JW1: Yeah.
BW: What do you remember about Griffiths?
JW1: Nothing really but if, if somebody mentions something it would bring it back to me. He was a Scot, I know that. I don’t remember. I don’t remember.
BW: You did a lot of cross country training and some of it was at night, flying Wellingtons.
JW1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
BW: And you’re up at the front in the nose.
JW1: Yeah.
BW: What, what was like that?
JW1: Bloody cold. It was — we got all the breezes there. It was considered, it was quite laughable to everybody that I was a pil— I was going in for a pilot, yeah. I’m trying to think what we called it. Nobody has ever talked about it since then so I don’t remember.
BW: So, from your log book you left training on the Wellington on the 20th of September 1942, having done just under twenty-three hours day flying and thirty-one, sorry, forty-seven hours night flying?
JW1: How many years, forty-seven?
BW: Forty-seven hours, forty-seven hours. You then joined the conversion unit early in 1943 and you learned to fly Halifaxes. And your pilot on the Halifax was a Sergeant Griffiths. Do you remember the names of the other crewmen at all?
JW1: Not off-hand, no, but if anybody mentions them it would bring it back to me.
JW2: Can you remember anything about somebody called Marsh, Wilf Marsh?
JW1: Wilf Marsh. He was an observer. He wasn’t very athletic really. He was quite a fat lad.
JW2: He was married wasn’t he?
JW1: Oh yeah.
JW2: Was he the only married one on your crew?
JW1: As far as I recollect, yeah.
JW2: Right.
BW: There was another crewman, Flight Engineer Charles Walker?
JW1: I don’t remember that.
BW: No. Navigator, er, Anthony Holmes, or Tony Holmes.
JW1: Do you know, I don’t remember that even.
BW: No [clears throat].
JW1: I don’t know why they are interested.
JW2: It is interesting dad.
BW: It looks like your regular aircraft was code letter P. Do you have any recollections of P? Did you have a nickname for the aircraft at all? Was it —
JW1: I don’t recollect P. I’ve forgotten what you were —
Other: Is he talking about the nickname for the aircraft?
JW2: Yes.
Other: It was something ghost. Something ghost related.
JW1: What’s that?
JW2: Can — did you call the Halifax — did you have a name for, a nickname for your aircraft? Your grandson seems to remember that it was something related to ghosts.
JW1: I don’t remember.
JW2: You can’t remember.
JW1: I don’t remember.
BW: So, you haven’t done many trips. You’ve done about nine or ten trips maybe, in the early part 1943, most of them in March. Do you remember where you were flying to, what your targets were, in March ‘43? Were you flying to the Ruhr, Ruhr valley?
JW1: I can’t [clears throat] recollect them but if someone jogged my memory and told me, gave me a name, I might.
JW2: Do you recall that you did — you got some time off when you did a reconnaissance trip. Can you remember that?
JW1: I got what?
JW2: You took some very good photographs of a target or your plane did and, um, they were so helpful that they gave you some time off. Can you recall that?
JW1: No.
JW2: Well, you told me it was an armaments factory at Essen?
JW1: Essetene [?]
JW2: No Essen.
JW1: Oh, Essen. Oh yeah.
JW2: And you told me they were so pleased with the helpful photographs for target information that they gave you some days off.
JW1: I can’t remember.
JW2: You can’t remember that, no, no. It might have been Krupps.
JW1: Krupps.
JW2: Might have been Krupps. Does that sound —
JW1: I think we lost, if I remember rightly, fifty-five one night, from, mostly from —
JW2: Bombing.
JW1: Yeah.
BW: There are some details, some brief details here. Your second operation, in March 1943, was gardening.
JW1: Was what?
BW: Gardening. Which means mine laying.
JW1: Oh yeah, gardening, yeah.
BW: Do you remember anything about dropping mines in the water?
JW1: No. It was cushy but no. I mean, we were not didn’t go on trips anything like as dangerous as that was. They, they were all mine laying operations, just round, round the drome, that’s all.
BW: And then your third op at night was to Essen, followed by three days later Nuremberg.
JW1: We lost about fifty aeroplanes.
BW: On the Essen raid?
JW1: Yeah.
BW: And then you went a few days later to Nuremberg.
JW1: Oh yeah. That was a long one.
BW: That’s deep in Germany. And then the night after that you went to Munich which is in the south of Germany.
JW1: I remember the name but I don’t remember anything about it really.
BW: You then had one raid at Stuttgart, followed in April by another trip to Essen and this is, I believe, is interesting because your comment in your log book says you were coned for eleven minutes. You were in the searchlights for eleven minutes. Do you remember that?
JW1: No.
BW: And you got back to base and you had to go and see the CO, the station commander, following that and he took you up for a flight. His name was Gus Walker.
JW1: Oh, ay. I don’t remember. I remember the name, that’s all. Yeah.
BW: I believe what happened, you were lucky to survive the raid over Essen, being in the path of the searchlights for so long.
JW1: Lost fifty, fifty planes.
JW2: But then when you got back the station commander took you and the rest of the crew up for a flight to show you how to, to show your pilot Griffiths how to take evasive action.
JW1: Oh yeah. I don’t, don’t remember anything about that either.
JW2: I think, I remember you saying that, um, you weren’t sure — you wanted to call him, ‘Sir,’ and he said, ‘Call me Gus.’ Can you remember that?
JW1: Who, who was that, Gus? Who was it?
JW2: Who do you think it was?
JW1: I don’t know.
JW2: Gus Walker.
JW1: Oh yeah. Little fella.
BW: Air Commodore with one arm.
JW1: Was it? Oh yeah. He was quite well famous then, really. Gus Walker.
JW2: He showed you how to do evasive action.
JW1: Yeah. Throwing the plane about, yeah.
JW2: You told me that you that you’d waggled your plane before you learned how to do evasive action.
JW1: Yes. I did that. That were evading.
BW: Just dipping the wings.
JW1: Yeah. Yeah. Why do they want to know all—
JW2: Can I — I think that it’s something that would be quite interesting for — you were doing your bombing trips and you, you had a strategy that you think helped you, your crew to survive. Can you remember what your strategy was because I think Brian would be interested?
JW1: Just dropping markers, you know, that’s all really. We, we didn’t bomb anything then, we just gave the impression that we were going to go that way and they all turned and went that way and we went the other.
JW2: You told me — is it OK to — you told me that when you were in the briefings you always took a great interest in why they would navigate a particular way and you asked a lot of questions so sometimes you would say so why, why would we take that route and not this route and you seemed to be asking pertinent questions about the route.
JW1: Oh yeah.
JW2: You did use the stars. You said that you used the stars and sextants to work out where you were and you felt your mathematics helped with the navigating because your role was a navigating as well, wasn’t it?
JW1: Yeah.
JW2: But you told me as well that your aim as soon as you knew where you had to go to was to get there as quickly and efficiently as you could. So I don’t think that you always went with the column when you flew with your crew. Can you remember?
JW1: Well, I only remember it as much as you’re, you’re talking about now but —
JW2: Tell me what you remember about not flying with the column.
JW1: Well nothing really accept —
JW2: That’s a shame.
JW1: Where was it? Where was that?
JW2: You told me that you had that as a strategy that you would, you didn’t fly with the column.
JW1: Oh yeah.
JW2: And that it was such large numbers that did happen, that people would go astray and then return to the column further on. You told me that on occasion you would still be circling the target when the Pathfinders arrived so by the time the target was marked — do you remember what would happen? What you would do?
JW1: No. Go on.
JW2: You told me that you would bomb it and you would be on your way back when the rest of the column was arriving.
JW1: Yeah. I [clears throat ] I wasn’t — I hadn’t been in the Air Force but I knew more about navigation and, you know, the work of the pilot or whatever, flying, in those days. Yeah.
JW2: There was a question about why you were chosen to do — work with 624 because 624 was special ops and the dangers were very different. You could fly into a mountain if you did not know where you were going so there was a question about whether you were chosen for the special ops work because your navigation was so good.
JW1: I think that’s probably true.
JW2: Because you tended to reach your target and come back before the others.
JW1: But I was a bomb aimer, not navigator. Bomb aimer.
JW2: No you weren’t but you told me you that helped with the navigating.
JW1: Oh probably.
JW2: So you were the bomb aimer, yeah. And you felt that your matriculation helped you with the navigation.
JW1: Oh yeah. I just got —
JW2: Was the observer not bomb aimer and navigator.
BW: Observer was a generic name. The trades tended to be, um, how can I say? Co— combined, in that you could be called a — it dates back to the First World War when the pilot was also listed as an observer but then the trades began to separate and some of them retained the old title of observer as well but, strictly speaking there would be, in the Halifax, there would be the pilot, navigator, wireless operator, um, bomb aimer and three gunners, front, back and mid upper so —
JW2: Did I speak too much then? Was that too —
BW: No, that’s alright. That’s alright. [clears throat] I believe when you were flying on operations before you went to, um, the briefings that you would take communion as well as a Catholic?
JW1: Oh yeah.
BW: So did you attend services every time or just occasionally?
JW1: Well, all the time then, yeah.
BW: And do you feel your faith gave you comfort or, um, support?
JW1: I think so, yeah, yeah. Support, yeah.
BW: Did the other crew members go with you or not?
JW1: No, they didn’t. They were — I was the only Catholic there. I don’t know what you’d call them.
BW: But they I believe also felt reassured when you —
JW1: They what?
BW: They felt reassured when you’d been you to the service and had communion as well. Is that right?
JW1: Say that again. They felt what?
BW: They felt reassured that you’d had communion before you went flying.
JW1: Oh they liked that, yeah, yeah, yeah.
BW: Did that make them feel they feel like they had God on their side?
JW1: They thought it was a safety movement really.
BW: So you was bit of a talisman for them. You were a bit of good luck charm.
JW1: Very likely, very likely, very much likely because I was quite young then. In 1940 how old would I be? Twenty-three? Born in ‘23 to ’40. Oh, phew —
BW: Seventeen.
JW1: Seventeen would it be?
BW: But you were slightly older than that. You were nineteen and twenty when you were on these operations.
JW1: On ops, yeah.
BW: Did the rest of the crew have good luck charms or mascots?
JW1: I don’t know. I’ve forgotten.
BW: No? But with that and your skill as a bomb aimer/ navigator they must have felt they were going to come back every time with you on board.
JW1: Oh yeah. It was, it was the relationship with the pilot and the bomb aimer and the navigator in between, yeah.
BW: And when you were over the target didn’t you have control of the aircraft?
JW1: Oh, I sat next to the pilot to help him with it. He sometimes he’d take so much evasive action he, he would be out of action, you know. He’d lose control of it really.
BW: And were there any instances over the target when you had to take control if he lost it?
JW1: Well, no. I was alongside, alongside the side of the pilot. I’m trying to think now. We were the first to bomb there usually, you know, because I was — well I’d been in the sixth form at the grammar control, you know, as a mathematician so what they thought was difficult wasn’t to me.
BW: You obviously have a logical or engineering type, mathematical type thinking pattern or brain, don’t you? You were a, um, pharmacist before the war but then you had this mathematical/ logical skill to see them accurately and quickly to the target and come back. And what was it like for you over the target being in the front, very front of the Halifax? Can you remember what you would do?
JW1: Well, not really but bomb aimer, navigator or observer was two people.
BW: Did you feel you worked well as a team then?
JW1: Sorry?
BW: Did you feel you worked well as a team?
JW: I think so, yeah. I knew more mathematics than any one of them in the crew, even the pilot ‘cause I’d been in the sixth form at the grammar school.
BW: You had to lie prone in the front of the aircraft, looking through the nose, looking through the glass canopy down at the target and tell the pilot to stay on course or to manoeuvre so that you could drop the bombs accurately. You also had to keep the aircraft on course for another thirty seconds so a photograph could be taken, didn’t you?
JW1: Yeah. Yes.
BW: And did you take the photograph?
JW1: Pardon?
BW: Did you take the photograph?
JW1: Well, I told them when they should be, er, marking the, you know, the ground, what you call it? Phenomenon, ground — I don’t know what you call it really but they weren’t con— weren’t considered worth talking about, um, bomb aimers, you know — they thought we knew nothing about navigation and flying, flying an aircraft.
BW: And do you recall what you might have seen on the ground below you when you were over the target? Could you see searchlights and fires?
JW1: Oh, searchlights, yeah, yeah. They would very often have, where the target was, um, stations nearby where they could light the, you know, they could light the searchlights in the hopes that anybody up, up above would think they were the target. I weren’t. I didn’t. I knew more navigation than the navigation officer because I’d got through to sixth form in grammar school in mathematics.
BW: But you could tell the difference between decoy fires, which is what you’re talking about, and the actual target you were aiming for.
JW1: Yes. The fires and the decoy would still be there after we’d done about half a dozen or more of them trips because it would still be there lit but, er, I don’t think any of the others knew anything like as much navigating as I did you know. They, they just obeyed, obeyed the lights really.
BW: Do you recall the different colours of searchlights that you would see over the target?
JW1: No. No recollection, no.
BW: There was one, called a master beam, which was a blue beam and it was radar controlled so if it locked onto an aircraft all the other yellow or white lights would, would lock on, would switch over and lock onto it.
JW1: Yes. That’s true, yeah.
BW: Did it happen to you at all?
JW1: Sorry?
BW: Did it happen to you and your crew at all?
JW1: I don’t remember really.
BW: You talked of a raid on Essen when there was over fifty aircraft were lost. Did you see any of the other aircraft being shot down?
JW1: Yes. All the time. All the time but, er, we made a good partnership, the pilot and observer and myself and we used to go higher up than they did so really the anti-aircraft shots were at a lower level really.
BW: So you flew above the level of the flak. That’s what you’re saying. You flew above the range of the guns.
JW1: Did I say that? I don’t remember that.
BW: Well you flew, you say that you flew higher than the rest of the aircraft presumably because you were then higher from, above the guns.
JW1: So we could dive down and allude, well, the defenders, you know, down below, really. Yeah.
BW: And when you were briefed about the target did you question the height and the positon at which you were going to bomb these targets? Did you think you could do better?
JW1: Did I question what?
BW: Did you question what they were briefing you about when they, when they told you where you should bomb the target, what direction you should come from and what height? Did you try and do it differently?
JW1: Did I what?
BW: Did you try and do it differently?
JW1: I forget really. We were a lone aircraft. One, you know, we — and all the rest of the bombers went on the official target I suppose but I didn’t.
BW: And what made you do that? Why did you decide to do that?
JW1: Well, I’d been long before I joined the Air Force we studied the tactics, you know, we knew what was expected of us really, I suppose, so very often I could go in and out of the target and be on my way back from the target and not have any anti-aircraft anywhere near us, you know.
BW: So your aircraft never got hit?
JW1: Never got hit? I’d forgotten about that really.
JW2: You did say, you did say that you got shrapnel in your face.
JW1: I did yeah. Little sparks, yeah, but I could have been on my way, not at the target but defence, on the way to the target. I could have been miles away.
BW: Do you recall when that happened?
JW1: No.
BW: But it wasn’t serious enough for you warrant you spending time in hospital?
JW1: Well, I didn’t tell them I was hit. I didn’t lead the life that was expected of me from the rest. I was keeping clear of the rest of the bombing — what did we call the list of, tier?
JW2: The column yeah.
JW1: Did we call it a tier?
BW: I don’t know.
JW1: T I E R.
BW: So while everyone else is flying the official route, while everyone is flying the official route and doing what they were told presumably you’ve given the instruction to the pilot as where to go and what to do, to stay out of the away from the main force?
JW1: Tell the pilot to stay away from — oh the pilot of our aircraft you mean? Oh yeah. I was in and out of the target before the rest of them had started bombing really, very often.
BW: Even before the Pathfinders arrived.
JW1: Yeah, yeah. It was handy being a, a Pathfinder because we got extra defence, if you like, and we could bomb the target and then go and mark nearby and, you know and a lot of them would bomb where we dropped these markers, really.
JW2: We need to clarify this but you told me that you had advised that it would be a good idea to drop false markers.
JW1: Oh, we did that. Yeah.
JW2: Who did that? Did you do that as, first of all, you requested that, that as a strategy? You put it forward?
JW1: Oh yeah.
JW2: And what happened then?
JW1: Well it meant there were fewer bombers going to the target, fewer who should have been on the target, dropping bombs nearby and they were glad of it because it kept them out of serious anti-aircraft fire. I’m surprised they’re interested in this so many years after [slight laugh].
BW: That, that was about your time on 102 Squadron and you then moved to number 76 Squadron at Linton on Ouse and according to your log book you changed pilot. You then had Sergeant Povey.
JW1: Yes. Les, Les Povey.
BW: Les Povey. And your original crew at 102 Squadron apparently were shot down and killed after you left.
JW1: Shot down what?
BW: They were shot down, they were brought down and killed on a mission, weren’t they?
JW1: Were they killed? Yeah.
JW2: You were supposed to go on that trip and we, we —
JW1: Which trip?
JW2: It was a, a raid on an armaments factory in Stettin and it was a birthday present for Hitler.
JW1: For whom?
JW2: For Hitler. It was on the 20th of April 1943 and you were supposed to go on that trip but you had cold sores on your face and couldn’t wear your oxygen mask.
JW1: No. I wasn’t allowed to go.
JW2: You were not allowed to go but you did go to the briefing.
JW1: Oh yeah.
JW2: And someone else went to that briefing as well. We met him later. Tom Wingham wrote about it in a book called, um, “Halifax Down” and he said that people were very anxious about the trip because it was a full moon and they were advised to go high over the Channel and low over Denmark to evade anti-aircraft. So we, we read about that afterwards. So your crew were lost. You waited for them to come back. You waited on the runway for them to come back.
JW1: And why wasn’t allowed? Tell me again why wasn’t allowed to go with them?
JW2: You had cold sores on your face and you couldn’t wear your oxygen mask. Can you remember waiting for them?
JW1: It’s coming, coming back to me yeah. Just a very slight recollection that’s all.
JW2: You told me that beyond a certain time you knew that —
JW1: They couldn’t get back, yeah.
JW2: That they were either going to be prisoners of war or the plane had come down or there was a vague hope that they’d landed somewhere else in the country but you waited.
JW1: That’s true yeah.
JW2: Can you remember what happened when you saw your name with another crew after you lost your own crew?
JW1: It was the pilot that was —
JW2: No. After you lost your crew and you saw your name was put on a board with another crew ready to go off again. Do you recall what you did?
JW1: No.
JW2: You put it in your back pocket. You put your name off the crew list and in your back pocket and then what did you do?
JW1: I don’t know.
JW2: You went home.
JW1: Did I?
JW2: And when you walked down the front path your mother had just received a telegram saying you were missing in action.
JW1: In action, yeah. They thought I’d gone with the crew, yeah.
JW2: This was the same period of time that someone at The Stag asked if you were dodging the column.
JW1: And he was chucked out the pub.
JW2: He was because your father and the landlord knew why you were home. You were absent without leave because you’d lost your crew.
JW1: Yeah.
JW2: Can you remember seeing your crew’s families, going to see the crew members’ families?
JW1: No, I can’t remember it.
JW2: I think you wanted to tell them what had happened because you knew they wouldn’t learn for a long time.
JW1: I can’t remember.
BW: If I read you the names of the crew that were lost would that help?
JW1: Go on.
BW: Your pilot was Wilfred Ambrose Griffiths, the second pilot on that raid was Thomas Samuel Eric Bennett, a New Zealander.
JW1: A what?
BW: A New Zealander. He was from New Zealand.
JW1: Oh yeah.
BW: The flight engineer was James Thomas Smith.
JW1: I don’t remember any of them really.
BW: There was Wilfred Charles Marsh.
JW2: Wilf Marsh.
JW1: Wilf Marsh, yeah. I do remember him. I do remember.
JW2: How do you remember him?
JW1: I remember Wilf Marsh but I need some, for somebody to remind me what —
BW: He was one of the oldest of the crew.
JW1: Oh yeah.
BW: He was thirty-one.
JW1: Thirty-one?
BW: The same age as, er, Tom Bennett. The other observer on the crew list was James Campbell, James Kenneth Campbell. You knew him as Ken.
JW2: Ken Campbell. What do you remember about him?
JW1: Nothing.
BW: The — you mentioned this guy before, the wireless op, the wop, AG, Sergeant Arnie Jenkinson.
JW2: Jinxy [?].
BW: Arnie Jenkinson.
JW1: Yeah.
BW: And the two gunners were Alex Cuthbert Weir. He was Canadian. Do you know if he was the mid-upper or the —
JW1: Pardon?
BW: Was he the mid-upper gunner or the rear gunner? The Canadian?
JW1: I forget.
BW: And the last one was Sergeant Bertram Charles John White.
JW1: John what?
JW2: White.
JW1: I don’t remember.
JW2: Can I try and jog your memory about Arnie Jenkins?
JW1: Son.
JW2: Son, yeah. You said that his mother had a haberdashery shop, 360 Ashton New Road.
JW1: Yeah.
JW2: Do you remember?
JW1: It’s coming back to me when you mention it.
JW2: What about your Magdalene? Your Magdalene used to make clothes and she knew that family didn’t she?
JW1: I’ve forgotten.
JW2: Or she met them through you, I don’t know.
BW: Well, I had so many that I had to recall and the crews, but she would, I would expect this one to remember, you know, the one you — that parents, do remember, yeah.
JW2: Ken Campbell was from Widnes.
JW1: Was he?
JW2: Yeah.
JW1: I went there didn’t I?
JW2: I think you went to —
JW1: And they didn’t want to know me.
JW2: You went to 360 Ashton New Road but that was Arnie Jenkins’ house.
JW1: Jenkinson.
JW2: Jenkinson, yes, sorry. But he was an only child and it’s a shame you didn’t go back.
JW1: Was he lost?
JW1: You, you told me his mother couldn’t speak to you. She was so upset and she had to hurry off the doorstep and when you got muddled up in your older age and you thought it was because you’d replaced, they’d replaced you but Arnie Jenkinson wasn’t replaced, wasn’t the replacement for you. Ken Campbell was and he was from Widnes.
JW2: I’ve forgotten.
JW1: I think it would be hard for anybody to see a familiar RAF uniform on the doorstep and know you weren’t going to see your son coming back.
JW1: Yeah. I can understand that.
BW: So, you went drinking in the local pub when you were at home called The Stag?
JW1: Yes. They said I was dodging the column, the other people, yeah, so I left and didn’t go back there.
BW: And was your dad a regular in the pub as well?
JW1: He was but he wasn’t — he worked down the pit. He wasn’t a member of the crew really.
JW2: Was he proud of you?
JW1: Eh?
JW2: When you came home in your uniform was he proud of you?
JW1: Oh yeah, yeah.
BW: Did your family ever worry about you when you were on the raids?
JW1: Well, they wouldn’t acknowledge that they were bothered, you know, but they were.
BW: And you used to cycle home to Wigan from Pocklington.
JW1: I’ve forgotten.
BW: Did your family make a fuss of you when you went home each time?
JW1: Well there was only my parents really there. The rest were based either in the Army or the Air Force. I don’t know where they’d be.
BW: So, you being the youngest, when you came home you were spoiled by mum and dad were you a bit.
JW1: A bit yes.
BW: Did your dad take you out drinking?
JW1: Did what?
BW: Did your dad take you out drinking or not?
JW1: He did after a while but he, you know, he didn’t like me being in the pub really.
JW2: You told me that he used to ask you to put your uniform on.
JW1: Yeah, I know he liked it. You got special treatment in the pub even if they didn’t know you personally, you know.
BW: Did people buy you drinks when you went in the pub with your uniform on?
JW1: Phew. Not really, er, occasionally one might but, um, it was, er, it was —
JW2: What can you say about the bottles of whisky that you used to bring home?
JW1: I don’t know. I’ve forgotten.
JW1: You told me that you were given bottles of whisky and you used to bring them home in a kit bag and give them to your dad.
JW1: Where did I get the whisky from?
JW2: I don’t know. I don’t know.
JW1: I’ve forgotten myself.
JW2: From Pocklington somewhere.
BW: You were based at Yorkshire with 102 Squadron at the time the dams’ raid took place.
JW1: A what?
BW: The time the dam busters’ raid took place.
JW1: Oh yeah.
BW: Were you feted at all because you were part of bomber crews?
JW1: Was I what?
BW: Were you feted at all? Did people make a fuss of you when you went home at that time, simply because you were in bomber command?
JW1: Oh yeah.
BW: And did the uniform pay off? Did you attract many girls?
JW1: No. I had a girlfriend of my own, Cathleen McGraw.
JW2: I’ve been told that your half brothers and sisters had children who used to dote on you. So they would be your nieces and they used to dote on you and there was photographs hanging up in your brothers and sisters houses of you in your uniform. They all recall a particular photograph of you in your uniform.
JW1: I can’t remember.
JW2: But I was also told that you wore leathers like Marlon Brando and you had a motorbike. Can you remember having a motorbike?
JW2: Did I have a motorbike?
JW2: Did you have a motorbike then?
JW1: I had a motorbike once upon a time but it was only for a few days and then —
JW2: Oh right. OK.
JW1: I got a little aeroplane [slight laugh]. I was lucky to survive really.
BW: And you had a few months flying with 76 Squadron at Linton and then Holme on Spalding.
JW1: Holme on Spalding where?
BW: Do you remember much about that base?
JW1: Pardon?
BW: Do you remember much about that base?
JW1: Not really.
BW: There were some accidents, um, at Pocklington and at Holme on Spalding by Halifax crews coming back that crashed. Did you see any or hear of any crashes?
JW1: No, I didn’t realise that. We were usually the first back because I, I’d studied navigation and mathematics at the grammar school, you know. I knew more about it than the navigation people on the squadron.
BW: From your log book on the 10th of August 1943 you started flying with 138 Squadron at Tempsford. Now that’s down south in Sussex and it was a special duties squadron. Did you volunteer for special duties?
JW1: No but I was — but they thought I was good enough for it I suppose.
BW: So, somebody tapped you on the shoulder and said you’re going down south?
JW1: Yeah. Mind you, it wasn’t as a hazardous a place as the squadron, going from the squadron, you know, up north. The German fighters would be patrolling along the coastline waiting for them to go.
BW: Waiting for you to go out?
JW1: Yeah.
BW: And did they patrol waiting for you to come back as well?
JW1: They would be, yeah, but we were, didn’t come back as a —
BW: A squadron.
JW1: Yeah. We came back individually all over the place.
BW: Did you see any action with night fighters or —
JW1: Oh yes. We saw them. We saw planes going down sometimes but my pilot, the second pilot I had, could get higher up than they, they were.
JW2: Can you, can you recall why Les Povey was such a good pilot?
JW1: No.
JW2: Because he’d been a gold prospecting pilot before the war, in Africa.
JW1: Was he? I’ve forgotten.
JW2: That’s what you told me. He was a gold prospecting pilot so he was a very experienced pilot before he joined up.
JW1: I’d forgotten that.
JW2: And he was older as well.
JW1: He was almost forty then.
JW2: And he looked like Errol Flynn.
BW: And you moved with him down to Tempsford.
JW1: Yes.
BW: So what happened to the rest of the crew? Did they just keep you and Les together?
JW1: I don’t recollect what happened to them but they, very often, with other crews a very experienced person, trying to get them out of that aircraft and, you know, with the special squadron and we came in that category.
BW: And you moved then in August ‘43 abroad. You went and flew to Blida in Algeria.
JW1: Blida, yeah.
BW: To join 624 Squadron.
JW1: Blida was in, er, I don’t know what you’d call it now, with a lake. What do you call it now?
BW: So, we were talking just before Joe about your transfer to the special duties squadron, when you flew to North Africa, to Blida in Algeria. What do you remember about that?
JW1: Very little, if anything really, but because I’d been learning maths at school and, you know, they used to, even though I was one of the least experienced, er, air people, air crew they, er, still wanted me to tell them about it, you know.
BW: And you conducted operations, again in a Halifax, but you were dropping supplies and spies I believe in different parts of Europe.
JW1: Oh yeah, yeah. I’d forgotten about those. I’d forgotten details of them.
JW2: You told me that you can remember, um, dropping agents that were also dangerous people.
JW1: I’ve forgotten.
JW2: And that they —
JW1: They were let out of jail you mean?
JW2: Yes and you told me that, that one of them — do you remember one particular case where he was dropped with handcuffs and when he landed he would be able to access the key to unlock himself because it was zipped up inside his outfit? Do you remember that, um, Jim Rosbottom was the despatcher?
JW1: I’ll just have a sip.
JW2: Jim Rosbottom was the despatcher.
JW1: Jim. It wasn’t Jim.
JW2: Jim Rosbottom.
JW1: It wasn’t Jim though was it?
JW2: Yes he was the despatcher and you said that he was the despatcher and you said he used to tie himself to the fuselage when he was dropping some dangerous people to ensure that he didn’t get pulled out of the plane as well.
JW1: I’ve forgotten.
JW2: And he also used to, he used do his own form of bombing sometimes by throwing whole packets out, of leaflets out instead of cutting them up sometimes.
JW1: Oh yeah [slight laugh].
BW: Did you ever talk to these agents that you were dropping?
JW1: I forget that really. I think they were kept apart from us, you know, in the aircraft so we wouldn’t do.
BW: Were they put on at the last minute after you’d all been briefed and got in the aircraft?
JW1: Not really. They’d been let out of jail to do that job. Is that my tea, love? Is that mine? I’ve got a recollection of it, yeah.
BW: What did you do?
JW1: I don’t know. I just put it inside my satchel with my shirt over it [slight laugh].
BW: So, you were told to leave your log book with the CO and you took it instead when he wasn’t looking. He nipped out the office and you slipped it under your shoulder and put your jacket over?
JW1: Very likely.
BW: And you flew, on these missions you flew to quite a few different places. You flew to Yugoslavia and you flew to the south of France, Corsica and Italy as well.
JW1: And what?
BW: And to Italy as well. Do you remember how you dropped the supplies to the resistance, the partisans?
JW1: Not really. I’ve not thought about it. I’ve not kept the memory going. I used to know it.
BW: But there was another member of the crew, Jim Leith.
JW2: No he was a different. He was in 624 but they were not dad’s —
BW: In a different aircraft.
JW2: But dad, you told me about when you went over the — is it the Samarian Gorge, is that right?
JW1: Go on.
JW2: Is that right. Is it called the Samarian Gorge in Greece?
BW: I don’t know to be honest.
JW2: And you told me, you told me that your Halifax was so heavy with your load that you had to jettison it and when you got back you had a lot of explaining to do because you discovered what your heavy load was. Do you remember what your heavy load was? It was gold bullion but you didn’t know you were carrying it.
JW1: No.
JW2: I wonder whether that was an orthodox war practice and I wonder who found it.
JW1: People used to, if you were dropping money or gold, they would to take a bit of it for themselves.
JW2: Off the flight, yeah. Well, you would have crashed into a mountain, you would have crashed into the Gorge, if you hadn’t dropped it because you were losing height.
JW1: Oh, happy days [slight laugh].
BW: Were all of these flights at night?
JW1: Yes, as far as I remember. I think there may have been the odd one, overseas ones, that were in daylight.
BW: How did it feel when you were flying these missions as opposed to being over Germany?
JW1: Oh it was a lot easier.
BW: Just because it was secret did you feel any heightened sense of danger?
JW1: Not really, no.
BW: Did you treat it like any other sort of job?
JW1: Yeah.
BW: And what was it like when you on the base in North Africa. What were the facilities like? Can you remember? Was it a rough strip?
JW1: Not really but it was fairly close, you know, to Britain.
JW1: Do you remember that you almost got into trouble one night because you snuck out somewhere to go drinking and, er, or for a night out and I think you missed your transport back and you had to come through territory that you didn’t know very well but you had to walk all the way through the night to get back on for parade the next day.
JW1: I’ve forgotten.
JW2: You’ve forgotten that? Do you recall, um, do you remember that you got fined and you thought it was a miscarriage of justice?
JW1: No.
JW2: What do you remember about the, the revolver that you left on the plane, the Halifax overnight?
JW1: Nothing. I know, er, I took a revolver, you know, in case we were shot down and we —
JW2: You left it on the plane and it went missing.
JW1: Oh yeah.
JW2: And you got hauled up for questioning about it and I seem to remember that you said in your defence — well they said you should not have left it on the plane because it was in your care, and you said, ‘Well maybe we should have taken the Browning off the plane as well.’
JW1: Take what?
JW2: Maybe we should have taken the Browning off the plane as well because there’s an armed guard there. Anyway, they, they didn’t accept your response and they fined you. So you had to pay. Can you not remember what your fine was? You were fined a few pounds for losing that revolver or not looking after it so somebody took it but you were very annoyed about it.
JW1: Yeah.
JW2: Because there was an armed guard and it still went missing.
BW: Your CO, when you were in North Africa, your CO was Wing Commander Stanbury. Does the name ring any, ring any bells with you?
JW1: Oh, [unclear] . I remember the name, Stanbury, yeah. Because they had a shop or something then didn’t he?
BW: No. No.
JW2: Clive Stanbury?
JW1: Clive, yeah.
JW2: What do you remember about him?
JW1: Not much.
JW2: Do you remember him asking you to do another mission when you done your two tours?
JW1: What did I say, ‘Bugger off?’
JW2: I’m not sure [slight laugh]. I think you said you didn’t have to do it. You told me at the time that you felt this particular one would be suicidal.
JW1: I’ve forgotten that one. I’ve forgotten the incident.
BW: So it was a case of one more trip but you said, ‘No.’
JW1: I bought these carpets while I was there.
JW2: That was much later.
JW1: Eh?
JW2: Yeah. That was much than that, dad.
JW1: Was it?
JW2: Yeah.
JW1: I thought it was from the Air Force?
JW2: No, no they weren’t.
JW1: Are you sure?
JW2: Yeah.
JW1: I’ve forgotten then.
BW: Your last operations were in early March 1944 and then you flew back in a Dakota by quite a circuitous route, by the look of it. You got lifts here there and everywhere through Egypt and then you went down to Bulawayo in Rhodesia.
JW1: Oh, yeah. Was I instructing there?
BW: It doesn’t say so but did you come an instructor after the war.
JW1: Afterwards yeah. For a bit until I was demobbed.
BW: And what do you recall about being demobbed? Were you happy the war was over?
JW1: I think I must have been but I don’t recollect much. Do you do many operations with people such as I?
BW: Yes.
JW1: And did as many aircraft, as many trips as I’ve done?
BW: Some have but not many because usually after thirty ops that was it. That was the end of their service but you went on to do forty-seven.
JW1: I did forty-seven trips? Amazing.
BW: In total.
JW1: Amazing.
BW: And were you ever injured at all during that time?
JW1: Sorry?
BW: Were you ever injured at all during that time?
JW1: No.
BW: You mentioned that you received some shrapnel in the face.
JW1: I don’t remember.
BW: At one point.
JW1: It’s gone out of my head.
BW: It must, it must not have been a serious injury. What happened after the war? Did you continue in the RAF?
JW1: Not really. I was chucked out. They didn’t want me then after the war. Well, I say they did but a group of them from the local squadron, er, knew who I was, you know, and I’ve forgotten anyway.
BW: Do you remember when you left the RAF?
JW1: No. What does it say there?
BW: Would it be about 1946?
JW1: ’46?
BW: Would it be about that or was it ’45?
JW1: Oh, forgotten.
BW: What did you [clears throat] what did you do when you returned home? Did you —
JW1: What job did I do?
BW: What — did you meet up with your girlfriend?
JW1: I’ve forgotten that even. What did I do when I came out of the Air Force?
JW2: Well you’d broken up with Cathleen McGraw because you were a Catholic and she wasn’t and it was, it was irreconcilable I think and you went to teacher, you went to teacher training.
JW1: Where at?
JW2: Strawberry Hill in Twickenham.
JW1: Where?
JW2: Strawberry Hill. Richmond was it?
JW1: Yeah.
JW2: And you met my mother when you were teacher training. You were in her classroom. You were an assist— you were learning how to be a teacher and she was already a teacher.
JW1: Where is she now? She’s not with us?
JW2: No. Its twelve years since —
JW1: How long since?
JW2: Twelve years.
JW1: Was it?
JW2: Mm. [background noises]
BW: [pause] Do you remember anything else from your teaching days?
JW1: Did I what?
BW: Do you remember anything from your teaching days? Did you back come up here to teach or did you stay down south in London.
JW1: What’s he say?
JW2: Well, you fell in love with my mum.
JW1: Where was she?
JW2: Well, she was down south and you decided to go, when everyone else was on rations, you decided to go and live in Rhodesia and you, you got married secretly in London. Your family didn’t know because you’d — it was complicated because you had broken up with your — someone who was still visiting your mother’s house and, um, you got married and then you went to live in Africa for five years, Rhodesia, and then you came back and had my brother John. And so after that you were teaching in Rhodesia, in Cyprus, Limassol, and Korea.
JW1: I’ve forgotten that.
JW2: That’s what you did.
JW1: Runcorn [?] before you retired.
BW: OK.
JW1: That it?
BW: What do you, er, what do you think of the commemorations being given for Bomber Command?
JW1: What do I think about what?
BW: The commemoration, the remembrance that’s being given to Bomber Command now?
JW1: I don’t know. I think I went to one and I wasn’t allowed to — for some reason or other. The first one, early in the — I wasn’t allowed to join the rest of them because I, I was in civvies really. You know, to be in civvies, they wouldn’t acknowledge that, what we’ve been talking about now.
BW: So did they not mention Bomber Command? Was, were you sort of side-lined a little bit?
JW1: Yeah. They didn’t mention it. They were glad to see the last of me ‘cause I knew more about it than what they did, you know, being left in England.
BW: But what about the respect or the commemoration that’s being paid to veterans of Bomber Command now. How do you feel about that?
JW1: Never thought about it.
JW2: We went to it dad. Were went to the celebrations. A statue showing several airmen on the way back from ops looking tired and dejected and, and, um, exhausted that was unveiled and it was very powerful. We went up there when the Queen opened it at Bomber Command and we, the whole family went with you to that and you went, you went up to the statue. After all the fuss had gone down and we had a few, we had some beers at the area where we were, and then we went just to look at it when the crowds had gone down but the crowds were still there. And there were a lot of people asking for your autograph and they wanted you to shake hands with other veterans and lots of photographs were taken. I think you were surprised at all the fuss then as well. But there was a big campaign to, to, um, to acknowledge the role that Bomber Command played in the war because some people think you were ignored or that you were demonised. Bomber Command did not get a campaign medal.
JW1: No.
JW2: And it took till a few years ago for you to get a clasp.
JW1: I never got it.
JW2: I need to apply for it yet.
JW1: Eh?
JW2: You are entitled it and I need to apply for it for you.
JW1: You can have it if you get it.
JW2: Right, thank you. I’ve got it on tape now.
BW: It’s official. OK, well that’s all the questions I have for you and thanks to you Jenny for all your help.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Joseph Wilson
Creator
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Brian Wright
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-12-31
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AWilsonJ161231
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Joseph Wilson was training to be a pharmacist when he volunteered for the Air Force. He trained to as a bomb aimer and completed 47 operations with several squadrons. He recalls flying a Tiger Moth early on in training and discusses mine laying and bombing operations. He later flew with 624 Special Duties Squadron dropping supplies and agents to the resistance in Southern Europe. He became a teacher after the war.
Contributor
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Christine Kavanagh
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1942
1943
1944
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Essen
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Format
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01:27:34 audio recording
102 Squadron
138 Squadron
624 Squadron
76 Squadron
Absent Without Leave
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
Halifax
memorial
Pathfinders
RAF Pocklington
Special Operations Executive
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/614/8883/PMusgroveJ1501.1.jpg
b7eca1ecabb2abfcc21142f7d37a6759
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/614/8883/AMusgroveJ150812.2.mp3
772053bb4cd364dadff721dd7f83f840
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
Musgrove, Joseph
J Musgrove
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Musgrove
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Joseph Musgrove (1922 - 2017, 1450082, Royal Air Force). He flew operations as an air gunner with 214 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-08-12
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AM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewer is Annie Moodie, and the interviewee is Joe Musgrove, and the interview is taking place at Mr. Musgrove’s home in Whatton, on 12th August, 2015. So Joe just to start off will you tell me a little bit about your, where you were born and your family background and school, stuff like that?
JM: Well I was born in York in 1922, my parents were Soldney [?] people, my father unfortunately had an accident when he was sixteen and lost half an arm so I was brought to appreciate the problems of people who had lost limbs. I went to school, I was at school until I was fourteen at the Loddon School in York which is very good quality school, er, did not do very well. When I went to work I decided that my education ought to be extended a bit more and spend two days a week at night school to bring myself up to a reasonable standard.
AM: What job were you doing Joe, what job were you doing then?
JM: I was working at Rowntrees which is a factory, and just ordinary work producing what is today a Kit-Kats.
AM: What did you do at night school then, what sort of things were you doing at?
JM: Well I concentrated on English and mathematics as I thought they were two basic things in life and that did stand me in good stead when I applied to join the Air Force when I was seventeen.
AM: What made you apply to join the Air Force?
JM: The main reason I think was I didn’t want to join the Army, I didn’t want to join the Navy, obvious reasons [laughs] and the Air Force appealed. The reason why in 1936 a single engined twin wing fighter landed not very far from where I was living and that got my interest in flying which I had ever since.
AM: Right. So you joined the RAF?
JM: Yes.
AM: How old were you eighteen?
JM: I joined in 19 well I went to join in 1940, had all me exams and one thing and another, but I hadn’t realised when I first applied to join that it would be such a complicated business and that, because I spent three days at [unclear] at Cardington where the airships were, going through various tests and exams and things like that, and fortunately I did quite well so they eventually accepted me as a wireless operator/air gunner and I went and trained me on that.
AM: So what was the training like where did you do it?
JM: Well.
AM: Describe the training to me?
JM: I did a bit of everything, I went to Cardington to get kitted out and I went from there to Scar to Blackpool, for initial training, which I enjoyed, because bearing in mind at the time I was just coming up to eighteen in 19. I never been away on me own before it was quite exciting to be in Blackpool in those days, and that was the doing Morse Code and things like that. I did I think reasonably well, a very kindly flight sergeant patted me on the head and said, ‘I think you’ve passed.’ I was pleased about that, and then I went on leave. And then from there I went to a place called Madley in Herefordshire for initial flying on, can’t remember the name of the aircraft now, anyhow it was a twin engine twin plane, it was my first experience of flying which I think I enjoyed at the time you went up and down it’s a little bit rough, and I found out what air sickness was all about and that particular thing, but did quite well pass there and then I went on flying with a single engine aircraft a Percival IV [?] which was quite good. And then from there on leave, Madley by the way was the place where Rudolph Hess when he came was moved to Madley first of all from Glasgow. From there I went on leave, sounds if life’s one great leave for me isn’t it, and enjoyed it. From there I went, can you just let me have a little think. I got posted to a place called Staverton, I went to the, er, railway transport office, and he said, ‘Oh I know where it is it’s not very far from blah, blah, blah.’ So off I went down to the South Coast and on to Staverton, got off train there, empty platform, I found one of the officials there, I said, ‘How do I get to Staverton aerodrome?’ He said, ‘With a great deal of difficulty from here ‘cos you’re in the wrong county the one you want is between in Gloucestershire, between Gloucester and Cheltenham.’ So they put me up overnight and the following day to Staverton which was an aerodrome just opposite Rotols Airscrews Factory. Spent some time there, I’m not quite certain what the objective at Staverton was, did a fair bit of flying. Staverton went on leave and got posted to 102 Squadron on Halifaxes at Topcliffe. Hadn’t been there very long and then moved just the other side of York, can’t remember the name of the aerodrome now, anyhow, but wasn’t on operations I was there as part of my training.
AM: Was this the Heavy Conversion Training, Heavy Conversion Training?
JM: Yes, thoroughly enjoyed it. Went on leave from there yet again, I think my parents begin to think life is one great leave for Joseph David. And from there, oh I got posted to a place called Edgehill near Banbury, which was No. 12 Operational Training Unit. From there of course I joined the usual thing there’s twenty of us of each kind, so the cup of coffee on the lawn and get crewed up which we did.
AM: How did, how did you crew up? How did that work?
JM: Well, it’s I stood there, mostly among people of my own breed if you like [unclear] and a chappie came up to me and said, ‘Are you crewed up yet?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Well my pilot’s, a chap called Ces Brown, and I’m his navigator.’ And his name was dead fancy. ‘It would be very nice if you joined us and if you do of course we’ll have an idea we’ll just pop in the mess and have a cup of coffee and a beer later on in the day.’ And I thought, sounds good, so I joined them. And we did our OTU at Edgehill which was an aerodrome sit on like a little plateau which was a bit different but the beauty of it is, it was a farm that abutted the aerodrome that used to have a really good system whereby they give egg and bacon if you wanted it from the farm, which we did regularly. And from there on leave again, goodness, now this time it’s on my record in’t it this man goes on leave quite a lot. And got posted from there to 214 Squadron which was based at Chedburgh. Unfortunately on the way there I got robbed of my case with all my RAF papers in that I was studying nothing secret or anything like that but it was a bit of a loss to me, and joined 214 Squadron at Chedburgh not very far from Bury St. Edmonds. Stirlings Mark 3 Stirlings, I was quite pleased because I thought Mark 3’s, one or two were joining Mark 1’s and Mark 1’s were a little bit of a [intake of breath] I always thought a bit of a difficult thing they used to have a lot of swing on take-off, whereas a Mark 3 had one but not quite as serious as the other ones. So that was it I’m now operational.
AM: So what was your first operation like?
JM: Well it was gardening they always are aren’t they, cinnamon [?] which was just off the Baltic. I don’t know it’s when you’re sitting in the radio operator’s little compartment almost isolated from everybody else you don’t really know what’s going on outside, so what I used to approaching the target area stand in the astrodome and look out for people who were a little bit sort of not all that nice to us and that was the first one, it was uneventful insofar as we weren’t damaged anyway usual [unclear] shells and flak and that was my if you like introduction to operations. I didn’t find it very difficult at all.
AM: What were you doing as the radio operator, what did you do for your main things?
JM: Well it’s communications I suppose was the main thing about radio operators, [coughs] they it was an air gunner, the training for air gunnery and I missed that out ‘cos I did my air gunnery training on Walney Island which was nice.
AM: Near Barrow-in-Furness.
JM: It had a nice pub, and they had Boulton Paul Defiants which was nice, and enjoyed that, and of course at the end of it we did we went on leave. [laughs]
AM: So back to being a radio operator?
JM: Well the Boulton Paul Defiant one was [unclear] two seater fighter with a pilot and the turret just behind, quite fast aircraft. The only thing was with Boulton Paul Defiant’s, oh yes and the pilot that I had was a Pole who didn’t speak English and on the thing there’s a set of coloured lights which combination of each it meant something to him and to me but not necessary the same so on that we had a bit of a problem on there. And on them the undercarriage the hydraulics were a little bit dubious, if I can use that word [whispers], so the problem was if you wouldn’t come down sometimes you’d get one leg down and the other one not, so I used to take it up, oh he used to take it up to about seven or eight thousand feet put his nose down and pull it up and centrifugal force would force the other one down. Well I was a [unclear] and when I flew on it it always worked, and from there as I said before I went on leave and on to [?] squadron.
AM: So actually being the radio operator on the operation what sort of things did you have to do?
JM: Well the thing is [coughs], excuse me, when approaching the target when presumably no, no stuff was going to come off the radio, my skipper asked me if I’d go in the front turret which I did, interesting ‘cos when you sit on the front of an aircraft, with nobody in front of you and nobody at the side of you to me it was a little bit isolated and there’s only two guns in the front turret rather than four in the back, but it was not too bad and it is interesting ‘cos you get a good view of the target when you went over it. One or two times we had a difference of opinion with night fighters, which meant me spraying or hosing the guns.
AM: So you did actually use the guns then?
JM: But I never ever shot anybody down unfortunately so I can’t claim any credit for anything like that, and that was it. And of course we had leave from time to time. [coughs]
AM: How many operations did you do Joe?
JM: Well it was listed as eight, so I wasn’t all that lucky.
AM: And what sort, what areas did you target, where did you actually go on the operations, can you remember?
JM: I remember two gardening, one was cinnamon and the other one was off the isl, Ile du Ré on the Durant which was the entrance to a U-Boat base somewhere.
AM: Why did they call them gardening, why did they call them gardening?
JM: Well they codes we all was vegetables, like cinnamon and rose and things like that, so it was just a code gardening. It was supposed to be our introduction to operations more often than not on the second one we did which was Ile du Ré off the Durant, we got you’ve got to drop them at a certain height, certain speed, and we had two large ones and then going down along the powers that be that gave us the route didn’t take into consideration the facts, there was some anti-aircraft ships they used to have based there, um, which unfortunately for us were just a, if I can put it that way, just a little bit unfriendly.
AM: Describe unfriendly?
JM: And um, the I think it was port [unclear] and that destroyed the power supply to a lot of the instruments the navigator was using [coughs] so we used the, I can’t use his name, but it was “D”. The code you phoned when you were in trouble on the nights and the thing indicated it was night time and we asked for searchlight assistance to get us to our which couldn’t do, so they got us into Andrew’s Field which is an American station which mitchers [?] and marauders and of course we put this Stirling down there and of course we put the Stirling down there and of course the quite high the nose on a Stirling, and the following morning we got up there’s all the, a lot of American [unclear] looking up at us, with some right rude remarks being made about it. But the beauty of it was, was the er, one of my commanders’ said, [coughs] excuse me, ‘You can go into the PX’, I think it was called. A large building where you could buy all sorts of things, so we stocked up on, I think it was Lucky Strike Cigarettes, handkerchiefs and things like that. And I must say when we landed there we went for debriefing for these, they got the station education officer etcetera up who debriefed us and he said, ‘Well non-commission officers in the Air Force the American Air Force don’t have a mess separate, but nevertheless we can get you something that you’ll will enjoy.’ And we had steak and one thing and another for breakfast, and they said, ‘Did we mind.’ And I thought no I don’t mind but if they want to hang on to me for a month or two I don’t mind at all. Eventually we went back to Chedburgh.
AM: How did you get back? How did you get back did somebody come and fly you back?
JM: They sent a lorry for us.
AM: Oh right.
JM: Not a crew bus a lorry and we sat in the back of that, flying kit and everything. And when we went along people recognised what we were and waved to us and we waved back, which was like being on holiday, and we got back and we went on leave, which was nice. And at that time I’d been introduced to a young lady who eventually became my wife, and I went to London to, she was a Londoner, I went to London to see her.
AM: Where did you meet her?
JM: I met her in Banbury when I was at HEO, and there was no bus service from HEO that I remember into Banbury so I used to walk, it wasn’t very far six or seven miles something like that. And I used to walk in spend the day with Elsie, walk back, and we was on night flying, circuit, bumps and things like that, and after seven days I said to Elsie, ‘I wish you’d go back to London ‘cos I’m worn out with you here going backwards and forwards.’ But it was nice. So back to Chedburgh, on the 27th which is the Monday of September 1943, we was briefed to go to Hanover which we’d been before so we knew the way, at least I thought we knew the way to Hanover. I remember it quite well because the final turning point was at the far end of the Steinhoven [?] and I was illuminated by a white flare cascading at three thousand feet, and I thought great that’s exactly where we go on the last leg, unfortunately rather unpleasant German night fighters I think it was, they used to have two sets of night fighters who would [unclear] there’s the tamer soar which was the tame boar and the wilder soar which was the wild boar, and the wild boar it roamed with radar a little bit feared by the way came from nowhere and one of them took a fancy to having a closer look at aircraft and the rear gunner fought him off. The rear gunner, Tommy Brennan, thought he’d shot him down but I don’t think he did, the trouble with rear gunners they always think they’re are shooting people down and there not. But by that time by the time we’d been chased all over the sky we was down to about five thousand feet and we took a consensus of the crew whether should go on or turn back so we decided after come that far we’d keep going although five thousand feet was a little bit low for operating.
AM: Had you been actually shot up at by that time?
JM: Yes the port engine had caught fire which we put out with the Gravenor, the Gravenor is the fire extinguisher in the engine which you can only use once, got that out, got down say to five thousand feet and then got shot at by anti-aircraft fire which set the port outer one on fire, so we [laughs] the bomb aimer disposed of his little things and off we went back but it was pretty obvious we was losing fuel and the aircraft kept getting lower and lower and lower, and Ces Brown the pilot said, ‘We better bale out now otherwise I think it’ll blow up.’ So that’s what we did and I landed near Emden in the middle of a field, and the funny thing was I remember about it, it was a soft landing, so I thought get rid of the parachute and me flying jacket etcetera, but I couldn’t find a way out of the field because there was a ditch all the way round and there seemed to be no way above it to get out, so I went round again and the moon was shining on the water but just underneath the water was this black bridge that was covered by water. So I got across there and I thought right go to the village which was in the distance with a church, go to the last cottage then if it’s unpleasant I’m out in the continent. Well that was the principle but when I got to the village I’m walking along very carefully keeping well into the hedge and things, when a little thing was in me, me back, and a voice said something or other, I could never remember what he actually said but I knew what it meant and that was it, and he was, he was I think he was a Hageman [?] in the Luftwaffe on leave, serves me right for getting involved in [unclear], and he was saying goodnight to his girlfriend when I happened to walk past so I thought his eyes lit up and he thought, ooh I’ve got it, I’ve got it, and I was, and he actually took me to the end cottage anyhow. Got in there and there was my navigator, Ted Bounty, sitting there looking quite miserable but he did perk up when he saw me and that was it.
AM: What happened to the others, what happened to the rest of the crew do you know?
JM: Well see when you are baling out you’ve got to remember the aircraft is still moving, and I been bale out the next man might be half a mile further on, so I don’t know until we’d been to Interrogation Centre, Dulag Luft, and we met that was the first prisoner of war camp I went to which was Stalag VI in Heydekrug in Lithuania.
AM: Right. Tell me about Dulag, tell me about the interrogation part of it?
JM: So they sent him that picked us up to Emden and Emden which was a police marine barracks, him that picked us up, and of course on the films you see these motorbikes with Germans on with a sidecar, they sent one of those, well they sent two, one for Ted Bounty, and one for me, and off we went to Emden. And at that time [coughs] I had, every now and again aircrew a thing we used to do, one of them’s got money and I was the one that had money, currency, so I thought I’ve got to be careful here what I do with it, so I said to the interrogator and they all, interrogators they all look nice, very polite, but there are not. I said, ‘I’m awfully sorry but I must use the toilet.’ So they got a guard took me along and I went inside the little cubicle and he waited outside, and I thought I know what I’ll do I’ll put the money, it was one of the old fashioned toilets up there, lift the lid up put it inside and get it later on. That was a, so went back into interrogation and they in retrospect it was not any particular worry on that, they shout at you, they threatened you, [coughs] excuse me, they offer you cigarettes, in fact I was offered a drink, um, but I’ve always made a promise I would never drink if I was captured, at least I think I did. So I then was taken into a room and given some soup to keep me going and said to that person, ‘I must use the toilet.’ [unclear] fine I’ve got it back again, climbed up lifted it up it had gone, dereliction of duty I suppose you would if the commander found out but I tried hard to keep it. And then went from there after about two or three days by train to Frankfurt am Main which is near to Oberursal which is where Dulag Luft was, stopped at Cologne and there’s I’m in this compartment with two guards, and I thought oh gosh I don’t feel very safe here on the station at Cologne, but fortunately a Luftwaffe officer came in and what he demanded I don’t know but he came to sit in here with us so his presence kept everybody out.
AM: So it was the civilians that were —
JM: Yes.
AM: Was the worrying factor.
JM: So we got on to Frankfurt am Main and then on to Dulag Luft. Dulag Luft I’ve read many many accounts of people’s grief there but I didn’t find it particularly harrowing if that’s the best word for it, unpleasant yes but not harrowing. So again I was offered cigarettes and drink which I didn’t take, regretted it afterwards. And then after about a fortnight something like that, may be six or seven of us that was there, I mean you was in isolation by the way, they took us by tram to a park where there was a wooden hut and it was opposite the IG Farbernwerks [?], I always remember that and we’d got to spend the night there and there’s an air raid, and next to the hut was a German anti-aircraft gun unit, which pooped ‘em up all night, not particularly pleasant, but in retrospect not too bad anyhow. I think when you say in retrospect it means that as the years have gone by you’ve mellowed to the situation, and then from there we were transported by train, luxury train, well cattle trucks really, but they were clean. All the way and I think we spent, and I can’t be hundred per cent certain, but I think we spent two days and two nights going to across Germany to Lithuania to Luft VI Heydekrug, and then that was it. And then when the Russians moved and in July 1944 when the Russians were not all that far away they decided they’d move the camp, most of the camp went by train to Thorn in Poland, the rest of us about eight hundred British airmen and the Americans went by train to Memell just up the coast from Lithuania and boarded a little ship called “The Insterburg” there was nine hundred I think from Klage[?] in the hold that we were in. It was a, it was an old coal ship, a Russian coal ship the Germans had taken over, and I had got volunteered to help the medics at Heydekrug there, one of my problems in life is that I keep going and putting me hand at the back of me head to scratch it and every time I’ve done that I’ve volunteered for something and I apparently volunteered to help the medics. Particularly on aircrew that had had injuries to the joints and the joints become sort of locked with adhesions of the joints, and my job was sort of try to break them down, which was interesting on that. So I had a Red Cross Armband and when I got on “The Insterburg” I said, pointed to it and the just tore it off and backed me down [laughs], and it was a twenty foot ladder, steel ladder into the, and we was on “The Insterburg” I think can’t remember exactly three or two days and nights on that, and then we landed at Swinemünde the German Naval Base at Swinemünde. When the what appeared to be an air raid but it was an individual American aircraft, [unclear], and went from there to Kiefheide, Kiefheide Station where we was going to go onto Gross Tychow which was Luft IV, and when they eventually the following morning got us out they had Police Marine [?] men or mainly boys in running shorts and vests with fixed bayonets and some of the Luftwaffe with dogs and a chap whose name was Hauptman Pickard, I always remember, and he was stood on the back seat of a Kugelwagen which was like a German little vehicle, and shouting all sorts of things [unclear] move you to Gross Tychow Camp at a reasonably fast pace with jabbing and one thing and another and dogs biting, and a thought that occurred to me was that I’d rather be on leave right now than doing this. And it was not all that far about four kilometres from Kiefheide Station to Gross Tychow but we had lots of casualties.
AM: On the way or you had casualties that you were taking with you?
JM: Well the instructions apparently mean to the police moving people, you can do what you like but you must not kill anybody, but that gave them carte blanche to knock hell out of us. Luckily I wasn’t too bad. So when we got there we found that the camp wasn’t even finished, we slept the first night in the open. The toilet arrangement in those days were a little bit suspect and it comprised, I shouldn’t really say this, a big trench with a [unclear] over it. And then the following day we was like in we call them dog kennels, small wooden huts, we slept in there for a few nights until they got the permanent ones done and that was Gross Tychow. It was of all the camps I was in the worst of the whole lot.
AM: Worse because of the conditions or the —
JM: Well, Prisoner of War Camps are governed mainly by the people running them, they can be nice or they can be nasty, at Heydekrug there were some about average they weren’t too bad at all, Gross Tychow they were awful to any of us.
AM: Awful in what way?
JM: Well bullying and things like that, but the food wasn’t very good, didn’t have much of it. There was a man there who was six foot three, or six foot four something like that, we used to call him the big stoop, largely because I think he was a little bit embarrassed by his height and he used to walk in a stoop. He was the one that took by wristwatch, he was the one that used to knock people over and things like that. But for every villain there’s always a day of comeuppance isn’t there and when we moved out on the march towards the end of the war the Americans found him and they’d taken his head off and that was that he’d got his comeuppance didn’t he. The end of the war.
AM: Tell me about the march then?
JM: Well in February, I think it was February 2nd, they made out we had been pre-warned we hadn’t been pre-warned they told us at midnight they was moving out the following day. So you’d got to prepare everything take everything with you that you can take, and most of the people got a spare shirt, sometimes you had a spare shirt, tie the up, the arms up and button it up and it made a nice little receptacle put your things in there, and the following morning we went on the march, it was I think it was eleven o’clock if I remember rightly. And we went from Gross Tychow on the northern run to the Oder to cross the Oder, the Russians were the other side of Statin further down the Oder, and we had to take, we had to get across and what they did for the ones I was with you went into barges, there was two barges tied together and you was towed across the Oder to the other side. Unfortunately the night before when we got there the Germans said, ‘We’ve got nowhere for you to stay for the night.’ It had been snowing so we had to sleep in the open, but being aircrew boasting to the, we worked out what to do, so there’s some like a cloudy fern at the side, got those down tried to sweep away a bit of snow off, we had overcoats on.
AM: Did you have boots, did you have boots on?
JM: Oh yeah, oh shoes, in those days we’d been, well [coughs] usually when you get shot down you lose your flying boots. So the following morning I say they moved us across by barge and then we had to, we found out afterwards of course that the reason for the panic they was frightened the Russians would catch up with us, whether they was ever in a position to do that I don’t know, but the Germans obviously thought that they did. So then we went on the march across Northern Germany, various places, enjoying it, looking at Germany through the eyes of a hitchhiker. [laughs]
AM: You don’t really mean enjoying it?
JM: Well yes, but it, um, there was too many incidents happened there.
AM: What was it like, what was, ‘cos it’s cold?
JM: Well it had been snowing, remember we set out in February.
AM: Yes.
JM: And it was a cold winter. By the time we got to Fallingbostel the weather was getting better.
AM: What did you eat, what did you eat and drink?
JM: Well that’s a problem, I’ve got the world’s worst memory, so I don’t remember a lot. The two things you must do is you must get sleep and you must have liquids, liquids was a very difficult thing, some of the times the Germans got us liquids a lot of the times they didn’t. When there was snow about if you were lucky enough to get a snow that was still clean it would melt in your mouth, but that causes dysentery anyhow, I know [whispers] that’s the other problem. But, to be honest a lot of the time they found us barns and things like that to sleep in. What you had to remember at that time, March and April of 1945 it was mostly British fighter planes in the air which were having a good time, and one of the barns I was in got shot at and set on fire.
AM: How did you all get out?
JM: One or two people got killed.
AM: Did they?
JM: But to be honest the Germans tried to find us somewhere, but I’m afraid Royal Air Force fighter pilots were seeing something that’s a good target they went for it. [coughs] Fortunately we got to Fallingbostel eventually sometime in April if I remember rightly.
AM: So two months.
JM: We was then there for a couple of days on the station, the man in charge of Fallingbostel decided it was overcrowded so our little lot was moved out again on the road to Lubeck, which we went to, was one or two incidents on the way. But the man I was with, if you in the thing you’ve got to have a friend who you are with and Danny was one of mine, and Danny said to me, ‘Why don’t we just nip out sometime when we stop if there’s a time when we can do it safely.’ And there came one of those times and we just, Danny and I nipped out across the field into the woods and that was it, spent a little bit of the time keeping had to get through the German lines and through the British lines which we did when we got to the Elbe, across the Elbe.
AM: Just the two of you?
JM: Yeah, on a boat there was no oars but the hands work for oars don’t they.
AM: And did you know what you were making for that, did you know that you would find the British lines?
JM: Well not really we know the direction roughly and we’d got ears that tell you a lot, we got, there was only one time where we was in a little bit of trouble, we spent the night in a barn that didn’t have a roof but it was a barn so Dan and I spent the night in there and the village further down about two kilometres further down it was a village where there were German half-tracks and things and logic would say that they should be moving east which meant they wouldn’t come our way they’d go east and we were north of them, so we decided, we saw them moving to go so we decided we would go to the village. Unfortunately they decided to go our way north instead of going east, and it was not a lot of them I remember a Mark IV type of tank was pulling two lorries and there’s half-tracks with Germans at the back and we’re going along and they’re coming and there’s no point in running away doing anything like that, and our jackets were already prepared, chevrons everything was pulled off so there’s nothing, so we just kept on walking and we had a like a French conversation, and if they knew it was French they would have wondered what language we were talking it certainly wasn’t French but it sounded like it, and luckily they were so keen to get away they just ignored us and we just kept on going, and we just kept on going, and going, and going, eating what we could and we eventually came across an aerodrome that had some Dakotas, we went on an RAF pilot we collared him.
AM: What did you think when you finally saw it?
JM: Eh?
AM: What did you think when you finally saw it there?
JM: Well, well, contrary to what other people have said it didn’t make a lot of difference to me. It was just something was happening at the time, the fact that it was the if you like the starting point of going out didn’t occur to us, the RAF pilot he said he was on some sort of exercise for evacuation of prisoners of war, and he was, he did say he that they was taking people like to me somewhere in Belgium for transit, but he said I’m not going that way I’m going direct to Great Britain. And we talked him into taking us and he flew from there to Wing near Aylesbury, I think as part of an exercise sort of, and we got to Wing and that was the nice part. When we was coming towards, they all take you over the white cliffs of Dover don’t they you see that, and he couldn’t head them ‘cos you can’t see much so he said ‘I’ll bank to port and you can all go that side and have a look, anyway he said for goodness sake go back again the balance of the aircraft is all over.’ We got to Wing and unloaded us, Danny and I, I remember [coughs] there was WAAFS and all sorts of things, there was two rather large Salvation Army ladies I remember quite clearly came across and lifted us both up and swung us round said a lot I think then we went inside the hangar where all sorts of people came and cuddled you and things like that, yeah that was a nice thing. And one lady said to me I can send a telegram to your parents if you like, give me all the details which I did and they sent a telegram off to my mum and dad saying I was here. So we had something to eat, I always like this because you see they have all this food out and when you get a plate full suddenly a doctor comes along and takes half of it back you know, saying, ‘You mustn’t eat too much.’ And we went from there to Cosford which was set up as a reception centre, had medicals and things like that, and the station commander apparently if I believe what I’m told, given me concerning reception a chat on how to treat ex-prisoners of war and one of the things what he apparently said if I’m to believe what I’m told, ‘For goodness sake don’t leave anything lying about you’ll find it disappears you know.’ Whether that was true or not I don’t know could well have been ‘cos I was the only judge of a lot of people you live on your wits don’t you. And then after I’d been there for some time there was one little amusing incident you had to see a doctor before you could do anything you had to see a doctor, and that’s after you had been deloused that’s one of the things you get done, deloused straight up. And there was five cubicles and the word got around there’s four male doctors and one female doctor, everybody’s trying to work out where the female doctor was to avoid that one, and we, I can’t remember, say cubicle four, and this cubicle four came up you were next you used to say, ‘You go before me I’m not in a rush.’ And I got pushed into cubicle four and it was a lady doctor, mind you she was getting on a bit she was a nice lady, but it was funny the way people were avoiding her simply because they’d been away all that time. And then we were carted off [coughs] to the station, I remember it quite well it was just an ordinary little local train that went from Cosford to Birmingham, two stations at Birmingham, Snow Hill, and I can’t remember the other one.
AM: New Street, New Street, its New Street now in’t it?
JM: So we did that and when we got on the train that was going north there was just one carriage, there was an RAF policeman at either end of it and that was reserved for people like me, the train was absolutely crowded but our coach wasn’t and nice young ladies served refreshment all the time. And I got to York Station, I’d already notified Elsie my future wife and she was at York Station, and all the time I was in Germany I imagined meeting Elsie it’s a step bridge across the rails at York Station, [unclear] slow motion on that like if you’re on the films, looking forward to this, so I’m going slowly towards Elsie and she went straight past me, I remember that I thought oh dear all that time she doesn’t recognise me, it’s something you remember isn’t it, and that and at the other side there’s my sister and her husband so that was it. And I had instructions to go to the RAF York aerodrome there to see the medical officer which I did and he gave me a form to go to the food office in York, and the following day I went. A man said, ‘Join that queue.’ So I joined the queue, it was in the Assembly Rooms in York which is a lovely place, and I’m in this queue and it occurred to me there’s all pregnant women, there’s all pregnant women getting extra rations, people patting me on the back and one thing and another and I always remember that, and that was it I was back in York.
AM: Back in York, on leave.
JM: [laughs] On leave, yeah, yeah, ubiquitous leave.
AM: What happened after that then up to being demobbed how long?
JM: Well I got, er I don’t think you know that most aircrew, nearly all of them had a rehabilitation period and mine was at an aerodrome off the A1, can’t remember the name of it.
AM: No don’t matter.
JM: Doesn’t really matter, anyway I was there for a month and it just so happened the Royal Air Force band was based there so we had music, and for that four weeks what it consists of Friday morning we got up quite early and the station commander had arranged for a Queen Mary to be there on the grounds we had to go to London for some reason.
AM: Queen Mary, is that the big truck?
JM: Yes.
AM: The big open truck.
JM: And about twenty of us climbed on there and went all the way from the station about fifty miles into London on that, and we had to meet at a certain time to get back and coming back and we did that for four weeks until I got on leave yet again, to arrange the wedding with Elsie.
AM: So she’d recognised you by then?
JM: Oh yes I’d put a bit of weight on and that [laughs] yeah, and took a long time to live it down. So from there where did I go, oh I went to Compton Bassett. They decided to put me on a code and cipher course so I went and code and ciphered Compton Bassett. I was the only warrant officer there, there was all flight lieutenants and squadron leaders going to be code and cipher officers which apparently I was destined to be. So I did that and now I’m a code and cipher officer aren’t I, had to go before the board for a commission and they said, ‘The posting will be to the Middle East they’re looking for code and cipher officers.’ So next time, I got every weekend off, so I’m coming back to London to Elsie and I said I’d been offered a commission but it’s a posting to Middle East code and cipher officer, and Elsie said, ‘No way.’ So I had to turn it down. So then they thought well what do we do with him so they had to [coughs] we had a party for the people who passed the code and cipher officer, and I’m sitting next to a civilian and I said to him, ‘It’s a little bit of an impasse I’m not quite certain what to do.’ And explained the circumstances to him, so he said, ‘Write to the air officer commanding training command for this particular region and apply for a compassionate posting to where you want to go.’ Said, ‘That’s fine I don’t know who the air officer commanding is?’ And he said, ‘Oh it happens to be me.’ So he was, I got to meet him he was coming to Compton Bassett for some reason and I had an interview with him and I said, ‘Well my wife is living in Golders Green which is only two stations off Hendon, Hendon would be a nice place.’ So I got a posting to Hendon and they say what the hell do you do with him. It was nice posting, nine to five Monday to Friday living hours, most enjoyable, 24 Squadron which had the Curtiss every now and then unofficially I used to join one of them and go flying. And then I got I think July 1944 I went to Oxbridge and got demobbed.
AM: ‘45.
JM: ‘44, ’45, ’46.
AM: ’46 we’ve moved on one.
JM: Well you’re allowed a mistake now and then.
AM: Yeah go on then.
JM: And got demobbed and got involved in getting a suit. I think Burtons made a lot of them.
AM: Montague Burtons.
JM: Montague Burtons. Some of them were really quite nice, I think I wore it once, it’s the material was nice the cut not particular, but I’m demobbed anyhow. And the company I used to work for before I went in the Air Force wrote to me to say there’s a job waiting for you.
AM: Is this Rowntrees?
JM: Yeah. So I wrote back and I said, ‘I don’t mind working for you but I want to work in London ‘cos my future wife lives in London.’ They said they can’t do that. The problem is when you come out the Air Force you don’t take very kindly to being instructed and when they said we can give you a job but not especially where you want it, so I said ‘I don’t want it.’ So I went to find a job in London and I was offered a job, the people who make fridges, and they made big American ones, but the problem was the job was stores controller and the man was doing it already but he was not retiring until September October and this was early in the year. So I got a job with Express Dairy which was a place quite close to where Elsie lived and thought I’ll have that job until I get the other one, but enjoyed working at Express so much then I wouldn’t leave although the difference in salaries was quite high, and I worked for Express Dairy for all my working life, and they were taken over by various firms but I still worked for them. And one of the problems if you got taken over if it’s two people doing the same job one of them’s going.
AM: Yes.
JM: And the one that’s going is the one in the highest salary.
AM: Yes.
JM: And I kept on being retained, and I said to Elsie, ‘Must mean that my salary is too low.’ I got offered a job at the main site at Ruislip, the job was in charge of warehousing and things like that, and they said well, and then I had a heart attack everybody does if you’ve got a do you’ve got to have one if you’re in a fashion[?], and I had three months off and the chairman called me and said, ‘You mustn’t go back on this job and I’ll sort it and we’ve found a nice little job for you working as PA assistant for the director who was responsible for production.’ And that’s what I did.
AM: And that’s what you did.
JM: And Dennis Watson was my boss, well nothings been written yet so you’ve got to sit down and write your job description will go from there so that’s what I did. I spent the rest of my time on that job.
AM: As PA.
JM: And his responsibility was keeping an eye on [unclear] functions and things like that and decided on systems, his, and we had seven factories up and down the country. One of my jobs was to visit ‘em now and again, and now and again meant to me when you’re a little bit fed up you get in the car and off you go to a factory and that’s what I used to do. And then when I retired my boss Dennis made a big party at Ruislip and there was about a hundred of us there, and that was it.
AM: And that was it.
JM: Yeah.
AM: I’m going to switch off now Joe.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Joseph Musgrove
Creator
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Annie Moody
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-08-12
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AMusgroveJ150812
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
United States Army Air Force
Format
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01:11:32 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Born in York in 1922, Joseph left school at 14 and started work in a chocolate factory and attended two nights of further education per week. In 1936, a fighter aircraft had landed nearby which stimulated his interest in flying which he retained all his life. After joining the RAF he did well in the selection tests and was offered a position of wireless operator/air gunner. After initial training he went to RAF Madley to train on twin-engined aircraft and then RAF Staverton, RAF Topcliffe and was crewed up at the operational training unit at RAF Edgehill. Gunnery training was carried out on Defiant which were notorious for undercarriage issues. Finally he was posted to 214 squadron at RAF Chedburgh, flying Stirlings.
His first operation was minelaying in the Baltic and he recalls standing in the astrodome to warn of enemy fighters. On other operations he would sit in the front turret and occasionally fire at enemy fighters, without success. Further minelaying operations were carried out and on his eighth, his aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire and diverted to a US Army Air Force airfield where he stocked up on goodies, unavailable in England from the base exchange store.
On the 22 September 1943 he took part to an operation to Hanover and describes the night fighter tactics in detail. Following lengthy evasive action his aircraft was forced down to 5,000 feet where it was hit by by anti-aircraft fire and he was forced to bail out over Emden where he was caught by a member of the Luftwaffe who was visiting his girlfriend. After initial interrogation he was sent to the interrogation centre at Dalag Luft and after a two day train journey arrived at Stalag 5 prisoner of war camp.
On July 1944 the encroaching Russian army forced the evacuation of the camp and he was moved to the unfinished Luft 4 camp and remembers the bullying guards and poor conditions. Again in February 1945 the camp was evacuated and after crossing the River Oder in barges marched across northern Germany. After two months he arrived at Lübeck and escaped the column, narrowly missing being captured by German soldiers by conversing in French. Finding an allied airfield he was repatriated to England where he was treated as a hero.
After recuperation he attended a code and cipher course and was offered a commission if he would go to the middle-east. Wanting to get married he declined and wangled his way to 24 Squadron at RAF Hendon, were he was eventually demobbed in July 1946.
Contributor
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Terry Holmes
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Gloucestershire
England--Herefordshire
England--Oxfordshire
England--Suffolk
England--Yorkshire
England--London
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Emden (Lower Saxony)
Germany
Europe--Oder River
Germany--Lübeck
Poland
Poland--Tychowo
Lithuania
Lithuania--Šilutė
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1936
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1943-09-22
1944-07
1945-02
1946-07
102 Squadron
214 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
animal
bale out
bombing
crewing up
Defiant
demobilisation
Dulag Luft
Halifax
mine laying
Operational Training Unit
prisoner of war
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Compton Bassett
RAF Madley
RAF Shenington
RAF Staverton
RAF Topcliffe
shot down
Stalag Luft 4
Stalag Luft 6
Stirling
strafing
the long march
training
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/590/8859/PIbbotsonJ1601.2.jpg
356dbbb06307c599d9e93ee7722fa9a8
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/590/8859/AIbbotsonJ160105.1.mp3
e527db9e97f99b62657881b145dd0b1a
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
Ibbotson, Jim
J Ibbotson
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Ibbotson, J
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Jim Ibbotson (1925 - 2020, 2214052 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as an air gunner with 102 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-05
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.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
GR: Right this is Gary Rushbrooke for the International Bomber Command Centre its 5th January 2016, and I’m with Jim Ibbotson at his home in Sheffield to talk about his life and flying with 102 Squadron. So Jim if I can just ask you was you born in Sheffield?
JI: Oh yes yes just up the road from here no through road.
GR: And er sort of early childhood what did your parents do were they?
JI: Father was in steel, metal dresser which was a terrible job but anyway, and in those days things were very sparse and um if you had a pair of shoes you were doing quite well [laughter] and of course in view of that me mother took up to charring and taking in laundry, in fact that’s why I’m so small I had to, I couldn’t grow any further because the washing used to hang down in the room most of the week!
GR: Right.
JI: And of course the other thing was they had what they called the, the dole, if you were on the dole you weren’t allowed to augment it without - if you earned any money they knocked it off the amount of money they gave you know.
GR: Oh right.
JI: So me mother had to moonlight it [laughs] to make it worthwhile, anyway that was the background to it and er-
GR: Brothers and sisters?
JI: I had just the one sister and she died about ten years ago now something like that she was eighty something yes. And of course I went to, only went to the elementary school but first of all Weston Road, which is at top down Westways and the other one it’s still Morley Street to me I don’t know what they call that now but it’s just down the road here, and of course we lived in between we came from Northfield Road to Waterbank Road and that’s already been pulled down and gone the property that we the hovel that we lived in and er and so on. I went to from Weston Road to Morley Street and then back to Weston Road to finish off, and after that I did some night school studies and I went into office work as an office boy in first of all with a firm in a society in St. James Row by the Cathedral.
GR: Yes.
JI: And that’s where I was into the blitz business ‘cos I was sixteen at the time of the blitz.
GR: Yes so you’d left school gone to work?
JI: I left school at fourteen, I took papers out before and did some other work with a bloke who did his own polishing, French polishing and that type of thing and cabinet making. Anyway as I say at, I used to roam around town in the office boys job ‘cos I worked for the society at the time that belonged to the railway.
GR: Right.
JI: And they used to have all their officials, or members of the committee, at the various places around Sheffield such as Wicker Goods [?], Farm Road, you know, by Bramble Road the farm buildings, Forth Street Wharf I used to go and er what do you call that other big place, Bridge houses all those I used to go and visit.
GR: Had war broken out by now?
JI: No oh sorry war broke out in ‘39.
GR: September ‘39.
JI: Yes, it did it did. I only stayed for about a year in the Railway Society, I went to a furnishing company and as same sort of run around but there they had a shop on The Moor which was affected by the blitz of course. So what happened was on the about on the 12th and 13th of December the blitz and on the 13th the morning of the Friday I reported for work in Collegiate Crescent and the accounts manager said to me, he said, ‘Well the accounts at the shop on The Moor we’ll have to try to see if we can retrieve them’. So with that he said, ‘You’re coming with me’. Went down there got as far as the bottom of Ecclesall Road and of course that was it so we got out of the car and walked round the corner and the police or the ARP or whatever and they said you know, ‘Can’t come up here unexploded bombs’. And well there won’t anywhere to go really ‘cos it was like about, the debris it was absolutely destroyed.
GR: Yes.
JI: There wasn’t a clear path.
GR: Because Sheffield had been targeted because of it’s steel?
JI: Well no I don’t think so not at that time, it was after, they knew what they were at, they no it was a complete set to on the civilians I think.
GR: Right.
JI: Which they’d do at that time because on the, that was on the Thursday Friday morning and they stepped up that was that. Then they came on the Sunday and started exactly at the spot they’d stopped on the on the Friday and went down the East End where the works were, but they did that second not first, and I think that was by choice because they knew what they were at obviously.
GR: Yes.
JI: And er we got up, the firemen, we told them what we’d come for, well I didn’t he did told em what we’d come for they allowed us to go up. I didn’t see another person on The Moor that morning so we must have been the only two just about who made it up there that morning, apart from the police and whatever, they were keeping everybody back. And mind there weren’t a lot of people wanting to go up there because they’d had enough on with the blitz without bloody going and looking at things. Anyway after that I joined, I joined the oh I was in the ATC.
GR: Yes.
JI: At it’s inception we hadn’t got a uniform at that time, the ATC were like the Home Guard we were in civvies and we did get uniforms eventually, but I think it was June ‘41 when they started up. And I went to sign up I was eighteen in December ‘42 and I went in October ‘42 and joined the Air Force.
GR: So you volunteered?
JI: Yes. They took me down to Padgate to a reception centre we had medicals and whatever and various you know, you get to know what’s what, who you are, and what you do, and er finally they then put me on deferred service and called me up 31st March ‘43. I was on what you call the PNB scheme that was either selection for pilot, navigator, or bomb aimer.
GR: Yes.
JI: And that was on that Empire Training Scheme. So on in March ‘43 I went down to St. John’s Wood to Lord’s Cricket Ground.
GR: Lord’s Cricket Ground yes.
JI: Turned up there and I was billeted round the corner in top side of Regents Park by the zoo, which was most appropriate [laughter] and then we used to have meals in the zoo café.
GR: Right.
JI: We had to get up at six.
GR: Were the animals still in the zoo?
JI: I was gonna say we used to sometimes queue up and what was by the side of the entrance were those gibbons and they used to be out at that time in the morning of course they were whooping along the cage and they used to whoop you know as they went. Anyway yeah that was there and then what they did then it was, still took a long time I mean when you consider it, I joined up in ‘42 and it was ‘45 before I I got into action February ‘45. And of course relating further then that I the first thing they did was take two hundred of us and send us up to Aberdeen on the what they called, to Aberdeen University on a six months education revision course in the university the old university at Aberdeen in the old village.
GR: So you had no idea what you were going to be called? You just -
JI: No, that’s right at that point. And that was six months affair which finished in the September we were billeted in the town with families, I was off the King Street on Argyle Road, the King Street was about two miles long you went down to the football ground at Pittodrie and the college the football ground was that side and the university grounds were over this side.
GR: Yes.
JI: And they used to march us up and down there every day, we had lunch at the bottom of Union Street in the old what do you call them those restaurants British restaurants that this government set up, cheese and what was it that was macaroni cheese pie or something all them kind of things you got.
GR: So what were you actually doing just six months of not?
JI: Educational, English a little bit as few words of German, er technical drawing, and then we went from there back to, no we didn’t we went straight down to Torquay in a hotel there at the top the Devonshire I was in, you know Torquay probably the main bottom road on the by the quayside.
GR: Yes.
JI: There’s the Regina that’s on that left hand corner far left hand corner and it turns the corner and goes up by itself I was at top of there in the Devonshire it was called, and the officers were all in oh what do they call that one as you go up on the right forgotten they were in a hotel there.
GR: And was this the start of your actual RAF training?
JI: That was the start, we did navigation, direct navigation, Morse, engines, meteorology, oh and sanitation and hygiene, [unclear] quite a gambit of subjects.
GR: Yes.
JI: Anyway I got through that all right passed out on that, and then they send you to grading school, I was a [unclear] down the Cambridge Road from Cambridge out to Newmarket at a place called um Caxton Gibbet and there was a little grass airfield by the side of there and they’d got Tiger Moths. So you did, I can’t remember now whether six hours or twelve hours on Tiger Moths you used to have an instructor with you obviously, but the damn things flew themselves anyway. So the only difficulty I found was with the wind you know the wind prevailing for the velocity, the wind you’d take off and kind of turn but instead of going that direction really you weren’t you were as far as you were concerned going like so, but if you looked down at the ground you were going like that because the wind was.
GR: Was going sideways [laughs].
JI: And I for the hell of me I could never never get round in a square and come back down but as for that the flying them like I say they were nothing they were like a kite once you put them up.
GR: This was actual pilot training.
JI: Used to go up at sixty five they did you just used to pull the throttle forward and get them off the deck at sixty five they’d lift you know you could feel it just ease back a bit on the joystick and they were off and then you had to climb to a thousand feet and trim them, trim them to fly with, in a stable condition you know and so on. That went on and that was a three months course but unfortunately towards the end of it I had flu which pushed me put me in dock for a fortnight. So from the end of that you went up to Heaton Park at Manchester which was a dropping off point from either Canada, South Africa, those were the two usual places where they sent they sent them off for training you know, the, oh, the pilots went to Miami didn’t they yes, yes they did.
GR: Yes, yes I know somebody who went to Miami, yes.
JI: And the bomb aimers went to Canada, the navigators went to South Africa. And that fortnight meant that when I got there they had just thought they got sufficient people in the scheme they actually shut it down just like that. And so actually, those some of those two hundred I mentioned that we’d gone up to Aberdeen with me in the first place they actually got there inside the time limit and they were they most of them a lot of them I met afterwards some years some time afterwards went as bomb aimers to er Canada, which I probably would have gone with as likely as not might have gone as navigator, I don’t know. And so I was sent back to ACRC you know at Lord’s and they gave me two alternatives because you can either become an air gunner or you can take your ticket and go as a Bevan boy. So I thought I’m not deeply keen about going down the pit, mind I don’t know which was the best alternative to be honest [laughter], they lasted a lot longer down there than what they did up there. So I went of course from there I went to, that was a quick affair then, I went up to er Inverness which is now Inverness Airport was then Dalcross, Dalcross RAF Gunnery School.
GR: Yes, yes.
JI: And that was about three months and in July ‘44 I came out as sergeant air gunner and they carried through then to OTU, heavy -
GR: Conversion Unit.
JI: Conversion Unit and then on to squadron February.
GR: So how did you feel about obviously you were lined up for either a pilot or bomb aimer and you ended up as an air gunner?
JI: Well I wasn’t best pleased of course, but there we are that’s fate isn’t it.
GR: Oh it is, yeah.
JI: So I mean actually well I’d have been better, I could have done if I volunteered immediately I could have had the choice of engineer flight engineer or air gunner, because as an air gunner it would have been a rapid progress because if I’d gone in March ‘43 I would have been on ops by about December ’43. But as it was the way I went as I joined up in ’42 and didn’t go till ’43 and it were ’45 before I got anywhere [laughs] which I was pleased about that to be honest. After I’d started.
GR: Well yes, if you’d have got to Bomber Command in December ’43 just at the height of the Battle of Berlin when they were suffering the most casualties.
JI: That’s it.
GR: Who knows?
JI: Yeah 102 sent twelve aircraft out to Berlin one night and three came back.
GR: Three came back.
JI: And they weren’t much better, oh they couldn’t go the following night they sent a note up to Command, unfortunately they couldn’t muster sufficient to, to provide a force.
GR: Not enough aircraft.
JI: And that was that.
GR: Yes.
JI: But anyway I as I say it weren’t a very good turn out really because when we got there, er when we got on to ops of course and we did the initial one and that was went to a place called Bottrop or something, anyway on the second one we went to a place called Witten and apparently - we’d no experience of it of course ops particularly.
GR: Yes.
JI: But they did the ones who, the more seasoned people said it was a terrible night for night fighters they really went to town on that night their night fighters. And what happened was we joined the squadron with another crew the two of us went to replacement crew and on the second trip to Witten they didn’t come back so it sort of showed you the incidence of this fatality as it were, I mean they used to say if you managed to get through the first six you weren’t too bad. [Laughs].
GR: Was all your crew a new crew?
JI: They were all English crew yeah.
GR: Yeah but –
JI: Plus we’d two Smiths.
GR: You’d all come together at OTU?
JI: That’s right.
GR: And then Heavy Conversion Unit?
JI: That’s it.
GR: So whereas you were doing your first operation so was your pilot and the rest of your crew?
JI: The rest yeah.
GR: Yeah.
JI: There was old do you know Tom who died as well Tom Sawyer?
GR: Tom, Tom Sawyer yes, yes I do know Tom.
JI: You know what happened with Tom don’t you? I don’t, not that it’s not generally known I don’t think but he was a sergeant pilot and they offered him a commission and he refused it. Because he said the rest of his crew were sergeants and he didn’t want to be taken aside from them ‘cos he’d be in the officers mess as an officer and sergeants were still in the sergeants mess. He wouldn’t accept the commission he did later on.
GR: Yes because he finished up as a flying officer.
JI: Well that was later but at the time on the first tour of ops that he did I don’t know whether he did but certain the first one he refused the commission. ‘Cos as, as skipper the pilot was always I would say always commissioned after the first week or so on the squadron. Our pilot was.
GR: Yes.
JI: But we were all lads from you know England.
GR: Yes.
JI: There was the bomb aimer from Winchester, the pilot from Liverpool from Bootle, the navigator from Birmingham, the engineer came from Cardiff, did I mention the signaller he came from London the signaller, and the rear gunner was a Londoner, and I came from Yorkshire. And as I say there were two Smiths.
GR: Two Smiths. [Laughs].
JI: So fairly English wasn’t it.
GR: Oh yes.
JI: No Jones.
GR: No, no Jones. And was you rear gunner or mid upper?
JI: No, mid upper.
GR: Mid upper yes.
JI: Yes. I was saying to Rob yesterday we went to on a gardening trip up into Flensburg Fjord to drop sea dog [?] mines and the Lancasters that night were bombing Hamburg so they were coming round sweeping round and circling Hamburg. I think about five hundred of them something like that. And we were on our own of course on the gardening trip it weren’t an organised force it was just a single aircraft it was a test to see.
GR: So you was on your own?
JI: Yes. So we came over and just skirted round on the bottom side of Hamburg, and I was sat there like this, you know looking round as usual and suddenly a Lancaster came over and he was within six, well about as high as that ceiling above us and he just went schh like that.
GR: God.
JI: And I just ducked down like birds do [laughs] when an eagle flies over yeah.
GR: A near miss.
JI: Well that was it yes. But we had some daylight trips we went to Ham, to Nuremburg was a hell of a long way that.
GR: That’s a long way in’t it yeah.
JI: It is yeah. And there was a terrific number of aircraft in the sky that day, there were about three thousand fighters or something like that, there was Americans, and Mustangs, Spitfires, there was American Mustangs.
GR: Yeah all protecting the bombers?
JI: Yeah that’s right. They were up top could see a little dot you know and down below there was a whole force of whatever, oh the RAF like this, this and this, and the Yanks in perfect formation like geese, [unclear] and everybody turned on the front, oh yeah, so they must have been very vulnerable, to even anti-aircraft fire till you got the height.
GR: No.
JI: ‘Cos they couldn’t miss.
GR: It must have been nice though to have an escort?
JI: Oh yeah it was yeah. And we got over the flak, weren’t too bad till we got over Nuremburg and then I don’t know they got some stuff there from somewhere and let fly, and I saw two of them go down, so there was one over this side and I’d never seen anything he was there and then disappeared which is unbelievable. But what had happened was we hadn’t bombed at that time so he’d got a full bomb load this kite and an anti-aircraft shot hit it right up the middle of the bomb load, and he just went like that, he was there and then he wasn’t.
GR: Just disappeared.
JI: Exactly.
GR: Yeah.
JI: He damn near powdered it you know.
GR: Yeah.
JI: And then there was another one on this side he chopped one of his tail planes off, you know the one each side and he finished up with one, which of course meant that they wouldn’t fly anymore.
GR: And in daylight you can see all that?
JI: That’s right.
GR: Whereas at night time you’ll see a flash but not see the graphic?
JI: I came back and some WAAF officer a young WAAF officer was doing the debriefing in general and she said, [laughs] she said to one lot, ‘Did you see any searchlights?’. And he said, ‘Aye some big black ones’. [Laughs]. And of course we used to get the customary rum and coffee.
GR: Yeah.
JI: But we usually discounted the coffee it were horrible and just had the rum.
GR: Just had the rum. [Laughs].
JI: Yeah. So we did six trips.
GR: Yeah.
JI: Like that was Nuremburg, the gardening trip, the last two which were to the Frisian Islands. I don’t know what that was about but that was only a short trip it took where you go across the North Sea in half an hour or less, ‘cos we were on Halifax 6’s they were and they could do about three hundred miles an hour in a downward sort of setting.
GR: Yeah.
JI: Which is a big a lot better than what the old Whitleys used to do.
GR: God yes.
JI: We did those at OTU Whitleys.
GR: Yeah.
JI: Yeah we were lucky to get through that. [Laughs]. There were two Canadian crews that didn’t make it. They ran into the hills at Inverness there as it took off it went straight into the hills you know, so if you hadn’t got sufficient light at the time you didn’t –
GR: Well I read somewhere that during the whole of the Second World War the RAF in training [emphasis] various training everywhere there was something like fifteen thousand casualties.
JI: I would imagine yeah. We had a number you know apart from them and of course we had them at the, so you know we did OTU at Forres which was Whitley’s, but there were also doing them at Kinloss just down the road from Forres. And they had of course Forres was a grass field whereas Kinloss was the normal concrete, and we had an associate crew that we knew from training and they ran off the runway at Kinloss, and they caught the plane caught fire and of course a couple of them were very badly burned. I remember I didn’t go to see them in hospital I didn’t know them all that well so one of our crew went because they knew them quite well. And he said that they he said to the other bloke who went, ‘Did you see the navigator?’ Was it anyway one of them navigator I think it was, he said, ‘Did you see his hands?, he said, ‘did you they were just like [unclear]’ they more or less burnt all the –
GR: Burnt everything away.
JI: Aye. So you know you got things of that nature and that was that. The case of course which is well known in the Air Force at Kinloss it ran out over the, over the what the hell do you call that, Fin, Fin something isn’t it runs out over a shallow lagoon you know.
GR: Right.
JI: I’ve forgotten the name of it at the moment. But anyway what happened was one of these Wellingtons took off and didn’t quite make it and dropped down into this lagoon, of course these blokes didn’t know that it was only about four foot deep whatever or six foot at the most, and they went into full dinghy drill [laughs], and somebody missed the dinghy when they jumped and landed in the water it was only up to about their knees. [Laughs].
GR: Well it just proves that training, water and dinghies and -
JI: Oh they used to take us to the baths you know, part of the Mae West’s on, and you used to jump off the top splash and like go down and then you there was a little handle on the side and you pressed it down and ‘pssss’ and of course you could float on that, but you also had to do a bit of swimming if you could which [unclear]. Oh and the dinghy upside down yeah, the dinghy upside down you had to turn it over there were ropes on it, and then you got the radio with the handle on it and the idea was to turn the handle and generate enough juice power.
GR: Power to.
JI: Yeah so that was that. But I understand that the biggest problem was conditions in the winter in places by the North Sea, if you managed to sort of get into the dinghy you’d be wet through at the time anyway and if you lasted well say all night you were lucky.
GR: You were lucky.
JI: In fact I know the Navy used to talk about guy coming down in the Atlantic and if you are in the water for more than about a minute you’d had it in the winter the Northern Atlantic.
GR: Yes.
JI: So yes we finished up doing the six and that was VE Day and then –
GR: So where was you on VE Day?
JI: I came home of course.
GR: So you was actually in the squadron?
JI: Well everybody just threw the sponge in and cleared off.
GR: Oh right.
JI: There was nobody at all on the squadron on VE Day [laughs] Unless, I don’t know about I didn’t stop to see.
GR: Had you all been given permission to leave?
JI: I don’t know.
GR: You just took off?
JI: Must have done. Because I knew another chap one of the pilots met him at the reunion [coughs] and he said he was amazed, he hadn’t of course cleared off immediately like we did, and he went down to the Squadron office apparently he said and that was deserted there wasn’t a soul in sight he said, and he thought well we’ll do something about this so he collected up the log the Squadron Log Book you know, which gave details of the operations.
GR: ORB, Operational Records Book.
JI: So he claimed that, well he didn’t claim it for himself well he thought I better–
GR: I’ll look after it.
JI: That’s right which he did, which is just as well ‘cos, I mean as anybody could have taken it yeah. Well and that was the other thing of course which rankled some the Flight Commanders at the end of the war regardless of whatever they’d done they were awarded the DFC you know.
GR: Oh right.
JI: So like your NAAFI ration you know. Anyway what they did with us then is, they called us all back eventually that was that war finished in May 12th, May 8th, it was about July I think before they called me back in and sent me to Carnaby, which by that time had become a sort of reception centre, because originally during the war it was one of those one of the three safe drops to with the very wide runways for aircraft returning with difficulties. There was Manston, Woodbridge and Carnaby. Manston was down –
GR: Kent.
JI: The bottom one weren’t it yeah because I’ve been across that. And then Woodbridge was in Norfolk or Suffolk or one of them, and Carnaby was near Bridlington.
GR: Right yeah, yeah.
JI: And they took us there and we had to. Oh first of all they offered me a commission if I signed on for three years in the RAF Regiment, so I weren’t particularly taken by that. So they said I could remuster in some trades which they’d got, sort of mapped out, and I chose motor mechanic. So on that they sent me to the [coughs] trade school in Blackpool.
GR: Right.
JI: To do this course on engines and whatever.
GR: And that was with the intention of staying in the RAF?
JI: No.
GR: No.
JI: No that was just, there was a remuster, see I came out in February 1947 so I did two years after that probably. I went and on that basis I joined what was supposed to be the Tiger Force, which was the force they were getting together to send out to –
GR: Japan.
JI: To sort out the Japanese yeah, anyway the Japs capitulated in the meantime, and I finished up in Singapore for just over twelve months. Which was just a farce really because I was on the MT unit which was consisted of about half a dozen people up in the sticks you know from Singapore towards Changi and it was a wireless station. So we were running Brister [?] Diesels used to have to keep them maintained and they were dispersed away from the actual station with the aerials dispersed around, I think they used to interfere with one another if you got them close together. So that they put them out there we used to have to go twice a day and fill up the tank with diesel to keep it running, we used to do ten thousand hours on the diesel then it had to be changed over and the engine had to be stripped down and rebuilt. Well [unclear] having done about three months on engines in Blackpool you can imagine how much I knew about it [laughs], so I knew nothing. I was a flight sergeant then so they used to call me chief [laughs] in the MT section!
GR: Yeah, senior rank.
JI: Yeah that’s it. There were two corporals and these lads, some eighteen year old lads they got out from who had been probably apprentices to the motor trade in this country in blighty and they did most of the work and I used to sort of oversee them. [Laughs]. And the other thing was there was no actual civilian authority at that time, they hadn’t formed up into government or anything like that it was every man for himself sort of thing so it was very free and easy. And the same on the camp because it was a small camp as I say there must have only been about fifty of us there at the most, there was a sergeants mess there was about six of us in there I think something like that. There were two of us who were ex air crew who knew nothing about the job no doubt, and the other four were long servers, well there was a warrant officer, wireless, there was Warrant Officer Dip Dissep, who didn’t do anything whatever. He used to spend his days and nights having a bottle of gin and talking he had the DT’s you know, he used to set off all right and in the evening with his bottle of gin, Gordons Gin, and by the time he got halfway down that he was talking he had an imaginary budgie on the side of his hat talking it to it [laughs], and he was an oldish bloke and he’d been in the Air Force ooh twenty five years.
GR: It was Raffles Bar in Singapore wasn’t it?
JI: That’s right. We didn’t get down there. I know we used to but that was one of the duties was I was well I weren’t really nobody appointed me in charge of the [unclear] but they all assumed I was because of I was the highest –
GR: Because of the rank?
JI: That’s right. So I was in charge of signing these requisition forms and the like 65As[?], so if I wanted to organise er a trip, an evening trip into Singapore I just made one of these notes out for the driver and he got the lorry out and we went down there, had some hair-raising experience. [Laughs]. We went down one time to buy some beer for the NAAFI, buy it in Singapore and bring it back for the NAAFI, and I’m afraid we went down there we bought the beer and drank it before we got back. [Laughs].
GR: Nothing wrong with that. [Laughs].
JI: Oh we had really some [unclear] boozy times.
GR: Yeah, yeah. Well the war had finished and -
JI: So I eventually came back by sea. Oh when on going out went out on the air trooping business, so I went I went from down South not Newmarket another racecourse but somewhere and I think it would have been an American ‘drome it had been. We went out to first of all to Sardinia we only stayed there a night or so in there, then we flew on to El Haddam [?] in Northern Africa.
GR: North Africa, yeah.
JI: Not far from Tobruk and then we hopped over from there to Tel Aviv and that was about Christmas time that, and I was amazed it was as cold there as what it had been here, I expected it to be warm you know.
GR: Yeah with it being –
JI: So we went from there to the one extreme to the other we flew from there down to Sharia [?] in the Persian Gulf and by god it was hot there it was about ninety all the time.
GR: God.
JI: In Singapore it wasn’t so bad because it was never above ninety but it was all, there was lots of vegetation so it was cooler never below seventy so it was fairly even.
GR: Yeah, humid if anything.
Other: Would either of you like a cup of tea? Would you like a drink of tea?
JI: I wouldn’t mind.
Other: Would you like a drink?
GR: Please.
JI: Yeah we went from there to. [Talking in background]. We went from there to Karachi. [Talking in background].
GR: So what happened coming back from Singapore?
JI: Nothing really it was the most boring it was on the boat from Singapore to Bombay, Mumbai as it’s known now. Oh of course I flew from Karachi across country down to Madras and I stayed there about a month or more down in Madras that was quite nice there. And then we went on this small five thousand tonne boat registered in Aberdeen across to Singapore. And the boat was the, was it the Largis Bay that the Jarvis Bay weren’t it that fought that River Plate action.
GR: Yes.
JI: Aye well this was these were sister ships this was the Largis Bay or something like that and that was a five thousand tonne sister ship to the one that fought the battle, horrible little thing it was. Anyway went through across there and came back on the Empress, the Empress, what was it Empress of?
GR: There’s a lot of them Empresses about.
JI: A river boat actually in the West Indies and the damn thing it hadn’t got a very large keel so therefore when you got into any water at all it was rolling, and that was the only exciting part on that one was we came into the Mediterranean and there was about a thirty foot sea there, really terrible lasted about two or three days. And of course the ablutions, the toilets they were a great big space room whatever you call it and there must have been twenty down each side, toilets, or may be thirty I don’t know, and it was a huge and it were sort of a tarmacked floor that curled up so that you know it was completely waterproof. And there should have been traps fitted on these toilets so that when the boat went down like that they shut off you see, but instead of that what we got was every time we went down you got a water spout. So you went in there, the floor had been you know sealed like that, and it didn’t go over the top because of these things they came up to oh a couple of feet high up the side, [unclear] and of course you had to go in with your trousers rolled up because you were up to your knees in water when you got in there, apart from anything else that happened to be floating around of course. [Laughs]. But what an experience you had to time it to a fine degree yeah. [Laughs]. Anyway I was bored out of my mind there, what happened was they were all up on deck and down on the mess deck in these hammocks and things it was absolutely terrible, hot you know and I didn’t like it. Anyway they called for volunteers for the butchers shop went to the boat butchers shop, were only chopping ribs up and things to make stew. What happened was we were making this stew or whatever it was for the other people who hadn’t got a job they were just kicking about on deck playing cards, and course we were in the butcher’s shop and we were living on sirloin steak and chips and things ‘cos we had the, you know. And then of course when it came to sleeping you just took your hammock or whatever and found a place to string it anywhere. Of course down below there was a hell of a lot of space down below in the ballast or whatever they call it they had a great big refrigerator stored there it must have been well I can’t imagine as big as a library or something, a great big room and of course it was refrigerated and he told me that they could collect and hang enough beef in there to last about five years you know for the trips. Anyway we were dishing this up to the other people who weren’t so fortunate. The only other problem, the nasty thing that happened was there was various Air Force, Army and one of the army sergeants fell down the gangway, fell down the gangway and died he had a head injury, so we had a funeral at sea, they sewed him up in canvas and they had a chute and –
GR: Down and away.
JI: I expected that when he went in he would go down like that, but didn’t you know, he went down like that corkscrewed, whether they, it was an old ship’s carpenter that did the job, so whether he had some ideas or what, I thought it would have just gone.
GR: Gone straight down. So was you on the ship all the way back to the UK?
JI: I was, I was. And the other thing was I noticed we had a one you could take demob in Singapore if you wanted, which one of our lot did because he’d either got some relatives or they knew somebody up country on the rubber estates and he thought he’d get a job up there you know. In the event apparently it never happened so he’d demobbed in Singapore, anyway he slipped aboard he came in, I mean they didn’t check he was coming aboard we were like Air Force here we go so he just went on the gangplank and in. Well he mixed in with us he’d got the jungle uniform on you know that we wore all in green and whatever, and the only snag was when we got to Liverpool, we came in at Liverpool, the only snag was when we came in at Liverpool, we’d already been dished up in blue in the RAF blue and unfortunately of course he was still in his jungle green, but the customs, the customs never course things weren’t like they are now, but the customs didn’t really bother.
GR: No at the end of the day you’re returning armed forces you know they are not going to.
JI: They didn’t bother. Well I mean there must have been what on the boat?, oh it was a big boat twenty two thousand tonne boat, big enough boat, I suppose there must have been five hundred or more on there you know troops and we just went through the customs and they didn’t stop us at all so that was that. Then I went to Kirkham in by Blackpool, I was demobbed from there with me demob suit you know Montague Burton special and that was it.
GR: And what was it five pounds or something what was it your twenty five pounds?
JI: What was that?
GR: Demob money. Did you get paid it?
JI: I don’t know. I know when I was in Singapore I opened an account for about three month with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank which became HSB.
GR: HSB Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank HSB.
JI: But they weren’t at that time they weren’t here then.
GR: So demobbed in February?
JI: February ’47.
GR: So what did you do afterwards Jim?
JI: I went back to the old firm the furnishing firm.
GR: Oh right.
JI: Yeah, they got on quite well, I left them but they finished up with about sixty three shops I think.
GR: And lived all your life in Sheffield?
JI: No.
GR: No?
JI: No that was when what happened I came out went back to the old firm and then in 1950 they decided that they’d shift their office to London and I was one of the ones they took down there I went in Forest Hill actually and the office was in Mayfair in South Audley[?] Street. And of course quite interesting really you know to see the West End of London and working there and so on and before we didn’t I didn’t get somewhere to live immediately I was down there in lodgings. And I got on with the caretaker in the office which was in South Audley Street, and I used to go boozing with him and we went we used to go round the corner into Hill Street, and you used to get all the people there that worked in the Embassies down in the pub like the Canadians and whatever Embassy you know, and of course the American Embassy was just up the road top end of South Audley Street. I know I came we was working one Saturday for some reason, I went working one Saturday and I was going down to the Shepherd’s Market at lunchtime for something to eat that’s where we used to go and as I turned the corner into Curzon Street who should turn the corner coming into South Audley Street but old Noel Coward.
GR: Yeah right.
JI: He was a queer looking bloke you know, queer looking bloke.
GR: So how long did you live in London for?
JI: Two or three years.
GR: Two or three years.
Other: Teapots here.
JI: Don’t want the teapot.
GR: Oh we can finish it there for a cup of tea. [Laughs].
JI: Right.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Jim Ibbotson
Creator
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Gary Rushbrooke
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-01-05
Type
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Sound
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AIbbotsonJ160105
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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00:52:25 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Singapore
England--Yorkshire
Great Britain
Temporal Coverage
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1942
1943
1944
1945
Description
An account of the resource
Jim Ibbotson grew up in Sheffield and recalls Sheffield being blitz bombed. He joined the Air Training Corps and volunteered for the RAF when he was eighteen. He was called up in March 1943 and trained to become either a pilot, navigator or bomb aimer. He discusses his training including flying Tiger Moths, but a delay in posting due to illness meant he was then given a choice to become either a Bevan boy or an air gunner. He retrained at RAF Dalcross Air Gunnery School and was then sent to OTU on Whitleys and then to HCU before being posted to 102 Squadron in February 1945. He flew six operations as a mid upper gunner on mine laying operations. After the war he served in a motor transport unit in Changi, Singapore before being demobilised and returning to his pre war occupation within the furniture trade.
Contributor
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Carolyn Emery
102 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Halifax
mine laying
RAF Dalcross
RAF Pocklington
Tiger Moth
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/562/8830/AWinterP160418.2.mp3
f845e45061463aeac09c3f83a2be823e
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Winter, Phillip
P Winter
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Winter, P
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. An oral history interview Sergeant Phillip Winter, (748547, 144466 Royal Air Force) and five photographs. He flew operations as a pilot with 102 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
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2016-04-18
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AS: That’s that one. Ok, we are ready to start. This is Andrew Sadler, uhm, interviewing Phillip Winter at his home in Bromley on the 18th of April 2016 on behalf of the International Bomber Command Digital Archive. Thank you for letting me come, Phillip. Uhm, can you, can I start with some general questions about your background?
PW: Yes, sure.
AS: Where, you told me that you’re ninety-nine years of age and we are here with your wife who is ninety-five. Where were you born and when?
PW: I was born in Herne Hill in 1917. My mother was in [unclear], uhm, well that’s it, yes. [laughs] My mother was in [unclear] Herne Hill, I never fathomed why. My father was in the trenches and her father was in a pub in Tunbridge Wells and my first memories are of the pub in Tunbridge Wells, uhm. Why all this happened I don’t know, but my mother went to stay with her father and mother and my father came over the war, uhm, a bit of a broken man.
AS: But he survived?
PW: He survived, yes, he had a minor wound to his hand, but he survived, but uhm, mother told me that if they were out and a car backfired, he’d lie on the pavement straight away,
AS: So he was very badly affected by it.
PW: Shell shocked, yes, yes.
AS: And so you, when you left school, what did you do when you left school?
PW: I was a civil servant. I took the competitive exam at the clerical class and that year they took seven hundred and I came five hundred and twenty fifth, so I was in. And when they asked me what I wanted, I said: ‘Air ministry’ and it came back, board of education. So, I was in the board of education, teachers’ pensions department, which couldn’t have been duller and uhm, by the end of 1938 I was fed up and my brother had taken a short service commission in the RAF, and I thought: ‘Well, I’ll take a short service commission, but first I want to know if I can fly’. And I joined the RAFVR, stayed in my office and joined the RAFVR and went down to Gravesend and then in July ’39 I did my first solo in a Tiger Moth and uhm.
AS: What was your reason for joining the RAF rather than going into any of the other forces?
PW: Because I liked flying, I liked the idea of flying. Ehm, when I was a little boy of twelve and my brother was ten, nine, nine or ten and we were living with my grandfather in the pub in Tunbridge Wells and one of the post First World War flying circuses came to Tunbridge Wells and over the dinner table one day my grandpa put out a ten [unclear] and said: ‘Go and have a fly’. So, the barmaid took us down to the field in the afternoon while this, where this flying circus was, and I had my first flight ever. And after that I just wanted to fly. It was wonderful, looking around, seeing the world from a different angle.
AS: Did your father’s experience of the First World War have any part in your decision?
PW: No, not at all. No.
AS: No. And so, when you joined the RAF, how was it that you came to become into Bomber Command?
PW: How? Well, I joined the RAFVR and of course at the beginning of the war we were, VRs were caught up straight in fact on the first of September and trained, went to Cambridge, inhabited the colleges, did, uhm, I did, initial training wing, uhm, and from there. Where are we, what was the question?
AS: It was, it was, uhm, why you were in Bomber Command.
PW: Ah, that’s it. Well, when I finished my training, uhm, I was asked what I wanted to fly, and I said: ‘Bombers’, because in those days there was a Fairey Battle, single-engine bomber and I was trained on single-engine aircraft, so I thought that would be alright. While I was on leave, uhm, my posting to a Fairey Battle OTU was cancelled and I was sent to Abingdon. And, much to my surprise, Abingdon was twin-engine Whitleys OTU, so I had to convert from single-engine biplanes to twin-engine monoplanes with retractable undercarriages and flaps, uhm, was quite a trial but I managed to, I managed it. Uhm, I had a night flying crash which set me back a bit, but eventually I passed out and was posted to 102 Squadron in Yorkshire, at Topcliffe they were. Uhm, from then on, ah, [sighs] it was extraordinary, I did three trips as a second pilot. Obviously, you had to do several trips as a second pilot, and on my third trip the, uhm, I was back in the navigator’s seat, while he was in the bomb aimers position in the front and uhm, we were coned in searchlights and everything in the district opened up on us and I got a, a lump of shrapnel, straight through my left ankle. Uhm, anyway, we got through, we got back and uhm, I was taken to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, where they tried to make my foot better, but there was a hole straight through the ankle and out the other side. Uhm, from there I went to RAF hospital at Ely and uhm, they managed to fix it and sent me to a rehabilitation unit at Hoylake, in Cheshire, but it wouldn’t work, I had so much pain. They said: ‘You will have to go back to hospital and we will fix it, so that it doesn’t move’. So, since the age of twenty-four my left foot has been glued to my left leg [laughs] uhm, and I’ve been lame. Well.
AS: Can you tell?
PW: So, my operational career was very limited, three trips, but uhm, I got back to flying eighteen months later at Driffield for towing targets for 4 Group Bomber Command [unclear] out over the North Sea, which was good, I enjoyed it. Then, an aircraft called the Martinet, there’s a photograph.
AS: So, uhm, how long were you actually, how long was it before you actually had to give up operations?
PW: Well.
AS: It’s in your logbook.
PW: [shuffling] Whitley, Whitley, Whitley, Whitley. June, June the 12th ’41 was the night I got wounded and then I was back on flying a Tiger Moth. [shuffling] December '42, so June ’41 to December ’42, I was eighteen months in hospital and rehabilitation unit, uhm, and then went back to towing targets, that’s the, some of our lot.
AS: And you were the pilot obviously.
PW: Yes.
AS: And, uhm, and did you do that then for the remainder of the war?
PW: No, I didn’t. Uhm, when Europe was invaded, we didn’t have to, we were moved about, and I was sent to Tempsford to fly Oxfords, which were used for training resistance workers who had been dropped over the other side. Uhm, secret R/T operators, I was just the pilot, uhm, involved a bit of night flying and after that.
AS: Was this part of the Special Operations Executive?
PW: Yes, yes.
AS: So, you, you didn’t know who you were carrying presumably and?
PW: I didn’t know their names or anything about them. I was carrying the instructors and the people, the resistance workers who were being taught to use certain, very secret R/T operators [unclear] ground to air communications. So, I didn’t really know anything about it, I was just the pilot and coupled with that I was also, did long cross countries, training bomb aimers to map read not to a town or a village but to the corner of a field, uhm, that was, I enjoyed that, yes. And then for the last months of the war, I was posted to Lyneham, Transport Command, operations room, I then held the rank of flying officer but to begin with I was a volunteer as a sergeant pilot. That’s a very brief history [laughs].
AS: Yes. When you, uhm, so, what happened when the war ended, what did, how, were you demobilised then?
PW: Yes, I was, uhm, demobilised, here we are, [shuffling] 20th of December 1945.
AS: And I mean the crew that you,
PW: And then, I was very glad to get back into the civil service. You see, I told you I’d think forth of resigning from the civil service and taking the short service commission, but that I wanted to see if I could fly first, and discovering that I could, but I’d no sooner discovered that I could then the war was on and I was in my uniform having to do as I was told [laughs].
AS: Uhm, when.
PW: When I came out, I was very glad that I hadn’t left the civil service. I was in what was then the board of education, which was a non-cabinet post, was ruled over by a president. And uhm, at that time, I was lucky because the 1944 Education Act had been passed, uhm, secondary education for all and of course the education department just blew up like a balloon. And I was lucky, I worked hard and went up with it, had my first, well after, when I was demobbed I went straight back to my old department, which was teachers’ pensions. Uhm, and I worked hard and got promoted and then I was moved to the main office and got a post as a higher executive officer in schools’ branch, which dealt with local authorities and schools. And then, I was posted to establishments branch which I hated and then a curious thing, uhm, a man at the V&A Museum had retired and they wanted somebody to fill his shoes. So, I applied for that, I thought this would be very interesting. So, I applied, and I succeeded in the competition and became deputy and museum superintendent. Uhm, after about a year, the superintendent moved on and there was a competition for his job, but of course I was sitting pretty. So, I became the museum superintendent of the V&A with a flat in the museum and I brought up my family there.
AS: Oh, marvellous.
PW: [laughs] And, well about 19 [pauses] ‘48, ‘45, yes, about 1945, the, uhm, Education Department took over responsibility for the staff in all the national museums and they wanted somebody who knew about staff in museums, which I did after thirteen years, uhm, to take charge of it, so I finished up as a senior principal, uhm, and retired at fifty-eight.
AS: What age did you leave school and join the civil service?
PW: Uhm, [pauses] sixteen, seventeen.
AS: When you, uhm, went out on your three missions, uhm, and you were injured, were any of the other crew injured or?
PW: No, no. But I met the man who was skipper that night, a chap called Oscar Rees, he’d done two Bomber Command tours, a tour on Pathfinders and he got a DSO for bringing back an aircraft with everybody dead or wounded except him and he got a DFC as well and a Pathfinder badge. I met him in the ops room at Lyneham, wonderful chap called Oscar Rees and I haven’t been able to get in touch with him. Amazing.
AS: Excellent. Let me just.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Phillip Winter
Creator
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Andrew Sadler
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-18
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AWinterP160418
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Format
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00:20:01 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Philip Winter worked in the civil service before he volunteered for the Air Force. He trained as a pilot and flew three operations with 102 Squadron before he was wounded in the ankle. After recuperating he flew towing targets for air gunnery practice and transport for RAF Tempsford. After the war he worked for the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
England--Yorkshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-06
1942-12
1945-12-20
102 Squadron
4 Group
aircrew
Anson
Battle
Martinet
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Abingdon
RAF Tempsford
RAF Topcliffe
Special Operations Executive
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/560/8828/PStockerEE1601.2.jpg
dc2149cee1df664fefc275fb3f1a16c4
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/560/8828/AStockerEE161013.2.mp3
a6ef8f8aef1748927c2931c8116ebbf3
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Stocker, Ted
Edward Ernest Stocker DSO DFC
E E Stocker
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Stocker, EE
Description
An account of the resource
Three oral history interviews with Flight Lieutenant Ted Stocker DSO DFC (b. 1922, 573288 Royal Air Force). He flew 108 operations as a pilot and navigator with 7, 35, 102 and 582 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-23
2016-08-30
2016-10-13
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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DK: So, I’ll just introduce myself. Make sure this is working OK.
ES: OK?
DK: I, I — you’re sometimes beaten by the technology. So, it’s David Kavanagh inter— interviewing Flight Lieutenant Ted Stocker at his home on the 13th of October 2016. I’ll, I’ll just leave that there. If, if I keep looking down, I’m not being rude, I’m just making sure it’s, it’s going.
ES: Er, I’m one of the lucky ones I suppose. If you’ve seen how many trips I’ve done, you’ll know I’m a lucky one.
DK: No, I’ve seen the statistics and they’re terrifying. It’s — they’re covered in your book obviously. What I wanted to ask you was first of all, what were you doing immediately before the war?
ES: I was in the Air Force. I was an apprentice at RAF Halton. I joined the Air Force in 1938, January ‘38, and I — when the war started, they — it should have been a three year apprenticeship but when the war started, they cut it down. They [cough], I did two years and three months I think, so I was a bit short, but they, to make up for the shortcomings, we lost our Wednesday afternoon sports and Thursday afternoon, er, Friday afternoon, um, drill so they stopped the apprenticeship short and gave us accelerated apprenticeship, so I came out. Oh dear, I was still an apprentice — I was an apprentice when the war started because I heard Mr — I was on church parade. We were at church, um, on the 3rd of September and, um, the padre cut his sermon short to say that Chamberlain was talking on, on the BBC and we would go back early so we could actually get in the NAAFI to hear the Chamberlain broadcast. Remember, in those days there wasn’t — radios were expensive but they were all batteries and batteries cost more than you earned in a week, so that’s why we had to use the, the NAAFI to hear the broadcast. Anyway, we heard this broadcast and we’re now at war, which was very good, nice to know [cough] because — as I’d just heard that news, I walked out of the NAAFI to go back to get my irons to go to the cookhouse to get some food and, um, the war had been on for a good ten minutes, maybe a quarter of an hour, and there was a snotty little PTI corporal said, ‘You’re on a charge. You haven’t got your gas mask with you. Don’t you know there’s a war on? You’re supposed to be carrying your gas mask’. I hadn’t — there wasn’t a war on when I left the barrack room and that’s where I left my gas mask [slight laugh], so that was a good start to the war. Anyway, I carried on, er, 1940, in April, March or something, my, er, my apprenticeship was foreshortened and I was passed out as an aircraftman first class. When you’re an apprentice, you can pass out either as an AOC, which there was very few of them (I think in our entry there were two), and an AC1 which was the middle of the road and most of us did, and AC2 which was those who weren’t very bright. And there had — I had a very good posting really, I was posted to Boscombe Down. So, unlike most of the people, when they left their apprenticeship, they went to a squadron and whatever aircraft the squadron had that was the aircraft they worked on but, being lucky, and going to Boscombe I had all sorts of aeroplanes. We had the first prototype Stirling I, I worked on and we had all sorts of funny fighters we were getting. The RAF took over aircraft that the French had ordered but the Germans rather stopped the Americans delivering to them so we took over things like the Mohawk and things and, um, so I, I got into working as a fitter on all sorts of different aeroplanes and then I applied for — I went in to see the flight commander and said, ‘I’d like a pilot’s course’, and he said, ‘No, you can’t do a pilot’s course with AC1. You’ve got to be AOC before you can apply for a pilot’s course’. Anyway, I went back to work and did some — my trade test and became an AOC. I went back into the flight commander and said, ‘I’m an AOC now, can I have a pilot’s course?’ He said, ‘You’ve got to be an AOC for six months at least’. Unfortunately, five months later they made me a corporal, so now I can’t be a pilot because I’m too valuable but then the first of the four engine, as I say all those — I worked on the Stirling, the first of the four engine bombers, and, um, they came with an AMO. They wanted exceptional AOCs, corporals and sergeants and the fitters trades, fitter trades to become flight engineers because before the war, you didn’t have flight engineers because they didn’t have any four engine aircraft, apart from the Stirling, and so I thought — Stirling, Sunderland flying boat, and, um, so I thought well — I didn’t [slight laugh], I didn’t know about this AMO until the flight c—, um, the flight clerk came down — I was working on an aeroplane — with this bit of paper in his hand and said, ‘The flight commander thought you might like to read this’. It was the first, er, call for flight engineers and flight commander had his head in his hand on the right way. He thought that was the [unclear] tell about it so I went back with the flight commander, flight clerk to the flight commander and said, ‘I’d like to be a flight engineer’. Well, I got that, um, sort of got back to barracks, about — it must have been within forty-eight hours, they really were desperate, um, I was called back to the flight commander, given an hour warning, sent off to, off to — where was it in Scotland? Er, oh dear, just north of inverness, north-west from Inverness? I was off on a three week air gunner’s course. I didn’t want to be an air gunner, I wanted to be a flight engineer but, um, I did the three, this three week air gunner’s course, flying in some decrepit old airplanes, and I was then posted to 35 Squadron in Linton as a flight engineer on Halifaxes. I hadn’t done, apart from being a fitter and the three weeks’ air gunner course, I was now a flight engineer. Fortunately, at this, they got the crew but they hadn’t got the airplanes. Point of interest perhaps, my flight commander at that time was a guy called, er, Leonard Cheshire, Flight Lieutenant Leonard Cheshire was my flight commander and —
DK: What were your feelings about Cheshire as a man?
ES: Well as a man [unclear], didn’t have a great understanding of aeroplanes, little or no knowledge of engineering but, um, he had the knack of flying the aeroplane. He could fly it quite well.
DK: Did you, did you fly with him at all?
ES: Only, er, local flying from the thing.
DK: And he was a competent pilot, was he?
ES: He was a — he seemed competent but a little bit slap happy. He talked myself and several other flight engineers, who were new to the squadron, up in the Halifax on a very nasty day in Yorkshire. We sort of took off straight into a cloud and he plugged into the intercom and said, ‘Now I’m running the engines on hot air because of the — to stop them icing up. I’m now going to switch two of them off onto cold air’. Of course, within about three minutes, they’d iced up and the engines had stopped. ‘Now you see what happens when you don’t use hot air’. Yes, I know but we’re flying in cloud at about three thousand feet somewhere over the Yorkshire Moors, no real radio, or any thought. It was a bit stupid. Stating the obvious.
DK: Was he a slightly eccentric man then?
ES: No, not slightly.
DK: No. OK. Completely [laugh].
ES: He was an academic from an academic background. I think he didn’t have a very high regard for engineers or any engineer, and, er, Paddy O’Kane was his flight engineer. He was an Irishman who kept — must have let his temper well under control.
DK: Were you, were you quite pleased to get down then after that flight?
ES: Oh, I wasn’t that — it was interesting. I thought I was too young to be too worried, I just didn’t like it. It knew it wasn’t the right thing to be doing [slight laugh] and, er, I messed about on the squadron there. As I said we were very short of aeroplanes, plenty of crews, there about three flight engineers to every engine, every aeroplane. But I just went back, a lot of us went back to working on the flights as a fitter, ordinary fitter again. And, um, I went there I think Ap— March or April ‘40. It wasn’t until October that I got a crew with an aeroplane, joined a crew and started operating over Germany. I wasn’t very impressed when we did start. We were supposed to be bombing Essen at night, and we — in those days they had very little in the way of range. When they dropped the bombs, I wasn’t that impressed. I said, ‘How –?’ I looked out and I couldn’t see how the hell they knew where they were, and listening to the navigator talking to the pilot, I don’t think he had that much of an idea. It was a very hit and run, well hit and miss, mainly miss, flying in the first few months of the war or the first few months when I started flying. But I, er, what did I do? Oh yes, I know. Early on, with the flight commander, by saying, briefing us for our second trip, ‘We’re going to Nuremberg#. It was rather a long way to Nuremberg from Yorkshire, particularly when we were flying in the early Halifaxes, which did not have as many fuel tanks as the later ones and I, being a sort of awkward bloke, I knew what fuel load we’d got and I had a chat with the navigator, he was another sergeant so I could talk to him, got the air miles and the fuel load and I did some sums. We haven’t got enough money to — enough fuel to get there and back let alone have a reserve and anyway, still being young and cheeky, I said to the flight commander, ‘Sir, I don’t think we’ve got enough fuel for this trip’. To which he replied, ‘Nonsense lad. Group know what they’re doing’. Well, they didn’t. We came back and I was keeping the throttles closed as much as I could, getting the best air miles out of it. We actually could see the airfield and when we crashed, we were almost within walking distance of the airfield [slight laugh].
DK: You just literally ran out of fuel?
ES: Yeah. Well, we ran out on one — because we were low, I was running, um, each side’s engines on all the tanks in that wing and, um, two engines stopped on one side, so I went down the back and put a cross feed on, um, and so I ran four engines off an empty tank but —
DK: So was anybody hurt in the crash or —
ES: Er, no. When we were sort of getting organised I, I‘d dumped the escape hatches over myself, the pilot and myself, and I was actually on — the skipper had started to bail the crew out. There should have been only two of us left in the aeroplane at that stage but the engines finally ran out of fuel and stopped and, er, we went down, hit the ground on a rather nasty bump, bounced over one hedge and landed in the next field and —
DK: So, there was just the pilot, yourself and one other still on board?
ES: Should have been the pilot and myself but we hit the field, the ground and bounced as I said. I was amidships with the hatch open there, the skipper was in his seat but the hatch over his head was missing, so when things grew to a halt, and the engines started burning, um, we decided to leave so the skipper came up on the wing next to me. I’d got onto the wing, which was the back edge of the wing because the undercarriage was up of course (when you’ve got to crash you don’t have the wheels down) and slid off the wing. The cows in the field didn’t like the intrusion. The skipper and I were looking around to find a quick way through and while we were doing so, a voice from behind said, ‘Wait for me’. It was the, um, the air gunner. He should be the first out. Unfortunately, he’d forgotten to take his parachute down the back. He’d left the parachute amidships by the door and he was actually in the fuselage, walking up the fuselage, to get this parachute pack when we hit the ground. Anyway, he got out alright and, um, we were going, er, out of the field and eventually, er, two ambulances arrived. ‘Are you injured?’ ‘No’. ‘OK, go away. This is for injured’. The other ambulance, ‘You’re not dead? This is for bodies’. So, we were still left there by the aeroplane and eventually the CO came over in his little car. As I say, we were within sight of the airfield when we actually hit the ground and the CO had driven over in his Hillman, and he sort of had a few words with the skipper. He kept well away from me. I told him we was short of fuel and I was bloody right [laugh]. But, um, he must have borne that in mind because, having done four operations with 35, um, I’m called in and told I’m going to a new squadron, where they‘re just going to get Halifaxes to instruct the flight engineers and pilots on the Halifax. I’d done four operations and there I am, I’m an instructor on 102 Squadron and obviously the CO at that time was a squadron leader, um, he’d got the message I might know what I’m talking about and there I was, an instructor. Much later on in the war he was the fli— squadron commander of the Pathfinder Squadron, I was the engineer leader and when he wanted to fly, guess who he took as his flight engineer? But, um, anyway I went to this 102 Squadron, had two qualified flying instructors to teach the pilots and things, and I had to explain the workings of the Halifax and things to the pi— new pilots and check up on the en— blokes that were posted in as engineers. And so there I was, twenty years old, telling these people. I said, um, the flight, flight commander who was the flying instructor, like me was an apprentice from Halton, trouble is he was about six years before me [laugh]. However, he thought, he must have thought I was making a good job of it, telling these people, because he suddenly called me into his office. He said, ’What do you think about taking a commission?’ A twenty-year-old sergeant. ‘Ay?’ I said, ‘Well you, you did it. What do you think?’ And he said, ’I think you should’. So, I suddenly found myself twenty years old, commissioned and — being commissioned anyway. I wasn’t actually commissioned at that time. I was put in for it. Later, on the Pathfinders, were starting and they were asking for crews and they asked for volunteers from other squadrons. There was a, a couple of Canadians, a pilot and navigator flew together, and they thought it would be a good idea to go to Pathfinders. Their flight engineer lived locally to New York so he wasn’t keen at all so, er, Hank, the skipper that was, he came to me and said, ‘We want a flight engineer. What do you think?’ I said, ‘OK. Put me down. I’ll go with you’, so I was posted to Pathfinders on 35 Squadron and, um, I was still a sergeant. And suddenly one day, the adjutant called, er, sent for me and I go to the adjutant’s office. The adjutant was sort of absolutely horrified, ‘You’ve been commissioned’, so I was the first flight engineer, one of the first flight — batch of flight engineers to be commissioned. Mind you, I did have to go for an interview at the Air Ministry first. It was quite an interesting one because at — down at Pathfinders at Graveley, which has its own station down the road to get straight into London, about an hour, three quarters of an hour ride to London so I knew, um, when I was told about this interview at the Air Ministry, I was flying that night. So went, you know, did my trip, came back, changed, had a shower, changed into my best blue, down the station and on the train up to Air Ministry for this bloody interview. I didn’t really know what it was all about but, er, they want to see me they can see me. So, I staggered into this interview thing and lots of sen— brass there, mainly group captains or wing commanders but there wasn’t a pilot or anything amongst them. They were all engineers you see, and, um, they didn’t know really know that much about it, they’d got to interview me and that was it. I sort of staggered in and I went asleep in the waiting room outside and they woke me up to go in, and I was sort of wiping the sleeping dust from my eyes as I went in for the interview. And one of these officious men obviously, um, thought I was on, been on the booze up in London that night, ‘Where were you last night?’ I gave them the name of the target [laugh]. Oh dear, atmosphere changed [laugh]. They gave me the wrong answer to the right question and, um, after that the interview went quite well. I ended up them telling them more about what went on than they knew about. Well, so that’s OK, so I’m told I’m commissioned, I go down to London with a bit of — coupons and some money and buy myself a uniform as a pilot officer. I go back to the office, back to the squadron and I get called in again, ‘We haven’t got a, what is it? An establishment for pilot officer flight engineer, only a flight lieutenant. You’re an acting flight lieutenant’. So I went, in about a matter of weeks, I went from a scruffy sergeant to a blown-up flight lieutenant [laugh] and I’ve been all sorts of flight lieutenant ever since. That was pilot officer acting flight lieutenant, flying officer acting flight lieutenant, war [unclear] flight lieutenant, end of the war flying officer acting flight lieutenant, er, proper flight lieutenant. There you go. I’ve been promoted to flight lieutenant so bloody often that I don’t know — but, um, that’s how it goes.
DK: So, so once you’re in the Pathfinder Squadron then, what was your — what did you do there? What were the Pathfinders doing?
ES: Well, it’s, um, the first thing they said was if you go into Pathfinders instead of doing thirty operations and being rested, you’ll do sixty. That didn’t last long. They cut those down to forty-five and —
DK: How did you fell about that, having to do two tours?
ES: Not too worried. I was young and stupid. Anyway, um, having being made a flight lieutenant, I was in charge of all the flight engineers, and when my crew finished their forty-seven, forty-five, they were posted away and I stayed on as flight engineer leader, and then suddenly somebody, something clicked, ‘Oh he shouldn’t be here, he’s done it’. And, um, I did, I did a couple more afterwards with other crews that hadn’t got an engineer at the time. And, um, shows you how stupid I was, I thought I’ve never, never tried — I’d like to try a trip as, um, a gunner so I volunteered to go on a trip as a mid-upper gunner on a flight just for the heck of it and, er, they suddenly realised I shouldn’t be there and I got posted straight away to a Training — a Pathfinder Training Unit. I arrived there just as 7 Squadron had taken a beating. They’d lost a squadron commander, two flight commanders and all the leaders. They had a hell of a time and so they suddenly they needed some experienced people in the Squadron, so they came to NTU to get them and, er, so they gathered — drew a few of us together and posted us to 7 Squadron. The only thing is, I hadn’t been there very long so before I knew where I was, I was back on op— on an operational squadron, on 7 Squadron, but they’d got Lancasters and I didn’t know a bloody thing about the Lancaster. The Halifax — I’d been on propeller courses, engine courses, er, aircraft course, airplane courses, everything and they had the, the Linc— the Lincolns. The Lancaster, I didn’t know anything about really apart from they had four Merlins and they were much the same as the Merlins in the, er, Halifax except they were made in America and had a better, er, better, um, type of — better design cylinder block, didn’t get internal leaks, and, um, I thought, ‘Well I must find out something about this aeroplane’. And I was still sort of feeling my way trying to find some books and things and they suddenly said, ‘You’re on ops tonight. Oh, and you’re a bomb aimer as well’. Because on Pathfinders, on Lancs, they used their flight engineer as a bomb aimer. Well, I don’t know a thing about bomb aiming and so they gave me a quick run through on the ground on how to set the bomb sight up and they said, ‘You better try it. Have a go’. They put, they put eight practice bombs on one of the Lancs then go off to a bombing raid, do my first bombing, eight, eight training ship. Trouble is, I dropped one and then the thing didn’t turn out right, the rest wouldn’t drop, so I had dropped one practice bomb. I was a bomb aimer with one practice and I’m on ops. I dropped four — about 80,000 tons of bombs, bombs that night, just practising [laugh] and that’s how life goes on.
DK: So as, as a flight engineer then, what did you prefer the Halifax or the Lancaster, once you got to know the Lancaster?
ES: If I was going to crash, I’d rather do it in a Lanc, in a Halifax. If I was going to go to war and not get shot at, I’d go in a Lanc. The Lanc was a much less sturdy aeroplane and it had the most diabolical position to bail out from. The, the door is right in front of the tail plane. On the Halifax the escape hatch in the fuselage is on the bottom corner of the fuselage and you dive out there, and the tail plane is way over. The only thing you’ve got to worry about is hitting the tail wheel. But, um, so if I had to bail out, I’d rather bail out of a Halifax and, um, I think I’d rather crash in a Halifax. It’s a much sturdier aeroplane, much — old fashioned pre-war des— design. The Lanc was a, a lash-up, um, it would never, it would never have flown, been allowed before the war because, um, aeroplanes had to fit in a hundred foot hangar. Well, the Manchester, which was the forerunner of the Lanc would go in a Halifax, in a hundred foot hangar, but when they took the Eag— Rolls Royce Eagles out and put a Merlin there, and then a bit of wing with another Merlin, that put an extra bit of wing on and the thing wouldn’t go in the hangar. So, it would, it would never have been allowed pre-war. But it, it gave an extra form of — the later Hali 3, they did have extended wing tips, they extended the wing on the Hali 3s which was a good solid aeroplane. I would like to have seen a Hali 3 with four Merlins, um, I think it would probably have been as good as the Lanc, but it didn’t —because it was built like — I was going to say a brick shit house [laugh]. As it was very well built, it didn’t have the same bomb carrying cap— capabilities and it didn’t have a bomb door, a bomb bay. The Lanc had this enormous long bomb bay which the Americans, the Americans saw that bomb bay and said, ‘Good God’, and so, um, you could you could carry a eight thousand pounder in a Halifax, which was two fours joined together, but it wouldn’t take any of the big things and it was very narrow and it had these extra bomb, er, bomb bays in the inner wing too. It wasn’t as well designed as the Lanc was. The Lanc wasn’t designed that way. It was a bit like Topsy. That was the way it grew. Yeah, I tried them both.
DK: As a flight engineer though, and purely as your role as a flight engineer, you preferred the Lancaster?
ES: Well on the Halifax, you had a much better instrument panel, you could see what’s going on, but you had a very complex fuel system. You started out with four tanks on the Hali 1s, early Hali 1As, that soon went to —from four tanks to — it went up again, and I think we ended up with 7 or 8 tanks in each wing and all little bits where they squeezed a bit in, um, which gave a very complex fuel system. To keep the CG right you had to keep messing about. I say the nose tank, number 2, which was on the leading edge of the wing, er, you couldn’t use that for landing or take off because of the change, sudden changes of altitude. So, the Halifax, you had — needed an engineer or somebody who knew what they were doing to manage the fuel system. The Lancs, with four bloody great tanks, you didn’t. Basically, you didn’t need a flight engineer on a Halifax, it was just another pair of hands, another pair of eyes and somebody else to keep an eye on the gauges —
DK: On the Lancaster, on the Lancaster, you didn’t need a flight engineer?
ES: No, but you did need somebody in the right hand seat.
DK: Right. OK. Yeah.
ES: And the flight engineer was cheaper than a, a co-pilot, a pilot, that’s really what it was, they were a cheap pilot substitute in a way.
DK: On the Lancaster so you didn’t need, really need a flight engineer on the Lancaster?
ES: Not as an engineer. I’ll tell you, the fuel cogs were two little handles but they had very big tanks. The Lanc, the Lanc, the original design of the Lanc was based on the premise that you would have sealed wings and there’d be a filler cap in the wing and you filled the wing up. But that meant that — that was fine until they said all tanks have got to be self-sealing, and you can’t put self-sealing on the outside of the tanks and that’s why they ended up putting little tanks in. But um, it’s a matter of history there. The Lanc arrived just at the right time. The Halifax was before its time and was outdated as soon as it arrived really but it was better than a Stirling.
DK: Yes. Did you fly ever on the Stirling or —
ES: Yes, I had, down at Boscombe.
DK: Not operationally though?
ES: No.
DK: No, no. So can you say a little about what the Pathfinders actually did and their, their role that was different to —
ES: Oh, quite different, um, initially it was a matter of, er, developing the technique. Don Bennett developed the tech— developed the, or developed the technique, I say, initially on Pathfinders, it was a matter — we had people going at H – 4 and dropping flares like mad and then other people following on trying to find the target. Later on, it got much more sophisticated. You still had the supporters and the important people in the H – 4. Supporters were supplied by the squadrons from the new boys in Pathfinders, this was in the opening stages. The crew in Pathfinders, first thing flying as a supporter, going in as H – 4 and, um, then later on getting promoted to being a flare dropper, still going in early, er, usually several rows of flare droppers, H – 4 and H – 2, and then you had the king-pins dropping the target markers, er, target indicators, from — with the light of the flares of the others and then once the master had put, um, put his marker on the target the supporters came along to keep it going. Basically, that’s all there was to it really, but it got a bit more sophisticated.
DK: Did you actually meet Don Bennett at this time?
ES: Oh yes. I knew, I met him.
DK: What did you think of, of Don Bennett?
ES: I — he didn’t need any crew. He knew it all. No, I was a great admirer of Don Bennett.
DK: You actually flew with him, did you?
ES: Yes, I did some — the first time we had a Hali 3 deli— delivered to, um, Graveley as a possible aircraft for Pathfinder Group because at that, at that stage we had Hali 2s, Lancs, Wellingtons, er, all in different squadrons. And Don wanted — was trying to get all his aircraft —
DK: Standardised —
ES: Same aircraft right through the Group, um, but anyway a Hali 3 had been sent to Bos— to Graveley for him to have a try. Well, he’d flown the Hali 2s and 1s, he was an experienced Halifax pilot but there was this Hali 3 he had been sent to try, so just he and I got into the aeroplane, nobody else, and he tried to fly the Hali 3. Well compared to the Hali 1s and 2s with four Merlins, four Hercules were a whole different proposition and one of the flight engineers’ job is following the pilot, as he opens the throttle, keep your hands behind so as if he moves his hands, the throttles won’t go back. And unfortunately, we were on the end of the runway, two of us in the aeroplane, not big fuel, no great fuel load, and he’s sort of half way up and I was following, and suddenly we were airborne. Now that was quite a different experience. Anyway completely opened the throttles, I held them and locked them open or locked them and that was his first experience of the Hali 3 and mine [laugh] but only the two of us in there anyway.
DK: But presumably, he then made the decision not the Hali 3, but go for the Lancaster then, did he?
ES: He flew the Hali 3 and he flew the Lanc.
DK: And he decided on the Lancaster then.
ES: Yeah, he was also — there was some talk of a teed-up Wellington with a pressure cabin.
DK: Oh right.
ES: It was only — I don’t think we even had one with us, I knew it existed and I’d seen pictures of it. They actually put a pressure cabin inside, inside the Wellington. It was quite a high-altitude aeroplane. I think they used it for high altitude research afterwards. Yes, so Don knew what he was doing and wasn’t wor— never worried, it was fine with him. A man than can take a tuner off, the control locks on, flies around Hamburg and land the bloody thing with the stick stuck.
DK: That’s what he did? The control lock was still on?
ES: Yeah.
DK: And he flew to Hamburg and back?
ES: No, he flew, took off from Hamburg. He should have been going to Berlin but he turned round, went round the airfield, and got it back down on the ground again, took off the control locks and flew to berlin on the Berlin shuttle.
DK: On the Berlin airlift.
ES: Yeah.
DK: On the Berlin airlift, yeah.
ES: Yeah. Oh, he knew what he was doing.
DK: So how many operations did you actually fly altogether then?
ES: Hundred and eight. Forty-seven on Wellingtons, on Halifaxes and sixty-one on Lancs. I know they say it isn’t allowed, you shouldn’t last that long. I hadn’t read the statistics [laugh].
DK: Well, if you didn’t know the statistics.
ES: It only happened by chance really. I did my forty-seven on Halifaxes and I was sent to NTU. 7 Squadron had a chop and NTU were asked to supply replacements. I was there, I was one of the replacements. They wanted a replacement, you know, they’d lost a lot of their top end. They wanted experienced people and I — so I was off operations for a few weeks and I was back on the Lancs, um, once I’d got through the — with first with 7 and then, um, 582 was formed, one flight from 7 Squadron and one flight from 156. I went there and, um, I just soldiered on. I was sort of a decoration round the place, I think I was a bit of a show piece. You know, a funny thing, when I did my hundredth operation, I was keeping quiet, I wasn’t making any fuss about it. But I used to help, deal with the crew list for the CO, and there was a young lad coming through as a skipper. He was a bit of a nervous type, he was worried because he was going to do his thirteenth trip. I thought, what the hell, I put myself down as his flight engineer. He came back and, um, we landed back at base and he said, ‘Ah that’s good, I’ve made my — done my thirteenth’, I said, ‘Well done. I’ve done my hundredth’ [laugh].
DK: And that was the first he knew?
ES: That was the first he knew. Nobody had reached three figures before. We’d lost two people at ninety-eight. We never lost one at ninety-nine but we did lose two at ninety-eight.
DK: Was there any recognition for the hundredth operation at all from the squadron or —
ES: Not from the squadron but I think there’s mention, um, in my DSO. I went over my hundredth anyway but, um, that’s really all there was. I got my DSO, I think I was the only flight engineer I think that did.
DK: How do you feel now looking back on that period [unclear] operations?
ES: I was lucky. I don’t know. It was my job. I was in the Air Force for a job and it was part of the job, sort of.
DK: And now if we move to the post war period. I was reading that you went to South America?
ES: Oh, I did the South American trip with Harris, yes.
DK: What was, what was Harris like?
ES: Well, he knew who I was when we got there [laugh]. But it was quite a crazy thing, we didn’t see much of him really. He was the top brass and we were the, we were the tail end. Funny thing is, when we first flew over, we went down to Gambia, went across to Recife, just by the mouth of the Amazon and, um, we had — Harris himself and his, his PA had been in America with the RAF during the war and they had the correct drill for America. They had long — they were in khaki but they had long trousers. We were issued with khaki appropriate to, er, West Africa but we had shorts. Oh dear, when we landed in Brazil, what a kerfuffle, ‘[unclear] get those men back in the aeroplane out of sight’. Anyway, we were pu— pushed back in the aeroplane and, um, the top brass, me, Harris and his little entourage and they were marched off to a decent hotel, and somebody came out to us, ‘Put your trousers on’, and we were allowed to go and get a meal as well [laugh]. It was ridiculous. We didn’t know what was going on.
DK: So, it, so it was three Lancasters you took to Brazil then?
ES: Yeah.
DK: Yeah. And how did they perform going across the —
ES: Oh, no problems there. Um, the fuel was — you had to watch the fuel. We weren’t over dressed for it. We didn’t have long range tanks or anything which are available, were avail— or eventually became available for the Lancs, but there was no problem.
DK: So, what was the purpose of the visit then? Was it just an invite for Harris by the Brazilians?.
ES: Brazil was our allies. They had a division fighting in Italy and we were there. We —the division for me — because Brazil did not declare war on Japan, er, mainly because they had too large a Japanese population. The only thing that the Brazilians did about the Japanese is they all had to live at least a hundred kilometres from the coast. That was the Brazilian, um, result of Japan entering the war, um, and their Army only fought in Europe with the American 5th Army and they came back. We were there when they came back. We were flying over them as they went down the main street in Rio, we were over— overhead.
DK: Oh, I see, so it was a kind of com— celebration for the return of their army, in effect?
ES: Er, you mentioned the three Lancs. Well, when we turned round to come back, one of them had engine trouble. It wasn’t my aircraft but of the flight engineers, I was the only one that could change an engine or knew anything about it so I ended up staying behind waiting for the new engine. And the Brazilians were very good, they gave us a lot of coffee beans and they were tied up in the bomb bay and the aeroplane was flown by the 617 Squadron crew, and 617 Squadron took off from the airport at Brazil, at, er, Rio, which is six hours from the, er, air— from the promenade. Um, being 617 Squadron, they didn’t have bomb bays. They weren’t used to bomb, bomb doors so they took off with the bomb doors open (because you always park with the bomb doors open), so they took off with them open and some of us left behind saw them turn out over the harbour and watched our coffee beans descend into the harbour.
DK: Oh no.
ES: One, er, bag didn’t detach and when we got back instead of getting a whole bag of coffee beans which were of course rationed around, almost unavailable in England, we had a two-pound bag of them. But anyway, yeah.
DK: So, after that, is this when you then went for pilot training?
ES: Not immediately, no. I went — I did an engineering officers course, um, I was already, although I was a fitter and a qualified fitter, um, I went on to — down to St Athan, I think for four months, an accelerated engineering officer’s course, filling in the gaps between what I’d been through, what I knew as an apprentice, what I knew as a flight engineer, just filling in the gaps. I come out as a fully trained flight engineering officer which was quite useful in the end. But I went back to the Squadron and I was then on 20, on 24 Squadron, the VIP Squadron, flying Lancastrians, er, VIPs around the place. I managed to save the life of myself, Sir Robert Watson Watts and Ralph Cochrane all in one go. I — if they’d gone down and I’d been with them. We had Lancasters, Lancastrians sorry, but they had a belly tank to increase the range, because the Lanc couldn’t fly the Atlantic, so the Lancastrian couldn’t unless they put long range tanks in the bomb bay. Since it was a [unclear] thing, it wasn’t a proper — it wasn’t a well thought out plan. The filling was, um, on the side of the bomb bay with the — the flight engineer had an extension which you undid a hatch on the bomb bay, took the cap off the, er, tank, put this extension on and then you could fill the fuel up, fill the long range tank up. Good idea. Well, on going to America we were carrying two flight engineers, so I was filling the port wing and the other guy was filling the starboard wing, and I filled my wing and I look down and this bloke who was filing the bomb bay, belly tank seemed to be having a lot of trouble, seemed to be stopping and starting and whatever. So, I went down to see what, you know, the problem was. We were out in the Azores and I don’t speak Portuguese so I was chattering away, took the thing out. No wonder he was having trouble. What was he putting in the tank? Engine oil.
DK: Oh dear.
ES: I had a quick thought, er, I could see us, another one in the Bermuda Triangle. We’d have been somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle when I switched over to that tank. We wouldn’t have gone much further. Anyway, I got him out of the way, and I go the crew and anyone standing around. I got a pan out from the side of the airfield and pushed the thing back and got the wheel, the bit, the tail wheel and a bit more of the fuselage over the grass, got my tool box out [slight laugh], undid the, this false bomb door that we had, it was only two sheets of metal, opened that up. I could then get to the Pulsometer pump, which was used to transfer the, er, petrol as it should have been to the wing. But fortunately, it wasn’t switched on I don’t think. I quickly disconnected it actually in case anybody did switch it on and, um, took the Pulsometer pump off and, er, of course all the oil flowed out, straight onto the grass, er, put the thing back on again, got the fella with the petrol bowser and put a couple of hundred gallons in the tank. I’m not paying [laugh].
DK: It makes you wonder if that happened in the past if —
ES: Oh yes. I think that’s what happened with MacMillan in the Star Tiger. A very similar installation on the, on the Tudor. The Tudor had the tank in the same position.
DK: Because several went missing, didn’t they?
ES: Yeah, well if you put oil in the bloody thing. The Portuguese people, they come out with the tanker and you can’t see what’s in the tanker. But, um, anyway I did, er, swirled this thing out, pumped this fuel, fuel oil mixture out with the Pulsometer pump, got a bucket with, um, pure petrol in, stripped the Pulsometer pump out down to its essential bits, washed out the inside, swirled it round and, um, pumped some, put some more petrol in the tank, swirled it round and hoped for the best, put the Pulsometer pump on and we got to Washington DC on that fuel. Otherwise, there’d be no me, no Sir Robert Watson Watt, no Sir Ralph Cochrane or anybody but, um, that’s what flight engineers are for, aren’t they?
DK: Exactly. I guess they, they never knew. Never knew how close to disaster they came.
ES: No, they were too busy scoffing. We didn’t get a meal, the other engineers and I didn’t get anything to eat at all until the other — Washington, actually Indianapolis. We didn’t stop long in Washington, then we went on to Indianapolis. It’s all a story.
DK: So, it was then soon after that you took the pilot training then, was it?
ES: Yes, ‘47 or, ‘47 I think I took the pilot training.
DK: And ended up on the Neptunes?
ES: No, I ended up on Lancasters.
DK: Oh right. OK.
ES: At first. As soon as I took the pilots course, I thought, ‘What’s going to happen now?’ Well, I’d been on Transport Command, been on Bomber Command. Oh, put him on Coastal Command. And what do they give him to fly? A Lancaster. And, um, I was flight commander on 217 Squadron and I was off to the States [slight laugh].
DK: And so how did it feel now you were a pilot of a Lancaster, after so many operations as a flight engineer?
ES: It seemed quite natural, though I must admit, when I first went as a pilot for the conversion course, as a pilot up to Kinloss, I had the first instruction for pilot. I’ll teach him all about the Lanc. He can teach me all about the Lanc [laugh], He knew who I was and I knew who he was [laugh].
DK: He couldn’t teach you much then?
ES: Eh?
DK: He couldn’t teach you much?
ES: Well, he didn’t bother. I sat there and listened to it all. You got to show willing and, er, that’s how it went
DK: So, once you converted to the Neptunes then, what were they like?
ES: A dream, a dream. You could do anything with them. They had these spoilers in the wing. When you put the spoilers on, when you put thing on, it went vroom. Of course, when we first got the Neptunes, all the top people wanted to fly them so we had a, a group of MPs come up to Kinloss to see us and find out all about these new aeroplanes. We didn’t, they were not our aeroplanes, the Neptunes, the RAF never owned any Neptunes. They were only on loan waiting, because the Sund— the Shackletons were late on delivery and these were taken as, in a sort of stop gap until we got — Avro got their finger out, started producing Shackletons. I quite enjoyed flying the Neptune. Nicest aeroplane I’d ever flown.
DK: Did you get to fly the Shackleton then, eventually?
ES: No. It was just a heavy Lancaster. The Neptune was a whole different ball game, you could do things with that.
DK: Do you think the Nim— Shack— Neptune should have been used instead of the Shackleton then?
ES: It was — the Neptunes were loaned, loan to us until we could get enough Shackletons delivered. They were only on loan. They went back to the States and went on loan to somebody else no doubt. Other — the Aussies they picked up two Shackletons, two Neptunes at the same time. They weren’t bare backed robbers but they bought theirs.
DK: Do you think we should have bought the Neptune then?
ES: I think they were better. I think it would have been a better deal than the Shackleton ever was. To give you an example, er, Churchill was coming back from America on one of the Queens, and the idea was that the RAF should go out to the mid-Atlantic and beyond to welcome him, and this was the plan and I was sitting in the mess having breakfast and saw the Shackleton taking off to meet Winny. Then I finished my breakfast, went down to flight, did my briefing, got into the aeroplane, flew off and once we got the Queen on radar I, we homed in over the Queen and then I looked on the radar and, oh yes, there’s a Shackleton coming in. We’d guide him in to —
DK: Because they were so much slower.
ES: Slower? They didn’t — they only had one speed. You see, we used to transit at ten thousand feet which gives you a much better air speed, but they did everything at about two thousand, the Shackleton, which gives us about a hundred miles an hour advantage at ten thousand. And, um, so anyway we guided them and we had a fly round the Queen and, um, Churchill could see them and then it was time for them to go. So, they went off there. We watched them go and a little bit later, we flew off and I was back in the mess when the Shackletons landed [laugh]. That’s the difference you see. They were no faster on attack really. I was going to tell you, when we first got the Neptune, a group MPs came up to have a look at it. My squadron commander, he was a hard drinking man, so we, after they arrived so I left, er, I had a dinner with them, and spoke to them and that and left the squadron commander to take care of them. He was quite happy drinking all night. Oh, that car’s — the car’s just driven two houses up and stopped there. Never mind, it’s not in your way. But anyway, they had there thing in the mess and the next morning they were going for a flight. Well, one of the things the Neptune could do which the Shackleton never got round to doing, was rocket attacks, [unclear] sixteen rockets, sort of equivalent of two, um, salvos from a cruiser and for a rocket attack on an aircraft, ship or submarine, your flying indicators about twelve hundred feet, and you put the nose down to about seventy degrees, take aim, fire the rockets. They were very, very accurate too. I say, to practice we had old wrecks of cars out on the range. You expect to hit a car with a rocket. It’s not that big a target but you hit a car with a rocket, a ship will be a big problem because of course the salvos, that car doesn’t fire back at you, but, um, we’d got two 20 mm cannons and a nose sight and they can do some damage. Anyway, so I take these MPs up and they’d had a good night out the night before [laugh], and I was flying at a thousand feet and we’re going into attack, vroom, MPs on the ceiling [laugh] and we go in and attack, fire the rocket, horrible. You got to have fun, you got to have your fun somehow.
DK: Were the MPs impressed by that?
ES: I don’t know [laugh]. They were quite quiet when we came back [laugh].
DK: I can imagine.
ES: Not used to big aeroplanes. They liked fighters. But I had fun.
DK: So, when did you actually leave the RAF then? What year would that have been?
ES: Oh dear. Oh, I just managed to — it was Army, aft— after, um, flight commander at 617. I spent some time doing my stint as a ground eng— ground fitter, a ground officer. I was quite lucky. I got rather a cushy number for my two years. I was posted out to Germany as adjutant with an AOP Squadron with Austers, and, um, it was when I finished my, just finishing my two years out there when the Army MO called me in for the annual medical, and he said, ‘You’re too deaf to fly’, And that was it. Oh yes, a bloody Army bloke, a Pongo got me out. Actually, he didn’t get me out, he said, ‘You’re unfit to fly’. The Air Force said, ‘You can stay in in your current rank until you reach retirement age’. Well, I was thirty-five, I didn’t want to do another twenty bloody years doing bugger all, nothing interesting, so I elected to take an early retirement. Been drawing a pension ever since. I’ve been drawing my RAF pension, this is the first month of my sixty-first year of drawing a pension.
DK: Excellent. Well, I think on that note we’ll —
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Interview with Ted Stocker. Three
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David Kavanagh
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2016-10-13
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Sound
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AStockerEE161013, PStockerEE1601
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Pending review
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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01:11:31 audio recording
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Ted joined the air force in January 1938 as an apprentice at RAF Halton. This was accelerated because of the war, and he was posted to RAF Boscombe Down.
Although he wanted to be a pilot, Ted’s skills were needed as a flight engineer. He was posted to 35 Squadron at Linton-on-Ouse in 1940 where he encountered Flight Lieutenant Leonard Cheshire. Later that year, Ted found a crew and aircraft and started operations over Germany. After only four operations, he went to instruct pilots and flight engineers on Halifaxes at 102 Squadron.
Ted was posted to Pathfinders 35 Squadron and was the first flight engineer to be commissioned. After 47 operations, he volunteered and was sent for training as a mid-upper gunner to a Pathfinder Training Unit and 7 Squadron, who needed experienced people. He had to learn about Lancasters, which he compares in some detail to Halifaxes.
Ted outlines the work of the Pathfinders and how the system became more sophisticated. He encountered Donald Bennett and once flew with him, as well as flying with Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris to Brazil.
Ted flew 108 operations (47 on Halifaxes and 61 on Lancasters). He was awarded a Distinguished Service Order.
Ted did an engineering officers’ course at RAF St Athan, followed by 24 Squadron, a VIP transport squadron, flying Lancastrians.
After pilot training in 1947, Ted was flight commander on 217 squadron. He flew Neptunes, which he compares favourably to Shackletons. Ted was then posted to Germany for two years as adjutant with an Air Observation Post squadron and flew Austers. He left the RAF because of impaired hearing.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1938
1940
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sally Coulter
Vivienne Tincombe
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Germany
102 Squadron
35 Squadron
582 Squadron
7 Squadron
aircrew
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
crash
Distinguished Service Order
fitter engine
flight engineer
fuelling
ground crew
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Lancaster
Lancastrian
military service conditions
Pathfinders
promotion
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Halton
RAF Linton on Ouse
Shackleton
Stirling
Wellington
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/560/8827/AStockerE150726.2.mp3
7e15241140da7cda2f348cf1f0899645
Dublin Core
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Title
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Stocker, Ted
Edward Ernest Stocker DSO DFC
E E Stocker
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Stocker, EE
Description
An account of the resource
Three oral history interviews with Flight Lieutenant Ted Stocker DSO DFC (b. 1922, 573288 Royal Air Force). He flew 108 operations as a pilot and navigator with 7, 35, 102 and 582 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
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2015-09-23
2016-08-30
2016-10-13
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AP: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Andrew Panton, the interviewee is Edward Stocker. The interview is taking place at Mr Stocker’s home in Clanfield, Hampshire on the 26th of July 2015.
ES: My name is Edward Ernest Stocker but I’d be glad it if you called me Ted Stocker. I was born in August 1922 and I joined the Air Force at the age of fifteen in January 1938. I became — I went to Halton, became one of the Trenchard brats, er, and from there on, I was in the Air Force and life took its natural course with the war on. I started out as a flight engineer on Halifaxes. The Halifax really did need a flight engineer because the aircraft was originally designed to bomb Germany from advance bases in France. The idea before — early on in operations we bomb — although you got our bombs in England then flew to France, refuelled so that we could reach Germany but, of course, when a little thing like Dunkirk arrived, it was no longer feasible, so they modified the aircraft, added extra fuel tanks. Eventually we had four fuel tanks in the Halifax. They kept adding, squeezing little tanks in all over the place and at the end of the time we had seven tanks on each side, and the management of those fuel tanks, to keep the centre of gravity where it belonged, and to ensure that we didn’t run out of fuel at an inappropriate moment, kept the flight engineer extremely busy. That was great, um, but that’s how the Halifax developed and that’s how the duties of the flight engineer developed, very much looking at fuel and obviously watching the engine instruments, looking for any unfortunate things. The Halifax had very early Merlins, Merlin engines, which was subject to internal, um, coolant leaks which, er, often resulted in having to switch the engine off. This again was a duty of the flight engineer to watch for this. When we changed over to the Lancasters only — I did forty-seven trips on Lanc— on Halifaxes — when we changed over to the Lancaster it was a whole different ball game. Now we had only, um, four main tanks, er, two in each wing and a little tank. Fuel management was simple and straightforward. The engines were Packard built Merlins which were not so — they had a, a revised design of the engine cylinder block which, um, reduced the chance of internal, um, coolital leaks so we didn’t have the trouble with engine overheating or having to shut the engine down. The Lancaster was a whole better ball game but, um, so much so that on the Lancaster really the, the flight engineer was not fully occupied, was partly acting as a cheap co-pilot. Remember it takes a lot of time and money to train a co-pilot. You can get a flight engineer for a much lower price. Put him in the right hand seat, he can act as co-pilot anyway and that’s really how the flight engineer’s role was developed.
AP: Right.
ES: But when you get on to the Lancasters, where there isn’t the problem for the engines that we had on the Halifax, the flight engineer was not as fully occupied, and Don Bennett, the chief of Pathfinders, Air Vice Marshall DCD Bennett, er, said that, um, he wanted two navigators on the nav table and the flight engineer he, he can soon learn to drop the bombs, and so, on Pathfinders, the flight engineer ended up very much as being both the flight engineer and co-pilot and bomb aimer, all wrapped into one, but there was duties spread through the flight. That made the flight engineer’s job much more interesting, dropping – aiming bombs particularly when you got onto flying with master bombers where you’re putting the markers down. It was a much more interesting job than it — as it had been originally on Lancasters.
AP: So can we talk a little bit about the actual Pathfinding Squadron and what they did?
ES: Pathfinders was developed, I was — I didn’t — I joined Pathfinders the month they started. I didn’t do the first Pathfinder raid but I did do the second Pathfinder raid and I stayed on Pathfinders until the end of the war and I saw the developments as they were — happened. As I say, one of the early ones was getting H2S radar so we had a decent radar picture. The Morton thing — the techniques developed, we ended up basically with, er, three basic types. There was visual mark— visual marking where everything was done by looking at the ground aided by the radar, of course, which was the, the straightforward one. Then, of course, we had the problem with cloud cover and they developed a radio which was led by radar, particularly when we got Oboe. When Oboe came in, so strange. Oboe markers can be put down from the UK very, very accurately, and, um, we — when outside radar range, we had to develop radar assisted bombing which was bombing through cloud, um, which worked to a point. But the worst — the trickiest one was when you had very high cloud, no chance of seeing the ground at all, and we — you, you see sky markers which were, um, flares which burst at a ver— very high altitude and gave a false aiming point. Obviously, if you’re aiming for something in the clouds, on top of the clouds, the bomb doesn’t know it and wants to go underneath and goes through the marker and carries on forward, so the sky markers, as they were called, were very tricky for the main force to use because they were aiming at something, and their bombs were going to hit something else. But, um, they were the three basic types. There were various variations on those three but basically, you’ve got the visual marking, you’ve got radar assisted marking and you had sky marking, they were the three basic types.
AP: Could you talk a little about H2S and Oboe, what they are?
ES: Oh, H2S was the — if you look at a picture of the Lanc, you’ll see a bowl, a bulge underneath that, um, concealed it. Made of material which is very — does not interfere with the radar, a fibreglass substance, and inside that is the scanner going round, painting a picture on the cathode ray tube of what it can see underneath. It’s a very crude form of television really, it shows the sea and the land as separate colours. It shows built up areas where you’ve got a lot of windows and things, windows and, um, roofs and the slo— sloping of the roofs deflects the radar, and that gives a different sort of picture. But that was the H2S which we — but we were very lucky. We were one of the first. The Pathfinders had H2S before it was in general use. The other one I mentioned was Oboe. Oboe is — was originally used for Mosquitos because it depends on line of sight from the UK and involves the development of the system that the Germans had used to bomb Coventry, where you had radio beams. It was the British development that was more accurate and involved the bombs actually being released automatically by the Oboe system. The, the pilot flew down one radio beam and when it crossed the other beam, er, the bombs were released automatically. It was extremely accurate, we’re talking sort of a hundred metres radius. It was very very good. But unfortunately, the range was limited by the line of sight but the Mosquito was — because it was able to fly higher than the Lancs ever could, could take the Oboe bombing further into the mainland of Germany, of France anyway. After D-Day, they put mobile Oboe stations on the continent and Oboe was able — the range was able to move forward. We did have Oboe in a Lanc on 582 Squadron, and I went on the first Lancaster Oboe raid with Group Captain Grant, who was squadron commander of 109 Squadron, the Oboe Squadron, and we did the first Oboe raid over France from the Lancaster. I must admit I did not enjoy it because having put Oboe into the thing, the pilot and the rad — Oboe operator had to have their own intercom system but nobody else could use it. So, about a few minutes from the target or something, six or seven minutes from target, the rest of the crew were off the — off intercom and, er, you just flew straight and level to the target, fighters coming in, AK-AK, so what? You couldn’t tell anybody [slight laugh]. That was the bit about Oboe I didn’t like on Lancasters but it worked. Fortunately, I did the first one to prove it that it could and after that I let somebody else have a go.
AP: Right, and this was just marking. You weren’t dropping any bombs at this stage?
ES: No, we were the dropping markers, the target indicators. The target indicators — I should have explained. The target indicators were a giant firework. You had a — the shell of a one thousand pound bomb. Inside it were little can—little canisters which were ignited when the bomb burst, and they put down coloured candles. They burst normally at about three thousand feet over the target so there was a cascade of coloured, er, candles falling from the bomb over, over the target area, hopefully over the target itself. This gave the main force an aiming point, something to aim at, a coloured cluster of fireworks. Well, if they were put down by Oboe, initially they were in one colour, um, to keep the marking going — because Oboe could only fly — operate one aircraft at a time over the target we were main — on Pathfinders came over with different colour markers and tried to aim at the original aiming point to keep the markers alive for the rest of the raid. Remember, some of the raids took twenty or thirty minutes. The Pathfinder’s job, when there was an Oboe raid, was to keep the initial marking going on the same aiming point.
AP: Was there a particular colours? Did they use particular colours?
ES: Oh yes. The primary — usually the main colour was red, the primary marker, so that the master bomber can say, ‘bomb the red Tis’. When we were backing up, we were usually backing up with green. Yellow was used for some things, because we also used markers on turning points on the raid on the way in. When you’re going into a target, you don’t go straight in because the Germans can see which way you’re aiming, you do a dog-leg or something. Well to mark a turning point, we used markers dropped by Pathfinders on the turning point. They were usually yellow or something, not, not reds, and that was basically the TIs, we called them TIs, target indicators, they were just giant fireworks but, er, they seemed to work and they were visible from a long way away.
AP: And while you’re doing this, you’ve got AK-AK and night fighters and all sorts of things.
ES: Well, they do, they do try and distract you a little [slight laugh]. The gunners are on, on the ball the whole time, swinging their turrets and watching for everything, providing the fighters are seen and are not too close before you see them. Then the thing you do is an escape manoeuvre. Corkscrew was the usual standard procedure. If you’ve got a fighter high on the port sight, you corkscrewed port down. If they were up on starboard side, you corkscrewed starboard down. If they were low down, you still did a corkscrew. The corkscrew is just — you are following the path of the corkscrew which keeps the gunner, the enemy, sharp, on a constant, er, deflection shot and, er, what you’re trying to do really is to spoil his deflection shot. The deflection is changing the whole time when you’re doing a corkscrew, hopefully that makes him miss. AK-AK, well it comes and goes. If it’s close, you can sometimes hear it rattling on the fuselage. The Halifax had — the propeller blade on the Halifax was made of a wooden material, it was laminated wood blades to the props, although the bases were all metal. We did get jumped by a fighter somewhere and, er, his cannon shells came through just a bit to the right and they actually hit the starboard inner prop, and they hit a blade and that blade broke. That of course, created a, a terrible out of balance. The thing was shaking like hell. No good looking at the instruments and I had an interesting exercise. Well, we’ve been hit. Obviously one engine was in trouble, we’re shaking like hell, my instrument panel was shaking like hell and there’s no good looking at the instruments, a waste of time. So I went up — I went to stand beside the pilot and I put the two propellers on the port side up and down to change the pitch, and it didn’t seem to affect the balance, so left those, and so I went to the right hand side and I changed the pitch on the two right hand engines, until I found the one that was changing the frequency of the vibrations, then I knew which button to press to stop the engine. But that’s the sort of thing you had to do, sort of think, think on the hoof, what do you do next?
AP: Yes. Did you lose any engines at all?
ES: On Halifaxes, you lost engines regularly. I think I almost came back on three engines more often than I came back on four on Halifaxes. I think on Lancs, I only remember losing an engine on a Lanc once, but the Halifax yes, because of this internal coolant leak, we did lose a lot of engines. Sometimes you didn’t really know whether it was a serious leak or not, um, because the added problem on the Halifax was the oil cooler was very large in relation to the amount of oil. It’s a circular oil cooler, if you can imagine like a drum, and the oil came in on the top on one side and the deflection of the oil was supposed to go round the bottom and out on the other side, which it did normally, unless it got, got a little bit cold and then the oil would go in on one side and the, the oil in the middle had got so cold it wasn’t flowing properly, so the oil went in on one side, on the outside and went round on the outside and came out again on the — still at the same temperature it went in at. That resulted in a thing called the oil cooler was coring, it was getting a hard core in the middle. If you did get that, and you did occasionally, if you recognised it, you shut that engine down a moment, which gave the time for the oil temperature in the oil coolant to stabilise and then you could — hope there wasn’t an oil leak, start the engine up again and if it ran OK, fine, you’re that done and happy again. Little things like that. The Halifax was the trickier aeroplane from the engineer’s point of view. You had to be on the ball. You asked about how many raids I did, well I did forty-seven on Halifaxes and then I — that is because on Pathfinders, er, you didn’t do a single raid you did a double raid of forty-five. Well, being me of course, I did a couple extra. But, um, my whole career really, basically, goes back to my second trip. The first trip I did was in a Halifax to Essen, which was a good starting point, you know, they don’t come much tougher and, um, that was OK, except I came back with the view that, ‘How the hell did he know we’d bombed Essen’. But that was because early on in the war, finding a target was a hell of a hit and miss affair. But anyway, for the next trip I was put on a raid to go to Nuremberg in a Halifax, which at that time, we’d only got five tanks, and I got together with the navigator and said, ‘How many air miles are we doing?’ Because when you start thinking about fuel consumption in an aeroplane, well the fuel consumption depends on which way you’re flying. If you’re going downwind, you go a lot further than you go upwind, so work on air miles and that’s the number of miles you go through the air. Anyway, the navigator gave me the air miles and I looked at the fuel load, and said, ‘It ain’t enough’. And so, being a cheeky eighteen or nineteen year old flight engineer, freshly promoted from corporal to sergeant, I went up to the squadron commander, the squadron leader in those days, and said, ‘Sir, I don’t think we’ve got enough fuel for this trip’. To which he replied, ‘Nonsense lad. Group know what they’re doing’. Silly lad, he’d believed anything. But anyway, we were a little short on fuel. In fact, we crashed nearer to base than anybody else in the squadron. We actually, er, ran out of fuel about three or four miles short of the airfield and came down in an untidy heap. I had given an ETA, estimated time of arrival, of no fuel and the navigator had given an ETA of when we should be at base. Well, the navigator had us at base about five, four or five minutes before I’d said we’d run out of fuel. It was a little matter of errors. I was right, we did run out of fuel when I said, but we hadn’t reached base. It was just down there ahead of us and, um, when they — I said we were going to run out two engines on one side stopped, one side had stopped developing any power, so I went down the back and put on a cross feed pipe, which put the empty tank that was running the two port engines to supply fuel to the two starboard engines, so that we had four engines running for a moment, and skipper in his wisdom said, ‘It’s time to get out of here’, and gave the order to bail out. It seemed sensible at the time, well it was sensible except the fact we were carrying a co-pilot, who was a captain from Whitleys, the other squadron on the station, and the Whitley is very poorly heated, so if you fly in a Whitley, you put all the full Irvin suit on, that, er, sheepskin lined leather suit, jacket and [emphasis] trousers, and he was a lad, a tall boy, quite a well-built lad, and so that the first thing that happened when the skipper said, ‘Bail out’, navigator lifts his table up, pulls the hatch out from underneath him, puts his parachute on and jumps, he’s gone. The wireless operator then thought that, underneath the skipper’s seat on the port side, and he was getting ready to go and this great big teddy bear of a man with this Irvin suit on, oh he didn’t jump out, probably couldn’t jump with all that clobber on and, er, he sat on the back of the hatch and put his feet out. That was alright. And then he tried to put his head out but it’s a very small hatch. From my position in the co-pilot’s seat, I could see his backside sat up in the air, but he wasn’t going anywhere. So I wondered, ‘What the hell we’d do?’ Len thought down there, he looked and he, he summed it up quite quickly. He pointed me to come back a bit, so I had to move back a bit, so that Len could get up on the top step and then they jumped, he jumped, and two bodies disappeared out of the escape hatch. Well because of the Battle of Britain, the pilots in Bomber Command sacrificed their pilot ‘chutes to put fighter command in the Battle of Britain, and the pilots in Bomber Command flew with an observer type ‘chute which is a harness with a separate pack for the harness, for the parachute itself, and there was stowage under the seat I was standing on, which contained the pilot’s parachute. The flight engineers job, when the two have gone out or three have gone out the nose, go under there and get the pilot’s parachute. Great, but I go — went down there. Oh dear, the elastic to hold the pilot’s parachute were not fastened and the pilot’s parachute must have been sucked out with the [unclear], it wasn’t there. So I go back up to the step, I’d got my parachute on by this time myself, I get back at the step and talked to the skipper, ‘Sorry your parachute’s gone’. By that time, all four engines stopped and, um, so we obviously were going down, so I jettisoned the escape hatch over the pilot’s head so that he could get out and then I went back amidships where there was a— another hatch in the roof with a ladder up to it for — and I, in fact, opened the hatch and was pushing it back when we hit the ground the first time, and I was flung forward against this, er, ladder and I found myself cuddling a ladder. We were in the air temporarily until we came down for a second time and, um, we slithered along a bit and came to rest. So, I’d got the ladder handy and gripping it, up onto the roof and there’s the skipper coming out. I was thinking we were the only two left. The rear gunner, he’s gone down the back, all he had to do was turn his turret round and jump. Oh no. Our rear gunner suffered from night blindness, which is not a great help for a rear gunner. He couldn’t find his harness, his parachute, anyway so he was still inside the fuselage looking for his parachute when we hit the ground. We didn’t know this of course so we got out. Skipper and I were on the wing and about to jump off and wondering about all these cows running and doing a war dance round the aeroplane, and a voice from behind us said, ‘Wait for me’. It’s our rear gunner. He never did find his parachute and so the three of us ran to the edge of, edge of this field, dodging all these terribly upset, terribly upset cows and got to the edge of the airfield. Got a little fire on each engine, [unclear] and stuff, nothing serious, so we stood there and then, um, as I said, we were very close to the airfield and, er, two ambulances turned up and then the CO turned up. He had a quick word with the skipper, he kept well away from me, and, er, I think after that he got the idea that maybe flight engineers do understand a bit about aeroplanes [slight laugh]. I’ll only say this, many years later, the squadron leader was our wing commander and CO of 35 Squadron, leader of the Pathfinders. I’m the flight engineer then, a flight lieutenant, and when the CO wanted to fly, [unclear] I was his flight engineer [laugh]. But, um, anyway we’d landed, we were in an untidy heap. Of course, this is — everything’s organised in the RAF. So, there was a crash, OK, two ambulances turned up so of course we were, we were not really within walking distance to the base, and so I go to one of these ambulances and, ‘Can you give us a lift back to the airfield’, ‘No, I’m bodies only’. Oh, go to the other one. ‘You’re not injured, are you?’ ‘No, I’m not injured’. Eventually they sent out a guard party to look after the wreck overnight and, um, one of those they got the driver out and he ran us back to the airfield. Interesting things, um, the three blokes that bailed out, two of them ended up on the same train. One had landed next to the railway, stopped a goods train, and sort of the driver said, ‘What do you want?’ ‘I bailed out’. ‘Oh, get in the guard’s van. We’re going into York’, sort of thing. He goes a little bit further on. There’s another bloke waiting with a parachute, waving, so he stopped and said, ‘Your mate’s in the guard’s van’ [laugh]. The other fella hadn’t got a lift with the train got — bloke with a car, and got back. Anyway, they all got back safely, the three got back safely. Anyway, that was my first endeavour. Rather gave me a reputation because the result of that, I think was that, um, when the Halifaxes were moved — we were on the first Halifax Squadron— when another squadron was going to get Halifaxes, they had to be trained on how to fly Halifaxes. The usual way was to take an experienced crew from one squadron, move them to a squadron with one Halifax and they were, er, trained with the new squadron. Well, good idea. So, they got — the squadron, 102 Squadron, was going to get Halifaxes, and so they sent a qualified crew, except I think, the CO wanted to see the back of me, I’d only done four trips. I was not an experienced — but I was the flight engineer on the experienced crew that went to 102 Squadron. There I was, I had done four trips, I was on this new squadron, teaching people how to — all about the Halifaxes, and that’s how my whole car— career started. Because I was there and I was the only experienced flight engineer, when the squa— new squadron commander was going to do his first trip on a Halifax, he wanted an experienced flight engineer so I went with him, didn’t I? And, er, when each flight commander wanted their first trip on the Halifax, who was the flight engineer? So — and then I went down, down the list until I probably flew with each pilot on their first trip and, er, I was an instructor, not what I intended to be. But anyway, I ended up with a total of fifteen trips and Pathfinders started. Well, the Canadian crew, they wanted go down — the Canadian, er, pilot and navigator wanted to go to Pathfinders, they wanted to volunteer for Pathfinders. Their flight engineer didn’t and the silly bloke had talked me into joining him so that’s how I left 102 Squadron and went to thir — back to 35, on Pathfinders this time, and that’s how I got into Pathfinders. As I men— said I’d done fifteen ops on 102 and 35 when this Canadian talked me into going to Pathfinders, so I arrived at Pathfinders with just fifteen trips under my belt. I stayed on the Halifaxes, on Pathfinders, until I finished my double — what is called a double mission. A mission is norm— for most of the main force was thirty trips and then Pathfinders, when you volunteered to join Pathfinders, you vol— volunteered to do a double mission. A double mission was forty-five trips. In fact, I did forty-seven on Halifaxes, and then I was screened and I went to the Navigation Training Unit of Pathfinders, and there’d been a bit of problem on 7 Squadron. They’d lost their CO and a couple of flight commanders and all sorts of the top brass. They came to the Navigation Training Unit and wanted a, er, bit of strength back in 7 Squadron and I was asked to volunteer. I’d been screened for a couple of weeks by then so I went back to, um, onto Pathfinders with 7 Squadron. The only thing was when I got to 7 Squa— well I knew before I went they were flying Lancasters. Well I’d flown in a Lancaster once and I’d read the book, so I joined 7 squadron with no formal training at all, having read the pilot’s notes, and I stayed on 7’s, um, Pathfinders, eventually did another sixty-one ops on, um, Lancasters, but giving me a grand total of a hundred and eight, which is ridiculous. Nobody should do that [slight laugh]. I don’t know how I did it. I know I changed — and I mentioned on 102, I flew with every Tom, Dick, and every flight commander’s CO. That gave me a number of different skippers. I then went back, went onto Pathfinders and I did, I think I did another thirty with this, er, Canadian crew I went with, and I did some odd ones and then the trouble started. They’d discovered 102 Squadron had put me up for a commission, because they didn’t commission flight engineers early on, because when I saw Wally Lashbrook, who was the instructor, there called me in and said, ‘What do you think about taking a flight — a commission’. I said, ‘Don’t be silly. They don’t commission flight engineers’. He said, ‘Well maybe they’re going to. Would you — can I put you forward?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, why not?’ Well, actually, I did ask him what he thought because I’m a Halton brat. I went to Halton when I was fifteen and the flight commander was Wally Lashbrook and he was a Halton brat, so on his advice I said, ‘Yes OK. Put me in for the commission’, which led to the situation. I was, I was down on Pathfinders, they didn’t know anything about commissioned flight engineers and I was called in to the adjutant, ‘What did you do for an interview at the Air Ministry. What’s that for?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. Wait and see’. Anyway, I was on ops one night, er, and I had — was due to go to Air Ministry the next morning. OK, so down at, um, Gravely, which is very close to London. It’s in Huntingdonshire and the railway station not far away. So anyway, I did the trip, came back, went in in the uniform, changed, um, into the barracks, changed into my best blue, had a wash and a shave, and caught the train to London. Which meant I then had to go in for this interview with Air Ministry. OK. Well, I’d been up all night remember, and they called me in and, um, one of those who, who looked at me said, ‘Where were you last night lad?’ So I gave him the name of the target. After that, the interview was awkward [laugh]. Anyway, so I got through that alright and I went back to the Squadron. Seven weeks later I’m — the adjutant called me in and he said, ‘I don’t know how this happened. You’ve been commissioned’. I said, ‘Yeah, I thought I might’. He said, ‘You’d better go and get a uniform’. So I went up to London to, er, one of the tailors, bought myself a uniform, go back. I’m a pilot officer now, yes, and they called me in again. ‘We’ve only got [unclear] for a flight lieutenant? You’ll have to be a flight lieutenant’, so I’d been a pilot officer for several days. Back to London, get some more stripes on my uniform [laugh], so I was rather quickly a flight lieutenant and then got a job and there was obviously a flight engineer needed, which again meant flying with all sorts of odd bods, which again meant I went over, way over the odds. I flew with people. I, I flew with Hank Malcom, the Canadian I mentioned, I did thirty trips with him. That was alright. Later on, I flew with a Welshman called Davies, came from Swansea, I did thirty trips with him. As I say I did all these thirty trips.
AP: What about Cheshire. Do you remember Cheshire much?
ES: Cheshire was my first flight commander on 35 Squadron. Didn’t like him very much, never did, but, um —
AP: And Lancasters, any particular missions that you remember, operations that stick out?
ES: Very difficult. I can’t remember where it was, one time over the Ruhr Valley. I didn’t enjoy life. We came — I think we’d been to Berlin, and on the way back we got a bit off course, er, as far as I can remember, we’d lost an engine or something over Berlin, probably this oil stuff, and I started it again but we got the — radio, distant reading radio compass was not, distant reading compass, sorry, er, was not reading very accurately and keeping on course had been difficult, and instead of coming, er, from Berlin, just round the corner of the Happy Valley, er, probably between Essen and Aachen, and cutting through that way, got a bit off course and found myself over the Ruhr. There wasn’t a raid on the Ruhr, just us odd bods coming back from Berlin, and they did rather catch us in their searchlights and flak for quite a long time. That was the one of the worst occasions with the enemy opposition, where it wasn’t so much that we were being shot at and were being illuminated by searchlights, we couldn’t get out of the damn thing for about twenty minutes, dashing around. I thought we’re never going to get out of that but anyway, er, Hank put the aeroplane in all sorts of manoeuvres and we got out of it. But that was one of the worst occasions, not when we were caught over the target but caught got off course on the way back. That always the danger, you expected to be shot at over the target but you tried to avoid it enroute there and back. We hadn’t on that occasion. It was one of the worst trips anyway as far as —
AP: Any raids in Northern France and Holland? Any raids there in Lancasters?
ES: Just before D-Day, we were doing all sorts of silly things. I had, I had the dis— disputed honour of actually acting as master bomber on one of the raids on a little, er, airfield in northern France. What’s the name of it? I can’t think of the name at the moment. I was flying with a Welshman on this occasion and they wanted — round about D-Day, there were all sorts of little raids, but they needed a master bomber on a very small airfield and they suddenly decided that this skipper’s Welsh accent would not do. So I was then, er, told to do the broadcast over the target, drop the bombs and sort of encourage people to come down and bomb the target, tell them what to bomb. The cloud, cloud base was low. We got down low, we could see the target, I got my markers on the target. Could I persuade anybody else to come down and do it? No, they were all bombing from way up, not doing very well anyway. We lost two aircrafts on that f — but I was actually — I think it was the only occasion when a flight engineer held the microphone and acted as master bomber and told them where to bomb. [unclear] have a change.
AP: All those operations that you flew, did — I’m guessing you must have seen other aircraft being shot down?
ES: Oh yeah of course we did.
AP: I mean, one of the things I’m trying to describe to people is what it was like when you were flying in all that stuff, what you saw, what people said, what they felt.
ES: It was very difficult early on, um, you got the odd one. Usually, they caught fire and went down in flames and some parachutes would come out. You hoped more did. Later on, when the — towards the end, the Germans had developed this — what did they call them? Musical chairs, which was the night fighters were equipped, er, with upward firing guns in the top of the fuselage at an angle and they did not use tracer. The idea was to fly on radar low down where you couldn’t be — where there was less chance of being seen by the top gunner or the rear gunner, come up below the aircraft, and when you were in the right position, climb fairly steeply and let the, er, cannons into the belly of the bomber. Very good idea. We’d had it years ago. When I was at Boscombe Down many years ago, we had a Boston which had been modified with, um, like bomb doors on the top of the fuselage and the bomb doors opened and there was four, er, machine guns pointing upwards, just like musical chairs, only there were only threes and we never developed it, but the Germans did. That was, that was one of the games the RAF definitely lost. My advantage, having before I started learning to fly as a flight engineer, I’d been an ordinary fitter who wanted to be a pilot and fortunately, in my postings, I was posted to Boscombe Down, which meant I saw far more different aircraft than most people when they came out of Halton and, um, I worked on many, including the first bloody, er, Stirling bomber, four engine. They had a position for a flight engineer. ‘It’s your aeroplane. You fly’. That’s how I learnt, you know, to start flying. I didn’t want to be a flight engineer, I’d been trying to be a pilot, but I was only an AC1, so I saw the flight commander and he said, ‘You’ve got to be an OAC to go on the pilot’s course’. So I did the trade test and I was a — I passed it. I was an OAC. Good. Go back to the flight commander, ‘I want a pilot’s course’. ‘You have to be an OAC for six months then you can come and see me again’. Five months later, ‘Oh hello Corporal Stocker. [unclear] You can’t be a pilot now. You’re too valuable. You’re a corporal fitter’. OK. I’m working in the hangar one day and the flight clerk comes out, and he’s got an AMO, he says, ‘The flight commander thinks you might like to look at this’. It was the first AMO asking — Air Ministry Order — asking for volunteers to fly as flight engineer. If you are a corporal or a sergeant in, in the group 1 trade, you can volunteer to be a flight engineer. I think the flight commander had a clue that I might be interested in that and so I went back with the flight clerk [laugh] and volunteered [laugh], and a few weeks later, I was on an air gunner’s course and that’s how I became a flight engineer. I don’t know how I did it. But anyway, the basic thing is I did chance my arm rather more than most and got away with it with a hundred and eight raids. How the hell I did it, I don’t know, but I’m lucky. But that’s how it happened. The first flight commander was Flight Lieutenant Cheshire. Oh dear. What can I add to that?
AP: Let’s, let’s jump to that, the island of Walcheren. Can you talk about that raid?
ES: Oh, one of the most interesting raids. The war was nearly over, there weren’t — there wasn’t a great deal of opposition anywhere and then they wanted to sink the Walcheren. The island of Walcheren was at the mouth of the Scheldt and was really guarding the entrance to northern Germany. They’d tried to get across — there’d been an unsuccessful attempt by the Army to do a landing on the, er, south coast of Walcheren Island. They lost a lot of soldiers and then they decided they might be better to — for a frontal attack, but they need to get the Hun out of the way, er, so we were — I was bomb aimer with the master bomber. The master bomber was Group Captain Peter Cribb. He was on thirty. He took over from Cheshire as flight commander of the 35 Squadron way back in 4 Group. Anyway he was the master bomber. I was his bomb aimer and we went over to Walcheren Island. Oboe had put down a marker on the sea shore and we put another marker beside it, and then we were getting, I think it was sixty aircraft every twenty minutes. I’m not sure about that number, it might have been less, and we directed them on to this markers right on the sea shore and we managed to breach the dy— the dyke and the sea water went through and started flooding the island of Walcheren. There was an AK-AK battery on the other side of the town from where we were, er, which fired the odd shots, but we had some thousand pound bombs, a couple, four or something, so between two raids, I did a sharp turn to port and I dropped my fourth one thousand pounder in the vicinity of the AK-AK battery, and had the good fortune to watch the brave gu— German gunners get on their bikes and, er, ride down the island in the middle of the raid. They left us to it. So really it wasn’t — there was no real opposition there. Anyway, we carried on with our — all these little raids and gradually made the, er, dyke leak and the island was flooding behind. The last raid, the last, um, batch of bombers we were getting were from 617 Squadron, they had their tallboys they [unclear] at that time. Well, we looked at the dyke and the sun and the sea was going in, and the skipper called them up and said, ‘Go home. We don’t need you’, which was for Pathfinders was a not idea because Pathfinders and 5 Group, which was Cochrane’s private air force, were not really the best of friends. Cochrane didn’t approve of Pathfinders and Don Bennett, who ran Pathfinders, didn’t really approve of Cochrane, because Cochrane had never actually been on a raid. Our AOC, Air Vice Marshall Donald Bennett, had [emphasis] been on a raid. He’d been shot down in Norway. He knew, he knew the score. That made the difference. He had a different outlook. But, um, actually yes, it was an interesting raid and when I was working in Holland after the war we did, I did go back there with my wife and we went and had a look and, yes, there’s a nice little puddle where we’d broken the dyke and there was a bit of sand round the edge and somebody had opened a café there, so we got somebody in business anyway. They set up a committee to evaluate the value of Bomber — what was happening with Bomber Command and they came to this awful conclusion that how a few bombs arrived within ten miles of the target. There was obviously a fault there and I having — this was the impression I had from my very first raid on Essen, that the accuracy with which they found the target was pathetic. And as a result of that, there was a great deal of conversation at the top end of Bomber Command and the Air Ministry what to do about it. Butcher Harris was not keen on the idea of a, an elite, um, a special force, special squadrons who were experienced and could lead the way. He said it was a sort of elitism. We don’t want elitism in Bomber Command. Certain people could see that this was the way to go, er, but Harris was overruled by C and C I suppose, I don’t know which one it was, and was told to look at the idea of an elite force, er, they eventually came up with the conclusion they’ll have with a special force. Initially they took — each group was asked to provide one squadron for this special force, so we ended up initially with Pathfinders with a hodgepodge of squadrons. There was one Whitley Squad–, no not one Whitley, one Wellington Squadron, there was a Stirling Squadron number 7, er, there was a Halifax Squadron 35, and they were put together as a, as an elite force. They had to find a CO. Don Bennett was in with — the main, main problem was navigation. Don Bennett was a well-known navigator; he was the only officer in the Air Force with a first class navigator certificate to start with. He’d already proved himself as navigator by flying the Maia Composite from Scotland to South Africa by himself. Just — all he had on board was a wireless operator. He was an experienced navigator. He’d started in — had already early on in the war started the transatlantic ferry. They used to fly — put Hudson bombers from America into boxes and put them on a ship to come Am— to England. Don Bennett was recruited really by BOAC to do, er, to do something about it and he started the transatlantic ferry by leading the first formation of bomb— Hudson bombers across the Atlantic to England and started the transatlantic ferry. He was then a civilian in the BOAC. He had been in the Air Force before the war so he started the Pathfinders and he put it together, because he had — he was the only AOC that they could find who had experience of flying bombers, who was an experienced navigator, who proved that he could navigate and, um, that’s how Pathfinders started, but it made a hell of a difference. We started first of all, trying to mark — how to mark the targets. All sorts of things were tried but Pathfinders gradually developed very, very rapidly, um, initially as this bunch of squadrons, then it became a Group and, er, ended up as quite a big air force of its own. At the end of the war, Pathfinders’ Group, number 8 Group, had over a hundred aircraft, it had a hundred Mosquitos for the late night strikers. It was an enormous empire but, um, it did the job. We found ways of finding the target, we found ways of marking the target, and we ended up in a situation where we could, if the weather — in reasonable conditions, we could hit any target anywhere. The development of the master bomber, which started with the Peenemünde raid, was a big step forward. It gave us some control, where the people, er, the other people who may be on their first or second trip and never seen enemy fire before a chance to be guided, and given some encouragement, what was going on, what to do. That was a big step forward. It was interesting to live thorough it all from, er, hit and miss and, er, precision bombing helped it.
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Interview with Ted Stocker. One
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Andrew Panton
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-26
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Sound
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AStockerE150726, PStockerEE1601
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Pending review
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Pending OH summary
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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01:02:00 audio recording
Description
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Ted flew 108 operations (47 on Halifaxes and 61 on Lancasters), flying as part of 35 Squadron Pathfinders. He was awarded a Distinguished Service Order.
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Vivienne Tincombe
102 Squadron
35 Squadron
7 Squadron
8 Group
aircrew
bale out
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
crash
flight engineer
fuelling
H2S
Halifax
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Lancaster
Master Bomber
Oboe
Pathfinders
RAF Halton
target indicator