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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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Knox, Tommy
Thomas Knox
T Knox
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Tommy Knox (1925 - 2020, 1823036 Royal Air Force) his log book and a physical training certificate. He completed 40 operations: 22 with 149 Squadron, mostly low-level supply drops to the Maquis in France, and the rest on Radio Counter Measures duties with 199 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Tommy Knox and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2019-06-26
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Knox, T
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AP: This is an interview for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive. It’s with Tommy Knox who was a flight engineer with 149 and 199 Squadrons on Stirlings. It’s the 26th of June 2019. We’re at Tommy’s place in Mona Vale. My name is Adam Purcell. So, Tommy, let’s start at the beginning. Can you tell me something about growing up in Glasgow?
TK: Growing up in Glasgow?
AP: Yeah.
TK: Oh, well, I had a brother and a sister, and we lived just north of the city in a tenement ‘til I was about five and then we moved to a new, a new housing estate on the south side of the city called Carnwadric. And that’s where I spent most of my childhood. That’s, I went to school there. And my father was a coach builder and they always had, they always had work. We were very fortunate in the Depression that he always had a job and mum stayed home and looked after the kids the way it used to be [laughs] and we had a terrific childhood. It was right on the perimeter of the city and right at our back door was a wheat field and a dairy farm, you know. So we had nothing like a city upbringing. It was more a rural upbringing you know, and we had a great time there fishing for [unclear] and newts and tadpoles and picking wild strawberries and brambles, you know. It was great [pause] And then went to the primary school there. Won a scholarship when I was twelve, and finished up in Allan Glen’s which was a private school in the city which I didn’t like. But anyway, when, when the war started the school closed and I got myself a job in a local jewellers, you know and through the Boy’s Brigade which I was a member of the Boy’s Brigade for years. I started off with the Life Boys when I was nine. Transferred to the Boy’s Brigade when I was twelve, and I still keep an interest in it, you know. And anyway, after about three or four months school opened again and after, after working then going back to school I didn’t, I didn’t quite appreciate it. Anyway, I thought I didn’t like Allan Glen’s so I left school. Left school at fifteen and went to take, studied engineering at night. Night school. And, and then started an apprenticeship in the railways. An engineering apprenticeship. Mainly, I don’t know, I don’t really know why I joined the railways but mainly my father worked there and all my uncles were [laughs] The whole family. They were all railwaymen in one, one sense or another. And then of course the war was, the war was on and it was a Reserved Occupation. You had to stay there. The only way you could out of it was aircrew so I thought well aircrew would be a damned sight better. We were on twelve hour shifts. Six in the morning ‘til six at night and I thought this is no bloody good. So I, you could volunteer at seventeen and a quarter so I did that and went to Edinburgh and did all the tests. And anyway, at eighteen I got called up and did the flight engineer’s course at St Athan in South Wales and, and the rest is history.
AP: Indeed. When [pause] there must have been a feeling that war was coming.
TK: Yeah.
AP: For a while before it was declared. How did you feel as a young bloke going through that time and then when war was actually declared what was that like?
TK: Well, I was fourteen when the war, when the war started. I never thought much about it. Too busy enjoying myself [laughs]
AP: Did you have an inkling that you would, you would be involved in some way? Was that always —
TK: Not really. Didn’t really think too much about it but when I got to be seventeen I started to think, ‘Well, may be in this.’
AP: It was still going, I suppose. Yeah. Ok. Ok. So you went straight from the railways to aircrew.
TK: Yeah. Yeah. Got called up to Lord’s Cricket Ground. That’s where I had to report to. I’ve never been back since [laughs]
AP: What, what happened there? Once you got there what happened?
TK: Well, we got kitted out. Uniforms, everything else and billeted in a block at St Johns Wood. And from there we went down to Torquay on the south coast of Devon and did the initial training. Initial Training Wing. Six weeks there square bashing and everything else and learning how strong the cider can be in Devon [laughs] I never drank but I thought I’d better try this cider and it would blow your head off, you know. But six weeks there, and then we moved to St Athan and did the Number 4 School of Technical Training. And that was a six months course and it was a general all round course to start with. Then part of the way through you had to specialise because as I say all the jobs were completely different. Different aircraft. And I don’t know, there was a choice of the Stirling, the Halifax, the Lancaster, the Sunderland. All the aircraft were flight engineers. I saw this picture of a Stirling. I’d never seen one before. Big, beautiful, Clyde built you know. I thought that would do me.
AP: Clyde built. I like it.
TK: And that’s why I picked Stirlings. My pal and I both picked Stirlings. And fortunately, if I’d picked Lancs I probably wouldn’t be here. I was just lucky. The timing was just right. they took us off main targets and the next night there was a raid on Nuremberg and they lost ninety six aircraft the day after we were taken off main targets. Ninety six Lancs and Halifaxes went. Gone.
AP: [unclear]
TK: So we had a pretty trouble free tour. We got whacked a few times but nothing, nothing terrific and the special, special duties dropping supplies to the Maquis was quite — it was all low level. Right down on the deck and all map reading and it was great fun. You were away in the middle of France. A pilot, marvellous navigation, map reading. The bomb aimer was down there map reading and it was quite, and to see the, there were three lights and then another light flashing a Morse letter and that was no, no Pathfinders, no nothing. You were on your own. And then we found it and see the little people running out with the ‘chutes going down, you know. It was quite [pause] So, I really enjoyed it.
AP: Yeah. Quite an experience. I’m interested to hear a bit more about your Technical Training School. What, what sort of things did you do to learn about the Stirling?
TK: Well, we had just a classroom and it was, it was all divided up. Hydraulics, electrics, propellers, engines and so on. We each had a different, a different teacher for each particular subject, you know. And then, that’s the freezer banging away. So it was very interesting, yeah.
AP: Was it, was it all mostly book work? Or did you have, you know parts to play with or to look at or simulate in some sense? Or —
TK: Yeah. Well, we did. We did the [pause] the funniest thing about the whole thing was that I did the whole course and got my brevet, my stripes, and I’d never been off the deck. I’d never flown. I thought bloody stupid you know because people get airsick.
AP: Yeah.
TK: Anyway, I’d never flown and the first time I flew was when we got to the Heavy Conversion Unit. And I think we got, for air experience and they put me in the tail turret. The first time I was off the deck in a tail turret [laughs] And we started to taxi around the perimeter track and I’m looking for the intercom We’ve got to plug it in and I’m looking everywhere and we were damned near at the end of the runway to take off and I finally found it and it was way down between my knees, you know. And apparently the skipper had been calling up, ‘Are you alright?’ No answer because I couldn’t find the bloody plug. Anyway —
AP: Was that in a Stirling?
TK: Oh yeah.
AP: What did you think the first time you went flying backwards in a Stirling?
TK: [laughs] I, I was, I was, well I was trained in them and I was very familiar with them and there was plenty of room. Very, very roomy. Fourteen foot longer than a Lanc. There was plenty of room. And another funny thing it never even had a seat. There was a seat originally but they took it out and I used to sit on a couple of dais, right opposite the engineer’s control panel, you know. That was fine.
AP: So where, where is the engineer’s panel in a Stirling?
TK: So, the starboard side. It was dual control too which the Lanc and the Halifax didn’t have. Complete dual control. So there was the pilot, the bomb aimer, the navigator was at the left hand side and the engineer was on the right hand side and the wireless operator was next to him at the port side. And I spent most of my time just, and we used to have to take a log every twenty minutes and work out the fuel consumption. You couldn’t depend on the gauges you know. So you had to work out the fuel consumption for different revs and boosts, and do all the odd, odd jobs. Turn on the oxygen at ten thousand feet and any odd job, you got it. When the undercarriage failed you had to wind the bloody thing up. Terrible undercarriage. Oh dear. Oh dear. But once in the air like a fighter. It was marvellous. They chopped the wings short. The Air Ministry in their wisdom chopped fourteen feet off the wingspan and of course that reduced its lift, but increased its manoeuvrability at low level and oh, it was marvellous. It could out turn a Lanc. Could even out turn a Hurricane, you know. Boy oh boy. It was great.
AP: Good fun I think. How did you meet your crew?
TK: Well, it was funny. When I met the crew they were already formed. They were flying Wellingtons and this was the Heavy Conversion Unit and as I say I’d never been up. We were all in a hangar and they just said, ‘Well, just wander around among yourselves and some, some, if you like a particular pilot for any reason just ask him if they’ve got an engineer.’ If not, it was just every man for himself, you know. There was no, no reason. No rhyme or reason for you going with this crew. It was just a matter of [pause] and I was very lucky. I had two Aussies, two Canadians and two Englishmen. So it was a really mixed crew, you know.
AP: So when you, when you did this crewing up thing in, you are all in the hangar. Were, was there just the pilot who was there? Or was the whole crew?
TK: The whole crew was there.
AP: So you just wandered around introducing people.
TK: Yeah. The whole crew was there. Yeah.
AP: So you already knew what you were getting in to.
TK: [laughs] Yeah.
AP: Very good. I think you once wrote me a letter and said, “So, I was the peacemaker.”
TK: Oh yeah [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The Yorkshiremen were a bit —
AP: So, your first, your first flight was that air experience thing at, at the Conversion Unit.
TK: The first trip was mine lying. Laying mines I think, from memory.
AP: Right. I’m still looking at your flying, sorry your training at the moment. Your Conversion Unit training. What, I’m just looking at your logbook. I’m seeing so I see you’ve written here, “second engineer,” while you’re training.
TK: What was that one?
AP: In your logbook you’ve written, “Second engineer.”
TK: Oh yeah. Well, that was Heavy Conversion Unit and you go with an experienced engineer. In fact, the whole crew did. You know.
AP: So there were like two.
TK: So the skipper went with an experienced skipper and engineer. I remember his name too. Tubby Rollo. R O L L O. Tubby Rollo.
AP: Rollo. Right.
TK: And the pilot was an Aussie. Wooley. We called him Hank. Hank Wooley. And my skipper and him I think they must have supported different teams. They were both Victorians and my skipper didn’t like Hank Wooley. He tended to shoo off you know while we sort of buzzed along and then all of a sudden he’d throw her over. [laughs] I thought what’s going on here? Yeah.
AP: Right. So where, where was your Heavy Conversion Unit?
TK: Where?
AP: Yeah. Where was your Heavy Conversion Unit?
TK: Stradishall. That was in Suffolk.
AP: Suffolk. What, what sort of a base was that? What sort of a place?
TK: Oh, it was just a wartime base.
AP: Yeah. Ok.
TK: We didn’t get on to any permanent bases.
AP: Rats [laughs] That’s fantastic. Ok. Alright, so you went from there after a month or so maybe by the looks of things. Two months. Oh no. A bit longer than that. Yeah. Two, two and a half months. Ten weeks or something at the conversion course and then you went to the squadron. So —
TK: I forget.
AP: That’s what your logbook says.
TK: Does it?
AP: Yeah.
TK: Oh, in the book.
AP: Then you went to the squadron so 149 Squadron at Mildenhall.
TK: Lakenheath.
AP: Lakenheath. I was wrong. Sorry.
TK: Lakenheath is, it’s still there. The Yanks. The Yanks are there, and it had a very long runway and yeah and then after a while we moved to Methwold which was in Suffolk. And yeah, we did most of them, and then when, when the squadron converted on to Lancs we had already done twenty two trips so there must have in their wisdom thought are they worthwhile converting them on to Lancs? So they found another special duties squadron on radio counter measures with special radio behind the main spar and another wireless operator joined the crew and he used to baffle the German’s radar, and instructions to the pilots and he spoke German. It was very interesting but it was mainly circuits like on a racecourse. You get to somewhere on the path to the main target and you’d orbit then and send out all these dummy signals, you know. Yeah. And chuck out Window. That was another one of my jobs. Chucking out Window through the flare chute. And interesting, the flare chute was right, right below me. Right below the engineer’s panel. And the skipper, when he wanted, when he wanted to go for a leak he used to come, kneel down at the flare chute and piss out the flare chute [laughs]
AP: Lovely. Alright. Tell me, tell me about some of your, your operations then.
TK: Well, as I say the, the supply dropping was most interesting and ideal for the Stirling because it was all two hundred feet and the Hercs were very very silent. Beautiful sound, you know and they were ideal for the job. Mine laying was the most uninteresting because you were over the sea. And you used to get a bit of opposition from flak ships if you were getting near a port which we used to drop the mines there in Kiel and I forget the places but the flak ships used to give us a bit of [unclear] and you were, you were on your, virtually on your own you know. There wasn’t a whole heap of aircraft. We did a few bombing, we actually never bombed Germany. We bombed France would you believe? Railway marshalling yards and strategic things, you know. So we had to be pretty spot on that we didn’t bomb the French people as much as we tried, you know. But, yeah. Good fun.
AP: Good fun. You said there were a few, a few little instances of things that happened on some of your trips. What sorts of things?
TK: Well, there was one. We got hit by flak and I forget which one but the bomb aimer was a Canadian and he was very prone to exaggeration like a lot of Canadians are, you know. Anyway, we got banged up a bit and a voice comes up, ‘I’ve got a hole down here big enough to throw a cow through,’ you know. Which was a load of bullshit. There was a hole alright but you couldn’t get a cow through it. And the, the tail gunner Nobby Clark, he was a Yorkshireman, and he used to fall asleep. Fall asleep.
AP: Really?
TK: I used to get out of the belt at the back of the turret to wake him up, you know. That was another job I got [laughs]
AP: So you really were Mr Fixit.
TK: And then there was a funny thing. The navigator, Jack, Jack Tipple great navigator but didn’t have much sense of humour and he was a Yorkshireman as well. He came from Sheffield. Anyway, the elsan, the toilet was way down the back, and when Jack came stumbling past me through the main spar right down to the elsan as I’m watching him. Anyway, he’d undone all his zippers and getting ready to have a piddle. And I said to Hughey the skipper, ‘Ok Hughey, throw the aircraft [laughs] Jack’s stumbling all over the place. Anyway, he knew. He knew who did it you know. And he come up and he kicked the tripe out of me, ‘You bastard.’ [laughs] That was a lot of fun.
AP: I see a note here that on one of your early, might have been your second trip. Hit by flak. Diverted. And then it says port wheel burst on landing.
TK: Oh yeah.
AP: Tell me about that.
TK: We got flak in the tyre and as we landed it deflated of course and we swerved off but that was, finished up alright. Nothing collapsed, you know. They didn’t encourage us to, to write in too much detail for some reason you know. Just keep it brief. So I never used to write much in.
AP: A little bit. Yeah. it just says, “Ops Special France,” many times. That’s what we’ve got. Methwold. That’s interesting. Fighter affiliation with a Hurricane.
TK: Oh yeah.
AP: What happened there?
TK: That’s fighter affiliation. We used to go up with a Hurricane that would attack us you know and we would, just out manoeuvre it, you know. That was good fun. There was another time, I was sitting up in the mid-upper turret just to familiarise myself with it and a Mosquito came up right next to us and he stuck his mainplane in between our mainplane and the tailplane. Right up. Right up next to us and actually waving [laughs] and that was good. And then he just sailed away, and away he went.
AP: That would have been pretty cool to see I think.
TK: Yeah.
AP: Yeah. Look through what else have we’ve got. [pause] A couple of mentions here of having to hand wind the wheels up. You had to wind the wheels up.
TK: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
AP: Where was that? How did that work?
TK: Oh, the —
AP: The mechanism. Yeah.
TK: Yeah. It sits next to the panel. The engineer’s panel.
AP: And there’s like a big wheel or a hand.
TK: Yeah.
AP: Or something. Yeah. Ok. Very good. While you were on leave, so you were obviously on operations for, for a fair period and you would have I think the standard was leave every six weeks or something like that.
TK: Yeah.
AP: What did you do then? Did you go home or did you go to London? Or —
TK: Yeah. I went home. I took some of the crew up, up to Scotland too, and they were billeted in various neighbour’s places, you know. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh, we were well looked after. Leave every six weeks and we used to get taken on kind of excursions to some of the stately homes you know. They’d put on a, not so much a barbecue but they’d put on some food, you know. Yeah. It was good. Oh yeah.
AP: So was this as a crew or aircrew in general?
TK: Yeah. The whole crew. Yeah.
AP: Yeah. Ok.
TK: And then, on some leaves I used to go with the Canadians down to London and go in to the Canadian Club, and I’ll always remember the Canadian griddle cakes with syrup. Oh, bloody beautiful, you know. Yeah. And then there was plenty of places set up. The YMCA for a bed for the night, you know.
AP: What, what was wartime London like? What was the atmosphere like in, in London during the —
TK: In London?
AP: Yeah.
TK: Oh, they were very very good. Didn’t worry them at all sort of thing. They were very stoic you know. Yeah. And then when, when we finished the tour, when we broke up I was sent to a Maintenance Unit, and I was on the bench just for a little while. And then there was a vacancy in the drawing office so I went there as a draughtsman in the drawing office and that was, that was a really cushy post you know.
AP: Yeah.
TK: And I enjoyed that and by that time I was a, used to get promotion over time every year. You started off as a sergeant and in a year you become a flight sergeant. Another year you become a warrant officer. Well, I was a warrant officer in the drawing office and the chief of the drawing office was a sergeant. But you know it was an aircrew promotion so it wasn’t, it wasn’t a true promotion you know. And then one day I looked at the DROs, the Daily Routine Orders, and by this time it was, it was 1946. The war had finished when I was in the drawing office and they were looking for parachute jumper instructors and my mate and I said, Oh, get back flying again,’ you know. So we put our names down and we were accepted and we did a PTI’s course. You had to do that first. Physical training instructor. Six weeks of that. Oh marvellous. Playing football and gymnastics and God knows what. And then we went to Ringway, Manchester and did the initial jumps out of a balloon. Sometimes a balloon and then out of a Dakota I think it was. It’s all in there. And then they were looking for volunteers for the Middle East. There was a lot of trouble with the Jews and the Arabs there. The Stern Gang, you know blowing up everything British, you know. Anyway, I finished up in the Middle East and we got demobbed from there back to England when the time was up.
AP: So what were you doing in the Middle East? What sort of work were you doing?
TK: Training parachutists.
AP: Training parachutists. Parachute jumping.
TK: Yeah. It was the 6th Airborne Division.
AP: Wow.
TK: And we were attached to them. Putting them through the drills and going up with them and dispatching them. Then jumping out yourself, you know. Yeah.
AP: That would have been pretty cool.
TK: Yeah.
AP: That would have been great fun.
TK: The first day we got there one went straight in.
AP: Oh really?
TK: The ‘Chute never opened. Straight in. I thought this is a good start [laughs]
AP: Wow. That still happens occasionally, sadly. Wow. Ok. So you got demobbed from there and then went back. Went back to England. There was something I wanted to ask. Oh yeah. So when the war ended, so you transferred to a different squadron and you were doing counter measure stuff you said. Like radio counter measure stuff.
TK: Yeah.
AP: Which that would have been probably fairly boring after the —
TK: Yeah.
AP: Supply drops, I imagine.
TK: Yeah. It was boring.
AP: So, ok and then you said you finished your tour and I think, I think I saw forty trips in total did I? Am I right? Is there forty operations in your —
TK: Forty.
AP: Yeah. Ok. And then obviously you went, you went off to the draughting office at that point. When you heard that the war had finished, what happened when the war finished? How did you, what do you remember?
TK: Well, I was in the, I was in the Maintenance Unit then. And —
AP: Where was that?
TK: Oh, Sealand. Sealand. That was. It was near, near Chester.
AP: Ok.
TK: On the west coast. Yeah. I remember when the war finished I remember I had a few beers of course, and I remember standing up on a table and singing [laughs]
AP: What were you singing?
TK: I don’t remember.
AP: You can’t remember. Damn [laughs] I was hoping for a rendition. No worries. Ok. So the war finished. Then you got the parachute jumping. Doing that. Got demobbed. What happened next?
TK: I went back to finish an apprenticeship.
AP: Back to the railways.
TK: In the railways. Yeah.
AP: Really.
TK: And being along with Aussies and hearing all about the place I thought [pause] when I got back to Scotland the first job I got, that was in February, I think. Yeah. February. The middle of the winter, and the first job I got was shovelling snow away from the front door. So I thought there has got to be something better than this. So I applied for Australia and here I am.
AP: So that was in, in the late ‘40s.
TK: Yeah. That was 1950.
AP: 1950.
TK: 1950 and, yeah 1950, and I’ve come out to my skipper. He was running a pub away up in Queensland. In Claremont. You know Claremont at all?
AP: No. Not, I know it’s in Queensland but that’s about it.
TK: Inland a bit.
AP: Yeah.
TK: And anyway his wife was in Brisbane. We sailed all the way to Brisbane. His wife was in Brisbane doing some business for the, for the pub, and she took me up to Claremont. We flew up in a DC3. I remember that. And then I forget where we stopped, but we stopped then because on a train there’s a three foot six inch gauge train to Emerald. And then Hugh was there with his big old Hudson, and out to Claremont and there wasn’t any roads. It just seemed like just driving through the bush, you know [laughs] And I spent a few days there and then I thought I’ve got to start earning a living so I came back to Brisbane. The first job I got was the Queensland Metal Windows and I was marking off for the machinist to cut the metal. And then I finished up with the, in [unclear] making the, on maintenance. Maintenance of the factory. Yeah. [unclear] I played with the local soccer team up there.
AP: That would have been —
TK: And that’s where I met my wife. Met my Waterloo [laughs]
AP: In Brisbane.
TK: Yeah.
AP: Yeah. And then you obviously came to Sydney at some point.
TK: Yeah. Well, she was a Sydney girl. I met her at Brisbane, and I followed her down. I was smitten [laughs] She’s been gone ten years now.
AP: Really?
TK: Yeah. There she is. She’s up there.
AP: Oh yes. Yeah. Oh lovely. And you’ve been in Mona Vale, Sydney ever since. Did you stay working in engineering?
TK: We stayed there. I met her actually at a hostel.
AP: Oh really?
TK: It was a, it wasn’t a migrant hostel. It was a youth hostel and there was as many Aussies in there as anybody else and thirty bob a week. Full board. Marvellous [laughs] Right. So I worked in Booloumba, and the hostel was in Booloumba, and I played for Booloumba Rangers soccer team. So I was a real Booloumba guy. Right on the river there.
AP: Did you, did you go back to Scotland much?
TK: Yeah. I went back two or three times. I won’t be going back any more. In fact, I’m not allowed to fly.
AP: Oh really?
TK: On account of this.
AP: There you go.
TK: So, I’ve had a pretty good life. Pretty good. I chopped and changed a bit. When I came down to Sydney I got a job with the Shell Oil Company on curbside pumps. Servicing them. A couple of jobs and then I changed over. I wanted to get out on the road and that. I finished up with Turner’s. Made washing machines and lawn mowers. I was on the road servicing them. I’ve spent all my life fixing things, you know and the last twenty two years I worked for Xerox. Rank Xerox on the copying machines. I was there for twenty two years.
AP: How did you find readjusting to civilian life after your military service? After Air Force service.
TK: Oh, pretty good. Pretty easy. It was all an adventure really. So here we are. This is, we moved here in [pause] I had this house built in 1986 so I’ve been here over thirty years now. Too big but I like it. I don’t fancy going to a village, you know.
AP: No. No.
TK: What would I do with all this stuff anyway?
AP: And I guess as my final question really, for you how is Bomber Command remembered? Bomber Command in general and your part.
TK: How is it remembered?
AP: Yeah. And how do you want to see it remembered?
TK: Always crops up somewhere or other, you know. You never forget. Yeah. It’s always been a big part of my life really, you know being an ex-serviceman. And I was, I was the secretary of the RAF Association for years and the treasurer. But I eventually gave that up and joined the Bomber Command Association. And so that’s where I’ve been since.
AP: What, what legacy do you think Bomber Command has left?
TK: What legacy?
AP: What’s the legacy? Yeah.
TK: Just a mass of great people. Great, great guys, you know. Wonderful to be a part of a crew. They’re all dead now. All of them. The last one I was in touch with was the wireless operator. He lived out at Ulladulla, and he lived in a one room place in a, in a village and they used to put his guests up in a motel which was next door. That was great. So I went down there a few times with my son and then I rang up. I used to ring him up but and I couldn’t get any answer one day. Anyway, I finally got through to the office and I said, ‘I’m trying to contact Dave Hughes.’ ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘He passed away.’ So, Dave, he was the last one. He’s gone. Very sad. Very clever fellow. Very clever. So there we are.
AP: That’s about it. Thank you very much. [unclear] next time.
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Title
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Interview with Tommy Knox
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Adam Purcell
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2019-06-26
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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
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AKnoxT190626, PKnoxT1901, PKnoxT1902, PKnoxT1903
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00:46:24 audio recording
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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Great Britain
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
England--Suffolk
Germany
Germany--Nuremberg
Australia
Queensland--Brisbane
Queensland
Description
An account of the resource
Tommy Knox, born in 1924, grew up in northern Glasgow and volunteered at the earliest age of seventeen and one quarter. He then trained in Wales and Devon and flew Stirlings. Tommy was posted to RAF Stradishall for his Heavy Conversion Unit, meeting his crew which consisted of two Australians, two Canadians and two Englishmen. Tommy believed he was lucky for choosing the Stirlings, despite including having to hand-crank the landing gear: if he had chosen Lancasters it would be unlikely for him to be here today. He then recalled being moved from his flight group the day before a Nuremberg operation, in which 96 aircraft were lost. Tommy joined 149 Squadron and was transferred to RAF Lakenheath and later to RAF Mildenhall. Taking part in supply drops and bombings, Tommy recalled numerous stories of his crew, including one of his navigator falling asleep and he waking him up. Tommy then joined 199 Squadron, overseeing radio disruption operations. When the War ended, he volunteered to travel to the Middle East, completing 40 operations in total before being demobilised. Post-war, he returned to his engineering apprenticeship, before moving to Sydney when he met his wife. Tommy recounts the war as a big adventure and states that Bomber Command was a big part of his life, being the secretary and treasurer of the RAF Association for several years, before joining the Bomber Command Association. He states that the legacy of Bomber Command is positive.
Contributor
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Sam Harper-Coulson
Julie Williams
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
149 Squadron
199 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
crewing up
flight engineer
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
navigator
perception of bombing war
RAF Lakenheath
RAF Mildenhall
RAF St Athan
RAF Stradishall
Stirling
training
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/598/8867/PLimerF1501.1.jpg
8e9bbb05a79b231711fb1dfa8843b53a
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/598/8867/ALimerFW151210.2.mp3
7a453c946d3036ebfd5c0a7f7301c24c
Dublin Core
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Title
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Limer, Frederick
Frederick W Limer
F W Limer
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Limer, F
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Frederick Limer (Royal Air Force). He flew operations a as a bomb aimer with 149 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
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2015-12-10
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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AS: Okay that’s fine I think it’s working now. So this is Andrew Sadler interviewing Freddie Limer for the Bomber Command Archive on Thursday, 9th December, 2015, at his home in Epping. Thank you for speaking to us Freddie. Can I ask you to start off with how it was that you came to join the Royal Air Force?
FL: At the beginning of the war I was a management trainee, after a short while the company decided to discharge the, all the trainees when the war broke out, and I was er, on reporting to the Labour Exchange I was sent to work in a factory, and during my experience in the factory I learned how to weld, both arc and acetylene welding. And that company was a long way from my home so I decided to ask the Ministry of Labour if I could transfer, so I transferred to another company, an engineering company which was close to my home. There I was taught, eventually I was taught how to inspect taps and dies, it was on that job that I eventually decided that having learnt that the whole of the company, but more particularly inspectors of taps and dies [laughs], were reserved and couldn’t volunteer other than for special services. I enquired of the local recruiting station what these special services were, they listed, submarines in the Royal Navy, Tanks in the Royal Tank Regiment, as my brother was already a lieutenant in there I said, ‘To hell with that I didn’t want him as my commanding officer.’ Or aircrew in the Royal Air Force. I decided that I’d volunteer for aircrew in the Royal Air Force, as I had been left school by then quite a bit my maths was a bit weak so when I was eventually assigned a job in the Royal Air Force if was a, a wireless operator/gunner, and I reported eventually to Blackpool. I did a course at Blackpool and as during the period of my acceptance in the Air Force and my call up, I decided that I should try and swot up on my maths which I knew were weak at the time of my original enlistment. So at Blackpool once I’d got half the way through the wireless course I enquired and was allowed to apply for a reassignment. They gave me then a, a list of questions and mostly mathematical that I had to fill in which fortunately I was successful. They then posted me from Blackpool to Lord’s Cricket Ground in London, where the assembly there was the, er, full of pilot aircrew. After a, a few days there, fortunately it was close to my home, so I used to nip home from time to time, but after a few days there I was then posted to No. 12 ITW at St. Andrews. Did the course on the at St. Andrews and towards the end of the course the government had introduced a new system where each of the cadets coming through ITW’s had to take a twelve hour flying test with Tiger Moths. We were assigned to go to Scone in Scotland, only a comparatively short distance from St. Andrews. It was a grass runway, my two colleagues, the three of us used to go together. My two colleagues passed with flying colours, one of them soloed in four hours and the other soloed in seven, and they were obviously destined to be pilots in the Royal Air Force. Unfortunately I, on my solo, I had a slight mishap, I might point out that the aerodrome was a grass runway, they used to have these things cutting the grass with dirty great poles sticking up in the air with flags on, well one of them actually didn’t have a flag on when I finished my solo. So needless to say I, that terminated my possibility of becoming a pilot. I then was sent to a small unit which [telephone ringing].
AS: Okay there we go were on, sorry do carry on.
FL: I was then transferred back to Reception Centre in Heaton Park, Manchester. I was there for a few weeks before I was transported to Liverpool where we boarded the Queen Mary and were destined for New York, destined for Moncton the Reception Centre in Canada for all RAF aircrew, I was apparently going to be an observer. On our way over in the Queen Mary we’d learned that there were a few ships that we thought most unusual but we thought the Queen Mary would be used to travel over fast on its own, but there was in fact a cruiser some distance away, and further away there was a small ship that we thought might have been, er, a destroyer or something like that. Sure enough when we got to America one of the colleagues observed coming out of the one of the rear windows, rear doors rather, Winston Churchill, it apparently there was also the rest of the War Cabinet and this was of course when they were having a meeting with the President of the United States. From our point of view we learned that there was an epidemic at Moncton in Canada where we were supposed to go, therefore we were transported to Taunton, in Massachusetts in America onto an American Army Air Force Base. And we were told that we might be there for a few days, a few weeks, we didn’t know. However, it was a bit of a godsend going there because it was the first time most of us had ever tasted a T-bone steak, and in UK at that time the T-bone steak size was the equivalent of family’s month’s ration, it was enormous, most of us made ourselves very ill eating these. However, we didn’t do very much there other than give drill demonstrations to the Americans, then the epidemic was cleared in Canada and we went to Moncton. At Moncton as usual of course in the Air Force there’s a dirty great pile of people there and we were there for a number of weeks. One of the interesting features about Moncton was that having been there a long time they had then developed a, a, number of the blokes had developed a little variety show and they used to give this show approximately once a week. To our surprise when we first went to our first show the compere and comedian of this show was Jimmy Edwards, he was obviously destined for Canada for his pilot training. However, after that we were all posted off to our various stations. I was posted to a 31 Navigational School, er, and that was on, on, on Lake Erie, and completing the 31 Navigational School course which was basically navigation and other ancillary qualifications we were then posted to another station, Fingal, which was a bombing and gunnery station. At Fingal we, although I was only an intermediary as far as examination results from the navigation and the other qualifications, when we did the course at Fingal I was top of the class, or top of the course on bombing. The bombing was in fact a single target that you approached at different heights, and dropped single bombs and then the assessment was the pattern that you had created. For becoming the best bomb aimer on the course I was awarded a little, tiny little medal which is referred to as a pickle barrel which showed a bomb dropping into a barrel, I still have the, the little medal today. From there we were posted back to Moncton, from Moncton we were then transported to a port on the coast, Canadian coast and boarded a ship called the “Louis Pasteur”. The journey back on the “Louis Pasteur” was in fact a nightmare by comparison with our first class journey on the “Queen Mary”. I think everybody on that ship was sick, and we came back in hammocks from there, contrary to the lovely quarters we had had on the “Queen Mary”.
AS: So there we go.
FL: From the “Louis Pasteur” we were transferred once more to a holding unit, and I and others went on to Staverton to start our courses, but we were informed that our observer badge did not qualify, had being phased out, and that we had to select from our qualifications as an observer one of the requirements of a seven crew aircraft, i.e. Stirlings, Lancasters, and Halifaxes. And as I had qualified pretty high up in bombing I decided to become a bomb aimer. From there I, from Staverton doing courses on map reading and various other activities connected with bomb aiming. Unfortunately on one of the exercises we were obliged to descend rather rapidly because the pilot had received instructions that was enemy aircraft in the area. His descent caused my right to ear to split and I was therefore, when we landed I was in considerable pain, and I went into hospital and was there for ten days before they allowed me to come out, and then they indicated that there would be a short gap before I’d be allowed to fly again. The short gap elapsed and I then was transferred to a unit where all the aircrew of various categories were assembled, it was in RAF language a dirty big hangar which there were pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, gunners, the only missing person was the engineer, he arrived at a later stage in our training. From there we went, we, we assembled, and we were all NCO’s at the time, I was a little senior because I had been in the Air Force a little bit longer than most of them, and hearing the pilot also was senior, so within a short period of time we were made up to flight sergeants. During our crewing up and our training we did the usual courses in together, this exercise was in fact having to go onto twin engines as he had only been, most of his training had been on single engines. He, we did this together and part of this twin engine training was in fact part of an OTU, but on Wellington 10’s, we did that and we did, strangely enough we did two operations where they were supposed to be diversions, and we dropped window, after we’d done that we then, Ian then had, had to take various courses in converting to four engines. We went to a station, we were all together, went to a station where he was converted onto Stirlings, and from Stirlings we then proceeded, all of us at the same time were doing our various training and exercises so forth in the crew, and by then of course we had added to our crew an engineer. Engineers at that time were very junior they course was round about six to eight months, and within six to eight months were, they were crewed up and some of them were on the squadron, other crew members were of course much longer periods of time dependent on who they were. From there we proceeded to be assigned a squadron and we were assigned 149 Squadron which was in fact a satellite, of Mildenhall which was called Methwold. Ian was then converted onto Lancasters from the Stirlings, the pilot was converted on Lancasters to Stirlings, and the rest of us were of course at the same time doing various exercises of our own particular trades. After we’d completed the initial work on the Lancaster we were then assigned to operations and we started on our operations. The first one being over to a place in France and unfortunately the weather closed in on our return to Methwold and we were diverted to St. Eval in Cornwall, this was quite a harrowing experience for the pilot and the navigator, but the pilot came through with flying colours and eventually we landed at St. Eval and we had roughly about fifteen minutes fuel in our tanks. We stayed there overnight then returned to our base at Methwold. Have a break.
AS: So while we’ve been paused Freddie has shown me his log book and his first operation that he’s just described was on 11th January, 1945, and the operation was to bomb Krefeld [spells it out], and the second operation on 13th January, was to Saarbrucken [spells it out], and it was diverted to St Eval [spells it out]. Okay thank you very much. Shall we restart?
FL: Er, from, where were we, we’d just done our first operation.
AS: Yes to Krefeld, yes that’s how we, yes.
FL: Okay. All the other ops are in there.
AS: Oh yes. Good.
FL: Okay? Restart?
AS: Yep, yes we’re ready to go. So do you want to tell me about any other of your operations?
FL: One of the operations that was in fact somewhat hairy was the operation up for Dresden, later on in our number of ops, and there our navigational aids went wrong and we were virtually lost, we were however buzzed by a German aircraft which we learned later was a 262 one of Germany’s new jet fighters. It, we however got free of that, but then Ian the pilot who observed certain water marks, water areas that he considered were way, way off our track, and he suggested the navigator that we should now turn course north and go back to base, at the same time Ian and I, the pilot, discussed what we were going to do about the bomb load. We had observed the pair of us that we were over quite a large area of what we considered to be forest land or open fields, so it was decided that we jettison our bombs but that I should make them safe, we did so, and the bombs were released safe. We then proceeded on our course north as Ian had suggested and low and behold within about thirty minutes I observed that there was a city in front of us, or approximately in front of us, eventually the navigational aids having restarted Joe the navigator indicated that the possibility was that it was Paris, and sure enough it was Paris. From there the navigational aids appeared to come back to normal, we then set course and arrived back at base in due time, needless to say the interrogation of our crew particularly the navigator, and myself, and Ian the pilot, was pretty considerable in view of the fact that we had to, (a) not reach our target, and (b) jettison our bomb load. This was however accepted and nothing further was heard on this particular incident.
AS: And from your log here that would have been on 13th February, 1945, you’ve noted here to Dresden, and the pilot Ian, was Flight Sergeant Sturgess?
FL: Flight Sergeant Sturgess yes.
AS: So really you were, you really started with your first mission in January 1945, this was quite close to the end of the war?
FL: Oh yes, oh yes indeed, oh yes indeed. That’s my because I volunteered in 1941 the er, and my training had taken some time, the crewing up etcetera it was December ’44 because, before we arrived on the squadron, and our first operations were in January of that year, lots of the familiarity of the change of aircraft onto a Lancaster, and consequently our tour was conducted pretty late in the war.
AS: Yes, your in your log book here it’s Christmas Eve 1944, 24th December, with pilot, Flight Officer McKey, and your remarks are, ‘you were checking the circuit’.
FL: Well he was in fact instructing Ian broadly speaking on the use of the Lancaster aircraft from the Stirlings that we were that Ian had been trained on up to that stage.
AS: Yes, and you’ve got here that the flight was fifteen minutes, and then, and then there’s another flight the same day with Flight Sergeant Sturgess as the pilot, circuits and landings, twenty minutes.
FL: Yes, yes, well that’s familiarity with the Lancaster you see. Which from then on of course we, also in my operations you will observe in my log book that we did two food drops over some open ground outside The Hague.
AS: Oh right.
FL: And that was a particularly interesting feature because I was responsible for checking out the food drop, and for the food in the bomb bays as all bomb aimers were, and on the second trip I decided to obtain a little plastic bag and filled this with this stuff that I got from the NAAFI, as well as I’d put my flying rations in there, when I dropped the food on the second trip I dropped this little plastic bag with it with my little parachute that I’d put on with one of my handkerchiefs. It’s interesting on that particular point that after the war my mother received a letter from a lady thanking her for the little gift dropped. [laughs] Excuse me I’m going to cry. Little gift that she had hand dropped during the war and although the food was rather spoilt, most of it was spoilt there were some elements of the food that were edible.
AS: Oh how nice. [laughs]
FL: That letter incidentally I took back from my mother, I gave it and talked about it to one of my sisters, who had a Dutch friend after the war, and she accepted the letter, and that letter I’m given to understand is in the war time section of the Dutch Museum in —
AS: So when, I see here you’ve got one of the operations marked here as “Cooks Tour” would that have been the dropping of the food?
FL: No, no, no. At, when operations were in fact, bombing operations were ceased by the RAF, some squadrons, ours happened to be what is known as a GH Squadron.
AS: Yes.
FL: Which was an extended version of G which could in fact navigate with greater accuracy, we then were assigned to do what were known as line overlaps, photographs of certain areas of Germany. Oh yes, this at the time was in fact classified as being secret.
AS: And looking at your log here in April ’45 it would appear that you only did two operations, one was Kiel, and you put the “Admiral Scheer” sunk so presumably that would have been against a ship?
FL: On that particular operation that you refer to, Kiel, I [phone ringing]
AS: You were just about to tell me about the operation to Kiel.
FL: One of my operations I flew with a crew other than my own, it was an Australian pilot, the rest of the crew were British, but the destination was Kiel Harbour, and we were given the target of the “Admiral Scheer” which was docked there with other battleships, and we carried only one bomb, it was a twelve thousand pounder, and we were given to understand it was for the armour piercing. Several of us in squadron had this, this particular bomb, and several of us claimed that we had dropped our bomb on the “Admiral Scheer” and sunk it because we learned later that the “Admiral Sheer” was sunk, and as there were about thirty odd aircraft there and they were all bombing the same targets it was doubtful whether any one of us could claim individually that we were the person who sunk the “Admiral Scheer”, but we all did. [laughs]
AS: Yes, so, and I’ve just found in your log here that on 3rd and 8th May 1945 were the dates where you’ve put here special operation to The Hague, food, two hours twenty-five, and two hours fifteen minutes each flight.
FL: They, they were conducted, the bombing height was two hundred feet, which was pretty low in a Lanc, and we weren’t sure whether of course the Germans were going to shoot us or not at that time, fortunately none of us on our squadron had any mishap at all on that particular operation.
AS: And then you’ve got —
FL: Other operations that we did what were known as line overlaps, these were photographs taken in sequence over what was known as a square search, where the aircraft proceeded over one course and reversed over the next adjacent course and photographs were taken of those and they were referred to as line overlaps, the cameras were operated by myself on the instructions of the navigator as and when to start. I did a few of those operations, but they I think were confined to a couple of squadrons in 3 Group. At the end of the war of course the ground crews were all very interested in what was happening or what had happened so we did an operation or two what we referred to as “Cooks Tours”, taking ground staff piled into the aircraft to observe what had happened to some of the near targets on the Ruhr. One or two of them were females, and they were, it’s a little bit uncomfortable of course in a Lancaster for people trying to observe, and there were some very near misses where people trod on the wrong thing but they went off successfully. Another interesting feature on one of the operations that we did, when we proceeded from the perimeter track round the main track to get to the runway the gunners used to have to, on each operation, test the traverse of their turrets and their guns, the rear turret in particular and the mid-upper, but on one occasion the rear gunner had what is known as a runaway, the strange thing about that was he had the runaway when we were passing the guard room and he was reprimanded for this for carelessness but no further action was taken. Another incident when we first arrived at the aerodrome on proceeding to the guard room to sign in, we observed that behind the main counter of the guard room there were a long line of coffins, and when our little mid-upper gunner, Titch Holmes, saw these, he screamed out, ‘Bloody hell.’ And we thought that that was quite appropriate considering that we’d just arrived on the squadron. [laughs] That’s one or two of the incidents on the squadron which. After the war I was appointed by the squadron commander as the designated rather as the bomb aimer to go to Royal Air Force Bomb Ballistics Unit at Martlesham Heath. I was in fact on selection appointed to this and I then served from May 1946 until August 1948, during that time the operation, the operations at that time were secret but I should imagine now the secrecy of that itself not particularly important, but our role there, I was the only bomb aimer on that unit. There were several pilots and we, our role was to fly from Martlesham Heath to Woodbridge at Woodbridge, as most bomber command people will know was the emergency aerodrome for bomber command and had a runway which was exceptionally long, and it was said that light aircraft could take off on the width of the runway. Most of our loads then were the single bombs as a general rule and they were loaded at Woodbridge, we took off from there and flew through Orford Ness, over Orford Ness we were then guided by radar, they informed us what height they wanted us to travel, what speed, and therefore we had to release the bombs on their instigation, they then tracked the bombs which then landed on the marshes at Orford Ness and we then proceeded back to base to reload or merely rest. The aircraft we used for that operation were Lancasters for the heavier bombs and altitudes up to about fourteen, fifteen, sixteen thousand feet, and then we had the Mosquito which we used for high altitude up to thirty-two thousand feed, this was the first time that I had been involved in a Mosquito, and as you know the Mosquito only has a two man crew and therefore I was obliged to bring in the fact that I had been trained as a navigator as well as a bomb aimer. We did several trips like in the Mosquito, as well as the Lancaster, and eventually we had finished or what appeared to have been finished our operations with that unit. It took approximately eighteen to twenty months to do this and after that we then rested from that type of activity. The station at Martlesham Heath was in fact a peace time aerodrome, mainly dealt with experimental, but in war time the Americans used it, and we released it from the Americans when we took over the Bomb Ballistics Unit. We spent most of our time, I think the airmen spent most of their time clearing the gum from underneath all the tables and chairs in the various messes. The mess at Martlesham Heath, the officer’s mess was a delightful place, there were of course only about eighteen serving RAF officers there but we had quite a number of boffins, scientists who were in fact members of the mess, and I had the unfortunate duty of being assigned the catering officer of the mess and I took that like a duck to water, and also I had a colleague there called Reg Kindred, who was the adjutant of BLEU [?], he was minus his left leg, he was a pilot and had been shot down over France in a Manchester a twin engine aircraft that was doomed to failure. He was repatriated to the UK by the Germans on the grounds that he would not be able to fly again, and this was truly the case because he then became an adjutant and he and I were buddies on RAF station.
AS: Good.
FL: I had one or two interesting duties when I was at Martlesham, as I previously said I was made assigned catering officer of the officer’s mess, when my colleague Reg Kindred left he er, he was the bar officer I had to take on that role as well, which I did with relish. I was responsible for getting beer and what have you from the various breweries, we used to get beer from Cobbolds in Epping in Ipswich and we always used to get other beers, but Cobbold’s beer at the time you used to get as much as you liked, all we had to do was order it and they used to send little trucks along with it, ‘cos it was generally known in the mess as “Cobbold’s piss”, ‘cos it was so weak, in those days some of the beer was very weak, but we used to get beer from Fremlins, which is a delightful beer but that was very rationed, and there was a great deal of hard work done as to who had more Fremlins than had more Cobbold’s. [laughs]
AS: So when you were dropping bombs on Orford Ness what was the point of that?
FL: The point of that was Orford Ness was in fact a peace time experimental station and they were in fact tracking the bombs to test various faculties about them.
AS: Right.
FL: Their speed of acceleration, accuracy of other elements of it, but broadly speaking that was, with all the bombs they were testing the accuracy of the bombs in their release from an aircraft at a given speed to given height as to how accurate their trajectory was in hitting the target that they had assigned.
AS: Oh right, so all your entries in your log in 1947 were obviously just really you’ve got lots of entries saying bombing and then the number of feet.
FL: Yeah, well at the time you see we were restricted because it was comparatively secret then, we were restricted as to stating too much fact in there, and also we were restricted in stating the bombs that we were using, but on one occasion when we were dropping a twelve thousand pounder we’d picked it up from Woodbridge it dropped off as we were taking off, and the aircraft rose like a god almighty rocket and we were obliged not to put that into our log book, ‘cos it was felt that it was put in there it had to be recorded and the airmen who were responsible for fitting that would be court martialled, and we were kindly advised not to put it in our log book. But you might find in my log book that I have slipped in one of them when we dropped a twelve thousand pounder, twelve thousand pounds in there.
AS: Oh right.
FL: But as a rule we didn’t state the bombs that we were dropping, that was the general rule not to do so, but we dropped practically every type of bomb, other of course than the “Cookie”, the four thousand pounder which I think nobody arrived what it’s trajectory was it arrived on the target sometimes I think or somewhere near the target, but each bomb load that the RAF carried or bomber command carried invariably carried a “Cookie” which was in full of course high explosive.
AS: And you’ve got entrances in here for June ’46, photography and radar runs, and training programmes, air tests, and then you’ve got ferrying ex-prisoners of war in May ‘45?
FL: Yes, it was, it was after the war between my leaving the squadron, or rather not leaving the squadron, the end of my time in the squadron, the crews then were being split up. The senior pilots like mine was in fact transported away somewhere else or released, and the junior pilots then took over and we were assigned to a, a, collect POW’s from, POW’s that had been in the bag for a long time from France, from [unclear], and also we collected about eighteen, seventeen or eighteen of those at a time, we didn’t carry the gunners at all, we had an engineer and I was the marshall of the, the bomb aimer as I was, was the marshall ensuring that the men were properly placed inside the aircraft so that they didn’t in fact cause too much possibility of damage or, or accident. There was one accident I understand but one squadron to that, er, aircraft crashed and there were some fatalities in that, but we didn’t have any of that possibility. Later on as well as collecting POW’s from Europe we also went out to Fermignano[?] in Italy to collect POW’s from there, but we only did the one trip because we found it was far too uncomfortable for soldiers in the main to be housed in an aircraft like the Lancaster for such a long journey, and I think that was discontinued as it was felt it was far better for them to be transported by boat, although it took longer, it was far more safe and comfortable to do that, we only did the one trip from Fermignano [?] which is Naples of course. But when we were there of course we were there for three or four days because the weather had closed in and some of us had the opportunity of being escorted up Vesuvius, and that was quite an experience rather hot underfoot, but, but it was quite enlightening.
AS: How long were you in the RAF after the war finished?
FL: From the end of the war up to 19 November 1948.
AS: Oh gosh.
FL: Which was quite a while, I haven’t worked it out precisely, but that was the period of time. Because I was at Martlesham from June ’46 until August ’48.
AS: How many operational sorties did you do altogether then there?
FL: Actual operations over Germany, only twenty-two.
AS: Twenty-two that’s still quite a lot.
FL: Well the tour was thirty you see.
AS: Yes.
FL: But the, my tour was made up of the operations that our squadron did, line overlaps the photographic thing because there was still the possibility then of possible accident, or possible enemy fire, but although the war was over. Even when we dropped this food over Holland and we were warned then that there were still some Germany people who were a little bit trigger happy, I think one or two aircraft did in fact experience single bullet hitting their aircraft, we didn’t at all we had very comfortable two trips.
AS: When you finally demobbed from the RAF how did you fit back into civilian life?
FL: Very slowly and I immediately decided that I should get back into earning my income because my gratuity from the RAF we all felt was rather paltry, I think I received two hundred and eighty-seven pounds, and if you want to find that two hundred and eighty-seven pounds you’ll find it at the Valentine Pub in Ilford [laughs] with the other chaps that were being demobbed at the time, mainly RAF some Naval, there were about eight of us used to go to the Valentine and we had regular visits to the Valentine Pub and eventually we were running out of cash we then all were obliged to start thinking about earning a respectable income because we were then placed on the dole as it was called in those days. But I decided to take a refresher course with a company in Holborn on sales and marketing and that was around about six weeks, after that I decided on information that I had received to visit the Officers Re-employment Unit just outside Victoria Station, and I was fortunate enough to be able to get in touch with a company called Bakelite, where once more fortunately the sales manager there was an ex major in the Army and I found that the, the eight salesmen eventually they took on were all ex-service, either warrant officers, officers, warrant officers and sergeants, no other ranks were part of the his crew of trainee representatives, some of them had already been there before me and were in fact quite senior. But I, the course I then had to take was to, I was placed in the Wearite [?] division of Bakelite which is the plastic with the decorative plastic division, and then I was assigned to go to Victoria report there, and from there I was sent to Ware in Hertfordshire where I did a six week course in what laminated plastics were all about and what Wearite [?] was all about, and I enjoyed that very much because it was in the factory learning lots of skills that I’ve never ever thought that I would experience. I eventually we, from there I was then transferred back to the London office and there I was given an area that I was to cover as a, as they termed us technical representative, because we weren’t salesmen we were trying to get people to become distributors of the product, we didn’t sell direct to anybody, and also to train people in precisely how to use the laminated plastics at the time.
AS: After you left the RAF did you keep in touch with your comrades in your crew?
FL: I didn’t keep in touch with any of the comrades in the crew because we dispersed, it wasn’t until about a year later when I was, nearly two years later when I was married and living in my present house that somebody had phoned my parents’ home in Barkingside and asked whether Fred Limer was there and they indicated that he had died. The people who lived in that house got in touch with me and let me know what had happened, and I said, ‘Well the person who died of course was my father and whoever you informed you have informed him that I was dead.’ However, they fortunately they had taken the individuals telephone number and name, they passed it on to me and it happened to be my pilot, Ian Sturgess, so I got the telephone number and decided I’d phone him up. [laughs] I phoned Ian and when he came on the phone I said, ‘Ian Sturgess, this is Freddie Limer raised from the dead.’ I heard him go, I heard him go. He was then managing a farm, he was a farmer, managing a farm, anyway we had a long conversation and then eventually I went down to see him in where he was managing this farm and then we continued our association together, and as I had then become a member of the Bomber Command Association, I used to go to their functions a number of times a year, and Ian was not a member of any of this, I invited Ian twice a year to come to the AV, the AGM and also the Autumn meeting and they were luncheons and things and I used to meet Ian on those occasions, when I first met him on those occasions he indicated that he thought that I had not changed a bit, and I felt exactly the same thing about him, we were both lying of course [laughs] we’d got very much older. And I saw Ian for a long time after that and eventually I was informed by Elizabeth his wife that he had fallen and had fractured his hip and he was very unwell and he had in fact died and that arrangements were made for his funeral etcetera but it was strictly private family affair, but they were holding a wake and a reception and that I would, if I would like to come, and my wife the, and daughter would be delighted to see us. Later on when I gave an article to the local paper and gave them a photograph of our crew, I was, the reporter whom I knew, reported about the food dropping exercise and the picture was noted by a young person living in Lowton [?] a nearby town, and she said that one of the crew as her father, which happened to be Joe Siddell [?] the navigator.
AS: Oh gosh.
FL: So she told her father about it and Joe came along and saw me, so we had a long chat. I’ve seen him since he now can’t drive apparently he had a prang with his motorcar but he lives not too far away from Elizabeth, Ian Sturgess the pilot’s widow, not too far away from there. And from time to time I get in touch with him on the phone. So they’re the only two members of the crew, I did learn that Dagwood, or rather Wilfred Oxford, the engineer, had in fact died, but I haven’t heard anything about the gunners. I beg your pardon, I had heard about Bill Buckle, the wireless operator, he was a villain on the squadron, he was a woman chaser, but he eventually, according to Joe Siddell, the navigator, he moved out to Australia, because he’d gone out with some people that he’d learned on the squadron, known on the squadron, and was now living in Australia with his family and was quite prosperous. But other than that the other crew members, oh I beg your pardon once again, I heard from Titch Holmes, the gunners, the mid-upper gunner’s son phoned me one time, he phoned me because he’d seen in the press about my MBE and he wondered whether his father could come and see me, but I learned from Ian that Titch had been to see him but he was, um, Ian didn’t like, like him too much because he was trying to sponge money out of him, and I thought when the son phoned up and asked if he could see me, I said, ‘Well it would be inconvenient for him, for me to see him.’ So I never did see Titch. I wasn’t very keen on Titch he was a little miner about the size of two happeth of pennies, but he was as strong as an ox, and he frequently got into scraps in the, in the pubs when we used to go and have drinks together, and one time he took a swipe, took a swipe at me, fortunately I got out of the way of it, but as boxing was in fact my main hobby. But no apart from that, members of the crew, it’s only because I’ve been thinking about it and reflecting on it that I remember these incidences of remembering these, these people. But as I say after the war I did this course, sales and marketing, joined Bakelite, rose to be the manager of the, after about ten years rose to be the manager of the Midlands area, decided because I couldn’t have the financial arrangements with them without moving house etcetera, I decided to leave Bakelite because I’d been offered a directorship in one of my customers’ companies and they’d offered me a quarter of the shares of the company, but they were wanting me to manage the company for them, and manage the sales and marketing in general, which I did for about ten years. Eventually the, we were paid, paid the same salary each and also the same bonuses each but eventually they the other three decided that they wanted to retire, and they retired we agreed to sell the company, but I had to agree with them because they would have outvoted me to a young couple, well one of them wasn’t all that young but he was a qualified accountant. But the other three left but they asked me if I would be prepared to stay with the company for about twelve months and would pay the same salary that I receiving now and bonuses but they would also put a respectable amount of money into my pension fund which it sounded attractive so I stayed with them for that period of time. In fact it went further than a year, and eventually I left when they decided that they were moving to a much larger factory and became a much larger company, the company is called Decraplastics, it’s pretty large now, much larger than it would have been with my three colleagues and I. I left them and I came, decided that I would get involved locally with activities in my town of Epping. I was in a pub once talking to a friend, and I said, and I talked to him about the fact that I thought that having lived in Epping for a quite while it’s about time I got interested in doing some activities or others. He said, ‘Well interesting, I’ll, er.’ Next day I received a phone call from a friend of his saying ‘I understand —‘ From then on I did in fact decide to become a councillor, and in 1965 I was elected as a councillor on the Epping Urban Council, and found on the council that the activities the council did were activities which I, I, I, I found I had a lot of interest in. Some of them [?] and I was made chairman of the housing committee, I took like that, to that like a duck to water, thoroughly enthralled by it, and I was chairman for a few years and decided that having revamped the whole idea of the council house both the waiting lists etcetera, we decided that we would commit people with the financial resources to do so to buy their council houses, and in mid 1960’s we decided to do this. At the same time people also wanted to, I decided that people who were under occupying their council houses, like on investigation we found that there were couples who were in three bedroom houses, there were elderly in accommodation most unsuitable for them, there were some single persons in three bedroom accommodation which was very wasteful considering we had a quite sizeable housing waiting list. So we then set about planning to build and did build housing suitable for the elderly, apartments in the main, that were managed by a manager or a warden or whatever you want to call it, and that they would be transferred there, we found that some of them didn’t have the resources to [coughs] to finance their removal so we assisted in that direction. There were several buildings that we eventually built to house these people and a lot of the houses one they were then vacated for and we cleared off our housing list, at that time was somewhere in the region of about four hundred, we cleared the whole lot off and a lot of people started buying their council houses. Which then of course a reorganisation took place in 1973, and I was then the having been the chairman of the council twice, I was the senior councillor who led the team in the reorganisation set up which four other three other local authorities were involved and we, we it was decided the way we would set up what was then became a new district council. The new district council then had a population of one hundred and twenty thousand, from the fact that we had started off with our council having about fifteen thousand was somewhere in the region of an enlargement.
AS: When you were selling off the properties what was the rationale behind that?
FL: Mainly because a lot of the people that were living in there had indicated that they didn’t want to move because they had jolly nice neighbours, they’d spent quite a lot of their own money building up there houses and they felt they would like to stay there. We inspected a lot of houses to try and verify this, added to which I was fortunate enough to have a councillor that had been retired who also was a past schoolmaster who kindly agreed to get a team of people, half a dozen people [coughs], ex councillors etcetera to do an investigation of the houses for me to get a clearer picture of who lived in the houses, what their attitudes were broadly speaking etcetera, and this was the picture that we got was the considerable under occupation, a fair amount of people who had lived in their homes and felt they didn’t want to move because they’d spent a lot of money improving them etcetera, they would like to buy them if they could. It was on these grounds that, I would say persuade the council that we should sell the houses to the tenants. Wasn’t all that many, I mean it was a fair number, but the urban council only had council houses of about twelve hundred or more, and then beg your pardon, twelve thousand or more, and the task wasn’t a great task being a salesman by trade or by occupation broadly I found this exercise to be rather fulfilling and of course my colleagues realised that [coughs] I knew what I was talking about. Anyway that went through fairly successfully and I say right up to reorganisation.
AS: And this was something that you decided at the council rather than part of the Conservative policy.
FL: Oh no, no, no, no. I wasn’t interested in Conservative. Although I’m by political indic, indication a Conservative I’m just about a Conservative, just about a Conservative. On many of the, I was totally opposed to nationalisation that what swung me in favour of being a Conservative because the Labour Party at the time of course were very, very much in favour of nationalisation. But it’s with that I strong, I didn’t have strong political attitude because I wasn’t really a politician when I first became a councillor.
AS: Were you standing on behalf of a Party or?
FL: I was standing on behalf of the Conservative Party, that’s broadly speaking why we got in, because at that time the swing was towards Conservatism in the district and we swept at that, within two years we swept all of the Labour and Liberal, as they were in those days Liberal not Liberal Democrats, Liberals off the council so the twelve of us at that time were all Conservative, when I was then became the senior councillor. But as I say when reorganisation took place in 1973 urban councils then were abolished, town councils were created, which my group myself created Epping Town Council, but we also became part of creating, six of us became part of creating the Epping Forest District Council which had fifty-seven, fifty-seven councillors, but unfortunately of course we only had six, therefore we were for the first couple of years not even considered until they found out that some of us knew what we talking about and from my point of view they knew what I was talking about when I talked about housing so I was persuaded, I persuaded them to let me become chairman of the housing committee. After I’d been chairman of the housing committee and started my usual process of right to buy continuation we started drawing in, buying in houses that were in our area that belonged to other councils, Walthamstow, Waltham Abbey, there were some there, they were GLC council houses in here, we bought all of those out and brought them back into our own fold in the Epping Forest District. I initiated broadly speaking the policy in relation to that and then of course after having done that as I say I was invited by the World of Property Housing Association to join them if I would care to. I did join them and then became a member of that particular organisation which after about twelve months decided to, to extend their activities and alter their name to Sanctuary Housing Association which is well known today. They made me, or persuaded me to become chairman of Essex Committee, then they persuaded me to become chairman of the Hertfordshire Committee, then they joined those committees together and asked me to be chairman of both the committees, the joint committees. Later they invited me to become member of central council which I, all of this is voluntary in my particular case.
AS: Yes.
FL: And costing me.
AS: Yes.
FL: Apart from the fact I got travelling expenses and when I was away for a long time I had lunch and all the other things catered for, but that’s all, I wasn’t paid. I was opposed to payment at that time [coughs]. Anyway the procedure with Sanctuary was more or less similar to my procedure in the council, I became vice-chairman of the council of the association, appointed also manager of a group that were responsible for the development of Shadwell Basin [?] because there was a large piece of ground on there owned by the housing association and they wanted to develop it, and we developed that into a large block of flats, beside on one side of the basin they were about eight detached houses. The detached houses were sold, the flats initially were let but a lot of people once more wanted to buy them and there was no objection if they wanted to pay the right price which Sanctuary agreed to do. Then on the other side of Sanctuary there was another piece of ground there that we developed that and there we confined it to rental, but we confined the rental to nurses, firemen, policemen, and one or two of the other, doctors as well, who wished to be locally located, a lot of those were rented together and there were roundabout I think about two hundred, say two hundred, two hundred, I think it was two hundred and ten, and they were all let, but eventually of course a lot of those people wanted to buy them and eventually they started buying them as well.
AS: I think that one of the problems in London is that properties have become so valuable that they cease to becomes, they’re very much investment opportunities.
FL: Yes. Oh with Sanctuary I then as I say I became vice-chairman of the central council and by then I’d been with Sanctuary about ten years, eight, ten years and they wanted to persuade me to take on the duties of the chairman which I refused, but I did accept the duties of the chairman of the special projects committee, and that was the most gratifying committee that I found. And today Sanctuary is the largest Housing Association in the country and also I’m pleased to say that they are doing a lot of care facilities for people and in a nice good way, and also a lot of, um, they started letting people buy some of their houses but I don’t think they were enthusiastic about it, which I didn’t push, but ultimately of course I was getting on a bit and decided when I was seventy-nine that I’d had enough and I discussed with the chief executive and the treasurer, two very good friends of mine by then, that I was going to retire. They regretted it but understood, and I graciously after persuasion by some of the members of the committee I understand gave me a crate of my favourite red wine when I retired, which I so enjoyed, and I did leave Sanctuary regrettably but I think it was inevitable, and I’m pleased to say that as time as gone by, I’m still in touch because I’m still a member and still life president although that role is a non-entity really, but unfortunately most of the council members are now paid. The chief executive and treasurer have got salaries that I think are higher that the Prime Minister’s but that is I’m afraid life now that people are paid these monies in order to, the organisation to attract the most skilled people they’ve got lawyers, managers, what have you on their committees, so that they are in fact as I say the most financially balanced housing association in the country but, and the chief executive I understand recently awarded a CBE,. which in the past being slightly socialistic he wasn’t inclined to want, but I think the grade of CBE I think attracted him a little bit more than an M or an O and I think that, that I believe changed his mind. I’m still in touch with David and treasurer, not very much, I occasionally get acquainted with their activities but I’m gradually receding into the background, I’m still filling in an annual little return about what activities that are going on and what I think of them and the people that are on the central council which I’ve got no jurisdiction over at all so it’s just a question of fill the paper in and sign it I do that annually. They used to send me a catalogue, a diary at one time, but they don’t anymore which I regret very much because it was a damn good one. [laughs] But there you are it’s closing down at the age now of ninety-four given up most of my activities when I was eighty, I regret to say that when I retired from the Epping Forest District Council, having been disgustingly fit most of my life I then bumped up against one or two health problems which am fortunate enough to have skilled doctors, and skilled practitioners, specialists in our local hospital whom I became very friendly with and they were very, very accommodating, and I have been cured of most of those activities the only thing that I do now is take quite a number of pills and I never walk fast these days in case I rattle. [laughs]
AS: Thank you very much Freddie I’m very grateful for the opportunity to hear your story.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Frederick Limer
Creator
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Andrew Sadler
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-12-10
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ALimerFW151210
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
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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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01:36:40 audio recording
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--Lancashire
England--Gloucestershire
England--Norfolk
England--Suffolk
England--Blackpool
Scotland--Fife
Scotland--St. Andrews
Canada
New Brunswick
New Brunswick--Moncton
France
France--Juvincourt-et-Damary
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Krefeld
Italy
Italy--Pomigliano d'Arco
Netherlands
Netherlands--Hague
Germany--Saarbrücken
Description
An account of the resource
Freddie Frederick volunteered for the Royal Air Force and did a course in Blackpool. He was posted to No. 12 Initial Training Wing at St Andrew, although was unsuccessful in his flying test. Freddie was then trained at RCAF Moncton in Canada and posted to 31 Navigational School on Lake Erie. He came top in a bombing course at RCAF Fingal.
From Canada, Freddie went to RAF Staverton where he became a bomb aimer. He transferred to a unit where he crewed up and was made a flight sergeant. Further courses were taken on twin engine and four engine aircraft. In December 1944, Freddie was assigned to 149 Squadron at RAF Methwold, a satellite of RAF Mildenhall, where they converted onto Lancasters.
Freddie describes operations to Krefeld, Saarbrücken, Dresden and Kiel. He also was involved in two food drops to The Hague. They became known as Gee-H Squadron for their greater navigation accuracy. They did classified work doing line overlaps: photographs in sequence of certain areas in Germany. Freddie also refers to Cook’s Tours at the end of the war. He was involved in flying back prisoners of war from Juvincourt in France and Pomigliano in Italy.
After the war, Freddie was appointed bomb aimer at the RAF Bomb Ballistics Unit at RAF Martlesham Heath whose operations were secret. They flew in Lancasters and Mosquitos through Orford Ness, a peacetime experimental station, which tested the accuracy of a wide number of bombs.
After Freddie’s career in the plastics industry, he became a local councillor and chairman of the council. His housing work continued with various governance roles for a housing association.
Contributor
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Sally Coulter
149 Squadron
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Cook’s tour
crewing up
Gee
guard room
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
mess
Mosquito
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF Martlesham Heath
RAF Methwold
RAF Staverton
RCAF Fingal
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/204/3339/ABatemanJT160802.2.mp3
ed973811a2b5c581c1c4ee9acd8d25e7
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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Bateman, James Thomas
James Thomas Bateman
James Bateman
James T Bateman
J T Bateman
J Bateman
Description
An account of the resource
One interview with James Thomas Bateman (423042 Royal Australian Air Force).
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-08-02
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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Bateman, JT
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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This interview is for the International Bomber Command Centre the interviewer is Barry Jackson the interview is Jim Bateman the interview is taking place at Mr Batemans home in Marsfield, Sydney, Australia on the 2nd of August 2016.
JB. My name is James Bateman I joined the Air Force in June 1942 and eventually having been trained in Canada went to England and joined 149 Squadron where I served as a Navigation Officer and completed a tour lasting from May 1944 to December 1944.
BJ. Jim what made you volunteer for Bomber Command?
JB. I think it was purely adventure, I was very young, I was seventeen and a half at the time when I actually joined and em yes I looked forward to something exciting.
BJ. Were you made aware of the high casualty rate.
JB. No we were not.
BJ. Once you completed you training or you went back to Bradfield Park where did you go, you mentioned Canada?
JB. Yes after being at Tammora and not succeeding as a Trainee Pilot I was posted back to Bradfield Park, I waited embarkation and travelled to Canada, Edmonton where I was in the eh 2 AOS at Edmonton and did my training there as an Air Navigator and eh Then after that, having a wonderful leave in New York going to England where eh eventually going through advanced training flying course to understand the topography of the English countryside and that eh finished up at the OUT at Wing where I formed a Crew.
BJ. And how did you crew up eh how did you choose your crew how did you make that thing which is pretty important of course.
JB. Well crewing up was something that was completely, quite unexpected it was just herded us all into a large hanger, Pilots, Navigators, Bomb Aimers, Wireless Operators and we were told to find ourselves a Crew. Well luckily the Pilot I chose I trained with him at Bradwell Park well nearly twelve months before and I knew him, not that well and that was the start of our Crew.
BJ. I’ve got a question, what happened to the people that were left over in the Crewing side of things, was there anyone left over?
JB. I can’t remember
BJ. What were your thoughts on that first Operational Mission?
JB. The first Operational Mission was really quite a simple one, we did mining across the North Sea off the Dutch, the Islands of Holland and eh very uneventful but that was just to introduce us to the em Operational Experience but the first real Operation was a Resistance trip to supply the Resistance eh deep down in France and eh to our chagrin we found we had the Wing Commander going to fly with us. So we had him, him on duty and eh and all I can say is that the Bomb Aimer and I we did a fine job and got to the place where we were going to drop the eh packages but unfortunately nobody turned up and em after flying about six or seven times from the starting point to the small plot of land eh, the Wing Commander with us said “well you had better go home boys” and eh, that’s what we did. Then they sent us back to the same place the next night, so we got there and dropped out packages and did our job.
BJ. Well, well, how many ops did you take part in ?
JB. I did thirty, but the Crew did thirty five.It was due to the fact that I had a spell in Hospital at one stage, I had my appendice removed and to my great disappointment also was sick on the last trip. I had a bad attack of tonsillitis, they put me in Hospital and little did I know they were going to fly that night. Luckily they came back and we were tour expired and eh got away with doing five less than anybody else.
BJ. Eh and what happened then, how old were you then?
JB. I was still twenty.
BJ. Can you remember your last Op before you obviously got sick?
JB. It, it would have been to a eh place eh eh Oberhausen to do an attack on eh, eh Oil Refineries they were converting coal to oil and that was our task on a GH Operation which we were the Leaders.
BJ Ok and you never had any close calls with Flak or Night Fighters or anything like that.
JB. Oh we had a bad time, our first trip when we converted to Lancasters to a place called Duisburg and on that occasion due to inexperience with the aircraft we arrived at the Target. I as Navigator had the responsibility to put the Master Switch on so that the Electronics worked the Bomb Bay and fired the bombs. Unfortunately when we get to the target which was very quiet, nothing happened because I hadn’t switched the Master Switch on. Our Skipper who was a very conscientious man did a round again trip. In that round again trip everything happened there was searchlights, flack the whole thing, then having to work our way back into the Bomber Stream which was about six hundred bombers that night. So we were very fortunate to survive all that.
BJ. I reckon. What were the two aircraft that you done your Operations in, the Stirling and the Lancaster what are the pros and cons for each one of them and obviously ?
JB. Oh well as being a Navigator the Stirling was an ideal aircraft, had very comfortable appointments and eh for a Navigator. It was very stable and eh I think the Pilot liked flying the Stirling but when he got the Lancaster that changed his opinion all together, it was a superior aircraft in all ways and eh all that I can say is that I would fly in a Lancaster anytime.
BJ. Yeah, yeah you must, the maximum altitude of a Stirling was how high, how high was the maximum ceiling?
JB. Oh about twelve thousand feet, but you see when we were operating on a Special Duty job we were flying at five hundred feet, so it didn’t matter. With the Lancaster we were up at nineteen, twenty thousand and that was what we did.
BJ. Yeah yeah and during eh my previous interviews the eh Gentlemen that I talked to spoke about their eh last thoughts as they were taxiing out joining the stream. There was a very light I believe eh there was a light eh there was a lady that used to give you a green or red signal eh. Did you have any thoughts or were you just concentration on your work.
JB. No the Navigator he was busy at that time eh, working out what the Pilot had to do, what height to fly so he didn’t have much time to think about if it was going to be good or bad. The Gunners on the other hand were sitting with plenty of time on their hands. As far as I am concerned I was busy and that helped me all through the Operation, I was busy.
BJ. Yeah, yeah well that was a good way to be and what were the conditions like at the em Base that em you were at and eh did you have a good social life was the food good.
JB. [laugh] Well you see we were at a Wartime Airfield. Little did we know that sometime before after we finished our Con Unit training, to fill in the time they sent us on what they called a Battle Course. The Battle Course was held at Methwold and eventually well we didn’t think much about it, it wasn’t very comfortable and it didn’t have any atmosphere at all. Then they sent us from 149 Squadron at Lakenheath to 149 Squadron at Methwold so we were back at the same place and it wasn’t [laugh]a very inspiring choice. The point was a Squadron that had a great tradition, Middleton who had won his Victoria Cross there. So there was a very strong feeling of Family in the place. So that made up for War time discomfort.
BJ. Did you, that’s an interesting point because you had Australian, you had English I assume you had all the Commonwealth countries gathered around you had New Zealand, Canadians, South Africans did you all have different groups did you all just rib each other or did you ?
JB. Well speaking about our Crew we were all quite, very close, we had three Australians and three Englishmen and em, we got on well together and the em, atmosphere at the Squadron was good and em we used to go out to the local pubs and, and have social eh, interaction like that. So we didn’t really mix that well with other Crews,we knew them of course, I was a Navigator and got to know other Navigators and em really a lot of the people we didn’t get to know at all.
BJ. That Crew you really got to know really well,there was no outliers?
JB. No, we were very close, there was one occasion we had a bit of a problem, I had a problem with our Engineer and er I don’t think I should go into that sufficiently to say it was all patched up. It was a silly dispute and eh eventually travelling to England after the War I called twice to see our Engineer and his Family and we got on well.
BJ. Yeah but as I said to you before I knew you in my eh eh the Navigator and Pilot are very important but as a whole crew there are seven of you.
JB. All I can say about that is that we had a very good Skipper who had a very good affinity for us. All, all over the times between the end of the War and now and until Wal Crow died we were always going out together, always, as a Crew and the Wireless Operator who is still alive, we see each other as much as we can. So it was a very strong bonding that we had and that was typical of Bomber Command I would say.
BJ. And I loved the way the Crew were formed, my and you can probably tell me a bit more
JB. The skipper used to talk about “my Navigator” something would happen and he would say “I want my Navigator to know about that,” And I I later on in my life I joined a Probus Club with him and he was forever praising the little things I done. I was a Tourist, Tour Officer and he would always ring up next day and say that that was a good outing, you did very well Jim,that was his way, he was wonderful.
BJ. And of course and he had the Crew ah eh, he sounded eh like he had the Crew eh.
JB. Oh right behind him, he was considered very highly by the Squadron, he won a DFC and for my sins I won one too.
BJ. There you go, that’s what its all about eh there are another couple of questions here and I will ask about after the War. Did you have any thoughts of the Targets you flew over and the Civilians, possible Civilians.
JB. All I can say about that without going into the dispute with our Engineer, which was to do with that type of thing eh. When we did the GH Targets, bombing the Oil Refinery that to me is what I wanted to do, I wanted to do things that didn’t involve places, area bombing, bombing cities. I can’t say I was all that happy about that and that is the reason we had a bit of a dispute. He was an Engineer and previous to becoming and Air Engineer he was on a Squadron on Malta, on a Fighter Squadron and the Luftwaffe used to come over from Sicily every hour on the hour and shoot the place up. He had, he had very little respect for Germans as such. So our first trip with the Lancaster was to Duisburg on our return after settling down in our hut he said “I think we killed lots of Germans today” I said “I don’t think we did that Stan I said “I think we were bombing this” and one thing led to another and I gave him a fat lip.
BJ.Lets not beat about the bush.
JB.It wasn’t very good for a Crew at three o’clock in the morning to be doing things like that, anyway we got over that. I must say from my experience I was happier doing that other type of bombing.
BJ.Was there any trip that you would say was worse than the other or did one stand out as probably the worst mission you had ever done? Eventually when you were allocated that trip was oh no Christ what are doing?
JB I would say the Duisburg trip.
BJ.And why was that.
JB.It was putting us at the reality of bombing what a well defended target was, what you could expect and just wondered if every trip was going to be the same.
BJ.And when you finished, when you completed the thirty missions and obviously you had to visit the Hospital em when were you, where and when were you demobbed?
JB.No,no because of my training on the GH equipment it was decided to set up a small school at Feltwell nearby.
BJ.GH what did that stand for?
JB.Yes
BJ.What did that stand for?
JB.GH it was using the Gee Box system with the uses of the Oboe technology.
BJ.What happened after that then, you went back to training people?
JB.I was at Feltwell with a small group who were training new Crews eh on the, the GH System. Just prior to the War ending I was transferred to a Squadron where I was nominally called the GH Officer.
BJ. There you go.
JB. For a very short time.
BJ. Eh when the War finished eh where did you go, did you go back to your former work or did you.
JB. I must say eh I eventually came back and was disoriented like we all were. We had been used to a different way of life for some few years and settling wasn’t easy. I went back to my old job as a clerk in this motor body company and er. Eventually after a short time I was talking to a friend who told me Qantas were recruiting aircrew. So I reported to Qantas and I was employed as an Air Navigator on Qantas Airways.
BJ. For how long?
JB. Not for very long, just on two years until a decision was made by the eh Department of Air that all Navigators should produce first class licenses. Being a Wartime Navigator I was given automatically a second class license. Which involved sitting exams on very difficulty subjects and Qantas provided the opportunity for us by setting up a small school situation with a a a lecturer. All the Wartime Navigators were given time and for three weeks we attended classes to prepare us for these exams. Unfortunately for me I found that getting Maths to work out the various problems associated, I found I just couldn’t formulate equations in my mind resulting in the fact that I failed the exam and was told I couldn’t fly with Qantas at that time. Qantas offered me a job, they were a very small company then, they weren’t very big as an er Air Traffic Officer. Well I decided that was not a good idea and for a while I was getting married and I didn’t have a job [laugh].n
BJ. No problem we can sort that out. So how old were you then you must have been in your early twenties wern’t you?
JB. Twenty One. So eh [laugh] what happened next eh I lived at a place called Lidcolme, Lidcolme Jensen Australia Limited had their factory. They were makers of swimwear as everybody would know and sportswear. Anyway it occurred to me they might have some kind of job for people like me. So one day I went over there and asked to see the er office manager and er which I did and asked him about jobs available. He said “no unfortunately, but maybe the sales department do” He arranged for me to see the sales manager who said “we are just thinking about employing more salesmen and deciding what to do and we will let you know.” Well I was married still had no job, but then just after Christmas in 1947 eh, I eh, was told I had a position with Jensen as a Salesman and that became my career for the next twenty five years and I have a watch on my wrist as a token of their respect which is still going very well.
BJ. How good is that? Excellent and there is a whole load of discussion after the War. One of the things I wanted your opinion on is, what do you think of what you did during the War, Bomber Command and the legacy you left, the sacrifices you made and what that said to future generations,they younger generation today. Is it something that should be strictly remembered eh reminded of, the sacrifices that you, you people made in those years?
JB. Yes, I suppose immediately after the War like most of us we just wanted to get on with life and and not think too much what it was all about.Because eh, you had to bring up children and a living. I did start going to ANZAC marches with other Aircrew friends and they were always more or less eh, jolly occasions, not really thinking of the War much at all. As time went bye and maturity set in, it gave me like a lot of others, the opportunity to think what it was. Now being a member of the Bomber Command Committee, mixing with Bomber Command Boys that are still with us eh, and knowing why we were em there. I have come to the conclusion that Bomber Command was a very necessary weapon for the Allies to have. After all they had nothing else going for some time until D Day and the Russians were able to do what they did. So we carried the War on against Hitler and the Nazi’s and I prefer to think of the enemy as not Germans but Nazi’s and Hitler. The German people and I, I, have become friendly with some, they were possibly in the same situation as us. They needed to be released from the awful eh [unreadable] of the Nazi policy which was a totally violent and eh, non human organisation. So I’d answer the question, I think it was necessary for us to go to War. We had to stop Hitler and the Nazi’s and whatever we did to do that, had to be done.
BJ. When did you learn of the atrocities that were.
JB. And off course the War finished and the reality of what took place in Eastern Europe, that was more so the reason for us to have done what we did. The fact that our boys lost so many, after all Australians lost 3500 killed, prisoners of war as well and eh eh, wounded eh altogether 10500 Aircrew out of 52000 Aircrew. Em the losses were terrific and all that I can say is that we were fortunate that our time of Operations was a relatively easier and eh healthier, healthier time.
BJ. Do you, do you, were there many of your colleagues, friends and associates that didn’t settle down after the War. I had Uncles that couldn’t settle down after the Adventure that had to go and do something else Adventurous, like train for the Korean War for example.
JB. Well Aircrew were pretty sensible people eh. One of the members we lost track of and it took a long time to find him eh it turned out eh an English Boy and he turned up we found out as a warder in a prison. But we couldn’t, he had sort of moved away from us, I don’t know why but. Eventually he was caught up in our family because our Skipper had to go to England quite often with his business. So he was able to contact a man called Harry Sue and eh we got together again writing letters to each other. But he was one of the first of the Crew to leave us, he died rather early considering em and eh. Otherwise where it comes to other people I don’t think that Aircrew as such went through the same kind of trauma as other soldiers did. ‘cause after all, even though we saw some of the, some boys seen some of the worst things you could ever see, their Crew being wounded and things of that kind. We weren’t like Soldiers fighting and killing people. What we did we killed people no doubt, but they were at length, they were away, they were down there, so it didn’t it didn’t feel the same. I think looking back on the War and, and being close with old wartime colleagues em you realise what we did and how important it was.
BJ. For sure, and in that strain did you ever get any criticism either subtle or otherwise for what you did during the War?
JB. No, no we never had that happen to us but some would have, yeah some would have. Some were accused of being eh, Jap dodgers, going to England and doing what they did in Bomber Command. They certainly would have been dodging the Japs, so that was bad. We never experienced that, as I say eh. As a Crew we respected each other and the duties we had and that kept us above all that other noise that was going on. Its rather sad that the War finished when it did with the Leaders being so critical about what Bomber Command did and I refer now to Winston Churchill, he never in his Victory Address mentioned Bomber Command, it was left completely out. Because of legal questions his relationship with the Russians etc he joined the forces of criticism of what we achieved. We didn’t, didn’t have to destroy all those cities in Germany. It wasn’t necessary. We realised it was, because how else would the Germans have realised what, what, what they were up against.
BJ. A different era, the same argument could be about Japan, their dropping bombs.The bombs that they dropped on Tokyo in January plus the two Atomic Bombs. The same thing could be applied it was a job that needed to be done.
JB. I think it’s a em a case of em Politicians with there attitude em about what is possible and what is not possible, they change their mind very readily when they find they have opposition. And Churchill unfortunately despite all the wonderful things that he did in, in Bomber Commands opinion he let them down. We never receive a particular decoration for being in Bomber Command although there was a decoration called Aircrew Europe but that was on a limited basis reflecting the most difficult time of Bomber Command and from nineteen, middle of forty four on you could not qualify for that you qualified before that. We were given the France and Germany Star which was given to every Soldier eh, you know. So there was no distinction. Through all these years there has been a lot of lobbying to try and rectify that and what has happened is that they have issued a small bronze em, ah, em [slight pause] addition to our medals specifying Bomber Command. That is what they have done.
BJ. I was surprised that there wasn’t a Bomber Command medal.
JB. It was all to do with what was taking place politically. Once the Russians had occupied their area in East Germany they started to make all kinds of em unfortunate statements about what had happened there. For instance in Dresden they originally said that something like over 100,000 people were killed. That wasn’t so, after much research the situation wasn’t good but the number was nothing like that, it was 2500. Dresden after all was one of the cities that Churchill himself had designated as important for the Russians to have eliminated as, as opposition as they came through. That was decided six months before, so Dresden was always a fait accompli. The facts are that Dresden had many Wartime factories that produced all kinds of important instruments. So and it was a very big rail centre for the transferring of Troops into the East. So it was certainly a very important target and unfortunately for the people in Dresden the East German Nazi’s did not protect them. They did not have any air raid centres, the only air raid centre of any use was occupied by the Gael Lighter the German Political Boss of Dresden, he survived. It certainly was a tragedy that Dresden was damaged to such an extent. However I have had the fortune to be in Dresden three or four times and I have seen what has happened, it has been completely rebuilt. There are certain things that will never be rebuilt and not change, for example most of the buildings were made from a local sandstone and the horrific fires that came on the night of the bombing burnt into the stone and those stones are still black, they can’t remove it. And, but Dresden has returned to a very charming and beautiful city.
BJ. Do you think eh ah, certain authorities have done enough to recognise Bomber Command, I know they have opened up the Bomber Command Centre in Green Park. Do you think that has gone some way to recognising what you did?
JB. I think the Air Force people do eh, they, they have made great efforts to rehabil,rehabilitate Air Crew. Em,[unreadable] affairs have been good we are based on the standards of veterans, eh, I don’t think we are singled out particularly but er we are given a lot of eh, wonderful support. Em, I don’t think with Australia being involved with the Japanese threat, that the fact that Bomber Command operated in England against Germany etc eh made much impression on the general eh population of Austalia, I don’t think so.
BJ. In those days communication wasn’t as rapid as it now so they wouldn’t have known.
JB. However having said that I must say whenever I have marched on ANZAC day the amount of em, wonderful em, acclamation that comes from the,the crowd watching is a marvellous thing. They recognise a lot of them, because there has been many documentaries showing Bomber Command. If you go to Canberra to the War Memorial there is a wonderful display there of a, a bomber G for George, being attacked at night, a simulated attack if you wish. I think that has brought a lot to peoples minds.
BJ. No it’s a wonderful, I think it is better than anything I have seen in England it’s fabulous.
JB. I feel that Australia with the great respect and eh and eh care. I would have no, no criticism.
BJ. Are you feeling all right, do you want to have a break or?
JB. Yeah I’m alright or do you want a cup of tea?
BJ. Yeah we might do that.
JB. You sit here I’ll make it.
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Identifier
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ABatemanJT160802
Title
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Interview with James Thomas Bateman
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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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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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00:39:41 audio recording
Creator
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Barry Jackson
Date
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2016-08-02
Description
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Aged 17, James volunteered for aircrew in June 1942 purely for the adventure as he was looking for something exiting. He trained in Canada as a navigator and after a wonderful leave in New York returned to England for advanced flying training. on completion he was posted to 149 Squadron flying Stirlings at RAF Lakenheath.
On one of his operations he arrived over France to drop supplies to the French resistance but, in the absence of a reception committee, returned home and successfully repeated the trip the next night.
After converting to Lancasters, his first trip was to Duisburg but he forgot to operate the bombing master switch which meant they had to go around again and work their way back into the main bomber stream. James considers himself very fortunate to have survived that episode.
He speaks warmly of his crew but admitted that on the morality of mass bombing he had a dispute with his engineer and actually came to blows.
In December 1944, he completed his 30th operation to the Oberhausen oil refinery but became ill with tonsillitis and hospitalised. On recovery he spent time at RAF Feltnell training new crews on the Gee-H navigation system.
James was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross and after demob spent time as a clerk before joining Quantas Airways as an air navigation officer. Unfortunately the training was too complex for him and he left to pursue a career as a salesman for 25 years.
James speaks at length of his strong feelings on the importance of the role that Bomber Command carried out, which was not recognised by the leaders, and considers that the enemy were not the German people but the Nazis.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Norfolk
England--Suffolk
France
Canada
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Germany--Duisburg
Temporal Coverage
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1944
Contributor
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Hugh Donnelly
Terry Holmes
149 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
crewing up
Gee
Lancaster
memorial
navigator
perception of bombing war
RAF Feltwell
RAF Lakenheath
RAF Methwold
Resistance
Stirling
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/205/3340/ABatesP151009.1.mp3
f5fd2ef009e496cfc1da092a451f6c89
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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Bates, Philip
Philip Bates
P Bates
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Philip Bates (1307447 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a flight engineer with 149 Squadron until his aircraft was shot down and he became a prisoner of war.
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
2015-10-09
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Bates, P
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
BW: This is Brian Wright interviewing Mr Philip Bates at home in Urmston, Greater Manchester on Friday 9th of October at 2pm. Mr Bates could you please confirm your full name?
PB: Yes. Phillip Bates.
BW: And your rank.
PB: Sergeant when I was shot down but warrant officer when I returned back from being a prisoner of war.
BW: Ok. And do you recall your service number at all?
PB: Yes 1307447.
BW: It’s surprising how that -
PB: And I can tell you my prisoner of war number as well
BW: Ok.
PB: 222803
BW: 222803
PB: Stalag 4b.
BW: Ok. And what squadron were you on, sir?
PB: 149 at Lakenheath.
BW: Ok. So if you could just give us an idea of what your life was like prior to joining the air force so where you grew up and any sort of significant movements before joining the RAF and what prompted you to join.
PB: Yeah. Well I’m a native of Burnley, Lancashire, a cotton weaving town, until I was employed as a junior clerk with a local manufacturer but once the war started I was keen to get in and immediately after the fall of France I volunteered for the air force. And -
BW: So this would be May 1940.
PB: This would be May 1940 and went to Blackpool for a fortnight square bashing.
BW: Ok.
PB: Those of us who were on that particular course were then posted to Cosford and -
BW: Ok.
PB: Nobody thought about anything in those days except the imminent invasion of Britain and we who’d been in the air force a fortnight were given the job of defending Cosford against German paratroopers which was the most farcical thing you could ever imagine so a friend and I very quickly sneaked away to the orderly room and volunteered for training as flight mechanics and we both -
BW: Ok.
PB: Trained as flight mechanics and then as fitter 2E’s and my friend was posted to 149 squadron where I met up with him in 1943. I went to 86 squadron, Coastal Command flying the Beaufort torpedo bombers and moved from there to Scotland and eventually I was sent to Sealand to a huge maintenance depot on a six month potential NCO course with the intention that when I returned back to my unit I’d be made a corporal but whilst I was at Sealand a Manchester landed and this was June 1942 and I went to look at this Manchester. I’d never seen anything bigger than a, than a Wellington before and this thing was stood there with its bomb doors open and this was a few months after Butch Harris had taken charge and I looked up into that bomb bay and I said to myself. ‘Bomber Command is no longer a joke. It’s big. It’s getting bigger. I’ve got to be part of it,’ and so the next day I volunteered for training as a flight engineer.
BW: Ok.
PB: And I trained early in 1943. Posted to a Heavy Conversion Unit at Waterbeach where I was crewed up with a crew who had just finished their OTU on Wellingtons and we went from there.
BW: And so just thinking back to your decision to join Bomber Command. You’d already had some technical training -
PB: Yes.
BW: At that stage.
PB: Yes.
BW: And so you wanted to further that as a flight engineer.
PB: Well the obvious job for a fitter 2E was to be, was to be a flight engineer.
BW: Ok.
PB: And it didn’t require a great deal of training to bridge the gap of course.
BW: And there were a number of guys who went through Halton. Did you do any training for flight engineering at Halton or not? With [?]
PB: No. St Athan.
BW: Right.
PB: St Athan.
BW: So you weren’t one of Trenchard’s brats or anything?
PB: Oh no I wasn’t a brat. I was too old to be a brat [laughs].
BW: And so it was the sight of the Manchester that prompted you to join.
PB: Yes.
BW: Properly Bomber Command.
PB: Yes, yes.
BW: Were you able, at that stage, to volunteer for flying duties or did that come later? Did you foresee that as being part of that trade as a flight engineer?
PB: Once I became a flight, once I became a flight engineer obviously I was going to go into Bomber Command.
BW: Ok. And -
PB: When I arrived at St Athan I was given choices I could train to be. I could train to be on Stirlings or Halifaxes or Lancasters or Sunderland Flying Boats or Catalina Flying Boats. Now, as a fitter I’d always worked on radial engines and so I chose this, I chose the Stirling for the reason that it was Bomber Command and it had radial engines. It perhaps wasn’t the wisest choice. I’d have been better off on Lancasters probably but I I I liked the radial engine so that’s why I chose Stirlings.
BW: Speaking as an engineer how did you find the radials then? Were there, were there particular properties about them that you liked?
PB: Yes. They, they, they were more powerful than the Merlin for starters and they were more dependable and they could take more, they could take more damage.
BW: That’s er that -
PB: When I when I was a boy very keen on aircraft now to me the inline liquid cooled engine was just a big motor car engine. The radial was a proper aeroplane engine.
BW: Ok.
PB: That’s what it was all about for me. The radial was a proper aeroplane engine. The other was just a big motor car engine.
BW: I’m sensing there there’s a difference between the aerial engine and flying. Did you have a wish to fly at an early age?
PB: Well as a fitter whenever I worked on an aircraft and a pilot came along to do a test flight I invariably asked if I could go up with him so I flew on, I flew on Lysanders, Blenheims and Oxfords as a passenger.
BW: And which of those was your favourite? Which was -
PB: Oh the Lysander.
BW: Really?
PB: Oh gorgeous. You’re going, you’re going along and there’s a slow, you heard a terrible creaking noise and the slots and slats worked and the flaps come down.
BW: Ahum.
PB: And you could practically stand still. Wonderful aeroplane. Wonderful.
BW: They used that -
PB: Aeroplane.
BW: On special duties -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Squadrons.
PB: Short take off, short landings.
BW: Yeah.
PB: Yeah.
BW: But they were, they were a lovely aircraft to be a passenger in.
PB: Oh yes.
BW: Was it?
PB: It was a marvellous aeroplane was the Lysander. I loved it.
BW: Did you get many flights in those?
PB: Yes quite a few. Yes. I was on, I was on an ackack calibration unit. We worked in concert with the defences of Edinburgh the Forth Bridge and the Rosyth dockyard and I was once in a Lysander where we did dive bombing exercises on the Forth Bridge which was fantastic.
BW: Brilliant.
PB: Absolutely fantastic. It was like being in a JU87 almost.
BW: And this was just to calibrate the ackack guns as you say.
PB: Yes.
BW: To make sure they had the right sort of -
PB: Yes.
BW: Ranging or -
PB: Yes. Yes.
BW: Distance. There were no rounds fired in these -
PB: No. No. No just -
BW: Just to make sure.
PB: Calibration yeah.
BW: Right but either way the pilot imitated a dive bombing manoeuvre on a
PB: Yeah but we had a real clapped out aircraft.
BW: So having had some experience of Lysanders, a single engine aircraft and Oxfords the twin engine.
PB: Yeah.
BW: You then -
PB: All radial engines of course.
BW: And radial engines yeah you then opted while you were at St Athan to go forward for Stirlings.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And what was the course that lead you from St Athan to your squadron? How, how did you go about getting that?
PB: Well, we, we completed our course and we got our brevies and were posted to, to Waterbeach Heavy Conversion Unit and I was introduced to a pilot, a Pilot Officer Cotterill and he was my skipper and I then met the rest of the crew and we took it from there. Did our heavy conversion training.
BW: And how long did that take? Roughly.
PB: Not very long. Maybe about eight weeks I suppose. Something like that.
BW: And was most of that or all of it daylight sorties or were there night time -
PB: No.
BW: Ops involved as well?
PB: We did, we did two four hour sessions of daylight take offs and landings, circuits and bumps. Take of twenty minutes to take off and land for four hours. And having done eight hours of that in daytime we did another eight hours at night and then after that we did, we did cross country flights.
BW: And when you met your crew at this point did you stay together from the conversion unit through to, on operational squadron as the same crew or were the members interchanged?
PB: We lost two members. We lost two members shortly after we joined the squadron.
BW: And was there a reason behind that at all?
PB: Yes. Our first, our first navigator, Geoff was a regular soldier stationed in India when the war broke out. Browned off. To escape he volunteered for training as air crew. He had a stammer which didn’t help and he was a useless navigator and we knew he was useless and our first trip was a very simple mine laying in the North Sea and he flew us straight through the balloon barrage at Norwich coming back and the next day he packed his kit bags and left us.
BW: And was that his choice or -
PB: No. No, that was forced upon him.
BW: Right ok so it wasn’t something there like a moment of self-awareness. He decided to leave.
PB: No. No, he told, he told us he said, ‘They decided I’m not suitable for Bomber Command. I’m being posted to a Coastal Command station.’ Well I think that was just a face saver on his part. I can’t imagine what happened to him but he couldn’t navigate for toffee. Even, even, even with a Gee set he was useless.
BW: Ahum.
PB: And then we did two mine laying trips. We did a lot of fighter affiliation exercises and our mid upper gunner [Bolivar?] a Londoner was brilliant during, during fighter affiliation. Now, Len, Len the wireless operator was always sick. He spewed up everywhere and I sat there and think, ‘Why don’t you crash the bloody thing and get it over with.’ That’s how bad I felt and Bob was as happy as could be but we did two mine laying trips. One in the North Sea -
BW: Ahum.
PB: And one in the river estuary at Bordeaux and then our first target was the opening night of the Battle of Hamburg. 24th of July.
BW: This would be 24th of July 1943.
PB: Yeah. The next night we went to Essen. The next day our mid upper gunner reported sick with air sickness. Now, how he suddenly became air sick overnight I do not know but that was the end of him. So we had a new navigator and a new mid upper gunner.
BW: Sometimes after raids like that men would be removed if they were felt to perhaps have broken at some stage. Do you -
PB: Oh yes.
BW: Do you think that might have been an impact?
PB: Yes. He was still, he was still on the station when we were shot down and I’ve often wondered what he made of it that morning when he woke up and found five empty beds.
BW: And so if I can just touch again on the fighter affiliation. What kind of exercises were carried out there?
PB: Well either, either a Spitfire or a, or a Hurricane would make mock attacks on us and the gunners would give instructions to the skipper as to what evasive action to take and it was quite, it was quite, because our bomb aimer was a failed pilot who could fly, fly a Stirling perfectly well and the Stirling had dual controls so him and the pilot used to work together and we could really throw it about. Really throw it about. You could never have done that on a Lancaster what we did with a Stirling,
BW: No. There was only a single set of controls.
PB: Yeah. Oh it was a wonderful aircraft. Wonderful manoeuvrability aircraft. Couldn’t get very high but by George it could, it could manoeuvre.
BW: And so you mentioned about the raid on Hamburg. That was pretty close to being your first operational sortie.
PB: That was our first target yes after two mine laying trips.
BW: And what, what do you recall about that at all because it was Operation Gomorrah, the raid on Hamburg was pretty significant.
PB: It was operational. What, what, what was most fascinated me most was the colours. The colours of the lights. Reds, greens, yellows. Searchlights, blue searchlights, tracer shells, flak it was an incredible sight. An incredible sight and when you see, when you looked down and someone had just released a string of four pound incendiaries you’d get this brilliant white light like that and then it slowly turns red as the fire gets going. An incredible sight.
BW: So you’d see a sort of a line of white which would -
PB: Yes.
BW: Presumably be the magnesium -
PB: Yeah.
BW: In the incendiaries -
PB: Yes.
BW: Setting fire to the building which was then of course -
PB: Yes.
BW: Catch turn orange and burn.
PB: Yes it was quite remarkable.
BW: And did you only make the one raid on Hamburg or did you return because there was -
PB: We, we, we -
BW: Four days I think.
PB: In ten days this was our introduction to the target. In ten days we did four Hamburgs, an Essen and a [Remshite]
BW: Wow so you flew right through the raid on, or the operation against Hamburg -
PB: Yeah.
BW: In that case.
PB: And the second night of course. The night of the firestorm oh, deary deary me, that was terrible.
BW: Were you aware at all of what was, what was going on? It seems a lot of information has come out subsequently. What were you sort of aware of the damage at that time?
PB: Well where -
BW: While flying.
PB: On the second night when we were back over the sea I went up into the astrodome and looked back and there was only one fire in Hamburg that night. It looked to be about three miles across and it came straight up white, red and black smoke thousands of feet above us and I said over the intercom, ‘those poor bastards down there.’ I couldn’t help myself. It was a terrible, terrible sight. I’ve never seen anything like it on any other target.
BW: At once it’s a spectacular sight but it’s also when you see that sort of thing -
PB: We, we, we killed forty thousand people that night.
BW: When did that, when was that made aware to you? When did you become aware of that sort of statistic? Was it pretty soon after or was it -
PB: Well the newspapers reported it a couple of days later and gave the number of dead.
BW: Right.
PB: And quite honestly I was disappointed. I thought from I saw it must have killed more than that.
BW: It sounds like they might have underestimated.
PB: Yeah. But forty thousand people were killed that night.
BW: Ahum.
PB: Compare that to how many were killed in London in the entire period of the war. There was no comparison.
BW: No. It’s different isn’t it?
PB: But we never, we never, we never achieved anything like Hamburg again until Dresden of course and in Dresden it only killed twenty odd thousand.
BW: And so Hamburg has obviously made quite an impression for that reason.
PB: Hamburg, I think was undoubtedly Bomber Command’s greatest success of the war. I’ve just, I’ve just read a book by Adolf Galland who was in charge of the German night fighters and the things he says about what the consequences of Hamburg and what it meant to the High Command and the changes it was, it shattered them. Completely shattered them.
BW: So it had, it had certainly had ramifications on the ground but it had more ramifications for the Luftwaffe High Command is what you’re saying.
PB: Yes. Yes. It terrified the German fighter defence to pieces. Terrified them.
BW: And did you see many night fighters at this stage over Hamburg? Were they active?
PB: No because it was it was the first, it was just the introduction of Window and everything was at odds.
BW: And so Window was the anti-radar -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Jamming mechanism.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Where they chucked out strips of aluminium.
PB: But they recovered, they recovered from, from Window very very quickly and they got, they got a new form of defence which was more effective they forced it out before, before Window and I’ve read the German view that Window did more harm than good for Bomber Command in the long run because it completely organised their defences.
BW: But at least on that night or on those nights that you were flying over Hamburg the fighters were ineffective because -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Of the use of Window.
PB: The first night there were eight hundred aircraft and we lost twelve.
BW: Wow.
PB: And most of those were lost because they were off course. Separated away from the protection of Window.
BW: Were there any hits from the ackack below? German anti-aircraft fire was renowned as being very accurate. Did you feel that as you were flying over there?
PB: The one thing, the one thing that fascinated me about ackack was that the smell of cordite filled the aircraft. You were flying through clouds of the stuff but when we landed the bomb aimer and I always got our torches and we searched underneath the aircraft and if there was no damage we were disappointed. We expected to have been hit.
BW: So that, that, sort of, I suppose summarises or encompasses your first few trips on operations. What happened after Hamburg? What were the next -
PB: Well we flew on -
BW: Significant raids for you.
PB: We flew on the last two raids ever carried out on Northern Italy and we flew twice to Nuremberg which we always regarded as a particularly important Nazi target and we did a few other various towns in the Ruhr and then on the 31st of August we went to Berlin and that was something else. That was an absolute complete fiasco.
BW: And this was still 1943?
PB: Yeah. Yeah.
BW: In August ’43.
PB: Yeah. The raid on Berlin on the 31st of August. Well the trouble was we’d been, we’d been to Monchengladbach the night before and we quite often did two nights, two consecutive nights. Well, you do Monchengladbach you get very little sleep, you go for briefing and you’re told its Berlin. There were howls of rage from all the air crews and that manifested itself later because that night about eighty aircraft ditched their bombs in the North Sea and returned early. Biggest number ever ‘cause people weren’t prepared to go.
BW: That, that almost sounds a bit like a mutiny in a way doesn’t it?
PB: It’s not far off.
BW: Down tools.
PB: It’s not far off really but the raid was also badly planned. All the damage to Berlin had been in the west and it was intended that this raid should do damage in the east and so we were sent to a point south of Berlin. There was Berlin on our left. We expected to fly seventy miles east. Split-arsed turn, fly seventy miles back and approach Berlin from, from the east. Now, nobody did it. The pathfinders put their markers down two miles south of where they should have been and we all approached from the south so the creepback extended miles and miles and miles. We killed less than a hundred people in Berlin. We lost over two hundred airmen killed and over a hundred prisoners of war. It was a complete and utter fiasco.
BW: Wow and that simply stemmed from, as you say, the pathfinder markers being dropped two miles south.
PB: And we’re coming from the south.
BW: Yeah.
PB: You can imagine it, practically no bombs and the Germans that night for the first time put down these parachute flares. It was like driving down the Mall with all the lights on. It was an incredible sight and it’s such a big place to get through. It takes forever.
BW: And so the gunners clearly with those parachute flares they could have a clear sight presumably of the bomber stream.
PB: And you’ve got day fighters looking down.
BW: Wow.
PB: As well as the night fighters looking up and you’ve got the schragemusik by this time as well.
BW: Which are the cannons in the back of an ME110 to fire vertically underneath the bomber yeah.
PB: Yeah or a JU88.
BW: Yeah.
PB: Or a Messerschmitt 110.
BW: Yeah.
PB: Seventy degree angle, in between the inborn engine and the fuselage hit the main tanks. All you’d see is a great big flash in the sky and that’s it. It was gone.
BW: The crews often said they didn’t know they were there.
PB: No.
BW: Those who survived didn’t see them.
PB: You could see an aircraft flying peacefully and then the next second it’s a ball of fire and you’ll see no tracer and a myth arose and the myth was that the Germans were firing a new type of bomb, a new type of shell which we called a scarecrow and it was designed not to shoot aircraft down but to explode and give the impression of an aircraft blowing up and for months navigators would log these and they weren’t scarecrows. The Germans never had a scarecrow. They were aircraft blowing up.
BW: Actually the aircraft themselves.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And -
PB: And the irony of that is that in the First World War the British had upward firing guns to attack zeppelins.
BW: Ahum Yeah.
PB: [laughs] They never learn.
BW: Because they were difficult to shoot down as well. But so ok from, from there that’s two operations on the trot really. Monchengladbach and Berlin.
PB: Yeah.
BW: You mentioned those airmen killed. Were any of those from the squadron? Did you know any of those guys at all? Were there Stirlings in that lot that were shot down?
PB: Er we there was a raid on Berlin on the 24th of August as well but we were on leave but a crew that we trained with went missing that night and a friend of mine got shot down on the night we were on. A fella called Lew Parsons. He was shot down on the 31st .
BW: Luke Parsons?
PB: Yeah. L E W, short for Lewis.
BW: Oh I see. Lew Parsons.
PB: He was a flight engineer.
BW: And he was shot down on the 31st of August.
PB: Yeah. Yeah. But it, it was a dreadful night. Anyway, the next day our skipper and our navigator were commissioned officers and so the next day we met up with the skipper and he said Johnny’s reported sick and Johnny was our navigator. Flying Officer Johnny [Turton ]. A fantastic navigator. Absolutely fantastic and he’d gone sick and later in the day we were given a replacement. Another flying officer but a New Zealander by the name of McLean and he was the exact opposite from Johnny. Johnny was a big outgoing personality who radiated confidence. This chap had no, no, no personality whatsoever. He was with us five days. We scarcely ever saw him. We scarcely ever spoke to him. We never even learned his Christian name. And he got us shot down.
BW: And that was, of course then going to be your last -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Last flight.
PB: Yeah 5th 5th of September. Mannheim.
BW: Ok. I was just going to ask a question there and it’s just gone from my memory but I’ll probably come back to it. So, oh yes how far into your tour were you at that point? It sounds -
PB: That was our fifteenth trip.
BW: So exactly halfway through.
PB: Exactly halfway. We knew with Johnny we could do, we could do the tour because he was so brilliant but without him we were lost and he finished his tour. He joined another crew, finished his tour got his DFC, survived the war. He was brilliant.
BW: It’s strange how fate goes isn’t it?
PB: Yeah. Yeah.
BW: Before we move on to your experience of being shot down I would just like to ask about what it was like for you as a flight engineer in the sort of preparation and flying out. What sort of things you would do? Perhaps if you could give us a sense of preparation you would go through to -
PB: Yes.
BW: To board the aircraft.
PB: Yes.
BW: What it was like to then go up in a Stirling.
PB: Well to begin with once we got out the aircraft there were a great many pre-flight checks to do. One of them was to go up onto the main plane with a member of the ground crew. Now, we had fourteen petrol tanks on a Stirling. Sometimes we only had the four main ones. Sometimes we had fourteen. Sometimes we had a mixture but my job was to go up on to the main plane with a member of the ground crew and he would open up the filler caps on all the tanks that were supposed to be full and I had to check visually that they were full to the, to the brim. Now, every night I’m stood on the leading edge of a Stirling. I’m twenty feet above the ground. I think when he moves to the next one and I follow, if I slip I’ll roll down the main plane I’ll fall fifteen feet to the tarmac and at the very least I’ll break an ankle and I’ll be alive tomorrow morning and I always, always considered that thought. I never did it of course. The thought was always there. It was in our own power to be alive tomorrow morning [laughs]. But once, once in the air my two main jobs was one to monitoring engine performance making sure the pressures, temperature etcetera were as they should be and that we were flying at the right airspeed and the right revs and the other was calculating every twenty minutes I had to calculate the amount of petrol used from whichever tank doing the past every twenty minutes recorded so that I always knew how much petrol remained in each tank because they weren’t over generous with their petrol allowance and people did run short very often. So that was, that was important, to keep, to know exactly how much petrol you had and where it was.
BW: So even though you’d done inspections and the ground crew had correctly filled the tanks presumably you could encounter unknown winds and like a headwind.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And use your fuel more quickly.
PB: As I understand it the calculation was made. This is your track. It’s so many miles. You’ve so much petrol. We’ll give you so much and we’ll give you another three hundred and twenty gallons as a, as a reserve.
BW: Reserve.
PB: But of course you get off track, winds are against you, anything can happen. You can’t hold height, you’ve got to get into rich mixture to climb again. All sorts of things could happen to make you use more fuel.
BW: And that would include of course having to take evasive action over the target or anything like that.
PB: Yes, evasive, any time when you had to open up the engines and go into full fuel. We were using a gallon a minute.
BW: That’s pretty significant and that’s just through one engine. A gallon a minute through an engine.
PB: No. It’s, that’s the aircraft.
BW: Oh, the aircraft. Ok.
PB: A gallon a mile through the aircraft.
BW: Oh right.
PB: A gallon a minute through each engine yes.
BW: And I think you said the Stirling was a, was a lovely aircraft to fly. What was your experience generally of the environment in which you were having to work? Was it cramped or was there enough room to do your job?
PB: I’ve only been in a Lancaster once and it horrified me. There’s no space to breathe. You could hold a dance in a Stirling. It was huge and because of the short wingspan it was so highly manoeuvrable. It was a beautiful aeroplane but it couldn’t get any height. Couldn’t get any height.
BW: A limited ceiling.
PB: We had to fight to fly at thirteen thousand. On the last night at Hamburg. The night of the big storm we did two runs over Hamburg at eight thousand feet with the bomb doors frozen up.
BW: Wow.
PB: That was a terrible night.
BW: Just out of interest the air supply gets pretty thin around ten thousand feet. Did you ever have to use oxygen?
PB: It goes on automatically at ten thousand feet.
BW: Right.
PB: Ten thousand feet, oxygen on and skipper charges into S gear.
BW: Into S gear.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And does that give you extra boost through the engines?
PB: Yeah. Yeah.
BW: Ok and were you able, in some cases crews had to stow their parachutes. Were you able to move around with your parachutes on or did you stow it?
PB: No it was always stowed. Always stowed away.
BW: How did it feel when you were actually bombed and fuelled up ready to go and you’re at the threshold of the runway and you’d got the green light. Could you just talk us through that?
PB: Well -
BW: What you were feeling there and what you were doing?
PB: I experienced three feelings. Between briefing and going out to the aircraft, absolute terror. Once we delivered the bombs and the photoflash had gone off, wonderful. Once back eating bacon and eggs very, very satisfied. Those were the three emotions that I suffered.
BW: How did it feel when you were given that that green light? Presumably as a flight engineer you followed the pilot through on the throttles.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And you feel this surge of power of the engines going.
PB: Yeah all all the while was concentrating on getting the thing up because the Stirling had a violent swing. It had this ridiculous undercarriage and because of the torque of the engines it swung to starboard and you had to correct that swing either on the throttles or the stick. Now, if you got a cross wind as well that swing could be quite dramatic and it went like that and then like that.
BW: So a violent swerve either way.
PB: The undercarriage just collapsed you don’t want an undercarriage collapsing when you’ve got a thousand -
BW: No.
PB: Incendiary bombs stuck in the belly [laughs].
BW: Were there any incidents where aircraft were unable to take off because of that? They perhaps didn’t control the swing or there was a cross wind.
PB: Oh yeah. The very first Stirling on its very first flight in the hands of a very skilled test pilot on its very first landing wrote its undercarriage off.
BW: Simply because of the swing due the power in the engines.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And the imbalance.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And yet it looks from, as you say, the size of it -
PB: Yeah.
BW: It looks a very stable beast to fly.
PB: It’s incredibly strong that way. It’s not very strong that way.
BW: So longitudinally strength.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And laterally not so good.
PB: It was a very strong undercarriage but it’s so tall it [put a side strain on it] like that.
BW: Yeah.
PB: It goes. Time and time again.
BW: And of course these are pure manual controls. They’re not power assisted in any way.
PB: Oh no. No.
BW: So, but it was generally very smooth to fly and very easy to fly once you were airborne.
PB: Oh it was a beautiful aeroplane to fly. Beautiful. It really was. It was like a [? ] You could do anything with it.
BW: How many were, were in your crew? There were normally seven in a Lancaster.
PB: Seven yeah.
BW: The same in the Stirling.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And you had initially for your first part of your tour you had Johnnie [Turton] as your navigator.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And your pilot. Who was your pilot?
PB: Pilot. When I joined him in May it was Pilot Officer Bernard Cotterell.
BW: That’s right.
PB: By the time we were shot down he was Acting Flight Lieutenant Bernard Cotterell.
BW: Is that C O T T E R -
PB: Yeah.
BW: I L L?
PB: Yeah. E L L.
BW: E L L. And so who are the, you mentioned your wireless op.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Um, who was Len -
PB: Len Smith. Bomb aimer was Alan Crowther.
BW: Alan Crowther.
PB: Yeah the rear gunner was John [Carp?] a Scotsman.
BW: John [Carp?]
PB: He was always known as Jock rather than John.
BW: Jock.
PB: And the new, the new mid upper gunner was a Newcastle lad called Ray Wall.
BW: Ray Wall.
PB: Yeah, Ray Wall. There were only five of us, as I say, left from the original crew and of those five I was the only survivor. The mid upper, the mid upper survived and this new navigator survived?
BW: And so from there we’ve looked at sort of the raids and the preparation for them. What sort of things would happen on the return to base? You’d obviously be debriefed but what form would that take?
PB: Well, we, we, we always flew at the recommended airspeeds which got you the most miles per gallon. A lot of people just simply flew back as fast as they could regardless of wasting petrol so we were invariably the last aircraft to land which meant we always had to queue up to wait to be de debriefed which was a nuisance but then of course it was the bacon and egg lark. Bacon and egg time and off to bed.
BW: And what, what was the accommodation like? You were all crewed up. Were they in nissen huts. Was there a crews either side or was it -
PB: We, we, we were in a nissen -
BW: Different.
PB: Hut and I think we shared it with two other crews and one morning, one morning you would find that half the beds are made up and all everything’s gone because they had disappeared but the thing is you never, you never associated with anybody outside your crew. There was no point to it.
BW: Really.
PB: No point to it at all. A crew was a very. very tight little, little group. We did everything together.
BW: And so even though there would be two other crews in the, in the nissen hut with you you would still socialise only with your own crew.
PB: Oh yeah we never bothered with anybody else. Very rarely spoke to anybody else even.
BW: And where did you go during your off-duty hours? Where did you socialise?
PB: Oh the village pub in Lakenheath.
BW: Do you recall the name?
PB: No, I don’t actually. No.
BW: Ah.
PB: But I do remember there was a Mrs Philips who used to provide us with suppers some times. Just across the road. She used to put on bacon and egg suppers. I don’t know where she got the bacon and eggs from but she used to put on bacon and egg suppers.
BW: Just as a special treat for you.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And the rest of the crew.
PB: But you know you sit in the village pub at night and you were surrounded by farmers and butchers and bakers and all the rest of it. People for whom the war was just something they read about in the newspapers and you were just so happy, you’re so happy. It’s wonderful. There’s nothing like a crew. Nothing. Incredible relationship. Incredible.
BW: And did you have opportunity to mix with other locals? Not just the, the tradesman there, if you like, the farmers and the bakers or whatever?
PB: No. The only time we went out, off the camp was to go in to the little pub. On the nights we weren’t flying. We were in there every night we weren’t flying.
BW: Were there station dances at all or anything like that?
PB: No. There was no station. You’d the airfield there, you’ve the mess here and your billet over there and something else over there. If you didn’t have a bicycle you couldn’t exist in Lakenheath.
BW: So quite a distance between -
PB: Distances are immense. And I’ve visited it since the war. It’s an American town now.
BW: Yeah. It’s, it’s a huge place.
PB: Oh it’s a big place and when I, when I was there talking to them they produced some information about the wartime use and they spelt Stirling as if, as if it was the bloody currency [laughs].
BW: Were there, just out of interest, were there other crews in the pub where you went or was it pretty much just you guys?
PB: Well no doubt there were.
BW: Right.
PB: But we just sat in our corner and nothing else existed.
BW: Right.
PB: Nothing else existed.
BW: So tucked away in your own -
PB: Yeah.
BW: In your own little world.
PB: And there my skipper named my first daughter.
BW: Right.
PB: My skipper. I don’t know how we got on, how the conversation got around to that actually but one evening for some reason the skipper said if my wife and I were to ever have a daughter we were going to call her Penelope. I never forgot that and so very many years later when my first daughter was born she simply had to be Penelope. I had no choice.
BW: Well. As you say it obviously comes from being a tight crew.
PB: Yes.
BW: And that connection.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Ok. You mention then about your trip to Mannheim and this New Zealand navigator.
PB: Yeah.
BW: About your, of your crew.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Who, who got you shot down?
PB: Yeah.
BW: Just talk us through that if you would, please.
PB: Well we had a full petrol load which means a minimum bomb load of course. We were briefed for Munich and when briefing had been completed the CO said there’s a Mosquito on its way to Munich at the moment because it’s feared the weather may break down there so we’re going brief you for a possible alternative for Mannheim. So we had a second briefing then. Now, we’d no idea where we were going which meant of course the navigators had two flight plans to prepare. They’d doubled the work in the limited amount of time so they were under stress from the start. So we, we, we retire to our aircraft. Do all our pre-flight checks and the CO comes around in his van and says Munich is scrubbed. You’re going to Mannheim. So off we go. Immediately we cross enemy coast we were hit by flack. Now this had never ever happened to us before. He’d taken us straight over a, straight over a gun batt. I was shocked and I thought I’m going to spend, I’m going to spend the next hour checking the fuel in the hope we were losing fuel and we could turn back. And I went and did a meticulous check on the fuel but we weren’t losing fuel of course. Now, the raid was cleverly designed. You’ve got Ludwigshafen, the Rhine, Mannheim. If you fly over Ludwigshafen into Mannheim a creepback occurs. You get two targets for the price of one. And so that was the way we were to enter. So, to make sure we got it right for each wave of the attack the pathfinders was putting down a red marker. Now if you turn on a red marker on to the right course you flew straight over Ludwigshafen straight to Mannheim. So as we, as we were approaching the point where we could expect to see the flare the navigator says, ‘Keep your eyes open now. You should be seeing a red flare any time now.’ And suddenly there’s a red flare there and another red flare over there.
BW: So one to your left and one to your right.
PB: Yeah. So which, which is, which is the correct one? Only the navigator knows which is the correct one. ‘That one,’ he says.
BW: On the left.
PB: Nearer to the target. We get to the target five minutes early. The skipper makes what I still think was the right decision. He said we’d been hit by a bomb once at Nuremberg so we knew that. You’re either the only one over the target or the bombs are coming down from Lancasters. The skipper did an orbit but unfortunately the radar picked us up and as soon as we start to go in a blue searchlight comes straight on.
BW: Which is the radar guided one.
PB: Yeah and then then the column builds up and we’re flying straight over with the bomb doors open. So we continued like that until the bomb aimer got a sight and then you let the lot go in one go and we didn’t wait for a photograph. And over a target I always went up in to the astrodome facing backwards to help the gunner search for fighters and I was up there [ and we slowly began to pull away? ] and there were only a couple of searchlights on us and I thought I’d better check on my engines cause they’re getting a terrible thrashing. You’re only allowed a few minutes on full power so I get down, I get down from the pyramid and have a very long, I have a very long lead on my intercom so I can, don’t have to keep plugging and unplugging and I get down and I’m just going over to the instrument panel and suddenly there’s a terrible screaming and Len, Len the wireless operator had been just behind the main spar pushing out pushing out the window came running up through the main spar screaming, tripped over the pyramid, fell across my lead, pulled it out so I lost all communication and he fell at my feet and then this huge fire broke out in the fuselage and I’m steeling myself to stand and step over Leonard’s body to get to the fire extinguisher and out of the corner of my eye I see the mid upper gunner get out and put his chute on. I turn around. The navigator’s already on his way down the steps so instead of going for the extinguisher I go for my parachute and follow the navigator. I get to the top of the steps, the hatch is open. The navigator’s gone. I slide down. I get my feet through. The bomb aimer had gone up in to the second pilot’s seat to help the skipper. He started to clamber down from the, from the seat as I go past. I get my legs through. I feel a pressure on my back. I turn. Alan’s got his knees pressing in my back, tap him on the knee and go and as I go I feel the aircraft break in two and Alan never got out. So the rear gunner and Len were killed by the fighter. The skipper was wounded by flak that also set the port inner on fire and the skipper and Alan never had a chance of getting out because the aircraft had broken in two. The tail unit with the rear gunner’s body in it landed a considerable distance away. The main wreck landed right on the German Grand Prix racing track at Hockenheim.
BW: Wow.
PB: I have the map. I have a map showing the exact position and I saw the fire. It was a huge. We’d over a thousand gallons of petrol on board. We had enough petrol for Munich and the three in the aircraft were completely destroyed. Only, only fragments of bone left. The air gunners body was complete and so in the cemetery now at [Bad Tolz?] there’s a, there’s the rear gunners grave there, then there’s a headstone for Len, a headstone for the skipper, a headstone for Alan but what bits of fragments of bone there were are all buried in front of the skipper I’m sure. It was just symbolic. Never, never let the relatives know that of course. Never mention fire to the relatives but those two graves were empty and what bits there were were in front of the skipper which is right and proper.
BW: And you, you must have been pretty close to the ground when you baled out yourself.
PB: No. Oh, no. I was about ten thousand feet.
BW: Oh right. It was, it was the sense I was getting that it was almost a last minute sort of thing where you were able to escape.
PB: No. No, the aircraft broke in two very quickly. It was a tremendous. What happened I think the JU88 killed the rear gunner and then from, there’s a pump on the starboard engine, and dual pipelines to the rear turret that power the turret. Now I think it hit those pipelines. You’ve got hydraulic oil pressure, high pressure, high temperature came out and that’s what caught fire. The fire then came underneath the mid upper gunner, hit Len when he was doing the window in and stopped before it reached me but it was, it was a terror, it certainly was a fire and although I didn’t know till much later virtually simultaneously flak knocked out the port engine and the port inner engine and wounded the skipper and Ray, Ray told me later that when the skipper gave the order to bail out he [signed to say] as if he was badly hurt.
BW: And then at that point, the stricken aircraft, it must be almost I guess vertical if it’s broken up at that point.
PB: It didn’t, it didn’t go like that when it hit the ground it was it just come straight down like that.
BW: Yeah.
PB: I dare say some of it is still there buried under that racetrack. Some of the engine. But later I had a friend in Germany who was, who was in Ludwigshafen. He lived in Ludwigshafen. He was a schoolboy in Ludwigshofen. He may well have been on the flak gun that night for all I know.
BW: That would have been a coincidence wouldn’t it?
PB: Well after, he worked for the postal service after the war and when he retired he set himself up as what he called an air historian and he excavated a lot of shot down bombers and he was very keen on Bomber Command and he provided me with a lot of information and he produced a woman who’d been a schoolgirl in Hockenheim and on the morning after we crashed, after we were shot down, a neighbouring woman knocked on her door and she had what they described as a Canadian airman with them. It was in fact a New Zealander and the girl’s mother gave him a drink of water and later in the day the girl’s interest was aroused and she and a girlfriend went out to look at the crash and she provided me with a map of the actual crash site just by the, so whenever the German Grand Prix comes on I always, always watch it for a few minutes. I don’t like grand prix racing but I always watch it for a few minutes.
BW: Just that particular one.
PB: Yeah. That’s where it crashed.
BW: And have you been back to Hockenheim at all?
PB: No. No, I’ve not. No, I’ve not.
BW: But the information’s come through to you.
PB: Yeah.
BW: As to what’s happened.
PB: Peter provided me with a lot of information.
BW: What’s the air historian’s name? Do you recall?
PB: Peter Mengas M E N Mengas G A S.
BW: G A S.
PB: Peter.
BW: And is he still around?
PB: I don’t know. I’ve not, I’ve not heard from him for a year or two now.
BW: So you’ve managed to get out of the aircraft yourself.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And this is night-time. About ten thousand feet over Germany.
PB: Yeah 1 o’clock. It was just about midnight on my watch. It was 1 o’clock in the morning German time.
BW: And you pulled the rip cord and -
PB: Well, no. This was the problem when I, when I first joined the squadron I got a harness which could be adjusted. Now, I moved about a lot in the Stirling. I’ve controls there, there, there and there.
BW: All around the -
PB: And I used to [bend down?] around number seven tank and the shoulder strap would fall off and I thought I’ll get this fixed but I never did of course so when I baled out I was terrified of falling out of my parachute so I daren’t open it until I got myself you know [? ] as I could.
BW: Sort of braced against the straps were they?
PB: And when I opened it and I felt oh that’s it but it wasn’t that was just the parachute pulling the pack off my chest and then bang.
BW: The snap of the canopy.
PB: And I took all the weight there. The shoulder straps were up here. I came down in agony. I don’t know why it didn’t castrate me.
BW: Because of the tight grip around the -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Groin area where the -
PB: And then when I eventually I saw the ground rushing up and I rolled myself into a ball as I’d been taught and this buckle took two ribs with it.
BW: On the left hip.
PB: Yeah. Broke, broke two, broke two of my ribs and so I, it was, it was very painful. Very painful. And this is funny really by the next day my left side had seized up and I’m walking in a westerly direction trying to get to France [laughs] and, I don’t know and there was just one house which I had to pass and I thought, I thought a girl stood in the window had spotted me. I wasn’t certain but I thought she had. Anyway, I kept going and suddenly I hear a shout and I turn around and there’s this chappy running towards me and running behind him is a woman, presumably his wife and the two things I didn’t believe. I didn’t believe that fighting men put their hands above their heads like the baddies in the cowboy films and I didn’t believe the Germans went around saying. ‘Heil Hitler,’ to each other but as this chappy approached without any conscious effort on my part my hands went up. This one went up. This one wouldn’t.
BW: Your right one.
PB: He saw me like. He stopped running [?]and, ‘Heil Hitler.’
BW: So because you can’t raise your left arm you can only raise your right arm he thinks you’re doing the salute.
PB: He thought I was a Luftwaffe chappy. ‘Heil Hitler,’ he said [laughs] Well, I just I was in a pretty perilous state by this time. I just collapsed in to hysterical laughter. I just stood there and laughed and laughed and laughed and his wife came along and she sized up the situation immediately. She put her arm around me, took my weight on her shoulder and led me towards the town and the very first house we came to she made a very, very cross old woman let me into her kitchen, sit me down and made me a cup of coffee. So this woman very unwillingly gave me a cup of coffee. I hadn’t drunk anything for twenty four hours and I took a sip and I thought, ‘Bloody hell, I can’t drink this. It’s absolutely disgusting,’ and I thought, ‘Well if I don’t drink it it’s a great insult to this woman who’s been so incredibly kind to me,’ so I had to drink it. That was my introduction to the German diet oooph [laughs].
BW: And so you managed from a rough landing in a loose parachute in God knows where -
PB: Yeah.
BW: To get yourself together. You didn’t meet any of the other crew at this point because you obviously talked about -
PB: The -
BW: Yourself.
PB: The mid upper gunner landed right next to a railway signal box and was arrested within seconds. The navigator landed in a tree and had to be rescued. So they were captured very quickly. Both of them.
BW: So there was just you on your own at this point.
PB: I was on my own.
BW: Were you knocked unconscious or, or did it take some time to come around? I mean you’ve obviously had to get rid of your chute and -
PB: No I, I, I was shocked. I was shocked obviously and I was in pain from these ribs but I said I’ve a duty to the RAF and that was to get to Gibraltar. [Laughs] It’s a long way away.
BW: Yeah.
PB: I’d got the Rhine to cross for one thing. That’s not, that’s not easy. [laughs].
BW: And so the, the people that, that met you I mean you talk about heading west towards France and Mannheim is, is quite deep in western Germany.
PB: Yeah.
BW: So you’re actually being met by Germans at this point.
PB: Yeah.
BW: But they assist you.
PB: Yeah.
BW: So what then happened? Did they, they pass you on? Or -
PB: Well this couple took me to the police station where the other two were already held although I didn’t know it and we were kept there for about three days and a couple of Luftwaffe chappies arrived to take us up to Frankfurt to Dulag Luft interrogation camp and when we left we were given a bundle of the rear gunner’s clothing and his flying suit had hundreds of holes in it. The cannon shells must have hit the turret and exploded, it was absolutely riddled and his helmet and his, his oxygen mask was soaked in blood and there were the four guns from the rear turret as well. So we had that to carry. And we had, we had an adventurous journey. We couldn’t, it, this was the most successful raid on Mannheim Ludwigshafen at that time and it was complete chaos and we had to go by train in to a big detour so we travelled that day and went to a Luftwaffe camp and stayed the night in the guard room there and the next day we go back to the railway station and it was a, it’s a station something like Victoria in Manchester. A long corridor with steps going up to the various platforms. We were on the platform and what I call a typical Daily Express German came along, feather in his hat and oh he was furious he was furious and Hitler had issued an order to all military and police units that if civilians get hold of airmen before the authorities do the authorities were not to interfere. They must leave it to the discretion of the civilians what to do with them and this one was stark raving, oh he was angry. And in the air force there’s an offence known as silent contempt. You don’t do anything but you look at an officer who’s ticking you off and look at him and make it obvious you think he’s [lowly?] and it’s a serious crime in the air force. Well Ray and I were giving this chappy the silent cont and the navigator said, ‘Stop being a bloody fool.’ He was a good deal older than we were and eventually this chap storms off and we thought, ‘Oh that’s shown him.’ A few minutes later he’s back at the head, the head of a posse and they’re obviously, obviously intent on doing us serious bodily harm but fortunately there was, there was a train on the other side of the platform. Now, whether it was a troop train or not I don’t know but half a dozen soldiers got out and ranged themselves between us and the, and this crowd and our two Luftwaffe chappies whipped us down the stairs, along the corridor and up another platform and hid us in a room that was obviously used by guards full of red and green lamps and flags and so on and we hid in there until our train arrived and then ran back as fast as we could and got put on the train. But it was, when we thought about it later we were very nearly hanged or beaten to death or kicked to death or something very near but it was only, it was only those soldiers who saved us and that was contrary to Hitler’s orders.
BW: Because the RAF crews at this time presumably were being christened terror flieger.
PB: Yeah. Oh yeah.
BW: And so the civilians were -
PB: Yeah. Yeah.
BW: Properly against them.
PB: Well there were a hundred Bomber Command people were killed by Germans and more than two hundred Americans because Americans, there were a lot more Americans. They had ten to a crew.
BW: And at this point in a station as you mention they’ve reunited you with the navigator and -
PB: Yeah. Well they were in the police station. Unknown to me at the time.
BW: Yeah.
PB: I met them when we got out of the police station. But before I left they gave me a shave. A fierce little barber came in and then he got out this razor and I thought, ‘I hope to God the air raid sirens don’t go off.’ [laughs]
BW: Yeah ‘cause he might, he might stop shaving you and decide to use the razor for something else.
[laughs]That’s the only time I’ve been shaved with a cut throat razor. I don’t want to ever experience it again. [laughs]
BW: So they’ve tidied you up and reunited you as a crew.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Presumably they didn’t interrogate you at this point even though you were in a police station. The Luftwaffe officers took you over and put you in a transport. Is that right?
PB: Yeah. We were taken, we were taken to Dulag Luft at Frankfurt and there I was put in a cell there. Quite a big cell really. It had, it had, it had a very long radiator attached to one wall and there was a bed attached to the floor alongside a radiator and there was a table and two chairs and there’s a bucket in the corner and two windows with shutters on from outside and a very dim light. No ventilation and all I could do was lie flat on my back with these ribs and although it was mid-September the heat on the radiator was turned up full. So I lay there for three days getting hotter and dirtier and stickier and the air getting fouler and fouler and then suddenly somebody opened the shutters. A very smart Luftwaffe officer walked in with a couple of files under his arm, put them on the table opened the windows wide and motioned for me to join him, poured two cups of English tea, a plate of English biscuits, a packet of English cigarettes and then the interrogation started.
BW: And at this point is there just you and this Luftwaffe officer?
PB: Yeah.
BW: In this cell?
PB: Yeah.
BW: And so he’s expected you to get up from the floor to the chair to sit in front of him. Nobody has assisted you at this point?
PB: No. No. No.
BW: So presumably your body’s quite stiff as well.
PB: Very very stiff indeed. Very stiff. I never -
BW: Well -
PB: I never had any medical attention at all. Never. I’ve got a great knob of bone there that will never heal.
BW: And so the interrogation begins and presumably, from what you’re staying, this is daytime at this point.
PB: Yeah. When he put these files down on the table there were two of them and the top one said Royal Air Force Bomber Command 149 squadron. I thought, ‘How the hell does he know 149?’ I said, ‘I wonder if the others had been forced to talk,’ and I had pictures of Humphrey Bogart being tortured by [laughs] but it was obvious the rear part of the fuselage wasn’t burned and the letters OJ. So, he gave me, he have me a great deal of information. First, generally about the air force and then specifically about 149 squadron.
BW: And because the letters on the aircraft had not burned through.
PB: No the -
BW: So the squadron’s code OJ were still visible.
PB: OJ means 149. They knew that so as I understood it he was trying to do two things. He was giving me a lot of information most of it factual but some which he picked up and he hadn’t had checked yet [or someone had corrected] and from my reaction [he got?] and then he picked up bits from me that he could put. That was the whole purpose of it. I don’t know what did affect the war effort. I don’t think very much. Anyway, eventually he finished and this was the middle of September and he said, ‘Are there any questions you want to ask me?’ I said, ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘What’s been happening in the war in the last few days?’ He said, ‘Italy has surrendered.’ I said, ‘Oh good. One down, one to go.’ [laughs] Well he didn’t like that [laughs] so he picked up his files and he left.
BW: You weren’t tempted to salute him either.
PB: But when we, when we were being transferred by cattle truck from Dulag Luft to Saxony to Stalag 4b we were in these cattle trucks and we had a German guard in with us and we had with us at one stage the only German I ever felt sorry for. He’d been born in Germany and when he was a very small child his people had gone to America. He’d been brought up in Brooklyn. He had a tremendous Brooklyn accent and he’d, they’d never taken American nationality and early in ‘39 or late in ‘38 they’d come to Germany on holiday and he was immediately conscripted and there he was [laughs]. Oh dear. So I’d never known anybody feel as sorry for himself as that poor fella. He said, he described his comrades, he said, ‘Bloody mother f***ing, c**k s***ng krauts,’ and those were his comrades [laughs].
BW: And they didn’t speak American -
PB: Deary, deary me,
BW: So he got away with it.
PB: Oh he did feel sorry for himself. And I’ve often wondered what happened to him because when the Ardennes offensive took place Hitler put a lot of American speaking Germans into American uniforms and of course they were shot immediately if they were captured. He was an absolutely perfect candidate for that job.
BW: Yeah. Quite possible.
PB: So I don’t know what happened to him but oh deary me he did feel sorry for himself
BW: And so it seems a fairly, alright it’s uncomfortable but it seems a fairly civil interrogation from the Luftwaffe officer before you -
PB: Oh it was very friendly. Very friendly very friendly. I mean I’d been lying in there for three days thinking about Jimmy Cagney and Humphrey Bogart and it was nothing like that [laughs]. No, he was charming. Really charming.
BW: And how soon after the interrogation ended and he stormed out did you then leave for er -
PB: Well I left the cell then went to the main part of the camp and stayed there for about a week until there was enough of us to make up a wagon load.
BW: And this was still at Dulag Luft.
PB: Yeah.
BW: In Frankfurt.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And so you’re there a little while longer transferred to Saxony.
PB: Yeah and we were lucky and we were unlucky. We were unlucky in the fact that all the luft camps run by the Luftwaffe were full and so we were sent to the biggest prison camp in Germany which was run by the army. It contained about ten thousand permanently and it had scores of working parties attached to it so that prisoners used to come in and get recorded and then sent out to work in mines or factories or quarries or whatever so there was a regular turnover. There was about ten thousand of us there permanently but a tremendous lot of Frenchmen, a couple of thousand Russians who were starving to death and various other nationalities and of course the German army didn’t have the same relationship with us that the Luftwaffe personnel would have had. In fact they hated us.
BW: Was there any, any ill will directed towards you because you were air force?
PB: They didn’t like us. They told us, they said, ‘When Germany wins the war you’ll spend the rest of your lives building the cities that you’ve destroyed but if Germany lose the war you’re soon to be shot.’ That was their attitude.
BW: And even though this was an army camp they, it sounds as though they weren’t just, were they just military personnel? The ten thousand French and Russians were they soldiers that were captured?
PB: Well I don’t know what they were.
BW: So they could have been.
PB: They were dressed in civilian, some in civilian clothes,
BW: Yeah.
PB: Some in bits of clothes. Some were in military uniform but we were lucky too because this was September. Italy had retired from the war. The Germans had taken over the Italian prison camps and they set up two new compounds in 4b. An RAF compound and an army compound. Now, a couple of thousand Desert Rats who’d been prisoners in Italy came in just as we did. Now, without them we’d have been in a right mess because the Germans gave us nothing.
BW: So you were on low rations and you were, were you made to work at this stage as well?
PB: No. No. They couldn’t make us work. Not with our ranks.
BW: Right.
PB: But you know we were put into a hut which has three tier bunks to sleep a hundred and eighty men. They gave us a sack which contained something or other which was supposed to be a mattress, two pre- First World War blankets and that was, that was all they gave us. No knife, fork, spoon, no cup, no plate. Nothing. And yet the food comes up, a great big vat of soup and all you’ve got’s your bare hands. So the army helped us a lot there.
BW: Presumably because they were allowed or brought with them their kit and they shared it.
PB: They brought with all their kit, yeah. Yeah. I mean they’d been prisoners years some of them.
BW: So they knew, they knew how it worked.
PB: They knew the ropes so yeah they knew the ropes alright but the difference between the army and the air force was, was, was incredible. The army compound was run like a barracks. There was a sergeant major in charge of each hut. Total control. And each morning at 7 o’clock there was roll calls outside in decent weather. The roll call in the army compound took fifteen minutes. The roll call in the RAF compound could take two hours. That was the difference in our attitudes. The army would say, ‘We’ll show them what real soldiers look like.’ and we’d say, ‘We’ll cause them so much bloody trouble they’ll wish they’d never been born.’ Different attitude of mind altogether.
BW: And so this is the, the British army in their compound.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Organising themselves to do their roll calls -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Like that.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And the RAF took the view well we’re there to -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Make a nuisance of ourselves.
PB: That’s it exactly. One day the Germans got so exasperated they brought the senior sergeant major and they stood him there and we’re all lined up in fives and he starts telling us we’re a disgrace to the bloody nation, we’re a disgrace to the air force and the replies he got. He’d never been spoken to like that in his life before. Never, ever, ever. He just went redder and redder and redder. Eventually, he turned on his heel and went and we never saw him again.
BW: Gave that one up as well.
PB: I know we really, we really did everything we could and we tamed the Germans eventually and it went whenever a German entered our hut whoever saw him first would shout, ‘Jerry up’ and whatever you were doing you could get away. At the end of the war the German would walk in to the hut, he’d stand at the door and shout, ‘Jerry up’ and wait two minutes before he walked in.
BW: It’s interesting you, you made a comment just before that although the Germans gave you nothing they didn’t make you work either because of your rank.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And the thinking was in the, in the early days with the RAF aircrew was that if they were all sergeants they would be treated better in prisoner of war camps.
PB: Not treated better, just treated differently in that they didn’t work.
BW: Right. So it was a case of you’re not made to work you were just -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Well you were just there and you exist, sort of thing.
PB: Yeah and the food of course was disgusting. The flour was ten percent what the Germans optimistically called wood flour. Which was sawdust. We, we, we had soup at lunchtime. A great vat of soup. We had [minute?] soup which was disgusting. We had [mara?] soup which was even more disgusting and most disgusting of all we had a soup that apparently was made from what was left of sugar beet after the beet er after the sugar had been extracted and we got a handful of boiled potatoes, usually rotten. That was the midday meal and then in the late afternoon you got a piece of bread to be divided between five people and a blob of white stuff which was supposed to be butter, it was about ninety percent water, and a spoonful of jam apparently made from beetroot or swede or some such and you’d get this piece of bread and it’s not a big piece of bread and it’s got to be shared between five people and every, every one of the five pieces had to be absolutely identical with the other four so we picked the man with the best irons and steadiest hand and he cuts the bread up and he gets last choice and the five pieces and he gets the last choice.
BW: And it went on like that for days.
PB: But we had the Red Cross parcels fortunately.
BW: How often were they delivered? Were they regular?
PB: Every Monday we got a Red Cross parcel.
BW: And were they delivered intact or were they interfered and inspected by the Germans.
PB: They were delivered intact until it was decided that they were being used in escapes and so after that they were all opened and every tin was punctured so that it had a limited lifespan. You couldn’t, you couldn’t store it up.
BW: And you see in war films, popular war films, the sort of black market operating in a prison camp and trading and bartering. Does that, did that ever happen?
PB: Oh yes, it was all, with cigarettes you could buy anything. Now in the RAF compound we had two people. We had an English and an Italian name. A chappy called [Gargini]
BW: [Gargini]
PB: Now he was, he was a skilled technician in British, in BBC television and he was an absolute wizard with the electricity. He built at least two radio sets and he also made a succession of heaters, immersion heaters, which you could put in a cup of cold water and fire up in no time at all. And we had another chap who was in fact was a civilian. Terry Hunt his name was. He worked for British Movietone news or some similar company and if you went to the cinema in England during the war from time to time to time on the newsreel you’d see shots taken from the nose of a light bomber during attacks on France. Now Terry was one of the men who took those photographs. He was given a degree of training. He was given an RAF uniform, he was given a RAF number, an RAF rank just in case he was shot down and captured and he had a camera. He had it inside a hollowed out bible with a little hole in the spine through which he took his photographs. Two quite remarkable men there.
BW: And that, that bible with the camera in he used in the aircraft and he kept with him in the prison camp did he?
PB: No. He got it whilst he was in the prisoner.
BW: Oh made it in the prison right.
PB: How he got through well cigarettes you could get anything with cigarettes. You could buy a woman for three cigarettes but there were no women.
BW: And in that case there must have been some sort of interaction with the German guards at that point -
PB: Oh yes.
BW: To be able to bribe.
PB: You waited. You waited until after dark and then you went out and found a guard and said [?] ‘Yah yah yah,’ out it came from a bag in his gas mask case gave him this bit of bread ‘[?] cigarettes?’ ‘Nein. [?]Nein. Deutschland caput’ [laughs]
BW: A piece of bread for twenty cigarettes.
PB: But you could buy anything with cigarettes.
BW: And did you partake in that yourself, did you?
PB: Oh yeah I was out most nights if I had cigarettes buying bread. It was, it was much better bread than we had. It was rotten bread but it was much better bread than we had.
BW: And did you, did you feel able to strike up a rapport or even an element of trust with some of these guards. Were you always meeting the same one or did you have to interact with others?
PB: No, whoever happened to be walking around the compound at the time. Some relationships must have been, must have been formed because big items were bought and of course if there were ever workmen in the camp all their tools were raided. They soon [? ] their tools.
BW: So there were, there were guys in the camp who were raiding the Germans’ tool sets.
PB: Yeah you see we, we had, you know, you got hundreds of air crew. You’ve got a couple of thousand senior NCOs in the army. You’ve got every talent. You’ve got architects, musicians, dancers, journalists. You got all sorts of people and it was amazing what could be done.
BW: And I believe they had classes in the prisoner of war camps as well to keep the men occupied.
PB: Oh yes. We, we had a little library in each hut. Some of them manned by professional librarians, we had lecturers. We had, we had a theatre group and a radio theatre group. We had people who went around individually giving lectures. The most popular lecturer was a chappy, an army man, who’d worked for a very prestigious London undertaking firm and the stories he had. Oh deary me. Deary, deary me. He was a popular lecturer he was.
BW: And so was your days, were your days regulated in any sense? Was there a structure put to you?
PB: No. You had a roll call in the morning, a roll call in the evening. That was it. And then you had the food arriving at mid-day and again about tea time and other than that you were on your own.
BW: So would you have about two meals a day then? Your main midday meal and a meal in the evening?
PB: I don’t think we ever had a meal at all really [laughs].
BW: Well, yeah.
PB: But yeah that’s the way it worked.
BW: Yeah.
PB: On Fridays, on Fridays, Friday was a big day. On Friday you got pea soup and pea soup was so good we didn’t get any potatoes on Friday. Well pea soup was the only soup we ever really ate. The pea soup was quite good.
BW: And do you still like it to this day or does that remind you?
PB: I like pea soup. Yes.
BW: Yeah.
PB: But we Lancastrians had a Red Rose Society. The Yorkists had a White Rose Society and there was a motoring club for people interested in cars or motorbikes. There were all sorts, all sorts of things set up. Every hut was given the name of a British football team. My hut was Wolverhampton Wanderers and a league was set up and matches were played and points scored and then in the RAF compound we formed the rugby pitch as well, I played a lot of rugby.
BW: Even, even though you’d had a bad injury from parachuting you were still able to play rugby.
PB: Eventually. It took, it took, it took about six months until I felt really free but -
BW: Did you manage to get any medical treatment from the British -
PB: No.
BW: While you were in the camp?
PB: Never. Never. I never bothered the British. By then it was healing. They even, even tried to play cricket but that didn’t work. The ground was too soft.
BW: What sort of ground was it? Was it sandy?
PB: It was sort of sandy soil, yeah.
BW: So and we’ve probably all have an image here of Sagan and the Great Escape -
PB: Yeah.
BW: And the sandy -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Sort of soil
PB: Yeah.
BW: And it was pretty much like that was it?
PB: When I played rugby every time I I got a graze and there was any blood it always went, always went rotten. I always had to go and get it, get it drugged up always, always went rotten.
BW: And what sort of drugs could they give you? Was there penicillin?
PB: Red Cross. Red Cross I don’t know what they were but the Red Cross provided drugs and we had, we had certain medical. We had a couple of army doctors as well. We had an English woman in the camp.
BW: Do you recall her name at all?
PB: Well we knew her as Mrs Barrington. She was an English woman. I don’t know whether she was divorced or widowed but sometime in the 20s or very early 30s she had a son called Winston and they had a holiday in Switzerland and met a German who got on very well with and they went back again a few months later and she married him and she and her son went to live in Germany. And then when, when 1938, ‘39 came along and war was obviously imminent she sent her son back to England to live with her parents and in due course he joined the air force in Bomber Command, got shot down, wrote to her where she was living in Vienna and she wrote back and eventually she decided she wanted to be nearer to him then that so she left Vienna and went to live in Muhlburg which was about five kilometres from the camp.
BW: Muhlberg.
PB: Muhlberg yeah and by this time her husband was a very high ranking Luftwaffe officer and when she moved to Muhlberg her husband came with her and we know that he visited the camp and we know that he met the commandant but we don’t know what happened there of course. We don’t know whether some informal arrangement was agreed between them or whatever but it was a fact that airmen were never allowed outside the camp because they’d just disappear but Barrington got outside the camp with French working parties several times, met his mother in Muhlberg and by early 1945 she was getting worried about what her fate would be when the Russians arrived and he reported that to the, to the escape committee and they decided she should be brought into the camp and the next time he went out he took some spare clothes [and met her] she came in to the camp, put in to RAF battledress and was hidden away under the stage in the theatre and stayed there for a few weeks till the end of the war. Not only until the end of the war but until we got away from the Russians but it took us a month to get away from the Russians.
BW: So you mention there about hiding her under the stage in the theatre -
PB: Yeah.
BW: In RAF battle dress uniform.
PB: Yeah.
BW: How did the, the tide of war affect you because many prisoners were forced on the long march but presumably if you were in Saxony in sort of lower -
PB: Yeah.
BW: South eastern Germany. Were you part of that of that -
PB: No.
BW: To evacuate the camps.
PB: No we weren’t in Poland. We were in Germany. Now, by this time the air was full of British and American fighter bombers. Everything that moved was attacked and the commandant gave us the opportunity, ‘If you want to be marched west across the Elbe we’ll take you,’ and the Poles of course jumped at that chance. They didn’t want to be with the Russians. And we said, ‘No. We’ll stay where we are until our allies arrive.’ [Laughs] Our allies.
BW: So you all managed to stay in the camp without being evacuated.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And so this Mrs Barrington stayed in the -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Theatre at this time.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Under your protection.
PB: Yeah she kept hidden. Eventually, when the, when the Russians arrived they made no arrangements whatever for us and so all we could do was break down this perimeter fence and stream out into the countryside to search for food and that went on for about three days and then the Russians got themselves organised and clamped down on it. We came and got a bargaining counter. They held thousands of British and Americans and there were tens of hundreds of thousands of Russians in the west and the Russians wanted them back. Many, many of them even wore German uniforms and they knew if they went back they knew what their fate would be so they didn’t want to go back so there was a lot of bargaining and we were part of the Russians strong hand and then they marched us out of the camp, marched quite a considerable distance and they put us into what was obviously a big maintenance depot full of huge workshops and we were billeted there and still nothing was happening so we began to drift off in twos and threes and tried to make our way across the river on our own which eventually we did. We, we were relieved by the Russians on St George’s Day, the 23rd of April and I reached the American lines on my 24th birthday. The 23rd of May. Exactly one month later. And then it was like moving from hell in to heaven. I lived for a week on steak and ice cream.
BW: You didn’t, you’d been on such bad rations there was no problem moving to that sort of -
PB: No. No. Never had any -
BW: High protein diet.
PB: A lot of people spent a lot of time sat down with their trousers around their ankles [laughs]
BW: You obviously had a tougher constitution.
PB: Yeah -
BW: So it didn’t affect you.
PB: It didn’t affect me. But oh it was great with the Americans. Even went to the cinema. They had a mobile cinema. I saw a film about a book which I’d read whilst in Germany. And then, then we were flown by Dakota to Brussels and handed over to the British. We arrived in Brussels on a Saturday afternoon. The British gave us a ten shilling note and a handful of Belgian coins and turned us loose on Brussels for a Saturday night [laughs]. And the next day we climbed on board a Stirling and flew back to Kent and from Kent we went up to Cosford which was a receiving centre and Cosford had been my first station in 1940.
BW: So this was almost a reverse of your trip out there because you’d gone out on a Stirling.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And then you were flown back from Brussels to Kent in a Stirling.
PB: In a Stirling.
BW: How did it feel to be back on your old sort of type of plane again?
PB: Oh it was funny really. About, about four Stirlings and one Lancaster landed and everybody but me and two other fellas ran for the one Lancaster. [laughs] I was more than happy to get into a Stirling.
BW: And that, that night in Brussels when you’d got a ten shilling note in your hand.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And a few Belgian pennies that must have been pretty memorable. How did it, how did it feel?
PB: I had a terrible emotional shock. There was a great big underground convenience and I was stood in there weeing away and in walked two women cleaners [laughs] and that rather set me back. I don’t remember much about what happened that night actually. I know I’d no money left at the end of it.
BW: Justifiably lost in celebration I think.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And so you were only twenty four at that stage.
PB: I’d just had my twenty fourth birthday, yes.
BW: And you, I guess you got, in retrospect, you got back to the UK pretty quick. I mean the war had only been over sort of three weeks when you were then passed over to the, to the British.
PB: Yeah.
BW: In May.
PB: Yeah.
BW: ‘Cause obviously some guys in service had to wait a long time to be repatriated.
PB: Oh some didn’t get back until well after the September.
BW: And so when you get back to Cosford.
PB: Yeah.
BW: What happened then? Were you able to, I mean, were you still in touch with your other crewmates at this point in your -
PB: No. No. Long lost them somewhere along the way. We were, first of all we were made to give a written description of how we were shot down which seemed to me to be to be a waste of time and then we were medically examined and bathed and haircuts and kitted out with new uniform and then we were sent on six weeks leave on double rations and by this time of course I’d been, I’d been qualified long enough to have become a warrant officer. And I had a lot of back pay. Got paid all the time.
BW: And how, how did they pay you? ‘Cause now it goes straight into your bank account but then did they give you cash?
PB: Cash.
BW: Or did they give you a cheque?
PB: I can’t remember. I can’t remember. I didn’t have a bank account so I don’t, I don’t really know. I know I had a lot of money to come. Several hundred pounds. I’d earned it. [laughs]
BW: Absolutely.
PB: I’d done more damage to German morale as a prisoner than I ever did as - [laughs]
BW: If I can, if I can just hop back to a point you made in the camp. You said there was an escape committee.
PB: Yes.
BW: And as I say they’re sort of impressions of, of “The Great Escape” come to mind. Were there any escape attempts made there?
PB: Oh yes there were people escaping all the time.
BW: Successfully?
PB: A couple of hours, two days. Maybe a week if you were lucky.
BW: So there was quite an active escape -
PB: Oh yes, yes.
BW: Committee from the RAF there.
PB: Oh yes there was a lot of escaping. What, what, what was a popular thing from time to time a British soldiers would come through the camp to be registered and recorded and photographed etcetera and then sent out on working parties and some airmen got the idea it would be easier to escape from a working party then from the camp and so they exchanged identities and this in the end caused tremendous confusion to the Germans because there was a New Zealand soldier, a Desert Rat who’d been captured and held in prison in Italy and he’d escaped and got in with a with a group of partisans and as he was the only professional as it were amongst the partisans he soon became their leader and he carried out minor acts of sabotage and he became a sort of Robin Hood and rumours were circulated about this new Zealander who was doing this, that and the other and the Germans got to learn of this and eventually they captured him and they decided to send him to Germany for trial but it wasn’t known whether he was to go to Berlin or to Leipzig so as 4b was about halfway between the two he came to 4b and was locked up in the [straflagge] and there he made contact with French working parties. French used to work in there regularly and the French notified the British and it was known that if he went to either Berlin or Leipzig and was put on trial he’d be found guilty and he’d be shot and so they decided that he had to be rescued and a plot was formed and the French removed a window from the room where the showers were in the [straflagge] and put it back in a temporary position and he was briefed that when it was known that he was going to leave he was to insist upon having a shower and he was to go in to the shower room and escape from this window and be smuggled in to the camp and one day quite out of the blue we were all told to get over to the French compound as quickly as we could and to start a riot and we all got there and started fighting and jostling and messing and shouting and all the German cars were rushing to the French compound and this chappie escaped and he was hidden above a ceiling in a hut up in the dark, in the rafters and remained hidden until the end of the war. And the gestapo arrived and they made our lives hell for a week and they tore the camp to pieces and eventually we put about the rumour that he’d now left the camp and was on a train going to Switzerland so they all moved out to Switzerland [laughs] to the railway lines then and we were left in peace but he remained in the camp until the end of the war and eventually got back to New Zealand.
BW: Wow.
PB: Remarkable story.
BW: I mean yeah he was -
PB: I’ve got his name somewhere in a book but I can’t remember it off hand.
BW: It would be interesting to, to find his name and look him up.
PB: Well I can get it for you.
BW: Doesn’t, doesn’t need to be straightaway. We can get that afterwards.
PB: I can get it for you in a flash.
BW: Ok well just pause the recording for a moment.
PB: So we’re just looking at a book here called “Survival In Stalag Luft 4b”
BW: Yeah.
PB: And his name is Tony Hunt.
BW: Terry.
PB: Terry.
BW: Terry Hunt.
[pause]
PB: 136
[pause]
PB: Frederick William Ward he’s called.
BW: Frederick William Ward.
PB: Yeah. Born in February 1912. Captured in North Africa in July ‘42. [pause] That will tell you about him there.
BW: Yeah.
PB: Fred Ward and this is, this is in the book by Tony Vercoe um which I’ll look up.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Um it says that he, he was captured and then interrogated and then will go into more detail about the activities with the French workers as you say. There’s a description there.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And then this lady you mentioned is called Florence Barrington.
PB: That’s right. Mrs Barrington.
BW: With a thirteen year old son, married a German photographer and that also gives us the correct name of, just so that I’ve got it right, Muhlberg M U H L B E R G so that helps identify -
PB: Yeah. Muhlberg.
BW: The camp.
PB: Muhlberg on the Elbe.
BW: Yeah. What I’ll do if you don’t mind I’ll have a look at this separately and sort of off air of the recording.
PB: Yeah.
BW: But that, that’s great that is good information.
PB: Yes. You’ve got the full story there.
BW: So we were talking just briefly before about some of the escape attempts and how you’d helped to rescue this New Zealander from, from being shot.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Were there any other memorable attempts at all?
PB: Yes. Yes, there was one other memorable one. I had a friend, Fred Heathfield, who was a Halifax pilot with 51 squadron. He’d been shot, he’d crashed landed a Halifax on three engines in the pitch dark in Belgium and lived to tell the tale and I think the only thing that kept him alive was that he had his parachute on his chest and that took the main force of the impact. He got two black eyes and a broken nose. He was eventually captured in an hotel in Paris but he was, he was a pilot. I was a flight engineer. There was a Luftwaffe field a few kilometres away from the camp and Fred and I decided that if we could steal a JU88 we could fly at low level to Sweden and we, we started to try to get some information about German aircraft but by this time the Germans had issued a warning to all prison camps saying that because of the seriousness of the war situation there were certain areas of Germany which could not be identified but which were of importance to the, to the safety of the country and anybody caught in such an area without authority would be shot out of hand so we decided not to bother and we gave what information we had to an Australian pilot. What was his name? I’ve got a book by him in there. Anyway, this Australian pilot had a Canadian bomb aimer in his crew and I think he’d been brought up in the French speaking part of Canada because he spoke French like a native and also had quite a good knowledge of German and they decided that they would put this plan into operation but instead of flying to Sweden they would fly east and land behind Russian lines and give themselves over which to me sounded like a suicide note. And they left the camp. They went they went out with a work, we agreed to provide cover for three days so for three days the Germans wouldn’t know they were missing and they went out with a working party and disappeared and it was the night of Dresden. The night they went out was the night of Dresden and they, they, they walked. They were stopped several times and were able to convince whoever stopped them that they were French volunteers who were being moved from one job to another job and were on their way there and they got to this airfield and they lay up in the woods surrounding the airfield to watch what was going on and a JU88 landed and it was refuelled and they thought that’s it. So they find a log of wood and they picked it up and put it on their shoulders and marched to the edge of the airfield, put it down, got inside the JU and, what was his name? Anyway, he sat in the cockpit looking at the instruments and the controls and sorting out what’s what and the ground crew come back and said, ‘What are you doing in here? Foreign workers aren’t allowed in German aircraft. Clear off.’ And they got out, they picked up their log of wood. They walked back to the camp and I remember it plainly I was stood at one end of the hut and the door was at the far end and suddenly, Geoff his name was, Geoff and his bomb aimer Smith come walking down the hut and the Germans never knew they’d been away. Never knew they’d been away. And they’d been sat in a JU88.
BW: And they’d nearly got away with it.
PB: If they’d landed. I mean the Russians didn’t ask questions. If you got out of a German aircraft they shot you.
BW: Yeah.
PB: It was the daftest idea I’ve ever come across in my life but that’s what they’d decided on. Geoff Taylor. He was, he was, he was a journalist in Australia and he wrote a book called “Piece of Cake” which had a forward by Butch Harris of all people. I’ve got a copy in there and that was the most audacious escape but of course like all other escapes it came to nothing in the end.
BW: And were there quite a few others who tried and -
PB: Oh yes. It was sport.
BW: Captured.
PB: It was sport. This notice that the Germans issued said escaping is no longer a sport but that’s what it had been. When you read about people who spend all their time organising an escape they’re just a bloody nuisance to everybody. They ruin life in the camp. Everybody has to give way to them. They’re not going anywhere. They might be out for a week but they’re back.
BW: And in the meantime everybody else is perhaps suffering.
PB: Everybody’s inconvenienced, yeah.
BW: Yeah but they’re getting more inspections presumably.
PB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To have a fella like Bader in your camp must have been hell. Absolute hell.
BW: That’s why they decided to put him in Colditz.
[pause]
BW: And you hadn’t been tempted to try yourself. You were making yourself a nuisance in the camp you made life -
PB: Only this -
BW: Miserable for the Germans.
PB: Mad plan we had to fly to Sweden which we gave up on. It was impossible. But we had an Australian pilot killed in the camp in a flying accident. This Luftwaffe camp was only a few kilometres away and once the airmen there realised that there were now airmen in 4b occasionally they’d come over and give us a bit of a, a bit of a thrill. They did and they’d come across in a JU86 which was an obsolete bomber based on a, on a civil aircraft. It was a bit like a Hudson it was and it were coming over the camp in a shallow dive right along the full length of the French compound which was the biggest and climb away and all the airmen in the compound would be going like this.
BW: Waving.
PB: And the army went mad. The army said, ‘You’re going to kill us all the way you’re going.’ You know, these lads know what they’re doing. Anyway, one came over one day and it wasn’t an 86 it was an 88 a powerful, big, powerful machine and he came perhaps a bit steeper than usual and when he pulled up his tail mushed in and his tail went into a wire fence and it dragged about twenty feet of wire and two or three fence posts with it. The tail plane hit this, hit this Canadian pilot who was walking around the compound. Killed him instantly. One of the posts hit his companion and badly injured him and I was in our own compound and I could see through the French huts and I saw this thing. It was no higher than that. I don’t know why the airstream wasn’t tucked in the ground and eventually it climbed away with all this wire streaming behind him and the Luftwaffe gave a splendid funeral to this Australian and we were told that the pilot had been stripped of his brevvy, stripped of his rank, and posted to the eastern front as a common foot soldier. I think, it think they just told us that to pacify us. I can’t believe for a moment that that’s what happened but that’s the story they gave us but to be killed in a flying accident walking around a prison compound it’s a bit much isn’t it?
BW: Yeah and as you say there’s got to be some for the tail wheel to be that close to the ground that there’s got to be the plane itself has got to be very, very low.
PB: It was no higher -
BW: Ten feet or less
PB: Than that. I don’t know why the airstream wasn’t hitting the ground.
BW: And that you’re indicating’s about two foot -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Three foot.
PB: Yeah I just saw it go I could see it between the huts.
BW: Wow.
PB: And then it just climbed away with all the stuff just trailing behind it. Beautiful piece of flying. Wonderful skilled bit of flying.
BW: Just unfortunate consequence.
PB: Yeah. So we did get excitement from time to time.
BW: How did it feel when the Russians came to liberate? I mean -
PB: Oh -
BW: You must have had a pretty limited amount of information getting through and an impression of what the Russian forces were like. How did it feel when they -
PB: Well -
BW: Came into the camp?
PB: Well the first thing on the newsreels I’d seen pictures of refugees in France and suddenly early in April we got German refugees going past the camp and it was, it was an incredible sightseeing German refugees like that and they were streaming past the camp to get over the Elbe. And then we could -
BW: The Elbe must have been quite close to the camp
PB: Oh it was only about five kilometres and then we heard gunfire and then on St George ’s day early in the morning someone rushed into our hut shouting, ‘The Cossacks are here,’ and we went out and on the main road there were four of the scruffiest most dreadful looking men I’ve ever seen in my life. On horseback. Oh they did, they looked murderous, every one and they were loaded down with sandbags full of food and ammunition and God knows what and they just sat there and later in the day the infantry arrived and they made no provision for us whatsoever. Nothing. So we just broke out of the camp to steal food and steal drink as well and steal women as well no doubt but the Russians clamped on that and then they started to register us and they were going to send us to a Black Sea port, Odessa or some sort of place, and sail us home from there they said. When the Americans are only five miles away. The other side of the river. And they started to register us and they had great big women, great big fat women, tables outside, taking the records, and they got some funny ones. There was a Micky Mouse and James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and it became chaotic and eventually we just said oh blow this and they packed it in and then they moved us, as I say, out of the camp and up into this maintenance depot.
BW: So they realised you were giving them some spoof names -
PB: Yeah.
BW: And not helping at all
PB: We sat in this maintenance depot about five of us who were all together and suddenly the most horrible screaming and I said the Russians have either got a woman or they’ve got a pig let’s go and to find out which it is. So we followed the noise and we came to a place and there were two Russians. There was one dead pig lying down and there’s another Russian with a pig like a cello with his hand way inside of it and the pig screaming away and we sit and we watch all this and we’re thinking they’ll give us something and we watch and we wait and eventually they killed it and they cut off the ears and gave us the ears. They took two pigs and gave us the bloody ears off one of pig.
BW: And kept the rest for themselves. And in general when they, as you put it, got their act together in terms of organising the camp presumably they re-erected the fence post that had been torn down.
PB: It became a far, far, far worse place than it had ever been.
BW: Yeah.
PB: They turned it into a punishment camp for German civilians. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of Germans died in that camp over the next five years and so the natives at Muelburg are attached to us really. We both suffered in that camp. It was a dreadful place. What it must have been like when it was dreadful when we were there. What it must have been like.
BW: And they weren’t bringing the civilians in while you were there?
PB: No, no.
BW: They presumably -
PB: No. It was after, after they’d repaired it and repaired all the damage we’d done.
BW: Yeah.
PB: And I think it was about five years they had it as a punishment camp. Must have been hell on earth. Hell on earth. Hundreds if not thousands died and this was just because of complaining about some regulation or other that the Russians had imposed. Anything at all, straight in there. Shocking that.
BW: But they didn’t, did they impose a regime on you as RAF crew waiting to be repatriated during that sort of interim period of April, May.
PB: Well it was all chaos. It was all chaos. I had quite an experience on VE day. They had their VE day a day later than ours because apparently they weren’t satisfied with the arrangements that the west had made so they decided to have their own, their own VE day the next day and I was, I was walking in the German town. Why I was alone and not with any of my friends I don’t know but I was alone and I was walking through this town and suddenly two Russian officers grabbed me and took me to their mess and gave me a huge meal. All, all looted German property of course. Animals, vegetables. The lot. And a particular sweet which I learned later was made from sour milk and it was absolutely gorgeous and after the meal they took me to a public hall where there was to be an address by a general followed by a concert and it was full of full of Russian soldiers, men and women, in all sorts of different uniforms and this general came onto the stage and I got, I got an example of what it was it was like being in a totalitarian state. He made a speech and the only words I heard were Churchill and Roosevelt every now and again he’d pause and somewhere at the very back of the, of the gallery [clapping sound] and immediately everybody’s clapping and immediately they all stopped like that.
BW: As if somebody was coordinating it.
PB: Someone’s coordinating. The whole thing was coordinated and eventually the speech finishes and we had this concert and it was absolutely fantastic. Oh the music and the dancing and the singing unbelievable. Unbelievable concert. It was terrific. Now what happened when it finished I’ve no idea. I haven’t a clue what happened to me that night. Not a clue. Not the slightest idea. I know I joined up with my friends the next day but what happened that night I don’t, I’ve no idea but I’ve never seen anything like the performance that these women who seemed to just move like that.
BW: Gracefully across -
PB: No, no leg movement at all.
BW: The stage yeah.
PB: And the Cossacks down on their heels kicking. Oh it was a fantastic concert and the singing and the balalaika playing. A night to remember that was. And that was VE day. VE day Russian version.
BW: How had you managed to celebrate it in the camp at all? You mentioned it was quite different to our celebration were there any –
PB: Well we didn’t know. We didn’t know it was VE day.
BW: So the only indication you got was from the Russians when they -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Held their celebrations.
PB: And as I say by this time we weren’t in the camp and in fact we’d broken and were trying to get across to the Americans on our own.
BW: And you mention you were in the town at this stage in Muhlberg.
PB: Ahum.
BW: What, what was it like what was your sense of being in the town? Were there, firstly, was it damaged but also were there German civilians who might be hostile.
PB: No.
BW: To the RAF at all.
PB: The civilians couldn’t get us in to their houses fast enough. We were never we were never short of somewhere to sleep or somewhere to wash.
BW: Right.
PB: Because I think the theory was if ten drunken Russians hammered on the door at midnight looking for women we would go to the door and say it was under British occupation you’ll have to go next door. It never worked out in practice [thank God] but that was the theory I think. They couldn’t get us into their houses fast enough.
BW: So a bit I suppose a bit of a protection there for them if the -
PB: Yeah.
BW: If the Russians had seen western RAF aircrew in a house -
PB: Yeah.
BW: They would be less likely -
PB: Yeah. Yeah.
BW: To interfere with it.
PB: And we slept we slept on a feather bed with a feather bed on top of us with a great big bed oh it was wonderful.
BW: And the Germans managed to put you up in the sense that they would feed you as well.
PB: Yes. Yes,
BW: Even though they would have probably been rationed at this stage and -
PB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they couldn’t do enough for us.
BW: And did you get to go back to Muhlberg in the intervening years?
PB: No, because I don’t know where we were. I don’t know where the Russians had moved us to.
BW: Right.
PB: The, the Stalag 4b Association organised trips to Muhlberg later and they became very popular because the Muhlberg people themselves were in the same boat but I never went. In fact they had a trip this year starting off in Berlin and moving down to Muhlberg.
BW: And when you came back to the UK we picked up the story at Cosford and we picked up the extra pay that you’d been awarded.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And you were washed and brushed up. What then happened to you sort of post war from Cosford?
PB: Well I was given three options. I could come out immediately or I could go to oh what’s the Yorkshire town, the spa town?
BW: Harrogate.
PB: Harrogate. On a rehabilitation course and then come out or I could opt to stay in until my normal release date. Well I thought there was still a chance of getting back on flying and getting out east and bombing Japan so I opted to stay in and I got posted to a, to a Mosquito squadron near, near Newcastle and there, there I became in effect the squadron warrant officer. I sat in an office all day doing nothing but we had a very, very good rugby team. Our sports, our sports officer was a first class scrub half and we had a very good rugby team and we won the group cup without any difficulty and we got drawn in for the semi-final of the national cup and we got drawn away against Ringway and we came down to Ringway and we found that although paratroopers are army the people who trained them were airmen and practically every one of them was a rugby league professional. So, we turned out on a rugby pitch at Ringway about six hundred red cap paratroopers lying around the pitch cheering their side on. We were up against these great hulking fellas who were fit like butchers dogs. Oh they murdered us. Absolutely murdered us.
BW: And do you still retain an interest in rugby league despite that? Do you follow -
PB: Not rugby league. I don’t like rugby league but we were, they were playing rugby union but they were rugby league professionals.
BW: Right.
PB: But when we got back, when we got back to Acklington I thought that’s it. There’s nothing, nothing doing for me now so I asked to be released and I was released within days.
BW: And was that in 1945?
PB: That would, no, it would be 1946.
BW: ’46.
PB: Yeah.
BW: From Acklington and from then on what happened in your civilian life?
PB: Well, I couldn’t settle.
BW: Your post war life.
PB: I couldn’t settle. I got I got a job as a clerk with a, with a big chemical manufacturing company and I was in this office with about six other people who were as dull as ditchwater, been there forever and all I was doing was calculating lorry loads [eight car loads used to go there and six car loads to go there?] making up that and oh it was absolutely soul destroying. I stuck it I think for three months and then I thought I can’t, I can’t, I can’t settle to this so I then decided I thought the only way to get some companionship again, get some comradeship again was if I joined the police force so I went to, I went to the police station in Burnley and they said, ‘We’ve no, we’ve no vacancies but we can put you in touch with our central organisation.’ So they did and I was called for interview at Wallasey and got into the Wallasey force with three other people and when we went to the police training school we found that three people on the course were Burnley recruits. Burnley. But this gave me my first insight into the police they were recruiting people but they wouldn’t recruit Burnley people. They wouldn’t have anybody who lived in the town going into the police force. So that was the first lie from the police. I worked hard. I came out top of the class and we got to Wallasey and for the first fortnight I was sent out on patrol with another policeman who’d been on patrol for years and I learned how to, I learned which cafes you could sit in the back rooms of and drink coffee and I learned all sort of tricks that really you shouldn’t be doing and it was a complete and utter waste of time and in a small force like Wallasey the opportunity for promotion were very, very few and far between. You had people who had been pounding the beat for fifteen years. They’d passed their sergeants examinations, they passed their inspectors examinations and they were still pounding the beat and the only way you could get on was to curry favour. Start oozing up to some officers and telling tales. It was the exact opposite of comradeship. Everybody’s telling tales about everybody. I thought I can’t stick this so I resigned from that and I was playing rugby in Burnley then and one of the team was a cotton mill owner and he said, ‘If you ever want a proper job I’ll give you a job in a cotton mill,’ so I went to work in his cotton mill and that was no good. And all the time I’m in touch with my bomb aimer’s father. Had regular correspondence and I said to him, ‘I can’t settle I’m going to go back into the air force.’ And he said, ‘Well don’t do anything for the next fortnight,’ and I received a letter -
[interview transmission interrupted]
BW: Alright, so we’re only, we’re only a couple of minutes from the end and I was just asking Mr Phillip Bates that after the end of the war in conclusion he’d said that he’d had a good war but it had had its moments um that were not entirely enjoyable but that overall he’d enjoyed it, his service in the RAF but I was asking just about the commemorations and the national, now centre, at Lincoln and you mentioned that you’d been down to London for the unveiling of the memorial there.
PB: Yeah.
BW: At Green Park.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And you got to meet Camilla as well did you say?
PB: Yes Camilla and the Prince of Wales. I got to shake both their hands. The Prince of Wales surprised me really. It was probably, it was probably the hottest day of the year and everybody had taken his blazer off and I was wearing my Raf Ex-Pow Association tie and the Prince of Wales came along and immediately recognised my tie which surprised me. And as he shook my hand he said, ‘Where did they keep you?’ I said, ‘Stalag 4b, sir.’ He said, ‘Were you a digger?’ I said, ‘Oh no I wasn’t a digger, sir. No. I left that to other people,’ and he was quite jovial and then of course he moved on and made his way down the line but I was amazed that he recognised my tie instantly.
BW: That’s a very nice point that, you know, he’s identified you by that.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And spoke to you particularly because of it.
PB: And part of the Royal Air Force. I’ve got photographs of it all.
BW: And how about now that there’s a centre for Bomber Command in Lincoln?
PB: Well yes he’s lost his football again. I was due to go there and a friend of mine, Dominic was taking me but when it came to it I wasn’t fit to go. I couldn’t have sat in a car for three hours. I just couldn’t. And then another three hours coming back. And Dominic also had a cold so we were ashamed to admit it and then again it’s Lincoln. It’s Lancasters. Bugger the Lancasters I say.
BW: Well perhaps it didn’t prove as reliable as the Stirling because it didn’t fly. They were trying to get the Lancaster flying for the Friday unveiling but they didn’t and I think it may have flown -
PB: Yeah.
BW: The day after but -
PB: What annoys me they chopped up every Stirling. Now, you think they could, it was the first four engine aircraft we had. You’d think they could have had two or three for museums wouldn’t you?
BW: Ahum.
PB: But no they chopped up the lot and that really does grieve me.
BW: And even now they’ve got a Halifax in Elvington.
PB: Oh I’ve seen that.
BW: Which is nicely renovated and so on.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Doesn’t fly.
PB: And it’s got, it’s got the Stirling’s engines in it as well. It hasn’t got Rolls Royce in it it’s got Hercules. It’s a mark iii. It’s that one. The mark iii.
BW: That’s the picture on the wall yeah. And there is a Halifax that they dug out or pulled out of a Norwegian fjord in 1973.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And that is in the Royal Air Force Museum in London.
PB: Yeah. Well for years we hoped that they’d would find a Stirling somewhere but er somewhere in Holland but they never did.
BW: Ahum ahum.
PB: A great shame because it was a beautiful aeroplane.
BW: Could take, from what you were saying, could take a fair bit of punishment and keep flying.
PB: Yeah it was a lot bigger than a Lancaster of course but it had some disadvantages you see. It couldn’t fly high and it couldn’t carry big bombs. It didn’t have a bomb bay. It had three separate ones which gave immense strength to the fuselage because you had these girders running the full length but you could only get a two thousand pound bomb in it so we mostly carried incendiaries.
BW: So just thinking in brief terms about the structure of a bomber formation in that case because you’d see that the pathfinders were going first to mark the target.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Presumably the Stirlings would then go in with the incendiaries.
PB: No. No, we were our main raid was either five or sometimes six waves.
BW: Right.
PB: And the Stirlings were always in the third wave. We got some protection from the first two waves going out and some protection from the last two waves coming back because we were a bit slower than they were. So we were always in the third wave.
BW: Right.
PB: Except, except Peenemunde. Now, that, that’s a terrible story. The night before Peenemunde we went to, we went to Turin and somewhere our radio packed in and we didn’t get the message telling us that East Anglia was fogged up and we had to land in Kent or Sussex. Wherever we could. We didn’t get that message so we arrived back at Lakenheath and asked for instructions to land and they said. ‘You can’t land here. It’s totally fogbound but if you get over to Oakington you might just get down.’ Well, we got over to Oakington, the other side of Cambridge and we just landed. They closed the, closed the airfield immediately we landed and they debriefed us and fed us and provided us with beds and in the early afternoon we went down to the airfield and the Lancasters of seven group were being bombed up and we knew we were on again that night and we were going on leave the so next day so we weren’t anxious to go bombing that night. Anyway, we’d no choice we started the port outer. Come to the port inner, nothing. The starter motor was dead. The starter motors they had in Oakington would fit a Lancaster, it wouldn’t have fit us so we rang Lakenheath to tell them. Eventually a lorry arrives with some fitters and a new starter motor and we landed at Lakenheath just as the squadron is taxiing out for take-off and we were very, very happy because we were going on leave the next day and then I discover we’d missed bloody Peenemunde and at Peenemunde the Stirlings went in first at five thousand feet in brilliant moonlight and all the fighters were circling in Berlin because Mosquitos were dropping target indicators on Berlin. The Germans got away scot free. Eventually the Germans twigged what was happening and got the fighters over and shoot down forty Lancasters and Halifaxes. Stirlings, scot free.
BW: And because you, they’d have been in the first wave.
PB: Yeah.
BW: They got away with it.
PB: There were three, there were three targets. The first one was at the very southern end was all the housing and the Stirlings destroyed that and then the next waves destroyed the science laboratories and then the assembly works and we missed it and it’s grieved me the rest of my life. I’d have given anything to have been on that raid and we were so happy that we weren’t. Oh, a friend of mine got shot down that night. No. I’d have loved to have been on Peenemunde.
BW: I mean that was, that was announced at fairly short notice. It was, you know sometimes a raid has to be planned quite well in advance.
PB: Yeah.
BW: But this was because of the intelligence about the weapons.
PB: Yeah.
BW: They were developing their short notice.
PB: The crews weren’t told, they were told that they were attacking an experimental place for new radar [and the better job of the radar they’d better defend themselves because they destroy all the latest airborne radar] that was the story that was given to aircrews.
BW: Interesting.
PB: Oh I’d have given anything to have been on that raid. Anything. Five thousand feet, brilliant moonlight and you were the first in.
BW: As you say it’s how fate goes isn’t it?
PB: Yeah.
BW: But -
PB: I’ve just been to the funeral of a friend of mine. George. He trained in Canada as a navigator. As a Mosquito navigator which is a specialised navigation job. He qualifies, he gets his brevvy, he’s ready to join the squadron and the war stops. They never even, he never even saw a Mosquito. Oh what a terrible thing to have happen to you. Terrible.
BW: Gone through all that. Well, I was reading in the prep really that they launched a raid on Peenemunde.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And just looking here at some of this um yeah it says here that 149 squadron took part in the early offensive against Germany.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And took part in the first thousand bomber raids with Stirlings.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Made a significant contribution to the battle of the Ruhr, Battle of Hamburg and the raid against the V weapons experimental station at Peenemunde.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And then between February and July ‘44 and in addition to dropping high explosives on the enemy the squadron helped supply the French maquis with supplies, arms and ammunition by parachute.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Of course that would be after you’d been shot down.
PB: About eight weeks after we were shot down Stirlings were taken off German targets completely. Some of them converted to Lancasters. Those that kept their Stirlings were used to drop supplies in France and to do mine laying and later to tow, to tow gliders but they never went to Germany again. The loss rate was unsustainable. I’d been on raids where we lost one in every five Stirlings. You can’t, you can’t keep that up for very long.
BW: No. No. Not at all. Do you think there was a particular weakness perhaps in the Stirling that the losses were so high or was it just good -
PB: You couldn’t get any altitude.
BW: Just because they were restricted to -
PB: Yeah, yeah.
BW: Low ceiling.
PB: Altitude. I mean, I had friends who flew at twenty two thousand feet. On a good night we would get thirteen. On a poor night we would get eleven. Everything that was thrown up reached the Stirlings and everything that was coming down reached the Stirling as well [laughs].
BW: I think you mentioned at one point a bomb hit your aircraft. A bomb -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Dropped from the aircraft above.
PB: This was the Nuremberg. I think it must have been a thirty pound incendiary because it went straight through. If it had been a four pound I think it would have stayed in the wing and burned. If it had been [eighty] it would have taken the wing off. Left quite a sizable hole.
BW: I would just like to show you this. There’s a photo here of a Stirling crew of 149 squadron based at Lakenheath.
PB: Oh.
BW: And I just wonder whether you might recognise any of the names. It’s only a longshot.
PB: Oh.
BW: But there’s -
PB: As I say we never bothered with other crews really.
BW: No.
PB: Except the ones we trained with at -
BW: But it looks like it’s outside the mess at Lakenheath that picture.
PB: Yeah I don’t recognise the photograph. Crowe, that’s a familiar name, Crowe. Oh he was a POW that’s why I know him. Was he a flight engineer? I knew a Tweedy in prison but he was a soldier. I don’t recognise the faces at all. Don’t know why their wearing uniform instead of battledress but there we are. Battledress were far more comfortable. That’s interesting. 27th of September. Oh well they would have been newcomers on the squadron when we were there. The average life expectancy was only six weeks. I had two friends, both on Halifaxes -
BW: Thank you.
PB: Both shot down on their first trip and my friend who were in training, a flight engineer on 15 squadron did four operations and got shot down twice.
BW: Right. I think that sort of brings us to the end as I say unless there is anything else you want to say.
PB: Well I hope I haven’t bored you.
BW: Not at all sir. No not at all there’s plenty of information. Some really interesting and diverse experiences. It’s been very kind of you to share those with me.
PB: It’s a pleasure.
BW: So thank you very much -
PB: A pleasure.
BW: For your time um what I’ll do is I’ll come to the signing of the release form now and a couple of photos so I’ll end the recording there and we’ll sort out the paperwork.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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ABatesP151009
Title
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Interview with Philip Bates
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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.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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02:13:03 audio recording
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Pending review
Pending OH summary. Allocated S Coulter
Creator
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Brian Wright
Date
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2015-10-09
Description
An account of the resource
Philip Bates grew up in Lancashire and joined the Royal Air Force in 1940. He served as ground crew with Coastal Command before remustering as aircrew. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 149 Squadron until his aircraft was shot down and he became a prisoner of war.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Poland
England--Lancashire
England--Suffolk
Poland--Tychowo
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Nuremberg
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
Contributor
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Julie Williams
149 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bomb struck
bombing
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
displaced person
Dulag Luft
entertainment
fear
final resting place
flight engineer
ground crew
ground personnel
Heavy Conversion Unit
home front
incendiary device
Ju 88
Lysander
Manchester
Me 110
military living conditions
military service conditions
mine laying
Nissen hut
prisoner of war
RAF Lakenheath
RAF St Athan
RAF Waterbeach
Resistance
Scarecrow
searchlight
shot down
Stirling
training
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1171/11740/PMortensenJC1803.2.jpg
2902abff131d5b25fa39163e7da37336
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1171/11740/AMortensenJC180917.1.mp3
54eab7ebac5dce038fc42a6a53cfc8f2
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
Mortensen, James Christian
J C Mortensen
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Warrant Officer James Mortensen (1924, 2209575 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a wireless operator with 149 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-09-17
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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Mortensen, JC
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 Warrant Officer James Mortensen of 149 Squadron, at 2.30 on Monday 17th September 2018 at his home in Leyland, near Preston. First questions if you don’t mind James, if you would just confirm your service number for us and your date of birth please.
JM: Double two o nine five seven five. [Laughs]
BW: You never forget that, do you?
JM: You never forget it. [Laughs]
BW: And what was your date of birth?
JM: 27th 12th 1924.
BW: Which makes you currently 93.
JM: Correct.
BW: Where were you born and where did you grow up, you mentioned -?
JM: Liverpool.
BW: Liverpool. Whereabouts in Liverpool, actually in the centre?
JM: Aigburch, Liverpool 17.
BW: Okay, and Aigburch, that’s an unusual spelling, isn’t it. A u g -
JM: A i g b u r c h.
BW: And along with your mum and dad did you have any brothers and sisters?
JM: Yes, I had two sisters and a brother.
BW: And were you in between, or were you the older brother?
JM: Yeah, I was third, [laughs] I had two older sisters and a younger brother.
BW: And what was home life like in Aigburch, was it quite a nice area?
JM: It was very good, my father was a detective in the police.
BW: What did your mum do?
JM: She just stayed at home [laughs].
JM: Unfortunately, she died in 1937. Very, very young. [Pause]
BW: So you would have not been so old yourself, about nine.
JM: About thirteen, fourteen that’s all.
BW: Thirteen, okay. And whereabouts did you go to school?
JM: St Anne’s Church of England School.
BW: Was that the, was that your first one, was it a primary school or - ?
JM: It was a primary school, yes. And it was, it was a church school right through, from five to fourteen.
BW: And you stayed there, as you say, until you were fourteen. I saw a school report that said you had a special aptitude for Maths and English, is that right?
JM: Yeah.
BW: Were they your favourite subjects then?
JM: Yes, [laughs] maths still is.
BW: Do you think you have a technical background, or a logical sort of brain to-?
JM: I can always remember phone numbers. When I pick up the phone I can ring up anybody and I never look at the, I know the numbers. [laughs]
BW: And you came top of the class in your last examination.
JM: Yeah.
BW: So was that, I think they called it high school certificate, is that right?
JM: Yeah.
BW: So in your year, you were top of that year.
JM: Had my mother been alive, I’d have gone to university. But dad decided otherwise. He was a self made man, he was a detective sergeant and he reckoned that all his children should be the same.
BW: What would you have liked to study at university had you been able to go, did you have plans?
JM: I don’t know, I never considered, I might be, I’d have got there.
BW: I just wondered if you’d had plans –
JM: No.
BW: Or particular focus on things to study.
JM: I was always very keen on maths, probably would have been something to do with that.
BW: And when war broke out you would have been about fifteen years old then, wouldn’t you?
JM: Yeah, I was in the ATC.
BW: And that only started in 1941 didn’t it.
JM: Yeah, number 7 Squadron, 7F squadron, the Founder squadron. That was in Liverpool.
BW: Did you join in 1941, or did you -?
JM: I can’t remember when I joined.
BW: Okay.
JM: I’d got up to NCO or some sort, I remember that, but which I don’t know.
BW: Did you manage to get any flying?
JM: Oh yes, and also we did gliding. That was great [laughs].
BW: So was it –
JM: RAF Sealand we went for that.
BW: Okay.That’s in North Wales.
JM: Yeah, North Wales, Cheshire, Cheshire.
BW: Was it the flying that attracted you to join the Air Force or was there some other aspect to training?
JM: It was flying, flying.
BW: And did you have intentions to become a pilot at this stage?
JM: I went in as a PNB, you know, pilot, navigator, bomb aimer; and when we got the, we went down to Bridgenorth when we, when I was joined up. We went to London first, you know for the ordinary thing at Lords cricket ground, and then I was moved to Bridgenorth. A lot of us decided then what we were going to do. And I went as PNB, and they said well you can go as a PNB but there’s a hell of a waiting list, and you’ve got to go to America or Canada. And he said, ‘it’s a long course,’ he said, ‘of course you can go as a rear gunner right away,’ I said, ‘No thank you’. [laughs]. And he said, ‘well we’ve got a radio school going, as a wireless operator.’ He had a course. I said I fancied that, so I went on that. If I’d gone on the PNB course to America I would have had to wait about eight months, and then it’s about another eight or ten months flying, so it rewarded me well.
BW: So what year was when it you joined up then?
JM: ‘43.
BW: In June I think it was, so you’d have been eighteen.
JM: Yes.
BW: And that was, at that time the minimum age for joining wasn’t it, the earliest point at which you could join.
JM: I’m not sure.
BW: Were you, you said you left school at fourteen,
JM: Yes.
BW: Were you employed between fourteen and eighteen?
JM: Yes, I worked in an office first, as an office clerk, doing the postage stamp et cetera, and then I went into Roots aircraft, building Halifaxes.
BW: And what were, what was your trade when you were building Halifaxes?
BW: Well I got up to like a leading hand, in charge of, they were all of women then, very few men and I was in charge, I was only about eighteen, seventeen whatever it was, and I was in charge of older women, because at that time they wouldn’t let women be in charge [chuckle].
BW: And what kind of things were you instructing?
JM: I was doing the interior of the Halifax, you know the riveting all round. You’d hold the gun inside while somebody outside -
BW: So you had to be quite, exactly the right position.
JM: Yeah, well you went along in a row, and you went from one to another and if you missed it hard luck! [laughs]
BW: And did you enjoy the work?
JM: Oh yes, it were very good.
BW: Was, sometimes these shifts I understood would have been pretty long and very long working hours, did you ever get a chance for a social life in between at all, or-?
JM: Oh yes, we used to go out and enjoy ourselves, a crowd of us. [chuckle]
BW: So you, you joined up in 1943, and you decided to go to be a wireless operator.
JM: Yeah.
BW: And that was simply really because of the shorter waiting list and training time, wasn’t it?
JM: Yeah.
BW: How did you find the training for that profession?
JM: It was excellent. It was RAF Madley in Hereford.
BW: And how long were you there?
JM: About eleven months, it was a long course.
BW: Can you describe what sort of things you were doing during that time?
JM: Yes. We started off learning the morse code, and eventually you had to get up to a certain speed, I got up to thirty two words per minute sending and twenty eight receiving which was not right at the top, and then we learnt all about the TR1154 55 which was the radio transmitter receiver we used in the Lancs. And we had to strip them, well they stripped them down and we had to put them back together eventually when we’d learned all about the valves, they were valves then of course. [chuckle] We used to take the condenser out, or put a dud one in or a dud valve and you had to come in and sort it out.
BW: Presumably this was not just so that you could maintain the radio let’s say in daylight hours in the aircraft, taken out, potentially you would have had to look at a problem with the set in the aircraft at night as well.
JM: Yeah.
BW: Were you training in fairly realistic conditions, in the sense would they turn the lights off to try and recreate night conditions or anything like that?
JM: No.
BW: Just for practice -
JM: Not that I can remember.
BW: Okay. I believe you began your training from then on Wellingtons, your sort of aircrew training.
JM: Yeah.
BW: Do you recall where that was?
JM: It’s all in me log books this. I can’t remember them all.
BW: Okay.
JM: We had Blenheims as well.
BW: So you learnt on Blenheims too?
JM: But on the radio school we were in Percival Proctors.
BW: Okay.
JM: And Avro Ansons and then the flight things for the radio. We were taught it on the ground first and then we used to go two or three in, in an aircraft and take over.
BW: And what kind of exercises were you doing in the aircraft.
JM: Only air to ground communications, morse code and everything.
BW: How did you find that compared to doing it on the ground, any different?
JM: It were very good, very interesting. [Laughs]
BW: What were your assessments like on that, did you, you said you came pretty well near the top on the sending and receiving in Morse Code, was that the same in the air, did you find that, those easy?
JM: Well yeah about the same. [pause]
BW: I believe you met your pilot who would become your, let’s say your, your regular crew pilot while you were flying Wellingtons.
JM: Yeah.
BW: Was that Sergeant Heady?
JM: Addy.
BW: Addy.
JM: A d d y.
BW: And what was, what was he like?
JM: He was fine.
BW: Did you get on pretty well?
JM: Big, tall chap, he lived in Torquay actually. [pause] He was a sergeant then of course. Then eventually all Bomber Command pilots were commissioned.
BW: And so he, he obviously was potentially one of the last remaining NCO pilots, wasn’t he?
JM: Yes, he must have been because it was March when I got to the squadron, ’45 so only few months before, er after a, the war ended.
BW: And from Wellingtons you went on to Lancasters and I believe you started at 16 68 Heavy Conversion Unit.
JM: Yeah, Bottesford, yeah.
BW: Is that Norfolk?
JM: No, I don’t think it is.
BW: South Lincolnshire?
JM: South Lincolnshire I think, Bottesford.
BW: And how did you meet the rest of your crew? ‘Cause you’d meet at the Conversion Unit or thereabouts before going on to the operational squadron?
JM: Well when we met the skipper there were other people, other navigators and bomb aimers there and we all sort of got together.
BW: Did you, some crews met in a hangar, was that your experience?
JM: I can’t remember that. [Laughs]
BW: You just sort of met them -
JM: It’s seventy years ago [laughs].
BW: Do you recall once you got to Methwold in, was it Methwold?
JM: Yep.
BW: In Norfolk, and 149 Squadron, East India Squadron. Do you recall the rest of the crew?
JM: Oh, I know the crew very well, yes.
BW: Do you know what their names and roles were at all?
JM: Oh yes, I kept in touch with three of them.
BW: Who were they?
JM: I kept in touch with the pilot, we used to send Christmas cards to each other every year till about three years ago, then it stopped, I’ve heard nothing since. The navigator died of pneumonia many years ago. The rear gunner, I kept in touch with him and his wife wrote me to saying he’d died. The navigator died of pneumonia I think it was, oh many years ago. So there’s only the bomb aimer and the mid upper gunner that I didn’t know anything about, and I still don’t.
BW: Do you recall their names at all?
JM: Yeah, Bob Simpson the bomb aimer he was from North, up Northumberland, and Barney the gunner, the top, no, mid upper gunner he was from London. Whether they are still alive I don’t know, but they are the only two I don’t know about.
BW: Do you recall who the rear gunner was at all?
JM: Alf Fawcett.
BW: Alf Fawcett.
JM: F a w c e double t. I kept in touch with him and then it was his wife who rang, or phone, sent a letter to me saying he had died, many years ago.
BW: And when you joined were the rest of them all NCOs, were they all sergeant aircrew like you or were any of them -?
JM: All except for the flight engineer, he was the older one of the lot. He remustered from ground crew. So he was like the father of us all, he kept, kept an eye on us. We had a father figure amongst the crew.
BW: And who, do you recall his name, who he was?
JM: Oh gawd, it’ll come back to me, I can’t think of it all but.
BW: No worries. And you said you, said earlier, that you flew with a reduced crew and there was only two gunners.
JM: We only ever had two gunners – a mid upper and a rear gunner.
BW: Okay.
JM: We never had a front gunner, the bomb aimer used to do that. And if we had a mid under, I used to do the mid-under. [pause]
BW: What was, what were the facilities like on the base at Methwold? Do you recall? Did you all share the same accommodation or were you in the sergeants mess, or -?
JM: We had a sergeants mess, but then, it was, they had six wings, and every wing had a dance. So six nights a week we were dancing. [Laughter] and we used to bring in the civvies from Hereford, on the bus, which the WAAFs hated.
BW: So there was, there was quite a good social life through there.
JM: Oh yes. Brilliant social life. And at Methwold, they didn’t have a cinema in Methwold and we had one on the camp so we used to bring the girls in to watch any films and things. It was a very sleepy little village.
BW: Was it quite close by?
JM: Yeah, couple, two or three mile, that’s all.
BW: So you could walk in to town.
JM: Oh well, you wouldn’t walk it, but you could get there handy, you know.
BW: Okay. Did you ever socialise off, off base as well, did you go into Methwold for drinks or anything like that, or did you just stay there?
JM: Yes, they were very good actually, because. My wife has been dead over twenty years now, but when she was alive we decided we’d have a, we had a caravan, I used to tow a caravan, and we stayed in Norfolk, so we went to Methwold, and as we drove into Methwold, right opposite at the junction we came to, was a café, and I said to my wife, I said: ‘That used to be a pub.’ She said, ‘It’s a café,’ so I said anyway let’s go and have a cup of tea. So we went and had a cup of tea, and I said to the lady, this looks very, very like a pub we used to drink in, and she said come with me and she took me through a little side door, and in the back was the bar we used to drink in.
BW: Did it bring back a lot of memories?
JM: Oh yes.
BW: Did you share many of those memories with your wife at the time?
JM: Oh yes, they were very good, some of them [chuckle].
BW: So just thinking now in terms of your sort of operational duties. Can you describe a typical operation, how you prepared for it?
JM: Well the first thing we did, we used to go down to the wireless operator briefing, they’d give us the call signs and everything else we needed to know, and emergency come-backs and things, and then we all used to go to the main briefing and then we found out where we were going.
BW: And how long would the main briefing sort of take?
JM: It would be half an hour, to an hour you know, on the Berlin one, explaining everything you know. It was quite a long flight.
BW: Hmm. Berlin was a notoriously difficult target, how did you feel –
JM: That was our last one.
BW: Yeah. How did you feel when it came up on your list again?
JM: Um, I don’t know, at twenty years of age you’re not frightened, [chuckle] you should be, and I think half the time you felt it was an adventure, off we go again.
BW: So once the briefing had finished, what kinds of things would happen then? What would you be doing in order to join the aircraft?
JM: You’d get all your equipment together, the order they do things and then you needed helmets and then out to the aircraft.
BW: And would you be bused out there?
JM: Oh yeah, well either bused or in a open, or a closed in, what do you call, lorry.
BW: Yeah. A truck with a canvas back sort of thing.
JM: Yeah, yeah.
BW: And did you or any of the crew have any superstitions or particular rituals for getting on board? I mean some crews did, but it was particular to them. Did you have any?
JM: Nothing I can think of, the rear gunner used to wave to a WAAF friend he used have, as we drove down, taxied round the perimeter, she’d you know come out and wave to him and that was about it.
BW: So you would all get on the aircraft then, ready to start the operation.
JM: Yeah.
BW: What kind of checks or preparations would you make at that point?
JM: Well we’d have to set the transmitter receiver up for the frequencies we were going to use, because every hour we got a group message, any agency could come in between, but every hour they got a group message, and you had to set up for that and everything. If you went in a different aircraft, because you never always flew in the same one, somebody else would have a different call sign so you’d have to put your own in.
BW: And did it take long at all to, to get ready, were you fairly quick and efficient at doing it?
JM: Yes as soon as possible so as you could sit down. [Chuckle]
BW: And as you sort of taxied out would the pilot be calling the crew for checks or anything like that, would he - ?
JM: He would just make sure we were all in position and then he’d took over with the control tower.
BW: So right at the, I suppose, start of a, an operation then, [cough] how did it feel if you think back to your first operation, and you having done all that training in the lead up to it, do you recall how it felt to go on your first op, over Germany?
JM: I think they all felt the same, we went either to the Ruhr or Berlin, but they all felt the same. At twenty years of age you weren’t bothered.
BW: There were no butterflies in the stomach or anything like that?
JM: Well, I suppose there must have been, but it wasn’t really in fear, I always knew I was coming back. ‘Cause I always made arrangements where I was going the next night. Mind, it didn’t always work out that way.
BW: And being so close to the end of the war because this was around March.
JM: Yes, March ’45. Yeah.
BW: 1945. Did you feel at any point prior to that an eagerness to get on to operations before the war ended, or -?
JM: Oh yes, we wanted to go, I mean we did three or four, and then we had a mess up and we were sent to Feltwell on the bombing course.
BW: And was there any reason given for that, being sent on the course?
JM: Well yes, [chuckle] a difference between the pilot and the navigator, and where to bomb.
BW: And do you think that was a mis-identified target or -?
JM: Yeah.
BW: Okay.
JM: When we came back, because there was a camera on board of course. And they photographed where we bombed and we were sent from Methwold to Feltwell which only a couple of mile away, and we did a fortnight bombing practice.
BW: Were those the only repercussions from the incident?
JM: Yeah. That’s all that I knew. I don’t know what happened to the pilot, have no idea. But they still stayed with us.
BW: So they certainly weren’t separated or anything like that.
JM: No.
BW: Were there any particular incidents from other raids that you went on? You flew in total four operational sorties, two during the day and two at night. Were there any particular incidents that stood out from those?
JM: Only one, when we were attacked by a night fighter. That was fun, well it wasn’t fun then but, but the mid upper started on him and the rear gunner and then I had a mid under and I had a go but I don’t think we hit him. But it must have been about, well a month later, we got a DFM sent to the squadron, only one. I don’t know who got it, I’ve no idea, it shouldn’t have been shared between the crew. somebody got it I don’t know who, could have been anyone.
BW: So potentially that might, might have been over, over Berlin, on your last sortie.
JM: It could well have been.
BW: Were there any other, there were no other, no other incidents, you only mentioned the one.
JM: No, I saw a few Halifaxes and Lancs hit and go down, but we were never hit or anything, so, just that one, the night fighter came down, over, he never hit us, he just went just past us and went underneath and that was it.
BW: And you mention your role was dual role as a mid-under gunner as well. Can you describe what that entailed?
JM: Well, it was very, very, very few aircraft had a mid-under turret. Most of the time they didn’t. They was just all flat prone. But if we were on an aircraft that had a mid-under I used to use it, that’s all. It was very seld,I think I only used it once, I think.
BW: And what sort of –
JM: Because most of them didn’t have them.
BW: What sort of gun were you firing?
JM: The 303, four 303s or two, I can’t remember now. They were 303s I know.
BW: And how were you positioned in the aircraft, clearly you’d be sat on the floor.
JM: Yes.
BW: But were you just, was there any kind of seating for you to be in as there was for other gunners?
JM: No, not really. You sort of bent down sort of thing, you know, on the loo seat we had. But then only happened once so, all the other aircraft didn’t have mid-unders.
BW: And were you given any gunnery training?
JM: Oh I did some gunnery training, yes,
BW: And was yours –
JM: ‘Cause I went in as a WOP/AG first, then half way through they changed it to the S brevet for Signals, so WOP/AG finished and the Signallers took over.
BW: And were you, was yours the only aircraft on the squadron with the mid-under gunner or were there any, any others?
JM: We didn’t have a mid-under gunner.
BW: Or any of them –
JM: It was the wireless op that did it. [laughs]
BW: Yeah, but were, were there any other aircraft on the squadron, on your squadron, that had that facility?
JM: Some of them, I never went through them all, but some I flew had, I think there was two had it, all the rest didn’t. Cause there were very, very few of them had them.
BW: Interesting this.
JM: Because they were old ones. Because they were the early mark one Lancs that had the mid under.
BW: Okay. And were you, from your position in the aircraft, you are fairly enclosed, were you able at any stage able to see the targets you were flying over at all?
JM: I had a window alongside me.
BW: So you had a reasonable view.
JM: I had a wonderful view, [laughter]. It was only when, apart from the pilot and the bomb aimer in the front, this was the only window, it was smashing and I could look out and see what was happening.
BW: Do you recall what it was like flying over the targets during the day as opposed to during the night, was it any significant difference for you?
JM: You were more vulnerable during the day, you could be seen easier of course, but we never had any problems at all, apart from that once. Which was like a trip going out and coming back, dropping your bombs and coming back. We were very lucky.
BW: Fairly straight forward then, wasn’t it?
JM: Yeah. Fifty percent luck.
BW: And I believe you were also involved in, or your flights after the Berlin raid and after the surrender, involved POW repatriation.
JM: Yes.
BW: You had one around May.
JM: Yeah, brought Italian prisoners, our prisoners from Italy, brought them back and also dropped food supplies to the people in Holland, got a photograph there of it.
BW: Can you describe those kind of sorties? They are quite different.
JM: It was wonderful actually, because we were flying over, we had to fly pretty low to drop them, and there were thousands of people round the, wherever we were dropping them, and we were frightened of hitting them, so that’s the point, they were so, because the minute the stuff dropped they were on them, because they were short of food.
BW: And when you say it’s very low level, would you say it’s below two hundred and fifty feet, something like that?
JM: Oh no, I wouldn’t think so.
BW: Slightly above.
JM: Probably about a thousand feet.
BW: Thousand. Okay.
JM: But, we couldn’t be too high or when they dropped you didn’t want to damage anything. You didn’t drop from a big height. We’d have messed some.
BW: Did they, do you recall how they delivered the food packages? Was it a case of just opening the bomb bay doors or did they go out the side, the sort of the crew door or anything like that?
JM: We used to throw them out the doors mainly ‘cause you couldn’t put them in the bomb bay really.
BW: What sort of size packages are we talking about do you think?
JM: Oh, I can’t remember, but they ended up on a short parachute down there, but the minute they landed they were on.
BW: So I guess they were kind of um, boxes that you could lift and -.
JM: I think there’s a photograph there isn’t there, that one.
BW: Yes, so these show, this photograph happens to show a Lancaster with its bomb bay doors open.
JM: There must have been some went down from there.
BW: And that, looking at that, the people on the ground obviously seem pretty happy to see you. Was that something, does that photograph look pretty familiar to you, was that the kind of thing you would see?
JM: Yeah, they were all waiting, we had to be very careful we miss them.
BW: Did you fly many of those, or was it just the one?
JM: Must have been a couple that’s all. We also took the top brass over the bombing areas after the war. They wanted to see what damage had been done to Berlin and places like that, I forget the name now, there was a special name for it. But top brass used to come and fly with us, so that they could see what had happened and went back again.
BW: Did you have to give up your seat for any of them so they could have a look out the window?
JM: No, I had to stay there in case there was a call. [Laughs]
BW: And just thinking about the POW flights, what can you recall of those?
JM: Oh, that was unbelievable, they were really, down and out and we took cigarettes and chocolate with us and gave it them, they were pleased as anything, you know. More Brits we brought back, from Italy.
BW: How many do you think you, you managed to fit in the aircraft?
JM: I can’t remember that.
BW: Because it was quite tight those.
JM: But they, they made room for them, you know. But they were very, very, very [emphasis] grateful for being brought back.
BW: And were they all RAF POWs? The Army?
JM: No, no, the Army, Navy, not Navy, Army and RAF mainly.
BW: And did they look like they’d had a rough time at all or were they - ?
JM: They didn’t look very happy, well they did happy when we got there.
BW: You flew both Wellingtons and Lancasters. Did you have a preference having flown either, was there any – ?
JM: Oh, the Lancaster.
BW: Particular characteristics?
JM: The Lancaster definitely, much better. Also flew in a mosquito.
BW: Have you: what was that like?
JM: Well, it was queer how it happened. I was a Warrant Officer then, I believe, or a flight sergeant, one of them, and I was in the office and this bloke came, was a pilot, he came in and he said, ‘Are you busy?’ I said, ‘Not too busy why?’ He said ‘I’m going up for a flight’ he said, ‘I need someone with me.’ Okay, fair enough. Told them, say where I was going, I went out there was a Mosquito, [laugh] terrific.
BW: Do you recall where you went?
JM: No, we were just flying round generally but, terrific aircraft.
BW: It wasn’t at low level was it, was it er - ?
JM: Just bits and pieces.
BW: Really.
JM: Oh no, the only low level was in the air display down in London, that was er, murder. We all went down for Battle of Britain day and the Lancs were going to do a low level fly past and the pilot was Squadron Leader, I’ve forgotten his surname now, but he said, I was going with him, only two of us, I had to act as flight engineer as well. He said okay. We got there and it was pouring rain so we all went to the pub, then the sun came out and they decided to go ahead with the operation. Did a four engine fly over, then a three engine, then a two engine. He said, ‘do you fancy a single?’ I said ‘you can go to hell!’ [Laugh] And then on the way back he said, ‘I’m knackered’ he said, ‘you can fly it back,’ so I flew it back, only straight and level obviously, keep the height and that’s all. And then woke him up when we got near the drome.
BW: You had no issues flying it, or taking, taking control or anything?
JM: Hmm?
BW: You had no issues taking control or anything it was very easy to fly?
JM: Well we used to take turns apiece the crew, pilot used to come out and, not on ops obviously, but low, on cross country flying we used to take, he’d to say come and have a go I’m having a rest and we’d all take turns. [Laughs]
BW: How did it feel to fly?
JM: It was fine.
BW: That’s quite something, to be just given a go on a Lancaster.
JM: Mind you, don’t forget there was a flight engineer sitting alongside you and he’s a pilot as well.
BW: True. Were there any other incidents, or sorties that were particularly memorable for you?
JM: No, I don’t think so, only the low level one we did, over East Anglia, about five of us in formation. Oh god, cows and sheep running riot.
BW: So there were five –
JM: They had permission to do that of course.
BW: So there were five Lancasters, in -
JM: Formation.
BW: Were you fairly close formation?
JM: No, not too close.
BW: So fairly loose formation, and presumably shaped like an arrowhead, one lead and two either side.
JM: Yes, from what I can remember. Oh, it was great.
BW: What sort of height were you for that?
JM: I can’t remember that, it was quite low.
BW: And you were over East Anglia.
JM: Yes.
BW: At that point. Did you go over the beach?
JM: Over the sea as well.
BW: Excellent. And who was your CO? You mentioned, you mentioned him before, when you went down to display, who was your CO on that?
JM: Group Captain, I can’t remember his name now, but he was a smashing bloke. And when we went out on day trips and things, instead of him coming in the car he come in the truck with us. He was a real down to earth bloke, you know, very nice.
BW: There was a Wing Commander Cholton in charge of the squadron at the time. I don’t suppose he, his name rings any bells does it?
JM: No.
BW: No. Okay. So after the war ended and you’ve had these, er additional sort of sorties, what sort of things happened to you after that?
JM: Well I was asked to stay on, sign on and stay on. And I had, had three months of church parades, drills, no flying, and I got bored to tears and said oh gawd this isn’t for me so I came out. But I was offered a commission if I stayed on, but I didn’t, perhaps it was a mistake, I don’t know, I’d have got a lovely pension by now. [laughs]
BW: So at that stage you were a Warrant Officer.
JM: Yes.
BW: And sort of, potentially you’d been asked to consider going up to officer but declined it, and so this would be, your, your service in the RAF ended in –
JM: ’47.
BW: February 1947.
JM: It would be the end of ’46.
BW: And you asked –
JM: I wasn’t the only one, I think they asked quite a few to stay on, but I was one of them. After having, as I said, a few months of no flying, ‘cause we hardly ever went up after the war finished, apart from these special ones, and there was that and loads of church parades every Sunday, and parades during the week, no, I thought I couldn’t stick four more of this. But afterwards I thought maybe I should have done.
BW: And were you still based at Methwold during that time?
JM: No, I was up at Kings Lynn. Marham. RAF Marham.
BW: And so eventually in ’47 you asked to be demobbed, and what happened to you then, what, what course did your life take after that?
JM: Well, I was sent to Burtonwood, that’s where we got demobbed, and I got me suit [chuckle] and then I went home.
BW: So Burtonwood’s not too far from Liverpool, really.
JM: No.
BW: Near Warrington.
JM: Yeah, Warrington. That’s where we got demobbed, at Burtonwood.
BW: And did you go back to the family home in Aigburch?
JM: Oh no, my father had remarried then and moved to Hunts Cross, which was a [posh voice] superior area of Liverpool, so they say.
BW: [Cough] And was he still in the police force at that time?
JM: Yep.
BW: So presumably he had been promoted from -
JM: He’d made it to Detective Sergeant, yeah. And then he remarried of course, and we won’t go into further details, and I left home. [chuckle] He [emphasis] was all right.
BW: And where, okay, So, um –
JM: I went into digs then.
BW: And were you still in the Liverpool area, on your own?
JM: Oh yes.
BW: And what did you do for employment after that, after coming out the RAF?
JM: My uncle was in the aircraft industry and I went into Roots and they were making Lancasters, Halifaxes then. No, start again, [mutter] can’t remember, oh, um, what the heck did I do then? [Pause] I went to the British School of Motoring, as a driving instructor.
BW: And how long were you there?
JM: About fourteen months, because someone said to us there was a firm opening up at Speke, where they made Ford cars and they wanted delivery drivers. So, I had a pupil, I said ‘you’re going for a nice long ride today, we’re going out to Speke!’ And we went out to Speke, I went to see the manager and he signed me up right away, well, being an instructor. And a couple of weeks later I was delivering new cars and Fords, all over the country. Single cars. Then eventually I drove the car transporters.
BW: How long did that last?
JM: Oh gawd, twenty odd years, I was there a long time. I retired from there actually.
BW: And what –
JM: I’ve been retired since 1997.
BW: And what sort of things have occupied your time since? I mean obviously you spent time with your wife, as you say, before she died two years ago, sadly.
JM: We had, well we had a series of caravans in the Lake District. We loved the Lake District and still do, and we had a caravan near Keswick, so we used to spend nearly every weekend up at Keswick. Used to go for long walks and it was great.
BW: Very nice part of the world.
JM: Oh, I love Keswick.
BW: And, just thinking about the sort of commemoration and recognition given to Bomber Command and the veterans since, have you been to the Bomber Command Centre in Lincoln? Alright. Okay, but you’ve been to East Kirkby and to Coningsby and so on.
JM: I went to Madley once, that’s all. I’ve been to Lincoln.
BW: And did you go to the unveiling of the memorial in Green Park?
JM: No, no, I went to the Cathedral, because they’ve got all the information in the Cathedral there.
BW: And what are your thoughts about the recognition that’s been given to bomber crew since?
JM: I think it’s about time, I mean we did lose fifty percent.
BW: Yeah, the 125,000 crew that’s –
JM: Yes, that’s a lot of crew.
BW: And lost 55,000 plus.
JM: Yeah.
BW: And were there any additional or other memorable incidents that you can recall from your service at all?
JM: No, not really.
BW: Do you think we’ve covered everything?
JM: Apart from one when I could have died, [chuckle] that was our own fault. We went out to a night do, in Hereford, a dance, and the last bus was eleven something and it was about twenty to twelve, and the, what do you call it? the SPs came up to me, said, Warrant he said, ‘I am going to give you a chance, there’s twenty minutes to go till midnight, if you are still here at midnight we’re booking you.’ So, we stayed didn’t we, and we got booked. But anyway we came out, there were no buses, and it was about eight mile back to the camp, about one o’clock in the morning and we were all walking along, horrible snowing and all, it was a horrible night, and lucky a, one of the transports came along, with food things, we got a lift back in that. God knows how we’d have got back otherwise. [Laugh] Course we got seven days for that, didn’t we.
BW: Was that the only time you spent in –
JM: CB, yes. [Laugh]
BW: And when you married, what, what happened? You had, obviously a son, Dave and -
JM: Got another son in America, Andrew, and a daughter in the Wirral. My son’s coming over from America in November.
BW: So you’ve had a pretty good post war life really, haven’t you?
JM: I’ve a very enjoyable life.
BW: Yeah. You enjoyed your RAF service and you’ve enjoyed your time since.
JM: Yes.
BW: Good. Well, that’s all the questions I have for you, James, so -
JM: Good!
BW: Thank you very much for your time and the information you’ve given to the IBCC.
JM: If you want any other stuff, there’s photographs there maybe, if you want them, and the, just make sure they’re working.
BW: So would you –
JM: Short burst on each, front and rear, and you know, that was it, as I say it was only once I think, only once or twice at the most, I ever had [emphasis] a mid under, most of the time I didn’t. There were very few Lancs had them.
BW: And you, you’d never fired your guns in anger had you?
JM: Only once. That was once.
BW: Just the, when you saw that night fighter.
JM: Yeah. Whether we hit it or not I’ve no idea. But we got a DFM to the squadron afterwards. I don’t know who got it. They said we were going to draw lots to get it, never heard any more 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 James Christian Mortensen
Creator
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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
2018-09-17
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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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AMortensenJC180917, PMortensenJC1803
Conforms To
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Pending review
Format
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00:49:17 audio recording
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--Herefordshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
Description
An account of the resource
Born on 27 December 1924 in Aigburth Liverpool, James was 15 when war broke out in Europe. He intended to join as a pilot, navigator, bomber aimer in 1943 but due to shorter waiting list and training time he trained to become a wireless operator at RAF Madley. James mentions that he trained in older medium bomber such as Blenheims and Wellingtons, and mentions how he met his regular pilot, Sgt Aedy. He qualified for heavy bombers at RAF Bottesford, on Lancasters, before being assigned to 149 Squadron 'West Indies' at RAF Methwold.
James says that a separate briefing was held for wireless operators to inform them of callsigns and code words to be used before the main briefing. James was also the mid-under gun operator when the aircraft required one. James’ crew only flew four operations over Berlin being near the end of the war; he mentions a mis-identified target incident and an attack by a night fighter. James’ account also details being involved in the Operation Dodge and Operation Manna, as well as recalling a time that he was invited to fly in a Mosquito which he described as ‘a terrific aircraft’. James continue to serve until 1947 until he de-mobilised due to his ‘dislike of a lack of flying’. James retired from active service as a warrant officer. He would work as a delivery driver until retiring in 1997. James recalls that he kept in contact with three members of his crew until 2015.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Alex Joy
Anne-Marie Watson
Steph Jackson
149 Squadron
aircrew
Blenheim
bombing
Distinguished Flying Medal
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
military ethos
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Mosquito
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF Bottesford
RAF Feltwell
RAF Madley
RAF Methwold
training
Wellington
wireless operator
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/540/8780/AGilbertAC161013.2.mp3
d34798a44bdedb497b506541d0fc1232
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Gilbert, Alexander Charles
A C Gilbert
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Gilbert, AC
Description
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21 items. An oral history interview with Squadron Leader Alexander Charles Gilbert DFC (b. 1921, 1336682, 186764 Royal Air Force) his log book, documents and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 9, 514 and 159 Squadrons. He was Awarded the Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur in 2020.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Alexander Gilbert and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
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2016-01-13
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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.
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 13th of October 2016 and we’re with Squadron Leader Alexander Gilbert DFC at Cheddington near Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire, and we’re going to talk about his career in the RAF, which was a long one. What do you remember in the earliest recollections then Alex?
AG: What do you mean? Going way, right back?
CB: Right from when you were really young.
AG: Ah, well, my father was a Hansom cab driver in London.
CB: Oh right.
AG: He joined the Army at the outbreak of World War One and served right through. And because he’d been a Hansom cab driver and knew all about horses they, he was assigned to what they called the Rough Riders, looking after horses, taking them across the Channel to France, and training horses and occasionally going down to Spain to purchase more horses and mules that were brought back for service in France. And at the end of the war, he was at this, this re-mount depot as it was called, at Swaythling in Southampton and he stayed there, and of course, he was married at the time. And from there, what could we say? I started school aged five, and I went to an elementary school and I left at fourteen, and then I was training or trying to become something in the art world, and I attended art school in Southampton. And then in November 1940, I volunteered to join the RAF and was called forward for service on the 7th of April 1941 and despatched to Uxbridge, where I spent three or four days being interviewed and processed, sworn in, all that sort of thing, and then assigned to a trade, and I was told I was to be trained as a Flight Mechanic Air Frames. From there, along with others, I proceeded to Blackpool where I carried out my recruit training on Blackpool sands, accommodated in one of the well-known Blackpool boarding houses. The training, as I remember it, lasted about four, four or five weeks. Recruit training and then we were moved to nearby Kirkham to, to carry out the trade training. The flight mechanics course lasted, as I remember, about eight, eight to ten weeks. At the end of the course, we had a final examination and the top third who passed out were retained to carry on to do a fitter’s course. I was in the top third so I stayed behind and completed the two courses, and at the end of it, I was a Group One Tradesman, Fitter 2A as they called them. I then had my, my first posting which was to what had been Exeter Airport, which was now a station that was occupied by a Spitfire squadron. I was only there about four weeks when the squadron was moved to an airfield near London. The air, the air, the ground crew were not required because the airfield that they’d gone to, already had ground crew, so we were dispersed and posted to various stations and I was posted to Calshot. Calshot was a very dreary place, it hadn’t changed, I don’t think, since World War One. The accommodation was pretty grim, I always remember the beds we had were iron plated, sort of, you know bedsteads. Very, very uncomfortable. The working hours, we worked, weekdays, every day, eight hours a day. We also worked weekends, Saturday mornings and Sunday mornings. We had the afternoons off at weekends, but because Calshot was rather isolated, there wasn’t anywhere to go anyway. So altogether it was a place that I, I really did not like at all. Anyway, apart from the work that we had to do, we also did guard duty at night along the Calshot foreshore, because there was the talk at the time about invasion and all this business, so we, we did these guard duties as well as our normal work. A very cold and uncomfortable place in winter time I can assure you, on the Calshot foreshore, very uncomfortable indeed. In early 1942, it was about March I suppose, a letter was pinned on the notice board. It said that the aircraft industry was expanding and there was a shortage of skilled tradesmen. RAF fitters were invited to volunteer for a short secondment to the aircraft industry. I thought to myself this is a way of getting away from Calshot so I volunteered. I didn’t really know what I was getting into actually. They told me I, yeah, I was to report to an office in Oxford, which I did. When I arrived there they said you will be working at the Cowley Motor Works. It was no longer a motor works of course, they were turning out parts for Lancaster aircraft, and they said, ‘You will work on permanent nightshift’. You start at 8 o’clock in the evening and you worked until 6 o’clock the next morning, with an hour’s break at night, and that was the routine. They gave me an address to go to where I would be accommodated. It was a house in the backstreets of Oxford that was owned by a young couple in their early thirties I suppose, and it was obvious from the start that they resented having a lodger, so there was no welcome at all. The woman took me up to what was to be my room, which had a bed, a table and a chair and that was it. It was a very depressing place altogether. I spent the night there, and the next morning, I had the same reception from this couple, not a friendly attitude at all, so I waited till they’d gone to work, packed my small bag and went back to the office I’d first reported to. The woman I saw, I explained to her about this place and I said, ‘I’m not going to stay there’, I said, ‘I am not going to stay in that place. Can you give me a new address? Another address to go to?’ So she said, ‘Yes, I’ll do that’. She said, ‘Here’s an address in Cowley’. I went there, a very nice street, the house very nice. Nice, nice couple, middle aged couple. The husband worked as a chef at the Randolph Hotel in Oxford. She showed me to my room, very pleasant and comfortable, so that’s where I was whilst I worked at Cowley. The next day I reported to the Cowley Works to start work. The chap I saw said, ‘You will be working with a team of four’, there was already four there, ‘You’ll be, you’ll be number five, working with this team producing spars for the fuselage of Lancaster aircraft’. The four chaps turned out all to be Welshmen, they all came from the same place. They all knew one another well and I was taken into the team and we all got on quite well. That was it for the next five months or so. Then in early September, I received a letter to say that I was to be recalled and to report to Scampton, RAF Scampton, which I duly did, and on arrival at Scampton, I was told I was posted to 49 Bomber Squadron to work on Lancaster aircraft. I worked, I was on, on 49 Squadron through the winter of ’42/43, then in early ’43, I suppose it was about March time, a further letter appeared on a noticeboard to say that more and more four engine bomber squadrons were being formed, and there was a requirement for flight engineers, so I volunteered. At the time, there was no flight engineer training course and they said you would receive your training at the Rolls Royce works at Derby, and you would do a two week course on the Merlin engine and that would be it, which I did. After that, I was promoted to the rank of sergeant, given my flight engineer brevet, and then moved to Morton Hall where I would be crewed up. I got to Morton Hall and found that there were crews already there. There was the pilot, navigator, bomb aimer, wireless operator and the two air gunners and now they wanted a flight engineer. The way we were crewed up was the other engineers and myself were put in to a hut and told to line up along one wall. The pilots then came in and lined themselves up on the opposite wall, and the procedure was that the pilot would look across at the engineers, look at one that he thought would, would be ok and ask him, and I was approached by a chap called Colin Payne who said to me, ‘How would you like to join my crew?’ And I said, ‘Yes please. I would’, because I liked the look of him, and then he took me outside to introduce me to the other crew members and that was it. We were then moved to Winthorpe to do our conversion course on the Lancaster, which we did, and from there, we had our first operational posting and we were posted to 9 Squadron at Bardney. While we were there, we did ten operations, including the three to Hamburg [pause]. At the time the squadrons, the Stirling squadrons in 3 Group were being converted to Lancasters, and new squadrons were starting to be formed. We were told that a new squadron was being formed at Foulsham, and was to be called 514 Squadron. It appears that they wanted two or three experienced crews to start the squadron off and then new crews would be added. So we duly reported to Foulsham where we did four operations with the newly formed 514 Squadron. The last of the four operations was to Berlin and when we were briefed, we were told that when we completed the operation, ‘You will not be returning to Foulsham. You will fly straight to Waterbeach’, which was to be the home of 514 Squadron, which was a rather odd thing to do because we had our belongings and all that sort of thing, and in, somebody wrote up afterwards what this was all about and there’s the letter there. Is that the one? The top one. “Get on your bike” or something, it says.
CB: “Posted via Berlin. Take [take] your bike”.
AG: That’s it. “Take your bike”, yeah. Yeah. I mean, this was the thing which you normally, they would never allow you to take anything.
CB: No.
AG: But we took all our stuff with us to Berlin and then to Waterbeach.
CB: Because you were moving airfield.
AG: That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so that was that. So we arrived at Waterbeach, whilst we were at Waterbeach, we did another ten operations. So, so far we’d done ten at Bardney, ten at Waterbeach and I had done, and the four at Foulsham, a total of twenty four. The crew actually had done twenty five, there was one operation that I couldn’t go on because I had developed a nasty quinsy in my throat, and I couldn’t fly for three or four days, so I did one less operation than the rest of the crew. However, when they’d done twenty five and I’d done twenty four, we were then told that you had completed your first tour. Now this was five short of the normal thirty operations. The reason for this, I don’t know, whether it was because of the fourteen operations we’d done with 514 Squadron, ten of them had been to Berlin. Ten. Whether it was because of that, I don’t know but they said, ‘You have completed your first tour’ [pause]. The crew were then dispersed, of course, and posted to various training units. I stayed with Colin and we were posted as instructors to Number 3 LFS at Feltwell [pause], where we were until the, towards the end of the year. Well, we were, this was 1944, Colin said to me, ‘How would you like to go back on operations?’ I said, ‘Well I don’t mind’, so he said, ‘We will be posted to 149 Squadron at Methwold’, he said, ‘And I’ll try and contact some of the old crew members and ask them to join us’. He managed to contact the wireless operator and the rear gunner, and they duly arrived to join us at Methwold. We then picked up a new navigator, a new bomb aimer and a new gunner to replace the Australian. The Australian, by the way, was given a choice, having completed a tour of operations, either to stay in England or to go home to Australia, and he elected to go home. Now, among the operations we did with 149, we did the Dresden operation. We went to Dresden and we also did two Manna operations, dropping food. In our case, we dropped food to people in Rotterdam and The Hague [pause], and that was shortly before the war ended. At the end of the war, we started to get demobbed. I had been offered a four year extension, I didn’t know what I was going to do, by the way. I was married by that time, and my wife Dorothy had been a WAAF MT driver at Waterbeach. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, and as I was offered this four year extension of service, I thought, I’ll take it and then make up my mind later about my future career or whatever. Anyway, I took the four year extension of service, stayed with the squadron until it was disbanded in January 1948, but during that time we did various exercises. We had a three, three, three or four day detachment to Trondheim in Norway, we did a trip to Juvincourt to bring back these chaps who’d been in the Army and been prisoners of war. We had an attachment to Gatow in Berlin, we did a tour of Germany by air, looking at some of the stations that we had bombed, some of the towns that we had bombed to see what it all looked like, and we had this trip to Pomigliano in Italy, and we had this two week detachment in the Canal Zone [pause]. And then, when the squadron was finally disbanded, there was no requirement, of course, for flight engineers, bomb aimers, air gunners or anything like that. The only aircrew they wanted to retain, were pilots and navigators, so I was transferred from the GD branch to the secretarial branch [pause]. I had two short, short postings, one to Watton and one to Bletchley Park which, at that time was the headquarters of Central Signals Area. You weren’t allowed in the house at that time, everything was all locked up and no one ever spoke about what, what was done at Bletchley during the war. No one ever said a word about it. One of the jobs I had to do whilst I was at Bletchley was opening the mail that came in, and one morning I opened the mail, opened this post gram, and found that I was posted to Hong Kong and I was posted to 367 Signals Unit, which was a Y station on Hong Kong Island. I travelled to Hong Kong by way of Singapore, on the troop ship Orbita, which took some five weeks to get to Singapore. I spent three of four days in Singapore and then boarded a Dakota aircraft to get to Hong Kong. We stopped on the way at Saigon to refuel and have something to eat, and the whole trip took eight and a half hours in this Dakota, and then arrived in Hong Kong. At the time, it was at the time that Chairman Mao was winning the war in China and people were flooding in to Hong Kong. Rich Chinese people who could afford anything, and any spare accommodation in Hong Kong was taken up by these people. So in our case, we were, I was occupied in the mess at Kai Tak, and it was a question of applying to get my wife to come and join me, which would take some time, and you just went on the married quarters waiting list, and again there were very few married quarters in Hong Kong, so you just had to wait a long time to get one. Anyway, my wife arrived in September with our newly born young girl, Janet, my daughter, and we were accommodated, like a lot of others, in one room in a hotel. Not, again, not very comfortable, waiting to be allocated a married quarter, but anyway, things in this hotel, it was hot, humid, again terribly uncomfortable, and every day I used to buy the China News, news, newspaper and see if there was any sort of accommodation being advertised. One day I bought the paper, and there was an advert in there which said there was an English family who worked in Hong Kong going home on leave, and their flat would be available. Offers were asked for, so I wrote, I sat down and wrote a letter which brought tears to the eyes of anyone who read it, and posted it off to this man called Alex MacLeod, who owned this flat. A couple of days later, he rang me up at the hotel and he said could I come over and have a chat with him and his wife, so Dorothy and I went across to the island, because our hotel was located in Kowloon on the mainland, and he took me up to the flat, introduced me to Joan, his wife, and after a short conversation they said, ‘We’re going to offer you the flat’. So we moved out of the hotel and into this flat, which we occupied for about two months whilst they were away in England. When they were due back, strangely enough, I rose to the top of the married quarters list and was offered a married quarter, so we moved in to the quarter and there we stayed until I completed my tour in Hong Kong in September 1953 [pause].
CB: We’ll just pause there for a mo.
AG: Do you want to go on there because we were now –?
CB: Yeah. Give you a –
[Recording paused]
CB: Ok.
AG: Right.
CB: So you’re in Hong Kong.
AG: In Hong Kong, completed nearly three years in Hong Kong, and when I came home, I was posted to 3513 FCU, Fighter Control Unit in Devonport as adjutant of the unit. We had an operational outstation at Hope Cove with a small staff at Hope Cove and [pause], I’m trying to get my thoughts right here. I completed a tour at 3513 and was then posted to 24 Group on the P staff. This was in Lincolnshire and –
CB: So what was P staff?
AG: P staff. P2 was Postings –
CB: Right.
AG: Postings of officers [pause]. I’d been there a short time and it was decided that the P staffs at Groups headquarters would be, would be closed down and they were no longer required, and so I was then posted to our headquarters, Technical Training Command at Brampton, again on the P staff [pause]. And whilst I was there my, I was then granted a permanent commission on the general list [pause]. From then I had various postings, I had two and a half years at SHAEF headquarters in Fontainebleau in France.
CB: What did you do there?
AG: I was the adjutant of the RAF support unit. Each of the nationalities at Fontainebleau, there were the British, the Americans, Canadians, French of course, they each had their own support staff and I was the adjutant of the RAF support staff [pause]. After that, my next posting was as recruiting officer at Brighton [pause], from there, I was posted to Headquarters Transport Command at Upavon, where I was the P1 staff officer responsible for courts martial boards of enquiry and all that sort of thing. I was there for only a few months when I was promoted to Squadron Leader and posted to the record office at Barnwood in Gloucester, where I was on the staff of the air commodore, the AOC [pause]. I did just over two years there and then I was posted to Aden on a twelve month unaccompanied tour of Aden. Whilst I was in Aden, they had a peculiar arrangement in Aden at the time. It was nearing the time when we were planning to get out of Aden anyway, to leave it and they had what they called continuity posts, which was a posting of two and a half years where you could be accompanied by your wife and family. A non-continuity post was a twelve month unaccompanied tour post which I, which I was in. Again, Aden, a dreadful place, we should have got out of Aden years ago but it wasn’t until 1967 that we finally left. I completed the twelve month unaccompanied tour, and on arrival back at the UK, was posted to Headquarters Strike Command at High Wycombe where I was on the aug staff [pause]. From there, I was posted to the Air Ministry on the staff of the director of manning. I did three and a half years at Adastral House in Holborn, which was part of the Air Ministry at the time. Nearing the end of my service, I had a final posting to Stanmore Park, where I was the deputy CO of Stanmore Park and that was my final posting, having then completed thirty five years in the service [pause]. Knowing that I was to be, leave the service in the October 1976, I had already started to formulate what I was going to do when I left the service, and I had applied for a job with the University of Buckingham, which I got. They had an offshoot of the University at Chalfont St Giles. By this time, of course, we’d bought this house in Cheddington, and the journey between here and Chalfont St Giles was twenty two miles. Anyway, which I had to do every day but I thought, well I’d got the job, and it seemed quite a good job looking after the admin side of the University of Buckingham at Chalfont. I had been interviewed for the job along with three others. They’d had a large number of applications to get this job, but anyway, there was three others and myself who were interviewed for this job. We spent a day at Chalfont, the morning we spent touring the place, and in the afternoon, the interviews were carried out, and the interview for each one of us lasted about three quarters of an hour or so, and we sat there then waiting to see who’d got the job, and at the end of the afternoon, the Vice Chancellor came in and said, ‘We’ve decided to give the job to Squadron Leader Gilbert’. So I thought, right. That was it. Now, this was before I had left the service. He said, ‘We will keep the job open for you until you leave the service in October’ [pause]. Shortly before I retired, I was in my office at, at Stanmore Park and I had a phone call from the Air Ministry, and they said, ‘We notice that you live near Halton’, they said, ‘Would you be interested in a retired officer job at Halton? The job would be for ten years after you leave the service and’, they said, ‘You’ll have to be interviewed of course, at Headquarters Air Cadets’. And I said, ‘Well, I’ll go there. I’m quite interested to find out what it’s all about’. So I, I went to Headquarters Air Cadets for this interview along, along with a number of others, and again at the end of the afternoon, the group captain, who was in charge of the interview board, came and said, ‘We’ve decided to offer the job to Squadron Leader Gilbert’. So I thought, right, I’ve got two jobs now. I’ve got the offer of a job at Halton and the job at Chalfont St Giles, and I thought, well to be very honest, Halton is quite close here, I would know all the routine of the service. I would still be in uniform as a squadron leader at Halton for ten years secure, secure employment, so I thought, well I will have to try, try and take this job. So I rang the Vice Chancellor at Chalfont and said, ‘Could I come down and see you?’ Which I did. I went down to him and explained what it was all about and I said, ‘To be quite honest, this job at Halton, I really know all about it. I know the routine of the service, it’s quite near my home and I feel that really, I ought to take this job’. He said, ‘I quite understand’, he said, ‘We will find somebody else’, and he said, ‘I wish you the best of luck’. So I started at Halton. I was the wing admin officer of Herts and Bucks Wing, Air Training Corps, and my job was taking care of all the ATC squadrons in Hertfordshire and in Bucks, and I completed that job for ten years. And that, I think, is the end of it.
CB: You decided to retire completely at age sixty five.
AG: At sixty five, I thought I have done enough. I have never been unemployed and I thought I’d, I’d done quite enough and that’s it.
CB: Very good. Let’s have a break.
[Recording paused]
CB: Geoff, thanks, sorry Alex. Thanks very much for all that stuff. What I want to do is run through some individual items. One of the things we touched on was Manna.
AG: Yeah.
CB: Now, this is quite important in a lot of ways, so could you just tell us how did you get involved in that and what, what happened and how did you feel?
AG: Well on the, towards the end of the war, we were told that the people in Holland were starving and a lot were dying. In fact, I was told eventually that twenty thousand Dutch people died of starvation, so we were told that we were to take part in what we was called Operation Manna. The word comes, you probably know –
CB: From heaven.
AG: The word comes from the bible, and when the Israelites and Moses were driven out of Egypt, they were starving and Moses prayed for them to get food, and it appears that a heavy dew descended on the land. This dew was sweet tasting and the Israelites were able to eat this stuff and so survive. And that is where, and Moses said, ‘This is Manna from heaven’, and that’s the way it came about. We did two food drops, one to Rotterdam, one to the Hague, flew to Holland with bomb bay laden with food and as we came in, in to the park at low level and dropped the food the people who’d gathered there all started shouting and cheering and all the rest of it. It was a sight that I will always remember, and it made us feel that we’d done something that was really worthwhile and that is the Manna story as far as I’m concerned.
CB: Then when you got back? So, you then got back and then what?
AG: Well got back and as I say, we did the two, two trips and then we just carried on with normal squadron duties.
CB: Right.
AG: But this happened, people don’t seem to realise that these drops took place while the war was still on. The Germans had agreed that they would not interfere with the Operation Manna.
CB: And what height and speed did you do this?
AG: We came in about five hundred feet, and the food was all in sacks on a wooden sort of arrangement. A pallet as they called it, a wooden pallet, and the food was all in sacks and the pallet was just dropped on to the park.
CB: A moving experience.
AG: Yeah. Very much so. Very much so. Never forget these people.
CB: No.
AG: Who were all so pleased to see us.
CB: And after the war did you ever go to Holland?
AG: No. No. No. Oh I went, when I was at Fontainebleau.
CB: Oh you did?
AG: I used to go, go up there occasionally. Oh yes. Yeah.
CB: Right.
AG: Yeah.
CB: Thank you.
[Recording paused]
CB: Now we’re just going on to your role as a flight engineer, because the flight engineer’s activities were actually quite busy. If we start with take-off, could you describe the take-off process and how the flight engineer gets involved in that, and what he does?
AG: Well at take-off, we go down the runway, the pilot takes the aircraft in to the air, and as he does so, the flight engineer gets the undercarriage up and adjusts the flaps, and that’s, that’s about it until you’re up. And er –
CB: But in fact, you take over the throttles at an early stage, so can you just describe that?
AG: And, and, yes, once you’re airborne at flying height, then you adjust the throttles to whatever speed, you know, the pilot wants, and the bombing height of course was between eighteen and twenty thousand feet each time. And that was it. Most of the trips took about four and a half to five hours, but of course, a trip like Dresden, we were airborne for eight and a half hours, and we went in across Germany but when we came out, we went north and flew over Denmark and came home, home that way.
CB: Right. So when you’re flying as an engineer, what do you do?
AG: Well, you’re doing really the log more than anything and anything else the pilots wants you to do, but normally, I mean, the whole crew would settle down really, and you were just airborne hoping you wouldn’t be attacked by a night fighter.
CB: Yeah. So when you fill in the log, what are you filling in and with what frequency?
AG: The frequency was about every half hour or so and you would put in what you thought was the fuel consumption at the time.
CB: So how –
AG: That sort of thing. Yes.
CB: How do you work out the transfer of fuel and what do you do?
AG: Yes. Well, you know that you’re on, say, a particular tank for a certain time and that it was time to transfer or refill that tank or whatever and you would do. It didn’t happen all that often of course, I forget now how many, how many petrol tanks there were on the Lancaster, I think it was two to three at each wing, something like that. I forget those details now, it’s too long ago and regrettably, all the booklets I had on the Lancaster I kept for many years, but with all my travels, eventually they were all discarded.
CB: I’ve got a pilot –
AG: Regrettably.
CB: I’ve got a –
AG: My daughter always swears at me, she says, ‘you should have kept all that stuff, Dad’.
CB: Yeah.
AG: You should have kept it all. Well I know that is true now but hindsight is all very well, isn’t it?
CB: Well perhaps it wasn’t so important then. I’ve got a –
AG: That’s right. Yeah.
CB: I’ve got a pilot’s notes, I’ll lend it to you.
AG: That’s right. Yeah. Well I had all the notes on the Lancaster, I could tell you all about it.
CB: Yeah.
AG: Yes. Yeah.
CB: Now, why are you moving fuel?
AG: Because of weight, weight really, to get an evenly balanced aircraft.
CB: So you –
AG: That’s the only, only reason I can recall.
CB: So you’re moving it from the outer tanks to the inner ones, are you?
AG: That’s right, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
CB: So we finish the sortie and you’re coming in to land. What does the, what’s the tasks, the role of the flight engineer?
AG: Well once we’re on the circuit and we were called in, then it was undercarriage down and just standing by the pilot, and that was it really, making any engine adjustment as we came in. That was all. Yeah.
CB: So back on the stage of taking off, at what point and how do you balance the engines? Synchronise the engines.
AG: Once you’d got to a certain height.
CB: Right.
AG: Once you’d got to a certain height, yeah. Yeah.
CB: And the purpose of that is?
AG: Well you stayed on that, on that engine arrangement whilst, you know, whilst you were in flight. You could have been on that for some time.
CB: But –
AG: Some time without any change. You weren’t constantly changing. I mean, let’s be honest about it, with these operations, a lot of the time, a lot of the crew were doing nothing. Nothing. I mean the bomb aimer, he was doing nothing down in the front. The ones who were working the hardest were the pilot and the navigator. The wireless operator wasn’t allowed to transmit whilst you were over Germany, and the two gunners were just sat there, hoping that the aircraft wouldn’t be attacked. So there were long periods of inactivity let’s say, on the part of a lot of the crew.
CB: So you did a complete tour and other sorties as well.
AG: Yeah.
CB: How reliable was the aircraft and what sort of snags did you come up against?
AG: The aircraft was very reliable because your ground crew were the same people. You had the same engine fitter, the same air frame chap and the same armourer who looked after your aircraft. So after an operation, normally, you would go down to the flight lines, and they would say, ‘We’ve checked everything over. Will you give it an air test?’ So just Colin and I would clamber aboard the aircraft, go up for about twenty minutes, make sure that everything was working all right and land, and that was the air test after they’d serviced the aircraft, and that used to happen practically every time. Yeah.
CB: Now going back to the beginning of your career, in volunteering to join the forces, there was basically an option between the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. What prompted you to make the decision you did?
AG: I just didn’t want to join the Army or the Navy, and I thought I want to join, join the Air Force and that was it.
CB: To what extent did the Air Forces activities in the early part of the war, inspire people of your age? So, Battle of Britain, that sort of thing?
AG: Oh well, yes. You see our home was in Southampton, and out of interest, while I was training on that flight mechanics course at Kirkham, I had a phone call from my sister who said, ‘Last night, our house was destroyed’. It was bombed. She said, ‘We’re all alright, Dad and Mum because we were in an air raid shelter nearby, a service shelter and so we’re all alright’. And when I was in, told my flight commander, he said, ‘So you’re family are ok, are they? Nobody’s injured. No?’ I said, ‘No’. He said, ‘Then we can’t spare you any time off to go home’, so that was that. But in Southampton, before I joined the Air Force of course, the Battle of Britain was going on. The first RAF fighter pilot to get the VC got it over Southampton.
CB: Nicholson.
AG: Nicholson. And he was the first one and I saw him come down.
CB: Did you really?
AG: And he landed near where I lived, yeah, and it was all that sort of thing that inspired one. Oh yes, you know, join the RAF. That’s, that’s, that’s the place to join.
CB: Exciting.
AG: Exciting. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, just across the water, the Itchen, was the Supermarine Works.
CB: In the Isle of Wight.
AG: Was the first place to build the Spitfire aircraft, because the Spitfire, when the trials took place before the war, took place at Eastleigh Airport near Southampton.
CB: Yeah.
AG: Yeah. So, and of course, the man who invented the Spitfire, RJ Mitchell, lived in Southampton at the time. In fact, there’s the plaque on the house now where he lived.
CB: What was the reaction of your parents to the destruction of their home?
AG: Ahh well, they, it was just one of the, I mean, this was happening all the time during the war and they rapidly found a place nearby. A house that they rented for the rest of the war.
CB: But they’d owned their own home before.
AG: No, it was a council house.
CB: Oh, was it? Right.
AG: It was a council, yes, it was a council house, and so that was that. So they rented this place whilst the war was on, and after the war, they rebuilt the council house where they’d lived and they went back to the same spot in a new house.
CB: Did they really?
AG: Yeah.
CB: And what about your sister’s reaction?
AG: [laughs] Well, well, you know it was all sorts of things. Strange things happening during the war and you just accepted it and, you see, you know in Southampton, I forget how many people were killed, between four and five hundred in air raids, and well this was what was going on. People, you know, in those days really didn’t complain as much as they complain today.
CB: Your sister is older than you or younger?
AG: Older.
CB: Older.
AG: Older. Yes.
CB: So did she have -?
AG: She, she, she, she, she was married and they lived in rooms in Southampton, because again, this question of accommodation, you know, wasn’t easy. Yes. And they lived in two rooms in Southampton.
CB: Was there a requirement by the government that people should give up space for people to live with them, because of the shortage of housing, or how did it work?
AG: I didn’t ever hear that was actually pressed all that much. No, no I didn’t, I didn’t. The only other thing I, I remember about the house being destroyed, was some of my belongings in it of course, and there was a compensation scheme and I got sixteen pounds compensation for the loss of my belongings in that.
CB: Right.
AG: When, when that happened.
CB: How did you feel about that?
AG: Sixteen. Well I thought, this isn’t much but in those days, again, sixteen pounds wasn’t bad.
CB: No.
AG: Wasn’t bad, no, so that was it.
CB: Changing now to when you joined the RAF and started your technical training.
AG: Yeah.
CB: How did that go? How was it set out, mapped out as a course and what did you do in the course?
AG: Well it, for each subject that you were taught, they had corporals as instructors, and you just attended this classroom and on a particular day or week they, you were, well they would talk about air frames or, or whatever. Yeah. I can’t, to be honest, I can’t remember a great deal about that.
CB: No.
AG: It was just that you attended class every day and that was it. Yes. Yeah.
CB: And then you went on to the more advanced operate, as a mechanics course.
AG: Yes. The –
CB: So how different was that?
AG: The fitter’s course was more advanced.
CB: Right.
AG: Yes, and again the detail, after seventy five years, I cannot remember.
CB: No.
AG: But we did this advanced fitter’s course and that lasted another six weeks or so, so altogether I was at Kirkham –
CB: Yeah.
AG: You know, for quite some time, doing the two courses.
CB: Yeah. Now when you were at Calshot then, on the board, a notice appeared saying they were looking for aircrew, what prompted you to –?
AG: No. At Calshot, they were looking for people to volunteer to work in the aircraft industry.
CB: Ah, that was the aircraft industry.
AG: That was the aircraft industry.
CB: Right. Ok.
AG: That’s right. Yes.
CB: So what prompted you to do that?
AG: Well I saw it as a way of getting out of Calshot.
CB: Yes.
AG: To be quite honest, I thought I’ll get away from this dreary place but I didn’t realise what I was getting in to, because the work in the aircraft industry was jolly hard. And long hours, long hours. I mean, 8 o’clock in the evening till 6 o’clock the next morning with an hour’s break in the middle of the night, and that was –
[phone ringing]
AG: Ah –
CB: Stop for a mo.
[Recording paused]
AG: Is that yours?
CB: No, it’s yours.
AG: That was, that was, that was as I said, I didn’t –
CB: This was at Cowley.
AG: I didn’t know what I‘d let myself in for.
CB: No.
AG: But if I’d, if I’d have known, I probably wouldn’t have volunteered.
CB: Yes.
AG: But however yeah, well it was because it was long hours.
CB: Yeah.
AG: And it was every night of the week except one. We had one night off at the end of the week.
CB: So, so what exactly were you making that was part of the Lancaster?
AG: These spars for the fuselage.
CB: Right.
AG: Yeah.
CB: So they’re effectively the circles of structure that hold the –
AG: That’s right.
CB: Skin together.
AG: Yeah. That hold the skin together. That’s it.
CB: Right.
AG: That was, yeah, yeah, along with these four Welshmen.
CB: But you got on well together so that was good.
AG: Oh we got along well together. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
CB: So then you mentioned that you were recalled by the RAF to go back to a, to the front line as it were.
AG: Yeah.
CB: And you went to 49 Squadron. What did you do?
AG: Well I went to Scampton first.
CB: Scampton. What did you do there?
AG: Which was the base station.
CB: Yeah.
AG: As they called it.
CB: Ok.
AG: Yeah.
CB: Scampton so –
AG: One of the satellites was 49 Bomber Squadron.
CB: Right.
AG: And that’s where I went and –
CB: Doing what?
AG: Working on Lancasters.
CB: Right. What sort of things were you doing on the Lancaster?
AG: Well anything that needed doing to the fuselage or whatever, yeah, anything.
CB: How did the ground crews on the front line squadrons react to damage to the aircraft from flak and so on?
AG: Well, again, people just got on with it, you know. If there was damage, you just repaired it and that was it. Yeah.
CB: How did, how did you put patches on?
AG: Oh well with, with rivets or whatever, but again, getting into the detail of all this now, Chris, I’m afraid I can’t –
CB: That’s ok.
AG: I can’t remember it all.
CB: It’s ok. It’s simply that on some planes that had fabric.
AG: Oh yes, yeah, but certainly –
CB: So that I’m drawing a –
AG: But certainly not the –
CB: Differentiation.
AG: Lancaster.
CB: No.
AG: No.
CB: No.
AG: No.
CB: Ok. So there you are, working on the ground as a rigger.
AG: As a fitter.
CB: Fitter –
AG: Fitter.
CB: I should say.
AG: Fitter. Fitter Group 1 tradesman. Yes.
CB: Group 1 tradesman, and at that point, another letter appears inviting you to –
AG: At that point, another letter appears calling for volunteers.
CB: Yeah.
AG: To become flight engineers.
CB: What attracted you to that prospect?
AG: Well, I thought, well that sounds alright. Yeah. Yeah. I’ll give that a go. So I volunteered and as I say, after a very short interview, they said, ‘Right. There is no training course at the moment, at the present time for flight engineers, but you will do a two week training course at the Rolls Royce Works at Derby’, and that’s where I went.
CB: And that’s where you did your engine training.
AG: And I did on the Merlin engine. Price. Predominantly they talked about the Merlin engine.
CB: Yeah.
AG: And the engine handling characteristics and all this sort of thing. Yeah. That was quite good there, Derby, I mean two weeks wasn’t a long time really. It wasn’t a long training course, was it?
CB: No.
AG: But at the end of it, they said, ‘You’re now a sergeant, here’s your brevet’, and that’s it and, ‘You will be assigned to a crew’.
CB: So this officer selects you at the Heavy Conversion Unit did he?
AG: At, at the squadron.
CB: Yeah.
AG: At the squadron.
CB: At the squadron.
AG: You were just, you had this short interview.
CB: Straight to the squadron.
AG: A very short interview.
CB: ‘Cause they didn’t have a –
AG: Yes.
CB: Heavy Conversion Unit then.
AG: No. No.
CB: No.
AG: A short interview.
CB: Right.
AG: Whilst you were on the squadron
CB: Yeah.
AG: And then they said, ‘Right. You’re, yeah, we’ll take you as a flight engineer, and you’ll do your training at Derby’.
CB: Yeah.
AG: And that was it.
CB: So you join the squadron, you get in the aircraft. Now how do you feel about your situation?
AG: Once we’d started operations you mean?
CB: Yes.
AG: Ah. I think if you speak to anyone who’s done operations during the war, the first operation, you weren’t worried at all about it because you didn’t know anything about it, and off you went and you quickly, you quickly found out what it was all about, and it was thereafter that you felt a bit twingy at times. Yes. But not on the first operation because you didn’t know anything about it, about operations but thereafter, well. And of course, the whole thing about operations was luck. It was nothing to do with skill or anything else, it was pure luck if you got through a tour of operations. On 514, we were the first crew to complete a tour of operations. The first one.
CB: Right. Thank you.
[Recording paused]
AG: We were very lucky as I say.
CB: So, on, on operations then, these can last anything up to eight hours.
AG: Yeah.
CB: You did a whole tour and more.
AG: Yeah.
CB: So how would you describe the sort, the operations you went on? Were they eventful or quiet or what were they?
AG: No. The, to start with, the operations on Hamburg if you remember, there were three operations over a period of four days and we did three of the, we did all three of the four.
CB: Right.
AG: And after the first one, then a couple of days later, or perhaps it was the next night we went out again, but according to the logbook, you can see by the logbook, when you were a hundred miles away, you saw the light in the air, and that was Hamburg burning, and then you got near and you did your sortie and you did it. And then, as I say, we did three to Hamburg, three, three trips to Hamburg. Certainly you remember that well enough and –
CB: What was the reaction of the crew to that?
AG: Well, you know, they [laughs], we just thought, well there you are. In fact, in the logbook too, there’s the piece of paper which is a “News of the World” report who interviewed us. In the logbook.
CB: Yes.
AG: In the back there.
CB: Yeah.
AG: Somewhere. And that was after one of the Berlin trips, and I said to them, I said to this reporter at the time, ‘After the war, I’d like to go to Berlin and tour around to see what it looks like’, and it’s in the newspaper report.
CB: Right. So was it just a curiosity or –?
AG: Curiosity.
CB: Yeah.
CB: Yes. Yeah.
CB: To know how it had worked.
AG: That’s right.
CB: This, this article says, “Blood red pall –
AG: Yeah.
CB: Over the heart of Nazi Germany”. Right.
AG: Yeah.
CB: Ok.
AG: Yeah.
CB: And did you get attacked on any occasions or how did that work?
AG: No. No. Never, never got attacked. Never. No.
CB: So the gunners were keeping an eye out.
AG: The gunner was keeping an eye out, yeah, poor old Twinny in the, in the, the rear gunner, he often used to get off the aircraft with frost on his moustache. He was the only one who had a moustache and he had the frost on the moustache. It must have been pretty, pretty grim for him.
CB: Yeah.
AG: Yeah. Especially when the flight was eight, eight, we, as I say, the longest flight was the Dresden one. That was eight and a half hours, but then there was the Nuremberg one which was quite a long flight, and the Munich one was a very long flight. So there were quite, quite a few long flights where poor old Twinny was freezing in the back.
CB: The Nurem –
AG: There was supposed to be some sort of heating but it’s quite often it wasn’t working. It didn’t work anyway. There you are.
CB: The Nuremberg one was clear weather and the loss rate was very high. What do you remember particularly about that?
AG: I remember that very, a great deal, the loss rate of aircraft was nearly a hundred. Nearly a hundred aircraft and so you’ll, you know, well there again, I thought, good God, you know. What are we doing, doing this? But there you are, but that was, that was the worst night of the war for the, for Bomber Command. Yeah.
CB: In what way did you feel –?
AG: Well because of the, the loss rate.
CB: Did you see bombers go down? Other bombers.
AG: At times, at times, at times you did, ‘cause over the target, you were sort of going in there about eighteen, eighteen to twenty thousand feet, but the German night fighters would fly above you and drop what they called candle flares, and these things slowly floated down and lit up the whole area.
CB: With a view to enabling them to see.
AG: With a view, with a view to them picking out the aircraft to attack.
CB: Right.
AG: And you were lucky that you weren’t attacked. Yeah. And again, the bombing run was the hair raising bit, because you came in and you had to go straight and level over the target so the bomb aimer could put his sights right and drop the bombs, but that again, was the hair raising bit, that bit where you had to go the same height for about three or four minutes.
CB: And then –
AG: Over the target.
CB: After the bomb release you still had to go straight and level.
AG: After the –
CB: To take the picture.
AG: Yeah. That’s right and then of course you got out as quickly as you could. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Always one way? Predictably always left or always right or what was it?
AG: Not always one way. Normally straight out and away, but I know the thought at the time was let’s get the hell out of here but again, you had to do your job.
CB: Yeah.
AG: And do that bombing run correctly.
CB: Yes. So you talked about Munich, what was partic, apart from the distance, what was particularly memorable about that.
AG: Again, I can’t, well, well no, I don’t. We just went to Munich, did the operation and that was it. Yeah.
CB: And then you mentioned Dresden. What’s memorable about Dresden?
AG: Dresden, I remember Dresden quite well because there was a lot of cloud over Dresden. A lot of cloud.
CB: At your height.
AG: At, at, at yes, well and below us, cloud below us. Yes, cloud below us. I do remember that quite, quite well, but again, we did the bombing run and of course, as you say, as you know with the bombing run, you were aiming your bombs at the Pathfinder markers.
CB: Yes.
AG: Yes. You know.
CB: Were they clearly visible?
AG: Yes. The red or the green markers and you were told at the briefing which ones to go for.
CB: Ah, right.
AG: To aim the bombs at.
CB: And on occasions did the, depending on where you were in the bombing stream, did the markers become obliterated by the fires and the smoke?
AG: Oh yes, yes, well they, yeah, that could happen quite easily. Yes, oh yes. The Pathfinders could drop the markers but then the fires would overcome them. Yes. That –
CB: And did they re-mark?
AG: No. Well, you heard of tales that they remarked, you know. You heard of Guy Gibson and how brave he was at doing this, and they used to hover around the target for some time but there you are. Yeah.
CB: So thinking of the war in total, what was the most memorable point in your perspective?
AG: Memorable points about the war. To start with getting away from Calshot was quite memorable I must say, working at the Cowley works was quite memorable. The Manna operation was, I suppose, one of the most memorable because to see the way that those people reacted when you dropped the food. I guess that was one of the most memorable.
CB: Their appreciation.
AG: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the way, the way they all responded when the thing hit the ground, you could tell. There was cheering and shouting and all waving their arms and all this business. Yeah.
CB: And –
AG: I remember that very well.
CB: Yes.
AG: Yeah.
CB: So when you got back from a sortie, there was always a de-brief. What was the de-brief after Manna flights?
AG: Well nothing very much, they just wanted to know whether the thing had gone, you know, because there wasn’t any hindrance as there would have been on an operation, a proper bombing operation. I mean, everything was there, quiet and you just came in to the park quietly and you did your drop. There was no interference from anybody. As I say the Germans had agreed that they would not interfere with Manna.
CB: And did you make the drop of the food at a reduced speed or the normal speed?
AG: No. At reduced speed, reduced speed. Yeah.
CB: To what?
AG: Yeah. Well I forget, but we reduced it so we were above stalling height, you know. To make the drop. If you were flying in too fast, you might, you might not drop it on the park, you might drop it on somebody’s house, so you reduced the speed coming in. Definitely, yes. Above stalling height.
CB: Good. Thank you.
[Recording paused]
AG: I forget where we’d been.
CB: Now one of the challenges in the bombing war was getting back to the airfield.
AG: That’s it.
CB: And the British weather with fog.
AG: Yeah.
CB: Was a pain.
AG: Yeah.
CB: So how did you deal with that?
AG: Yeah. Yeah. Well as I say, we were, we were, we were quite fortunate really but there was one time when we came back and there was this fog, and it was a question of, this fog was going to hang around for some time so FIDO came into operation each side of the runway, you know, these flames and things, so we landed that way. It only happened once.
CB: So it was a popular airfield that day.
AG: Yes [laughs]. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Because not many airfields had Fido, did they?
AG: No. No. No. No. FIDO.
CB: Right.
AG: Yeah.
[Recording paused]
CB: I forgot to ask you Alex, whether you had any links and what they were with the American Air Force or Army Air Force as it was.
AG: No.
CB: In those days.
AG: Nothing. Never. No.
CB: But their aircraft –
AG: No links whatsoever.
CB: No.
AG: No.
CB: But their aircraft, the Flying Fortress. What did you do there?
AG: What? Well he just took us up.
CB: So, so you went somewhere where you, what did you do? You flew somewhere.
AG: We flew to this base.
CB: Yeah.
AG: This American Flying Fortress base, met Colonel Jumper, the commanding officer and he, he gave us a flight in the Flying Fortress.
CB: So what was that like?
AG: Oh that, that was alright. Of course, he didn’t do anything drastic, we just went up and just flew, flew around for a while.
CB: Yes.
AG: Yeah. But we walked through, through the aircraft. Examined it, you know. Those, at the rear of the flying fortress each side, they had these machine guns, didn’t they?
CB: Yeah.
AG: Yes. Looked at all that and it was just a day out really.
CB: In terms of its sophistication and crew comfort compared with the RAF aircraft, what was that like?
AG: Oh I think that, I think we were slightly more comfortable than the flying fortress and the flying fortress crew, I forget how many there were, but I think –
CB: Eleven.
AG: There were about eight or nine of them.
CB: Yeah.
AG: Yeah. In this what was regarded, compared to a Lancaster, was a smallish aircraft.
CB: Yeah.
AG: Yeah but they had all these gunners on –
CB: Yeah.
AG: On the Fortress didn’t they?
CB: Yeah.
AG: Yeah.
CB: That’s why the bomb load wasn’t very big.
AG: That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As I say, there we are.
CB: Right.
AG: I’m trying to think of any other highlights.
CB: Well.
[Recording paused]
CB: That’s it.
AG: In about April 1945, the rear gunner and I were called in and we were told that we had also been awarded the DFC because of the number of operations. The ten trips to Berlin and all this business.
CB: Yeah.
AG: So that’s the way we got it. It was regrettable I thought, that the wireless operator didn’t get it for some reason. I don’t know why.
CB: No.
AG: But it was just the rear gunner and myself.
CB: So the pilot and the navigator already had –
AG: The pilot –
CB: The DFC.
AG: They already had it, yeah. At the end of the tour.
CB: Yeah.
AG: They had got the DFC.
CB: Right.
AG: The pilot and the navigator only. But in the April ’45, the rear gunner and myself also got it.
CB: Right. Ok. And bomb aimer, nothing either.
AG: The bomb aimer. Well, the bomb aimer, at the end of the first tour, as I say, was regarded as the old man of the tour.
CB: Yeah.
AG: He was aged thirty two. Once he went off to this training unit, having completed the tour, we never heard of him again.
CB: No.
AG: Stan Young, his name was.
CB: Right.
AG: Stan Young. The pilot was called Colin Payne.
CB: Yeah.
AG: The navigator was Ken Armstrong. Now that’s another strange story about Ken Armstrong. At the end of our first tour of operations, Ken went off to a training unit, but then I don’t know if you know this, they started training people to work on British Airways after the war, but they already started recruiting them whilst the war was still on. And he, he applied for this and was recruited to go on the staff of British Airways before the war ended, and after the war, he ended up at Hurn Airport near Bournemouth where he operated from with British Airways. Ken then rose up in British Airways, and British Airways eventually did away with navigators and just kept pilots and, strangely enough, flight engineers. They were the only two crew members. And Ken, they kept two navigators back at British Airways headquarters at Heathrow, and he became quite a star navigator with British Airways, and whenever there was a royal flight, even though they had all the navigation aids, they always took a navigator with them, and he went on a number of royal flights and he ended up with the MVO, Member of the Victorian Order. And he became quite well known in British, they all knew Ken Armstrong because he was one of the two navigators left in British Airways, because they didn’t want navigators anymore with all, with all the navigation aids on board. But he, he did become quite well known. Yes. I mean my wife’s husband, Clive, ‘Oh yes’, he said, ‘Ken Armstrong. We all knew Ken Armstrong’.
CB: Your daughter’s husband.
AG: Yes.
CB: Ok.
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 Alexander Charles Gilbert
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
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
2016-10-13
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AGilbertAC161013
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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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01:22:03 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Alexander Gilbert, DFC, joined the Royal Air Force in November 1940, and was called forward for service on the 7th April 1941, rising to the rank of Squadron Leader. Alex had a very long and varied career for the Royal Air Force.
Upon his call up, he was trained as a Flight Engineer Air Frames where he passed in the top third of his class. He became a Group One Tradesman, Fitter 2A. He was posted to Calshot and then spent time working at Cowley Motor Works, manufacturing spars for the fuselage of Lancasters before being recalled and sent to Scampton.
He served with 49 Bomber Squadron before taking a Flight Engineers course and working on Merlin engines at Rolls Royce Works in Derby.
Alex was transferred to 9 Squadron at Bardney where he completed 10 operations, including 3 to Hamburg, then helped form 514 Squadron where he flew on missions to Berlin, and completed 14 operations. He became an instructor at No. 31 LFS at Feltwell, before returning to Operations at 149 Squadron in Methwold.
149 Squadron were involved in the Dresden operation and did 2 trips in Operation Manna, dropping supplies to Rotterdam and The Hague.
Alex had various other postings and completed 35 years’ service in the Royal Air Force, retiring at the age of 65.
Contributor
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Vivienne Tincombe
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
149 Squadron
49 Squadron
514 Squadron
9 Squadron
aircrew
B-17
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
Cook’s tour
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
fitter airframe
flight engineer
ground crew
Lancaster
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF Bardney
RAF Calshot
RAF Feltwell
RAF Foulsham
RAF Halton
RAF Kirkham
RAF Methwold
RAF Morton Hall
RAF Scampton
RAF Waterbeach
RAF Winthorpe
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/879/11119/AHolmesWC151105.2.mp3
151a6f9e54b2b296f3999e5dd631e5f1
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Holmes, William
William Cyril Holmes
W C Holmes
Description
An account of the resource
Ten items. An oral history interview with Flying Officer William Holmes DFC (b. 1921, 131013, 176554 Royal Air Force), his logbook, a memoir by his bomb aimer, official documents, Guinea Pig Club memorabilia, photographs of him and his crew and a memoir of his time training in Canada. He was a Stirling pilot on 149 Squadron in 1944. He flew 17 operations before crashing his aircraft at RAF Thorney Island 18 June 1944 and subsequently becoming a member of the Guinea Pig Club.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by William and Bill Holmes and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2015-11-05
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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.
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Holmes, WC
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: Ok, Bill, we’re starting to record now.
WH: Well, I’m astonished to be asked to do this because I certainly didn’t do anything very different than thousands of others. I was born in Banbury, two-up, two-down, which is the reason that I am sitting where I am now. My daughter many years ago came with me to see where I was born and she said: “Daddy, you didn’t live there!” I said, come off it, Louise, that’s why you live where you are now because I was determined to get out of it and I did. And now, every time I come through my gate it pleases me, I look at the house but it’s a bit ridiculous in some ways because it [unclear] onto the back of the village shop. But, as far as I’m concerned, it is detached. When I get to insurance companies asking me, is it semi? Well, technically it is but not what they are thinking of. And it’s a stupid way to buy a business but we walked down the gravelled drive and I said, oh yes, I could live here and I could see the possibilities except that I hadn’t got a lot of money. In fact I’ll correct that, I hadn’t got anybody [laughs] and I could see the potentials that I could develop, which I did. And I know there’s two shops, three or four flats and it’s my pension fund. So, I’ve achieved my aims, in some ways. But my father and mother were marvellous to me, they, I’m, I still got my mother’s photograph by my bedside cabinet. I, unfortunately when I left England after re-joining the RAF I went out on the town and I was, I think the word is drunk, and when I left her I was still drunk in the morning and I never saw her again, I was abroad and she died. So, it, yes it was a tragedy to me, for one of those things. Now, during the war which is all vivid to me although it’s seventy years, I don’t know, long time ago but it’s still vivid and as much I can remember every other highlights. I crashed my last aircraft, I crashed landing, wheels up and unfortunately I say, killed my navigator, he burned to death. But he shouldn’t have done because I got them all in crash positions but there we are one of those things. Now, most people, or lots of people have never heard of a club that I belong to, the Guinea Pig Club, which was founded by fighter pilots early in the war under a famous, when you get old you forget words, skin,
CB: Plastic surgeon? Plastic surgeon?
WH: Excellent! Plastic surgery. And the story goes, and it always makes me laugh, early in the war, it was mostly fighter pilots that he was treating, I reportedly, reputably, he came and looked and said, this lot won’t drink water, we were all dehydrated, he said, bring on the beer. And as far as I know, it was one of the, if not the only hospital that had a barrel of beer at the end of the war. And it achieved its object because we did drink it. But going back to earlier in the war, I didn’t particularly want to fly, I hadn’t even thought of it, it was beyond my ken and early in the war there was, as far as I can remember, a very large photograph, I say photograph, poster, with, change your overalls for a flying suit and I thought, ah, well I was a reserved occupation so I went off and tried to join the air force and they sent me home, they said, oh no, you’re in a reserved occupation, you go back to work, we don’t want you but eventually I think they ran out of pilots [laughs] and I was accepted and but for that accepted I would never have seen the things I did see. Trained in Canada, learned to fly on Tiger Moths, and Boeing-Stearmans and flew alongside the Rockies actually, a marvellous experience, one that I would have never been able to achieve on my own. But it’s all still vivid to me. I can remember looking at the first Wellington coming off, Ansons, and Airspeed Oxfords and I thought, oh my God, how am I going to get on with that? But fortunately it’s about one of the few accolades, I don’t know where that’s the right word, I did get above average on my instructors comments, that was learning the basics to fly it but then when I went to a squadron and looked at the Stirling, which most people haven’t heard of, was the forerunner of the four-engine bombers and it was huge but, like everything else, you take it in your stride. But as I say the highlights are still quite vivid to me and we were shot up quite badly, petrol, fuel, running down the fuselage and we were all drunk on it, lots of people don’t realize you get drunk on the fumes but I did some way foolish things. But alright we all do in our life. Only a few weeks ago I pranged my wife’s car, I didn’t let her see it, I put it away and took it off for repairs before she did see it because for some time I have been saying, do not swing out through our gate, approach it cautiously and obviously I didn’t. However, that’s life. And what else can we say about the war? I’m quite proud of my distinguished flying cross. Lots were awarded at the end of the tour but there was another category, a [unclear] awards which were for the particular sortie and I’m quite proud of it. I think rightly so but I don’t like people think, well he’s boasting which I don’t intend to but I am still proud of it. But, as I say, still all, [phone rings] ah, interrupted by the phone.
CB: [unclear]
WH: [unclear]
CB: We’re restarting now after the telephone. Ok.
WH: Well, at risk of repeating myself, I’ll say again, I’m very proud of my DFC but it was astonishing to me, just a country boy, I didn’t think anything happened like that to me and this particular raid was on the U-boat pens at Brest, which, the main force couldn’t penetrate the pens with high explosive and the only other answer, the navy admiral’s etcetera told us was, right, mine the entrances, this will prevent the submarines from, U-boats from getting in and out and demoralising their mine-sweeping crews because the mines were set at different, at different settings. Harry, my second pilot, my bomb aimer explained in his letter to me, in his memories that they emphasized, do not ever consider, again I’ve lost a word, jettison, good, these mines because we didn’t want them to dissect, I don’t know if that’s right, take them to pieces, in other words, and find an answer to them but Harry wrote, my second pilot wrote and explained it all, which possibly went over my head at the briefing, can’t remember that seventy years ago. But, but for the war I would never have gone to Canada which was a marvellous experience, Estevan, out in Saskatchewan, sometimes in the winter under two or three feet of snow and the local drug store used to look after a lot of our lads and I became great friends with a man and his wife and eventually after the war they came over and stayed with us. The hospitality of the Canadians was marvellous, really, they were very kind to us and of course, we were flying in safe conditions which in England with its weather problems, the conditions for flying in Canada were very different. I remember looking out one day, a hell of a lot of snow, and I said, ah, good day off. Oh no, when we looked out they were rolling steam rollers down the runways, a different kind of snow, not wet, dry and it packed out. We didn’t get a day off, we just flew off the top of it. But when I realised the size of the hangars of the snow and one was topping the hangars, and I thought, God this is some snowstorm. But a marvellous experience. I went out on, I don’t know if the boat is the right word, it certainly wasn’t a liner, I think a banana boat, and it was sunk in Halifax harbour, the second trip after I’d landed and I thought, well that was lucky. Luck, it’s, I’ve always said that better to be born lucky than rich, I’ve always thought that I am lucky anyway in many ways. But coming back to decorations when the CO sent for me I was on leave on D-Day and I thought, oh dear, what have I done? And he told me about the decoration and I couldn’t believe it. I got outside, tapped on his door again and he said, yes, what is it? I said, well, with respect, sir, would you tell me all that again because I haven’t taken it on board and he laughed and did, Wing Commander Pickford. But we had one advantage because he was on the same course Wellingtons and we called him Pick and when I saw him on the squadron walking down the road I said, hello Pick, and oh my God, he is a wing commander. How to win friends and [unclear] people but all a very useful experience and I think altered my life totally and after the war, long after, I was asked would I like to go on a NATO exercise and I thought, well, what does this entail? And it was a trip to Germany and I’ve got to be honest about this, there were quite a few of us reservists and we got together and my sergeant of my section said, are you interested in this? I said, no, not really. Well, he said, go on, have a trip up the Rhine, he said, if anybody asks for you, I’ll say, oh yes, I’ve just seen him he’s just, I said, do you think that will work? Oh yes, he said. And there was about a dozen of us we sailed from Cologne up to Koblenz past the Lorelei, a wonderful trip, which I’d like to do again on the boats with accommodation, but again something I would never have the opportunity to do but for the Royal Air Force and I suppose the war. People have said to me, well, you know, you chaps talking about the war, I said, hang on, it was a very big slice out of our life. It was times when we were scared out of our wits. I’ve heard lots of people that say, oh no, I wasn’t frightened. Well, I’ll be totally honest, I think all of us were scared, you didn’t know, you took off, you didn’t know whether you were gonna come back or not. And there was a standing joke, the flying meal we always got and the joke was if you don’t come back, can I have your egg? And we also got a rum ration but it was after operations, I would have preferred the rum ration first but it’s all very real to me and I presume always will as long as I got my memories yes. I have done something like this before, there was a local historian asked and we did the question and I answered set up which I will give to Chris and he may play it. I am so confused with modern methods of listening to CDs. My club, the RAF association club, pulled my leg frequently. How the hell did you ever fly aeroplanes, you can’t do your car radio and your mobile phones are mystery to you and I just laughed that one off. But whether Chris will want to play this small CD, cause I haven’t found out, I had to play it back, I had forgotten what it said now, but as Chris pointed out to me, short of occasions like this recording stuff eventually will all be lost because inevitably we shall all die and it’ll be gone. So I’m quite grateful, I’m quite proud to be asked but astonished because I didn’t do anything special. Thousands of lads did just the same as I did and it always makes me laugh when people say, oh yes, I knew somebody in the RAF, did you know? When we are talking of thousands of people, it’s ridiculous things as I say. However I think I’ve come to the end of my reminiscence. I’ve no doubt and I thought this time I think of all sorts of things I should’ve said. I do this frequently, think of the smart answer long after the event. I think, well, I should’ve said that but I didn’t.
CB: It’s ok Bill because we are going to do some questions in a minute.
WH: I’m sorry.
CB: Restart. So we are starting again now.
WH: Yeah. Ok.
CB: With the Brest raid.
WH: Well, we were briefed by [unclear] admirals and I thought we’d got, there was more gold blade on their arms and my second pilot, Harry Stannus, who wrote a brief history which was very interesting actually and he emphasized that under no circumstances were we to jettison any of the bombs that we didn’t complete, of mines I should’ve said, that we didn’t complete the sorting. So, out we went but the thing that Harry in fact I did take on board, it was emphasized, the mines had to be dropped precisely from three and a half thousand feet, not very high and in fact too damn low on a bombing run at a three and a half thousand feet over a heavily, a highly defended target was, I was gonna say, suicide but they hit us with everything, small arms and Harry, lying prone in the front of the aircraft, had the best view of everything. In fact he was blinded by searchlights, couldn’t see the dropping point and he said, go on skipper, go round again and I often think that Harry should’ve got some recognition because at that point a bomb aimer had control of the aircraft. He could see what was required and as I said, he said, go round again, skipper, and this happened so many times that I was throwing the aircraft about because of the ammunitions coming up we were hit, but not vitally but we were peppered with all sorts of holes when we got back. But the one thing we didn’t reckon on was fuel tanks. Losing highly toxic fumes down the fuselage and we were, drunk is the only word I can think of, intoxicated sounds a bit better and we all did some very foolish things. And one I shall never forget, we’d lost two port engines from anti-aircraft fire and had a runaway starboard outer and foolishly I attempted a left hand circuit which was madness but I can only blame toxic fumes, well, that’s my story and I stuck with it but instead of landing as I intended on the runway, of course left hand against two port dead engines was stupid. And of course instead of landing where I intended, wheels up, crash landing, we crossed the runway and of course soaked with fuel, up she went. And I can remember again Harry pushing me out, he got very badly burned himself because of the delay in getting himself out and pushing me out, but I can remember vividly, stupidly I’d lost my flying boots and I thought, well, the grass is wet, and it was very wet and I headed with the rest of us, we all, well, we didn’t all get out. The navigator burned to death unfortunately, but the rest of us and we thought, well, the ammunition was going off, and I thought, right, let’s get the hell out of this, but the time we got to sick quarters, just to bring a note of hilarity into things, one of the staff brought a damn great pair of scissors, approached me, and I was insistent that he didn’t cut off my brand new [unclear], didn’t make any difference, he just cut away. But we then became McIndoe, Sir Archibald McIndoe, the plastic surgeon, he used to go round squadrons, picking the people that he wanted to treat and he took the whole crew and I, I don’t know whether you have heard of the Guinea Pig Club, nothing to do with guinea pigs but applicable only to aircrew who had been burned on operations. Nobody wants to join because the only way you can join is to be burned on operations against whatever enemy. So it’s highly selective but dwindling now. We’re all dying. Well, some of us. Unfortunately, our dinners, our annual dinners have now ceased, for obvious reasons, because we are scattered all over the country and all over the world, there’s lots of Czechs, Poles, Americans, all sorts of people but it’s getting too difficult now to organise an annual dinner but Prince Phillip is our president. Used to come round and talk to all of us and he, he was very interesting actually, but he, he is a very ordinary, I say very ordinary, perhaps that’s the wrong expression, but he’s like you and me, very nice chap to talk to and the last time I set eyes on him was at a reception in Banbury town hall and he came with the queen some years ago and I thought, well, on this occasion I will wear my Guinea Pig tie. And from some yards away, he looked over and he said, they’re finished? I said, no, they’re not, Sir. I’m still here. And that concluded the occasion. I can’t think of anything else that I can think of, other than it changed my life totally.
CB: So you, going back to the mine dropping,
WH: Yes?
CB: How many times did you go round?
WH: Yes. Well totally, five times, that was in, out, in, out. I’ve got documents from the Royal Air Force, I can’t remember what the document is now but emphasizing that there were five approaches in all and presumably why I got a [unclear] for it but Harry should have got one. I didn’t know that I could recommend anyone because a previous trip I did write to my CO about one other member of my crew, Tommy Smith, who’d done a previous trip with the same, a previous tour with the same squadron and many years after at one of our dinners he said, thank you Bill, I said, what for? He said, the letter you wrote, he said, I got a DFM, I said, oh, I didn’t think I was able to recommend anyone, but I think possibly I should have recommended Harry for his, for his part in this raid at Brest. The thing that is the most important to me I mean main force we were bombing from ten, fifteen, twenty thousand feet but three and a half thousand feet at what we called straighten level which it had to be for the mines, apparently the mines, I am told, would break up if they weren’t dropped precisely at three and a half thousand feet. But I presume that’s why I got a [unclear] but as I said, it’s all changed my life totally, in fact so much so, after the war, in another job I was assistant adjutant, which I hadn’t been trained for and I used to bash out one finger typewriter letters for jobs and I took the Telegraph and I’ve been taking the Daily Telegraph ever since because it had more jobs than the others. And when I’d applied and got questionnaires, what school did you go to, where, I don’t know, oh dear. Well, I got a county, Oxfordshire county council scholarship which it was called at that time and I used to have to write on the questionnaires, I got this scholarship and this enabled me to apply for a pilot’s course, I think they only took, well, not only, probably school boys but they wanted people with some intelligence and it usually got me an interview and I’ve always said, well, if I can get an interview, I can get a job which is a bit naughty I suppose. But in a fact it worked, and it did, it got me interviews so I shall be forever grateful to the Royal Air Force and I don’t think I would ever have been commissioned other than thousands of us that were because all the American pilots were all commissioned, not so the Royal Air Force, lots of us sergeants, flight sergeants, yeah, I think I’ve run out of reminiscence now.
CB: Ok, we will take a break there for a bit. So, Bill was in a reserved occupation, when he left school,
WH: Yes.
CB: So, what age did you leave school?
WH: Well, despite the scholarship I wasn’t very happy. In fact, I was very unhappy. I saw this as an escape from school as well, I didn’t go on till I was sixteen. But it they considered the, the authorities considered it was a vital job to be captain
CB: [unclear]
WH: [unclear] as I said, on troop training, train on all sorts of things, that was an experience in itself and again something that I remember quite well. Only, the only thing I did remember having left hospital bandaged up, desperate to come home and I was walking down the high street in Banbury and met some chappie with also a cleaner and he said, oh, how are you doing then, Bill? I said, oh, getting by. His reply astonished me. Well, is your own bloody fault, you didn’t have to go. Which upset me and annoyed me. But, if we’d all felt like that, we’d have had a very thin Air Force. But, as I said, it changed my life totally. And when I was recommissioned, going back in the service in ’50, that meant more to me in many ways than routinely being commissioned during the war. I always remember the interview for commissioning and I expected to have my life probed in depth but nothing of the kind happened, I went in and I don’t know if it was an air marshal or what, saluted them, all I got was, ah, good morning flight sergeant, did you train in Canada? I said, yes, I did, sir. Did you like it? I said, oh yes. Nothing about my schooling or suitability or anything and I finished a two or three minute interview and I couldn’t believe it and I came out and the adjutant said, oh, you’ve seen the air marshal? I said, yes, well that’s it, he said, you’re commissioned. I couldn’t believe it. And then I went back to the squadron and the CO said, well, you’d better take a day off, go and get a uniform. So we, I took the crew with me and we went to Cambridge and went into one of the outfitters specializing in uniforms and a little lad behind, well a little old man behind the counter said, ah, here we are sir, your fits you well, what sort of a hat, a cap do you want? I said, how do you mean, what sort of [unclear] or operational? I said, [unclear], he said, very correct but operational battered and. I said, oh, and he threw it on the floor along a lot of dust and came up with a cap that looked like a German officers. And therein lays another tale. I asked first time I was conscious and hospitalized, have you got my hat? It became a standing joke, Bill’s hat. I said, well where is it? He said, I don’t know where it is. Obviously burnt with the aircraft. But, that was a minor thing. At that time, aircrew could go up to London and you could get uniforms, overcoats, caps, all sorts of kits from people that had been killed or left behind them and rekitted, people that had lost of. And I came away with an overcoat and an operational cap. I wish I’d kept it. Never mind, Well, I hope we’ve got enough material. The only thing you, who’s gonna be listening to this [unclear]? I did but there was I believe, and I can’t remember whether I dreamed it up or whether it was fact. I understand there was an Air Ministry order, AMO, air crews, repeat air crews will not urinate against tail wheels. Well, apprehension before taking off, I won’t say scared, apprehension cause you didn’t know what was gonna happen. Everybody relieved themselves against tailwheels, whether that rotted them or not I don’t know. Quite a thought. Whether that AMO ever existed or not I’m not sure.
CB: What other, what other little tales have you got?
WH: Yeah. He didn’t say to me Chalky White, our navigator, he said he was, I won’t use the expression it’s rude, he was scared, I said Harry, he wasn’t the only one who was scared. But nobody wanted to let on that they was scared to other people. But it to be scared frightened, it has, I’m trying to think of an expression I wanted, it was contagious, it made other people scared. I can remember one of my crew and I won’t remember, I won’t name him, he said, oh no, not again, I got my log to fill in. I told him what he could do with his log. I said, Harry, we’re on, no, not Harry, this is an operation. So and so did you log, I don’t care what you do with it but he was sticking to the book. I said, well, rules are not written in stone, they are for guidance. But we didn’t realise until long after that he was twice our age so I could understand it, he got a wife and children and we were, nineteen, twenty, twenty one, no such responsibilities. But all, still to me [unclear], all very real, vivid. Hopefully, somebody listen to this. It may have conveyed some of the thoughts and fears that we suffered. My rear gunner was a Canadian and day off he’d go to bed in full Irvin jacket, which was a beautiful flying jacket, sheepskin. Same trousers, and he’d go to bed all day. I said, oh God, I want to live life not I don’t want to [unclear], I got lots of time to sleep. It used to astonish me. But one other story it was my rear gunner, he, I said, no I don’t want my rum, oh, I’ll drink it, skipper, and that got me into a lot of trouble because, he used to dish out the Wakey-Wakey pills and he, how, was I going to say.
CB: These are Benzedrine.
WH: Old age, you forget things, mid-sentence and you stop and you think, what the hell was I going to say?
CB: These are
WH: I’m sure it’s not only me, I’m sure it happens to other people. However, whoever listens to it perhaps it will bring a little, well.
CB: So how well did the crew [unclear]?
WH: The navigator who died unfortunately, his brother came to see me in hospital and he said, look Billy, it wasn’t your fault, it was one of those things. But, now what were we talking about?
CB: The crew.
WH: Oh yes. Well, the flight engineer, as I said, was, well to us, he was in his forties so I could understand his reactions were different to us youngsters. But quite frankly at nineteen, twenty, twenty one, whatever, to be in charge of a damn great aircraft, when I think back, [unclear] how the hell did I do that? But [unclear] we all drew [unclear]. The Air Force used to boast, there’s nothing clever about flying, we can teach your grandmother to fly, you’re not special, but you gotta solo in so many hours and if you’re not we are wasting our time. But of course soloing, the first time you’re let loose on an aircraft and no instructor, they didn’t warn you, you went out on a normal, as you thought, a normal instruction flight and you got in and then the [unclear] just got out casually and said, well, that’s it, take it off, you’re away. And I, depends on many factors, the size of the aircraft I suppose, but the Boeing-Stearman, was a proper aircraft as opposed to a Tiger Moth and it was fully aerobatic and it was or had been a fighter in the Spanish War. But to be sent off on your own, but you, you just did things that you’d been taught and hoped for the best. They used to say, all these aircraft [unclear], I said, no, they don’t, not to me they don’t anyway. But I could. I’m going to boast now I could. Grease, I say grease. I could put a Sterling down fairly accurately with comments from my rear gunner saying, skipper is like a ten gallon drum back here, no five gallon drum. I said, what do you mean? It’s bouncing up and down. I said, no. A little later I said, you’re improving. It’s only a five gallon drum now. And he did say, or sometime after on a training trip, I don’t know how it came up but he said, well, all you’re doing is sit up there. I said, you’re what? I said, come on [unclear] you come up here. I put him in the second pilot’s seat. I said, there’s the course, just the fear, just the fact that he’d never being trying to do anything like this whatsoever, the sweat was rolling off him and I said, there’s nothing to it, all you gotta do is sit there. Don’t ever tell me I’m just sitting there. But he always criticised my landings although we all, I say all, I remember if ever I had a senior officer sitting in a second pilot’s seat it made me nervous and I could drop on him from fifty feet and one I can remember, the CO said, oh don’t worry Holmes, I’d do one myself, we all do. Inevitable. Well, mark [unclear], some pilots are better than others. But again, it’s quite something to be an [unclear] pilot and I don’t know where I saw it but I am convinced I’ve seen it that the award of a brevet, a pair of wings, is considered a decoration. Now, I’ve seen that somewhere but where I don’t know. I still got mine, original wings somewhere, sitting there, I can’t bring myself to get rid of stuff. Hence the trouble with my wife with all the stuff I spread. I shifted everything in a hurry off the kitchen table when I knew she was coming home. Well, we transferred to
CB: Initial Training we are talking about.
WH: Stearmans which was a proper aircraft, not bits of wire and. But I, yes I enjoyed it cause there was no interruptions from enemy aircraft and not in Canada, good weather, not a lot of cloud, and it was, well, it made life a lot easier but as I said before, when it snowed, it snowed, believe you me, but there is two kinds of snow, wet and dry and they just steamrolled, I say steam, they rolled in away. Over the top, and we just flew off over the top of it, no difference, whatsoever. But a marvellous experience, one I’d never have had otherwise. The only thing I didn’t really like was going there being batten down under hatches and we went over on a ship called the Letitia and we were batten down under hatches a three destroyer escort at the height of the U-boat war, which was a bit scary. I used to sleep on top of a hatch. I thought, well, I want to get out of here if it’s gonna happen, but, oh, well it didn’t. Obviously it didn’t cause I [unclear] sit here, sitting here [unclear] away. OTU, shipping warden, I stood amongst dozens of other aircrew, pilots, waiting for information, [unclear], sergeant Holmes, yeah, that’s me, shipping warden. I started to laugh, she said, what’s funny? I said that’s seven miles from my home, [unclear] just right. Having said that, when I did ask for a posting near my home, the second time ran, [unclear]. I said that’s nowhere near my home, for God’s sake. OTU, ship warden. Wellingtons, old Wellingtons, they’d done a tour, they weren’t the best. We weren’t getting new aircraft. So there was a [unclear] of [unclear] really make mistakes, and we all made them. We used to night cross countries, hoping the navigator got it right. On one of the cross country night exercises I, no, it must have been daylight not night, I hadn’t got a clue, I went as a training navigator, I wasn’t the best, I said, oh my God where are we, what are we up to? And the wireless operator was giving me fixes, so many minutes, hours, away to be of any use and the pilot flying the aircraft said, where are we? I looked down, I said, Ireland. What do you mean Ireland? I said, well, it’s green, it’s down there. Well, where are we? I said, well, I just told you. No, I want to know on the map. I said, I haven’t got a clue. Well, hand over. So I handed over to another pilot, he said, where are we? I said, Ireland. Yeah, but where? I said, well I saw a [unclear]. How the hell we get back, I don’t know. [laughs] But as a navigator I’d make a very good bricklayer. I was, I used to keep a thought in my mind, flying reciprocal, which was the opposite of what we were going out, if we were going out just in the hope that I’d be going in the right direction, not farther into Germany. But I often think I should have be interned in Switzerland because I was downed near into Switzerland, try to think where the hell that was. And I said, oh no, we are going home.
CB: We’ll come back to that. So, from the OTU you went to the HCU, conversion unit.
WH: Heavy conversion unit, yes. And
CB: Where was that?
WH: As I said, it was a huge aircraft.
CB: But, where was it?
WH: Wratting Common, I think.
CB: Yes.
WH: Yes.
CB: And that’s when you went to the Stirling?
WH: Sorry?
CB: Stirling.
WH: Stirling. Yes, yes. And it was huge. I, well I look at that photograph and I realise how huge it was. A bit fearsome when you just went over for the first time but alright, you just got on with it. Did as you were told. That’s the one thing I regret, I’ve no photographs of me at all, with the, because we were said, cameras weren’t allowed and so obeyed but lots of people didn’t cause they got photographs leaning out of aircraft. Perhaps I was daft not to but I regret that, I’d loved to have had a picture of me. I did ask, now wait a minute, who did I ask? Someone wrote to me. Ah yes, [unclear], saying he was, well you know what he was saying, and I put in my letter to him, if you have any photographs and he said he was looking for something in particular, I’m sure he’s got photographs and if he has of my wrecked aircraft I want to see what it looked like afterwards. But I went down and did ask many years, well, some years ago now, I said, oh I’ll go and see the adjutant and ask, has he got any photographs, he said, when, I said, ’44, God no [laughs]. I said, oh, I thought you took photographs of everything. Oh well, we did but we haven’t got any here but as I said all a long time ago. Memories that will never leave me, well, hopefully. And I never dreamed as a small boy that I’d ever be doing anything like this. But for the war I wouldn’t have done. Wait a minute, Squadron 149, yeah, 3 Group, 149, 3 Group, Lakenheath and then Methwold, Suffolk. Don’t ever want to see Suffolk again, really. Not the most, well, we did
CB: At the HCU.
WH: We did, what we called a Second Dicky, a second pilot trip and I do remember one thing. Afterwards I thought, oh my God, we were over the target and I don’t know how close but an aircraft when across in front of and I thought, my God I thought we had it. I can’t even remember the target now. But it was, there was a lot of railway marshalling yards and stuff to, targets that were, well opening up for the second front. But when I left hospital, we drove up, I couldn’t remember, couldn’t believe the amount of, well, it was the build-up for the D-Day obviously, I was on leave D-Day. But we came up from East Grinstead and there were thousands and thousands of cars and lorries and I didn’t know what was going on. But obviously it was the build-up for D-Day. Wouldn’t have missed any of it, wouldn’t, couldn’t do it again. Not a very nice day, is it? Remember most.
CB: Operation [unclear]
WH: Long, lonely flights dropping supplies to the Maquis, low level, five hundred feet, when we, yeah, one, on one occasion we couldn’t find a dropping zone and I think it must have been an airfield we crossed, they shot us to hell. I lost control of the throttles, I’m trying to think how and why but we landed back home. I don’t know why I didn’t really get, it didn’t occur to me to go up and see what damage they had done to the aircraft and I don’t know why, lots of people did but I didn’t. You just start to be alive. It was, it was always in your mind, because you came down and there another name was gone and that was it. When you start to think, a bit brutal, [unclear], oh dear, but question and answer like this is, well, somebody will hear it one day.
CB: How did you find the dropping zones for the Maquis?
WH: Ah, that was always a mystery to me, the navigator, how the hell he found them, he’d find a clearing or something, he’d have the coordinates of roughly where they were, obviously there was information coming to and fro but it’s never mentioned anywhere but it was vital to the second front, no, that’s not true, to the, it was vital to the underground, the Maquis. I don’t’ think they would have resisted [or existed?] without the help that they got from us but the people I most admire are the ones who took out light air craft, Lysanders and landed and dropped people, that must have bene a bit hairy.
CB: Did you deliver people as well?
WH: Sorry?
CB: Did you deliver people?
WH: No. Never, no. No, never, it was supplies, I still got a, I still got a container somewhere, I don’t know where it is. I can remember my sergeant saying, how many? I got lots of boxes, what the hell? I said, well, I came over with a suitcase, I said, but I’m going back with a wife and two children. I said, I’ve accumulated all this [unclear] of stuff and I, now I think they’ve been chopped off most of them and probably burnt but it’s, I wish this sort of thing had been available to my father cause I would loved to have known, what did he do to get a military medal?
CB: What did he do as a job?
WH: Well, I don’t know, he was just [unclear] Great Western Railway, no, I.
CB: In Banbury.
WH: Yeah. Honestly, don’t know. I knew, ah, I used to write his letters for him to the union because he got an industrial disease, dermatitis, caused by coal dust and oil apparently. And I used to write his letters. We were fighting a case and he wasn’t a scholar of any kind. I always remember someone saying, I saw your dad riding his bike, he said, he jumped off and his legs [unclear], it always tickles me, running alongside it. But I had a lovely home actually, they were, well, just ordinary people but cause they’ve [unclear] come from different background entirely I mean. I remember saying to her years ago, well, talking about cars, I said, we only had a Lancia? I said, Lancia, I haven’t got a pair of bloody roller-skates. But a different background entirely. And I think when we eloped at the vicar of, oh God, what was the name of the place? Didn’t want to marry us, and I think he looked to the documents and saw that Yvonne was from a different background than me and then we, ah, the vicar of Tottenham [?], Guilford and he said, oh, don’t worry, he said, nobody came to my wedding. And the chap who painted that came, he and his, he married a WAAF, I know, [unclear] something to say.
CB: So when was it that you got married?
WH: When? ’49. Which is, how many years ago?
CB: Yeah, it’s quite a long time.
WH: ’49. Fifty, well, fifty, sixty years. Yeah.
CB: Where did you meet Yvonne?
WH: Where did I meet? Well, Chalky my navigator and I had the same musical taste, can’t stand pop, well, didn’t exist then. But Yvonne had a beautiful control to her voice and she was heard in the town hall in Banbury singing, Doctor Leslie Woodgate, BBC, and he insisted that she go to the Guildhall School of Music on the Embankment. And they said yes, seven years, oh I wanna get married. Well, don’t stop singing. But she did have a beautiful voice. I heard her in the town hall. I know that my redeemer liveth, I remember it very well. But she did have a very, it really was a beautiful voice. I wish I could sing. Talent, you’ve either got or you haven’t. I got the blame for that too, cause I left the car at Hanger Lane, I didn’t wanna drive in to the Embankment. And when we came back, she rang up her folk from the, from Hanger Lane, and I got the blame for turning her down. Because she, I think she could’ve gone a long way. But I was fascinated. However. We all have different talents, well, some of haven’t got any, and I haven’t, I can’t, I can’t draw. I can’t [unclear]. Oddly enough the children are all artistic or they were. But I haven’t got a single party trick, I can’t even whistle [laughs].
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 William Holmes
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-11-05
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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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AHolmesWC151105
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
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Sussex
Temporal Coverage
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1944-06-18
Format
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01:12:57 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
William Holmes remembers his time as a pilot in the RAF. Gives a vivid and graphic account of the dramatic crash-landing which left him badly injured and brought him to join the Guinea Pig Club. Remembers various episodes of his operational life: training in Canada; flying Stirlings and Boeing-Stearmans; targeting U-boat pens in Brest; dropping supplies for the Maquis; being awarded a DFC. Mentions Wakey-Wakey pills.
149 Squadron
3 Group
aircrew
bombing
crash
Distinguished Flying Cross
fear
forced landing
Guinea Pig Club
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
mine laying
navigator
Operational Training Unit
pilot
promotion
RAF Lakenheath
RAF Methwold
RAF Thorney Island
RAF Wratting Common
RCAF Bowden
RCAF Estevan
Resistance
Stearman
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/542/8782/AHardingV150520.2.mp3
73090ff7946ff4451cdd82def306eea2
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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Harding, Victor
Victor Thomas Harding
V T Harding
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Harding, V
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Leading Aircraftsman Victor Harding (1234463, Royal Air Force). He served as an airframe fitter.
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
2015-05-20
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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CB: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Claire Bennett; the interviewee is Mr Victor Harding. The interview is taking place at Mr Harding’s home in Queen’s Court, Retford, on the 20th of May 2015. Well Vic, would you like to tell us the date and place of your birth?
VH: Er, 05-03-22. We was in Middlesex.
CB: And can you remember your early childhood?
VH: Yes because I was born outta wedlock, and my mother sent me down to a home in Kent, to, to join the forces.
CB: And you stayed in a – you were in a –
VH: I stayed in a home – what you call a home for little [unclear], my daughter knows it ‘cause she took me there. And I was there ‘till I was nineteen ‘till I volunteered, joined the Air Force.
CB: And do you remember much about it? What are your memories of it?
VH: What the home?
CB: Yes.
VH: It was marvellous. It was run by ex-military people and they’re very very good to you. Plenty of discipline and everything, oh yeah. And when I was eighteen, that’s when I volunteered to join the Air Force then.
CB: What –
Other: You learnt, you learnt a trade in the home, didn’t you?
VH: Pardon?
Other: You learnt a trade in the home.
VH: Oh yes, in the – they, after you finish your schooling age, they had different trades there. They had the printing department, a cobblers, carpentry, tailoring department, trades to learn when you’ve finished doing your schooling.
CB: And you went in for –
VH: Tailoring. Because the war broke out, and then I volunteered for the Air Force.
CB: What made you choose the Air Force in particular?
VH: I don’t know really [laughs]. I just fancied it, you know. And they asked me if I wanted to be aircrew or ground staff, so I thought ‘I haven’t got the brains to be aircrew’ so I volunteered to be in the ground staff to maintain the air craft.
CB: You were mechanically minded?
VH: I was flying mechanic air frame lot of the time. Everything by the engines, yeah,
CB: Would you have liked to have flown?
VH: I would have done if I had brains, yeah. [Both laugh]
CB: But nobody said you didn’t have any brains, this is what you perceived. [VH laughing]
VH: Well, I didn’t think I would be qualified for it enough sort of thing.
CB: So where did you start your training? Where did you join up?
VH: I went to Blackpool, and I done my – I can’t remember whether it was six months training at Kirkham for a flight mechanics course. When I passed out, I was sent to Cottesmore to Operational Training Unit.
CB: And what was your training, you know, like? Did you enjoy it?
VH: I did, really enjoyed it.
CB: How did you get to the, the training place? Was it on the train?
VH: No the Air Force took me there, you know. I went to Cottesmore –
CB: Yes.
VH: And I was on old Southampton’s [?]. All the old stuff sort of thing ‘till I was qualified, and then when I was paid, I was put onto Bomber Command then.
CB: But, you would get your posting wouldn’t you, and then you’d have to get to your posting destination –
VH: That’s it, yeah they –
CB: Did you, did you go on the trains during the war?
VH: Pardon?
CB: Did you go the trains during the war?
VH: Trains?
CB: Mm.
VH: No.
CB: No?
VH: No, never went on trains.
CB: So how did you get around? Did the –
VH: The Air Force took me around, you know.
CB: Right.
VH: To different stations, yes.
CB: Right. So, so you’d, a group of you would go perhaps and they’d take you to the stations?
VH: Yeah.
CB: And what was your, you know, your time training? You know, what kind of accommodation did you have?
VH: Well, sometimes I was in Nissan huts, sometimes I was in buildings, you know. All depends where you were stationed sort of thing.
CB: Where was, where do you think your best station was? You enjoyed the most?
VH: Oh, best place was at Lakenheath. It was a brick building, but when the Yanks came and saw it they took it over. So we were putting Nissan huts [laughs].
CB: Well the Nissan huts I think were pretty sparse weren’t they?
VH: Yeah.
CB: And cold, is that your –
VH: That’s it, yeah.
CB: Is that how you remember them, or?
VH: Yeah.
CB: Am I wrong?
VH: That’s it [laughs].
CB: So you went – so your first main posting –
VH: My first posting was at Cottesmore.
CB: Right, and what planes would you be on?
VH: I was on the Anton’s, Oxfords, and just the, all the things to tinkle about with, you know. ‘Till I was posted on Bomber Command.
CB: And the planes, were they easy to maintain, or?
VH: Yeah, they were quite easy really.
CB: You learnt quickly?
VH: Yeah I did, yeah.
CB: Was it good training?
VH: Oh yes, I had six months training at Kirkham.
CB: And what were you –
VH: I was flight mechanic air frames on everything bar the engines.
CB: Right, so you would main – so what would that entail? So, tell me about, you know, all the details of it.
VH: Well, you looked after the runners and the balance and everything, you know.
CB: Right. And then you entered Bomber Command.
VH: That’s it, yeah.
CB: So your first, first job would be, or your first posting rather, would be –
VH: Ah [pause]. Cottesmore was the first one I went to with Operational Training Unit.
CB: Yes.
VH: Yeah.
CB: On OTU?
VH: Yeah.
CB: And, where did you go to after that?
VH: I went to quite a few stations. I went to Bardney for a while, Woodhall Spa, er, Lakenheath, Marham, all different stations you know. With all different squadrons that I went with.
CB: Yes, and what was your work there? Same sort of thing?
VH: Flight mechanic airframe. I done that everything bar the engines.
CB: What planes were you working on?
VH: I worked on Wellingtons, Mosquitos, Lancasters, Hamdy Hamptons [?].
CB: Did you ever go for a flight in these, any of these?
VH: Oh yes. So when they used to do something to the airframe or engines, you used to, we used to go up with them for an air test [emphasis]. Yeah.
CB: So you did you go for any long [emphasis] trips in them?
VH: Not really long trips, no. First I went I think was Peterhead, when we went up there to refuel them.
CB: And did you enjoy the flight? Do you think – did you –
VH: Well I love flying.
CB: Did you regret not going for aircrew?
VH: I don’t, no [laughs]. I think I would have enjoyed it, you know, but I might not be here today [both laugh].
CB: So where was your accommodation, say at Bardney? Where was – were you still in the Nissan huts?
VH: No, I think I was in buildings there, I think, I’m sure it was.
CB: Was it, were you, did you have accommodation with a family. Were you –
VH: No didn’t have it with no family.
CB: It was in an Air Force –
VH: Air Force quarters, yeah.
CB: Air Force quarters.
VH: Yeah.
CB: And what did you do, where did you go for relaxation in Bardney? Do you remember?
VH: Not really. Used to go out with the lads, you know, and have a drink and a smoke [laughs].
CB: Pubs? [VH laughs]. Dare I suggest? Do you remember Bardney at all?
VH: Not a lot, no.
CB: So your, was your life mainly in the, on the camp basically?
VH: It was on the camp, yes.
CB: So, the planes – explain to me how it works. So what would be your typical day?
VH: Well you go out on the dispersal plane [?]. The aircraft was there and you had to test the rudders, the elevators, the wings and everything. Then you had to test your hydraulics, make sure they are working and everything.
CB: And then you’d –
VH: Then you had to sign a form, Form 700, detailing what you had done and everything, and the pilot used to say ‘okay, I know that you’ve checked it.’
CB: And what planes would these be? Would these be –
VH: I used to be on Lancasters, Mosquitos, Hamdy Hamptons [?], Wellingtons –
CB: And what – but what about Bardney? Was it – what was it at Bardney?
VH: Bardney?
CB: Mm.
VH: I think I was on Lancasters there.
CB: Mm.
VH: Yeah.
CB: What did you think about the Lancaster as a plane?
VH: Marvellous aircraft, lovely.
CB: Did you think, you know , when you first saw it, overwhelming really? Like the size of it.
VH: Well, the size of it yeah [emphasis]. I mean, the wheels were bigger than me [both laugh].
CB: But was it a case of just, you know, getting on with the job as it were?
VH: Well it – true, yeah. I enjoyed the job, I did really.
CB: What was the food like that you had there?
VH: Very good there.
CB: And can you remember –
VH: And I met some very nice people, you know. Ground staff and aircrew and everybody and, I got on well with everybody.
CB: So you enjoyed your time there?
VH: I did [emphasis]. If I hadn’t got married I think I would have kept in the Air Force [both laugh].
CB: When did you meet your wife?
VH: In forty, forty-six, yeah.
CB: So after the war?
VH: No, just before I finished the war, yeah.
CB: Oh right. So you – I mean, good food in Bardney –
VH: Oh I had good food all the time I was in the Air Force, I can’t complain.
CB: Well, ‘cause there was rationing on wasn’t there?
VH: Pardon?
CB: Rationing on.
VH: Oh yeah, but we weren’t rationed [laughs].
CB: No?
VH: No.
CB: So you just had your normal food then?
VH: Yes, well, our food was lovely. Very good.
CB: Did you have a bike to go around on, or?
VH: I used to have a bike yeah, ‘cause when I was at Woodhall Spa I used to bike to Boston most nights, you know, if I wasn’t on duty and things.
CB: Right. So, ‘cause these, these airfields were spread out, weren’t they?
VH: Yeah.
CB: A lot of them. And you needed a bike.
VH: Oh yeah.
CB: So you were dealing with Lancasters, and where did you go after Bardney? Can you remember?
VH: No I went to that many. I went to Theddlethorpe [?], Bardney, Lakenheath, quite a few all local. All round Lincolnshire way, you know, most of them.
CB: Mm.
VH: The first I went away was at Marham in Norfolk.
CB: Yes?
VH: Mm.
CB: And what did you make of that? Did you –
VH: Marham?
CB: Mm.
VH: Quite a nice place. That’s where I had my first squadron of Mosquitos there.
CB: Right.
VH: Mm.
CB: So you worked on the Mosquitos there?
VH: Oh yes. I liked them I did [both laugh].
CB: The wooden wonder. [?]
VH: We had the first squadron of Mosquitos and first day we got there at Marham the Germans came along and dropped flares. I thought ‘oh there we’ve had it.’ But we got away with it [laughs].
CB: Is that the first time you’d had any –
VH: We had Mosquitos, yeah.
CB: Is this the first time you’d seen enemy action as it were, dropping bombs?
VH: Well it was, dropping flares over the place yeah. We thought ‘we’re in for it’ that night but we got away with it [both laugh].
CB: Oh dear. And do you remember anybody in particular, you know, friends?
VH: In the Air Force?
CB: Yeah, friends.
VH: Oh yes. Guy Gibson.
CB: If we’re – erm yes, that was at Woodhall Spa.
VH: Yeah.
CB: Did you work with him, or on – well, you were on 627 Squadron.
VH: Yeah. I was with Guy Gibson, I worked with Richard Attenborough, Group Captain Cheshire.
CB: Yes.
VH: Mm.
CB: So at Woodhall Spa, which is – did you finish at Woodhall Spa? Was that your last one before the end of the war?
VH: I think it was. I’m sure it was, yeah.
CB: And you were on 627 Squadron there –
VH: Yeah.
CB: Is that right? Were you, you were with other squadrons. 149 did you say?
VH: Yes, I was, yeah 149 Royal Canadian Air Force –
CB: You worked with the Canadians?
VH: Yeah, and [pause] a Jamaican squadron, I don’t know whether it was 139, I can’t remember what that was but whatever squadron it was I got on well with all of them. Canadian and the Jamaica squadron.
CB: Excellent. So at Woodhall Spa, how did you get there? Did you, did the Air Force take you there?
VH: Air Force. Wherever it was the Air Force took you.
CB: ‘Cause I think –
VH: Transport, you know.
CB: Right, ‘cause I think most people arrived at the station didn’t they?
VH: Yeah.
CB: And then they’d be picked up.
VH: Well I did. One time I was posted to, er, where was it, Oakington was it? Yeah, and I got a transport ticket to Oakham, yeah, I got the wrong place [both laugh]. I don’t think, I made a blunder [?].
CB: Well it can’t have been easy travelling around in the war.
VH: Oh yeah.
CB: You know, on the trains or whatever.
VH: Well it’s true.
CB: So you arrived at Woodhall Spa, and, on Mosqutios?
VH: Yeah.
CB: Did, where did you live at Woodhall Spa? Were you on –
VH: In billets.
CB: Again, what is –
VH: Woodhall Spa.
CB: - what is now Thorpe Camp? Was that where you were?
VH: Where?
Other: Thorpe Camp. You know where they’ve got the museum and that.
VH: Oh yeah.
CB: That’s where you were?
VH: Yeah.
Other: Yeah.
CB: What did you make of it, or what did you –
VH: Of Woodhall Spa?
CB: Yes.
VH: I loved it. Nice place.
CB: Did you go into the town very often?
VH: Yeah, I used to walk to Tatteshall and places like that which was nearby.
CB: Did you, you know, how did you relax there at Woodhall Spa? Would the, would the ground crew ever, you know, mix with the aircrew?
VH: Oh yes, quite often, yeah. I had a good mate there, Canadian chap, and I can always remember one night in the – he sat awake, the crew generally get together chatting before they go on a raid, and he was a rear gunner, and he was chatting [?] that night and I went over to him and I says ‘what’s wrong George?’ And he says ‘we’re not coming back tonight,’ I says ‘well don’t talk stupid.’ They didn’t.
CB: Wow.
VH: He had that premonition they weren’t coming back.
CB: Did you ever –
VH: That did upset me, you know, that did.
CB: Did you get that a lot, or was that just one you remember? Do you, you know –
VH: Ooh no, I remember quite a few who didn’t get back.
CB: Mm. But then, did they –
VH: Waited for them, but they never returned.
CB: Did they had the premonition though before they went?
VH: Yeah, one or two did.
CB: And how did you feel about that? It –
CB: Well I felt awful really. When you’re waiting for them and they don’t return, you know, really hits you.
CB: Mm. What was the atmosphere at, in the, on the airfield?
VH: Oh, it was very good really, yeah we all got on well together. The ground staff and the aircrew, you know.
CB: And you would, as you say, you would relax together, and –
VH: Oh yes, I mean, if you had no raids on and everything you’d go out and have a drink with the lads and the aircrew, you know.
CB: Do you remember the, where you would go in Woodhall Spa?
VH: No, I can’t remember, you’re going back –
CB: I think, I think it was the Mucky Duck, wasn’t it?
VH: Oh that, I was gonna say the Mucky Duck! [Other speaks in background but is unclear what is said. VH replies but this is also unclear.]
CB: Yeah, I think that was quite popular there wasn’t it?
VH: It was, yeah [both laugh]. Then I used to cycle sometimes into Boston.
CB: Yes. So you’d cycle into Boston did you say?
VH: Yeah, cycle into Boston, yeah.
CB: Right, that’s a fair way.
VH: Well, it was really, but –
CB: And, on your own, or with your friends?
VH: Yes, with a girl from there.
CB: Oh right [both laugh]. And what would you do in Boston? What did you think of Boston?
VH: I liked Boston I did. Boston Stump and all that. It’s quite changed from what it used to be, but it, I thought it was a lovely place at the time.
CB: And what did you do, where did you go?
VH: Go for a drink [laughs].
CB: Did you go to the glider drome? I think that was a popular place. No? Perhaps for the aircrew.
VH: Was it Withamgate [?]?
CB: Yeah.
VH: We used to go round there, and the Boston Stump and all round that way, hmm.
CB: So you enjoyed that?
VH: I did [laughs].
CB: And what would, ‘cause – there was some famous station commanders, well not, commanding officers at Woodhall Spa. Do you remember Cheshire?
VH: Group Captain Cheshire, yeah.
CB: What do you make –
VH: Guy Gibson.
CB: What did you make of Cheshire? What did you think of him?
VH: I got on well with all of them, yeah.
CB: Can you remember –
VH: They were quite good to us, they were really good to all the ground staff really, you know, ‘cause they relied on us sort of thing to look after them, didn’t they? [Unclear, both laugh].
CB: Indeed they did [VH laughs]. Especially I think, erm, Leonard Cheshire, he was particularly fond of his –
VH: Yeah. Cheshire [unclear] at one time didn’t they?
CB: Yes. And he would come and talk to you at, you know, when you were mending the aircraft?
VH: Yes, I mean, when there was no raids on or anything and things were easier, we used to go out and have a drink with them sort of thing, you know, they were just like talking to anybody. Except when you’re on the parade ground it had to be ‘sir’ sort of thing, you know.
CB: Did you do much parade ground?
VH: Pardon dear?
CB: Were you on the parade ground very much? Did it, was that part of your life?
VH: Playground?
CB: The parade ground.
VH: Oh, we didn’t do a lot on the parade ground, no, because it was mostly time on the, looking after the aircraft, you know.
CB: So you missed some of that out?
VH: Yes, oh yeah, we didn’t have a lot to do on the parade ground really.
CB: What was the discipline like?
VH: Pardon?
CB: What was the –
VH: Discipline? Discipline was quite good, strict, you know. See, see, discipline didn’t really bother me because being in a home was run by all ex-army people, I was disciplined there. I had to march to school and everything, you know. So going in the Air Force, it didn’t really hit me.
CB: So your time in the, the children’s home –
VH: Made me more or less fit for the Air Force really.
CB: So you look back on those as happy days, and –
VH: They were, yeah. That home was very good. ‘Cause my daughter took me up there few years back didn’t you, and it’s not the same place now, it’s been taken over by retirement people, and when they knew I was one of the boys who had been there, ooh they shook my hand didn’t they [CB laughs] made quite a fuss of me.
CB: Were there girls there as well or was it just boys?
VH: No, just boys, yeah.
CB: And you made some good friends there?
VH: Yes I made some good friends there, yeah.
CB: Did you manage to keep in touch with them afterwards?
VH: One or two of them, but when I went with my daughter last time, and I saw one or two of the names in the church who’d been, passed away, and killed and that during the war. That really upset me.
CB: Hmm. So at Woodhall Spa, another CO was Tate. Did you, did you come across Willy Tate very much?
VH: Pardon?
CB: Willy Tate, he was –
VH: Willy Tate? I can’t remember dear.
CB: No.
VH: No. You meet that many people you know, you can’t remember all their names, sorta thing.
CB: No, no of course not.
VH: No.
CB: So tell me what you remember of Guy Gibson.
VH: I found him very very good. Very good to the ground staff. I think he was a bit trick [?] with the aircrew, but to the ground staff he was magnificent.
CB: Well, that’s wonderful. So, you got, did you have a relationship with him? Did he you know help you, or come and chat?
VH: Not really no. Just ‘how are you sir’ and ‘your aircraft’s ready’ and that sorta thing you know.
CB: When the planes came back from their raids, and they were –
VH: That was lovely seeing them come back [laughs].
CB: Yes.
VH: But when you’re waiting, and yours don’t come back you think ‘oh, has it crash landed somewhere’ or ‘has it landed at another airdrome?’ And eventually you hear it hadn’t come back. It really upset you.
CB: Hmm. And then it would be your job to, to mend them. And get them back right?
VH: Yeah.
CB: Hmm. So were there any events that you can remember at Woodhall Spa? You know, things like, I don’t know, collisions, or, you know –
VH: There been one or two crash landings. I seen crash landings, yeah.
CB: What did you – can you remember how you would –
VH: We didn’t do nothing to it, the air, er, the fire engines and everything used to go out to them.
Other: But you remember the – when they were training for the Dambusters don’t you?
VH: Pardon?
Other: When they training for the Dambusters.
VH Oh yeah, when they training for the Dambusters. We wondering what was happening because they was training for about two or three months before they actually done it, and they come over and did what we called hedge-hopping, just come over the hedge, just miss us, you know, and you think ‘what’s going on?’ [CB laughs]. And they kept it a secret right ‘till the night they went. When they came out that night they said ‘this is it,’ so we said, ‘what,’ ‘what we’ve been training for you know when we come back’ [CB and VH laugh].
CB: So they were –
VH: Very secretive, it was.
CB: Yes.
VH: But when they came back they said ‘we done it’ [laughs].
CB: Right [both laugh]. So was – that was at Scampton, were you at Scampton at all?
VH: No that was at, er, Woodhall Spa [emphasis].
CB: Right.
VH: I never went to Scampton. Only went there for my medals didn’t I? That’s all.
CB: Mm. So you – how do you remember your wartime career?
VH: Yes I can do, yeah.
CB: And you, how do you remember it, with –
VH: Well I think it was quite good really because the – I was disobedient at home so going to the Air Force, that was more or less the same, sorta life, sort of thing.
CB: Mm. So [pause] the – I think some of what the personnel, the aircrew at Woodhall Spa, they were, they were known for their pranks, some of them. And I suppose the low flying would have been one of them.
VH: It was, yeah.
CB: Did you have any, many air raids there?
VH: No not really, no.
CB: So you, the Germans didn’t attack you –
VH: No.
CB: At Woodhall Spa? It was [unclear]
VH: No, no, they came over when we were at Marham, Norfolk, when we had the first squadron of Mosquitos. I thought ‘this is it,’ flares came down but as soon as the gun fire opened up they went [both laugh].
CB: So do you remember any time – the time that Guy Gibson took off on the night he was killed? Do you remember anything about that?
VH: Er, he just came out, and he just said ‘I’m gonna take this aircraft’ and that’s it. Just didn’t come back.
CB: No, he was with Warwick –
VH: Mosquitos.
CB: Yes, because he wasn’t too familiar with them, was he?
VH: No.
CB: So –
VH: It could have been that you see.
CB: Yeah. Was he – do you remember what his manner was like, how he –
VH: He was – I found him quite good myself.
CB: But he wanted to get back flying, didn’t he? Do you remember anything about that particular night, as to how he was?
VH: No, he came out that night and says ‘do you mind if I take the, this Mosquito?’ and I said ‘no sir,’ and he just got in it and went.
CB: And what did you feel when he didn’t come back?
VH: Well I felt awful really, you know. I wondered what, if he really knew in his own heart whether he was going to do anything. You don’t know what’s in their mind, do you really?
CB: No, no you don’t. But you, you just thought it was just another, another plane that hadn’t come back.
VH: Yeah.
CB: You didn’t –
VH: That’s true.
CB: Did you know straight away that – I mean he could have landed somewhere else. When did you find out that –
VH: Ah, we didn’t find out for [pause] two, two, three hours after. They must have rung round to see if he’d landed anywhere else, but, he hadn’t, so.
CB: No.
VH: I think over the hills was it, in Kent I think, where he actually crashed, I think.
CB: He crashed in Holland.
VH: Yeah, oh was it Holland?
CB: Yeah.
VH: I knew it was somewhere –
CB: Yeah, coming back from an operation. So, you, you remember it with fondness, the –
VH: Pardon?
CB: You remember it with fondness, your time in Bomber Command –
Other: Fondness, you enjoyed it.
VH: Oh I, I enjoyed all my life [?], I loved Bomber Command.
CB: So –
VH: And everyone I worked with. We all seemed to be like a family, sort of thing, you know, we worked ever so well together, the ground staff and the air crew did.
CB: And you went to Lakenheath. Were the Americans there at Lakenheath when you were there?
VH: Pardon?
CB: Were the Americans at Lakenheath, when you were there?
VH: Was I –
CB: Was the –
Other: Were the Americans there? Were the Americans there?
VH: Americans? Oh yeah, they took over because it was a nice place, you see [CB laughs]. Better than where they were! It was all big buildings and they took over and we were put in Nissan huts! [Both laugh].
CB: What did you make of them? Did you, did you get on well with them?
VH: Well we, yeah they were alright [both laugh].
CB: Did you have better food when they were around?
VH: Oh yes, definitely yes. They got the best off [both laugh].
CB: And where were you? Were you in billets again at Lakenheath?
VH: Yeah.
CB: So erm, did you ever have to, you know, live in, with a family or anything like that, or were you always in billets?
VH: Er, in billets or Nissan huts, you know.
CB: Yes.
VH: Yeah.
CB: So, you’re coming towards the end of the war. How did you feel, you know, we’ve just had VE day. How did you feel? You know, was it a relief, or were you, how did you feel?
VH: Well, I don’t know really. I don’t know whether I was [unclear] in the Air Force, but I’d just got married before I came out, you see so –
CB: Right, so where did you meet your wife?
VH: In Nottingham.
CB: At a dance, or?
VH: Pardon?
CB: Was it at a dance? A dance?
VH: Dance?
Other: Where did you meet Mum?
VH: Oh, I was having a drink [both laugh].
CB: And you obviously looked, saw her, and, you know, liked each other. So how long was it before you got married?
VH: Only about six months I think. Yeah, wasn’t long [both laugh]. And I got lovely daughters and a lovely son, he’s passed away bless him, about three year ago innit?
Other: Hmm.
CB: And did you –
VH: I had two lovely children, they certainly looked after me, they still do [both laugh], don’t you chick? Somebody does.
CB: Do you remember getting married, and the rationing?
VH: Oh yes. I had a double wedding. That’s my wife up there.
CB: Oh, that’s lovely. Where did you get married?
VH: Hyson Green, yeah.
CB: Well, she looks very nice with her dress on. So, the rationing didn’t bother you very much?
VH: No. Said ‘are you gonna get married the usual?’ and I says ‘no.’ [Both laugh.]
CB: And where did you live after you were married?
VH: Nottingham, yeah.
CB: And when did the war – was the war finished by then?
VH: Oh yeah, it had finished, yeah.
CB: So you, you came out of the Air Force in –
VH: Out of the Air Force in 1946.
Other: You made your suit though didn’t you?
VH: Hmm.
Other: You made your suit.
VH: Yeah I made my suit.
CB: Oh wow! You made your own wedding suit, that’s –
VH: Yeah because, in that home where, that I was telling you about, there was all different trades, and I went in the tailoring department. I done four years at, four years apprenticeship before I joined the Air Force, so I made my wedding suit.
CB: You kept the skills going [both laugh]. So what did you do when you came out of the RAF?
VH: Er [pause], I went to the co-op [?], I was only there one day, and then, I went to Boots then and I was there for thirty year.
CB: Worked in Boots the chemists?
VH: Yeah.
CB: Oh, what did you do there?
VH: Making medicines and everything [unclear from Other].
CB: Oh.
VH: And then when they stopped making their own medicines, I went on security, and stuff like that.
CB: So you were there for a long time. In Nottingham all the time?
VH: Oh yes –
CB: You settled there.
VH: Never left Nottingham did I? I was at Boots thirty year I was at Boots.
CB: Did you keep in touch in your, you know, your friends and your comrades in the Air Force?
VH: No, no, never kept in touch with any of them.
CB: Although you had good relationships with them all? You didn’t feel –
VH: But we didn’t, we didn’t keep in touch with each other no.
CB: So, your thirty years, what did you – [unclear] didn’t work in those days did they, do your wife, your wife, didn’t work?
VH: My wife? Yeah she was working, yeah.
CB: Did she work?
VH: What was mum now?
Other: Machinist.
VH: Oh, machinist, that’s it [both laugh].
CB: And then you had your children.
VH: Yeah, two lovely children. And my grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, they’re all marvellous to me they are.
CB: What did you feel about how Bomber Command was treated after the war?
VH: In which way?
CB: Well, when Churchill made his speech, he didn’t, after the war, he didn’t mention Bomber Command.
VH: I know.
CB: Because of all the bombing, and –
VH: Yeah.
CB: How did you feel about that? And you’ve only just had your clasp that you’re entitled to. How did you feel, after the war, and how you were –
VH: I don’t think they treated them as they should have been treated, myself, because they’d done a marvellous job.
CB: And you – you’ve gone down, have you seen the memorial in London? Have you gone –
VH: No I haven’t, no.
CB: But you – have you gone back to any of your stations that you’ve been at, because –
Other: We’ve been to Conningsby, we’ve been to a few with you, I’ve taken you to a few haven’t I?
VH: Yeah.
Other: Woodhall Spa we’ve been to.
VH: Yeah.
Other: We’ve been to Scampton now but –
VH: Been to Scampton –
Other: [unclear] did you?
VH: Hmm.
CB: So you, you went back to Scampton recently, I think, when was that?
VH: Yes, er, that was when I had my [papers shuffling].
CB: Your medal. Your medal.
VH: In that book there. [Papers shuffling, pause].
CB: I think, er [pause] ah. And what did you [pause], how did you hear about this, did they get in touch with you?
VH: No, when I moved to here, to Retford, I lost my medals, so I wrote up to administrative ends [?] explained who I was, when I started and when I, when I got demobbed, and they dealt and sent them back, er, sent me a new lot.
CB: And how did you get to go to Scampton? Did they write to you?
Other: A gentleman from Scampton in the RAF came to us here, and said could they present them to him.
CB: Oh. So what did you feel about that?
VH: It was great, wasn’t it?
Other: It was lovely.
VH: All the family went, it was lovely.
Other: It was a very special day, yeah.
VH: Yeah.
CB: They made a fuss of you?
VH: Yeah [laughs].
CB: Well that’s a lovely, lovely thing to remember, isn’t it.
VH: It is, yeah.
Other: And they also presented medals to these gentlemen, they’d just come back from Afghanistan.
CB: It’s lovely. [Pause]. Right Vic, so –
VH: I went, I went out to get the aircraft ready, prepared because there was a raid on, when the crew came out, I was just sitting there, and I’d got this terrible pain, you know, they says ‘come on we want to go,’ and I says ‘I can’t get out!’ So they lifted me out, and they rushed me to Kings Lynn hospital, I got my appendix [laughs].
CB: Do you remember the hospital you were in?
VH: Er [slight pause], no, er, it was Kings Lynn, but I can’t think of the name of the hospital.
CB: And how long were you in there?
VH: I was only in there a couple of week, if that.
CB: It’s quite a long time these days [both laugh]. And then it says you were transferred to Addenbrookes.
VH: Yeah, yeah I had something wrong with my thumb –
CB: Right.
VH: And the Air Force made a mess of it, so I ended up in Addenbrookes to have me nail took off.
CB: So what do you remember about being in hospital?
VH: Not a lot really, well, when I came out I got a fortnight’s holiday, er, was a camp.
CB: What was the food like?
VH: Good [emphasis, both laugh].
CB: So you, they sorted out your appendix problem –
VH: Oh yes.
CB: And then you, you went back. So it was, [pause], that’s some sort of home, admitted to Stowe, erm, I can’t quite read that. Was it just some sort of home that just was like a convalescent home was it?
VH: Yeah.
CB: And you were in there for a little while.
VH: Hmm yeah, two weeks I think [chuckles].
CB: So they certainly looked after the –
VH: They certainly looked after you, yeah.
CB: [Pause]. So you’ve lived in Retford for, how long now?
VH: Ten years now, innit chick? My daughter got me over here so she can look after me [laughs], don’t you chick.
CB: Do you get involved in any Bomber Command, you know, reunions, or?
VH: Oh no –
Other: You’ve started to now.
VH: Started going to a bit now, haven’t we, yeah. Scampton. We’ve been to one or two dos there haven’t we?
Other: Mm.
VH: Where was it that we went the other week?
Other: Woodhall Spa.
VH: Oh yeah we went to Woodhall Spa the other week, at a reunion day.
Other: Scampton last week, and a Lancaster came over.
VH: Yeah [laughs]. The Red Arrows were there, giving a display weren’t they. Lovely.
CB: Well I think, think that’s about it Vic, that’s been very, very interesting.
VH: Thank you very much.
CB: Thank you.
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 Victor Harding
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Clare Bennett
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
2015-05-20
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AHardingV150520
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
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.
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Leading Aircraftsman Victor Harding.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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00:38:26 audio recording
149 Squadron
627 Squadron
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
fitter airframe
flight mechanic
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
ground crew
Lancaster
military living conditions
Mosquito
Nissen hut
RAF Bardney
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Kirkham
RAF Marham
RAF Woodhall Spa
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1213/16151/ADonaldsonDW060415.1.mp3
d42c8adfc985fa27deeda8dcfc73f57a
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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Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy 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
2015-06-02
2022-10-17
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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Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
And, C, the raid on Turin.
This was the first time our Squadron had done the Italian trip. We'd heard a rumour about a week before that we might be getting the job. Everyone was quite thrilled at the idea of a run over the Alps. We were told in the morning we were going to Turin, so we started at once drawing our tracks and getting the navigation generally weighed up. My navigator was particularly keen on the show because he's something of a mountaineer, and had done a fair bit of climbing in the Alps. The route we were taking worked out at between 12 and 1300 miles there and back. We had to make a bit of a detour to keep clear of Switzerland because we had special instructions to avoid infringing Swiss neutrality. Briefing was at 2 o’clock in the afternoon and we took off just as it was getting dark. To start with, the weather was poor and we had to come down to 600 feet over the English coast to pinpoint ourselves, then we climbed up through what was becoming really nasty weather, and crossed the coast on the other side fairly high. By that time the cloud was what we call ten tenths, that is to say it obscured everything. Eventually we got above cloud and then we had the light of the moon which was in its first quarter. Before that it had been very dark indeed. We were flying blind above cloud until we arrived 40 or 50 miles east of Paris and we ran into clearer weather, the clouds gradually decreased below us until we could see the ground. And when we reached southern France the weather was perfect. It was one of those clear moon-light nights and the stars seem stand out in the sky; you feel you can put out your hand and grab one. As we flew on toward the Alps we could make out some of the little mountain villages against the background of snow. You could see their lights twinkling in the trees. The aircraft was going wonderfully well and we cleared the highest mountains by 3 or 4000 feet. You could see the ridges and peaks well defined and the moon shining on the snow. Flying over this sort of scenery was something completely new to us and pretty awe-inspiring because the nearest we had got to it was on the Munich raid when we'd seen the Bavarian Alps in the distance. The navigator came up and pointed out Mont Blanc away on our port side, he was able to identify it from its shape because he had actually climbed it. He was telling us how he was beaten by the weather when he had got to within 600 feet of the summit. Immediately we got to the other side of the Alps with no snow about it seemed by comparison intensely dark for a bit, it was like coming out of a lightened room into the blackout. Soon after that we started to glide down, loosing height very gradually and arrived slightly west of Turin. Other planes were already over the target because you could see their flares and there was a barrage of anti-aircraft fire in the sky. Our target was the Fiat works, and the whole time we were looking for them we were still gliding down to our bombing height. Actually we picked the works up in the light of somebody else’s flare. They were unmistakable. I’d never had such a target before. There seemed to be acres of factory buildings. We almost wept afterwards because we hadn’t got any more bombs to give them. Having located our target, we flew four or five miles away, turned round and made our run up over it. The wireless operator came along and stood beside me to have a look at the bombing, otherwise he wouldn’t have seen anything from his usual position. When he saw the light flak coming up from the works he said ‘Gosh, look at the Roman candles’. We made two attacks. As we came round afterwards to have a look, the fires which we'd started were going strong. There was a big orange-coloured fire burning fiercely inside one block of buildings. Having finished the job, we climbed to get enough height to cross the Alps again. Altogether we were over or round about the town for three quarters of an hour, and, whilst we were circling to gain height we saw somebody hit the Royal Arsenal good and proper. Going home, the Alps didn't look quite the same. The moon almost set then, and the mountains had lost their vivid whiteness. The last two hours of the journey were – frankly – plain misery. It started with the aircraft suddenly beginning to get iced up. I tried to climb but she wouldn’t take it. Ice was coming off the airscrews and hitting the fuselage. We came down to about 7000 to thaw out and then we ran into an electrical storm. All this time we were in cloud. It was frightfully bumpy and the aircraft was bucking about all over the place. At one point, the front gunner called me up and said ‘Are you’re quite sure you’re flying the right side up? because I think I can see white horses in the sky.' That was when we were over the North Sea. When eventually we left the clouds, we had to come through snow and sleet and the final bit of the journey we made in a howling gale which reduced our ground speed a lot. Never had we ever taken so long to get inland to our base from the coast. We got there safely in the end.
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
Operation on Turin
Description
An account of the resource
David Donaldson reminisces an operation on Turin, describing the crossing of the Alps at night and the awe-inspiring sight of Mount Blanc. David stresses the uniqueness of the operation, only comparable to a previous one on Munich, and mentions the keen interest of the navigator, who had been a mountaineer. The interviewee provides details on the attack to FIAT works, anti-aircraft fire encountered, and the really bad weather on the return leg of the journey.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One oral interview
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Alps
Europe--Mont Blanc
Italy
Italy--Turin
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Donaldson
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ADonaldsonDW060415
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940-12-04
149 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
military service conditions
navigator
pilot
Wellington
-
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Title
A name given to the resource
Algar, Harry
Harold Keith Mael Algar
H K M Algar
Description
An account of the resource
Thirteen items. An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Harry Algar (1924 - 2022, 1801102 Royal Air Force) and his log books and documents.
He flew a tour of operations as a bomb aimer with 463 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Greg Algar and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-05-20
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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Algar, H
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DK: [unclear] So, this is David Kavanagh for the International Bomber Command Centre interviewing Harry Algar at the Dambuster’s Inn on the 20th of May, is it the 20th today?
HA: [unclear] we’ve been discussing that this morning, what the date is [laughs]
US: I think it is, yes.
DK: Ok, [unclear], I can always amend it later. If I keep looking down at this, I’m just making sure that it’s still working cause I sometimes get beaten by the technology and the battery runs out or something
HA: Yeah
DK: So if I look down that’s all I’m doing. So, just leave that there. So, what I wanted to ask you Harry was first of all, what were you doing immediately before the war?
HA: Well, at that time I was working in London right next to London Bridge, working for Hay’s Wharf and I used to go up there every day, because in those days I went there on Saturdays as well as the other days of the week and I was what they called an office boy in those days, I don’t suppose they have them these days, but I worked in the engineer’s department of Hay’s Wharf [unclear] on the river front right from London Bridge down to Tower Bridge and part of my job was to walk from there to there and put in the time cards for the various [unclear] cranes and all the equipment they had on the wharf and then we’d take them out at the end of the week, work out their wages, that was my job then
DK: Right, so, what made you then want to join the Air Force, is there anything in particular?
HA: Well, yeah, in those days, it’s any different now but I did realise that there was gonna be trouble with Germany again and so I thought if I joined the RAF now at least I’m in the Air Force, not in the navy or the army
DK: So, the navy and army didn’t appeal to you?
HA: Not really, no, and so I joined the, what was it called? The
DK: ATC
HA: ATC, yes, I was one of the first to join the ATC, I joined the Woolwich Squadron, cause I lived comparatively near to Woolwich
DK: So how old would you have been about then?
HA: Sixteen,
DK: Sixteen
HA: Sixteen, seventeen
DK: Yeah
HA: Yes, I actually joined the Air Force when I was seventeen and I got called up when I was eighteen
DK: Yeah, right. So what did you feel when you were called up into the Air Force, what were you?
HA: I was expecting it, you know, it’s no great surprise
DK: No. And what were you hoping to do once you joined?
HA: Well, when I was in the ATC, I took the [unclear] leave for navigators, pilots and bomb aimers and that was sufficient actually to get me into aircrew
DK: Right. So you were tested then to see what your best sort of role
HA: Yes, well, when I actually joined the RAF the first thing I did was to go to the Elementary Flying Training School on, what the heck they called them?
DK: Is it the biplanes, the Tiger Moths?
HA: Yeah, Tiger Moths, on Tiger Moths, yeah. So, I was on Tiger Moths but I wasn’t specially able to, I didn’t progress quickly enough and so I came out of that particular scheme and got sent to Canada to do an air bomber scheme.
DK: So, when you were trying to fly the Tiger Moths, did they tell you quite early on, no, this isn’t
HA: I did about ten or twelve hours flying on Tiger Moths and after that they said, we think you’re more likely to kill us than kill Germans [laughs] so I was taken off the scheme.
DK: So, you then went off to Canada.
HA: Yeah.
DK: Can you remember much about the trip to Canada?
HA: Well yes, at the time, Roosevelt was in charge of the scheme and Churchill was going out to Canada to meet him and to discuss the state of the war and so Churchill was on the Queen Mary and I was on the Queen Mary as well.
DK: Oh right, Churchill was on the ship at the same time.
HA: Yes.
DK: Oh, right.
HA: Cause in those days, but most people don’t realise it that you couldn’t fly to Canada, not directly, you could only go by in small hops you know, so he went on the Queen Mary and I went on the Queen Mary
DK: Did you see him?
HA: Yes, I was outside his suite supposed to be guarding him, unfortunately I was rather sick [laughs] I could only go out and say [unclear]
DK: Were you a bit seasick then?
HA: Oh yes.
DK: So you were supposed to be actually guarding Churchill.
HA: Yeah.
DK: Oh right. Did he speak to you?
HA: No, I never saw him.
DK: You never saw him, oh, right.
HA: No. And of course when we went because we had him on board we had a squadron of Spitfires with us going down the Irish Sea and then we got down to the Irish, through the Irish Sea into the Channel, then it would be full steam ahead and then go down south into the South Pacific, South Atlantic so that you would avoid the submarines and then come up the coast of
DK: So, you weren’t actually in a convoy then, you [unclear]
HA: No, just a single ship
DK: Just the Queen Mary
HA: Yeah. It could outrun submarines
DK: Alright, so [unclear]
HA: And of course the submarine could, if it was very lucky, happen to be [unclear] our position to torpedo it but [unclear]
DK: Yeah, so are going at quite a speed then on the
HA: Yes, it could do thirty knots, twenty eight to thirty knots something like that but they were quite a quick [unclear] away but because of the length of the trip going down into the South Atlantic it took us best part of a week, I think
DK: And whereabouts in Canada did you dock, you remember?
HA: Well, we docked at New York
DK: Alright.
HA: We docked at New York and
DK: Was this, would this have been the first time you’d been over to another country in overseas?
HA: No, in, before I left school, I went on a school trip to Holland and Belgium and France
DK: Alright. Obviously the first time to America then
HA: First time to America, yeah, and then from New York we went up to Moncton in Canada which was via Boston and Providence and then we waited in Halifax until there was this place in a school for me to go to and then I was sent to Picton in
DK: In Picton
HA: Picton, yeah, in Ontario and did a bomb aimers course there and then after that I did a short navigation course
DK: So, what did the bomb aiming course involve then? What did you have to do?
HA: Well, it involved a whole of the theory of bombing, also all the things to do with the bombs and the components, so that you knew exactly what the bombs would do and what sort of fusing they had on them and pyrotechnics as well, so a lot of it was more or less, more armament than anything else and I’d be responsible for the bombload on the, on whatever aircraft I was flying at the time
DK: Can you remember what type of aircraft were training there?
HA: Yeah, yeah, Ansons
DK: Ansons, yeah
HA: And then we had Blenheim IVs,
DK: Right.
HA: Blenheim IVs we used as towing targets and also we were going to the turret of another one and fire at a drove that
DK: [unclear] being towed, yeah
HA: Yeah
DK: So, what did
HA: They were towed by Lysanders
DK: Lysanders. So, what did you think of Canada then, was it?
HA: Oh, it was fine, I mean, it was [unclear] really I suppose because when we went there it was still more or less summertime I think, I can’t quite remember when I went but
Dk: [unclear] people were training in winter [unclear] it was very cold
HA: Well we, when I’d finished training I went back to Halifax to wait for a boat, to take a ship to bring me back to England and that was in the winter and we had several feet of snow and I took the opportunity to go to Montreal and Quebec and also I took a couple of trips down to New York because we had a fair amount of time spare you know, it wasn’t something you [unclear] [mimics a bombing sound] that’s how you’re going to work, it was done over a period of time cause you never knew exactly when you were going anywhere
DK: No. So, what did the training actually involve? What are you also dropping dummy bombs as well or?
HA: Yes, yes, that’s in
DK: Is in one of the logbooks
HA: One of them, yeah, first of them
DK: That one, that’s, is that the first one?
HA: Right at the beginning
DK: So, I’ll read this out just for the benefit of the recording here, so you were with 31 Bombing and Gunnery School
HA: Yeah, that’s right, yeah, so, Picton
DK: Picton, Ontario, Canada,
HA: Yeah
DK: So, you’re going, you’re flying on Lysanders, no, you’re not flying, sorry, you’re flying on Ansons
HA: Yeah. Doing the bombing
DK: Yeah, flying on Ansons and the [unclear] which is the Blenheim.
HA: Yeah
DK: Yeah. So it’s got example here is six bombs, there’s quite a number of flights on the Ansons then
HA: Yeah
DK: And the [unclear], yeah, and the Anson again
HA: And I went to the navigation school
DK: Alright, that’s
HA: At Mount, Mount Hope, Mount Hope is still in use in Canada as a major
DK: Funny enough I’m going there next month
HA: Oh yeah?
DK: Hamilton and Mount Hope, so this is, so then you went onto number 33 ANS
HA: Yes
DK: So that’s the Air Navigation
HA: Air Navigation
DK: Air Navigation School, yeah. And that was at Mount Hope,
HA: Yeah
DK: Hamilton, Ontario.
HA: Yeah
DK: So then you’re back on Ansons again
HA: Yeah
DK: And that was purely navigation training
HA: Yeah
DK: Yeah. So it’s got where you had to fly from and to then
HA: Yeah, various cross-country trips
DK: Yeah. And then, so you’ve come back to the UK then
Ha: Yeah, then we went to Penrhos
DK: Penrhos, so that was number 9 AFU
HA: Yes, Advanced Flying School
DK: Number 9 Advanced Flying School
HA: And that was really to get you into, you know, into with the sort of weather that you would have in England which was obviously quite different to Canada, so that was an introduction to English weather
DK: So that was all air bombing training again
HA: Yeah
DK: Rather than navigation and that’s all on Ansons. What did you think of the Anson as an aircraft?
HA: [laughs] Well of course it was, well the first Anson I flew in you didn’t, you, to get the undercarriage up you had to
DK: Wind it up
HA: Wind it up [laughs], so you had the pilot sitting there, I was sitting here and I’d be winding up the undercarriage [laughs]
DK: So, how many of you would go on, roughly on one of these training? Was it you and a couple of other
HA: Yeah, just, yeah, yeah.
DK: So you also used the gun turret as well.
HA: Yes, yeah
DK: So you’re trained in air bombing, gunnery and navigation
HA: Yes
DK: Yeah. [unclear] the training there so then you’ve gone to number 29 Operational Training Unit at Bruntingthorpe
HA: Yeah, yeah, yeah
DK: That’s 29 OTU Bruntingthorpe
HA: Bruntingthorpe
DK: There you’re on the Wellingtons
HA: Yeah, this was crewing up with the idea of eventually going onto a squadron.
DK: So, how did you meet your crew then, was it at the OTU?
HA: Yeah, yeah. All that happened was that they would have enough people from the various trades to make up about eight or ten crews, something like that and you’d all be put into one room and told to mingle and sort yourself out in your crews.
DK: And through that you found your pilot and
HA: Yeah
DK: Navigator. How did you think that worked, cause it’s a bit unusual. Because normally
HA: It worked very well actually because I never knew anybody who was dissatisfied with the people that I picked up to fly with.
DK: Because it’s quite unusual really, it’s not normally how the military worked
HA: Yes
DK: You’re [unclear]
HA: That’s right, yeah.
DK: But you think that worked well then
HA: It did, yeah, I was crewed up with, where I found my pilot, he was an Australian, that’s how I got on the Australian squadron
DK: Can you remember his name?
HA: Yes, Hyland, Frank Hyland, H-Y-L-A-N-D
DK: Frank Hyland.
HA: Yeah. His name’s in there
DK: Yes, his name’s in there, yes, so he’s Flight Sergeant Hyland
HA: Yeah
DK: H-Y-L-A-N-D
HA: Yeah. Then later on when we were going, I’m not sure whether it was when we were there but he got commissioned
DK: Right, ok.
HA: And we weren’t very keen on that because in those days the, well, do you know the, if you were commissioned, you were a bit [unclear] from the people who weren’t commissioned and it tend to break up the crew so we weren’t keen on that
DK: Would he have been the only officer on the crew then?
HA: Yeah, he was
DK: So, once he was commissioned then, did that mean you didn’t socialise at all?
HA: That’s right. Well, that’s not true because we did, it was against the law, but you know, you’re not supposed to socialise with your lower ranks but we used to meet up in pubs, we already did you know, because at that time was when things were beginning to break down when it came to the, you know, the iron fist in the services, you know, became easier to meet with
DK: But on the station itself you’d be living separate
HA: That’s right, yeah
DK: You’d be in the officer’s mess
HA: That’s it, that was why we didn’t like very much, I mean you couldn’t talk as much as you would like to about what you’d done or what you expected to do
DK: Which I would imagine would’ve been good for you, your job if you got to know each other better
HA: Well, it is, yes, it is, yes
DK: So, at 29 OTU then you were flying Wellingtons?
HA: Yes.
DK: And what did you think of the Wellington?
HA: They were marvellous aircraft really, they were geodetic construction which means they were as you probably know, teaching the conversion [laughs] but you know it’s like [unclear] with the canvas outside but they were remarkably strong and no, I thought they were great aircraft
DK: Right, so, so after 29 OTU then, gone on
HA: Then we started getting onto the Heavies
DK: Right, so
HA: And you didn’t go onto Lancasters straight away because all the Lancasters at that time were being used by frontline squadrons
DK: Alright. Ok, so then, just read your logbook again, you went to 1660
HA: Heavy Conversion Unit
DK: Heavy Conversion Unit and that was
HA: That was on Stirlings
DK: Right, so that’s at Swinderby
HA: Yeah
DK: [unclear] 1660 Heavy Conversion Unit, Swinderby and you’re flying Stirlings
HA: Stirlings, yeah
DK: What did you think of the Stirling?
HA: Not a lot [laughs], they were heavy, cumbersome things and they were all like, I think they got their design and that from people who worked on ships
DK: Right.
HA: I mean they were, they came from Ireland, Belfast and they’d been more used to work on ships than on aircraft
DK: And what was it like as an air bomber then? Because you’re at the front, are they quite high up?
HA: Oh yes,
DK: [unclear]
HA: Oh well, you don’t sit on the front for take-off
DK: Right, ok
HA: You come back and then you go down the front when you’re airborne
DK: I noticed you’re not having your coffee. [unclear]
US: [unclear] forgot it. He hasn’t brought it, has he?
DK: Right, ok, so, you’re
HA: I just done
DK: 1660 Heavy Conversion Unit
HA: That’s right, yes. And now next thing is the Lanc Finishing School which means that you go on to Lancasters and get tuned up on what’s happening before you go on the squadron.
DK: So that was, just for the benefit of the recording, making sure it’s working, is number 5 Lancaster Finishing School at Syerston
HA: Mhm.
DK: So you, so the idea is then you’ve gone from the Heavy Conversion Unit to then [unclear]
HA: To the aircraft you’re gonna fly on Bomber Command. And you know, you get used to it before you actually get sent to a squadron cause obviously when you get to the squadron you’re expected to be [unclear] with what’s going on
Dk: Alright. So what did you think of the Lancaster then when you?
HA: A marvellous aircraft [unclear], very strong and quite fast and a good altitude, the defence wasn’t so hot, it was on any aircraft
DK: No. You say the defence, was that a problem with the machine guns or?
HA: Well, they were too light, you know, they were 303s and people were firing at you with rockets and whatever, well not rockets but heavier, heavier
DK: Calibres
HA: Calibre
DK: Yeah. So, as the air bomber then, on Lancaster, was not too short [unclear], were you responsible for both dropping the bombs and the front gun turret?
HA: Yeah, I was responsible for all the armament really on the aircraft and we would go up before a raid and we used to harmonise the guns on the turrets, they would be harmonised the four guns in the rear turret, harmonised at about four hundred yards, in other when I say harmonised all four came to
DK: Came together
HA: Yeah, at that point and in the front you just had two guns and you harmonise those for probably about a hundred yards something like that
DK: And also, so did you have any other roles as the air bomber besides that, so you’re looking after the guns, dropping the bombs and
HA: Well, as soon as you went out to the aircraft, I was in charge of the bombs and so I would have to go round and inspect all the bombs and remove every safety devices that weren’t used once we were airborne so the rest of the armament would be made live once you got airborne and once the aircraft got to target and started to drop the bombs as the bombs came out of their holding and the last safety devices would be removed and the bomb would be live
DK: So how could you remove the last safety device when you’re in the air?
HA: Well, they would [unclear] electrically
DK: Ah, right
HA: You had the, how can I put it? You had something that was locked in and when you switched on the electrics the [unclear] would work and clamp onto that thing and hold it in position till the bomb had gone
DK: Right, and you could control that from
HA: Yeah
DK: Something in the, the bomb aimers area
HA: Yeah
DK: So you had a control panel who did that
HA: That’s right, yeah
DK: Alright.
HA: And you could, if you got into trouble, you could drop all the bombs at once [unclear] panel showed that you could drop a salvo of bombs all at once so if you put it on that you could get rid of the whole immediately so if you were in trouble, you could lighten the aircraft by several thousand pounds you know
DK: Very quickly
HA: Yeah [phone rings]
DK: Ok. So, after the Lancaster Finishing School then, you’ve gone to number 463 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force
HA: Yeah
DK: Based at Waddington
HA: Yeah
DK: So we [unclear] that for the benefit of that and that was in first, so, November 1944 [unclear]
HA: That’s right, yeah
DK: What did you think of Waddington when you got there?
HA: Well, we were very lucky really cause it’s a pre-war aerodrome with buildings, got accommodation as I said in my book there, some people were in Nissen huts you know in winter it was terribly cold and in summer they were really hot so they were quite uncomfortable, but we had permanent buildings to live in, we had a decent mess, we were really lucky
DK: And you mentioned you went to this particular squadron because your pilot was Australian?
HA: Yeah, we had an Australian wireless operator as well
DK: Right
HA: So we had two Australians on our, on our crew
DK: Can you still name the crew?
HA: Yes, Frank Hyland was the captain and the skipper
DK: Yeah
HA: I was the bomb aimer
DK: Yeah
HA: Navigator was Keith, what was his name?
DK: Listed in here?
HA: Yes, it is. Cause I was his best man
DK: Right.
US: [unclear]
DK: Frank Hyland, wasn’t that?
HA: Frank Hyland, yeah
DK: So, that’s your crew there
HA: Yeah
DK: So, you got Bob Stewart
HA: Yeah
DK: Eric
US: No.
HA: No, Eric is the only one that I, we couldn’t keep in contact with
DK: Alright
HA: After the war he just sort of disappeared and I found unfortunately, I’ve also forgotten his name as well
DK: Yeah, right. And then Ken Richardson?
HA: Yeah. He was the rear gunner
DK: Rear gunner. Keith Jenkins?
HA: Yeah, he was the navigator.
DK: Navigator.
HA: Yeah
DK: Frank Hyland
HA: He was the pilot
DK: Pilot. And then you got Max ?
HA: Yeah [unclear] I don’t remember his name, he was the other Aussie.
DK: So, he was the wireless operator [unclear]
HA: Wireless operator
DK: Yeah
HA: He was a great sportsman actually, he played for Australia after the war, rugby
DK: Alright. So I’ll, just for the benefit of the recording again, I’ll read this out again, so, from left to right you got, [unclear], Bob Stewart, he was the
HA: He was engineer
DK: Flight engineer
HA: Yeah
DK: Eric somebody, who was
HA: The mid upper gunner
DK: Mid upper gunner, Ken Richardson
HA: He was the rear gunner
DK: Rear gunner, Keith Jenkins,
HA: He was the navigator
DK: Navigator. Frank Hyland, pilot
HA: Was the pilot
DK: And the Max somebody
HA: Wireless operator
DK: Wireless operator and he was the Australian
HA: Yeah
DK: So, was 463 a good squadron, do you think?
HA: Yes, well, the thing was that you were only on the squadron for about six months really, in general you know, you don’t, you’re not gonna be on it for years and at that time you don’t get to know people all that well but because you’re, not really with the other squadron, the other crews, your, it’s your crew you were interested in
DK: Yes, yeah. So, you didn’t mix too much?
HA: Not all that much, no, we, as a crew we always stuck together and when went out socializing we always stuck together, we all had bikes you know, we just cycled down the pub, the Horse and Jockey at
US: Coningsby?
HA: No, The Horse and Jockey at, quite close to Waddington, Bracebridge Heath
DK: Bracebridge Heath. Yeah.
HA: Yeah
DK: Is it still there?
HA: Yeah
DK: Oh, right, I’ll have to go along to it at some point
HA: Yeah [laughs]
DK: See if they remember you [laughs]. So, looking at your logbook again then you got your first operation to Heilbronn?
HA: Heilbronn, yes
DK: Heilbronn, just for the benefit of the recording, H-E-I-L-B-R-O-N-N
HA: Yeah
DK: So, your bombs then are thirteen thousand pounds
HA: Yeah
DK: So, one
HA: One four thousand pounder
DK: Six
HA: Six one thousand pounders
DK: And six five hundred pounders
HA: Yeah
DK: So how did you feel after you’re done, after all this training and done your first operation?
HA: Oh, relieved I suppose, I managed to do one without getting shot down [laughs]. I mean the thing is lots of people joined the Air Force, they never managed to do very much because they got shot down on the first trip, you know, but to survive one tour [unclear] was very fortunate but Dinah’s father, he also was a navigator
DK: Alright.
HA: And he did eighty-three operations, oh, eighty-eight operations, he got, he was ordered a DFC and bar.
DK: What was his name?
US: Mayson
DK: Mayson, alright.
HA: M-A-Y-S-O-N.
DK: M-A-Y-S-O-N, I’ll make a note of that. Alright, so and he flew how many operations?
HA: Eighty-eight, I think it was.
US: I think it’s eighty-six, for all he said.
HA: Oh yeah, it’ll be eighty-six. Yeah, eighty-six.
DK: Can you recall which squadron he was in?
HA: Yes, [unclear] somewhere
US: I am not as old as Harry, so
HA: Not many are [laughs]
US: During the war, we stayed at home, he went and I didn’t really know an awful lot about it
HA: So, he was on Pathfinders as well, he flew on Lancasters, he flew on Mosquitoes,
DK: And so he was a pilot or?
HA: No, a navigator
DK: Navigator, sorry, navigator, yeah
HA: Actually I think he had the same sort of introduction to the RAF as I did, I think he used to wear an O badge, observer, observer was the same sort of thing as bomb and navigation which I did so I think we both did the same sort of course initially and then he went back onto navigation before I did
DK: Alright, and did eighty-three ops
HA: Yes, eighty-three ops. I think he did about thirty on Berlin
DK: Wow!
HA: [laughs]
DK: Ok, just for the benefit of the tape again, just going back to your logbook, so your second operation then, 6th of
HA: Giessen
DK: February 1944 to Giessen
HA: Yeah
DK: And there you got elven thousand pounds of bombs
HA: Yeah
DK: And that was twelve one thousand pounders
HA: Yeah
DK: An interesting one next so, the 8th of December, operations to the Urft Dam
HA: Yes
DK: U-R-F-T Dam
HA: Well, that’s in green, it’s daylight
DK: Daylight
HA: But it was clouded over, we didn’t
DK: Cause you got, it says here, eight thousand five hundred pounds, no bombs dropped
HA: Yeah
DK: And that was because it was
HA: Weather,
DK: Weather
HA: Couldn’t see the target
DK: No. Would that be normal then, if you couldn’t see the target you’d bring the bombs back?
HA: I don’t know if it would be normal, but we probably got recalled and it was probably said in the brief [unclear] did not jettison or something like that
DK: Oh, ok. And what was it like flying at night compared to day? Did you prefer one to the other?
HA: Oh yes, night flying was always a bit hairy because we went, you take off say from Waddington and it’s probably dark when you take off, you may well have seen the odd aircraft crash you know and you knew that it could be a bit dodgy taking off at night time with all that load of armament on board
DK: Yeah, and the petrol as well
HA: Yeah. Yeah
DK: Ok, so just going through this again then so you had another operation recalled here, so that’s the 10th of December 1944, operation recalled and then,
HA: Where was that to?
DK: It doesn’t actually, it just says, operation recalled
HA: How many hours did it do?
DK: Two hours forty-five
HA: They got started
DK: And then on the 11th of December 1944 it’s the Urft Dam again
HA: Yeah
DK: U-R-F-T,
HA: Again
DK: Ten thousand pounds, no bombs dropped
HA: Again [unclear]
DK: Ten tenth cloud. Ah, and then 18th of December 1944, operations to Gdynia. That was
DK: It’s in Poland, isn’t it?
HA: Yeah, bombing the German fleet which had taken position in Gdynia and we’re bombing them
DF: And that says thirteen thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds of bombs
HA: Yeah
DF: And it does actually say in pencil here, Poland bombing German fleet
HA: Yes, right.
DF: And it says landing FIDO
HA: Oh yeah, FIDO, that was, yeah, when we came back it was
DG: Fog
HA: Fog everywhere and we didn’t really know where we were too well and we were told to fly on dead reckoning and wondering whether we would be able to find anywhere to land because you couldn’t get in contact with people without the aerodromes like you could today, there was no VHF or UHF, it was HF, HF was short range communication and so, you know, it was sometimes very difficult to get in touch with people that could help you, so we were just flying along wondering what was going to happen whether we’d have to bail out or [unclear] because we couldn’t find anywhere to land when in the distance we saw a glow in the sky and we flew towards it and then when we got there we realized it was FIDO which is a method of dispersing the fog and we were able to get down and land
DK: That was petrol set like each side of the runway
HA: Yes, petrol, clean burning petrol which dispersed the fog
DK: I bet that was an impressive sight
HA: Oh, it was
DK: [unclear] [laughs]
HA: This was at Carnaby
DK: Carnaby, right, ok.
HA: And the
DK: Was it a bit of a relief to see that then?
HA: Oh, it was, yeah, and there were lots of other aircraft already managed to land on it, the whole aerodrome was covered in aircraft that had managed to get in
DK: So then, next operation then, 12th of December 1944, operations to Politz
HA: Politz, that’s an oil refinery, a big oil refinery
DK: And that was twenty thousand two hundred and fifty pounds of bombs
HA: Yeah
DF: So, one four thousand pounds and six one thousand pound bombs. So, then we’re into 1945 here, so 13th, I think that’s just 13th of January ‘45
HA: Yeah
DK: So, Politz again
HA: Yeah
DK: One four thousand pound bomb and fourteen five hundred pounds of bombs. And then 14th of January 1945, Wurzburg
HA: There’s an oil refinery
DK: Oil refinery again and then 1st of February ’45, Siegen
HA: Siegen, yeah
DK: S-I-E-G-E-N
HA: I don’t remember much about that
DK: And then 2nd of February ’45 operations to Karlsruhe
HA: Where? Karlsruhe? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah
DK: And then 13th of February 1945 operations to Dresden.
HA: Yeah
DK: So that was, it says here supporters,
HA: It means that we went around twice
DK: Right
HA: Because what it means is that you go in, drop your bombs and then to give support to those who were still coming in after you go round again, so that [unclear] far ahead [laughs]
DK: Alright. So that’s saying thirteen thousand seven hundred bombs, one four thousand pounder and elven, can’t quite read what that says,
HA: I’ll have a look
DK: Yeah. Is that incendiaries?
HA: Eleven cans, be eleven cans of incendiaries
DK: Eleven cans of incendiaries, right. Do you remember much about the Dresden raid?
HA: Well, yes, I suppose, I remember more than the rest because I suppose I probably brought it to mind because people keep talking about it [laughs]. As far as I was concerned, Dresden was just another town. I mean, I left school when I was fourteen, so I wasn’t all that well educated and Dresden, you know, was just another town
DK: Yeah, just another operation
HA: Yeah, another operation. I remember it because it did burn, I mean without a doubt it was a hell of a burn but
DK: So then 3rd of March 1945 operations to the Dortmund-Ems Canal
HA: Yeah
DK: So then, 5th of March ’45, operations to Bohlen
HA: Bohlen?
DK: B-O-H-L-E-N.
HA: Bohlen.
DK: Bohlen. And then 7th of March Harburg, 12th of March Dortmund, 14th of March Lutzkendorf
HA: Lutzkendorf, that’s another oil refinery
DK: And then it’s got, I notice you landed back at Alconbury
HA: Oh yes, yes
DK: Which was
HA: Oh, is an American base again was being in the fog or something like that we were being diverted there. I remember that because we were eating in the, I remember the soup in there was full of pepper [laughs] couldn’t possibly eat it and I said to this chap, why did you put that much pepper in this? He said, because I like it [laughs].
DK: Making taste, isn’t it?
HA: Yeah
DK: And then 20th of March ’45 Bohlen again, B-O-H-L-E-N. Then 22nd of March Bremen and then 27th of March Farge, F-A-R-G-E.
HA: Farge
DK: Farge, F-A-R-G-E. The war’s ended, are we? So, 4th of April Nordhausen.
HA: Nordhausen.
DK: Yes, 7th of
HA: Nordhausen was where they were firing the rockets from on London
DK: Oh, right. Would you, would you tell, can you recall if you were actually told about that, at the briefing
HA: Oh yes.
DK: What the target was?
HA: Oh yes. We were told what we were looking for, because these rockets that they were firing at London, they were coming out of woods and that sort of thing so they were extremely difficult to find, what we were looking for but they weren’t anywhere else you know and London was really getting a pasting with bombs and rockets
DK: The V2s
HA: Yeah
DK: Yeah
HA: Yeah.
DK: So, 7th of April, the operation seems to be recalled and then I can’t quite, it’s something 8th of April I think it is, operations to Lutzkendorf again
HA: Yeah
DK: And that’s a supporters as well
HA: Yeah
DK: So would that mean you’ve gone round
HA: Yeah
DK: Twice again
HA: Yeah
DK: Then there was fifteen thousand two hundred and fifty pounds bombs, one four thousand pounder and fourteen five hundred pounds. And then 23rd of April Flensburg, and it says no bombs dropped
HA: Yeah, well, the war was very nearly closed then, very near to close and I think that was probably the last, one of the last targets that were nominated for
DK: And then I see the next few flights then was Operation Exodus
HA: Yeah, that was
DK: After that
HA: Yeah, that was picking up prisoners of war, British prisoners of war and bringing them back to England.
DK: That must have been quite [unclear]
HA: Oh yes, yeah
DK: Yeah. What sort of shape were the POWs in?
HA: Oh, very poor shape, yeah. And then of course, I didn’t actually do any, but they were also dropping food to Holland at that time.
DK: So, you didn’t do any Operation Manna flights?
HA: No, no.
DK: And then you’ve got Cook’s Tour.
HA: Well, that was just a sort of swan around Germany to see what damage [unclear] you caused [laughs].
DK: And presumably that would’ve been the first time you’d seen the damage then, was that
HA: Well, you could see it in daylight, if you did the odd daylight trip, as we did, you would see [unclear]
DK: And did the Cook’s Tour event involve taking the people on the aircraft?
HA: Yeah
DK: The ground staff
HA: Yeah, yeah
DK: So you had a circular flight there
HA: Yeah
DK: Munster, Dusseldorf, Essen, Cologne, Munich, Glad, sorry, Monchen Gladbach, then back to base. So the war has come to an end then
HA: Yeah
DK: What did you do at that point then?
HA: I went to India
DK: Oh, right [laughs]
HA: In India they were going to demilitarize the Air Force there and most of the aircrew were [unclear] obviously they were the war [unclear] at a close but on the other hand there was, the fight was still going on with the Japanese so to some extent they wanted to have aircrew out in the Far East to take over bombing of Japan if
DK: Right
HA: If it became necessary. And we went to India with that intention but in fact what we did was to demilitarize the Air Force and we had to, the way we did it was to get the [unclear] in groups and take their uniforms and that sort of thing from them, pay them and organize transport for them to get back to home
DK: Alright. So it’s quite a different
HA: Oh, quite different altogether, yeah
DF: So, you weren’t considered to be flying out operations against Japan then?
HA: No
DF: No
HA: No. The only aircraft that we had that could possibly have done that was a Lincoln at that time
DF: Right
HA: But the Lincoln hasn’t actually been put on the squadrons at the end of the war, they never flew during the war on operations in England or in Europe rather.
DF: So, the war is ended, so it’s 1948 now and you’re
HA: I’m back from India
DF: India and then you’re going to number 2 ANS
HA: Yeah
DF: At Middleton Ste George. Was it, did you make a decision then to stay in the Air Force?
HA: Oh yes, yes, I applied to join before, I forget what years it was but eventually I was signed on till I was fifty-five. I didn’t serve until I was fifty-five because there was a Labor government in and they decided that they wanted to reduce the number of people into services and so there was a redundancy scheme offered and because we had three boys, we didn’t really want the family split up which would’ve been if I had carried on the Air Force, they’d had to go to school, [unclear] live in the school somewhere and I’d have to [unclear] somewhere
DK: And can you remember what year it was you left then?
HA: Yeah, I left in, what year was that?
DF: [unclear], ’49, ‘53,
HA: What year I left the Air Force? Oh, ‘69.
DK: ’69, right, yeah.
HA: Yeah, ’69.
DK: So, you’ve now trained as a navigator then
HA: Yeah, at Middleton St George
DK: Yeah. Let’s go through this, so, number 201 AFS
HA: And I was back then on Lancasters
DK: And Wellingtons by the looks of it
HA: Yeah was, yeah that was to crew up again
DK: Yeah
HA: Cause I’d been on a different crew
DK: And then 1949 Lancasters again with 149 Squadron
HA: Yeah
DK: At Mildenhall. And by this time, you are a fully-fledged navigator
HA: Yeah
DK: Yeah. So these, some of the last Lancasters built, aren’t they?
HA: [unclear] what?
DK: Some of the Lancaster here, they’d be quite old by this time
HA: Oh yes, they would, yeah
DK: [unclear] crew here now, 1949 so Lancasters
HA: And
DK: So you’re with 149 Squadron for quite a while then.
HA: Yeah
DK: ’49. Then to the Central Gunnery School
HA: Yeah
DK: Lancasters again
HA: That was to get a qualification as an instructor on [unclear]
DK: So 1950 then you’re now on the Avro Lincoln
HA: Yeah
DK: What did you think of the Lincoln compared to the Lancaster, was it?
HA: It was bigger, better armed, cannons on the front, machine guns, but I don’t think, they were just a bigger version, that’s all [unclear] Lancaster I suppose
DK: So, then it was number 44 Rhodesia squadron at Whitten
HA: Yeah
DK: That’s Lincolns again
HA: Yeah [unclear]
DK: And then the 149 Squadron, the Washington conversion unit
HA: Yeah
DK: And that’s August 1950
HA: Yeah
DK: And that’s at Marham
HA: Yeah
DK: So, what did you think of the Washington then?
HA: Oh, they were marvelous really cause they were, you fly unpressurised in them and they had a tube which ran from the front down to the back and you could actually bomb using radar equipment that was at the rear and you could actually guide the aircraft from the back
DK: Alright
HA: Using the radar target that you could see
DK: And that controlled the aircraft
HA: Yeah
DK: Is it true that B-29s had ashtrays?
HA: We didn’t [laughs]
DK: The Americans put ashtrays in the [unclear]
HA: I remember, we did use to smoke in there
DK: They had ashtrays. Were you impressed by the Washington then?
HA: Yes, yes, it was a big aircraft and carried a big load
DK: So, 149 Squadron again with Washingtons, right into 1951, so it’s mostly all training then
HA: Yeah, you could do the sort of flight you could do in a B-29 would last about sixteen hours
DK: Alright.
HA: When, there’s one in there, I think, sixteen hours we went there onto Africa and back non-stop
DK: You flew on the Washingtons for quite some time, didn’t you?
HA: Yeah.
DK: And this was all from the UK
HA: Yeah
DK: And then I see, so it’s 203 Squadron Coastal Command, then 236 OCU at Kinloss on the Neptunes
HA: Yeah
DK: So, what was the Neptunes like?
HA: It was good aircraft too, it was only two engines but it had [unclear] endurance, it did one time hold the record for endurance flying, the aircraft was called the reluctant turtle [laughs]
DK: That’s up to 1954 then when you
HA: Ah yes, I got commissioned in ‘54
DK: Ok, that’s, just one final question, just looking back at your time specifically with RAF Bomber Command in the war, how do you look back on that period now?
HA: I don’t think it ever, I mean, never, I don’t know, it never bothered me, you know, I read of some people getting bothered [unclear] about what you did and that sort of thing, it never bothered me, I mean, I was, I went through the Blitz in London, I was in the, we used to do fire watching and I remember London burning and when I was at, as a boy, you know, doing this office job as it were, we used to do at least one night a week fire watching and I can remember bomb was falling and terrific fires and we were putting these fires out, you know, and I remember one particular incident where sticker bombs fell into the water about a hundred yards away from us I think, but because they fell in the water there was no damage was done, you know, we didn’t get hurt but I mean, I had to [unclear] quite a lot from the Germans so I didn’t feel I was doing anything I shouldn’t do as far as I was concerned, I was defending my life and the life of my family.
DK: Ok, that’s great, we’ll stop there
HA: Ok.
DK: You’re absolutely marvelous. No, thank you very much for your time. It’s been wonderful, I think we covered everything.
HA: Ok [laughs].
DK: Just for the benefit, thanks very much for that.
HA: Do you
DK: There’s a notice here in the book. I thought you left the service at the time of the Neptunes but you went on, did you go onto the Shackletons after that?
HA: Yes.
DK: So you went to Guyana?
HA: Went to Guyana, yeah.
DK: And that’s cause it burnt down.
HA: Sorry?
DK: You said it was burnt down.
HA: Well the [unclear] Georgetown in Guyana was set on fire, yeah but the government decided, the British government decided they’d have to send troops out there
DK: Alright
HA: And so we carried the troops out there that meant these chaps we were taken out, had a very horrible journey because they had been taken from Ireland where we were based to [unclear], [unclear] down to Bermuda, Bermuda then out to Jamaica
DK: Right
HA: And then Jamaica to Guyana, all they had was a hard floor to lie on
DK: And that was on the Shackletons
HA: Yeah, you know, they didn’t have anything decent to lie on
DK: So what was the Shackletons like as aircraft [unclear]
HA: Well, they were really good aircraft, they did the job
DK: Yeah
HA: But I mean this was, they weren’t made for that sort of thing
DK: Yeah
HA: Carrying troops
DK: So, what was your normal role in Shackletons then?
HA: Again, I was first navigator on most of these trips.
DK: Alright. And that’s through the Cold War, isn’t it?
HA: Yeah
DK: You’re keeping an eye on the Russians.
HA: That’s right, yeah. And our sort of flying was, flying training was locating submarines and practice bombing them, that sort of thing
DK: Oh, right. Did you actually identify Russian submarines?
HA: Oh yes. Yes, you’d pick up a contact on radar and then you’d home into the contact and if you were lucky you’d probably find the submarine at the end, probably just diving, you know, realisng that it’d been found
DK: And would you make a dummy attack on it?
HA: Yeah
DK: Trying to go down
HA: There’s one trip we did in southern UK we came across about, well, I think there must have been about twenty Russian ships, a whole fleet in the Atlantic
DK: They didn’t ever fire on you then, did they?
HA: No, but they always turned their guns on us
DK: Alright.
HA: They were always pointing their guns at us.
DK: And you could see that [unclear]
HA: Yeah. We would never actually overfly them knowingly, just, we would just [unclear] round them
DK: So you went out to Rhodesia, was it Rhodesia then, wasn’t it?
HA: Yeah, we went down to South Africa
DK: Yeah
HA: And then I did quite a lot of flying from the Middle East when the [unclear] on
DK: Oman
HA: No, I’m sorry, my mind isn’t quite as quick as it should be. Cyprus
DK: Cyprus, yes, yeah.
HA: And then, there was some other in, where was that? Anyway, if you, it’s in that book
DK: Yes, it mentioned Oman here, yeah
HA: Yeah
DK: Yeah. And then later the government came along and [unclear] the redundancy
HA: Yeah, I joined Barclay’s bank then [laughs]
DK: So, you did almost twenty-seven years in the Royal Air Force
HA: Yeah
DK: And then ten years in Barclay’s?
HA: Twenty years
DK: Twenty years in Barclay’s. Oh right, ok. Good bank Barclay’s. [unclear] Ok, that’s great, I’ll [unclear], but thanks again for that.
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 Harry Algar
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
2017-05-20
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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AAlgarH170520, PAlgarH1701
Conforms To
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Pending review
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Format
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00:55:27 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
Harry Algar worked as an office boy at Hay’s Wharf in London before the war. He entered the Air Training Corps before joining the RAF when he was seventeen. Started his training on Tiger Moths but was then sent to Canada to remuster as a bomb aimer. Remembers travelling on the Queen Mary, where he was assigned to escort Winston Churchill, and his training in Canada on Ansons and Blenheims IV. After completing his training, he was posted to 463 Squadron (RAAF) at RAF Waddington. Describes his role and his duties as a bomb aimer. Remembers some of his operations: coming back from an operation to Poland targeting the German fleet, they encountered heavy fog and managed to land safely at Carnaby airfield thanks to the fog dispersal system; taking part at the Dresden operation on the 13th of February 1945; operation to Nordhausen on the 4th of April 1945 to disrupt V2 rocket launches on London. He took part in Operation Exodus. At the end of the war, was posted to India. After the war, he trained as a navigator and flew on Neptunes, B-29s and Shackletons. Remembers fire-watching as a little boy during the Blitz in London and tells of a bomb dropping a few hundred yards away from him, leaving him unscathed.
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Canada
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Dresden
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
149 Squadron
1660 HCU
29 OTU
463 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
Air Observers School
aircrew
Anson
B-29
Blenheim
bomb aimer
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Cook’s tour
FIDO
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lincoln
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Carnaby
RAF Swinderby
RAF Syerston
RAF Waddington
Shackleton
Stirling
Tiger Moth
training
V-2
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1084/11542/APriestR160720.2.mp3
028c0b3fc5531bd6f4b2df0d75d32ef0
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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Priest, Ron
R Priest
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Ron Priest (Royal Air Force). He flew operations as an air gunner with 149 and 635 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
2016-07-20
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
Priest, R
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DK: This is David Kavanagh for the International Bomber Command Centre interviewing Ron Priest at his home on the 20th of July 2016. If I just put that down there, it will pick us up. Yes, ok, so just going back, if I could start off then by start, just ask what were you doing before the war?
RP: Yes, well, when I left school, I went in, sixteen I suppose, I went into a local solicitor’s office as a shorthand typist [laughs]
DK: Really?
RP: I wasn’t very good at it but I think the principal wanted somebody there, just him and me, when he went out visiting clients and whatever, so I stayed there some many months, it was only a bus ride away from home so it was rather nice and I could get home for lunch.
DK: So where was home at the time then?
RP: Lewisham, Hither Green.
DK: Oh, I know.
RP: Whether you know that way or and then I, some of my mates were working in London getting what seemed to be enormous money but because I couldn’t get [unclear] so I said to the principal that I thought I’d like to leave if you know, [unclear], he said, well, what have you got in mind? I said, I’d think I’d like to work in London. He said, well, I know a friend of mine is a chartered accountant and I could speak to him about you if you thought so thank you very much, there was no animosity in my leave, [unclear], so in short I got the job, but it was a big firm for accountance, about five principles and I was the office boy answering the telephone and getting the cakes for tea for the ladies [laughs]. Well, I did that for some months and then I got on the audit staff, which pleased me, so it was a team of us that used to go round to various places and do their books you see, one of them was Bromley, Bromley borough council south east, and I went there with an audit staff, that was rather nice cause again it was a bus [unclear] away from home and then of course the war came about, more or less, and my brothers were evacuated, ok?
DK: Yes.
RP: And my mother joined them as well. She was in a nervous disposition and she was frightened about bombing and so forth because we’d had air raids at night and so forth, so they went down to Ewhurst in Surrey, near Cranleigh and father and I were left on our own, well, my father was a works manager working in [unclear] not far from where I was born [laughs] and I joined him cause he said, you’ll have to join up sooner or later, join me on the firm and I’m with you and you are with me and so forth, seemed a good idea, so that’s what I did and then it came along that late 1940 talking to me dad, he said, you’ll be conscripted soon, it was something like that and he thought of the horrors of the First World War.
DK: Your father had fought in the First World War.
RP: Yes, yes, he was in the, well, it wasn’t RAF then, I wonder what it was,
DK: Royal Flying Corps?
RP: Royal Flying Corps, yes, and he was in France, so I said, I’ll think you ought to volunteer for the Air Force, so that’s what I did, that was late 1940. I went down to, think, Rushey Green, the shopping area and enlisted in the office there, the recruitment people and of course I heard nothing for ages and I thought, well, I must go back to them, and then third of March, ok?
DK: Yes, ok.
RP: [laughs]
DK: To see if the numbers are going round, yeah, ok, yeah, sorry, sorry.
RP: The third of March 1941 I got a note to report to Uxbridge which you may have heard of [laughs]
DK: Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah.
RP: For aircrew medical, so I had that and passed ok and then went to work with my father and we came home and went back the next day and so and so and then I gained a few more months and I got a note to report to Lord’s Cricket Ground, aircrew reception, number one aircrew reception centre and so I reported there and that day we moved off to Babbacombe in Torquay so that was my introduction but oddly enough, although I wasn’t in the air force as such, my date of joining goes to 3rd of March 1941 [laughs], so that’s how it all came about and the first stop was Babbacombe football ground where we stepped under the stand and then we got kitted out and then walked to, walked, marched, walked to Torquay where we billeted, that was the start of ITW, Initial Training Wing, so that was that.
DK: At this stage, did you know what sort of training in the Air Force you were going to do?
RP: No. I passed for aircrew.
DK: Yeah, right, that’s all you knew at that time, just passing for aircrew.
RP: That’s right, aircrew and of course we walked to some school I suppose and had lessons there, aircraft recognition, Morse training, did that, and we did and drill of course, but drill on the sands of Torquay [laughs] when the weather was kind. And that was the early days you see but you don’t want me to go on with the history of
DK: Whatever you feel comfortable with.
RP: Alright.
DK: So from there on is it, it’s interesting to know how the training came about actually.
RP: Yes.
DK: Cause it’s an important part of story, if you think about it is to how you’ve gone from a civilian, you working in a clerk’s office and go over to them.
RP: Yes, yes, well, we finished at ITW, which is about six or eight weeks and then we were posted to elementary flying training school this was near Carlisle, where we continue with lessons and drill and so forth, aircraft recognition, Morse, navigation, these sort of things and started flying.
DK: So what would you’ve be flying in at that time? What type of aircraft?
RP: Tiger Moths.
DK: Right.
RP: Tiger Moth, no, not the Tiger Moth, I beg your pardon, a Magister, it was either Tiger Moth or Magister, so we went on to Magister which was a plain wing, Tiger Moth was a double wing, wasn’t it? So we did that, I had flying lessons, and then we were cut short and taken to Heaton Park in Manchester, [unclear] great place a holding unit and we were held there holding doing nothing except going down in the morning to the cinema, having your name called and coming home again until we got a ship to Canada.
DK: Right, ok.
RP: And Newfoundland and then Moncton, Moncton was on the news a few weeks ago, some unit first training there, anyway that was [unclear], so we spent several weeks at Moncton in Canada then we were posted down to Maxwell Field, Alabama.
DK: Oh wow! I guess this was your first time you’d left England then?
RP: Exactly.
DK: Was it a bit of a cultural shock, Canada and America?
RP: It was too, but I mean, I was eighteen, nineteen so if there was, it was educational naturally and it was interesting, terribly interesting so we boarded this train, I don’t think it was the Chattanooga Choochoo [laughs] we rode it quite a while to go to Alabama,
DK: Wow.
RP: Alabama, Maxwell Field, now the thing is that we were under the training of the American Army Air Corps, now they weren’t in the war and instead of being an RAF body at home as we’d started off, we were in the army air corps, so we really started initial training wing all over again, drill, marching, we did have recognition, aircraft recognition.
DK: So were you commanding officers there Americans?
RP: Yes.
DK: Right.
RP: Yes, but there was a liaison then, ref but I don’t it was very good actually [laughs] so that was rather good I shared very good billets, I shared a billet with three other chaps, one was Michael Rennie, the actor that was,
DK: Alright.
RP: He got through, stayed up there as an instructor but and two other chaps, the police force at that time were releasing men to go into the forces and these three boys were ten years older than me, I was the sprog you know, I was really a nuisance to them if I might say it but I will just relate that we off the morning, about six thirty, we reckoned to be outside with the band to take us to the mess for breakfast, rather comical really, it was only from, no distance, two hundred yards [laughs]
DK: Was it an American Air Force band, was it an American Air Force?
RP: Yes, oh yes. And of course we filed into the dining room one by one and stood behind the chair until we got an order to sit. Yes. Very rigid army air corps as it was, you see, they weren’t in the war and we were conforming which was a bit nuisance really, as it turned out. So we were there some weeks, doing what we’ve done before in England initial training, marching up and down and so forth, but some aircraft recognition and things like that but all very involved because it was their peace time. We were in their peacetime arrangement you see and this was the real [unclear]. From there I got posted to Florida, Arcadia in Florida for flying trading on Stearmans which was a heavier aircraft than the Magister and I couldn’t cope with it, it was too much for me and I got what was called washed out, now dozens of us got washed out, which was a great mistake because we might well have gone on under wartime conditions in the air force, in the RAF but we ran the army air corps, the American, so I got washed out, came back to Canada after weeks [laughs] doing nothing and then it was a question of remustering, doing something else, well I thought, goodness knows how long I’ve been doing nothing really so I took the course as an air gunner, about twelve weeks.
DK: This was in Canada.
RP: In Canada, Mountain View. And I went through the course and passed out. Then I was hanging around again before we went to Newfoundland and then came home on the boat of course. Going out we were sprogs and we were in hammocks and a lot of people slept on the deck. We weren’t escorted, we just went cause it was a big ship, and coming back it was different because we were sergeants, so we had a cabin, did we, or shared a cabin,
DK: Luxury.
RP: Pardon?
DK: Luxury.
RP: [laughs] so we got back here and then one of the next things was to go to elementary flying training school and there we got crewed up, very haphazard arrangement as you may know, you just said, oh, that chap looks like a nice bloke over there [laughs]
DK: How did you feel about that way of crewing up, where everybody just got together and you formed your own crews [unclear]?
RP: It worked out in a whole, it worked out and it worked out for us.
DK: Cause it’s quite unusual, it’s not a military thing to do when [unclear]
RP: No, it isn’t, but on a whole it worked out. And I don’t know of any units where they crewed up in that way where it didn’t work actually, so the upper gunner and me, we looked around, we went over to this pilot and said, would you be looking for two gunners? And I think he had a look at us and yes ok, so we crewed up and from there we went to Stradishall with Stirlings.
DK: Can you remember the name of the pilot that you crewed up with?
RP: Yes. Bernard North.
DK: Bernard North.
RP: Bernard North. I met him a lot after the war and I was with him the week he died in hospital. We were quite very good friends, so we crewed up and he’d been trained on Wellingtons I think, so Stirling was his first thing.
DK: Right, so you got to Stradishall then.
RP: That’s right.
DK: And that was what? The heavy conversion unit?
RP: That’s right.
DK: Yeah.
RP: That’s right. And
DK: So what, was that your first time you saw a Stirling?
RP: That’s right.
DK: What was your impression as when you saw it?
RP: Well, I thought it looked a handsome aircraft and I still do.
DK: Yeah, [unclear] pictures on the wall.
RP: Yes.
DK: They are saying there are still none around, isn’t it?
RP: Sorry?
DK: It’s just a shame that none exist anymore.
RP: Oh, that’s right, that’s right. I’ll give you a story about that one later on perhaps if you.
DK: Yes, definitely.
RP: So from there we were posted to 149 Squadron in May 1943 and when you consider that our official starting date in the Air Force was March 1941, it was two years and I’d done so and so all, do you follow me?
DK: Yeah, yeah. It’s a long period of time.
RP: That’s right. It was good fun in a way because I got numerous leaves and well, before I tell you about those, that was very good but that’s how we started off.
DK: So where was 149 Squadron based at this time?
RP: It was based at Lakenheath, it’s now leased at the American, big long run way which was needed. Yes, so that’s where we started our operations. We did, I did twenty five
DK: Right. All on Stirlings?
RP: That’s right. And I, we had a nasty trip on the last trip as it turned out and I went into hospital and when I came out, was back for duty again the CO said, well, you’re finished flying, Priest, you’ve done twenty five and we’ve cut the strip down from thirty trips to twenty five.
DK: Right, ok.
RP: They were losing so many Stirlings that it was pretty soppy, anyway that’s by the by. So I didn’t do any more flying then and then I went to Chipping Warden near Banbury as an instructor and that’s the way it went.
DK: So when you were in your role then as a gunner, what exactly was that? What was your role in there? You’re there on an operation, so you’re obviously the lookout then for.
RP: Yes, that was it you see, I liked being at the rear turret and flew most of my trips in the rear turret at the
DK: So you could choose then, you could
RP: The other gunner wasn’t very keen and he got rather nervous, if I may say that, he kept thinking he saw fighters coming when they weren’t there. So, this may I say, displeased the pilot a bit, so he went into the mid upper and I went into the rear one, I preferred that oddly enough because with the mid upper you were, half of your body was out in fresh air and you could fall [laughs]
DK: So you felt kind of safer in the rear turret?
RP: I did. Oddly enough, oddly enough, but of course if it came to an emergency, you’ve got to open the doors, slid them back, your parachute was hanging on a thing there, gotta get your parachute, you put it on all this time you see but then was the way it was, now I’ll just tell you about my last trip then. I could have made these notes but some of them are not too relevant. Yes, it was a trip to Hanover, it was my last trip twenty five, and we went out ok and over the target, well first of all, yes, over the target area, we got coned by searchlights and that’s a frightening thing cause it lights up the aircraft so you put all the bombs on the [unclear] and the pilot sensibly and very knowledgeably stalled the aircraft, we went down to, from fourteen thousand feet, which was ceiling at the Stirling, ours anyway I mean, the Lancs were up at twenty six, twenty eight and we stalled, levelled out to four thousand feet, now the thing is that we were well off course and the bomb aimer and navigator had to work together to get us back on course which we did but when we got into the target area it was all very quiet, in other words the main force had gone, we were on our jet jones but there were no anti-aircraft guns or fighters or anything like that
DK: So it was completely quiet over the city then?
RP: That’s right, it was fortunately, I think the fighters didn’t follow us down from the coned aircraft cause they thought we’d gone four thousand, down to four thousand feet quickly, anyway we had to climb up again to bomb to fourteen thousand feet which [unclear] up time and eventually we set course for home, we just about cleared the Alps for five thousand feet I mean Mount Blanc is fifteen and a half thousand feet and you could see over there [laughs] anyway we started homeward and we came across a Ju 88 going the other way. And we kept our head still, I think he did as well over the mountains we didn’t want to get into combat so we sensibly kept going, you see, and that was ok. Afterwards when we had our debriefing, we got chocked off about that, you should have engaged him, anyway my pilot said, so were it for you sir [unclear] [laughs] anyway now then we’ve come to the nitty-gritty, we get to the French coast to come home and I think it’s a known fact that when the crews got there they thought oh ok, famous last words [unclear] because you got to go over the North Sea and I was [unclear] to death about the North Sea, you think black’s black don’t you? But looking down there, you couldn’t see the sea, it’s just blackness, I was frightened, more frightened at that than anything else, frankly, anyway we were proceeding to come over the coast and over the sea we got attacked by two fighters, one, there was a second pilot coming for his first flight with us to get experience, he got his leg damaged from a shell and my pilot, who was actually flying the aircraft, had a shell land between his legs and go into the control column but it didn’t do any more damage than that but what happened was that, I was a mid-upper gunner this trip, one of the shells shattered my Perspex cover and I just got fresh air all around me. Well I fired because with the 303s you got to wait for the fighter to get in range to start with cause he’s got cannons, don’t he, you see [laughs]. We both fired at the one and he dived away underneath and then the other one came in and we fired again and so forth and he dived underneath. What happened to it I don’t know, we never saw it again. And we came home then, eight and a half hour trips, landed at Boscombe Down short of fuel, well we had to do that dive down to four thousand feet and then climb up again and got lost a bit, didn’t we, you did follow me?
DK: Yeah.
RP: Sorry, you chose, so we stayed there. But when I got out the aircraft, one of the crew said to me, what’s the matter with your eye, Ron? What’s the matter with your left eye? I said, I don’t know, [unclear], it’s alright, it was alright, ball of blood, and what had happened, well, the paramedics were there and I got into the ambulance quite straight away, took me to Ely hospital and as it turned out I got two pinheads, a fleck or whatever in my eye, miraculously missing the iris and I was in Ely hospital for ten days and eventually was the fact that two pieces were taken out with a giant magnet that came down on my head and then I came back to the squadron and that’s when the governor said, well, you’ve finished there, you’ve done twenty five, you’ve produced the tour and that was the end.
DK: So by that point your crew split up then, did they?
RP: Yes, but I kept in touch with my pilot, Bernard North and visited several times, at Chiswick where he lived and went to see him when he was in hospital and he died there unfortunately but anyway
DK: That’s a shame. Is that fairly recently
RP: Oh no, it’s going back fourteen years, yes, yes.
DK: Ok, right. So how did you feel when you were told, no more operations, were you?
RP: Well, I was quite pleased quite frankly because the last incident had more than bothered me if you know what I mean, I thought we were so near death and we were terribly short of petrol as well, I mean, Bernard North did a wonderful job of getting us to Boscombe Down, it’s on the coast you see, an RAF station there, you may know, so that was the worst day of the trip.
DK: Was that the only time you fired your guns in anger or was it?
RP: Yes, it was, it was.
DK: And that was, sorry, that was Hanover, was it?
RP: Yes, Hanover, yes.
DK: Can you remember the dates that was of the [unclear]
RP: Here, yes, [unclear] somewhere.
DK: Just for the record.
RP: Yes, quite so, excuse me aminute.
DK: That’s ok.
RP: 27th of September 1943.
DK: Ok.
RP: Yes. Our last stop the tour with Stirlings had been reduced from thirty to twenty five. It’s an odd thing that our aircraft that we flew in about fifteen times EF4711, it’s one of these.
DK: Ah.
RP: It’s on the ground, it might be that one.
DK: Alright.
RP: And if you can see it, I can’t properly.
DK: So, EF
RP: EF4711.
DK: That’s EF411
RP: Yes.
DK: That one.
RP: That’s it. I think it’s that one.
DK: Yeah. EF411.
RP: That’s the aircraft. Now that is reputed to have done over sixty, near seventy operations.
DK: Right.
RP: It was the only, that was the highest one on 149 Squadron.
DK: Was that the one where the incident happened at Hanover?
RP: Yes, yes, yes.
DK: Alright. So, you’re in the mid upper turret.
RP: That’s right.
DK: Yeah.
RP: And, it was flying originally at Mildenhall.
DK: Right.
RP: And then it came to us and we did about fifteen in it. And it went on to do nearly seventy ops.
DK: Good. So apart from Hanover then, what were your other targets?
RP: Well, yes, most of the targets were in the Ruhr.
DK: Right.
RP: Short trips, if I can say that, three and a half, four hours, Essen, Dusseldorf, Dortmund, the like, and almost uneventful if I may say, you could always hear the shells on the aircraft, like ice
DK: Yeah.
RP: You know, ice dropping from the sky, but [unclear] we were never bothered by fighters, ever, before, no. But I just got something as an aside here, it was a [unclear] factory by the way that we were bombing. On the 9th of August ’43 it was arranged that we were to welcome a group of RAFC cadets to fly with us on a routine air test, one of the group had been allowed to M for Mother which was our aircraft and he stood with us at the dispersal, waiting to board, at this moment we watched flight sergeant Cummings take-off on his air test with another cadet, he took off and with increasing horror he lost power, struggled to maintain height over a forest area, finally thus scanning the tree tops, he stood on his tail and went into ground. All were killed. Now, Bernard North said to our cadet who’d watched it, we’ve all watched it, that’s not gonna happen to us, it’s very, very rare indeed, I’ve never seen it happen before but if you don’t want to come with us we’ll understand. So he said, yes, I’d like to go and he did and Bernard congratulated him on sticking it out, being plucky. Now an odd thing, an aside to that is some years afterwards, good few years afterwards I had a call from a Mister Cummings in France, the father of the pilot and actually the official record of it is that it was pilot error and he said to me, what can you tell me about my son’s aircraft and the crash? I said, well, and of course some time elapsed for all this you see, so I said, well, we were watching what happened, and it’s our opinion and certainly mine that it wasn’t pilot error, it was a mechanical failure. Now the records don’t show that but I thought it would be rather nice to tell him so he said, oh thank you very much Mr Priest, that’s very kind of you. So I said, well, don’t bother about it anymore, your son wasn’t seriously involved in the mishap, well, he died but I mean, it wasn’t his fault, it wasn’t his fault, I thought that was rather good. Oh, further episode of that trip to, the last trip to Hanover,
DK: Ok [unclear].
RP: Yes, we landed without further incident, that’s after the fighter, and at debriefing he CO was critic that we did not seek contact with the Ju 88, next day the bombing leader of the bombing section congratulated Bernard on being alive. So he said to him, why do you say that for? So he said, we found no photograph of your target but we did find the flare that should have gone out lying in the back of your aircraft, when you stalled the flare, when you stalled the plane the flare actually [unclear] slid vertically out of the chute and landed on [unclear] and there was a, it was a rotating thing, he said, on inspection it was found that the vibration and [unclear] had caused the projector on the flare to rotate, when you left the aircraft, there were just three more revolutions before it [unclear], it was the aircraft so I just [laughs].
DK: So who said you should have engaged the Ju 88?
RP: The CO at the debriefing, the debriefing.
DK: Ah right. Cause I was always under the impression you weren’t supposed to do that unless they engaged you because you are drawing attention to yourself.
RP: Well quite right, it was only fifty yards away.
DK: Yeah, and if he’s not bothering you
RP: Yeah.
DK: You don’t want to draw attention to yourself.
RP: Well, this is what the CO said cause Bernard was quite upset about it
DK: Not surprised.
RP: And we were over the [unclear] Alps and I was, it was majestic flying over the Alps but when you consider that our ceiling was fourteen thousand feet, it wasn’t very much to spare and I kept thinking, crickey, if anything happens to us now but there are no more fighters, do you see?
DK: Yes. How did you feel about the Stirlings though because of their lack of ceiling [unclear] the Lancasters were at ten thousand feet above you?
RP: Well, yes I know, well of course it was really a pilot thing really, Bernard liked the aircraft, he didn’t initially, Bernard my pilot, he liked the aircraft and I think he was quite attached to it but it was very nosey, there’s a big long nose on it, I liked it very much. I did fly in Lancasters later on but I liked it but it got, it stood very tall of course and the undercarriage was suspect and very often that was a cause of accidents taking off or landing.
DK: Yeah. So on a normal operation then, how did that work during the day? Did you know in the mornings that you’d be flying that night or?
RP: Yes, cause you’d go to a briefing you see and you’d wonder what was [unclear] [laughs] what’s it got to be, I never did go to Berlin, I’m not, but it was mainly the Ruhr, about nine trips to the Ruhr, three or four hours, which was rather good in a way but it was pretty sweaty over the Ruhr, Essen, Krupsworks and so forth, all the way down the Ruhr, the Rhine, these factories and where all the industry was.
DK: So just before the mission then, your crews got together and then you go out to the aircraft and
RP: That’s right, well, you have a good breakfast to start with [laughs], a good meal and you go out to the aircraft and for a certain time etcetera and then you are signalled off one by one, quite a sight to see them all lined up and taxing and ready.
DK: And did you see much of other aircraft at night or [unclear]?
RP: No, actually never did and very often I was, chaps reported they saw aircraft burning or it’s another one down here but I never did, I never did, maybe fourteen thousand feet, we were below what was happening further up, you see, I don’t know, cause the Halifax couldn’t get up to the ceiling of the Lancaster but again he got well above us, yes. There’s one here, I’m not sure of the date and target but the weather closed in and some seventy aircraft crashed on return, many being diverted from base, it was thought that conditions at Lakenheath were just about ok and we prepared to land in patchy visibility plus low cloud and mist. On the final approach Bernard lost sight of the runway and he gained the height and clipped, [unclear] the height and clipped the top of bordering trees, the undercarriage seemed intact and we didn’t know at the time [unclear] and we made a good landing, unfortunately Bernard found the trees had affected his brakes and contact with the trees had severed the brake candles, the brake cables, we must have swing off the end of the runway at speed and we careened round the perimeter [laughs], fortunately missing parked aircraft and other vehicles. It then still being in one piece and called the flight control who said [unclear] get off the air! There are others there trying to get down and in more trouble than you. Who said the words [laughs]
DK: Yeah.
RP: It was a [unclear] factory that we were going to Turin. Three days later we went again, I think only Stirlings went on that, about two hundred aircraft.
DK: That would be a long trip to Turin.
RP: Eight and a half hours, that was the longest one, the first one was a bit less than that but it was eight hours yes. I think that’s about it.
DK: Yeah, ok. So after your twenty five operations then you went, you were training?
RP: Yes, you went off as an instructor.
DK: Instructor
RP: All the crew did that, whether you’re a pilot or a navigator, you were posted to an operational training unit to give your experiences to would coming air gunners or navigators or
DK: So you were instructing new gunners then.
RP: Yes, that’s right, yes, Silverstone
DK: Silverstone. Yeah.
RP: Silverstone.
DK: What were you flying on while you were doing your
RP: Wellingtons. Yes.
DK: So how did you feel about having all trainees?
RP: Well, I felt responsible in a way but I never told them details, I never told anybody details [laughs] but you just got on with it and you wondered what might happen to them but well, that was the way it went, you see.
DK: So you were training, you were instructing, sorry, at the war’s end.
RP: Yes. Well, no, the war was still on then, but perhaps foolishly I don’t know I palled up with a good pilot at Silverstone while instructing and I think, like so many aircrew that had done a tour, they wanted to get back again, which was pretty soppy and of course some of them did another tour, some of them didn’t. Some of them went and did, our wireless op, went on special duties and he died some years ago, long time ago and I read his obituary in the paper, ninety three ops he did all together cause he did five, twenty five with us and then dropping supplies and agents and so forth. Pretty arduous really cause you couldn’t hang about long when you got down to let the men out or pick somebody up
DK: Can you remember his name, the wireless operator?
RP: Rowley.
DK: Rowley.
RP: Rowley. He was a printer in the old-fashioned way.
DK: Yeah.
RP: Printer, Sid Rowley, yes.
DK: So you met up with his pilot at Silverstone.
RP: Yes. I did [laughs] We were going to do another tour. So he was a Wellington man and he hadn’t been on Stirlings or Lancasters so we had to go on a course, we all went on this course, we picked up other navigator and bomb aimer and so forth and we went up to North Lincolnshire for, Wigsley, North Lincolnshire to a course on Lancasters cause he hadn’t flown Lanc and then we went down to 635 Squadron which was the sister squadron of 617 actually but that’s by and by and we were operational then, flying all together operational training, and then the bomb was dropped but we were part of the Tiger Force, Tiger Force to go and bomb Japan.
DK: So what was your feelings when you knew the war ended rather suddenly and you weren’t going out to the Far East? How did you feel about that?
RP: Well, really, I was quite relieved, quite relieved, and then of course, with so many aircrew not needed any more, we went up to a station called Burn near Selby which [unclear] the weeks on end being interviewed as to what we might be suitable for and because I’d been in accountance, I went on an accountance course, I’ve got commissioned by the way while I was on the squadron cause I went on a gunnery course and did very well. And they said, well you Priest, we haven’t got a lot of commissioned air gunners, we want to put you anyway [unclear], anyway I took it on. But greatly relieved when the big bomb was dropped and that was it you see. But we got to Burn and we had wait there and hang about, have interviews, see what we might be suitable for and I was put to accountance and then end of January I got, I was due for demob more or less in the August, so I was quite amazed to get an overseas posting and we were going to get married at Easter [laughs] and I was posted to North Africa, Cairo initially at group headquarters and then went up to a little station called Benina, Benina in Libya, Libya, and I was accountant officer there for some many months, perhaps nearly a year and then I got re-stationed at El Adem, which was Gaddafi’s principal airport, a very lovely place, specially built, well, Italians specially built billets and so forth, and I did that until I eventually got demob leave and came home, demobbed in [unclear] 2nd August [laughs].
DK: So what was your career after the RAF then?
RP: Yes, that was very thoughtful, yes. Well, I mean, I spent six years in the Air Force, I was only a glorified good office boy before I went in but I went for a couple of jobs and I could have got either one and I decided on one which was to work for the Co-operative Permanent building society, that was what it was called then, changed its name to Nationwide later on and I got taken on there as a clerk cashier and worked on head office counter which was rather prestigious actually at New Oxford House not far from Holborn tube station and from there I went to Portsmouth and then to Chester as assistant manager and then to Peterborough, my own branch which eventually was engulfed in a fire, we’d only been in it seven months, terrific fire, got the photographs and I stayed in Peterborough quite a time cause I had changes of office, moved about and I found a very nice place on Long Causeway which was being vacated by what was then almost a supermarket, Home and Colonial I think it was, and I told my people that this property was available to us, it was opposite the opening to Queensway, the internal thing so it was well positioned, Long Causeway, do you know Peterborough?
DK: Yes.
RP: Not too. [unclear] Not been here [unclear]
DK: Getting to die better.
RP: Yes, so I got this, I found this spot being vacated and I wrote to my people, in touch with my people and said this will make a good office, situation, location from where we are now, that was after the fire and my governor, the big man came down and walked around it, there was a big area at the back for parking of cars and there was a letting available upstairs and he said, it’s over four hundred pounds at that price, the board will never pay that, they’ll never, anyway they did and it’s a very popular office now although I say I got in there and we worked it up and then eventually our last seven years I went to Luton and was manager there with Dunstable and Hitchin and [unclear] as well and I didn’t like Luton very much but anyway it was financially ok and promotion that’s where I stayed for seven years and then retired 1984 [laughs].
DK: So after all these years then, looking back on your period in the RAF, particularly in Bomber Command, how do you feel about it looking back now?
RP: Yes. Well, I, I know you see I was involved with the Hamburg bombing, three times in four nights, Hamburg, and I mean, it is quite an effort to get there and do any bombing, let alone whatever. I reflected and my pilot did of all the people we’d killed, certainly in Hamburg, and I was sorry about that but I felt I’d made a contribution, you see, my daughter said to me, when you’re sitting in the turret and whatever and so, what are you thinking about? Well I said, I was excited, I was,
DK: Ok. Just make sure that we got enough tape there.
RP: [laughs] I said I was excited as a young man and you were thrilled because you thought I had to do, bomb, they bombed Coventry and [unclear] didn’t they? [laughs] So I was pleased with what I’ve done although I regret it. The terrible tragedy of killing so many people because it developed in the end of 1943 into area bombing, the idea was of course to frighten the death out of the population which never occurred, the same with the Battle of Britain, you know, people at home, [unclear], you know, didn’t they? Sorry all this [laughs]
DK: It’s ok. Alright, it’s alright. No, ok, still going, yeah, ok.
RP: So, I was pleased with my performance and when I look back on it and I’ve written my life story and given it to Angela, it’s short of certain material that I ought to remember, I’ve remembered but it is my own hand writing, she talks about getting it printed.
DK: Is Angela your daughter?
RP: Yes.
DK: Right, ok.
RP: But I felt, no, I don’t want it, it’s for my daughter, but particularly for my grandson and my great granddaughter cause know something about me, so I’m happy about that.
DK: So were you on all of the Hamburg raids or?
RP: Yes, well the Americans went there during the day, just to make matters worse or whatever.
DK: So you went on three
RP: Three in four nights, that’s pretty sweaty, three in four nights but of course it was a terrible thing, I mean we carried incendiaries in the main, in the [unclear] but of course as you probably know there was a very hot, humid day like we’ve had here the last three days and the wind got up and aggravated the fires, there was some massive firestorm right through the city, terrible, people dying in the streets, so we were told.
DK: But you wouldn’t have been aware of this at the time though [unclear]
RP: Oh no, oh no, no, no.
DK: And when you are having these briefings before the operation
RP: Yes.
DK: Was it clear as to what your targets were, was it like the centre of the city or
RP: Oh yes, oh yes, well, we were given
DK: They were quite up front about you hitting the city
RP: Yes, well, yes they were quite up front what the aiming point was, oh yes, it’s a very full briefing and of course you got the route mapped out to avoid fighters and so on and so forth, didn’t always work cause on the Nuremberg raid, which I wasn’t on thank goodness, we’d lost nearly a hundred aircraft, we lost over ninety on the occasion itself, let alone what we lost landing and all that, that was terrible, badly arranged.
DK: Was a straight line, was in straight, directly
RP: Well no, and up front you see, they were diversion raids, a small force would attack something near the target or just off the line of the target to induce people to, the enemy to think that’s where it was gonna be, you see, where it was, it’s gonna be there.
DK: So the Hamburg raid then, that was the first time they used Window, wasn’t it?
RP: Yes it was, it was.
DK: So do you remember anything about the drops of Window?
RP: Well, that was, the wireless op sent Rowley to drop the Window every so often and
DK: Was it explained to you before the Hamburg raid what Window would do?
RP: Oh yes, exactly, what it was going to do and it worked.
DK: Disrupt the radar.
RP: And it worked subsequently afterwards. I think we got it in mind for some time but we were frightened that the Germans would use it back on us because it wasn’t, you know, it was an understandable exercise these strips of paper, like making a Christmas decoration, you know, like that, [unclear], all in bundles, I’ve chucked it out and
DK: So when it came to the third Hamburg raid, how did you feel about that when you were going again?
RP: Well, it was a rotten night and I don’t’ think we should have gone because the damage had been really done and of course usually after a raid Mosquitoes go over and take photographs so we jolly well knew what we’d done, so I think it was superfluous really and it was a rotten night for weather and I know we got caught in an electrical storm, [unclear] lights flashing all over the aircraft, which frightened one a bit [laughs], yes.
DK: So you look back now, you said you spoke to your pilot about looking back at the
RP: Oh yes.
DK: What was his feelings on
RP: Oh, his feelings were deeper than mine, he regretted a lot of the raids that he went on, I mean when you went to, we went to France a couple of times, Montlucon, which was a Dunlop rubber factory, I mean, that’s what you were going for, you know that was understandable you see but the area bombing, in other words if anything got in our way, it was hard luck, wasn’t it?
DK: Yeah.
RP: I’ m afraid to say that. Yes.
DK: Ok.
RP: I’ve said enough.
DK: I was gonna say, I could listen to you for hours but I’m
RP: Oh, I’ve had a year, I’ve had an hour.
DK: I’m more concerned about yourself but let’s, I’ll stop it there if that’s ok.
RP: Yes. I’ve got one or two things perhaps to show you.
DK: Ok, 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 Ron Priest
Creator
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David Kavanagh
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
2016-07-20
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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APriestR160720
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:57:52 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
Ron Priest worked in accountancy before the war and then served as a rear gunner, flying twenty five operations with 149 Squadron from RAF Lakenheath all on Stirlings. Describes his training in England, Canada and the United States, under the American Army Air Corps; a first-hand account of a crash landing; dogfights over the North Sea; witnessing a plane crash, initially attributed to pilot error, but later on confirmed to be caused by a mechanical failure. Remembers his last operation to Hanover, where they crossed an enemy aircraft on their way back without engaging it in combat and being reprimanded for that later at the debriefing. Remembers flying three operations on Hamburg in four nights and expresses his views on area bombing. Mentions the use of Window in the Hamburg operation. Remembers being posted at the end of the war to Libya, where he served as an accountant officer. Tells of his life after the war.
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Spatial Coverage
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Canada
Germany
Great Britain
United States
Alabama--Montgomery
England--Northamptonshire
England--Suffolk
Florida--Arcadia
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hannover
Florida
Alabama
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941-03-03
1943-09-27
149 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
crash
crewing up
Heavy Conversion Unit
Magister
perception of bombing war
RAF Lakenheath
RAF Silverstone
RAF Stradishall
Stearman
Stirling
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1113/11603/PSaunstonFR1701.1.jpg
ca99bc450ba7136ba5c937a1abc3cc8f
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1113/11603/ASaunstonFR170522.2.mp3
a4ce3e36837e8676e9a26f29cb7f3ed4
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
Saunston, Frank
Frank R Saunston
F R Saunston
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Frank Stanston (b. 1925). He helped to pack supplies for Operation Manna.
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
2017-05-22
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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Saunston, FR
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 for the International Bomber Command Centre talking to Frank Staunton at his home on the 22nd of May. That’s ok.
US: I’ll show you these afterwards.
DK: Yeah, I can have a look now, that’s ok. I’ve got the recording going so, I’ll just leave that there. Alright, oh, ok. So, that’s from the Dutch, isn’t it?
US: Yeah.
DK: That’s the Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
US: Yes
DK: That’s a contribution to Manna and then Operation Manna there. So, that’s the Manna Association, isn’t it?
US: Yes. It has something to do with Lincoln?
DK: Yes, oh yes, yes, all aspects of Bomber Command, the groundcrews,
US: Yes
DK: The bombing campaign and the Operation Manna and that sort of thing
US: Oh, just I didn’t realise the date was on it till just now.
DK: Yeah
US: The 20th of April to the 8th of May 1945.
DK: [unclear], isn’t it?
US: Yeah, yeah and that came with
DK: The medal as well. Ok.
US: Yes, and he got the medal and he had to wear that one [unclear] on parade
DK: Right, ok.
US: Yeah, yeah.
FS: Fifty years afterwards
DK: Better, better late than never
FS: Pardon?
DK: Better late than never.
US: Yes was quite [unclear] in that case
DK: Lovely, lovely [unclear] medal, isn’t it?
US: Yeah, that is lovely.
DK: Yeah
US: [unclear]
FS: [unclear] now, that’s the only one in 149 Squadron and 662 cause anybody’s got one
DK: Really?
FS: Yeah, cause I’ve been on the Mildenhall register
DK: Right
FS: And the man at the Mildenhall register didn’t know anything about it and I told him what it was for and he said, well, nobody else has got one
DK: Ah, right. Can I just ask, to start with, what were you doing immediately before the war?
FS: Sorry?
DK: What were you doing immediately before the war?
FS: I’ll start from the beginning.
DK: Yes, sure, please, yes
FS: When I left school, I left school in August 1939 and I had various jobs before I got a job as a garden assistant at [unclear] and while I was there the local ATC started on the 14th of May 1941 I joined the local squadron 1406 [unclear] Holbeach when it was formed I was interested in going into the Air Force and so I volunteered to join the RAF in 1942 and I went and had a medical and passed the medical and they said they would call me when they needed me and so I had to wait until I think it was about November 1943 when they said, we’ll call you up on and sent me a date of the 12th of January 1944 and so I joined the RAF and I went down to ACRC in London and did all the kitting and all the main and drilling and that sort of thing but because I was a local boy and I didn’t go to grammar school, my education wasn’t quite the standard that was required, so they sent me on a training course at Liverpool to 19, number 19 PACT it was called, Pre Air Crew Training Course where we spent six months in the Liverpool College of Commerce and at Liverpool [unclear] Street Technical College and together with the training, initial training, drilling and all that sort of thing, that lasted six months. After six months we went back down to St John’s Wood where we was reassessed, well, I was down to pilot, navigator, bomb aimer but they, the actual medical side to do with the pilot side of it was that my legs weren’t long enough. So, because, they said my legs weren’t long enough and they didn’t want any navigators and they got no call for bomb aimers, would I take a second job and as and because I had a very good aptitude I was selected to become an air gunner but they didn’t want any air gunners, so they sent us on a course, training course down at Babbacombe, Paignton and Torquay and after we’ve been down there for three months they said, well, they couldn’t really feed, they couldn’t really afford to feed us, they needed people in other jobs, would we take another job? So, we said, yeah, well, what are they? And they said, well, you can go clerk GD, general duties or you can become a transport driver because we are short of vehicle drivers so I said, I wanna go for that one , cause I thought, I might as well ride the [unclear] [laughs]. Anyway we went on the course down at Melksham in Wiltshire and it lasted eight weeks and in eight weeks’ time, you had to learn to drive all the vehicles that the RAF had and my last job was to drive the Queen Mary which was sixty some odd foot long. I left there and was posted to Peplow in Shropshire where we used to start the tractors for the WAAFs in the morning cause Peplow at that time was training glider pilots for Arnhem and D-Day and because we were doing this course, we stayed with them until that course ended and when it ended they transferred me down to Methwold in Norfolk and that was on Bomber Command where 149 and 622 Squadron were based and it was while I was there, I had the job of forklift driver in the bomb dump and we used to load the bombs onto the trolleys and we used to load the trolleys in a train to take round to the aircraft to bomb up and a Lancaster bomber squadron [unclear] when it comes to feeding them [unclear] about twenty two bombs of some kind or canisters of some kind or one big bomb which was one odd thing but anyway we were doing that and one day we had a senior officer coming down to the squadron and a fortnight later we had this thing come through that we, apparently we’re going to send food to people who were starving in Holland called Operation Manna and it was on that job that I did actually did load and did suggest some ways of the stuff landing on the ground because you wrap a sack of flour in its own right, you drop a sack of flour and it hits the ground, it bursts, it throws it out [unclear] fan shape and it’s no more good to anybody so that was decided how was we going to drop it and so we had this talk about it and we said, well, if you put that bag in a bigger bag, a clothing woven one, the bigger bag would catch the contents and so we put this ordinary sack of flour, a standard sack of flour, it’s about sixteen stone I think or fourteen stone into a railway sack as we call them which were big and used to carry corn on the railway and stick them up and that and we dropped, at the second drop we did with that it did burst open but the contents inside was all in, you know, thrown about and they found that it would be difficult to salvage all the contents without losing all [unclear] in the fabric material so we said, what else can we do? So, I said, well, the best thing I can think of is if you get that bag of flour in a railway sack which is about twice its size and then you put it in the bigger one which is bigger still which the farmers locally called [unclear] bags because [unclear] from the local factory was sent out to the farms in these huge sacks so if you put it in that one and you stitch it up in that one and you roll it up in that one when it came down the weight of the flour at the front would cause the thing to open up and the back end would flap and because it’s flapping, it retarded the fall and we tried that and it worked.
DK: It worked.
FS: Yeah.
DK: And these were being dropped out the Lancasters, were they?
FS: Pardon?
DK: They were being dropped out of Lancasters.
FS: Lancasters, Stirlings as well.
DK: Stirlings as well.
FS: Yeah
DK: Right.
FS: But they dropped them out the Lancasters and then the other thing was they always [unclear] get them in the Lancaster so someone came up on this big thing, I don’t know who made them but they came to us in a lorry load and they called them panniers
DK: Yeah
FS: A pannier would fix into the bomb bay, either side, yeah, and then you could shut the doors and that was all enclosed and so that was decided on, so we did two drops for panniers and that was quite successful. What I wouldn’t say is to drop things at two hundred and plus miles an hour you don’t get the results you think you gonna get, because a large can of corned beef dropped at two hundred miles an hour on the airfield [unclear], it would go in the ground as a big can of corned beef and go down about two foot in the ground because it was [unclear], it would come up on top and when it come on [unclear], it was fat as your book. Absolutely but it [unclear] burst the can
DK: Alright.
FS: No, so they decided it wouldn’t matter which way it dropped, it would still be usable.
DK: The contents were still ok?
FS: Yes, inside, yes. And that what I had and then when I came out the RAF, I mean, finished me course as an air gunner, I mean, done the jobs at Methwold and at the [unclear] base, I went to, went to the, finalized me course and I finished up as an air gunner on Sunderland flying boats.
DK: Alright.
FS: Yeah. So that’s my life story.
DK: Do you know which squadron you were with, with the Sunderlands?
FS: Pardon?
DK: Do you know which squadron it was with the Sunderlands?
FS: Scotland?
DK: The Sunderlands.
FS: Yes
DK: At which squadron?
FS: I wasn’t with the squadron.
DK: Ah, right, ok.
FS: I was with a ferry unit
DK: Ferry unit, right, ok.
FS: Yeah. I was, I went to, squadron, [unclear] RAF [unclear] in Scotland
DK: Right
FS: Or [unclear] if you like and we were based on a distillery
DK: Oh right [laughs]
FS: Yes. Very nice,
DK: Very nice
FS: Anyway, I did, I joined the course a crew and there was ten of us in a crew and we did [unclear] because by that time the war had finished and
DK: The war had ended, right. So you
FS: There was still [unclear] submarines still out there even then but we used to do patrol out over the Atlantic at places like Rockpool, I went to Iceland, went to [unclear] in the Shetlands, places like that, while I was there and then when we came back we were going to go to Singapore and the crew had slept in our billet with us two days before they took off and went and we were due to go the next day down to [unclear] to get equipped for the temperature, you know, shorts and all that sort of thing and we were going off in to Singapore but the crew that went down the day before were taking off and we were taking off at about quarter past two in the morning and the crew that went down the day before they took off and on the takeoff they lost an engine and they were fully loaded and you got two thousand four hundred and forty eight gallons of fuel on board and they lost an engine and so they told them to climb up as well as they could and on the way up they lost another engine and they got up to about four to five thousand feet and they told him to jettison this fuel and turn in a certain direction but unfortunately the people who were telling them about what to do didn’t realize that there was a two way wind, at the height that they were the wind was blowing in one direction and at a lower level it was blowing in the other direction and so what happened? They told them they had to turn and when they turned they came back in and they came back in to the vapor cloud and it blew up in mid-air completely, nothing left of it, yeah and so our trip, we were going down the [unclear] and we were on the fly path taking off when it was withdrawn.
DK: Alright.
FS: And it was withdrawn,
US: [unclear] thirsty.
FS: And it was
DK: I can stop there for a minute. Yep, there we go,
FS: Anyway, we got our, our trip was aborted and on the station for just over two weeks and they came up with to report they caught us that morning and I went along and they said, now, you aren’t going to Singapore, he said, because you have knowledge of agriculture, of food growing, that job is more important than you becoming an air gunner on a course in Singapore so he said, because it’s paying so much money to America for the food we need to grow our own where we can, so you can go back into agriculture to provide food so they sent me as on class B2 as a reserve and I stayed on that until it was abandoned and I came back home and the family had moved from where we used to live to Sutton St James, father had got us from [unclear] at Sutton St James and so at that point I got a job working for my father on his four acre holding and that was my life.
DK: You had a story about a V1. Yeah, there was a story about a V1?
FS: Oh yeah
DK: Yeah, so could you tell us that story?
FS: When I was back in August having finished a course at Liverpool, we were stationed or billeted in Viceroy Court which is just off the edge of Regent’s Park, very [unclear] block of flats but we did only use the bottom two floors to sleep and it was [unclear] of us in one room with an opening of eighteen inches by nine as the only means of air in the room, there were no doors on, all the doors had been taken out and we’d been having our usual daily exercises in the park, Regent’s Park across the way and we came back in from there and get to change back from PT gear into ordinary dress and we did that on the top floor and cause at that time the air raid warning went all clear at eight o’clock in the morning and at one minute past it went warning again and the doodlebugs started coming over after eight o’clock and we were there getting changed from PT gear into ordinary dress and we heard one coming so we went down on the balcony outside and funnily enough after a few seconds its engine stopped and we knew that when the engine stopped it was about to come down somewhere and there it was, coming through the clouds, straight through our block of flats.
DK: Did you actually see it, coming down?
FS: Oh yeah
DK: Yes, yes
FS: Coming straight for us, ah, well, we all went mad, we, I got down two flights of stairs in the toilet, there’s no doors on the toilet and it was no water in the toilet but I got flat on me chest in the toilet and got one he had covered up but I didn’t get me right here covered and then it went off and then I really funny things cause you got two thousand pounds of TNT going off, makes quite a bang and that was that, anyway we finally got down and they went, now what happened and so apparently this doodlebug coming down instead of coming directly at us as it was, it turned and it ran into the Canal Bank, where the Grand Union Canal is at that point and it ran into the bank outside [unclear] which he lived and it exploded but all the blast went upwards into the air and so the damage to our block of flats wasn’t all that bad, you could put your arms through the wall and shake with the people in the next room but that was apparently because it was a single frame building and it’s only the solid part
DK: [unclear], yeah
FS: That was fractured, yeah and then they sent us down, they sent us up the road to check on the people because mainly all the people in those flats were either relatives of or families of people, forces people working in London
DK: Right, ok.
FS: And so they sent us down to the one that was nearest to where the thing fell and to go and have a look at it was unusual really because we went inside and there was, we met a man in the hall way and he said where did they go? And I said, where did who go? He said, them gang, that gang of blokes, I said, what gang of blokes? He said, well, they come in here and then they [unclear] a big bang, he said, it was, he said, and somebody’s been pinched our wardrobe, I said, what? He said, somebody’s pinched our wardrobe, I said, no, I don’t think so, anyway we arrived, he took us up to where it was and he said, it stood there, against the wall and it’s not here anymore, that gang of blokes took it, I said, I didn’t see any gang of blokes, anyway he was quite, quite confused, quite think about it when a knock came on the door and a woman from two, not the next flat to his but the next flat, she came and she said, I don’t want that! I said, you don’t want what? She said, I don’t want that wardrobe in my house, it’s not my kind of furniture and I said what wardrobe? She said, well, them blokes came and they put a wardrobe against my wall. So, what he meant was the [unclear] of the building must have opened up and the wardrobe went through two rooms and rested against the wall.
DK: Yeah, so it crashed down.
FS: Yeah
DK: So, no men never actually stole it then?
FS: Pardon?
DK: No men actually stole it.
FS: There wasn’t anybody there.
DK: No, it’d gone through the
FS: It’d gone through
DK: Floors. Yeah, strange.
FS: Yeah. So, the whole of the building must have opened up and shut up again. Yeah.
DK: Yeah. Strange.
FS: Yeah.
DK: And can I just confirm, whereabouts in London was this?
FS: It’s on the edge of Regent’s Park
DK: On the edge of Regent’s Park, ok.
FS: I’m not sure what road, not sure what road is in. If I got a map
DK: That’s ok, in Regent’s Park it’s ok. Know roughly where it was
FS: Pardon?
DK: That’s ok, Regent’s Park, I know where that is.
FS: Yeah, I can show you exactly where it is. I got a map of London.
DK: Yeah. That’s ok. I got an idea in my head where the canal is.
FS: Yeah
DK: Yeah. Can I just ask, just going back to your time working in the bomb dumps
FS: Yeah
DK: Did you used to actually load the bombs into the aircraft?
FS: I only loaded them onto the trolley.
DK: Onto the trolleys.
FS: But I loaded out to load the food into the aircraft.
DK: The food into the aircraft
FS: Yeah
DK: So, you had a tractor then, was it?
FS: A forklift
DK: Forklift, and you loaded them down
FS: It was electric
DK: Right
FS: Forklift
DK: Yeah
FS: Didn’t have an engine, is an electric one
DK: Right
FS: He used to plug it in, charge it up overnight if you weren’t using it or when between times, when you got so long between before you load in more stuff
DK: And then, the trollies then went out to the aircraft
FS: As a bomb train, we called it,
DK: Bomb train, yeah
FS: Yeah, cause one lady took my bomb train one night and she had a John Brown, a, yeah John
DK: A tractor, a John Brown tractor
FS: Yeah, she had a John Brown tractor and they were quite big things, quite powerful and they were quite fast if they wanted and she decided to take my bomb train in a hurry and she overturned it and she overturned it on the runway and the bombs came off the trolleys
DK: Right
FS: And then there was a big discussion as to what they were going to do with them and they said, well, the only thing you can do with them is go drop them in the sea and the disposal ground
DK: Right. So, they couldn’t be reused again.
FS: There’s delayed action
DK: Right, ok.
FS: Delayed action bombs and because they had fell off the trolleys, they started the action working, which cut the time down as to about three to four hours
DK: So you had three to four hours to dispose of them.
FS: Yeah
DK: Yeah
FS: Anyway, they had to call the crews out of bed, they were gonna take them on a trip the next day and load them all up on the aircraft which I did several of them on the aircraft and they flew them off to the dropping zone in the North Sea, it’s just off Dogger Bank somewhere and as the aircraft came back and landed, you could hear the bombs who went off in land and there a thousand pound bombs and they’re quite [unclear] yeah
DK: So, were quite a few of the tractor drivers women then?
FS: Pardon?
DK: Were quite a few of the tractor drivers women?
FS: OH, Quite a lot of them were
DK: Yeah
FS: Quite a lot of them
DK: She wasn’t hurt then, was she, when she rolled it?
FS: Pardon?
DK: Was she hurt when they rolled it? Was she hurt?
FS: She had trapped [unclear] it turned over.
DK: Just the bomb trolley?
FS: Just the bomb trolley.
DK: Right, ok. She was ok then?
FS: Started from the back and the [unclear] went up, yeah.
DK: So she was ok.
FS: Pardon? She was ok
DK: She was ok.
FS: She was ok.
DK: Can you recall what types of bombs you used to pick up?
FS: Pardon?
DK: Can you recall which types of bombs, the types of bombs that you, you picked up with the trolley?
FS: Types?
DK: Types, yeah.
FS: Well, you see, the means of dropping bombs is [unclear] for years and the types of bombs we were dropping were thousand pounders, the American one was the [unclear] on with the top, keep some of them cause they were known to explode and they contained Torpex which is the same stuff as they put in torpedoes and it makes a big bang and it does a lot of damage, we load probably twenty two, twenty one or twenty two of them on an aircraft and that was allowed, they used to take a thousand pound bombs
DK: So, it’s about twenty-one, twenty-two thousand pound bombs
FS: Yeah
DK: Yeah. And were there any bigger bombs you
FS: Bigger ones? Oh, we had four thousand pounders which were [unclear] three section, two section canister at the front end is like a big barrel and the back end was empty and it was nose and tail fuse and three fuses in the nose and three in the tail which unwound when they left the aircraft the safety pin pulled out the fusing thing unwound and fell away and that let the fuse ignite and go to the front and when it hit the ground it went off [unclear] you had the two section one with the tail and you had the three section one
DK: So, they would have been eight thousand pounds and twelve thousand pounds
FS: That’s right, yeah
DK: Right, yeah
FS: And they had these special ones which had dropped on the submarine pens at Brest, but we never handled them, they were done by a couple of chaps with a huge forklift thing that could carry them cause we couldn’t carry them, they were too heavy for us
DK: And were many of the loads incendiary bombs as well?
FS: Incendiary?
DK: Yeah
FS: OH, yeah, yeah [laughs]. You wouldn’t believe it, seven thousand or eight, would ye? The [unclear] the ordinary stick incendiary bombs, there was ninety of those in a canister
DK: Right
FS: They came to us in boxes, right, and we had a canister carrier which took four of those
DK: Right, so that’s four times ninety
FS: Four times ninety
DK: Right
FS: And you only did with those, got a crowbar very carefully took the lid off the box and then you put the fuse in back over and you did all that with them upright and then they took them out [unclear] over come in the aircraft, you could have twenty of those or twenty four, twenty one of those at a time, we reckoned about seven thousand at that time of Dresden and Cologne where we sent a lot of fire bombs and the next after they come up with a load of high explosive and so on and that turned the course of that two weeks we unloaded or offloaded a T3 hangar which is about probably four hundred foot long or twenty seven line, we emptied it in a fortnight
DK: All full of incendiaries?
FS: All incendiaries. Yeah. And the bigger canisters of incendiaries was worked a different way, they were shaped like a bomb and had a copper nose to them and the copper nose had four nozzles facing outwards and when it hit the ground, it exploded but it didn’t explode and blow itself to pieces, but it started off as a fire from these nozzles, sort of high pressured gas burning and they would drop on the ground unless they lay flat on the ground they would turn themselves upright and set fire to everything around them but this was like [unclear] settling well flame sort of thing and there were some which [unclear] and they did quite [unclear] canisters and fused them up yeah.
DK: So, how long would it take to load up a whole squadron of aircraft?
FS: Pardon?
DK: How long would it take
FS: About a day
DK: About a day.
FS: Yeah
DK: So, you’d be out there early morning right through the day
FS: After [unclear]
DK: Yeah [unclear], they took off
FS: Yeah
DK: Yeah
FS: Yeah.
DK: So, it’s a day’s work to load up a whole squadron.
FS: Pardon?
DK: A day’s work to load up a whole squadron.
FS: It [unclear] just a day, you do it again tomorrow
DK: Yeah
FS: Every day the same.
DK: Yeah, yeah.
FS: I think in some cases I only had about three hours sleep at night, probably only about three hours sleep at night.
DK: So, I think that’s very interesting information there, thanks very much for your time. I was just going to ask, what do you think now about your time in the RAF?
FS: What do I think about it?
DK: What do you think about it now.
FS: I wish I’d stayed there. I wish I’d stayed there actually, but I didn’t have that choice more or less, I always say they thought that my job as food production was better serving the country than my career in the RAF was
DK: Yeah. So, you had no choice, you had to come out
FS: I had to, yeah, yeah, I had to come out because I had knowledge of food production, that was the answer
DK: Very, food is very important though, food is very important
FS: Oh yeah, well, when you work out how much they were paying for a boat load of food for America, you can understand why they wanted to stop him [unclear] it and reround it when they could and as I say, I think they most probably, most probably it was a good thing for the country and they wouldn’t be feeding me, would they? I was feeding them.
DK: OK then, I will stop there but thanks very much for that, that’s more or less, that’s, thanks very much for your time. I’ll stop there.
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 Frank Saunston
Creator
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David Kavanagh
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-05-22
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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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ASaunstonFR170522, PSaunstonFR1701
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Pending review
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00:40:17 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
Frank Saunston joined the ATC in 1941 and then the RAF in 1942. He worked as a transport driver at RAF Peplow and then as a forklift driver at RAF Methwold on the bomb dump. Describes his role and his duties and gives details regarding the bombs used. He took part in Operation Manna and tells of how the food was packed and dropped over Holland. Finished up as an air gunner on Sunderland flying boats. Witnessed a V1 dropping on the block of flats where he was stationed near Regent’s Park in London and gives a detailed account of the event. Remembers an aircraft accident when he was posted to Scotland. Tells of how he wanted to stay longer in the RAF but was told to go back to work in food production, where his knowledge of agriculture would have been more useful.
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Netherlands
England--Norfolk
England--Shropshire
Temporal Coverage
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1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
149 Squadron
622 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bombing up
ground personnel
incendiary device
Lancaster
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF Methwold
RAF Peplow
service vehicle
Sunderland
tractor
training
V-1
V-weapon
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/462/8344/AAdamsT160616.2.mp3
f9bd5882560371415b633ba85a023cb1
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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Adams, Tony
Antony Hill Adams
A H Adams
T Adams
Antony H Adams
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Adams, T
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Tony Adams
Date
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2016-06-16
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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DG: OK we're all set to go, I'll just have to, this interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, my name is Donald Gould and I'm interviewing Tony Adams at his place in Lingfield, a suburb of Sydney. The interview is taking place on Thursday 16th June 2016. Can you tell me your name please Tony?
AA: My name is Anthony Adams, I'm known as Tony Adams.
DG: And how old are you Tony?
AA: I'm ninety two.
DG: What, where were you born?
AA: I was born in Roseville one of the northside suburbs of Sydney.
DG: And what did your parents do?
AA: My father was an engineer and my mother was home duties mainly except during the Depression, she had to earn extra money and she did what they called Batik work, B,A,T,I,K it was dyeing clothes and so on.
DG: A bit unusual in those, in those days batik?
AA: Um.
DG: Yeah, and where did you go to school?
AA: At Roseville public school, and then after that I went to Sydney Grammar.
DG: And what, what, how old were you when you left school?
AA: I left school a few weeks after World War II began I was fifteen years of age.
DG: And what did you do, after, after when you finished school, what did you do after that?
AA: I studied accountancy, I went full time to a, a college, an accountancy college for one year and then I got a job as a junior clerk in a, in a company in the wholesale chemist area and I was there 'til I turned eighteen and then I went into the army, before, before the air force.
DG: OK so you were, you were, in Sydney when the War broke out?
AA: Yes.
DG: And why did you, why did you, what prompted you to join the air force?
AA: Well really two reasons, I'd heard all the stories of the first, first War and the terrible conditions and how soldiers, Australia diggers, had died and I was a very squeamish boy and I thought if I'm going to die I'm going to die quickly.
DG: [Laughs].
AA: But I really didn't think I was going to die you didn't put your name down for that reason, a lot of my friends where I lived were going into the air force and sounded more exciting than being in the army or the navy, [chuckles].
DG: And where, where did you enlist?
AA: Er, right here in Sydney at Willoughby actually.
DG: And what, what training did you, did they give you? What did they select you to do?
AA: Are we talking about the army or the navy?
DG: Oh no, that would be the air force.
AA: Oh well, after six months in the army I got my transfer to the R, double A, F and after initial training, rookie training, I was selected to be, to wireless training, radio training and I spent six months at Parkes in New South Wales doing that and having completed that course I then was sent to Port Pirie in South Australia for six weeks doing flying training there, air gunnery flying training and at that stage I got my wing so I was ready to, I graduated.
DG: You mentioned, you mentioned the army, how did you, how did you come to be in the army first?
AA: Well it was conscription in those days in Australia.
DG: Ah right.
AA: And you had to, you had to, as soon as you turned eighteen, you had to go into the service, aircrew R, double A, F aircrew you were all volunteers, but anyway it was I was called up into the Army within a few weeks of turning eighteen.
DG: And you asked to go to the air force and you did?
AA: I, I previously put my name down for the air force and, but there was a waiting list in a way and the Army grabbed me before the air force did.
DG: And what, you'd completed that training and when did you go overseas?
AA: Um, June 1943, 15th of June actually, I'm pretty good on dates [laughs] and that was by ship, an American troop ship across the Pacific to San Francisco, I was a sergeant then and then they transferred us onto a train at San Francisco, a troop train and a very, a very palatial troop train too 'cause we had a porter on each carriage who made up our beds.
DG: Oh boy.
AA: And shone our shoes even though we hardly got out of the train [chuckles] but anyway we went right across the other side of the US to a huge US army camp which was really for embarkation of American troops.
DG: Where was that?
AA: And it was.
DG: Can you remember where it?
AA: It was called Taunton, Massachusetts, nearest, near Providence and not far from Boston.
DG: Right. And then were you, you were only there a short time before you?
AA: About three or four weeks I think, yes.
DG: Right. And then, and then you embarked to Britain?
AA: Yes on the Queen Mary. The Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth were going backwards and forwards to Scotland to the Clyde mainly with American troops building up prior to D-Day it was the year before though but the ship I went on, the voyage I went on as it happens I found out was the one when they carried the most number of troops onboard, there was about nearly fifteen thousand troops and a thousand crew.
DG: Oh crikey. And so you'd have been in Britain around by June, July, August or something in '43?
AA: 1st of August.
DG: 1st of August?
AA: Bank holiday. [Laughter].
DG: Right and when you got to Britain what did, where did they, where did they send you for further training?
AA: [Unclear] We were in a contingent of three hundred Australia and New Zealand airmen, we picked up the New Zealand airmen over Auckland on the way over across the Pacific and we landed in Scotland in the Clyde, and by train down to Brighton Sussex, south of England and the Australian and New Zealand air force had taken over the two big hotels in Brighton, the Grand and the Metropole, and we, they'd ripped the luxury hotels to bits and crammed us in there.
DG: And how long, how long were you there?
AA: Um, I think only perhaps six weeks, four or six weeks or something.
DG: Right, and what, what happened to you after that?
AA: I and about nineteen others Australians, who had to be, were going to be wireless operators in Bomber Command, were sent to do a further course flying on Avro Anson's at a place called West Freugh, F,R,E,U,G,H near Stranraer Scotland on the west coast and we'd do further training there, 'cause when we arrived there in England they said 'oh the radios that you used in Australia, trained on in Australia, no we use the Marconi sets here you've got to have further training'.
DG: Oh right.
AA: So we used to fly out from there over Northern Ireland and down to, down to Wales, England and I think we were there for perhaps two, perhaps two to three months.
DG: And then what happened to you after?
AA: Well then.
DG: You did that further training?
AA: We passed all the tests there and we were then sent, or some of us, we were spread out
to different places to what they called an operational training unit, OTU, and the one I was sent to and I think only one other of that course of twenty went to the same OTU which was in Bedfordshire.
DG: Which one of that? What number was that?
AA: It was called Wing, the village of Wing but nothing to do with air force.
DG: Right yeah.
AA: And we flew from the satellites round there called Little Horwood, H,O, R W, double O, D. And it was interesting that Little Horwood was about a twenty minute bike ride from Bletchley or Bletchley Park.
DG: Oh golly.
AA: And I knew a girl who worked at Bletchley Park I met her there and she was my girlfriend for the duration of the war while I was there.
DG: Did you know anything about Bletchley Park and what was going on over there?
AA: We had no idea what went on we knew there was a lot of, we saw in the local pob, pub, The Park Hotel at Bletchley, we'd see all these officers navy officers, air force and army officers but in those days you really didn't make any enquiries.
DG: Were you aware that it was something pretty Top Secret or was it just another, another?
AA: Yes, we believed it was Secret.
DG: Yes, yes. And then when did you go to a squadron after that?
AA: At that stage, that is where you formed up in your crew.
DG: Right.
AA: And through a process within a day you arrived there, the I think it was the CO came and gathered us all together and said, and there were about twenty pilots, twenty wireless operators, twenty navigators, twenty gunners, 'right oh you fellas you've got about three or four days to form yourselves up into a crew' and I did see a fella that I, I didn't know him except of course there were Canadians, New Zealanders, English men, Australians, I didn't know anybody except the fella that I went with and I looked and then after a day I saw a fella called John Faile[?] who was a year or two years ahead of me at Sydney Grammar. And I went, and he was a pilot, and I went up to him, 'Johnny do you remember me?' and he said 'oh yes Sydney Grammar?' and he said 'yeah you were the opening bowler in the third eleven weren't you?' [laughter] and he was the star from the first eleven but I said ' have you got a wireless op?' and he said 'look', he said, 'I was only just been yesterday talking to an English fellow and he, ah I've asked him to be my wireless op and he was somebody else [unclear] so I asked him, he said he'd come back to me later on today, I think so' he said 'I'd love to have you but I' said 'I'm but I'm perhaps committed to have this chap'. And anyway he did come back to me later and said McKay[?] the other fella is going to come with me, the English chap, luckily I didn't, it was luck there because a few weeks after D-Day that crew was shot down and all killed.
DG: Oh.
AA: Over France. But nobody else would ask me it was mainly the pilots were going round asking people and I was a bit of a wallflower [DG laughs] one Australian pilot did say, came to me and approached me, would I be interested and and I said 'yes, I'm not crewed up, thank you very much, would love to be in your crew' all our unit was Australian and quickly in talking to each other we said you know, 'oh where do you live?' he lived in Sydney and I lived in Sydney and 'where do you live Wal?' and he said 'Greenfield' and 'where do you live Tony?' 'Roseville', the next suburb but I didn't know him and we then formed up into a crew and in due course we acquired another gunner and a, and a flight engineer but we were a crew of four Australians and three English men.
DG: And presumably the flight engineer would have been English?
AA: Yes, the flight engineer was English.
DG: Yeah, yeah.
AA: And the two gunners were English.
DG: Oh right. And were you sent to a squadron after that once you paired up?
AA: No the next step was because we were going to be on four engine bombers mainly for the pilot at the OTU we were flying Wellington bombers, a twin engine bomber, so we had to do, went to a place called Stradishall, which was called a conversion unit, it was mainly for the pilots to learn to fly a four engine as against a twin engine bomber, and at that stage we then got an extra gunner, a mid upper gunner, and a flight engineer.
DG: And ah did you, what happened after that, after that conversion?
AA: Well we're ready to go to a squadron then.
DG: Right.
AA: But prior to that they went in training in case we got shot down, we went to a, what is called I think, a battle course, that was for a couple of weeks where we were instructed on all the procedures if we did get shot down how to get back, how to evade capture and things like that.
DG: Right.
AA: And we did exercises in relation to that.
DG: And what happened after, once you'd finished that?
AA: When we finished that, and that was at a place called Methwold, we were ready to go to a squadron and we went from there to Lakenheath which was an RAF establishment it was pre-war I think and we were there within a few days of arriving there we did our first operation.
DG: Can you remember what, when that would have been that you, you first joined the squadron?
AA: Ah.
DG: Any idea when that would have been?
AA: Yeah it was May 1944.
DG: Right. So that's [unclear] nearly a year after you'd got to the UK.
AA: Yeah that's right.
DG: A little time after.
AA: Yes.
DG: And what was the, what was the daily life like at the base? Just your daily routines and life in general how did you find that?
AA: Well, they would post up if you were flying on operations that night or later that day they'd post up in the operations room all the crews and that were to fly at that time, all their names and give you the instructions as to the time of briefings, the navigator and the pilots used to have a briefing first and then the rest of the crew would come in for an hour or two later to the main briefing and so that was what happened, they told you the time the meals were going to be, the time of the transport to your aircraft, because of course there were aircraft dispersed right round the aerodrome and your aircraft, you were allocated an aircraft, ours happened to be C Charlie and er [unclear] what [unclear] make of aircraft or sometimes they'd switch them around but anyway ours was C Charlie, we had our own ground crew at the dispersal and I think there were five in the ground crew crew and we'd be transported out there during the day if it was going to be a night operation we'd be going out and checking our equipment that sort of thing.
DG: And what, and what would happen then if you, if you were flying that night , after you'd checked the aircraft out and what would happen? Presumably you'd be going on a mission after your evening meal or would you or?
AA: Yes, yes but later on we did more daylight operations than than night operations. That was our, because that was our squadron. Now I haven't told you the aircraft we were then flying when we first joined the squadron was Stirlings.
DG: Right.
AA: And the Stirlings at this stage of the War had been taken off the bombing of German targets. The Lancasters and the Halifaxes were the ones being used for that sort of operations, the Stirlings couldn't get the height and didn't have the speed so the, we were what, we were called a Special Duties Squadron, and as soon as we got there it was realised, we realised, were told [emphatic] it was very secret what we were doing. It was in all Bomber Command squadrons to a degree but ours was more secret [laughs].
DG: Right.
AA: And because the operations we were doing that were so secret was supplying the French Resistance movement with supplies.
DG: Ah right.
AA: And we weren't allowed to keep a diary.
DG: Um.
AA: Actually our mail, outward mail, was censored I think, and so that was the sort of thing. So we were doing that sort of operation and, and dropping mines at the entrances of the ports there where they had the German, the German fleet, submarines and warships who were attacking the Atlantic convoys would try to keep them hulled into those ports.
DG: You were dropping the supplies to the French Resistance, obviously that was in France?
AA: Yes.
DG: Have you any, do you know what parts of France that you were doing it?
AA: Yes, we didn't do that many of them.
DG: Um.
AA: Erm, about in the area of Dijon.
DG: Right.
AA: I do remember one town called Digoin. Which was not far from Dijon, D, I, G, O, I, N. To, would you like me to go on and tell you a bit what the operation was [chuckles].
DG: Yes, certainly, yes.
AA: Because they were rather, you know?
DG: Yes, yes.
AA: Um we had to find a clearing in the forest, we only flew on very bright moon light nights because we flew at very low altitude under the German radar.
DG: You had all the co-ordinates and everything and you had to find that little spot?
AA: Yes.
DG: Yes.
AA: And the navigator and the bomb aimer had to be, co-operate very much. The bomb aimer would lie down in his, in his part there and would map read with a torch and say, 'tell the navigator we are over this river' or [unclear] 'tell', and then when I said Degoinge I remember they would go to a small town and then be given, at a certain speed, in a certain direction, to find that clearing in the forest. Um, going out there OK you find the thing, the place, no bigger than a football field.
DG: You're obviously at a fairly low altitude to be able to find them?
AA: We were flying at five hundred feet.
DG: Would that avoid radar at that height?
AA: Yes.
DG: Oh right, OK.
AA: Five hundred feet, you'd perhaps go, anyway we had loaded in the bomb bay canisters of supplies.
DG: What were they made of?
AA: Well we were never told but it was arms, ammunition.
DG: No, no but the canisters. What were the?
AA: Oh metal and they had a parachute.
DG: Oh right, OK, yeah yeah.
AA: And the bomb aimer to had to identify that we were dropping at the right place, to the right people they had to flash to us on the torch the letter of the day, the agreed letter of the day in Morse Code and then they would then the French men, or French women too I guess ,would put out flares and we would do a, virtually a bombing run, probably at a thousand feet or lower and the canisters then would get released and float down, full moon, and they'd come out with horses and carts from under the trees and load these canisters onto their trucks and onto their carts and disappear back into, into the trees.
DG: And how many canisters might you have?
AA: Oh, I couldn't really tell you.
DG: No, no that's absolutely, that doesn't matter.
AA: Yes.
DG: And what, and um, did you ever meet with any resistance when you were doing those? Any flak or fighters or did you get a pretty free run run having been flying in such clear weather?
AA: Pretty, yes pretty free, I think it was entirely free as I can tell you about one occasion.
DG: Um.
AA: As as I said I was, I looked after the radio and before we took off we all checked our equipment and I'd go out my radio was working perfectly. Then, er we took off they had what they called a group broadcast, we were in Bomber Command's No3 group, there was a number of squadrons in that group most of them going and bombing German targets. But we had this different sort of operation and you had to, my job was, every half hour on the hour and half hour listen in to a group broadcast where instructions may be given, to some of us or all of us, such things as you're diverted to another aerodrome because there's fog over yours where you're going back to or all sorts of things. Um, especially for those on the bombing German targets the wind direction had been changed and things like that. But anyway, we'd been going a while we were probably over the coast of France by this stage and my radio went absolutely dead and I reported it to the skipper, I said 'my radio's out of action' and he said 'alright just let me know when it's fixed ', it wasn't something that would stop us proceeding on this operation and I was quite a good operator but I was hopeless at fixing things and my wife will bear you out, I've never fixed anything in my life [laughter] but anyway I fiddled around in those days radios had valves before transistors [laughs].
DG: Yes, yes.
AA: And I was pushing and pulling and I couldn't get it to work and so I, somehow then the next half hour broadcast was coming up and I'm getting a bit frantic, I pushed it in and just as I pushed it in came, a message came through it started to work for the group cast, the message was for our aircraft, our call sign or one of them.
DG: Oh dear.
AA: You recognise your voice as it's called out, well you recognised your call sign just as clearly.
DG: Yeah, yeah.
AA: Um, this, the message was return to base. I said to Wal the Skipper, in the aircraft you didn't go on first names, or very rarely 'Wireless Operator to Pilot I've just received a message, return to base' and he said 'what's the trouble are all the Force going back?' 'I don't know, just me, just us 'he said 'are you sure?' so well I was a bit er, radio reception at five hundred feet is not that good.
DG: No.
AA: But I'm sure. He said ' Tony you're in trouble [chuckles] if you've got this wrong', and anyway he took my word for it so back we went and landed probably midnight or 1am, I can't remember and a British major who we sort of knew who co-ordinated these sort of operations on our base he came out to our aircraft and we said 'what's up major?' and he said 'well after you got took off and got to the other side we got, we got' I remember his words, 'we got word from the other side, a message from the other side, that the Frenchmen there had been captured and they had installed 3 [unclear] and 2 Bofor's guns awaiting your arrival'.
DG: Oh right. And you might have gone into that if your radio hadn't come back on the line again?
AA: I wouldn't have been talking to you now.
DG: No.
AA: If I hadn't got that message [unclear].
DG: Unbelievable,
AA: My radio was.
DG: Before, just getting backtracking a little bit, you mentioned the airfield you were at, I don't know whether I asked you your squadron number that you were in?
AA: It was RAF Squadron 149.
DG: RAF 149. And what field were you flying from at this stage?
AA: Ah, it would have been Methwold.
DG: OK, OK, and you did a number of these operations dropping?
AA: Not very many.
DG: Right.
AA: Er, one of the first ones we did was with the CO, our pilot was second pilot on this occasion so he could learn the ropes a bit, I think we only did about six of them.
DG: So you did those and dropping the mines.
AA: Dropping the mines.
DG: Did you have any interesting situations with those missions?
AA: Well, no they er only one and this was after D-Day and we were dropping mines at the entrance to Bordeaux which is on the west coast of France, the river there Bordeaux's on is called the Gironde, G, I, R, O, N, D, E, Gironde, it has a very wide estuary or mouth and we had to drop the mines there for the entrance, and we did that again at low level because it was after D-Day we weren't allowed to cut across France. We had to, came from Methwold up near Cambridge, we went right down to Lands' End and then went down the west coast of France, dropped our mines and then had to go back the same way, not cutting across France at all and we're coming up the coast after we'd dropped our mines, suddenly I'm standing in what is called the astrodome which is a perspex bubble on top of a fuselage, where I'm, if I'm not having a radio duty I'm keeping a watch out for anything and suddenly I see fazer coming up towards us from a light machine gun and I understand it was a flagship.
DG: Oh.
AA: Anchored off the coast and I would swear that those bullets [unclear] were going for our rear turret, but we weren't hit at all.
DG: And what was the reason for going, not going over France, going around after D-Day because of the hostilities was that?
AA: Yes, that's right.
DG: You wanted to keep out of the way?
AA: The anti aircraft were all around so that's what we did.
DG: Yes, yes.
AA: And by this stage because we had to, I then started getting messages, radio messages on Morse Code that our, Methwold and round there was fog bound I think, or the weather anyway and they kept sending us a different message to divert to another aerodrome, and then they'd say 'no don't go to that one' but finally we landed a Coastal Command base in North Devon called Shivenor, or Chivenor, and sat there the night, rest of the night and went home the following day.
DG: And after your operations what did you, there were some fellows who had problems with nerves and they were accused of having a lack of moral fibre. How did you, how did you feel about these fellows?
AA: Well I, I never struck, all the time I was there I never knew anybody that, didn't hear anybody, I'd heard that some had sort of been just quietly removed.
DG: Right.
AA: I, I didn't have any direct contact with anybody like that.
DG: And when you, how, how did you feel, how were your, how were your nerves, you knew you were going to fly a mission, how did you, how did you feel?
AA: Um, usually it's not going to happen to me.
DG: Right [laughter].
AA: And I must say the times we were flying the casualty rate was not as high as it had been, I can't say I'm a very brave person but it didn't, wasn't too upset. There was only, we haven't got on to the stage yet of when we, the Squadron converted over to Lancasters.
DG: Right.
AA: And we were then bombing German targets more.
DG: Right.
AA: Er, about three nights in a week, in one week, we had daylight, I think daylight, we had to go to a place called Honsberg in the Rhur Valley and, near Dusseldorf, and the anti aircraft fire was very bad [laughs] terrific.
DG: Right.
AA: And I saw aircraft shot down and so on and when I we went to briefing that day they looked up on the map on the big map of Europe on the wall it was Honsberg again, oh gosh and I think I was very, very touchy then that day, is this going to be my last flight? But generally speaking you just had a job to do it didn't, I wasn't terribly concerned.
DG: How did you feel once you were in the air, did that?
AA: Well you had your job to do and.
DG: Did that change your mind?
AA: I was fairly calm but if you saw, as we did on one occasion, an aircraft flying right alongside us, got anti aircraft fire in seconds it hit the wing and the blazing fuel from the wing spread backwards in seconds and the tail plane was alight and they circled away, we didn't see any parachutes, it would have crashed. That was a New Zealand squadron aircraft we, I found out in recent years.
DG: So you were, you were dropping the supplies from the Stirlings?
AA: Yes.
DG: Right, and er then you went to Lancasters, you got Lancasters?
AA: Yes.
DG: And ah you mentioned that that mission, what other missions did you, did you fly in the Lancasters? This is after D-Day is it did you say?
AA: Yes well we were still on Stirlings right through 'til September which was three months after D-Day.
DG: September '44 yes?
AA: September 1944. We were bombing in Stirlings we did some bombing raids on German targets [clears throat] Le Havre, the Canadians had the Germans troops surrounded in Le Havre and we were bombing the troops virtually, they the Germans had set up flying bomb bases or launching sites on the coast in France, lobbing them towards London and things..
DG: Oh yes.
AA: And we were bombing those sites, I think that was the main things we were doing on the Stirlings besides and doing minor operations of St Malo and other other ports.
DG: And what, what missions did you do in the Lancasters?
AA: Well they were virtually, they were all bombing of industrial targets in, in Ruhr Valley, Cologne, Essen, Bonn [coughs] more in daylight than er [coughs], excuse me, than at night time actually.
DG: Now when you were bombing, bombing these targets there would of course there would always have been civilians somewhere around, how did you, how did you feel when you were bombing these, that there were no doubt somewhere along the lines civilians were going to get killed.
AA: I virtually never even thought about it. We were given a target.
DG: Yeah.
AA: I don't know if it ever really crossed my mind very much. Er, just as a quick example, when I, I mentioned that I was, my virtually first job after the, when I left school or did, started doing accountancy training was with a chartered accountant only for a few months, and he was an auditor, and I'd go with him to the various places, companies to be audited. One of them was called Babcock and Wilcocks, at Regent Park in Sydney, and I'd go out there, didn't have a clue really what I was doing but I had a green pen to tick things, and what was some three years later this was when we were on the Lancaster Squadron, Lancasters we went to briefing, it would have been in November 1944 some three years later. 'Gentlemen your target for tonight is the Babcock and Wilcocks works at Oberhausen [strong laughter] but we were given a target.
DG: Yes.
AA: Now our squadron or most of the squadrons in No3 Group Bomber Command at this stage were, usual targets were bombing synthetic oil plants.
DG: Oh right yeah, yeah.
AA: And so that's what we were doing right through to the very last one we did..
DG: How many missions did you complete?
AA: Thirty six.
DG: Thirty six. So you did your, did your [unclear].
AA: [Unclear].
DG: Was that classified as, at one stage I think there were certain, there were certain, certain targets that weren't considered as dangerous as the others so you had to complete more, more missions to complete your tour, was that had you completed a tour?
AA: Yes.
DG: Yes.
AA: When we joined the squadron and were flying Stirlings [unclear] the standard was thirty. But then at some stage later, and I can't quite remember when, they said 'no you've got to do thirty five', and so eventually I did thirty five but one, I can't remember which one it was, we did what was called an air sea rescue mission, we went looking in the North Sea for RAF crews shot down during the night ditching. I think that may have been the one that we, they said 'oh you're near the coast' or something, I don't know and so they added on officially I did thirty six [laughs].
DG: Oh golly. And so then that pretty much, once you, that's pretty much the end of the War at that stage?
AA: Er, we did our last operation on the 6th of December 1944, that's five, five months before the end of the War.
DG: Right.
AA: Er yes.
DG: And did you, you've talked about a few things that happened, was there anything else any other particularly interesting things that you, that come to mind, that you might have been involved in?
AA: No er, [pauses] no really it was, I didn't realise until recently, I was looking at my log book, you imagine RAF Bomber Command is flying out every night and the US Army Air Force were flying and bombing sometimes the same targets by day.
DG: Right.
AA; But on adding up in my log book we, on Lancasters, we only did six at night and about, I don't know, fifteen or twenty or something in daylight.
DG: Right, right.
AA: Yes.
DG: And so what, when the, that was in November '44 you flew your last mission?
AA: 6th of December.
DG: Of December?
AA: Celebrating the pilot's 27th birthday.
DG: And what happened, what happened then, after you'd flown your last mission the War was still going on though?
AA: Oh yes, yes. Well at this stage they had aircrew too many aircrew really and I and other Australians but not only other Australians the majority, the flight engineer also came with me to a non flying station up at the north of Scotland near Nairn, where they were, we had various tests, what are we going to do with these people next sort of thing. And so we had aptitude tests and so on and it was once thought that I might become a wireless operator on a Walrus amphibian plane based in Northern in France to fly out and rescue people who were shot down in the sea but that didn't eventuate. And then I was, er said 'you won't be required as aircrew you'll probably be an intelligence officer'. And then we were virtually on leave on and off and really we were then based back at Brighton and word came through 'all you Australians are going to get sent home'. So I think it was at the end of April, around about the 20th of April 1945 I was on the ship on the way home, and Anzac Day 1944 er we were somewhere been going a few days.
DG: 45?
AA; And Anzac Day and I've still got the menu, I was in the Officers' Mess in this troopship, the New Amsterdam, I've got the menu that Anzac Day.
DG: Anzac Day 1945?
AA: Yes.
DG: On the, on the way home? Oh great.
AA: And then 2 weeks later it was VE Day and we were still on the water on the way home.
DG: Right.
AA: And a week or two after that we arrived in Fremantle for just a day refuelling and then round to Sydney and.
DG: What happened to you after the War?
AA: Oh well I was discharged well actually I [unclear] to the service, others got the discharge, I was transferred to R, double A,F reserve so theoretically they could call me up at any time I think [laughter] but anyway we'll call it discharge, and that was of course the War was going on against Japan, atomic bombs were dropped and Japan surrendered and within two or three weeks of War against Japan ending I was discharged from the air force.
DG: Right.
AA: And quickly back to my accountancy studies, I was half way through, I finished those and then started working as a commercial accountant in various, various companies throughout my mostly in accounting jobs had about four different companies I think I worked for, three or four, some well known companies, mainly it was Grace Brothers, and the final one was Brambles where I ended up for the last ten years as company secretary until I retired on my 60th birthday in 1984.
DG: And when, when and where, did you meet your wife, sometime after you came back?
AA: Yes, that was, I was, I was down on the south coast over a long weekend, the October weekend down to a seaside resort called Austinmer down near Woolongong, and I was there with a few of my mates and she was there with a few of her girls at the same guest house and we met on the beach and I asked her if she'd come out with me after we, after we got back to Sydney and within six weeks we were engaged.
DG: Right.
AA: [laughs].
DG: And you're still married? Great.
AA: Been married for sixty seven years.
DG: Did you, how many children did you have?
AA: A son and daughter.
DG: Oh great,great. And after, after um after you got back from the War how were fellows that came back from Bomber Command treated, how did you feel you were being treated?
AA: I think, I've heard a lot of stories where they said, you know, 'why were you over there, we were fighting it out here and the Japanese', I never heard a single thing [unclear] who come back from Vietnam being shunned and so on but er, I never got that impression they were, we were welcomed back and got a good job and which I think we had we were, we were, I don't know, I think we all well slotted into whatever we were doing before.
DG: Yeah.
AA: All my mates in the Bank, and they went back to the Bank, and.
DG: Do you still keep in touch with some of the fellows from your time in Engl[and], your time in Bomber Command?
AA: Er yes just a few.
DG: Yes.
AA: Just a few most of them have passed on really but.
DG: Do you ever?
AA: The navigator of our crew was Australian, he and I are the only two surviving members of the crew now.
DG: You and your navigator?
AA: Yeah.
DG: Right.
AA: Well I think that's er, that brings us pretty well up to date. Thanks very much for talking to me Tony I much appreciate it. Thank you.
AA: Right. Cup of tea now?
DG: Thank you.
AA: Or coffee would you prefer?
DG: Coffee but that's.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Tony Adams
Creator
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Donald Gould
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-06-16
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00:56:07 audio recording
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AAdamsT160616
Conforms To
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Pending review
Type
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Sound
Description
An account of the resource
Tony Adams grew up in Australia and was studying accountancy when he was conscripted into the army at the age of 18. He later transferred to the Air Force. He trained as a wireless operator and was sent overseas to the UK in June 1943. After training he flew 36 operations in Stirlings and Lancasters with 149 Squadron stationed at RAF Methwold. After the war, he completed his accountancy training before retiring as Company Secretary for Brambles in 1984.
Contributor
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Dawn Studd
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
France
Germany
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
United States
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
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1943
1944
1945
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.
149 Squadron
3 Group
air sea rescue
aircrew
Anson
bombing
crewing up
Lancaster
mine laying
RAF Lakenheath
RAF Methwold
RAF West Freugh
Resistance
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
training
wireless operator
-
Dublin Core
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Title
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Rowland, Patrick Fergus
P F Rowland
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Patrick Fergus Rowland. He served as an aircraft fitter at RAF Mildenhall and RAF Lakenheath. He served in RAF until the 1970s in Malaya and Aden.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-10-11
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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Rowland, PF
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 Patrick Fergus Rowland
Description
An account of the resource
Patrick Rowland volunteered for the RAF in Belfast. He trained as a mechanic. He was posted with 149 Squadron. He volunteered for overseas posting because his brother was a prisoner in the Far East. He did not know at the time that his brother had already died in the prison camp. Patrick was posted to RAF Shaibah and Shallufa.
In accordance with the conditions stipulated by the donor, this item is available only at the University of Lincoln.
Creator
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Helen Durham
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-10-11
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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ARowlandPF181011
Conforms To
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Pending review
Format
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01:13:54 audio recording
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Language
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eng
Spatial Coverage
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Egypt
Great Britain
Iraq
Ireland
Egypt--Suez
England--Suffolk
Iraq--Baṣrah
Northern Ireland--Belfast
North Africa
Contributor
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Julie Williams
149 Squadron
ground crew
ground personnel
RAF Lakenheath
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Shallufa
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/330/3490/ASolinD170220.1.mp3
72bf807187c9aefe4305a0b3bcca21db
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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Solin, Donald
D Solin
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Donald Solin (427265 Royal Australian Air Force)
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-02-20
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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Solin, D
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewer is Jean Macartney, the interviewee is Air Commodore Retired Donald Solin. The interview is taking place at Don’s home in Carrara, Queensland, on 20th February 2017, also present is Don’s friend Helena. Don let’s start at the beginning I believe you were born in Perth in 1924.
DS: Yes.
JM: Yes. And does that mean that you lived in Perth for your early years of?
DS: Until I was eighteen.
JM: Eighteen.
DS: And the day I turned eighteen I was conscripted of course into the RAF as everyone else was I think, and I ended up in well it was a crowd called, and there was a you know stopping, stopping the bombs, no bombs, you know. Anyway, er, we were tying explosives around bridges you know [unclear] that was our main watch that happened, concerns about the Japanese invasion and then we wouldn’t explode them, we would rush off somewhere and say yes they had exploded and after that we would go back untie them all again for tomorrow. Now that went on for several months and it didn’t appeal to me very much because I would always wanting to fly. So I pulled all the strings I knew which were not many, I had no one in particular to help me but anyway we made it finally. In the meantime being in the Air Force, er not very at there was an idea where we took twenty-one lessons prior to joining aircrew, and I started on a session of lessons, and for one way and another of course I then became switched over after a lot of trouble from the Army, and I then became an AC2.
JM: Right. Let’s just pause there for a moment.
DS: Yes.
JM: And go back before you were eighteen and you were conscripted, your schooling was in Perth so you —
DS: Ah t was all over the country.
JM: It was all over the country.
DS: Yes, all over Western Australia.
JM: What because your family were travelling or?
DS: Well mother had been, ‘cos she was a district nurse and she had been divorced for very good reason and there were two small children living with grandparents and I was one of those, been looked after very, very well, we lived in Donborough, and we had all the delights of being able to fish and swim every day, and go rabbit shooting, and fox hunting and god knows what, and it was all very good. So that was brilliant in-between until we got a bit older, not much doing, very little, so I had a lot of catch up to do of course as soon as we go on to these twenty-one lessons from the Air Force, and it introduced me to things like algebra, geometry, and trigonometry, which I hadn’t really done much more than hear about average schools don’t cover too much, I finished it but boys one year you can’t catch up too much, so anyway that was it.
JM: So that was like equivalent to an intermediate certificate?
DS: Yes I believe it was Union [?] University, Western Australia.
JM: Right.
DS: That was hard as I went back I was very good really but nonetheless so there was plenty of catch up work.
JM: And so you that would have been sixteen you finished sort of that schooling?
DS: Er, I finished schooling at fourteen.
JM: Fourteen.
DS: And left school then.
JM: At fourteen okay. So between fourteen and eighteen when you were conscripted what sort of things did you do?
DS: Nobody asked me that for a long time, but I, I got a job, any type of job all I wanted to do was to work and get a few dollars. Now I got a job with Harris [?] Centre the big hardware people in Western Australia and they were, they covered a whole lot of things and you could do everything from broom sweeping to filling bottles and I did all that, it was all right, l had a, they were a good crowd, very good. But that was it then that covered two years at least may be three out of the four, anyway and then —
JM: And was that in Perth?
DS: Yes, yes. And then I did something else for a pharmacist for some time until the day I was eighteen.
JM: And had your mother come back to Perth at this stage and you were living with her or were you had the grandparents moved in to?
DS: Yes she was back from er, I don’t know, I’ve forgotten. I think the last, her last country post was Greenwood [?] she was the matron at the hospital there, and I lived there for a while until the local [unclear] you can’t do that because the maternity ward is just so close to where you were sleeping and what’s going on there is not good for growing boys, something in that order so they said right oh well you’re out. So some very nice English lady who already had three children more than, more than she could manage was good enough to take me in. So that was it whilst we were in the country we were staying with this and finally we got together with mother in Perth for say about twelve months before the call up date.
JM: That’s call up, so you had your call up and sort of then from the time, well I think you did your initial training, in June 1942 at Clontarf, so that would make you twenty, a bit over twenty, about twenty and a half so then you were in the Army for about two years?
DS: Oh no, no, no.
JM: No, not that long?
DS: Probably.
JM: Right okay.
DS: I was only the Army for about three or four months.
JM: Oh okay, right.
DS: Not that that matters, and then we were in the course of doing these lessons from the Air Force the crowd that gave you lessons, I’ve forgotten, er but I’m not sure about the time but anyway —
JM: No, no, I think it was my actual, I’ve got an arrow in the wrong place I can see where I’ve made the mistake so that’s okay. So then you did your initial training at Clontarf and then did your pilot training —
DS: At Cunderdin
JM: Yes, that was when you were in to Tiger Moths.
DS: Yes we were on Tigers but then you did the solo bit.
JM: Yes.
DS: In time yes.
JM: So how long before you went solo?
DS: Six months, quarter hours I think it was something like that.
JM: And how was your experience first, of your first solo flight?
DS: Oh well, course all of you, you know, all of you are as proud as punch you can’t think of anything else really, er, but we were mostly very happy about that, but then it was only a matter of another weeks or a month or so we went off that job and of course on to —
JM: Avro Ansons? Ansons, Avro Ansons?
DS: Oh Ansons, yes, and of course they were very reliable you, you could make a dozen mistakes you know and they would still be in the air, but, er —
JM: Which was a little different to the Tiger Moth situation?
DS: Oh yes, oh well the Tigers you had do give them some respect because they were so gentle but really that’s about it the way you had to treat them and once you get used to that you’re right, gentle [unclear]. They used to say there was a saying, gentle treat them like a woman, and so that’s what we tried to do and that was successful. So we went on the job and that was another four months graduating [unclear] with hundreds and thousands of others, and then it was only a matter of days or may be weeks and we got the posting and of course the posting was to the UK. And well there was via Laporte.
JM: Freemantle.
DS: I went to Melbourne.
JM: So Freemantle to Melbourne.
DS: Melbourne.
JM: And then Melbourne to —
DS: Sydney by train.
JM: Oh okay right.
DS: And then there was an amalgamation of bodies and they got on, we went on The Matson Line.
JM: Right.
DS: The Matsonia [?]
JM: Right, so when would this have been?
DS: It was about the middle of ‘43.
JM: The middle of ’43.
DS: And, er, wended our way to the US and across the US, in the normal way, and then —
JM: Across to New York obviously.
DS: Yes, sometime in New York big camp [unclear] there, enormous place a small city in itself and then finally we got on a boat to England, that was the Queen Mary.
JM: Right the Mary, yes.
DS: All very nice that was the first of the [unclear] that could go unaccompanied by a whole of plethora of ships because they were fast, it was fast enough —
JM: To out speed the German U-Boats and all the rest of it?
DS: Subs.
JM: So did you land in Scotland, land in Scotland?
DS: Yes, yes, and finally ended up on the south coast.
JM: To Brighton?
DS: Brighton.
JM: Yes.
DS: Where there was a whole load of us and er, not much time there and then we were off to a whole load of different training, we’d go do this course, that course.
JM: You do your affiliation in a sort of is that where you first started flying Wellingtons?
DS: Er, Wellingtons was the first large aircraft yes, yes.
JM: So it was a conversion from your Avro Anson to your Wellingtons?
DS: The Wellingtons was the next. Did that, and it was a nice old aircraft really you know and of course it was the mainsail of Bomber Command early in the piece [unclear] you know a first class bomber. Always did stay as a bomber but of course less and less significance, anyway —
JM: And from that conversion course did you then get, is that when you were posted to 149?
DS: Oh no, no, no, oh crickey you can’t get away with that, there was half a dozen courses in-between, one on stars you know meteorology, another on beam landing systems, and another on some other, oh there was a whole load a plethora of reasons that we had to do another week here, or a week there, always in a tent it was winter, and anyway—
JM: In a tent did you say?
DS: Mostly in a tent somewhere?
JM: So you didn’t even have the Nissen hut?
DS: Oh yes, we lived in, we had our permanent time there, but when you’re posted off to a course somewhere you know you’re a week away from it.
JM: Right, so if this is approaching the end of ’43 you’re coming into the winter?
DS: Yes, I, I, I [unclear] a little bit because we had to have someone on patrol every night you know with the heater in the middle of the, of the unit you know there was thirty-six bodies I think in the, in the tin shed that we were in, but they were nice units but just made to put beds in after all, and we, but we had this fire in the middle and that was very useful, very useful. Anyway so it was only then a matter of getting another posting to another place and we then converted onto the next step up.
JM: Then the Halifaxes or Stirlings?
DS: Stirlings.
JM: Stirlings right.
DS: Stirling was the first four engine that we had and we loved it.
JM: How did you, what sort of differences would you feel you experienced between flying the Stirlings and the Wellingtons, anything stand out for you?
DS: Not really no.
JM: Only major difference is four engines versus two obviously —
DS: You just had to get your fingers over the fourth thing you know make sure that you had it covered, I remember having initial problems with it you know not my fingers but obviously it, it becomes easier, no trouble at all, so that was it amen, you finally get a post.
JM: Posting.
DS: A post, at we got ours at 149 Squadron, but, just out of London, north of London, and but ah her we go, we were quite happy to go, go off in a Stirling really but they had mainly Halifaxes and Lancasters there so, they’d only just getting the Lancs so what happened the first thing we did was oh you can’t fly that you’ve got to do a course first. In the usual way so we did our course on the Lancasters and about the last day or the second last day a posting came through from whoever does the postings in the UK to say your crowd, your crew 82 special duties.
JM: Right. Just before we go to that you by this time had a crew.
DS: Oh yes.
JM: So where did you crew up?
DS: Before we got in the four engine aircraft.
JM: So
DS: That was after the Stirling, after er, —
JM: At —
DS: After the Wellingtons.
JM: After the Wellingtons.
DS: After the Wellingtons yes, that was about crewing up time.
JM: That was crewing time. So who what sort of crew did you have, did you have a mixed, mixed crew then if it was 149?
DS: They were mixed.
JM: Oh no you weren’t actually on 149.
DS: We went into a, the expert way in which it’s done, your shoved into a room like so many cattle, and said, ‘Right everyone’s got to make their own crew, pick their own bodies, seven, seven each, and that’s it.’ Very scientific of course. So how much, how do you know who the hell unless you know people, and as a pilot you, you only learnt people’s names and friendships since you’d been on the course, so it’s the luck of the draw really right from day one. But of course that’s the whole of the Air Force then became Bomber Command is a story of the luck of the draw and if you’re really lucky you’ll be all right, [unclear] bad luck. So anyway we crewed up all Western Australians and that was my scientific method of ticking the box, a perverse, quite a perverse crowd, navigator for example who was subsequently killed in an accident we had in Italy, er, he was a great [unclear] of a person he was over twenty-eight most of us were still eighteen or —
JM: Twenty, I think you probably would have been about —
DS: Nineteen twenty.
JM: Nineteen twenty by this stage.
DS: So whatever it was, you weren’t all that old. Anyway you crew up and you ask what, what was the crew, I mean there was a bomb aimer from Sydney who had done nothing much but drift in his life but a nice guy, and then the wireless operator who, whose still alive we became you know real, real close, he’s the only member of the crew that’s still around other than myself, so and then we’d got an English engineer who had according to him had all kinds of experience in a Rolls Royce factory but in fact I think in practice had very little experience but a nice bloke but he was a womaniser and loved drinking, but you know all full crews had that I guess, [unclear] anyway that was it that was our crew.
JM: That was your crew. So you’re together you did your concluding together for Wellingtons sorry Stirlings and then you get the you’re about to start on Lancasters when your told you’re going off to, so you didn’t actually do any operations, do any ops?
DS: No less. No, I did no operations at all in England.
JM: In England right.
DS: As it happened at the time well it was something to do with someone who [unclear] because the timing was right it was just at the end of our conversion course. Obviously they didn’t want another crew although the squadron had have a number of losses but, er, and that was it. I would they made to go on oh you’re content for a week here, the posting [unclear] about a week second time down to somewhere in the South of England, we were then flying Stirlings and we had to press a button, right here we go it’s a brand new aircraft no hours on the clock. [unclear] you’ve got to give it every check possible, it’s yours, it’s yours if there’s any complaints feel free but give it now because it’s then yours, so we did just that.
JM: And this is a Stirling?
DS: Yes. Talk about it performing perfectly the whole time, we wouldn’t have given it back anyway so [laughs] there was no way, and that was the aircraft we took away with us.
JM: Right.
DS: Another week or so later they said, ‘Right you’re off to across Africa.’ We didn’t know you know we just got a posting that’s all, so we were posted to Radar Salem, North Africa [?] and we stopped there for the night and thought oh you know we’re on our way certain we were going to the Far East because they were very short, the Japs were getting the better part of the war there, so we reckoned we were on our way. But no it wasn’t that at all we got a posting to North Africa and another part of North Africa if you’d like to call it that, BNA, British North African Forces. And so we go to Algiers it was a place called Blida, big aircraft, a big Air Force base just outside of Algiers the capital, and they said, ‘Right oh you get this ops here.’ And we, we were in, we were actually posted to 624 Squadron that was our first post and we flew several on to [unclear], Africa South, but just across the Mediterranean from there. That was about the time there was a big upheaval when we, we lowered, took over, captured or freed up whatever, a lot of, held up ships, French, French warships, that were valuable to the allies but were being held up and put away the German fleet. Anyway so we thought oh we’re here for ages, but no we were there about four or five, six maybe six days, not sure, and a signal came through this time saying we’re going to the Far East, but no we’re going to Italy then.
JM: Right just before we get off to Italy, in those four, five, six trips, did you drop any bombs at all, were you just surveillance or what?
DS: All bodies.
JM: Sorry?
DS: We dropped bodies.
JM: Bodies right. Were they Special Forces or something?
DS: A whole lot of activity going on particularly in Southern France.
JM: So they were what Special Forces that you were dropping or?
DS: Oh yes, well we were in, of course still 624 Squadron was a part of the Special Forces, Special Bomber Command Forces. And then when we, we moved over to when we got the posting to Italy we found out that was Brindisi and that was Brindisi 148 Squadron which was still of course RAF, actually it was all RAF [unclear]. We had any, we had a mishap and [unclear], on take-off on one trip apart from that it was [unclear] aircraft.
JM: So how did you go with any particular damage to the airplane or?
DS: Well the aircraft was in pretty [unclear] shape I’m not too sure whether they could fix it up or not because we didn’t stay long enough to see what and you asked blokes about it, ‘Oh no, oh no, never heard of it.’ Anyway.
JM: So that was the most —
DS: That was the excitement.
JM: The excitement in those half a dozen or handful of trips, yep.
DS: Brindisi we got to.
JM: Got to Brindisi —
DS: Brindisi yes. We had, there was a Polish flight, really nice squadron on the other side of the airbase, we were on this side, whichever side you were looking at. They were operate, they operated absolutely separately from us and I have to say they were fearless, there were lots of days that we couldn’t fly because of the weather because of the distance, it didn’t worry the Poles they were always flying, and particularly a bit later on we had four trips towards Poland, er, we weren’t allowed to go fortuitously or otherwise a week or so before we got there, maybe it was that week, we were helping, we were trying to help the Poles, when the Russians were approaching and of course they had the German Panzer there, then they had the Russians coming that way. They appealed to every squadron everywhere, commanders in chief the lot, we want all the assistance we can get, anyway it was quite a game, half a dozen [unclear] as many as they had planes for about five hundred or more were lost over wasn’t over Warsaw but it was I would say the battle for Warsaw.
JM: But you weren’t on that particular mission?
DS: No, no, oh no fortunately, once again luck of the draw, and they said cancelled all, all, all those trips to Warsaw, Poland, but there were plenty of others till we [unclear]. We never ever had a prime aim or you’ve got to do this or you’ve got to do that. We just —
JM: Mission by mission basically.
DS: We were on call.
JM: Yes, yes, for whatever they decided they wanted to be the next target.
DS: One of the big thing was, or one of the big things if not the biggest, Tito of course was commander of the forces over the, over the war, and Tito was a very vigorous fighter, we weren’t too sure whether he, which side he was on but we were supposed to be helping him and each second or third crew were surprised you know we used to call it [unclear] with the Luftwaffe quite [unclear]. There were all kinds of things they introduced I remember a land mine in those days of course these things were about this round all big heavy —
JM: A couple of feet wide?
DS: Oh anyway all the holes in aircraft that you get in and out are square you see so we had to cut a big round hole to accommodate these, course we had —
JM: So these were the bombs that —
DS: Oh we didn’t drop them as bombs —
JM: You didn’t drop them —
DS: We dropped them as for TJ [?] forces when we dropped those kind of things, that was quite a frequent player because arms and ammunition actually were always short for on the other side. Mind you we didn’t know too much of what was going on, they very rarely opened up to say we’re going to do this, or you are going to do that, or you’re going somewhere, but you never ever well very rarely ever knew there was no fixed place. Mainly the trips at night when we were dropping bodies were in the dark and mostly on a hillside that was hard to find always of course, but that, that was all part of the, part of the act of course.
JM: And what, and you still had your initial crew?
DS: Oh yes, yes.
JM: That you’d crewed up with —
DS: Yeah we had —
JM: That would have been 14 —
DS: 148 —
JM: Stages there, so that crew had come through from all each of these different stages, you still had the same crew?
DS: And we were all together except the navigator who we lost on the, oh what trip it was but it was on 26th December ’44, would have been ’44 or ’43?
JM: Probably ’43 I’d say.
DS: No.
JM: No ’44.
DS: And we crashed, I should never have ever really, this is off the record of course, but I should never ever have going forward we lost an engine on take-off, so many times it’s easy to turn back your excused you know so it’s just to press on, this was an occasion I thought we’d press on you know the old story, press on regardless —
JM: And you were taking off from?
DS: Italy.
JM: From Brindisi?
DS: Brindisi. When we got to about the Slavic Coast, the north coast it became pretty evident our engines were overheating and the engineer said, ‘Oh we can’t go anymore.’ Because dropping stuff we have to go low and then you’ve gotta, so it got to the stage that we thought we’ve gotta go back, and we went back cut across to Italy and we looked for a nice soft landing spot of course and we picked a fairly good spot it was a grape growing place in, a place called San Pico [?] if I remember rightly, and unfortunately you, you don’t know the aircraft but the Halifax was, we were flying [unclear] the navigator used to be way beyond the front and you had to climb two flights of stairs to go up, and at, on that particular flight we were loaded to the hilt, there were extra clothes and food it was Christmas time you know, and er, he just couldn’t get up the stairs he had the certain navigation equipment that he should have done this with but struggling up to get the stairs and sooner or later of course you know he the props flew off, the right, the right hand motor had been what do you call it not seized up, but it had been cut off because —
JM: Feathered?
DS: It was propeller, it had been feathered [unclear] but it had been freewheeling there’s a word for it special [unclear] anyway. So as soon as the prop hit the ground the bits just flew off and fortunately the pilot was just about that far in front of where the props fly off so it missed you know who, but unfortunately the navigator was right in the road and it cocked him, so I don’t know what number trip it was but we, that was, we flew on for months after that you know borrowed a navigator. You’ll have to excuse me I’ve got to go to the toilet frequently.
JM: We’re just resuming now we’re picking up on December ’44, so where you had —
DS: We did a number of very interesting trips following that —
JM: Following that —
DS: The most interesting one was when we took four very brave characters to the Hitler’s retreat[?] up in the mountains, of course we came from Southern Italy just a bit to the left, our big concern, biggest concern in getting there and getting back there was, there was a squadron of Messerschmitt 362 had moved into somewhere near Trieste, and of course we had the option of our own of doing our own navigation you know we were well away from this crowd, so we dodged them without any trouble, then we had to find this virtually a torchlight, and I said, ‘oh no trouble.’ We’ll follow the mountains close to the mountain peak of course and they were all mountain peaks [laughs] heck of a place. So anyway we finally estimated what we reckoned what was right, confirmed by the blokes we were carrying because the method of identification was pretty raw really, but that’s the problem we were happy when they was off, snow and it was desolate you know but very close to his headquarters, we flew around a long time looking for the place but anyway we’d done what we were doing for months no too keen on that trip at all but anyway —
JM: And they dropped successfully?
DS: Oh yes, yes, the drop was. Unfortunately we never or very rare ever heard back from the blokes as whether it was successful or otherwise. But obviously some of the operations were captured before the blokes got to the ground, because the, they’d been the fellas down there had been captured by the Germans and they were using the signals you see, but you know that’s war and I guess happens all the time. Anyway so that took us up till about they declared armistice in Europe and then of course we thought well we’ll get a week have a little rest and peace and quiet, but the next important job was flying all the oddbods all over the place back to Europe, and of course that was a very joyful task, but we didn’t partake because the next day or the day after another signal came through all Australians have got to be returned they wanted everybody in a hurry so that was it, and then we boarded the first ship, or a number of aircraft ready we’d got over to Egypt and we were on the banks of the river there, The Nile, for months, months, and then the war finally ended whilst we were there, they dropped the big bomb —
JM: Hiroshima?
DS: Hiroshima, that was it, end of story.
JM: And when you were in Egypt there you were just —
DS: Doing nothing.
JM: Doing nothing just waiting?
DS: Waiting, waiting, waiting.
JM: Okay backtracking to Brindisi again, you obviously because it was such a long period of time a long posting do you have any recollection of how many ops you did altogether?
DS: We did forty.
JM: Forty ops?
DS: Forty trips yes.
JM: Okay from Brindisi?
DS: No, no all told, our log books recorded, I don’t have mine I lost it mine years and years ago, Rod Harrison said we logged forty trips.
JM: Right, right. A fair reasonable number would have been while you were at Brindisi?
DS: Oh yes, yes.
JM: So what sort of things did you do in your down time during ops?
DS: I’m afraid we probably drunk too much red wine but I’m ashamed to say, but there wasn’t too much to do —
JM: That’s the point —
DS: And you had to fill in the day and every now and again of course they did say the weather was so terrible, but the Poles can fly but you can’t, so we got four days off we’d say right we’re off to, the favourite place was Pollina[?] in Sicily but that wasn’t very far away from Mount Etna, a road goes through from Pollina [?] up to, to the mountain, and you know it’s a story really but we got hemmed in there was the biggest snow of all time there were hemmed in just as we’d kind of settled in ready to come back [unclear] very little time.
JM: So what you’d driven up —
DS: Oh no, no, oh you’d get to the, the accommodation was in Pollina [?] a little place by the coast and then you would scrounge your way up there was plenty of vehicles going all the time Italian vehicles, so we got up there without any trouble it was the getting back of course we had to have a quick lessons in skiing, and you know we were trying all the time to do a bit of this and of course falling off most of the time but—
JM: So where did you get the skis from?
DS: Oh they loaned us to, they said, ‘Right you’re quite welcome to them just hand them into whatever centre it was back in the Pollina [?]. So I think one or two of them were badly bruised but we didn’t break anything except didn’t break any bones really they were badly bruised, lucky because when you can’t steer properly you’re bound to hit a tree and things like that, anyway we were much better skiers at the end of the time because it was a hell of a long way from up top down to where the road, where the snow stopped, a long way, unbelievable.
JM: Did you have any sense of time, sort of was it four hours, five hours, or any sense of timing at all?
DS: Really lots of time.
JM: And how did you sort of navigate, how did you know where —
DS: Ah well you know but it’s —
JM: You followed the road I presume?
DS: Yes, well more tried to follow the road but you knew if the road was east to west you knew that it was basically east to west or whatever it was, so that was one of our special trips, mind you we did quite a number of others. I don’t think we ever told the story, we were going north, north to Naples but anyway that’s another the story, but we were particular keen about Malta [unclear] never done this, never done that, there was a thousand rogues and vagabonds there, every street corner was covered with them, and of course if you were stupid enough to be out after dark you were asking for trouble, anyway we, we probably had a few drinks one day or every day I guess, but we it was after dark and we were still out and of course we got the greatest lashing of all time the whole crew.
JM: The whole crew?
DS: No there were only five of us there I think five out of the seven, the two other were too smart to come with us but probably a good idea of what was going to go off, but anyway —
JM: So how did you get to Malta?
DS: Ah, that’s another story. We had a, I’ve forgot the name of the type of [unclear] kind of a major repair very close to us, they fixed all kinds of aircraft from all over the place, so if they had anything that was flyable that we thought we could, that I thought we could fly we flew, so we had this water repair and we could [unclear] there was supposed to be —
JM: Another type?
DS: Another type, yes, that’s right. And we just squeezed in should never have had quite that many but anyway I was, I thought I could fly this in and so we did, I got it down there but very glad to leave it to someone else to fly it back because I don’t think I could have done it again but, and there were all kinds of other trips we could do.
JM: So just going back to you flew, so you got this aircraft it —
DS: Yes. Borrowed it.
JM: Borrowed it, flew over to Malta, had a bit of a day or so in Malta and then you in the evening you copped a bashing, and how did you —
DS: Get home?
JM: Get home then?
DS: I’m not too sure but we finally made it, there were some reprimands of course [laughs] but fortunately it didn’t extend beyond that, mind you they wanted, they wanted crews to fly, so they couldn’t, they couldn’t kind of send us off and say right you can go somewhere, but that was, it wasn’t our biggest adventure really, but these are the things that you know, all the aircrew, or nearly all aircrew were up to it one way or the other.
JM: No that’s right and of course the difference being with you being over there in Brindisi was very different to squadrons back in the UK —
DS: Oh yes.
JM: When they had leave they could go to London or wherever it was, but as you say sort of very much almost left to your own devices at Brindisi.
DS: We were entirely, entirely. Eventually it was rare when well Rome particularly was always a magnet to go up and you know you had to have your photograph taken in —
JM: For the —
DS: In all the places that were old and historic and that was all good fun but —
JM: So how many times do you think you would have gone to Rome?
DS: Oh several, several times.
JM: Any particular incidents stand out then?
DS: No, no real nasty incidents, we were stuck on the road sometimes, all you could see were Indians, and you know you think —
JM: How did you get to Rome?
DS: Always vehicles going, coming and going all the time, sometimes took an aircraft halfway if it was down for servicing or going back again, there was always a you know, never really anything exciting happened other than the historical photographs outside this place and that place, and of course seeing it, ah that’s right I forgot to mention our, our historic visit was the day we visited Rome and we had a special trip, an invitation from one of the padres that were training, under training here and they were quite a few of them a good number of Australians’. And anyway so we had this invite, special invite, a couple of cartons of cigarettes you know to do all this, so but we did it, and we had this personal interview with the Pope and received his blessing.
JM: Goodness me.
DS: That was a, we thought it wasn’t a big deal, but everyone else thought it was a big deal after, but it was exciting, and you can remember things you try to have a good look and see the big ring on his finger all that.
JM: So that was what a ten minute —
DS: Oh that was, we had an audience —
JM: An audience?
DS: There was a great crowd out the and we sat out there, he had a thing like this right up at the front, and at that stage he used to stand, I’ve read about it since, he’s now down on the floor level for some reason they cut out this special groove, ‘cos they were all first to get the blessings if there’s any blessings left [unclear] they on the floor, but anyway that was you know so at the time, but otherwise it was all pretty average, pretty ordinary you know, all we wanted to do really was to get home, and but we then spent four at least four months over in Egypt waiting for a ship before we got home, that was the time the bomb was dropped, the big one. We got home as peaceful civilians you might say.
JM: And when you were flying did you have any lucky charms, or any of the crew have any lucky charms, or have any suspicions that you used to that they following that anyone followed, ‘cos some I know that having talked to a few other chaps that you know other chaps did have lucky charms, and did certain things in a certain routine that you know never varied, I mean obviously the usual checks and all the rest of it.
DS: We were a pretty ordinary crew really, a pretty ordinary crowd. One of our, well it wasn’t a problem but for social aspects all the rest of the crew were under twenty-one years of age and we had these two blokes were twenty-eight and they were quite elderly.
JM: By comparison yes.
DS: Yes, so that, that upset some of them, well it didn’t upset them but it, it was divisive in as much as they didn’t all want to come with us, but mostly we drank too much anyway, nearly all the time if we could get booze but you couldn’t get good beer anywhere.
JM: Not in Italy I wouldn’t have thought.
DS: So you just drank what there was.
JM: What there was?
DS: So to cut a long story short, mother was very pleased to see us get back, she was down at the ship there so [laughs]
JM: I’ll say. And I didn’t check before did you have any brothers or sisters?
DS: I had a sister who joined the Air Force about the same time as I did and she became a radio operator and they used to be stuck up in the bush up around Jordan [?] or out north from Jordan [?] in the bush there, where the [unclear] that was it she —
JM: No it’s just that so for your mum there was only the one that she had to worry about coming back, returning from overseas, yes.
DS: Yes.
JM: So that was in you came back and then you ultimately were discharged in February 1946, is that right?
DS: Yes, that would be.
JM: Is that right?
DS: Yes. Had a week or two after we got back not very long, anyway.
JM: And then what did you do for the next few years?
DS: Well, they were very, very busy years, because when I was in the desert waiting for the ship we bought a store at Mingenew[?], do you know west at all?
JM: Not really that area no.
DS: You’ve gotta know Mingenew relatively speaking, it’s not the most salubrious town around, a typical country town, wheat and sheep, but all the good properties all the nice houses are way up in the [unclear] not many around town except the pub and our store that was good whilst it was there. I was there for not long a year or so but it was everything was rationed you know, milk, you were around at that stage or were you?
JM: Not quite no.
DS: But everything was rationed, I mean cigarettes and booze were most wanted, hard to get but you know, you couldn’t buy extra milk or cream or butter, a whole range of stuff, it was very difficult to even think that we were like life could have been like that, but anyway that didn’t last for long. I trained to be a schoolteacher, quite stupidly, god knows how I got the thing in that you know, but anyway so we left the store round there and a fortune with it for an academic career. And we were going fine, I was I did the teacher’s course and it was only two years.
JM: At Perth? Was this at Perth?
DS: At Perth yes. Became a I forgot what they call it something psychological and so and so expert you know, I only had about five minutes of training on the course. Anyway that was, that was good until and I was gonna, oh mother was happy with that, she said, ‘You’ve got a job for life son you’ll never get the sack, oh there’s permanent holidays’. Anyway so I was busy teaching, I had because of my training you know I did ended up as a special class of kids, children, and some of them had an IQ as low as fifty-five and that’s a if you know IQ’s that’s getting down a bit, nice you know, lovely children and all that but you know I was happy to stay doing this every day of the week. Ah in the meantime I’ve bought another store [unclear] you’re good at this and I thought should be a supplies store, and my wife said oh I’ll look after the store through the day and we had a manager in as well, he used to drink all, a fair drop, it was hard to get of course, and everything was sailing along beautifully for the first several months but until one day two big burly strong fellas came in and they were from the union the teacher’s union, and of course they said, ‘Oh we understand that you’re not in the you know, you haven’t joined the teacher’s union.’ And I said, ‘No that would be right I haven’t.’ They said, ‘Oh you’ve got to join the union otherwise you can’t stay, you can’t be a teacher you’ve got to be in the union.’ And I said, ‘Well, you serious about that?’ So I said, ‘Okay well.’ That was a very big silence and there we are I went off to the headmaster and that finished that job. [laughs] So no more, no more academic career for me.
JM: What, what sort of years was this, this was about ’48, well you said you did about two years training so are we up to about —
DS: No, no, no, not two years training.
JM: Teacher training I thought you said.
DS: Oh yes, yes that’s right yes.
JM: So are we up to about ’49?
DS: Well, what, two years on top of what after the discharge, would have been about right, I needed another six months to get a leaving certificate as well.
JM: Right.
DS: To allow me to do it.
JM: Do the two years.
DS: So there’s two and a half years, busy years, between drinking and, and school work, there was no spare time, oh and of course I got married in the meantime.
JM: I was going to say you mentioned your wife there, so we, I was going to find out, fit that in as well, when you got married and how, when you met your wife?
DS: Well, we met in the usual way, before I left we were both in the surf club.
JM: Which surf club?
DS: City Beach.
JM: City Beach.
DS: City of Perth, and it was you know, things were very rough and ready out there, we had a, although we had a nice, nice big shed for dressing and undressing, and we had a nice big heavy surf boat, which, which it took about eighteen blokes to just get off the ground, but we had to walk across the sandy beach you know to get it back up to the surf club. Anyway, that was, that was the recreation side, but I met Julie used to come along with several other elderly sisters, two elderly sisters and another one or two girls, and you know in the usual way we got to talking, a bit of this, a bit of that, and we decided it mightn’t be a bad idea all the rest of ‘em had said they were getting married, doing this and doing that. So we said that would be a good idea, but not till we got, not till I got back from overseas. So we did just that, got back from overseas and a couple of months later I still hadn’t turned twenty-one so it was pretty quick but it was all fixed, and she was very good she looked after the shop while I was still teaching, and then she took over the ladies section up at, when I bought the big place up at Mingenew [?], and of course you know very handy to have a wife, who suffered the most. [laughs] Very handy. Anyway you know and then the Korean War hit.
JM: So then yes, so what you decided to give teaching away?
DS: I gave it away, I packed up
JM: Yes you gave it away after that —
DS: And it wasn’t short, no it was about that time I started to get letters from Air Force Headquarters, and so they, they decided that things were getting serious again and we were needed to re-arm and the Air Force of course had let everyone go, a lot had gone [unclear], so the first thing they wanted was old aircrew back particularly, oh of course we were still on the active reserves so wanted to see you back, so that took some months of wangling and selling my business and you know cleaning up. And then you don’t have a house to go to, Air Force then had very limited accommodation, so you had wherever you went you had to buy your own house and you know self-accommodate, so we did that of course, you just get by. And then of course they said all of you we’d like you to stay and they gave you, you get up as your old rank was flight officer. So you go back as that and then, I don’t know whether that’s when I got a new number was it? Perhaps it was 051723. Anyway, so that was it, it was just a nice long career in the Air Force.
JM: But well yes. So you were still based in Perth at that time?
DS: Oh yes, that lasted about five minutes.
JM: And from there?
DS: Melbourne.
JM: You moved to Melbourne yep. And that how long were you in Melbourne roughly?
DS: A very short time.
JM: A very short time.
DS: So then you, you needed experience of course.
JM: Because at this point you’re not flying?
DS: No.
JM: Your in —
DS: I was doing a bit of flying but there were too many old war time pilots that had gone back and they were very, very jealous of their careers and they didn’t want any extra crew around, so they said, ‘Oh you better do this, you better do that, become a teacher you’ve got the qualifications.’ So I said, ‘No, no, no I don’t want to do that.’ And I took the job as equipment officer and, I, all I know about it, all the girls used to hand stuff over the counter, when you wanted clothing and stuff you know, I thought that’s what the equipment officer, that’s what they do. So of course, it is what they do, it’s a very small part of it of course, so that was my view of it. So we did this there was really no appreciation of time you know you get [unclear] So we got, till we got up to Canberra, and of course once you’re there you’re stuck there, you know it doesn’t matter what you do or say or where you wanna go. Oh we had a couple of years in the States.
JM: Okay, what sort of, heading up a base or something?
DS: No, no, no, they didn’t want too many strangers, too much for them. There was the nicest, kindest people in the world as long as you didn’t cast any shadow on the mishap or the US generally, well no, no trouble, I mean we enjoyed the place it was all very nice. So we had two years ensconced to the Air Force base, and I was the chief missiles man quite a new sidewinder missiles they’ve still got some a very basic missile but very, very effective.
JM: So what you were looking after their —
DS: Well looking after our interests or trying to.
JM: Or trying to.
DS: Yes. And that was an Air Force base where they’ve got a lot of [unclear] and we they were kind enough to lend me a, an F100 which was very modern aircraft and the gentleman with me the pilot he’d got a flare for me you know and it worked, and we saw it work it was all good fun.
JM: So that would have been a very different flying experience to your Stirlings and your Lancasters?
DS: Oh yes, a world apart, world apart, but mind you Bomber Command was Bomber Command and they had nothing better anywhere, and the States never got, never got up to the bombing raids because they were, their aircraft weren’t specifically built for that particular job whereas our aircraft were, and they might have been clumsy to get around them because there was bits of stuff sitting out the floor here you know, but they were essentially for carrying bombs, the more they could fit on the better, and they did just that. Well —
JM: And, except when they were used for transferring all the at the end of the war, after the war had concluded and were transporting all the troops back from, from Europe back to England, of course then it was a fairly difficult exercise trying to get the chaps you know I believe they just packed in and sat on top of their parachutes.
DS: Well in some parts in others they only had a handful of blokes.
JM: So how many, you did a few of those —
DS: No, no, I was ensconced in Egypt by then.
JM: Yes, yes, in Egypt by then.
DS: But my friends, who one was a Kiwi, another a great Englishman, and we were in close contact with and they had some terribly exciting trips to all parts of Europe picking up two blokes here and three blokes there for different reasons why there were only two or three there, and of course there were other sad scenes too where they got a lot of others, but anyway that was and I, we weren’t there, I missed out on all that I’d have loved to have been there, but so endeth the —
JM: So then, we were just talking about that flight you know comparing that flight for you in that F100 —
DS: Oh yes, yes. F100.
JM: Compared to the experience in —
DS: Oh, chalk and cheese.
JM: Chalk and cheese, yes that’s right. Again that’s more or less the fighter pilot which again you know as we said, we’re talking specifically designed for bombers, for bombing raids.
DS: Yes.
JM: So that’s a major, major difference there and then. So what sort of roles did you ultimately do in Canberra?
DS: Oh well, briefly I’d have to say pen pushing, there was a lot of politicking and inter-action with the department you know the crowd that were close to defence and —
JM: Defence affairs?
DS: No, no, defence affairs, there were well I should, I should be able to spout it off but I can’t, anyway that, there was a lot of as we got sent on a course, lot of politics.
JM: Foreign affairs?
DS: No, Air Force Headquarters.
JM: Oh Air Force Headquarters.
DS: You know you always had to be a bit careful of which side of the camp you know, we got a very nasty senior civilian in the Department of Defence, he was the first of the Defence Ministers that was oh rough, and gruff and anti-services, so there used to be this constant battle all the time you know to get, to get to do this to do that, now of course many years later there well and truly integrated, were into their department as well as they’re are with us and hopefully things work differently now sometimes they do, but anyway that’s not for me to say. But I enjoyed it every minute, the last couple of years when I was Air Commodore the last year anyway when I was briefly in charge of our branch, er, I used to be at work at seven in the morning, half past seven, but purely there was a load of stuff to do always, always working, always behind, but I always had my dilly bag and maybe a carrier bag, I’m afraid I wasn’t not much of a nightlife at home because had to do the books, the Air Force books every night, anyway that’s another matter, but I enjoyed it anyhow.
JM: Which Air Force books were those, which Air Force books?
DS: Oh, the books, the books, er, well our own branch in particular because we had thousands of blokes in the branch, but you so far away from most of them you only know the names of all those that are up close and we did it, we had a an Air Vice Marshall who was actually senior to me and he was posted to Defence so it didn’t leave too many others round our way, but that didn’t matter, we enjoyed, I enjoyed life, and going to the mess and having a few grogs, but not half as many as I drank as a younger bloke, not half as many.
JM: No.
DS: So it got to be different anyway.
JM: Oh that’s right, that’s right. And of course as well I mean you were going home to your wife and all the rest of it so that’s a totally different situation.
DS: Yeah well we flew over from Perth with, er, we only had one child at that stage, and he’s since dead, died, what we did bring over was a big cattle dog, I’d been, one of the blokes had come back from the Kimberley’s and he was a drover and he bought it origin magnificent countryman good family, he said, ‘There.’ But cattle, on the cattle side I can speak for exactly [unclear] crossed with a dingo, but he said, ‘He’s a faithful animal.’ So we had this, I called it “Aspetari, Aspetari Peter” so that was his name [laughs] not quite an ordinary dog’s name.
JM: Not quite.
DS: My navigator we used to in the end we used to call him, the navigator that replaced poor old Fred, we used to call him Aspertari which is Italian for going slow, or a derivation of that anyway. Anyway so we brought our big dog over, he used to bite anyone he could, oh he was always heeling and very, very rarely would he break anyone’s skin, but I bought a lot of socks for people, he used to grab it and anchor it you see, grab a bit of sock with it, there all good stories.
JM: That’s right yeah.
DS: All good stories.
JM: So when you, so you retired in what?
DS: Ah, it would have been, it was either ’80, ‘4 or ‘6, or ‘8, it was one of those multiples, I’m gonna say the middle one about ’86.
JM: About ’86.
DS: Yes, it’s very close to that anyway. So I didn’t need to retire I could have they wanted someone to take over the support command and then post another bloke into my job, so I went home and told the bad news to Julie my wife and she said, ‘Oh love, I just don’t wanna move again, I, we’ve been from there, to there, to there.’ So then we bought three or four houses along the road, none of them very good but good enough to live in for the time being, and that we’d, she’d had enough and I wasn’t far behind so I didn’t take much convincing so I threw it in. But you know there comes a time for everything.
JM: That’s right. And did you stay in Canberra then?
DS: Oh no, the day, oh we left the house and oh we came straight up to the Gold Coast that’s right. I bought a block of flats pretty clapped out they were but all they needed was a little bit of —
JM: TLC?
DS: Oh perhaps a lot of TLC.
JM: Okay.
DS: But anyway, that was, the story is they were right next to the Grand Hotel, you don’t know the Grand?
JM: Not really, where, which part are we talking about?
DS: On the coast, on the Gold Coast, at Labrador.
JM: Labrador, right okay.
DS: There’s this much water between us and the ocean.
JM: Goodness me.
DS: The road up there, anyway, I didn’t, we didn’t realise at the time what an asset it was but of course I don’t know why you know you get the urge when you’re younger and for some reason you want to do something else. Anyway this crowd came up from I don’t know Canberra probably and offered a price and it meant I made a few dollars, and I was silly enough to sell it, mind you the wife had worked too hard there and I wasn’t too keen about that either but, and so, I was stupid enough then to buy I think we bought some more flats but they, they weren’t as good, oh anyway that’s another story. I bought two more blocks of in Main Beach and they did become very valuable, but by that time I’d gone, we had a house a very comfortable place but you know there you are.
JM: Yes, by this stage a few years had passed by —
DS: To get away from the Air Force too, you can’t go to any of the, we went to the reunions till they finally wore out.
JM: Yes.
DS: But there’s a limit, there weren’t that many bods around here, but —
JM: So in terms of then maintaining contact you said that your wireless operator is still alive?
DS: Oh yes.
JM: And what was his name?
DS: Rod Harrison.
JM: And whereabouts is Rod?
DS: He lives in, um, oh, it’s 19 —
JM: No just the, Queensland, New South Wales?
DS: Oh sorry he’s in Perth still.
JM: Oh he’s in Perth okay right.
DS: Yeah, when we were younger and fitter we used to visit each other of course, his wife died at the end of the century and my wife died nine years ago, so we’d been on our own, he was foolish enough to remarry at the age of eighty-four but you know that’s life.
JM: And what sort of contact, you said made reference to a couple of other chaps that you’ve spoken to, a Kiwi chap and another chap are they Bomber Command people were they?
DS: Yes the Kiwi blokes gone he was with us in 14, 148 Squadron, yes he died, and the other guy I can’t remember.
JM: Can’t remember that’s okay that’s fine.
DS: It was bad enough remembering, you know ’cos I’ve been in the RSL for years and years and years, but even there the old timers have all gone and I’m the eldest member there certainly the only ex Bomber Command, so nobody knows anything about it, nobody cares, that’s my how I get the message, and it wouldn’t matter if you walked in with the VC tomorrow it wouldn’t upset any of them. Anyway that’s enough.
JM: So that’s —
DS: I’ll come back to one or two reasons, the luck of the draw and if your just lucky, and postings come up and they protect you, I mean I was protected with going to a special unit, how you’re picked for it, God knows and he won’t tell us, so you can never find out, but these things just happen that’s it.
JM: And it was good, it was good for you too that you were able to take your whole crew with you at the same time which makes a big difference because having that core of people around you to come back to, and when you came back, I mean obviously as you say they’ve all passed away now bar Rod but did you keep in contact with the initial ones?
DS: Oh except our engineer, the old Englishman and even nice correspondence didn’t elect any, he was that kind of a character.
JM: He just didn’t want to maintain contact with you?
DS: No, but he was a happy-go-lucky engineer. So, but you know that’s life, I’m very fortunate to be around I suppose although there are many bloody days I think that’s a misfortune, one of them is that I’ve gotta go to the toilet all the time, and I’ve gotta go again.
JM: You’ve got to go again. Well, is there any other particular things at this point that you wanted to bring up?
DS: No.
JM: Well we’ve covered a tremendous amount of territory there Don and I very much appreciate your, your candidness and —
DS: Well nothing to hide, nothing to –
JM: No, no, no, just being able to sit and reminisce that’s so important and I’ll thank you for it. Thank you
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ASolinD170220
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Interview with Donald Solin
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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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IBCC Digital Archive
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eng
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01:32:13 audio recording
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Pending review
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Jean Macartney
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2017-02-20
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Donald Solin grew up in Perth, Western Australia and worked in a store before joining the Air Force. He served in Europe and North Africa. and flew 40 operations as a pilot with 624 Squadron, a special duties squadron dropping supplies and agents into occupied Europe. He was demobilised in 1946 with the rank of Flying Officer. He rejoined the Royal Australian Air Force during the Korean War and eventually retired with the rank of Air Commodore.
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
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Algeria
Australia
Italy
Italy--Brindisi
Italy--Mount Etna
North Africa
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Jackie Simpson
148 Squadron
149 Squadron
624 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
crash
crewing up
Halifax
love and romance
pilot
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
Tiger Moth
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2468/11768/AWhymarkR171103.mp3
d15b6bbb5d4a4b59a1d617d0068cd018
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Title
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Whymark, Jack
John Percy Whymark
Description
An account of the resource
X items. <br /><br />The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Jack Whymark DSO DFC (1920 -1945, 616289, 53481 Royal Air Force) and contains a<span>n oral history with his son, Robert Whymark. </span><br /><br />He flew operations as an air gunner with 103 Squadron and was killed 04 October 1945 during Operation Dodge. <br /><br />The collection was donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Graham Thurlow and Robert Whymark and catalogued by Lynn Corrigan. <br /><br /><span>Additional information on Jack Whymark is available via the </span><a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/230288/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Date
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2017-11-03
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IBCC Digital Archive
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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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Whymark, JP
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[his log book, correspondence, documents, objects and photographs].
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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RM: Tactical.
JM: Right. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslin and the interviewee is Mr Robert Whymark. And the interview is taking place at Mr Whymark’s home in Little Haywood in Staffordshire on the 3rd of November 2017. Robert, could you please tell us a little bit about your background and your awareness of your late father’s service.
RW: Right. Thank you, Julian. Very firstly my thanks to the IBCC for this opportunity and all the volunteers that are doing the work. I’m Bob Whymark. Only son of Jack, or John as he was christened. He was also known as Johnny. Flight Lieutenant John Percy, but we don’t talk about that, Whymark DSO DFC RAF. He was an air gunner. Robert is a name slightly out of the family tradition. I’m not sure where that come from. I don’t know of any others but the surname is originally Breton I’m told. We could claim 1066 and all that if we did the connection. There was a Robert de Whymark who was the Sheriff of Southend in 1086. They say everybody’s descended from a royal so we might be Harold the III’s lot. He was a big friend of William the Conqueror. However, more realistically we are immediately down from a load of farm labourers in Norfolk and Essex. I’ve gone back about mid-1700s. My dad’s father went to school with my other gran, my mother’s mother in the1890s in the village. My dad was born 10th of January 1920 in Grays, Essex. He had a sister nine years younger. He seems to have been quite bright because he got a scholarship to Palmer’s Boys College for secondary education. His first job was at the Bata Shoe Factory in Tilbury which was seven miles each way on a push bike. Rain or shine. Character building as we called it. He joined the Royal Artillery Territorials when he was fifteen, 1935 to ’38. And then he went into the Air Force in October of ’38 as a ground crew mechanic armourer. He went to St Athan for a mech’s course. I followed twenty-six years later in 1964. His first posting was 17 Squadron Hurricanes at Debden and Martlesham Heath. He was also on the Allied Air Strike Force in North West France, Le Mans, Channel Islands. The same time as Dunkirk was going on. He had to burn the Hurricanes as they French wouldn’t give us any fuel. He was evacuated in July 1940 and went air gunner for safety reasons as he told my mother. He’d gone to school with my mother. They had boys and girls separate schools with a fence between them of course. His best friend was somebody called Mervyn who married Eve who was my wife- my mother’s best friend. There’s more on that at the end of this tale. So, he went aircrew. Evanton in the Cromarty Firth was an air gunner’s training place and Salisbury Plain. There were two areas there. Twenty-four hours of flying time later he was put on first tour with 149 Squadron at RAF Mildenhall. December ’40 to April ’41. He was a Wellington rear gunner. He did fifteen ops from December to March over Europe. The first five all ended in some sort of tears. One with two crash landings, one shot up by anti-aircraft fire and two diversions for fuel. Then there was an outbreak of peace until operation number fifteen over Cologne where they were coned in searchlights for six minutes. I spoke to a guy who’d been coned at twenty thousand feet for about four and he said he’d never felt so helpless in all his life. After that 148 Squadron was formed in Kibrit which is on the Suez Canal. They also went to Malta. This again was on Wellingtons. April to September ’41, he did two hundred hours for a tour so that ended up as thirty-nine ops. He did twenty-four ops in North Africa. A lot of Benghazi’s and Malta in the thick of their bombing. They were actually bombed by a Junkers 88 on landing and ran off into the quarry which snapped the Wellington in half. People who know how they are built, which is rather like the Forth Bridge know that was quite an achievement. They also discovered when they got back one time that a shell had gone through the fuselage side to side. Didn’t explode of course. Nobody noticed. He then came home by troop ship from Suez, stopping off at Aden, Durban and Trinidad. He then had about two hundred hours of instructing duties at RAF Manby and West Freugh near Stranraer February ‘42 until October ’43. This was while the Battle of Berlin was on so he may have been rested from that or else I wouldn’t have been here. He did have one off operation mid-way November ’42. They used to take training troops and boost up the number of crews for some raids. He was detached to RAF Syerston, 106 Squadron. There was an American pilot who’d come up through Canada and over, Joe [Curtin?] He had a DFC from his first op which was while he was on pilot training. They’d been hit by a phosphorous shell in the cockpit and it blinded him for a while. The flight engineer kept it going and then he landed it. He got another DFC later on before he was killed. This was Guy Gibson’s squadron before the Dam Busters. Their op was to Danzig. Or Gdansk Harbour. It was ten hours fifty-five minutes in November of ’42 as a rear gunner. He went into Leconfield for fuel. So, it was fairly tight because it was only twenty minutes hop over to Syerston, between Newark and Nottingham. Back to West Freugh. Promoted to warrant officer and then at the end of that was commissioned. His second tour was from February ’44 to May ’44. Quite quick. 10 squadron- 101 squadron, sorry. RAF Ludford or Mudford as it was called, Magna. He did twenty ops in less than three months. The last one was his number sixty, the night I was born, 20th of May ‘44. He got a DFC for this tour. The first one was to Leipzig and there were seventy-nine aircraft missing which is about three hundred and fifty-three men, I think. No. Four hundred and fifty-three, I beg your pardon. He then flew in DV290 Lancaster five times. Once to Berlin, seventy-three aircraft were lost then which is four hundred and seventy-five people. The same, same as Afghanistan over fifteen years. Now, while those deaths were obviously terrible it does give a perceptive. Four hundred and seventy-five in less than eight hours. The Nuremberg raid — he should have been killed twice on that — ninety-seven aircraft were lost including the photo Mosquito the next day, plus eleven that crashed in UK on recovery. So, about six hundred and fifty people there. He’d flown in DV290 so many times he wrote it down again for that raid. It crashed at Welford near Newbury. They were all killed. Over the target they were nearly hit by a Halifax on its bombing run. He had to side slip. He also had a do at Aulnoy which was a railway yards in North East France. They were coned for nine minutes at six thousand feet with, “accurate flak” as he put it. A night fighter pilot got seven aircraft in two sessions there. He was cruising the searchlights. When the ack-ack stopped our crews knew that night fighters would come in. He must have been down refuelling when they were in the lights. Nobody knows how they got away with that. Another tactic the night fighters did was to attack the mid-upper gunner first as he couldn’t help the rear gunner. They did say that the rear gunner was the loneliest job in the aircraft, and I’m sure it was, but the mid-upper wasn’t that mid, it was quite well back and he could fire backwards. So, they took him out first if they could. The only time he’s recorded attacking anything was at over Schweinfurt where they were attacked by a Junkers 88. He said he fired three hundred and eighty rounds and hits on the fuselage. He didn’t claim anything and they were damaged by flak. He then did a gunnery leader’s course. And then third tour, which nobody could make you do, was from September ’44 to October ’45. That was on 103 Squadron at RAF Elsham Wolds. The main runway is now the slip road up to the Humber Bridge. It’s almost all Severn Trent Water. A heavy gravel type company operates on the main field and there’s a big industrial estate. One hangar is left. The big one. They can’t get that down. He was a mid-upper gunner on all of these trips. He was gunnery leader so he didn’t have a dedicated crew but was still busy. He started daylight ops then as well. He did a few Manna, Exodus and Dodge operations. That was dropping food to the Dutch, Exodus was re-pat of prisoners of war and Dodge was bringing people back from Italy. He did eighty-one ops but as he was grounded in January by the big boss he didn’t record all of them. Two or three veterans I’ve spoken to have said he was probably up to ninety-five or ninety-seven. His DSO citation says that he flew with weak or disturbed crews. Not a good idea I don’t think. There was a Canadian crew. [ Sachs?] was his name. It doesn’t say whether they were weak or not but he flew with him six times on the trot. Then he changed crews and they both went off to Dessau near Berlin and Sachs was shot down. His DSO for this tour was one of eight hundred and seventy to the RAF. As he was not a captain it was very rare, if not unique for a flight lieutenant to get that medal. Probably the leadership element came from his appointment as gunnery leader. He was then killed October, yeah October the 4th of 1945. This was a Dodge operation. He and the pilot were going mental doing admin, the pilot said. I’ve got a letter from him to his nephew. They picked up nineteen women passengers at Glatton or Honington, Peterborough Airport now. It was a filthy night. Many aircraft turned back to Istres, Marseilles, as did they after an electric storm and engine trouble, they radioed. I’ve spoken to crew members on this operation and they confirmed the weather. I’ve spoken to the navigator of the other aircraft that was with them and they were the last to talk to the aircraft. They were posted missing. Nothing was ever found. Six crew, seventeen ATS and two nurses were lost. A week before, twenty-five passengers, male, had been, went missing. Same area — plus a crew of six of course — same weather conditions. And a month later the same numbers. So, three Lancasters, ninety odd people all vanished within six weeks. No trace of any of them ever found. One of the girls was a Lance Corporal May Mann. She was engaged to a Warrant Officer Basil Henderson who was on General Alexander’s staff. And this is where Mervyn comes back in. He was waiting in Naples, Pomigliano for my dad. Basil was waiting for his fiancé. Basil had been the filter warrant officer for General Alexander’s staff and Mervyn had spent the whole of the North African Campaign trying to get past him. Basil eventually met my mother through correspondence over this accident and they got married in 1948. I was four. I remember Mervyn turning up, took one look at Basil, he spoke just like Lionel Jeffries, and he said, ‘Oh gawd,’ he said, ‘I don’t suppose you’d let me in here either.’ That’s my first memory. That’s the family link if you like. Basil died in 2008, my mother in 2014. My dad of course, when he was twenty-five. He would have been ninety-eight in January. I’ve been through his logbook, I think he should have been killed about thirty-seven times properly. All raids were difficult, in fact even flying was because of crude navigation equipment — not the navigators — technical problems, maintenance was difficult, weather, and they used to say, lastly, the enemy. But he had some scrapes and lucky escapes by changing crews or aircraft or what have you. They say that for every one hundred aircrew, fifty-one were killed on ops, nine were killed in UK training type crashes, three were seriously injured, twelve were POWs, twenty-four survived. Now, if you’re very sad you’ll have totted that up to ninety-nine. I can only assume that the one spare bloke went AWOL or something like that. However, that’s the basics of his story. I — all I know is that I have no memories of him. Luckily, he met me. I know many people who were killed, their fathers were killed before they were born etcetera. So, we had a little bit more than they did.
JM: Thank you. Thank you very much.
RW: Alright. That was —
JM: Was, was your decision to join the air force in any way influenced by your father’s career?
RW: Yes. About fifty percent. I was at grammar school. I did two years in the fifth form to achieve four GCSEs. Mainly because of these guitars we’ve been talking about and I was trying to be Eddie Cochrane really, and I missed any sort of technical training. I was too old for an apprenticeship. I had a couple of years at the telephone manager’s office, telephone engineering, and then went in the Air Force as much for the education as my dad. But certainly, that was that. My stepfather had no problems about talking to me about it. He said — I remember him when I was four saying to me, ‘I want to marry your mother but I’m not going to make you change your name because of your dad.’ Well, I didn’t know anything about him then of course. But I found out later on. Mervyn, my dad’s best friend from school was a big help. He tidied up some puzzlement I had about this last accident because my mother had the idea that my dad had been pulled out of bed because somebody had broken their leg playing football or something. Well, he’d obviously had time to arrange it. In fact, they were all up at Brigg on the Monday. On the weekend before they had a big dance, probably for VJ-Day. She was up in Brigg, stayed probably at the White Hart. They all piled off back on Monday morning. He telephoned her to say that he’d be down on the Saturday. Of course, they took off on Wednesday, crashed on Thursday morning. The pilot was a big friend of his. He’d just been picked to be Bomber Harris’ personal pilot and he’d done some — he’d got a lot of hours but there’s not much about him, so I don’t know what he was up to. He may have been slightly clandestine. He’d written a letter to his family, I think they were in Leeds, and he said, ‘We’re going mad, Jack and I, so, we’re off to Naples’, he said, ‘I’ll see you on Saturday for my great coat.’ Right, he had a very young brother who didn’t have any kids ‘til he was about thirty-seven. So, he had a nephew of the pilot who’s the same age as some of my kids. He’s about fifty now. And all he knew was, his uncle — he thought he flew Lancasters, and he found the 103 site so he wrote to David Fell, the historian then. He passed it all to me and we emailed and I said, ‘Your uncle’s service number was —’ this that and the other. And it was weird talking to this lad. That I knew more about his uncle than he did. Now, we’d been brought up in just south of Middlesbrough because Basil was a Durham lad originally. He was living down in Harold Wood at this — during the war. ,He moved back up north. I said, ‘Where are you?’ to this nephew of Jeff Taylor’s, the pilot. And he said, ‘Oh. We’re in Thirsk.’ Which was about eight miles from where we were living. And he came over one Christmas Day and he had a crew photo and this letter. It’s a bit poignant. And I helped him a lot I’m glad to say. I’ve got a pile of research from all the veterans on 103 and other historical branches. They had my dad down as second pilot in one letter. So, I queried that, and they said, ‘Oh, he may have been in the bomb aimer position,’ because this last — these Dodge ops were part of bringing back the 8th Army who were about to mutiny. It was called Dodge because some cretin at Air Ministry decided they’d dodged D-Day by daring to be overseas for six years all through North Africa. I hope he was —had it explained to, you know. So, that’s what they were doing there.
JM: So, the nurses that were on board. The women that were on board. Do you know what they, what they were doing? What was their role?
RW: Seventeen were in the ATS. Army auxiliary.
JM: Territorials.
RW: Territorial girls. They were sort of secretarial I believe. And drivers maybe. They were all — they’d been right through the North Africa Campaign from Tunisia right through. My stepfather was at Dunkirk. He got off the last ship from a jetty. Didn’t have to do any wading out. Because he was a Durham lad it upset him because the Durham Light Infantry were left as a rear guard. He wouldn’t talk about that. I persuaded him to give me his medals to get mounted and we found he’d been mentioned in despatches three times. Which was — he was in the Supply Corps.
JM: Very unusual.
RW: So, that was one down from a decoration frankly and so on, but he was well thought of. He didn’t get back from Italy until 1946. They lived in Warwick Road opposite Earl’s Court and we moved. That was my first sort of basic memory is up from Chadwell.
JM: Can I —
RW: Yeah.
JM: For the tape. Can I just clarify, my understanding is that on occasions the Lancasters might well be full of Italian POWs going home, and when they got to Bari or to Pomigliano then there would be British servicemen coming back to the UK.
RW: Yes.
JM: And it was this route that these ladies were on when the aeroplane went down. It was the return journey.
RW: No. Going.
JM: They were going.
RW: Going.
JM: Right. So, they were going out to Italy.
RW: Yeah. It has been put in some research that was, not stolen from me, but passed on without my knowledge. I corresponded with a Canadian guy who’d been at Elsham in ’42 and he wanted to know if anybody knew anything of that era. I said, ‘Well, I don’t but you might be able to help me.’ Told him that story briefly and he crossed it over that we were coming back. They were coming back.
JM: That’s fine.
RW: But they were actually going out.
JM: Yes.
RW: Now, the army I’m convinced had lost these girls. They’d been up to Liverpool twice on, for a troopship which would have had to come right out around the outside of Ireland because of the mine fields that were still about. They weren’t reported missing ‘til this troopship docked a fortnight later. The army would not release any information. Basil, on the staff of General Alexander couldn’t find anything out. And his — this girl’s mother, Mrs Mann, she put an advert in the paper and my mother was told about that so they corresponded. I’ve got a lovely letter from Mrs Mann about this and she’s saying ‘We couldn’t find anything out. We’ve written to everybody.’ And my mother was able to put her in the picture immediately. In fact, this Mrs Mann was more — as — concerned about my mother losing her husband of course. And so on. They were living near Harold Wood.
JM: Another aspect of it which is interesting and I don’t understand clearly is we are now in peacetime —
RW: Yes.
JM: It’s the October of 1945. The war has been over some months and yet the Lancasters were still carrying gunners. Why was this? Because you would have thought that had they not had those there would have had room for more passengers.
RW: Yeah. I’m not — I don’t think they’d removed the guns but that wouldn’t have affected the number of passengers. My dad was basically doing admin. I think he was virtually on a jolly as we call it.
JM: Right.
RW: Hence this bomb aimer’s position. Crowd control or what. I’ve seen how they load up the Lanc for that when I was instructing at Cosford. They’ve got a museum and there’s a big clump of them in the middle and then they go front to back for weight and balance. So, fifteen was in the bomb aimers position. It would be a cosy little fit. Sixteen was right at the back by the toilet you know. Which was no fun. There were nineteen passengers. So, there was a number fifteen. So, it’s nineteen to one whether my dad was sitting next to the, this ATS corporal, my stepfather’s fiancé. Which would have been a bit spooky.
JM: Yeah.
RW: Her middle name, funnily enough, was Eleanor. Which my stepfather said he never knew. He had her shoe brushes as a souvenir which was what you used to do. My mother was Eileen and my dad called her Eileena. And he always said that if he knew he was going in he’d shout her name out. Now, she says that on the day, Thursday morning, she sat upright in bed thinking she’d heard his voice. And then they got a phone call that night from a friend of his at Elsham. He said, ‘Look, they’ve gone missing. I’ve asked them not to send this awful telegram,’ which they did. He said, ‘I’ll come and see you. I’m on my way to Ramsgate. I’ll drop in on you at Grays,’ near Tilbury, in Essex. Now, that’s a bit of a trek by train and stuff for him so that was very good. He turned up on Saturday morning with my dad’s father and it all came out. He’d got the full chapter and verse by then.
JM: Yes.
RW: But the army would not tell anybody anything for some time.
JM: My understanding is that the passengers in the Lancaster would sit on simple seats and they had no oxygen which would have —
RW: Yes.
JM: Limited the height at which they could fly at.
RW: Yes.
JM: Is that correct?
RW: Yes. And the heating wasn’t brilliant either. But they were both — there were two of them with passengers from Honington. I beg your pardon. That should be Conington. It was because of Honington and Coningsby they called it Conington. I hope I’ve got that right. Yes. It was an American B17 base so they knew. The, Glatton, was on the other side, there was a grass strip for Spitfires and such. Different accents. Yeah, they were sitting on rudimentary canvas seats or their kit bags. You’d think something like that would have floated up to the top but it didn’t. Three times.
JM: Do you have a theory as to what caused your father’s aircraft to crash?
RW: They did report to the other guys that they were down at two thousand feet. I went off the point there because I spotted that mistake. They were down at two thousand feet. They were in a filthy electric storm. The other two, ten minutes behind. The other aircraft was in pitch black but clear, if you understand that. They could see Corsica so they knew they were that far. They crashed off Cap Corse which is the north point of it. There are sort of pot holes in the sea so there’s — the three other crews saw an explosion or fire on the sea, they knew what they looked like of course, and they plotted a latitude longitude which I’ve plotted myself. There was a misprint in one of the reports which made it east-north-east of Cap Corse which was too far, too close to Italy. It was the other way, west-north-west. And that was that. But as I say, they were both low down. The rest of them — there was about twenty aircraft up that night going — they went over high level because they were on oxygen and whatever. Yeah.
JM: So, it might well have been weather related.
RW: Well it was —
JM: The electrical storm may well have been a factor.
RW: Yeah. They were struck by lightning. Or, they did report engine trouble so they were turning back to Marseilles they said.
JM: Robert. Thank you very much.
RW: Ok.
JM: Is there anything you wish to add? You’ve given us a very, very, thorough account.
RW: Right. Good. Thank you very much. No. If anybody wants to get in touch by all means. I’ll pass my — I’m on record with the IBCC people. And, Julian, I’m sure will be able to —
JM: Yes. Absolutely.
RW: Tidy up the link.
JM: Yes.
RW: But I’ll be delighted to help anybody with any further information or questions.
JM: Thank you very much on behalf of IBCC. Thank you very much Robert.
RW: Thank you.
JM: Thank you.
RW: Cheers, Julian.
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 Robert Whymark
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Julian Maslin
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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AWhymarkR171103
Conforms To
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Pending review
Format
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00:30:54 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Second generation
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
North Africa
Poland
France--Cape Corse
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Leipzig
Poland--Gdańsk
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945-10-04
Description
An account of the resource
Robert Whymark’s father John ‘Jack’ Whymark took part in three tours of operations. Initially Jack was trained as a mechanic and was posted to 17 Squadron at RAF Debden and RAF Martlesham Heath. He then volunteered for aircrew and trained as a gunner. He was posted to 149 Squadron, 106 Squadron, 103 Squadron and 101 Squadron. He was killed when his plane flew into a storm en route to Italy as part of Operation Dodge.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Emily Bird
101 Squadron
103 Squadron
106 Squadron
149 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
crash
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Service Order
Hurricane
killed in action
Lancaster
missing in action
Operation Dodge (1945)
RAF Debden
RAF Elsham Wolds
RAF Ludford Magna
RAF Manby
RAF Martlesham Heath
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Syerston
RAF West Freugh
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1154/11712/AThomasPG180302.1.mp3
5f48a36e221c6e96879ffcba1c0006cb
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, Peter
P Thomas
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with Peter Thomas (b. 1923, 1524026 Royal Air Force) and his log book. He flew operations as a navigator with 149 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Peter Thomas and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-03-02
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Thomas, PG
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
MC: The interview is being conducted on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre. The Interviewer Is Mike Connock and the interviewee is Peter Thomas. The interview is taking place at Mr Thomas’ home at [buzz] Lincoln on Friday the 2nd of March 2018. Also in attendance is Peter Selby and Catherine Selby. Ok. Peter, what I’d like to start with is just to start with just tell me a bit about when and where you were born.
PT: Oh, I was born 26 Glenfield Road, Nelson. Are you picking that up?
MC: Yeah. That’s fine.
PT: Yeah. That’s where I was born. Nelson.
MC: When was that?
PT: 26 Glenfield Road, Nelson. There’s a lot of twenty sixes in my life and I regard them as being of good fortune. So I was born at 26 Glenfield Road, Nelson.
MC: In Lancashire.
PT: Lancashire.
MC: Yeah. What, what did your parents do?
PT: My father was a furniture manager and my mother stayed at home and she had three sons to look after. You know going to work and playing football and taking dirty washing to her, you know [laughs] from football because it was a slushy, a bit of a slushy pitch.
MC: What do you remember about your schooldays then, Peter?
PT: Oh, I liked, in contrast to my younger brother who didn’t like it I loved the school. It was Nelson Secondary School and it was just, I don’t know. I should have brought a photograph of it but it was just off the off the, off Walton Lane and it was on Oxford Road. So From Glenfield Road you went there, there and on Oxford Road and there behold. And in recent times, it was built in 1927 and the headmaster was a very strict man. He was. He was mad on getting people through. He was only interested in getting through, people through matriculation as it was then. So, I went there at in 1934 and I was about eleven.
MC: Yeah. And how old were you when you left school?
PT: When I left school?
MC: How old were you?
PT: 1940.
MC: Were you sixteen?
PT: Yeah. Sixteen or seventeen. Yeah.
MC: So what was your first job then when you left school? What did you do after you left school?
PT: When I was, I always had a, had a flair for writing. Not clever stuff. Just writing. Copy anything. And I went for a job at the Marsden Building Society but just when that came up there was another one in the Treasurer’s Department and I thought oh that’s my, that’s what I want. So I went to, I had an interview, borrowed my brother’s overcoat because it was a very small one and got through this interview and I think it was fortuitous that this interview the chap I interviewed or the gentleman I interviewed was Harry Crabtree and he was the, he was one of the old school treasurers. He’d got to the stage when he was back, he was a deputy treasurer but he was conveniently bypassed from the treasurer [Hyram] Reed who was a Geordie. Very clever man and he bypassed Harry Crabtree and came around to Steve Dyson. He was, he was the chief accountant and Steve [pause] was to do with [pause] Steve but there’s a funny little story about Harry Crabtree. He said, I was a junior at that time and he said, ‘Are you busy, Peter?’ And I said, ‘Well, no more than usual.’ Because I worked behind the counter and I also did another job which was ancillary to the ledgers that were being prepared and, ‘No,’ I said, ‘What do you want?’ ‘Just come into my office.’ So I got in to his office and the whole floor was covered with disused envelopes and he had a, he had a pile of new envelopes, new stick ons and we spent the afternoon sticking these temporary covers on these envelopes which was a bit strange for a deputy treasurer. But he was, I think they gave him, I think the only job that he got was I think he did loans. Something like that. Something that was really not, not responsible. The main man was [Hyram] Reed who came from the northeast. He was a Geordie and he was a clever man. And Steve Dyson, he was the chief accountant.
MC: So you worked there until you got, the you joined the —
PT: Eh?
MC: You worked there ‘til you joined the Air Force did you?
PT: Yes. Yes. I did.
MC: When did you join?
PT: I was there ‘til 1943.
MC: How old were you then?
PT: I was twenty then.
MC: Twenty.
PT: Yeah.
MC: So you —
PT: Well, I was born in 1923. So twenty. Yeah.
MC: So you joined the Air Force at twenty.
PT: I joined in nineteen [pause] Well, I joined in 1943 and I had to wait to go in. I wasn’t called up ‘til twelve months after.
MC: You were called up were you?
PT: Yeah. Well, I’d, I’d actually joined when I was about eighteen or nineteen. I can’t just remember the date.
MC: So, did you volunteer for aircrew then?
PT: Oh yes. Well, I’d had a little hiatus as it were and I, my, my friend was joining the Navy and I thought I’d have a go at the Fleet Air Arm and of course I didn’t get accepted because the gentlemen, there were these guys with the old, you know they were old sweats of, of the Navy. And they had bother with the, and one of them produced two, two aircraft and he said, ‘What’s this?’ and ‘What’s this?’ And I didn’t know because the gentleman in Nelson who was crazy to go in the Air Force and be a navigator he was a newly appointed headmaster at [unclear] Senior School. And because I wasn’t able to stay at the Primary School I’d been sent down and there was only me that went there. I can’t know why. But I went down to this Senior School, and I did twelve months and conveniently failed the scholarship again so, to go to the Grammar School. So anyway, I sat an entrance exam to the Grammar School and I was top of that school. Of that class. There were thirty and Francis Myers who was the temporary headmaster said, ‘Peter Thomas.’ So I stood up and he said, ‘You did rather well in arithmetic. We’ve got a place for you in the scholarship class.’ So having failed the scholarship exam twice I finished up in this scholarship class and it was very interesting, you know. Of course, it swelled my head a bit. Consequently, at the first exam at Christmas I was twenty nine out of thirty. That really shook me so after that I was never out of ten. I was always usually in the first five or six in the class in the exams and we were going to sit, we should have been able to sit for the [pause] for the school whatever exam it was but the, they introduced a remove over a year where we had to wait another year. So instead of it being a four year to, to matriculation if that’s the right word we had to wait ‘til, they called it five remove and I was in, in that situation with, with a lot of brainy fellas actually.
MC: That’s why you finished up at —
PT: In fact, there was only one fella —
MC: Yeah.
PT: In that class who managed to get in to the A Section and he was studying to be a doctor and he was KS Oate, of [unclear] Road, Nelson.
MC: My word.
PT: Yeah.
MC: What a memory.
PT: Sorry.
MC: Yeah. So what you, so you joined the Air Force say in ’43. Where did you first go when you joined up?
PT: Well, when I joined up I went to RAF Waddington and I think it was RAF Waddington I got, that’s when I —
MC: No. You did your basic. Where did you do your basic training?
PT: I went, I went to London to do to be accepted because you had the eye tests and hearing and eyes and curiously my friend who’d rode a motorbike he, when we came back I said, ‘How did you go on Milton?’ And he said, and he said, ‘They failed me.’ He said, ‘They failed me on eyes.’ He said, ‘I’ve, was riding my motorbike without goggles. I’ve altered the focal length of my eyes.’ So he was, so he said, ‘I’m going to be a despatch rider in the Army.’ He said, ‘I’ve finished with the Air Force.’ And he went back to his uncle who had a bakery and curiously enough he never got called up. He just worked in this bakery and he, he owned it eventually and that was that was my friend Milton Fothergill.
MC: Yeah. But you went to London and that was —
PT: I went to London.
MC: Aircrew Reception Centre.
PT: Pardon?
MC: Aircrew Reception Centre.
PT: Yes.
MC: Yeah.
PT: I went to London. And then from London I went to Paignton. That was ITW. ITW at Paignton. I was there four or five months and from there when I’d passed out of there we didn’t, we were at the Singer Estate and we did running and sport. And we had a fellow called Chang and he was a, he was a guy who wanted to drive you to kingdom come in running through this Singer Estate. And there was also a boxing ring you know but I didn’t get involved with that I can assure you. No. I’m not a boxer. Anyway, from, from Paignton we moved to [pause] I moved to Cambridge and I did four, twelve hours flying on Tiger Moths but I was, I was a bit unlucky. The first two hours the chap was an Australian pilot. A trainer. A teacher and he said ‘Oh, we’re not going to have any bother with you are we?’ And he came the next day and he said, he said, ‘I’ve been posted.’ He said, ‘I’m so sorry.’ So then we got another chap who [pause] who’d have been in an accident so he wasn’t very, I weren’t very happy with him. But in the meantime, a Manchester policeman called Charlie Kent grumbled about his position, his situation, so they gave him, they gave him my, they gave him, I got his trainer you see. And so as a result of that I didn’t get selected as pilot. When I got to Manchester and there was a big auditorium of combination of Nissen huts I suppose. I don’t know. It was a big hangar type of place and I was in there and my 026 was called out and they said, do you know they called out my name, my number 026 and I’ve a lot of stories on 026. Anyway, they said, ‘Yeah. Straight navigator.’ So I, well they didn’t say that but I knew that when he said what he’d intimated. That I wouldn’t be a pilot. I’d be a navigator. So that was alright. I mean I didn’t know what was what at the time.
MC: Did you, did you have to do any aptitude tests for navigator or did they just say you’re a navigator?
PT: No. They didn’t. I didn’t. I didn’t go up for, I went from Manchester to, I went from Manchester and I finished up in Liverpool to go on a ship to Canada. And when I was on this ship, I mention it in passing because we were still avoiding submarines. Still avoiding submarines and as we were going south during the day he got one of the, one of the chaps got burned and he was the, we were going down to the Azores where it was sunny. And then we came up the Atlantic coast past America, you know. New York and right and came into Halifax so that’s where I started my initial training. In Halifax.
MC: Obviously avoiding the submarines in the North Atlantic.
PT: Yeah. And avoided that. Yes. And I went to, I went on a train from Halifax to Moncton and that was a Receiving Centre. And I met a chap who lived up the street from me and he was Naval uniform and I said, ‘What are you doing here, Harold?’ I can’t remember his last name. He was called Harold anyway. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I’m, I’ve trained as a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm.’ So where I’d failed the interview for Fleet Air Arm he, who couldn’t pass his scholarship could. He had a job getting in to, he couldn’t get into the Grammar School. Anyway, he passed, passed for Fleet Air Arm. Anyway, and he’d done flying you know and he went back to England and I don’t think he, I think you won’t believe this but he’d failed on ship recognition. So, so he didn’t get much further in the, I think he finished up on trainers. You know. Link trainers. You know the sort of [pause] he was. He became a teacher.
MC: On link trainers.
PT: In that respect. And he were. He was a teacher anyway and he finished up a teacher. I mean they weren’t the brightest some teachers were they?
MC: Yeah [laughs]
PT: Anyway.
MC: So your navigator’s training started at Malton, Ontario.
PT: Basically yes. I mean we had a long journey from, from Halifax to, to Moncton and then on again through, through Montreal overnight down to, we arrived on the 1st of January nineteen forty something. ’43.
MC: ’44.
PT: ‘44. We arrived at Toronto and we were wondering around in this place and it were, it was the Town Hall. There were no, there were books and files and I don’t why, how we managed to get in and somebody eventually appeared and there’d been a notice of arrival and we got a gash meal you know. And then, then of course we were filtered out to, it was Malton. It wasn’t Toronto International then. It was Malton Airport and we, we were stationed there and that’s where I did my first flying.
MC: What aircraft was that in?
PT: Pardon?
MC: What aircraft was that in?
PT: Avro Anson.
MC: Oh, the Anson.
PT: Yeah.
MC: Yeah.
PT: Yeah. And I did all the flying in Canada on Avro Ansons and I passed everything there. I used to get, I used to get, ‘Ahh Monsieur Thomas.’ That was a Polish, [Weselovski], and [Denowski] and they all wanted to fly with Peter Thomas because they knew I could do it because I’d had so much training with this Mr Brooks at the Senior School In Nelson and he, he trained me on navigation and I never, I never had any trouble with any problems in navigation because I got such a grounding in navigation. And of course, I passed out in Canada as a, as a navigator.
MC: What rank were you then?
PT: I was an LAC but my friend who I met on the ship going out he happened to be on the same walking around the ship at night with, with rifles supposedly on guard you know and we finished up together as friends. And when it came to the exams I was about fourth. Fourth on the course and he was seventeen. But he knew a general in Ottawa didn’t he? So, so that made it rather difficult for me. So he got the commission and I got three stripes. So I came back a sergeant and he came back an officer and he was very generous. He said, ‘You know they’ve robbed you haven’t they Peter?’ They knew, he knew what the game was you know because he’d been, he’d had a forty hour pass, forty hour leave and he’d gone up to see this general in Ottawa. So he, you know the wheels had turned you know and his father was Sir Arthur Smout who’d done, who was doing business on armaments with Paul Revere Incorporated who had a vast building in New York because subsequently David Smout as he was called, we were subsequently invited to have a weekend at New York. So we went overnight on the train to New York and David rang the, the Paul Revere Incorporated and we went around this level of where they were so that it, they showed us New York from four points you see.
MC: Brilliant.
PT: And then at dinnertime we went to the [pause] to the Columbia. I think it was the Columbia. It was a restaurant you know. I’ve forgotten the name of the restaurant. Anyway, it don’t matter and we had our meal with these and then these two gentlemen said, ‘Well, we play Bridge at Saturday afternoon.’ Him and his deputy. So he said, ‘We’ll see you at teatime at this address.’ It was on 5th Avenue. So they bundled me and David off to, to the Rockettes. You know, the famous American Rockettes. The girls who were dancing and stuff. And then there was other items and then they finished up with, with somebody called Doris Day, I think it was in, “Up in Arms.” Yeah. And we watched that. And then of course we, we appeared in these drab Air Force uniforms because all Americans were in if they were in khaki it was serge. There were none of this rough stuff and we were in these rough and we were introduced at 5th Avenue, at this address of this president and we were introduced as Lieutenant Thomas and Smout [laughs] And of course we were LACs weren’t we? Anyway, we didn’t tell them did we? And during that meal David managed to spill his ice cream and I I had a little argument about, with the other chappie, he was, of course they were very strict Conservatives and I was, I’d come from Nelson and Nelson was a [laughs] well you couldn’t be any stronger labour than Nelson. It was a really [pause] yeah. So then from there if you just let me finish, then from there when we, when I’d finished at —
MC: When you finished in Canada.
PT: In Toronto. I had the chance. I had the choice of going up to Montreal or, I’d seen a dance band. Louis Armstrong on the shores of Lake Ontario and, and that week that I was to go I had the choice to see to go and see Duke Ellington who was my, he was one of the great jazz musicians. Have you ever heard of him? Eh? Yeah.
MC: Indeed. Yeah.
PT: Anyway, I went to, I went to Montreal and I met a chap who was a writer in the Navy. A writer is a clerk I think, and this was Bill Farmer, he was, he became a solicitor but he was in the Navy and he was a writer and we met up and we had, well we had at least a day together and then I was left on my own. And then I met a nice lady from [pause] she was, she was a French lady. She spoke, because when I rang her up she said, ‘Oui?’ She didn’t say yes. She said, ‘Oui.’ And she spoke French of course and she spoke English as well so it didn’t matter. And then from there we went back. I went back to Toronto. I did my flying from Malton Airport. Malton Airport was, became Toronto International. Big stuff you know. Toronto International.
MC: So having finished your flying, your navigator training in Canada you then got shipped back to the UK.
PT: Yes.
MC: And where did you come to?
PT: And then when we had, we were in the, we were in a Dutch boat and we got a, the bells all ringing and it all went boom boom boom. We were in the middle of the Atlantic and quite frankly I was shit scared you know [laughs] and we had to appear on deck with our life jackets on like this and we were all lined up like that. And it were just an exercise to see if you could do it if it actually happened. So anyway, we arrived at Gourock in Scotland and we were then posted to Pannal Ash College which was just a holding place. We didn’t do any lessons there. But there was a, it was a, Pannal Ash College was it was probably a private school and they had a swimming pool outside which was, it had sort of been a temporary dugout and the water ran in and it ran out at the other end and the only way you could get in, you could get in at the top but the only way you could get out was at the bottom and it were freezing this water because it was a river you see. Anyway, we, that passed and we from there —
MC: So, there wasn’t any flying there.
PT: No. No flying there. No. No. I think, I think we went up to Millom and did, did some flying from there. And that was when we were flying from Chicken Rock and up to the, up to all the islands of Scotland. Did a lot, quite a bit of flying up there.
MC: And that was in Ansons again, was it? Oh right.
PT: Pardon?
MC: That was in the Avro Anson again. Avro Anson.
PT: Yes. The same as in Canada. And then we moved down from there to Husbands Bosworth.
MC: Was that —
PT: That was a —
MC: That was the Operational Training Unit.
PT: Yes. OT. Yes, it was. Yeah. And there we, we had this incident of not arriving. We were, we were flying on a, on a course and the engine, flight engineer who I think at that time was still the mid-upper gunner but he was looking after the petrol tanks, you know, switching the tanks. And he said, he said, ‘I think, I think we’ve got a problem here skipper with the, with the petrol. Supply of petrol.’ So they started then looking for somewhere to land. And they got, they got a position line from, from the wireless operator the Welshman, Peter [Hoare] and they went, they got this, they got this position line to Leicester. Leicester way. Leicestershire. Leicester. But before that happened the skipper noticed a landing place and it was, it was, it was a grass landing arrangement. It was [pause] I’ve just forgotten the name. I think, is it there?
MC: When was that? Was that while you were at Husbands Bosworth?
PT: When we came back to England that was.
MC: Yeah. It was.
PT: That was when we were [coughs] we were on a, on a —
MC: Was that at Millom?
PT: Pardon?
MC: Was that at Millom or Husbands Bosworth?
PT: That was —
MC: When you were at the OTU.
PT: That was, that was after Millom, I think.
MC: Yeah. The OTU.
PT: Yeah. And that’s when John spotted this landing. It was grass you see. It was a grass landing and they were training pilots because I met a chap there. He knew me from the Grammar School and we had a few days there and they were enjoyable and then we were carted back in a wagon to where we were you know.
MC: Because it mentioned that you force landed.
PT: Yes.
MC: At Penkridge.
PT: Yes. That’s right.
MC: Penkridge.
PT: Forced landing in this grass landing and we just of course it wasn’t it wasn’t designed for Wellington bombers it were designed for Tiger Moths you know. It wasn’t designed for [laughs] for landing these bigger aircraft and he just landed. And he’d had trouble landing this Wellington when we were at, when we were training on the Wellington. He had a devil of a job landing these Wellingtons. Yeah.
MC: Yeah. I was just about to ask you what aircraft.
PT: And —
MC: And you’ve just answered that. Yeah.
PT: The story goes that he used to just, he used to sing, “Johnny’s Hero,” when he were, when he were coming in to land you know. Anyway, we got through that and he landed and they just pushed the wheels over of this fence and that was it. We, we were carted back to the base with, to where we had come from with, in a van. In a wagon, you know. And the, they sent a chap to fly this Wellington to get it out of this grass landing affair. Of course, they landed in a, they landed in, they landed in a Morris Oxford, in an Oxford. There was an aircraft called an Oxford. It was comparable to the Anson.
MC: I know it.
PT: This Oxford, it had a little accident and landed so that was [other voices not part of interview] But finished with Wellingtons. We moved up to Lancasters. To convert on to Lancasters.
MC: Oh, it was a Conversion Unit. Yeah.
PT: Yeah. That was Woolfox Lodge and that’s where, that’s where I really was. I think about it even today one morning I was sat in the navigation room and there was a blue serge uniform. He was an officer and, and I didn’t really know this face but I knew the morning after when he wasn’t there that he was killed the day after. They came. This crew were regarded as being the best crew in the, in the intake. There were eight. I think they were either six or eight crews in the intake.
MC: Yeah. Can we just go back slightly? Obviously, you’ve gone to the Conversion Unit. When did you crew up?
PT: When what?
MC: When did your crew get together?
PT: Oh, did it, yes. When we moved from Millom where we’d done this Avro Anson flying we went to —
PT: Then you went to the OTU.
MC: Pardon?
PT: When you went to the OTU.
MC: OTU at —
PT: Husbands Bosworth.
MC: Husbands Bosworth.
PT: Yes. Is that when crewed up with them?
MC: Was that at Husbands Bosworth?
PT: Yeah. You’re not recording now.
MC: Yes. I am.
PT: Especially —
MC: Is that when you crewed up?
PT: Yes.
MC: Yeah. Yeah. But that would have been a five man crew there.
PT: I often tell the story about my younger brother who was always a tendency to knock me, you know. And being knocked with the elder brother and knocked with the younger brother because I was the middle one and he, I’m trying to think. Well, he’d be surprised who chose the pilot because there’s a story about who chose the pilot. Because I’m in the NAAFI queue or some queue and I’d been [he's left the door open] We moved from Millom to Husbands Bosworth and that’s where we crewed up. And we were in this queue and somebody tapped me on the shoulder and he said, ‘Look,’ he said, ‘We’re looking for a navigator. We’ve got, we’ve got an air gunner and a mid-upper gunner and a wireless operator and a bomb aimer,’ he said. ‘But we haven’t got a navigator.’ And, ‘Would you like to join us?’ They knew I was a navigator. ‘Would you like to join us?’ And that. ‘Yes. I’m happy to join you if you think I’m suitable.’ And from there we chose the pilot. The pilot was called Dennis Johns and he was a, he’d been a public school lad but he was, he wasn’t, he didn’t strike me as being a very well educated man but he, he was, he was alright.
MC: Was he a good pilot?
PT: Sometimes we wondered. I wondered. They wondered about me with navigation. I wondered about him. But I have to say yes he was a brilliant pilot because we finished [laughs] We finished.
MC: You arrived at Husbands Bosworth. Yeah.
PT: And there’s, that’s where we crewed up.
MC: Yeah. You said.
PT: And we chose, we eventually chose this Johns for a pilot. We chose him. My younger brother would have essentially have said the pilot chooses the crew but no it wasn’t like that. It was always different to what he thought because he was, I was not knocked with, I had two brothers. An elder brother and the younger brother and I used to get knocked from both sides so —
MC: I remember you saying. Yeah.
PT: But —
MC: Yeah. So you went on the, on to the —
PT: I won though you know because they’re both dead [laughs]
MC: [laughs] Bless you. So you went to the Conversion Unit on to Lancasters.
PT: I went up to the, yes and this is where there was a tragedy. I don’t, I didn’t mention it.
MC: Yeah.
PT: There was a tragedy because they were, they were reckoned to be the best crew.
MC: Ah, you said. Yeah. Yeah.
PT: And —
MC: His uniform was there.
PT: And they were coming back from a diversionary sweepstake. No bombs. No. No. The war had nearly finished and they were coming back and they lost an engine and then they flew a bit further and they lost another engine. And then as they were coming in to land they had to just turn like that and he lost another engine. He went like that and they were all killed. And he was the chap that was sat next to me the morning before and he was, and I think, I think many a time about that that family losing that boy.
MC: Yeah.
PT: Because he was an officer. I probably wouldn’t have bothered if he’d been a sergeant like I was [laughs] Stamina.
MC: So, so when you finished at the Conversion Unit —
PT: Yeah.
MC: You were then posted to your first, your squadron.
PT: Yes.
MC: What squadron was that?
PT: 149.
MC: And where was that?
PT: Methwold.
MC: Methwold. So you —
PT: Methwold was a satellite of, I think it was a satellite of Mildenhall.
CS: You’re on the Mildenhall Register, aren’t you?
PT: Yeah. Yeah.
MC: Yes. And that was obviously with the same crew. Johns.
PT: Oh yes. Yeah.
MC: Yeah. Yeah.
PT: We were on. We were, we were crewed up together for about two years and then in the middle of 1946 I would say, you know. After we was, we were together from nineteen forty —
MC: Yeah. The story, I think goes while you were there about the Astro compass. Can you —
PT: Oh yeah. Well, that was on the operation.
MC: Oh, was it? Which operation was that?
PT: The Kiel.
MC: Oh Kiel. Yeah.
PT: Yeah. Kiel. Yeah. I should have kept my mouth shut but I didn’t as usual. Big mouth. No. I put this, I put this Astro compass . It was a disastrous operation. We got to the to the Danish coast and I warned the skipper. I warned him. I said, ‘We’re much too early. We’re at least twenty minutes. Fifteen twenty minutes too early. We should be doglegging.’ And of course, there’s a risk when you dog leg that these oncoming on stream can be, you can —
MC: Collisions.
PT: Go in to one.
MC: Yeah.
PT: So he didn’t want to do that. He said, ‘We’ll go in with the first wave.’ Typical Johns you know. And anyway we, I think when we, I think we were so early that when I got the message from what was being said that the main target was under the wing when we, when we got through so we missed that. So we turned around and we turned back to come back and this is where there was such lack of brains. We should have made allowances for all the time that we’d lost when we should have gone back up over the North Sea and got away from any impending German fighters because as we were flying the rear gunner said, ‘Port go.’ And Johns just put his wing [psst] and we lost about twelve thousand feet in no time. When we pulled out of this operation we were about six thousand feet, or six hundred feet. I’m not quite sure but I know, I know it were, it was a bit dangerous.
MC: So where does the Astro compass come into this story?
PT: Well, when, when we, I don’t know if it was before or after but when we were flying along and we were, we were trying to find out where we were the astrocompass it does not give you a fix but it gives you a position line. So when you put the astrocompass in the right way around, the first time I put it in the wrong way around but I mean that was so what? You were under a lot of stress then you know. I turned it around and put it in the right way and I said, ‘We’re going in a westerly direction skipper. You’ve no need to worry.’ And I asked him. I said, ‘Is your P4 compass working?’ He said, ‘Yes, but it’s better that you give me the position line,’ because the P4 compass it’s a bit dodgy really. It’s not, not too reliable. Anyway, we ploughed on and ploughed on and we, we had this incident with a fighter, with a German fighter when he said, ‘Port go.’ That meant go and Johns —
MC: Corkscrew.
PT: Responded to Cherokee. He was called, our rear gunner was called Cherokee and he came from Dumbarton. Yeah. Are you recording all this? Very good. And he came from Dumbarton and he was only a little fella but he were a good rear gunner. He spotted this one that was approaching us and went [psst]. We lost a lot of time. I think double quick time and never saw that guy. Now, possibly he thought well the war’s over why, why risk myself? Because he could have got shot down you know. We never saw him again and we kept ploughing on and ploughing on and then, then we, we flew as somebody said it’s a, we’re flying over a big lake and I knew what that was. It was the Zuiderzee as I knew it. And we got through the Zuiderzee and by that time, I’ve forgotten to mention that all through this operation the Gee box which gave you a fix, it gave you a position line and, and both. With the Gee box it was, it gave you a fix. You got these two posters.
MC: Yeah. Height and —
PT: The B Posts and the C Post and when you lined them up you locked the machine and it gave you a reading. And you had a special Gee box map which told you your, you read off the numbers and you got where you were.
MC: Yeah.
PT: And of course, it’s a lot. We was trusted. A bit stressful, you know.
MC: Well, the navigator. Yeah. Right. Of course.
PT: Yeah. Anyway, we got through this Zuiderzee.
PS: But they were jamming you, Peter weren’t, they were jamming you.
PT: Got through the Zuiderzee.
CS: At night. At night.
[recording paused]
MC: Yeah, but —
PT: Somebody else. And he said, ‘It hasn’t been so good, sir’. He said, ‘You’re first back,’ he said, ‘And don’t worry about anything,’ he said, ‘Because they’ve been all over the sky this operation.’ He said, ‘It’s been a real shocker,’ he said. ‘So you’ve done very well.’ And when I signed my, I signed it you know he said, ‘And that’s,’ he said, ‘When you get to Civvy Street,’ he said, ‘That’s signature is worth two thousand pounds.’
CS: Dad. When, when you did, when you dropped height when you’d seen the German fighter.
PT: Yeah.
CS: Isn’t that when all your —
PT: Oh yeah.
CS: Instruments went up in the air.
PT: When he, when he went like that.
CS: When you dived.
PT: He went. You flew up in the air and landed on the floor and dropped me down on my hands and knees trying to find these instruments you know. Pencil and that you know. Bits of stuff that you use you know.
MC: Yeah. Yeah.
PT: There was I think it was about as big as that book and it gave you, you set it up and it was a, it was like a mini computer.
MC: Yeah. I know what you mean. Yeah.
PT: You know what I mean.
MC: Yeah. Yeah.
PT: You know what —
MC: Navigation computer. Yeah.
PT: Eh?
MC: Your navigation computer.
PT: Yeah.
MC: Yeah. Yeah.
PT: Yeah.
MC: So the story also about the [unclear] navigator who was, whose Lanc crashed when he came back from a diversion raid.
PT: Yeah, and then crashed.
MC: What happened there?
PT: Well, they went —
CS: That’s the one that [failed]
PS: You had that.
MC: Oh, that is the same one is it. Yeah. It is.
PT: They went, they went they went on a diversionary sweep and as they were coming back they lost an engine. They were at Woolfox Lodge.
MC: Yes. That’s the one you were telling me about. Yeah.
PT: They lost an engine.
MC: Yeah.
PT: And then they lost another engine.
MC: Yeah.
PT: And —
MC: Yeah. You’ve told me about that. He flipped over his back.
PT: Over.
MC: Yeah.
PT: And they were all killed.
MC: Yeah. Yeah.
PT: And that was the chap that was sat next to me the morning before and I knew who he was.
MC: Yeah.
PT: I didn’t know him personally but I know, I knew who he belonged to. So that was very sad. I’ve been thinking about him over the last —
MC: Bless you.
PT: Yeah.
MC: Yeah.
PT: Terrible.
MC: So —
PT: Terrible loss to that family.
MC: Yeah.
PT: I think about it even today after all seventy or eighty years. Yeah. Terrible.
MC: Yeah. Do you want to have a break?
[recording paused]
PT: Worked at weekends. He was a subset. a sub editor on the —
CS: Was it the Thompson’s Newspapers up in Dundee?
PT: This is ET Thompson’s.
MC: Jock Fraser you say.
PT: Eh?
MC: Jock Fraser.
PT: Yeah. Jock Fraser. Yeah. It’s his dad.
CS: Was it his dad?
MC: What did he do on your crew?
PT: He was the bomb aimer.
CS: Was he not eighteen months ago dad?
PT: He —
CS: About eighteen months ago.
PT: Yeah. Is it eighteen months?
CS: Yeah. Something like that.
PT: Yeah.
CS: I mean he must have been well in his nineties too.
PT: Yeah.
CS: Yeah.
PT: He was the, I think, I think if you were reckoning brain power he was the, he was a very clever chap really. Good with words you know. If he wrote a letter he didn’t write pages. He wrote all that was necessary in one page and he were, he were clever you know on words. You know, he was, he was a good friend.
MC: So, tell me about this losing the engine.
PT: Pardon?
MC: You lost an engine during —
PT: Yeah.
MC: Coming back on.
PT: What happened was that after the war it were three group. Certainly 149 we were designated to photograph up to the Russian demarcation line. So sometimes we went down towards Switzerland and we were supposed designating —
CS: Designated.
PT: Different areas which we were trying to photographing but we’d a lot of trouble coming, going and coming because of the cloud formation. You couldn’t photograph if there were cloud formation. [unclear] Catherine’s mentioned. One morning we were at 9 o’clock we were at off, off the Norwegian coast and we were just, just about to either come back because there was not, we hadn’t got the too much cloud or some reason and we turned around. As we turned around as we were flying we lost an engine. So no problem we were coming back on three. So I wanted to go to the nearest landfall which was the Orkneys. Johns, Johns of course said, ‘No,’ he said, ‘We’re alright. Straight back to Cromer.’ Cromer which was the landfall into our base you see.
CS: Do you mean Cromer?
MC: Cromer. Yeah. I know. I realise what he meant.
CS: Yeah.
PT: Now in the Fleet Air Arm the navigator is the captain. Did you know that?
MC: Yeah. You told me.
CS: Maybe he wished —
PT: I’ve just told you now.
CS: Maybe he wished he’d been the captain that day.
MC: Then.
PT: I’ve told you now haven’t I?
MC: Yeah. Yeah.
PT: I hadn’t told you before, had I?
MC: No. You hadn’t. No. I was thinking something when you said about the pilots. So yeah. So you made, you wanted to come back to nearest landfall but he decided to come —
PT: Yeah. Yeah.
MC: Come back to base.
PT: ‘No,’ he said, ‘We’ll be alright. We’ve got three.’ Well, that one that that this guy was with me.
MC: There was always the chance you’d lose an another one wasn’t there?
PT: Yeah. They lost three didn’t they?
MC: Yeah. Yeah. You didn’t want that happening to you.
PT: They lost three and lost their lives.
MC: Yeah. You were making, so why did he need to get back to base?
PT: And that same night [pause] Say what were you going to say.
MC: No. Why did he want to get back to base and not land up north?
PT: Perhaps he had a girlfriend that night. I don’t know.
CS: Well, my dad, my dad thought it was a girlfriend.
PT: He had a girlfriend in London. We could have had a trip to, there’s a place on the Norwegian coast. Now that name is just I haven’t got that name.
CS: Bergen?
PT: Eh?
CS: Bergen. Stavanger. Bergen.
PT: No. Not Bergen. No.
CS: Stavanger.
PT: Eh?
CS: Stavanger.
PT: Stavanger. No. No.
PS: Trondheim?
PT: Anyway —
CS: Trondheim.
MC: Trondheim probably.
CS: Trondheim. Trondheim.
PT: No. No.
PS: Tromso.
PT: Anyway, the thing was —
CS: What did you say? Trondheim. What was the other one?
PS: Tromso.
CS: Tromso.
PT: Eh?
CS: Tromso.
PT: No. I don’t know. I’ll have to look it up. That, that opportunity to go there and stay there.
CS: Right.
PT: It could have been dangerous but it was an opportunity to be based in Norway. Or Sweden.
CS: Do you mean, do you mean when you lost your engine to go and fly back to Norway.
PS: No.
CS: You don’t mean that do you?
PS: No.
PT: Say that again.
CS: I said you don’t mean when you lost an engine to go back to flying to Norway to land do you?
PT: No.
CS: No. You don’t mean that do you?
PT: There was no question of going back. No.
CS: No. No. No.
PT: The [pause] no there was no question and we never thought about that.
CS: No.
PT: Possibly we could have done if we’d thought about it but you don’t always thing about these things when —
CS: No.
PT: When you’re stressed.
CS: No.
MC: So did you, did you, I mean you did a raid on Kiel but after that it was did you fly any ops bringing prisoners of war back and —
PT: Yes.
MC: Operation Exodus.
PT: Did one of those.
MC: Operation Exodus.
PT: And I did two dropping food over Holland.
MC: Oh, Operation Manna. Yeah.
PT: Manna. Yeah.
MC: Yeah. Yeah.
PT: There was a badge for that too.
MC: Yeah. I believe so.
PT: I never got that.
MC: I believe so. Yeah.
PT: A friend of mine who’s now deceased he got that badge. He, he was keen on badges and stuff like that. I couldn’t be bothered. Then when we were, when we were on, when we were at Methwold we were, we were wearing the 1939/45 badge. And then, and some others which would, I can’t just remember and they told us that we couldn’t wear that badge. You couldn’t wear that and that’s when Fraser said. ‘Well, if we can’t wear that badge, we joined up in 1943 and it’s 1946 if we can’t wear that badge well we won’t wear any of them.’ And he just he just washed his hands of it. Fred. And we just fed up with it and he gave the, gave the medals that he had, he gave them to his kids to play with he were that fed up.
CS: Yeah.
PT: But I I don’t know.
CS: So what were you, there was a badge you were given and then —
MC: Was this —
CS: And then the Ministry of Defence took it back off them didn’t they?
MC: Yeah. Yeah. It was a medal. He was on about, yeah you’ve got it down here. Peter.
CS: It’s amazing actually isn’t it that he did it?
PT: That’s Peter’s stuff.
MC: Yeah, it is. I just [pause] So when did you, I mean when did you fly over Niagara Falls?
PT: Oh, that was in Canada.
MC: Oh, while you were in Canada where it was.
PT: You can’t fly over —
MC: Not from the UK you can’t.
PT: You can’t. You can’t fly over Niagara Falls in Norway. It’s in Canada.
CS: It’s because he was based, he was based in Toronto.
PT: No. I was on a trip in Canada.
MC: I thought you’d gone back over there.
PT: Toronto to Hamilton and I was with this Flight Lieutenant [Bowen] who was, he was sort of, ‘I’ll go with, I’ll go with LAC Thomas today for a change.’ It was designed to see that everybody was being, was working according to plan. And he was with me that particular day and when we got towards Hamilton he he just. none of the civilian pilots on the shore and I don’t know what they were saying but he turned and we went to, we went to, and he turned and we went to Niagara falls. So we flew around and saw Niagara Falls from height. So when we were around the crew reunion do at, at the, at the hotel in, in Toronto. I just forget the name of the, in the big hotel and of course there were these menu things and Flight Lieutenant [Bowen] he was signing them, you know. Flight Lieutenant Bowen put his name. “Flight Lieutenant Bowen. Remember Niagara.” You know. That was that.
MC: Good memories.
PT: Super.
MC: Good memories.
PT: Super. Yeah. Wonderful.
MC: Yeah. Yeah. So if we come back to, at 149 Squadron you flew Operation Exodus. Exodus and Manna. You flew on Manna. Were you quite low flying on Operation Manna, weren’t you?
PT: What?
MC: You were low. Flying low on Operation Manna supply drops.
PT: I didn’t know this. The don’t tell you about losses you know. I mean when we were at Woolfox Lodge and that one kite crashed on the runway nobody knew about it. Only that that same night some fighter bombers came over and shot two more of our intake. I’ve never mentioned that before.
MC: No.
PT: But that’s what happened.
MC: Yeah.
PT: We lost, we lost three crews out of our intake and I think there were eight. Eight crews. Eight sixes. There were six in a crew you see until we got the flight engineer and we didn’t get the flight engineer until we got to squadron.
MC: Yeah.
PS: I think where you were going with that Pete was that some aircraft were lost in Operation Manna.
PT: You said that.
PS: Yeah.
PT: It’s him that has [pause] it’s him that started all this nonsense. He fired us up and fired me up and —
PS: We got you the book about —
MC: Yeah, when I’ve talked to odd people, Dutch people I talked to Dutch people and they tell me about waving to the aircraft because they were so low.
PT: Yes. They did that with me when we went to, when we dropped food over Holland they had a big wide circle with Germans. They were starving too. With Germans and Dutch all around this and of course as we were dropping these boxes of margarine and whatever they’d be rushing in. But we weren’t, we were bothered about that because if you don’t get off the ground, if you don’t get off the, out of that situation and I remember being stood behind the pilot and a lady came out of a [pause] roof like and waving this Union Jack. That was good, wasn’t it?
MC: Yeah. You were low enough to see it all.
PT: Yeah.
MC: Yeah.
PT: Never seen [pause] No. No.
MC: Yeah. So I think they were very —
PT: But do you know —
MC: They were very pleased to see you.
PT: Do you know, Mike. Is your name Mike? Yeah. I remembered your name. Mike. We went to a camp in nineteen, I just don’t know when it was. We were avid campers my wife and, well we had no alternative with children. We did a lot of camping and we got to a site near Riez. That’s the major town there. Riez. When you go to Riez you go about fifteen kilometres and you get to this Lak de St Croix and this lake was formed, it’s a, it’s a barrier supplying water to Marseilles and it was, it was the gorges of Verdun. Not the north one. The south one. There’s two gorges. There’s two gorges. There’s this one gorge and that one is in the south and he comes down and they started filling this barrier that they’d made, the French and it took them five years to fill. And when we got there in 1978 it were just about filling up. Yeah. Yeah. And they were swimming in it and paddling in it and of course the big thing was wind surfing so big head Peter went. I had a windsurfer off John Claude. He was the guy you know and I didn’t I fall off it [laughs] but we learned and my wife was a better windsurfer than me because the Dufour wing board, it was a little bit light for me. I weighed fifteen stone. I really needed a heavier [unclear] as he said. John Claude said, ‘You need a [unclear] Peter.’
PS: But Peter there was a Dutch —
PT: But we made friends with them you know.
PS: There was a Dutch connection at St Le Croix. The Dutch connection.
PT: Yeah.
PS: There was. That’s your story isn’t it? The Dutch were there.
MC: The Dutch.
PT: Oh, a lot of Dutch people there. Do you know you can’t believe this that we went to that camp for ten years and I never [laughs] I must have been as thick as two short planks I never ever, never mentioned that I’d ever been in an aircraft. That I’d ever been RAF navigator, you know. Which was a big big thing.
MC: To the Dutch it was.
PT: A big thing when you dropped food to them.
MC: Yeah. It is. Very much to the Dutch.
PT: And they were never mentioned.
MC: Yeah. They you are.
PT: Never mentioned that.
MC: They have got great affection for the RAF.
PT: I’ll give you, if I can get your address you can write to them and tell them you’ve interviewed Peter Thomas.
MC: I see, I see you also did a Cook’s Tour.
PT: Pardon?
MC: You also did a Cook’s Tour.
PT: Did a —?
MC: A Cook’s Tour of the Ruhr.
PT: Oh afterwards. Yeah.
MC: Yeah.
PT: That was —
MC: Yeah. You went all over.
PT: Yeah. That was, when we did that Cook’s Tour we took about a dozen blokes in the ground crew you know. And that was a dangerous operation you know. Somebody, I don’t know who it was but they were, it came through the grapevine that somebody pulled a ripcord or something and we lost an aircraft, you know. When you pull a ripcord and it puts a boat on the wing. And that, now when you’re flying you don’t want boats on your wing do you [laughs]
MC: So, tell me what —
PT: There were, there were some, these were Army blokes who should have just, they should have just been like that ‘til we got there and somebody pulled the rip. So they said. I wasn’t in that aircraft.
MC: Fortunately. Yeah. So you mentioned in your logbook review. What was, what was the review? What was that. The review. It’s got review Norway. Review Switzerland. Review Med and Nice. Southern France.
[pause]
CS: Dad, you need your reading glasses.
PT: A map of Norway there. We landed at Woodbridge.
MC: Oh yeah.
PT: That was a big airfield to land. A big aerodrome. That was an emergency landing there that we did that.
MC: Yeah.
PT: We did a lot of things that you forget about you know. I mean that one. The biggest when —
CS: Why did you —
PT: When you think about Johns and his flying when you landed on that grass runway at Penkridge that was superb. And that —
MC: He did a good job.
PT: You never bothered about landing after that. No.
MC: Yeah. No, I was just wondering what it meant by review.
CS: Dad. Dad, why did you an emergency landing?
MC: Yeah. Because you did some photographs. Took some photographs, didn’t you?
PT: Yeah. Yeah.
MC: Yeah.
PT: Well, we went to Switzerland. Switzerland and the Mediterranean at Nice. Southern France.
MC: Yeah. You said about your emergency landing. I’ll come back to what you were saying earlier because you said you made the emergency landing because you lost an engine, didn’t you? Was that it?
PT: That was in Norway.
MC: Yeah. When you were coming back from Norway.
PT: When we, when we got to Norway.
MC: That’s right. You did do that. Yeah.
PT: We were just about to start the photo and we lost this engine.
MC: Yeah.
PT: And I wanted to come back via John O’Groats.
MC: Yeah. Yeah, we did talk about that. Yeah.
CS: You talked about it.
MC: Yeah. I thought that was the one that —
PT: ‘Oh no,’ he said ‘Give us a course back to Cromer. We’ll go straight back over the —’ Of course, we’d three engines and when you’ve got three engines you should be doing something about it. Now that firm that lost their lives was the best crew. They came back from the northern, north coast of Germany who lost two engines and then they turned.
MC: Yeah.
PT: To land. You know you have to, you bank don’t you to —
MC: Yeah.
PT: They did that and lost another engine.
MC: Swept on his back.
PT: They went over and they were all killed.
MC: Yeah.
PT: And that chap was, that chap was the serge uniform that I was aware of when they were sat next to me. I don’t know his name but I’ve thought about him many a time. I’ve thought about him since I’ve been holed up here.
MC: You also mentioned in your logbook about different operation names like [Sinkum.]
PT: [Sinkum.] That were dropping bombs over. [Sinkum.]
That was getting rid of —
They were getting rid of —
MC: Yeah.
PT: These, what was the —
MC: Incendiaries. The bombs.
PT: Yes. When they bombed they dropped these —
MC: Mines. Oh no. They wouldn’t be the mines.
PT: They dropped these. Made fires.
MC: Incendiary bombs.
PT: Yeah.
MC: Yeah.
PT: We dropped those.
MC: Dispose of them. Yeah.
PT: To get rid of them over —
MC: Over the North Sea. Yeah.
PT: Over the Welsh Coast. Over the water of the Welsh Coast.
MC: Give them to the Welsh.
PT: You what?
[recording paused.
MC: So, you enjoyed your time in the RAF did you?
PT: I did what?
MC: You enjoyed your time in the RAF.
PT: I enjoyed everything that I’ve ever done except being too close to Peter Selby [laughs] If you say the wrong thing to him and for goodness sake don’t point to him [yeah] I didn’t point. I thought about that.
MC: So when did you come. When did you —
PT: He’s my best friend and when I want any advice I go to him and usually he provides me with the right advice. Not enough money but advice.
MC: So when, so when did you finish?
PT: He’s been great hasn’t he Catherine?
MC: Yeah.
PT: He’s been great.
MC: When did you finish with the RAF? Let me see.
PT: 1946.
MC: Yeah. Yeah.
PT: No. I think. No, it might have been early ’47.
MC: ’46. No. This is crashing in a Mosquito. This is a new one.
PT: Yeah. I had a crash in a Mosquito.
MC: Did you? Where was that from? Where were you flying from on that?
PT: That was from [pause]
MC: Were you at Methwold then?
PT: Eh?
MC: Were you at Methwold then?
PT: Feltwell.
MC: Oh Feltwell.
PT: No. No. I wasn’t at Feltwell.
MC: Methwold.
PT: Can I have a look at the book? [pause] The navigator, and somebody said, ‘We’ve a, we’ve a flight test going on in a Mosquito. Have you somebody you could send who wants an air trip?’ and I said, ‘No. There’s nobody here. I’m the duty navigator and there’s nobody here.’ And he said, ‘Oh well, that don’t matter. Do you want to go?’ And I said, ‘Oh, yeah. I’ll have a go.’ So I went in this Mosquito and this chap had, he’d got a, he’d done well in over the Mediterranean. He had, he had an award for what he’d done in ground, the ground loop to an aircraft. Not a Mosquito. It was a two engine job. I’ve forgotten the name of it and you could, you could ground loop it like that and you got away with it. But he didn’t. He tried to do that when we were landing this Mosquito and it just shot into this field you know and cut, just cut my arm. I was next to him of course and he was up with the lid and out. Being first out. Of course, it didn’t fortunately set on fire and then the group captain came around and had a word with me and said, ‘Are you alright, laddie,’ sort of business. ‘Yes sir.’ [laughs]
MC: But nobody was really hurt.
PT: No. No. No.
MC: No.
PT: But he got a, he got a black a black mark on his logbook. He got —
MC: Was —
PT: I don’t know just what he got but he was —
MC: Was the aircraft a write off?
PT: Oh well. It was pretty well buggered [laughs] Well, the, it was, a Mosquito was essentially a plywood affair.
MC: Yeah.
PT: And in the accident it broke the fuselage here and it cut my arm here. Only a slight cut and of course he went around all the camp. [unclear] accompanying the navigator to the pilot he had, you know you’d have thought they’d have had my arm off you know. Yeah. Very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah we were lucky then. And that taught me not to do any more reserve flights you know [laughs] So I didn’t, I don’t think I flew —
MC: So you were station navigation officer at that time or —
PT: Pardon?
MC: You were station navigation, navigating man.
PT: Yeah. Yeah.
MC: At that time.
PT: For a bit, yes. At that place.
MC: What rank were you then?
PT: Pardon?
MC: What rank were you then?
PT: Well, I was, it was two years from being a sergeant in Canada. That was in about the 19th of June. Nineteen, nineteen —
MC: It would be ‘46 would it?
PT: What time was, have I made a note to you when we were finishing in Canada? Nineteen.
MC: You have. Yeah, 1944 wasn’t it?
PT: Yeah. 1944. Yeah. That’s when we finished in Canada.
MC: Yeah. You were a sergeant then.
PT: I was sergeant when I got, not until I got back to —
MC: To the UK.
PT: No. That’s right.
MC: So what rank were you when you finished in the Air Force?
PT: When I finished? A warrant officer.
MC: Oh, you did make warrant officer.
PT: Yeah.
MC: Yeah.
PT: I made a mistake. I should have, I should have had a uniform you know but being tight fisted I thought well I won’t be needing that when I go in Civvy Street but I wish I’d have got it now. There was a serge one, you know.
MC: Yeah.
PT: It was an officer type uniform.
MC: Yeah. Yeah.
PT: You know. Is this my tea?
CS: Yeah. I just topped it up. They might be able to supply him with one if he goes to this awards do, do you think. Mike?
[recording paused]
PT: Friendly with a girl you know.
Other: Can I interrupt for two seconds. I need to find out what he wants for his tea.
[recording paused]
MC: I’ve paused it. Right. It’s paused anyway.
CS: What do you want for tea, dad?
PT: What do I want for tea?
CS: That’s ok.
[recording paused]
MC: So you went back to work. Did you find it a bit calm, mundane after. After flying? So, this was —
PT: He was a nice bloke.
MC: So this was a souvenir from your 92 navigator’s course.
PT: Yeah.
MC: Yeah.
PT: I should be on that somewhere.
PS: LAC Thomas. You’re on the list there. LAC Thomas.
CS: Has he told you about going to New York?
PS: Yes.
MC: Yeah.
PT: No. I haven’t told. No.
CS: Oh, haven’t you talked about —
MC: Yeah.
PT: This chap that I met on the boat going to Canada he was, we were on the ship, on board ship and he finished up in the next bed to me and we got, we got quite, well we were friends. We only lost that friendship when he got a commission and the other fellow was from St Austell in Cornwall and unfortunately he was lost on a, on a [pause] on a Mosquito. When he came back instead of I did the same thing I volunteered. I made application to go on Mosquitoes rather than Lancasters because I thought it would be safer you see. Anyway, I didn’t. I think they were choosing officers and I was only a sergeant. So I missed it but this fella got it and he was lost on a —
MC: Yeah.
PT: He was lost on a trip on a Mosquito with a Canadian, a South African pilot who came over when we went for a tour with my Javelin. The first car I bought. We called at this cottage. We made enquiries at St Austell and the man said, ‘Oh, it’s my wife. On the roadside. It’s a cottage. Go and knock on the door and it’ll be you.’ And when we went into this room it was just like a mausoleum. There were all these things from, from him being in the Air Force and [pause] sad. His mother lost her only son.
MC: Yeah. Yeah.
PT: And it was sad.
MC: So, did you find it, going back to when you came out the Air Force was it difficult? Was it difficult to settle back into civilian life after four years of flying?
PT: Not for me. No.
MC: No. What did you think about the job that Bomber Command did?
PT: What Bomber Command did?
MC: Yeah. During the war.
PT: Well, like the guy who was running it. Harris. He was called Harris, wasn’t he?
MC: Yeah. Yeah.
PT: Harris.
MC: Bomber Harris.
PT: He said if we just keep bombing them a bit longer they would [laughs] they’ll give up.
MC: Yeah.
PT: We lost a lot of lives that we could have avoided but you see they’d have been Bomber Command lives. So, I don’t know. I don’t know. I were glad I didn’t —
MC: What about Churchill?
PT: Pardon?
MC: How did, did you get much about what Churchill was doing and Churchill was —
PT: Not then. No.
MC: No. Yeah. Yeah.
PT: People didn’t. They didn’t tell people. You know, when that, when that aircraft crashed upside down you know we got, we didn’t get to know that. We just got to know that it was lost. Somebody else told us something else.
MC: Yeah. So, I mean, post-war Bomber Command wasn’t recognised probably for want of a better word as it should have been. How did you feel about that?
PT: I think it was, I think we were underestimated.
MC: Did you get the clasp? Did you get the Bomber Command clasp?
PT: No.
MC: You didn’t send for the clasp.
PT: No. I haven’t anything.
CS: Have you applied for that?
PT: Have I got a clasp?
PS: No. No. You didn’t get the clasp.
PT: No.
PS: You had —
CS: He’s made enquiries.
PS: Yeah. Nothing’s about —
CS: He hasn’t made —
[recording paused]
PT: He, if there are any clasps —
MC: If you what? Sorry, what was his name?
PT: Pardon?
MC: What was his name? Victor.
PT: Victor Tytherington.
MC: Oh right.
PT: Have you heard that name?
MC: No.
PT: No. Well, he, he was a navigator late on and he went and he trained in South Africa and he, there was various, there was a Manna clasp for dropping food over Holland. There was something for that. I haven’t anything for any of them.
PS: So we —
PT: Sorry.
PS: I could fill in the gap.
[recording paused]
PT: A tour of ops on Bomber Command. You know, like joining Methwold. If that job had have gone on, it finished of course but if it had gone on you’d have to do thirty ops before you’d finished your tour.
MC: A full tour was thirty. Yeah.
PT: Thirty. Thirty two. I don’t just know. I know there was a gunner in Todmorden and he did about eighty odd in a, as a gunner. Henry he were called. There were a few in Todmorden you know. Just navigators and stuff you know but we never bothered. Got to do. I had enough to do with this bakehouse that I got shuffled into with my dad.
MC: You were in Todmorden?
PT: Pardon?
MC: You lived in Todmorden.
PT: Todmorden.
MC: Yeah.
CS: [unclear]
PT: I was fifty years in Todmorden.
CS: Yeah. He was born in Nelson.
MC: I used to work up that way. How long were you a baker then?
PT: When I came out of the Air Force I had the, aircrew they had the chance of going to university. That was the first mistake I made.
CS: You could have gone.
PT: Me and my wife, no matter now said, ‘Well, you were that busy trying to get your end away.’ [laughs]
CS: But also you said you could have gone into BOAC.
PT: With her.
MC: Yeah. Did you consider BOAC?
PT: Pardon?
MC: Did you consider BOAC? British Overseas Air —
PT: When I was, when I was at Methwold, yes. I could have gone on BOA, BOAC. I was asked to go with having this Reserved Occupation in the Treasury Department I turned it down but I’m not sorry about that. I never felt sorry about that really.
CS: But you also thought, he said they wouldn’t need navigators. That’s why he didn’t want to go to BOAC.
PT: When I left, when I left the squadron and the outfit, when they brought the crew up I don’t know where Johns went but Fraser, the bomb aimer he joined another crew and, but I went. I went north and I did an instructor’s course and I was, when I was, when I was on that test flight I was supposed to be an instructor at this aerodrome. The aerodrome. There’s that many around there. There’s, it could be North Luffenham. There’s a lot of different ones. Cottesmore. Woolfox Lodge.
MC: Yeah.
PT: That was tragic when they lost that one you know. That were just poor bloody maintenance. There was, there was a little amusing incident. I was in a, we were in a NAAFI queue and you know the ATS people? They deliver aircraft. Well, a person had. We were sort of in this queue for the NAAFI and over to our left a person not known at the time man or woman walked and had a helmet on and they were, the ATS people they used to deliver any sort of aircraft. Spitfires, Hurricanes, Lancasters, Halifaxes. Any one they could fly them. And on this particular occasion there was a queue like of the pilots you know, and they were sort of saying, ‘Great job that,’ you know. And suddenly this great job [laughs] pulled her helmet off and she were a woman and all the pilots that were in this queue you know and we said [laughs].
[recording paused]
PT: I think when I, when I got the, when I got back into the Grammar School stream through sheer luck really I think that’s when I enjoyed it. And my brother, younger brother he hated the Grammar School but I liked it and I liked this teacher, Mr Fowles and Miss Graham and all different people. I loved it. Yeah.
CS: His younger brother was six and a half years younger.
PT: I didn’t do particularly well because I was always going out with this girl or that girl. I had a girl from when I was at Grammar School [laughs] yeah.
CS: His, his —
MC: A bit of a lad were you?
CS: His young brother, his younger brother —
PT: A lad yeah.
CS: Was in the military police.
PT: Yeah.
CS: So he was there in Germany when they had the trials you know for the —
MC: Oh yeah, Nuremberg —
CS: Yeah. That’s right.
PT: I probably missed a lot out really.
CS: So what are you going to tell us about the ATA?
PT: Not a —
MC: Yes. It was ATA, wasn’t it? Yeah. Air Transport Auxiliary I think it was. Yeah. I mean they were good pilots some of them.
PT: Pardon?
MC: They were good pilots some of them.
PT: Oh yeah. They had to pilot anything. They would jump into a Spitfire or a Lancaster. They were good.
MC: Yeah. Well thanks very much for your interview, Peter.
PS: Shall I put that —
MC: Thank you very much.
PT: You know all these crew members? Pilot, navigator, bomb aimer.
CS: Gunner.
PT: Mid-upper gunner, rear gunner, wireless operator. If you want to, if you want to contact them for any information unfortunately they’ve all gone. They’re dead.
MC: You’re the last one.
PT: So you can’t. You can’t. You can’t say, ‘Is it right what Peter Thomas said?’ I’m the last one.
MC: I believe every word you said Peter.
PT: I mean they were, they had their moments, you know. I mean Peter’s told me things about dropping food over Holland when I never thought anything about it but they were, they lost aircraft there hadn’t they Peter?
PS: Yes. According to the book on Operation Manna.
MC: Yeah. They lost three.
PS: Three Lancasters on that.
PT: And I did —
PS: They collided I think.
CS: Collided.
PT: I did two. It did two to the Hague. To the Hague.
MC: Yeah.
PT: And, and we I don’t know just which. I tell you what we did one to Juvencourt.
MC: Oh yeah.
PT: And we brought, we stayed overnight and then we brought a lot of ex-prisoners. British boys who were prisoners. Prisoners of war.
MC: Yeah.
PT: That was, that’s tragic.
MC: Yeah. Juvencourt.
PT: When you hear of one being lost through stupid pulling at a rip cord and you know you can’t believe how daft people are.
MC: There were a few aircraft lost when the prisoners were brought back.
PT: Anyway, it didn’t affect me.
MC: No.
PT: We only did the one and one’s enough. Well, when we were at Juvencourt we went, we went drinking. These French [robbing] us you know with this cheap wine you know and I can’t, I can’t understand why I finished up on my own and I finished up in an American camp and this, this American said, ‘Oh sure. We’ve got a place for you boy.’ I went and I slept in this American camp and I wasn’t, I were on my own you know. I don’t know where any, we’d been drinking this wine. I didn’t know where the hell I was and this American said, ‘You follow me and I’ll finish you.’ That sort of talk you know. I thought that were wonderful. I really, I enjoyed the Grammar School. You see at the Grammar School in 1940 I’d been there then about four or five years and a lot of the boys they’d been called up and I lost a very good mentor of Harry Marsden who was lost on a ship in, opposite St Nazaire. He was, they battened him down and he was lost. Harry Marsden. He was my mentor. He was the cricket captain. The head of the school. The football captain. If you mentioned Harry Marsden he was in it, you know and we lost him.
MC: He was in everything.
PT: 1942 he was killed. He was killed on this ship. It was an, it was a British warship. I forget the name of the ship and it was outside St Nazaire and it got sunk and they battened it. They saved a lot and they didn’t get, they didn’t get Harry out. He was, he was battened down and that was sad you know when we were going on to another course you know. I mean when we got back from Canada we were at [pause] we were at Millom. Well, we were at Pannal Ash College and they sent us up to Millom and we went back flying on Avro Ansons.
MC: Yeah. So you brought plenty of —
PT: Chicken Rock and up to the islands and back, you know.
MC: You brought plenty of stuff back.
PT: Then we went to, then we were posted to —
MC: Husbands Bosworth.
PT: Husbands Bosworth. Husbands Bosworth, yeah. And that’s where we crewed up and we were on Lancasters.
MC: Yeah.
PT: No. Not Lancasters. Wellingtons. And that’s when we went and converted on to —
MC: Lancasters.
PT: Lancasters. Yeah.
MC: Yeah. So when you came back from Canada you brought a load of stuff back with you from Canada. Cigarettes and stuff like that.
PT: When I came back from, when I was in Moncton they said, we had a, we had a kit bag. A Canadian. And a Canadian kit bag and they said, ‘If you want to get the maximum amount on board ship,’ he said, ‘You’ll have to buy a Canadian, not a Canadian one but a special one they had for erks like me. And it were a bag. It stood about that high and of course you didn’t need the others but I had that many cigarettes and stuff and bottles of cream for my mother that I put this this big kit bag and I had a pack. What did they call it? Like a —
MC: A rucksack.
PT: Knapsack. Yeah.
MC: Yeah.
PT: And I put this big one, I got somebody to lift it up and it lifted on like this and it were, it were about like this you know and when we got to the ship, when we got to the ship you know I was just hoping that we would have just gone up one step and on to the ship you know. And we went up this gantry you know. Up and up and up with this and when I was [laughs] when I got to where I was supposed to be I were absolutely knackered with this. With this big kit bag you know full of cigarettes and bottles of cream for my mother and stuff like that. Yeah. I enjoyed that. There were moments when you were a bit fed up you know and I mean I got walloped with a master who was, he also hit me but he’d been reported in a magazine that he’d hit a girl the same way. He just, for some, I didn’t know what I’d done wrong and he just whacked me across the face and Geoffrey my younger brother said, ‘He did the same to me.’ And then in this magazine, “Reunion,” this girl said she got whacked with him. He were a bully. He was a bully.
CS: Dad —
[recording paused]
MC: So I’ll just finish up by saying thank you for the interview anyway Peter. It’s much enjoyable. I’m, I thank you very much for doing the interview.
PT: Yeah.
MC: It’s been very good. Very entertaining.
PT: It was good, was it?
MC: Yeah.
PT: Yeah.
MC: Thank you.
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 Peter Thomas
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Mike Connock
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-03-02
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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AThomasPG180302
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:33:14 audio recording
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--Leicestershire
England--Devon
England--Harrogate
England--London
England--Norfolk
England--Rutland
England--Yorkshire
Scotland
Canada
Ontario
Ontario--Toronto
New Brunswick
New Brunswick--Moncton
North America--Niagara Falls
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1945
Description
An account of the resource
Peter was born in Nelson, Lancashire and had two brothers. He was sixteen when he left school in 1940 and got a job until joining the Royal Air Force in 1943. He went to London Air Crew Reception Centre before going to Initial Training Wing at RAF Paignton. He then moved to Cambridge where he spent time on Tiger Moths. He was told he would be a navigator and from there he went to Liverpool to sail to Canada and start his training before going to Moncton receiving centre and then on to Toronto. On one occasion Peter flew over Niagara Falls. After training Peter got shipped back to Great Britain, arriving in Scotland before going to Pannal Ash College. He then moved to the operational training unit at RAF Husbands Bosworth where crews were formed. The crew went to the Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Woolfox Lodge to train on Lancasters with 149 Squadron. They were then posted to RAF Methwold. When training on Wellingtons they had to make an emergency landing due to loss of an engine. He also recalled a trip in a Mosquito when the pilot crashed the aircraft but no one was injured. The crew was sometimes designated to take aerial photographs and was also involved with Operation Exodus and Operation Manna. Peter was demobbed as a warrant officer. After the war Peter and his family did a lot of camping. He said he had enjoyed everything he had done in life. Peter thought that Bomber Command did not received the recognition it deserves.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
Julie Williams
149 Squadron
aircrew
crash
crewing up
forced landing
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Mosquito
navigator
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF Husbands Bosworth
RAF Methwold
RAF Paignton
RAF Woolfox Lodge
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/589/8858/AHughesWR150713.2.mp3
18e37bacec69f09e545be17b9d8cdabd
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, Bob
William Robert Hughes
W R Hughes
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hughes, WR
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Bob Hughes (751133, 137124 Royal Air Force). He flew operations with 149, 50 and 23 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
NM: So, this is now recording, and my name is Nigel Moore, I’m the interviewer, and I’m interviewing Flight Lieutenant Bob Hughes on the 13th of July. I’m in Mr Hughes’ home in North Hants. So, Mr Hughes, would you like to tell us something about your upbringing and your life before you joined the RAF?
BH: I was only a, a ordinary seniors school and I never went, never passed Eleven Plus, so I went to the, one of the senior productive schools and then I, I passed, I suppose, most things, you know, and when the opportunity came, I took [unclear] said we had a – I’d been working as a coachbuilder, or in, with a coachbuilding firm, and we were, were making Rolls Royce – taking Rolls Royce chassis in and making them into finished cars. And while I was there, we had a fellow named Serge Kalinsky, he was a Scandinavian diplomat and he started swearing and said ‘There’s gonna be a bloody war any time now! Within the next few months, I guarantee it, in the next few months!’ So, knowing that I – my father had had a rough time in the army, in the trenches, I thought ‘ Well, no army for me, I’m gonna join the air force now,’ because Sywell was a handy aerodrome, so I went and joined weekend air force. And, once I was in there and the war was declared, naturally I was transferred straight away into the main RAF. And, erm –
NM: So, you joined a reserve squadron, did you?
BH: That’s right, RAF Volunteer Reserves. And I don’t know the na – well, I think it was 23 Squadron that I went to, which was when – during the Battle of Britain.
NM: So, how – can you describe your training, your flying training?
BH: Flying training?
NM: What were you training on? What were you flying?
BH: Well, mostly, in Ansons and, well, you know, I, I’m terrible at trying to remember the names of these aircraft tonight, but the – oh dear, two, two, two engined, the planes that we flew in, and – oh, I can’t think of the, the names, have I got it in here at all? [sound of turning pages]
NM: Not to worry, what about the training itself?
BH: Well, this was to go in these aircraft and did a few bail-outs practices and in the, in the, oh dear, in the yards of some big firms where they, they’d got escape possibility there, so we tried, tried those out several times. [background noises, turning pages]
NM: So, you say you flew in the Battle of Britain?
BH: Yes.
NM: What –
BH: That was in Blenheims.
NM: Can you de – can you talk –
BH: Now, this is the thing: quite often, when the Battle of Britain is mentioned, it’s either – what’s the two [unclear] the two aircraft that were always noticed? I think every time they mention these two aircraft, I think, how about the Night Shifts? ‘Cause I flew in, in the, in the Night Shift, and the aircraft we flew in wasn’t – oh dear, I’m terrible at names, I’m a terrible, terrible person to interview, really, because my memory is absolutely shocking. Blenheim, yes, but [pause] these, these were the usual things that we flew in those days, Ansons and Blenheims.
NM: So, can you describe the role that you played in the Battle of Britain flying these Blenheims?
BH: Well, I was a wireless operator/air gunner, and of course, in the, in those aircraft, you could picture everything, what am I talking about? Got a picture here [background noises].
NM: Yep, there’s the Blenheim.
BH: That’s – do you rec – do you recognise the one?
NM: Mr Hughes is pointing out a Mark 1 Blenheim.
BH: Mark 1 Blenheim, yeah, that’s right, yeah.
NM: ‘S’ right, and you were –
BH: And we had a, we had a turret on the top.
NM: And that’s where you were.
BH: When I flew later, in, in the big aircraft, the four-engine aircraft – they’re all here [background noises] when I flew later in the Wellington – that one’s the Lancaster, that is the Dambuster, they’ve got no turret on there but we, where we flew in the Lancasters, we had a turret, you see but previously, during the Battle of Britain, it was on, on the twin-engine aircraft.
NM: So, when you flew the Blenheims during the Battle of Britain, were you on bombing missions, and what – if so, what were your targets?
BH: Well, it, we were on defence.
NM: On defence?
BH: Defence patrol, up and down from the south coast up to, up the Thames Estuary, most of the time. [pause, sound of turning pages]
NM: And this was – were you called the Night Shift?
BH: The Night Shift, yes. There we are, there’s the aircraft. And that’s the flew – the pilot I flew with most of the time, this is Alan Gowarth [?] and that was, yes, and all Blenheims.
NM: So, this was Number 23 Squadron, night –
BH: 23 Squadron, night fighter squadron, yes.
NM: And can you describe your operations flying for 23 Squadron?
BH: Well –
NM: In the Blenheim?
BH: It was a, a patrol, up and down from the south coast up the Thames, the Thames Estuary, keeping a guard on things to the starboard, you know, any incoming aircraft, and we, we had quite a few that we, we followed, and went and dived down with them but we didn’t actually have a contact. [Pause] This first one, yeah apart from anything else, we had anti-aircraft cooperation, searchlight cooperation, going backwards and forwards along the Thames Estuary. That’s what they were: night defensive patrols. And that was, that’s the fella, fella that I flew with most of the time.
NM: So, you encountered a few contacts but didn’t actually –
BH: We didn’t see anybody shot, shot down but we, we fired at them and we saw the bullets, you know, sort of going their direction but didn’t see anything falling down, not then.
NM: And what type of aircraft were you engaging?
BH: It was a Blenheim. Oh, I don’t know; well, they were twin, twin-engined aircraft, yeah. I can’t –
NM: Okay.
BH: Think of the name. [sound of turning pages] I’ve got a picture.
NM: So after the 23 Squadron, how did you move to – can you describe how you moved from Fighter Command to Bomber Command?
BH: Well, at the time, they were losing a lot of crews and aircraft and crews in, in Bomber Command, and so they were asking for volunteers and I volunteered to – went to Number 9 Bomber Squadron, which was at Honington, but I only did one air test with them, and then I was asked if I would volunteer and go to one, 149 Squadron, which was at Mildenhall, and that’s where I did most of the bombing trips that I did, up to, up to seventy-three, but they weren’t all to Germany. A lot – we had a spell over in the Middle East, and it was Benghazi that we were bombing then.
NM: So, the start of your operational life with 149 Squadron –
BH: 149, yes.
NM: Was that –
BH: Mildenhall.
NM: At Mildenhall.
BH: Yes.
NM: And –
BH: And we were –
NM: And how did you – can you describe how you met your crew and got a crew together?
BH: No, only a sort of friendly meeting and you like the look of somebody and who you think was, was genuine. This first fellow we went – I flew with was a Squadron Leader Heather, and we went to Wilhelmshaven, [unclear] class cruisers and we were, we were bombing all around it, when this – oh, we went there again another night, repeat, repeat. I tell you what, when we first, when we first went there, they, they took us to canal, canals, and we got to aim in the canal with the mines, and mind you, was such a narrow mine, margin, and having such a small tar – item, when we got back home, we told them how difficult it was, so we suggested ‘Why not bomb it instead of just putting mines there?’ So they sent us back the next night to, to do that. That was Wilhelmshaven.
NM: So, at this point, you were flying Wellingtons?
BH: Wellingtons, yes.
NM: And this was in nineteen-forty –
BH: 1949, February ’49.
NM: Forty – 1941?
BH: Ah, no, no, beg your pardon.
NM: Yes.
BH: Yes, ’41, yes.
NM: So, can you describe squadron life on 149 Bomber Command at Mil – Mildenhall?
BH: Well, it was just –
NM: What was life like?
BH: Just a friendly get-together, you know, I’m ninety, nearly ninety-five now and I was twenty, twenty then, nineteen or twenty. So, you know, to remember exactly what we did, we got friendly; whoever we met, we made friends with and wanted to know how we got on.
NM: Did you go out for nights out around Mildenhall? What was – what were they like?
BH: Yes, yes, but, you know, just a drink here and there and, but nothing to really note.
NM: And what about your crew? Do you have particular memories of your crew?
BH: Yes, I think I, quite honestly, having done so many and for such a long period, long number of ops, I reckon I was very lucky picking the, or matching up with a good set of wonderful pilots. You see, each of the pilots I flew with were absolutely wonderful; they seemed to go to the target and did the business and get back, no messing and no wandering about all over Germany.
NM: And how about the rest of the crew? Were you a close group?
BH: Yes, yes, I think, generally speaking it was with the naviga – with the observer, or navigator, as they were then, more than anything, and because with the navigator, it was a question of, when we got over the target, sort of the geography of the place. I remember one of the things, one of the worst op we went on was Essen, and the geography of that place was so – we could spot it out as easy as anything. [Pause] But then later on, we did a lot of coast, coastal things like Wilhelmshaven, bombing the cruisers there, they, they took [unclear] class cruisers up the, up the, the fjords.
NM: Why was Essen such a bad target?
BH: Well, being an ammunition manufacturing place, I believe it was very heavily defended because of that. I mean, it was a manufacturer of, manufacturer of explosives and suchlike, and we seemed to cruise around it quite a lot, and anyhow, I was always telling the skipper, ‘Such-and-such is at the, on the starboard side,’ or, you know, ‘We’ve got to turn a little bit to the port to get this thing.’ That was on a reserve flight, 149 Squadron, and then I went to a reserve flight at Stradishall where they were preparing to get crews to go out to the Middle East, and then I had a spell in the Middle East.
NM: So, just back on your bombing raids here, over Essen and other German targets, you were giving instructions to the pilot –
BH: Oh yes, yes!
NM: To help him to do what?
BH: Yes, notifying where the canals are shooting off, to the south or the, the west, you know, that sort of thing. On very sunny [?] nights, the, the water whether it was a river or a canal, you could spot it that much easier, and you would report, you know, what you could see.
NM: So, tell us a little bit how you then transferred out to the Middle East. Was this the same squadron, was the whole squadron go out to the Middle East?
BH: Oh, no, no, it was with a, a, I was with this, what, this one point one, this reserve flight to start with, wasn’t I? And then, then we heard that there’d been so many losses, crew losses, and there were appealing for people to, to go to transfer to the Middle East, and so I went to this reserve flight at Stradishall, and from there, via Malta, I went to, to 70 Squadron in Kabrit, which was in Egypt.
NM: That must have been quite a change. What – can you give us your memories of the change in going to the Middle East?
BH: Well, the thing was, we had, we had a turret to go to, and the preparations for, for raids and things were absolutely marvellous. We had an advanced base; we used to land in the desert and then take off again for the raid. Well, this one here, the first one we had, operations against enemy was Menida [?] Aerodrome, so actually, I liked the possibility of going into the front turret if we were going and attacking an aerodrome, so we can go ‘round and, you know, shooting up the, the, the arm – armoury points.
NM: So, you moved from the mid upper to the front for these raids?
BH: That’s right, yes, but most of the time, you know, we were, when you were in the rear turret, we were solely concerned about attacks by enemy aircraft, you know? So, most of our light was emphasised downwards. [Pause] We had one or two come up to us and nose – nosing towards us and managed to tell the pilot to do a dive and then we went down in, in a curve dive, you know, and got shot of them.
NM: So, you encountered enemy aircraft?
BH: Yes, yes.
NM: On many occasions?
BH: Oh, at least, oh, I’ll just think, at least a half a dozen times.
NM: So, tell us about squadron – your memories of squadron life in the desert. How different was it from the UK?
BH: Well, of course, water was the problem, sort of rationing out water, you know, and sort of having exercise, running and all the rest of it, but had to avoid having too much water. But then, in the desert, particularly, that was an even worse problem. [Pause] That was a thing that we did quite often while in the Middle East, was staffing the motor transport on the – between Cairo and Benghazi. The, the main road was, was used quite a lot by the enemy and we’d attack transport along there, and railway sidings, particularly, so they would try bringing the forces, German forces, into the desert via Benghazi and so we attacked the– oh, I can’t, I was trying to think of the, the general’s name: Rommel. Rommel was bringing all his replacement troops into Ben – Benghazi, so we went there and we – well, they called it the mailroom [?] because we hit it so many times, but it was where they were bringing the re – the new forces in.
NM: And were these daylight raids you were on, or night raids?
BH: Mostly night, but we did one or two; well, yes, I should think about a third of them were daylight, but mostly night. [Pause] Then it was a question of geography and remembering the shape of the, the land underneath you, whereabouts you’d got to. Location, on the main way up to Benghazi, we had to sort out Bardi – Bardiyah and Menidi [?] for erm, to locate us that we were hitting the right thing. Railway sidings were attacked an enormous amount, but we had to sort out our geography to make sure we were bombing, strafing the right things. [Pause, sound of turning pages]
NM: So how did, how did your war continue? Can you describe – were there any changes over this period, 1941, in terms of how the squadron life continued?
BH: Well, towards the end of my period, we did a lot of education of fresh crews.
NM: Who had come out to Egypt?
BH: Yes. [Sound of turning pages] Oh, this is Pershore.
NM: Is that –
BH: Pershore, that was the OTU there, Pershore, where I did a lot of bombing from there, and then on to 12 Squadron.
NM: So, tell me how you managed to get then transferred back from the desert, back to Bomber Command in England.
BH: [Sound of turning pages] 50 Squadron [more turning pages] It’s in –
NM: What happened between 70 Squadron and, and 50 Squadron?
BH: We – everything was going alright and we were bombing everything we were asked to, and, but then they were asking for volunteers to do – to go to, to England again.
NM: So, did you volunteer on your own or did the entire crew volunteer?
BH: Oh, I volunteered on my own, I think, but this was 50 Squadron, 5 Group, Skellingthorpe, it was a liaison visit we did there, and while we were there, they wanted us to go to, to – on Lancasters to Magdeburg. As a matter of fact, I’d been on seventy-two trips, missions, and I’d never once been to Berlin, somebody was talking about going to Berlin, so we went to Magdeburg, and after we’d bombed there, the skipper says ‘See on the starboard side, you’ll see Berlin, Bob, and that’s the nearest we shall get to it!’ [slight laugh] And of course we got ‘boo’s by the rest of the crew, and that’s where we finished up. That’s the seventy – that was my very last mission.
NM: So, we’ve jumped ahead into 1944 from 1941.
BH: 1944, January ’44, yeah.
NM: What – going back a little bit to coming out of Egypt into – back to England: you say you went to an OTU?
BH: Yes, yes.
NM: And you were still flying Wellingtons?
BH: Yes, as a trainee. No, not as a trainee, as a –
NM: So you, you became an instructor?
BH: Instructor, yes.
NM: What was it like being –
BH: Yes, was that ’43? January ’43.
NM: That’s ’43, yep.
BH: Yeah, that’s right, went to an OTU.
NM: So you became an instructor?
BH: Instructor, that’s right.
NM: What else –
BH: And we did an operation from there at – oh, to Essen, several times.
NM: Just what was it like converting from a Wellington to a Lancaster? Can you –
BH: Well, we were –
NM: - describe it from a crew’s point of view?
BH: Well, we had wonderful turrets on the Lancaster and, well, I think we were just pleased that it’s – that it was a new aircraft and we’d got four engines, you know? I don’t think we gave it much sort of consideration as to whether it was better or not, it just – we just accepted that it was [emphasis] better, and we were moved fa – we were flying faster. They, they were some of the worst planes [?] we did with Essen and mine laying, oh, we did a mine laying off Heligoland and that, that was a bit dicey; they seemed to have high defensive, the defences at these places. [Pause] While we were on OTU, of course, we did a lot of experience in cross-country, knowing our way about, you know, air-to-air fire, firing and air-to-sea firing, and that’s just for practice.
NM: Describe a little bit life as an instructor as opposed to operational air crew.
BH: Well, I was quite happy about that; I mean, I knew what I was talking about and the – I, I did see quite a lot, the fellers were coming to me for, you know, ‘Well, how do we, how do we sort out this?’ you know, the rear-see [?] retainer keeper, this was a familiar phrase, you know, ‘How do we deal with this when we’re still flying in the air?’ you know? You’ve got to do it with blinds – blindfold, and that was the case in some, sometimes, ‘cause there was machine, with machine guns. [Pause] That was the last trip we did, we were attacked by an ME-210, that was the target, and fired hundred and fifty rounds but there was no confirmed hits. [Pause] I’m sorry I’m not able to answer your questions quite as freely as I ought to, really.
NM: No, don’t worry about that, you’re doing wonderfully.
BH: Well, a few years ago, perhaps I should – I’m a bit more chatty, but – [pause, sound of moving papers] You’ve got a record of service here, you see: I joined in May the 12th 1939, I joined the RAFVR and received calling-up papers, then, into the regular air force in August of that year, August 27th.
NM: So, when you came to the end of your operations, why did you finish operations? Had you done, finished a tour, or –
BH: Yeah, well –
NM: What happened after your last operation?
BH: [Sound of turning pages] Oh yes, joined an AF – was an AFU, that was the training unit.
NM: So you became an instructor again?
BH: That’s right, yes, on gun, guns and armoury.
NM: And that took you to the end of the war, did it?
BH: Yes, well, February, February, no, Oct – no, October ’44. [Pause] Various aircraft that I flew in was a Blenheim Mark 1, a Fairey Battle, that was an early, early one that I flew in a lot, and then the Boulton Paul Defiant, which we did most of the shooting with on, on nights, and then the Avro Anson that, this was a transport aircraft most of the time, and then in the Wellingtons, I flew in the 1, 1C, 1A, Mark 2 and the 3, and then the Avro Lancasters, Marks 1 and 2, and 3. Oh, also, I flew in the Lysanders quite a few times, and Blackburn Bothas; Blackburn Botha, they were used to use for training quite a lot. I know they weren’t very popular for some reason, but they did the trick.
NM: So they were the training aircraft?
BH: Yes, Bothas.
NM: So, I’m interested in the Lysander, your role in flying in a Lysander; what was your role then?
BH: My role then was to, to, to take us into the desert for take-offs, they just, for operations, or to res – rescue from the desert after we’d landed. That’s when I used the Lysander a few times, was for – was rep – was actually saving, you know, escape. I flew also in Fairey Battle, Ansons, Bothas and Lysanders. Well, the Lysander, as I say, was a thing to save you, you know, sort of a –
NM: So, of your seventy-seven operations, either in the desert or across Germany, are any particularly memorable for you?
BH: Seven – seventy-three, it was.
NM: Oh, seventy-three missions.
BH: Yeah.
NM: Okay.
BH: Well, yeah, occasionally we got caught out with the ‘Un [?] defence plane catching catching up with us, but most of the time, we were wide awake to it and whenever we saw something on the starboard or the port side, we’d tell the skipper and we’d dive away. [Pause] Course, one of the main things, maintenance, was the machine, with the machine belts, belts of machines, you know, sort of making sure we didn’t get caught up on those. [Pause] Anyhow, there’s a – unless there a record of service in the whole, the whole lot, that I, you know, kept it down to a minimum there. I went recently to Clarence House; my wife’s been there to the Queen.
NM: When you look back on your time in Bomber Command, what are your main thoughts?
BH: Well, I was glad I was available to do it, and the friendship that you made with most of the people there was pretty good. [Pause] That was the thing; with the link trainer, I used to enjoy going in that, flying the various things through the link trainer.
NM: How do you think Bomber Command has been treated since the end of the war?
BH: What? Haven’t really, haven’t had any more to do with it or knowledge of it, really. No, I don’t think that we’ve – I think we’ve, we would have cottoned on to it a bit more if anything had gone wrong, but everything seemed to be right, we sort of sorted all the problems out.
NM: Do you think Bomber Command has had enough recognition since the end of the war for what they did, or what you did?
BH: Well, yes, I think so, I think we’ve been reason – reasonably recognised.
NM: Tell me about your life since the end of the war. Did you stay in the RAF long?
BH: Oh, no, when – I had been with a firm that repaired converted Rolls Royce from the chassis into a cars, you know, and it was a good firm to work for, and I, I did a lot of this, this work, and this is how I came to meet this Kalinsky, who came in with his Wellington, with his Rolls Royce, and so he told us that there was gonna be a war, so that’s what made me go into the fleet, into the reserve occupation, so that when I was called up, I was bound to be in the RAF.
NM: So, on leaving the RAF, you rejoined the same company?
BH: After – do you know, my memory, my memory’s terrible. Yes, I must, I must have done, went straight to Mulliner’s, who were coachbuilders, class coachbuilder, they were mainly, mostly London but we had a branch in Northampton, and then [pause] think I got the DFC for my last, last trips over Essen.
NM: So you were awarded the DFC?
BH: Yes, that was December the 12th, 12th of the 3rd, ’43, and then the other thing later, the RAF.
NM: What was the background to the award of the DFC?
BH: We were on – trying to see where this is. [Pause] Oh, it was on the second tour, I’d done a tour of ops already and volunteered for another, and it was during this that I was awarded the DFC on the secondary tour, tour.
NM: Was the reason for the DFC because of your –
BH: Length, length of service, service.
NM: Length of service, rather than a particular –
BH: Yes, volunteering for so mu – so much with the, with Flying Command, with Bomber Command. I went to another squadron, 950 Squadron, we went to, on operational liaison duties, did that quite a bit – it was nice to go to other squadrons and find out how they were getting on and tell them what we did.
NM: So that was between your tours?
BH: Yes, yeah.
NM: So, what was the role you played as a liaison officer, then?
BH: Oh! [laughs] I was to sort out the ammunition, and of course, in the early days, we had the pans to slap onto aircraft, onto the gun, but later on, of course, we had machine belt, belt machine, belt ammunition.
NM: Did you see much evolution in air gunnery between 1939 and 1945? Can you –
BH: Yes, well, we had a lot of new aircraft, new guns coming along, American, lot of new American guns that we were using, and also the, the loading, the belts, not just the belts, but ammunition belt, pan, pans. I don’t seem to be able to tell you anything more positive, really, you know, but –
NM: You received a commission during your service, didn’t you? Because you joined as a LAC and -
BH: LAC, yes.
NM: And moved up to flight lieutenant.
BH: Flight lieutenant, that’s right, yes.
NM: What was the history there?
BH: Well, I’d been, I’d been moved from one place to another and volunteered for so much, much, and there was a lot of training and did a lot of training with pupils coming along. [Pause] Show you this last one there; we had an enormous amount of people with us, we had somebody with seventy-two – oh, that was me with seventy two! So, if all the others had had twenty-four trips, then we were – this was a mission for, for training. It was a voluntary – well, it was while I was on a liaison trip to, to Skellingthorpe on training for, for measured score [?], I said that I’d, I’d done seventy, seventy-odd trips and I’d never been to Berlin, so this gunnery leader there said ‘Well, you’re alright, well go with us tonight,’ got to the end of the runway and this aircraft, this aircraft, yeah, this aircraft, and the target was changed to an alternative, and in the end, we went there and bombed that, and as we come away from it, the skipper says, ‘Well, you’ve seen Berlin on the right, on the starboard side,’ he says, but you know of course, the rest of the crew didn’t care too much for this, they wanted to get home, back home [slight laugh]!
NM: Do you keep in touch with Bomber Command through squadron associations or reunions?
BH: No, that’s – do you know, apart from our local reunions at Sywell, I haven’t gone back to any RAF squadrons at all.
NM: And what’s your association with Sywell?
BH: Well, our, our early training was there, we, we – it was the first aircraft we flew, flew in. We – every opportunity we had of getting a flight, we, we, we took it, you know?
NM: And you get – you go back there now for reunions?
BH: Oh, yes; well, we’ve got a Battle of Britain fighter association, and also, there’s a local – we’ve got a gunnery leader and – oh dear, what do we call the things now? We go to Sywell for the reunions for air, air gunners, all the air gunner, local air gunners, and we joined this local Battle of Britain – no, not Battle of Britain fighter association, it’s the – we joined this – oh dear [pause] gunnery association, really. Do you know, I – my mind’s really terrible.
NM: And do you still meet as a group?
BH: Oh yes; at Sywell, we’ve got a, quite a nice little bunch of fellers there, I think about, we’ve had as many as fourteen or fifteen, but it gradually faded, you know, died off a bit, and so we’re only getting about three or four of us go, once a month.
NM: And are these just socials, social get-togethers over lunch, or just to talk about old times?
BH: No, just at the, the aerodrome at Sywell, where there was a bar there, you see, that was the attraction amongst. There were various cross-country trips, you know, to renew our flying experience.
NM: When was the last time you flew? Was it at the end of the war, or have you flown since the end of the war?
BH: [unclear] [sound of turning pages] So, Uxbridge, we had a – was Bishop’s Court – was about ’44, February 44, it says.
NM: You haven’t flown since the war?
BH: No; oh, well, not air force. I, I, we’ve flown private, private flying ‘cause we’ve got some friends in, in France, we used to go nip across, you know, by ordinary aircraft.
NM: Okay. Shall we stop the recording there?
BH: Yes.
NM: I think.
[recording is stopped and restarted]
BH: Well, people had lost their logbook, or oil. So I managed to rescue mine and copy this from it. [Pause] Who was that?
NM: So your logbook doesn’t exist anymore but you’ve copied all this out from it?
BH: Oh, yes, that’s right, remember him.
NM: So, are you still in touch with any of your original air crew?
BH: Well, I was in touch with the skipper that I flew with most of the time, Alan Gowarth [?] of Monaco, Monaco, he was a night pilot, fighter pilot in 23 Squadron in - during the Battle of Britain, and this, this was illustrated with the seventieth anniversary of the Battle being commended.
NM: So you’re still in touch with him? Are you in touch with him now?
BH: No, no, not in the last – I think he might have pegged out since, but yes, I think it was quite late when I still, still in touch with him, March.
NM: So you were in touch by letter. Did you ever meet him again after the war?
BH: No, no, no, of course, he was New Zealand, he went to settle in his home in New Zealand. [Pause, sound of turning pages] Spires of Lincoln coming out of the mist as we got closer to home, a wonderful sight. As a matter of fact, we did have a situation where we were followed in to our own base, and we warned – we’d been warned about this, and anyhow, it was the last minute, really, before he was gonna fire at us, and we noticed that he was almost nose nose to tail with us, and so I told the skipper, you know, ‘We, we, we’re being followed, turn, turn starboard,’ you know, and he says ‘Okay, yes, fair enough,’ and we shook him off, but he got to within, oh, within a few hundred yards, I suppose, of shooting us down, and we got back home.
NM: So, you had a clear sight of this?
BH: Oh, yes, it was a, it was a Heinkel.
NM: And at this point, you were coming into which airfield?
BH: Hmm, not sure.
NM: Was that Wickenby or somewhere in Lincolnshire?
BH: Yes, somewhere, somewhere in Lincolnshire, but I can’t remember which. I should ought to remember because we were near, near to being shot down!
NM: Was that the closest you’ve, you came?
BH: I think so, to our demise, yes. [Pause] We’d been told about this: ‘Be careful, the blighter’s follow, following you in,’ and he almost on our nose, on our tail, you know, with his nose. [Pause] And then the skipper says, ‘Glad you kept your bloody eyes open, Bob!’ [laughs]
[recording is stopped and restarted]
BH: On the way back from the major target, we’d sort of go to various aerodromes, and the skipper’d ask me to go into the front turret so that we could go around the, the dispersal points shooting up all and setting fire to a lot of aircraft. We did this on quite a few occasions.
[recording is stopped and restarted]
BH: I was just wondering where to start, what, what was I talking about, now?
NM: You were talking about the geodetic construction.
BH: Oh, yes, yes, I was thankful and praised God for Barnes Wallis because of his aircraft design. We were over Benghazi, and we had a, a enormous hole inside of the fuselage (about six foot diameter), and the fact that it was geodetic construction of air, the pilot still flew the aircraft quite smoothly, and then we landed in the desert and checked up on what was what, and we took off again! And that was with a six foot diameter hole in the side of the, the fuselage, and of course, as I say, I thank God for Barnes Wallis and the fact that the geodetic construction was so, so wonderful.
NM: And the damage was caused by en –
BH: By flak, but that was bloody uncomfortable to sleep and we – ‘course, when we were in the desert, we, when we went up from Cairo up to the advanced base, we’d have to sleep in the aircraft, but the geodetic construction was as comfortable to sleep on! [laughs] You know, you’d have load of flying kit all on your hip, you know, to stop you from being scarred [?] ‘cause it was in – we slept in the co – oh, if we, if you laid out, you slept outside the aircraft in the desert, in, in the, oh dear, well, if, if you slept outside in the desert, on where there were lots of dried-up salt lakes, but you could have slept on there, and that was – but there were a lot of darn [unclear] about, and they were, actually, they sounded worse than they were, so it was a question sleeping inside the aircraft, but then, of course, you’ve got the geodetic construction, you know, made it uncomfortable, but having a lot of Irvine jackets and trousers, of course, to pad the sides.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Bob Hughes
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Nigel Moore
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-13
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Sound
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AHughesWR150713
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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.
Format
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00:58:38 audio recording
Contributor
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Beth Ellin
Sally Coulter
Carolyn Emery
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
Bob Hughes joined the RAF as war became likely to avoid repeating his father's First World War experience in the trenches and transferred to the RAF Volunteer Reserve when war was declared. He trained on Ansons and then flew in twin-engine Blenheims in the Battle of Britain as part of 23 Squadron. They carried out night defence patrols from the south coast up the Thames Estuary.
Bob volunteered for Bomber Command which had lost a lot of crews. After one air test for Number 9 Bomber Squadron, he went to 149 Squadron at RAF Mildenhall and flew in Wellingtons. He describes the difficulty of targeting well-defended Essen and bombing cruisers in coastal areas, such as Wilhelmshaven.
Bob then transferred to 70 Squadron in RAF Kabrit, Egypt and the Middle East. Water rationing was an issue. They would carry out raids on transport and railway sidings in response to Field Marshal Erich Rommel bringing German forces into the desert via Benghazi.
Bob had instructor stints at the Operational Training Unit at RAF Pershore and Advanced Flying Unit. He went on operational liaison duties to 950 Squadron. Other aircraft in which Bob flew included: Battle, Defiant, Lancasters, Lysanders and Bothas. Bob undertook 73 operations and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross on 12th March 1943.
He describes the evolution in air gunnery during the war. He also praises Barnes Wallis’s geodetic construction.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Suffolk
England--Thames River
North Africa
Egypt
Egypt--Kibrit
Libya
Libya--Banghāzī
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Essen
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1943
1943-03-12
1944
1945
149 Squadron
23 Squadron
49 Squadron
50 Squadron
70 Squadron
9 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Anson
Battle
Blenheim
Botha
Defiant
Distinguished Flying Cross
Lancaster
Lysander
mine laying
Operational Training Unit
promotion
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Pershore
RAF Skellingthorpe
training
Wallis, Barnes Neville (1887-1979)
Wellington
wireless operator / air gunner
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c9ec5bbbd87ecfe7d5cb1559f5f95eb5
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/908/11150/AKentAW170202.2.mp3
6ae3878d734d5f9765f038ab5e2fd409
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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Kent, Anthony William
A W Kent
Description
An account of the resource
A oral history interview with Flying Officer Anthony 'Tony' Kent (1923 -2021, 189184 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a navigator with 149 Squadron from RAF Methwold.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-02-02
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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Kent, AW
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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NM: Good morning. My name is Nigel Moore. It’s Thursday the 2nd of February 2017. I’m with Tony Kent in his house XXXXX Ruislip, Middlesex. So Tony, tell me a little bit about your childhood, growing up and where you went to school.
AK: It goes back really. I was born over in Wood Green and a lot of my education was split up between Wood Green and Leicester because my father had a summer job there and then we came back to Wood Green or later Eltham. A similar sort of thing until finally we settled in Eltham and my education was, I finished up in a central, central school at Ruislip er at Eltham but I sat for competitive student apprentice situation and took that up on the Monday after war was declared on the Sunday. Now, as the student, the apprenticeship was based at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich it soon became clear that I was not going to get a good machine education operating in the Arsenal and then going to the Woolwich Polytechnic for further studies. It was soon clear that I was sent out to a drawing office in the country and I was out there for some time and decided, after about eighteen months that that was not for me. I did not want to spend my life as a design draughtsman because that’s where I was heading. Design draughtsmanship. And I, it was a protected industry but I managed to be one of the last people of that ilk who managed to get out and I volunteered for the RAF. My RAF training, in the main, we were sent, initial training was in Scarborough and then eventually I was taken out on [pause] on the sea, troop transport carrier, to South Africa where I trained as a navigator at East London. And I was there for about a year and then was brought, brought back to England and started. And we crewed up at Stradishall where, as I expect you probably know, they put a whole heap of crew members in there. Pilots, air gunners etcetera etcetera. And a pilot went around asking people would they like, would we like, to join his crew. And Alan, my pilot, was from Adelaide. Australian. And we had two Scottish gunners and a Geordie engineer and one other. So from then on we went on to, Alan went on to training on the twin engine Wellington at Stradishall. Switched to Stirlings. And joined, well and then joined the 149 Squadron who we’d volunteered for, or at least asked for because they were known as a special squadron and their work was dropping supplies and agents into Europe. Well we were with those Stirling, a Stirling squadron and we did three operations from there. Bomb laying, mine laying, sorry. Mine laying. Then we were given the Lancs and we were operating from Methwold. Previously we’d been operating from, I call it Feltwell but there was 146 something Grove I’ve got the name but thirty of my operations were with Lancs at Methwold. Mainly daylight. We were then after a while, I could give you dates, we were equipped with GH and I think we were probably the first squadron to get it. Have you heard of GH?
NM: No. Tell me about it.
AK: Well GH was, was like a satnav of the sky. Germany, or Europe was covered in a sort of range of criss-crossing lines. Whether you’d call them radio waves or not and with using that equipment I could navigate with it obviously but when we first had it we had mainly daylights and in the daylight operations we would have two other Lancs formate with us and we would lead them in. I would navigate when we got near the run-in to the target. I would then take over the run-in and instructing Alan and I had previously set up the setting of the point at which the bombs would be released. Pre-calculated at the briefing and we would run down one of these lines, there’s a better word, run down one of these lines and my aircraft would be seen as a blob running down. As we got near the target a blob would appear on one of the crossing points and as we got near that I would order the bomb doors open. Two other aircraft would then do the same thing. As we got to this particular point of bomb release I’d press the bomb tit. First bombs went. The other two aircraft released their bombs so we were going as triple, triple bombing range. The beauty of it from our point of view was that we could bomb through ten tenths cloud. We didn’t need to see the target with this thing at all which was quite a benefit because it was very difficult for the German fighter pilots to get up through ten tenths cloud and find their way back home. So we, that was our, that was most of the work we did once we had the GH was daylight and leading in to other aircraft. We did that until we finished our operations virtually. We didn’t always do this. Sometimes we did night operations in a gaggle. Not leading anybody in but that, that we, as I say we did thirty operations in the Lanc and three in the Stirlings. Then after that we weren’t wanted bomber crew and I switched to Transport Command. From Transport Command and the experience I got there I came and joined British European Airways and spent the rest of my life with the airline. British Airways. Finished up as a senior man. Senior planning manager at Heathrow.
NM: Ok. Ok. Fascinating. Fascinating.
AK: Now, there were one or two, shall we say, interesting points during all these operations. One of them — we had to move to Woodbridge. It was a very very fierce winter and we were, we positioned to Woodbridge which was a massive great airfield right on the coast. On one of these daylight operations from there we we turned and taxied. Oh. As, as the bombs were released it was the bomb aimer or engineer’s job to go down the fuselage to check at each button that the bombs had gone and we taxied in to our station, bomb doors open. Ground crew flat on their faces because a bomb had dropped out flat, fortunately. What had happened was it looked as if it had released but it was so frozen up that it stayed there but it looked as if it had gone and of course eventually it did drop down into, in to the bomb bay. That was one interesting thing. Our very last trip we, it was quite a long one but, when we, we’d been briefed and we were in the aircraft and I was testing the GH screen it was snow-flaking. I was getting a lot of interference. Snow-flaking. So I called the ground staff and they switched one. I still was getting snow-flaking on it. And this took up so much time that I realised that even if we took off with this and saw how it was in the air, which was a suggestion from the squadron, I couldn’t make the rendezvous point to turn on to the route and across Europe. So I asked could I be allowed to navigate over, across London and I was given permission to navigate across London and make the turning point and join up with the rest of the gaggle at night. That trip was, was quite exciting in a way because when we came back the — we couldn’t land. We were diverted to St Mawgan’s because of weather. Right across down to Newquay and Alan, we landed safely and got to the end of the runway and the engines cut. We’d run out of fuel. It was as close as that. Alan never, didn’t say a word at the time but he must have been having his fingers crossed. But that, that was quite a trip. We did have other, one other but it wasn’t on an operation. We were doing bomb training using Ely Cathedral as a, as a bombing target. And that was, you know, the bomb aimer was in control of that and when he thought he’d got it right he pressed, pressed the button for a photograph and that was checked to see how accurate he was. Now we were supposed to be at eight thousand feet for this and there was a Polish crew who were supposed to be at twelve thousand but they weren’t. And Alan, in the split second, saw them coming straight at us. They went, he put the nose down, they went over the top of us and their propeller screwed through our port tail. Hell of a bang. I didn’t. There was a hell of a bang and then there was a silence in the aircraft until I said, ‘What the hell was that?’ And then Alan called down to the rear gunner and said to Jock, ‘How are you? Are you alright?’ And he, ‘Yes Skip. ’ God knows what, how he’d, what he was feeling. But because of the damage to the tail plane Alan, I had to give Alan a course for home obviously and he had to steer home using the ailerons on the, on the wings. We landed safely but the Polish crew crash landed and there was very careful checking of the logs as to what height were we at, what height were they at. Well fortunately my log was written out. Eight thousand feet. So that was the nearest we got, ever got, to not making it.
NM: And that was, they were over, over England. Let me take you back. When you decided to leave your apprenticeship.
AK: Yes.
NM: Why did you choose the RAF as opposed to the army or the navy?
AK: I wanted to be a pilot.
NM: You wanted to be a pilot. Ok.
AK: Yes. As it happened I went, I did go on the testing and did some training on the Tiger Moths and quite a lot of others as well. And then they called out all the names they wanted for pilots and Tony Kent’s name was the first one as a navigator. I missed being a pilot by one. Probably saved my life. [laughs]
NM: So, but did they choose navigator for you or did you, did you volunteer to become a navigator after your —?
AK: I volunteered for the air force.
NM: Yeah.
AK: Hoping to be a pilot.
NM: Right. But how did you, when you, when you weren’t selected as a pilot did they then say you are going to be a navigator?
AK: I was already in the air force then.
NM: Yeah but —
AK: Sworn in.
NM: But as a navigator or a flight engineer? How did you become a navigator as opposed to any other crew member?
AK: Because that was the next one on the list. They then did all the pilots. Then they called out how many navigators they wanted.
NM: Right.
AK: The rest were air gunners and that sort of thing.
NM: So they selected you —
AK: There wasn’t any choice.
NM: Right.
AK: Yeah.
NM: And how did you feel about that at the time?
AK: Not, not too bad actually. Not too bad. I was a little disappointed obviously ‘cause you know the pilot was the thing if you wanted to be in the air force but as it turned out it was, it was a very interesting job. In fact you were, as a navigator you worked damned hard and I think it seemed to suit me. I’m not so sure whether I would have been a good pilot or not. I had, hadn’t really got the feel for it. When I was training I never really felt that I’d got good control of the aircraft. I mean, yes I put it in to spins and stalled and that kind of thing. I could do all that. It was the actual landing and assessment of the height of the aircraft over the runway as I was going in. I did, I did that two or three times reasonably well but obviously not well enough to make the top. Top list. And I was, I just took it. I just took it and that was it. I was going to be a navigator.
NM: Did you actually get to fly solo as a pilot?
AK: No.
NM: During your training?
AK: No. No. I asked to but they said no. [laughs] I asked if I, I asked if I could go. I would have been prepared to go solo but they weren’t prepared to let me [laughs]. When I first met Alan he he said — he showed me a picture of a great heap in the middle of a field. He said, ‘I did that.’ He’d crash landed his Tiger Moth. I thought that was a pretty good [invitation] to a bloke who was going to be your pilot. Yeah. But in fact he was a very very good pilot and when he went back to Adelaide he became part of a display team. Aerobatics etcetera. Yeah. We stayed, we were very great friends, we stayed. We went out. Being in British Airways I could get out to Australia and my brother emigrated to Australia and so, and Alan was in Adelaide. We visited two or three times but he, unfortunately he and Sammy the wireless operator have both died of cancer through being heavy smokers. Some years ago now.
[pause]
AK: I don’t know whether I skipped too briefly over the —
NM: We can go back. That’s fine.
MS: Tony told me that he had to record in the flight which might be like up to six hours or something. Every six minutes he had to re-plot the course so he had to be not —
AK: The longest flight we did was just over seven hours to a place near Leipzig and every six minutes was hard work for seven hours believe me.
NM: Yes. It must be.
[pause]
NM: Your training. Navigation training in South Africa. You say you were there for about a year.
AK: Yes.
NM: What was?
AK: We were flying Ansons piloted by the South African pilots who weren’t that very enthusiastic about us. I think they were the Dutch South Africans.
NM: Right.
AK: Because they weren’t particularly friendly but you just got on and did your navigating really. That was, of course the Anson was a very slow plundering aircraft and I mean, if you couldn’t navigate that you, you were hard up. My log shows me as an average navigator but my instructor told me that I came third out of about two hundred. Average. You had to be average. You could hardly be anything else because you had no, you hadn’t really been tested in a proper service in wartime.
[pause]
AK: I’m trying to think how much I can tell you. I had two pals joined up with me. One of them, it was very tragic, one got blown out of the sky with flak hitting the bomb bay and the other one it was almost the end of the war and you know the Netherlands had the sea wall blasted and they were going in dropping at low level. Dropping supplies, and the engines cut and went in. I don’t. I never found out the facts because his father didn’t want to talk to me about it. He was so upset. He was the only son. And when I went to see him he said, ‘Tony, I can’t talk to you. ’ He was that upset. To go that way of all ways, you know when you’re doing something like that.
NM: Yeah. Humanitarian effort at the end. So you came back from South Africa and you went to Stradishall where you flew.
AK: Yeah we crewed up.
NM: You crewed up.
AK: And then went to Stradishall.
NM: So when you crewed up, you described it already but who chose who? Did you?
AK: The pilot chose his crew.
NM: Ok.
AK: He just went around. He just came up to me and said, ‘Would you like to be, would you like to join me as my navigator?’ And I just said, ‘Yes. Sure.’ Anyway, he seemed perfectly alright and how do you say no? [laughs]
NM: That’s right.
AK: But, yes. It turned out to be a nice combination. We were good friends.
[pause]
NM: From a navigator’s perspective how do you compare the Wellington and the Stirling and the Lancaster?
AK: Wellington was a good aircraft and we didn’t have that much, we didn’t have many hours flying hours with it before we were converted. The Stirling was a menace. Fine for the navigator. Lovely big office. But I expect you’ve probably heard the Stirling had a very high undercarriage and on take-off there was tremendous torque and it wasn’t unusual for the aircraft to take off at forty five degrees to the runway with the torque. And our first operation, with mines on board went, was over the top of a hangar. It was really that bad. When all my, when the tour was over and I was going out to what is now Karachi. What did we go out on? A Stirling. And one or two of us looked at each other and sure enough we went out at about forty five degrees off the runway. It was a menace from that point of view and you were forbidden to be, the front gunner was forbidden to be in that aircraft as it was landing and taking off but particularly landing. Yeah. I did it. It was quite an experience. [laughs]
NM: And how about the Lancaster?
AK: But the Lanc — I mean, you know, you can’t say enough about the Lanc. It was great from my point of view. It as a navigator it was everything, you know, it had everything I needed and as it said it really was the, turned the war in our favour undoubtedly. That aircraft. Massive rate of loss initially on the air raids. I was a little bit later. Missed the worst of it but still lost two pals at the same time and one or two on the squadron but the fact that we could operate over cloud in daylight was quite something. Strangely enough my senior, one of my senior manager in British Airways was a squadron leader. Spitfire pilot. And we became good friends and decided one day we’d have a look at our logbooks and it turned out his squadron escorted us on daylights three times. Yeah. It’s a small world.
NM: Small world. So how would you compare navigating daylight raids versus night raids?
AK: It didn’t make much difference to me. Daylights of course at least I could see, put my head out and see things around us but that wasn’t always clever because it wasn’t funny to see you running into the target with a lot of grey puffs of smoke right over the target we were running into. But no. Mainly you just had to keep your head down and work all the time until, you know. I signed my log off and waited for Alan to touch down. You really had no, no break from it at all. Day or, day or night.
NM: So as a crew who decided to join 149 squadron? Was it, was it Alan the Skipper or was it all of you together?
AK: Well Alan had heard that this was a special squadron and volunteered for it. Yeah. As I say our understanding was it was for dropping people and supplies into Europe. Well we didn’t do that at all. We, of the three operations we did with the Stirling they were all mine laying. The most exciting ones. We did one laying, a timed, we did a timed one from the coast and laid mines in front of the maintenance, submarine maintenance base in the Bay of Biscay. Another one was a low level run in to Brest. Again, dropping, dropping mines. I think, I think that was a night operation. In fact I’m almost sure it was because I seem to remember the flak.
[Pause. Pages turning]
AK: That’s right.
[Pause. Pages turning]
AK: [Can’t find it?] [pause] Yeah. It was night. Four hour thirty job. Four mines we dropped in. Yeah.
NM: So you were initially flying from Feltwell were you before you moved to Methwold?
AK: Methwold. Yes. Initially we, and then, and then we switched to Methwold with the Lancs. Yeah.
NM: So what was the feeling on the squadron when you converted to Lancasters from Stirlings?
AK: Hurray [laughs]. As far as I was concerned — hurray. Yes it was and as I say the Stirling was a lumbering great thing and it was just once we got used to the Lanc we just realised just what a, what a super aircraft they were.
NM: So what was station life like at Methwold? Can you —?
AK: Very good. Very nice atmosphere. We always got our eggs and chips after, after a trip [laughs] and I think it was a dash of rum in our tea as we were being debriefed. There was one, this is a side story altogether. Our squadron. I know we weren’t on it, were targeted. Were sent out to hit a rocket launching site on the French coast. Near Calais I think it was. That proved unsuccessful because that was covered in ten tenths. They couldn’t do it. They were told to return home but jettison the bombs in to The Channel and on the debriefing a rear gunner said that he had seen a light aircraft going into the sea. That was the day that Glen Miller went missing and that was, I would say that’s, that was more or less certainly his aircraft that went in and the pilot should not have been there. He’d been given a different route and he was not, not on that route.
NM: So do you think he was brought down by a jettisoned bomb? Do you think he was hit by a bomb that had been jettisoned? Or —
AK: Must have been. Must have been.
NM: Ok. Interesting.
AK: But an awful lot of bombs were going down at that time in a smallish area. But as I say we were not on that operation. No. When, when we had this mid-air collision of course Alan did a mayday —mayday and this was at night obviously and when he, you know, he landed, they had everything, everything ready for us running alongside us as we landed but we were ok and you know that that was great. They looked after us and debriefed us very carefully on that one.
NM: So what about when you were off duty as a crew? Did you socialise together or where did you go from the station off duty?
AK: Yes. Not a lot but [pause] but Alan, Alan came home with me on leave and we went, we were invited to go to [pause], oh dear. The Wall’s Ice Cream people. Office in Acton where they make ice cream. Pork pies and things like that. Oh dear. My father was aid to the chief executive and we had been invited for a tour to see all the pigs coming in one end and the pies coming out the other sort of thing which is quite an experience to see a big pig being tossed around up in a [pause], and having all the hair come off and cleaned up and you know. I remember I’ve got a vision of that thing happening. Oh dear. At this, at my age this happens to me sometimes. A name won’t come up. It will later on when I’m not thinking about it. So that was, you know, that was one way we socialised and Alan and I were so good friends he actually named his son Tony. Anthony. Yeah. Sammy. Yeah we used to go out. Both of us liked going to ballrooms. Wherever we went we went to the local ballrooms of course. That’s where you met the girls in those days and Sammy and I would go to ballrooms wherever we were. Very much so. Yeah. We were mid-way between Kings Lynn and Cambridge and most of the time if I was on my own I went up to Kings Lynn. Met some, met somebody very nice there who used to be a chauffeur to a bigwig and she turned up at the squadron in this car which was quite sensational [laughs] for us to go off to a dance or something like that. She was very nice. And very strange coincidence when I was at Maripur Airport at Karachi I learned to drive at night on a lorry and the fellow who taught me we started talking and I’m talking about Kings Lynn and I said I said had a very nice partner there. Dot. He said, ‘I know Dot. I know Dot. I know who you’re talking about. ’ Yeah. Amazing.
NM: Great. So were you, were you all commissioned as air crew?
AK: Yes. I was commissioned. Yes.
NM: But the rest of the —
AK: Early on in the squadron. Yeah.
NM: Right. And what about the rest of the crew? Were they all commissioned?
AK: Alan of course was. No. The others. Oh yes — Sammy. Sammy. He also was, the wireless operator, he was commissioned too. The gunners were not.
NM: Right. So on the squadron.
AK: And the engineer.
NM: You had, you were in separate messes and accommodation.
AK: Yes.
NM: Yeah.
AK: Yeah.
[pause]
NM: So of the thirty operations, thirty three operations that you flew, which were the most memorable?
AK: The last one. The one where I had to ask permission to fly across London where we had to divert right across country to St Mawgan’s and ran out of petrol. That was, that’s fairly memorable that one. There was one where we were under the guidance of the master pilot up top and then the bomb aimer was running this one and flares had been dropped by the bloke upstairs and he was saying, ‘I want, right, down the side of the yellow flares. Down the side of the red flares,’ and we were working on the [assumption?] they were dropping and flattening this particular town, or small town which was being used as a maintenance base by the Germans and looking back at that was just a massive circle of flame when we left it. I can still see that one. Yeah. There were pictures of the damage. Mainly, we were mainly, most of them were in the bomb, in the Ruhr area. And you know picture the Ruhr at that time. There wasn’t a roof on anything with the photographs we saw of our targets. Absolutely frightening for them. You knew you were killing civilians but you were also trying to block railroad junctions and ball bearing factories and things like that. We always had a particular target. We were told it was this, that or the other but the last one was as I say very memorable. Most of them as far as I was concerned were sort of routine. We, we got pierced with flak now and again but remember I had my head down working like mad. Only, I could only look out in the daylight at any one point in time to see what was going and as I say it was quite disturbing when you was doing a run up, run up on the target to see the air full of, full of smoke puffs where the exploding anti-aircraft but even that towards the end became less and less. They just hadn’t got the equipment any more. Yeah. But mostly it was, as far as I was concerned just routine, head down and get on with it.
NM: So what happened to the crew at the end of your tour?
AK: Well, Alan of course went back to Adelaide. He was an architect. He built his own home, beautiful home at the back of Adelaide so when you sat in his dining room at night you looked down right across Adelaide and out to the sea. It was lovely. Sammy. His bank manager told him, ‘Sammy. Buy leather’ And of course he came from the Leicester area so Sammy did and he started off with two small operatives making uppers with the leather that he acquired and then went on. He finished up with a factory and making an awful lot of money. Lovely home. Had his own — he had two cars. The very flash one which he didn’t use to go in to work. He had an old, oldish car to go in to work so he didn’t upset his workers. And as I say he had his own horse. But again he died. He died of cancer and we went up for his funeral and his wife had had an oil painting done of Sammy and he was sitting in an arm chair, hand over one side. What was in it? A cigarette. Alan went the same way but I didn’t see him in his last year or two. I hadn’t gone out to. He said, ‘Tony, I’m going to beat this.’ I said, ‘I’m sure you are Alan. ’ But he didn’t. He didn’t beat it and that was ten, fifteen years ago. Both of them. I count myself lucky. I really do. I count myself lucky in every way.
NM: So you went into Transport Command at the end of your —
AK: Yeah.
NM: End of your tour. As a navigator?
AK: No. I was offered it. I applied to BOAC and BEA. BOAC offered me a position as a navigator but I decided there wasn’t a great future. I was offered a five year extension of commission in the RAF but I turned that down. I thought what am I going to do at the end of five years? Everybody else would have got established. So I turned that down. I turned down the BOAC offer because I was pretty sure that with modern developments navigators weren’t going to be required for very long. I think that was, that’s how it turned out. So I went into BEA line and I started work in [pause] at Northolt Airport in the [load?] control office. I answered a vacancy and went up to BEA Line House. Their head office. And into their planning department there. And then of course when we merged and went to Heathrow at a big office there again I applied. I applied for the Manage, Manager Australia became available. Advertised. My brother was in Australia. Alan was in Australia. My father was in New Zealand having remarried a New Zealand lady. I thought I wouldn’t mind that job but I was warned that it was already fixed and so it proved but I gave and I know, although I say it, I did give a very good interview. So much so that they offered me a senior manager’s position as a result of my having applied for Manager Australia. I was given a senior planning. I was called Planning Product Manager for South and East Europe. And that was quite a nice job because that meant I was liaising and negotiating with all the, let’s say, starting from the Netherlands. The Dutch, the Belgian, the French, the Portuguese, Gibraltar Airways. Italian, Greek, Turkish, Maltese, Cyprus and Israel. They were my, if you like, that was my group and I had a team of blokes working with me. Obviously I didn’t, but I did a lot of travelling meeting these airlines. We used to meet once before each season. Just sit down and decide what we thought the traffic was going to be. How much it would grow. And then we would share the capacity between us. We would have a partnership. What they called a pool partnership. So that meant I had a lot of contacts in airlines and if I wanted flight tickets for so and so no problem at all. Just rang up. Equally they wanted it back again but that was a nice liaison and we got on well and it was a very interesting job as you can imagine. Sort of having all, having all those contacts and travelling in some very nice countries. I left. I actually took an early retirement because my wife Jean had contracted MS and at the time they were downsizing and Roy Watts, who was Chief Executive, I had worked directly for Roy Watts at one time and I sent a message out to him saying, ‘If you could give me as good a deal for the people you don’t want I’d like to go,’ and I got away. I came out with a handshake, a good pension and for two years I applied for, I signed on and got the dole for two years. Everybody did. Pilots used to turn up in their blooming great cars to collect their dole money. [laughs] They dropped that but so that I never looked back. I think that was the best thing I ever did was take early retirement. I was fifty seven when I retired. I’d been with them thirty three years and I’ve been retired thirty four.
NM: Yeah.
AK: Thirty four coming up thirty five. Yeah. As I say I count myself very very lucky. The twists and turns of my life. Getting out from my student apprenticeship to go in to the air force. Surviving the air force and getting into Transport Command. All the twists and turns of my life which proved to be very lucky for me. And I mean the worse things that’s happened to me is I had to have a pacemaker because I blacked out a couple of times. I think if I’d blacked out a third time I wouldn’t be here talking to you now.
NM: Ok.
AK: But a section of my heart wasn’t working properly so and that’s been fine. Margaret has proved a very good friend and companion. Yeah. We’re partners at Bridge and long walks and visits aren’t we Margaret? We do things together a lot.
MS: He’s amazing. He goes to the gym. His neighbour says he’s mental. He goes over to the gym, Ruislip gym, two or three times a week. On all the machines. I tell you. He’s amazing. He goes walking across the fields to the coffee place in Ruislip, and stuff.
AK: Well it is the safest way to exercise.
MS: Just amazing.
NM: Keeping active. Good. Good.
AK: I still say I’m lucky.
NM: Yeah.
AK: But er I’ve got two very nice daughters who take, ring up and keep contact. Nice contact. They’re happily married and I’m very happy about that. First marriage for one of them wasn’t so good but from that two nice grandsons but she’s remarried now and very happy too. So that’s nice. To know that they’re ok and doing well. And I want to stay here as long as I can because I can cope on my own. It’s very, it’s not the way I would have liked it but Jean because she had MS lost control of things and I’ve had a lift. This house had to be absolutely suitable for having a lift installed and if you went in to this house you wouldn’t know there was a lift. It’s in the corner. An L shaped kitchen and it’s in the far corner and the carers could wheel Jean in and take her up. Bring her down again. Now that occasionally has proved very useful to me. A — I never carry heavy things up and down stairs. The lift does that for me and I had a knee operation a year or two ago. Again the lift got me up and down. So I’m not moving. This has got, this has got the right sort of facilities for me. No.
NM: Do you keep in touch with the RAF at all through Associations or reunions?
AK: No. No. I’m not a bloke for doing that sort of thing. I didn’t apply for my medals at all until my daughters said, ‘Dad we’d like them.’ And the reason I hadn’t is I was so cheesed off with the attitude towards the air force. There was no Air Force Bomber Command medal. And also they seemed ashamed of the air force. They shouldn’t have been ashamed of the people who had carried out their orders. If you had to be ashamed of anybody it was the people who picked the targets that caused the feeling. I think the politicians were ashamed and they didn’t want to make a fuss of the air force. Anyway, in the end I did send for my medals. They’re in boxes upstairs. And then I applied again when they finally did something for Bomber Command and now I’ve got a metal strip across my medals saying Bomber Command but as I say they’re all in boxes upstairs. I’m not a bloke for walking around with medals and going on marches and that kind of thing. Celebration. So I’ve not kept in touch at all.
NM: So when, when you look back in your time in Bomber Command what are your, what are your main reflections as you look back on your time in Bomber Command?
AK: Well [pause] it is as I said just now it is each twist and turn unplanned. I hadn’t a — when I left initially when I was sixteen I hadn’t have the faintest idea what I wanted to do until this chance came up. I saw this, you know application for student entry apprentice and I sat for it and passed. And I say from that it so happened I started on the day after war started and the apprenticeship tuition was not developing the way I wanted, that suited me at all. So I got out. One twist of my life. Well second twist because I went for this. I hadn’t the faintest idea of what I wanted to do. I thought well I might as well go on and see how I do. Then there’s the twist of having had enough of that. Not wanting to be behind a draughting board, drawing board the rest of my life. Getting out of the air force. Possibly not being a pilot but a navigator might well have saved my life. I spent a year out in South Africa. Very pleasant. Came back and crewed up and got away with what I’d been telling you, telling you about. The life there. And then the twist at the end of it of deciding that there’s got to be a future in civil aviation so applying for Transport Command. From there I was in to British European Airways before my demob leave had finished ‘cause they were recruiting heavily at the time and because of my experience of running a unit out in Maripur that got me straight in. And that was my career for the rest of my life. So, you know, twists and turns. I keep saying to myself and anybody who asks I have been very lucky.
MS: One thing you haven’t yet confessed is what you didn’t confess when you first applied to the RAF which you told me about which was that as a child you suffered very badly from any sort of travel sickness to the extent that you were sick if you went on a bus and, and really really suffered and that when you applied to the RAF you did not mention, you weren’t asked about it and so you didn’t mention it and as you’ve told me you were always sick on every flight. It became routine.
AK: Nearly every flight. Nearly every flight I was airsick. Sometimes during the flight but more often than not when we were coming in to land. The aircraft was getting warmer. It was under manual control now instead of George. And very often I would be airsick before we touched down and the ground crew made comments about this when we took them all out to dinner at the end of our tour. We took them all out for a meal and a thank you and they passed remark about somebody always leaving, leaving a bag for them to clear out of the aircraft. But fortunately I was young and fit enough that I could be sick and get back and carry on working but had the aircraft er had the air force known I suffered from air sickness I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t have made it. Yeah.
NM: So what did the rest of the crew —?
AK: I’m still suffering from travel sickness even now. It wasn’t long. I can’t stand coaches and I have been, I have been sick quite recently on a coach. It still, still bothers me a little. I mean, I can drive all over the place and not be ill and if I’m in the front seat of a car no problem as a passenger but coaches, buses, and the Tube sometimes. The stop start of the Tube it it’s a bit jerky during the journey and a long journey. We went up to town recently on the Piccadilly Line. When I came home, when I came back I was headachy and really feeling a bit sick but I wasn’t but I get very hot, starting to sweat and I know that’s a sure sign that if I don’t get off the bus or whatever I’m going to be ill. Yeah. But it didn’t affect my ability as a navigator. Fortunately, as I say, I could be ill and just get straight back and carry on working.
NM: And the rest of the crew were fine when they realised they had an air sick navigator were they?
AK: Pardon?
NM: The rest of your crew were fine with you when they realised they’ got an air sick navigator. Were they?
AK: It was too late then. We were all crewed up. But it didn’t bother them at all. No. They weren’t bothered. It was the ground crew that were bothered. They had to. It was always in a bag.
NM: Yeah.
AK: I mean they never had to clean the aircraft from that point of view so it was alright. I always made sure I always had a bag with me so I could be ok from that point of view. Yeah. But as a child I couldn’t go two stations on the tube. Dreadful. My father told me it was all in the mind but it actually it wasn’t all in the mind [laughs]. Far from it. I don’t know what. I can’t think of anything in particular. Margaret. I talked a lot to Margaret about it and she made a lot of notes. I don’t think there’s really anything that I haven’t mentioned.
MS: I just find it really interesting reading the logbook. Every detail. Exactly how many bombs. What weight on ever mission. Very detailed.
AK: Yes I’ve always recorded the bomb load. Yeah. Have you seen one of these?
NM: Yeah. I’ve seen one. But I’d love to look at yours at some point.
AK: Yeah. I did that for my own interest. I think the biggest bomb we carried was a four hundred towards the end. Oh yeah here’s one. When we went to Homberg. One four thousand and fourteen five hundreds. So that was a fair load. That, the, I think yeah we carried a four thousand. Both times to Homberg. We bombed that two days running. I don’t know what we were after on that one. Can’t remember.
MS: I found it interesting when Tony was explaining what “gardening” meant and “vegetables” and things like that but there’s one reference. A few references to something. What was it ASR.
AK: Oh yes.
MS: And you couldn’t remember what it was and we looked it up online and it was Air Supply Research and that was in the Stirlings over the North Sea.
AK: But that would be one of the drops.
MS: Right. But I think at that time they were looking to find ways of dropping equipment and possibly agents and so on and it was, there was a lot of practices over the North Sea.
NM: Ok.
AK: Funnily enough the last three trips we did were all with one four thousand and fourteen five hundreds. They were — the last one was Osterfeld on that section there. Oh no. No. We did a lot more. A lot more using four thousand. I hadn’t realised how many times. [pause] Yeah. Six one thousands, six five hundreds, four two fifties. Where was that too? [Warwinkle?] wherever that is. Same load to Cologne. One four thousand, six one thousands Bonn. Yeah. It was all, most, the majority was around the Ruhr by daylight.
NM: By daylight. That’s where your Gee could work best isn’t it?
AK: GH. Yeah.
NM: Yeah.
AK: Yeah.
NM: What was the first? What was the longest raid? The furthest east you got. Did you get beyond Gee range?
AK: That long one. I can’t remember.
MS: Was it Leipzig?
AK: I think I would most certainly would have had it. Just let’s have a look at that. Merzenberg which is brackets Leipzig.
[pause]
NM: That’s a long way east isn’t it?
AK: I’m trying to see when I had GH come in? I think I had GH by then? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah I had GH then. I’m sure that would be ok.
NM: Yeah. Ok. Thank you very much.
AK: Ok. Well I hope it’s of interest.
NM: Absolutely.
AK: Nothing in particular, you know. Not like the bombing — bombing dams and things like that but it was still dodgy at times.
NM: Absolutely.
AK: You just got on with it though. We were all daft and stupid [laughs] It was never going to happen to us sort of thing and you just got on with it. It was sickening in the way as I say I lost, lost two pals. Yeah. But that was life.
NM: Well I appreciate you talking to us this way. It’s been very helpful.
AK: Yeah.
NM: So the interview will get transcribed.
AK: Yeah. I’m sure.
NM: And it will —
AK: Edit that down.
NM: And it will, it will go in to the digital archives of the —
AK: Go to?
NM: The digital archives of the Centre that’s being built now in Lincoln now. It’s being opened later this year in fact.
AK: Oh yeah.
NM: In fact there was an opening of the, there’s a Spire which is the same height as the length of the Lancaster wing.
AK: Where’s this?
NM: This is up near Lincoln.
AK: Oh yes.
NM: And there is going to be a Commemoration Centre, a museum and an Education Centre.
AK: Yeah. Yeah, I’m a bit chuffed about that. I mean to commemorate the Lincoln squadrons. What about the others?
NM: But this is for the whole of Bomber Command.
AK: Norfolk and area.
NM: This is going to be for the whole of Bomber Command. So it happens to be in Lincoln because Lincolnshire obviously —
AK: I thought it was just a Lincoln memorial.
NM: It started off I think as a Lincoln memorial but it’s now, it’s now called the International Bomber Command Centre.
AK: Oh. Hooray for that.
NM: And the Memorial Walls have got the names of all fifty five thousand five hundred and seventy three names of those that were killed in Bomber Command.
AK: Oh so I shall see my friend’s name up there.
NM: Your friend will be there. That’s right. And the Spire was opened.
AK: Oh I didn’t know that. That’s news. I was really cheesed off when they talked about a memorial for Lincoln. What about us?
NM: Yeah. That was a hundred and twenty five thousand in total wasn’t there all the way from Yorkshire through to where you are? I’ve got a leaflet which I can give you about the Centre.
AK: Sorry?
NM: I’ve got a leaflet I can give you about the Centre.
AK: Oh can you. Oh great.
NM: Ok.
AK: Of course it wasn’t long ago that we had that memorial up in Regent’s Park.
NM: Green.
MS: Green Park.
NM: Green Park.
AK: Yeah. I have seen it and I think it’s good. Great. But it took a long time to come didn’t it?
NM: It did. That’s right. I have seen it too. It’s —
AK: I’m still not, I’m still not wearing my medals.
NM: Fair enough. Absolutely.
AK: The girls can have those.
NM: But when the Centre’s opened later this year you might be able to find the opportunity to go and have a look.
AK: Yes. Well we’re going up that way, or planning to aren’t we? Possibly when your brother comes over.
MS: Yeah.
AK: That way. Going north.
MS: Yeah but I don’t think that will be via this.
NM: Yeah.
MS: And it’s later in the year. You reckon maybe the autumn or —
NM: Something like that I think. I’m not quite sure of the date myself but yeah. It’s being built as we speak.
MS: Really.
NM: Yeah. Yeah. The Spire was opened last October and there was a big event and veterans were invited back and this tall Spire was opened.
MS: Oh really.
NM: Yeah. Oh yeah.
MS: Wow.
NM: So now you’re on their database. They know about you now and they will get this.
AK: Oh God.
NM: They will get this recording.
AK: Will I see any of this? Will I have a copy of anything?
NM: If you want a copy of the interview then absolutely they will make one available to you.
AK: Ok.
NM: Would you like that?
AK: Yeah. But the whole thing will come out what? As a book?
NM: The. Well no this is going in to the digital archives of the museum.
AK: Oh I see.
NM: So people when they go to this museum.
AK: Yeah.
NM: And the Education Centre and for research as well if they come across the story of 149 squadron - Tony Kent. They may be able to then listen through headphones.
AK: Oh. I see.
NM: To some of the interview we have just conducted.
AK: Right.
NM: Hear your story directly. And you’re entitled to a copy of this on a disc so if you or Margaret.
MS: I think Tony’s daughter’s would be really —
NM: Daughters.
MS: Really thrilled to have a, they’ve been on at him for quite a while to sort of try and extract information from him [laughs]
NM: So this is, this is ideal.
MS: I think they will be really really happy with that.
NM: Ideal. Yeah. Ok. So once again thank you very much. Much appreciated.
AK: Pleasure. Well I hope it was good enough for you.
NM: It, well I can tell you it absolutely was. Fascinating to listen to. Thank you very much.
[Recording paused]
AK: Hanging down out of the aircraft and Alan coming home he would get right down very low until Sammy couldn’t carry on with his wireless. All of a sudden it went blank and what he’d done he’d flown down so close to the sea that the aerial had gone in to the sea. That was one trick he had. But another one was very naughty actually. He was flying low and he went over the hedges just, and over the top of a Flying Fortress as the crew were getting on it and they were, two or three of them threw themselves off the wing as he came over the edge of the airfield and there was this. How he didn’t get done for that I really don’t know because actually they could have broken their legs, back or anything, jumping off the wing but they did. They just jumped as this Lanc came over the hedges of their property. Don’t know if it was Lakenheath but it was coming in from the coast at low level. Yeah. When we finished our tour and came back from St Mawgan again Alan did his low level run across the airfield with Sammy the wireless operator firing off verey cartridges on the way and, ‘A trifle over the top old man,’ [laughs] came from the control. But when I told you that I had that snowing effect on GH screen. When we landed the senior bloke in the maintenance bay he said, ‘That was pretty good,’ he said, ‘But did you realise that your starboard inner was not firing properly?’ And I think that was causing trouble.
NM: Oh.
AK: That it wasn’t firing cleanly and that’s why I was getting snow effect.
NM: Interference.
AK: But when we got up in the air it settled down. But he could tell that one engine wasn’t, wasn’t running quite true. Yeah. But that was what caused me to think there was a fault in the GH set but it wasn’t. Fortunately as I say when we got into the air it cleared but we got permission to fly across London. Probably the only Lanc that’s ever flown across the middle of London. But it was ok. We joined up with the gaggle. Night time gaggle was murder really. In a way. I’m quite sure that we lost a few aircraft because you’re not flying in formation. You’re flying along a track. You and a, you and a few dozen other aircraft. And our wing commander came back with a five hundred pound through his tail. And I’m quite sure that one or two aircraft must have been hit and blown out doing that ‘cause you just did not know. The only way you knew you were anywhere near aircraft was when you got a bump from the slipstream of the aircraft ahead of you.
NM: Yeah.
AK: Because there were no lights on at all. It wasn’t, it wasn’t the cleverest way to go but it was probably the safest to go but no lights on but you just didn’t know who was around you. Where they were. When you were running over the target dropping your bombs and there might have been somebody just about a hundred feet above you also doing the same thing. And I’m quite sure it happened. I’m sure it happened. Well as I say if the wing commander can come back. You see if I can come back with a five hundred pounder what else is happening? You know. That was a bit dodgy.
NM: So did Alan always come back low level?
AK: As often as he — yeah. Very often. Not always but he did like his low level flying. Yeah. And he loved to upset Sammy with getting the aerial going into the sea. Yeah. He liked his low level. But that was very naughty going across an airfield. I don’t think Alan realised he was going across an airfield until he went over the hedge kind of thing and there they were all gearing up to go on a, on a raid. He was very very lucky I think. He could, he could have been in serious trouble.
NM: Can I just take a look at the logbook please? Can I look at the logbook?
AK: Yeah. Sure.
NM: Lovely. Thank you. Because another thing the Centre would like to do if you’re willing is if I can put down on the list that you have this, you have this logbook.
AK: Yes.
NM: And they will arrange for it to be scanned and digitised to go part, as part of the content of the centre. If you’re agreeable to that.
AK: You want to take it away.
NM: No. No. No. No.
AK: Oh.
NM: I won’t take it away. What I’ll do is I’ll let them know that you’ve got the logbook and then if you’re happy they will contact you.
AK: No reason why not.
NM: Someone will come and scan it. They have scanning to quite a high standard.
MS: Do they?
NM: They have people to do this and they trained people to do this.
MS: Oh really. It’s so different now isn’t it with the museums. Everything being digitised. I mean you know like fifty years ago that particular log book would have probably been on display.
NM: Yes. Behind a glass case.
MS: And now you’re saying, so what they’re saying Tony they scan it. Like photograph the whole thing and you will retain the logbook but they will have this, this record which is sort of in digital form.
NM: Correct.
MS: Presumably on screen in the museum. Would it be, Nigel? So you can look at the logbook on screen.
NM: I assume. Absolutely.
MS: Yeah.
NM: Yeah. It will be online.
MS: It will be on screen. Like on a computer thing.
AK: Well they won’t screen everything because training’s not very interesting. Only the ops.
NM: No. No. They will scan.
AK: Scan the whole thing.
NM: The whole thing because they’re looking at the total story around Bomber Command. The people, the training, the aircraft, the operations, people’s story, people who are affected by the bombing as well as those who took part in it. Ground crew. All the, all the, so it’s, and I’ve got the leaflet here. I can —
AK: When we were going out to South Africa we went out from Greenock in convoys but the sea was so rough and we had to go so slow because we had to. The convoy went as fast as the slowest ship. Propellers were coming out of the water.
NM: It was that rough.
AK: It was. I didn’t get off my back. As a travel, somebody who couldn’t travel well.
NM: Oh dear.
AK: I did not get off my back. We were down on hammocks. You know, deep in the blasted ship and I just didn’t eat or move for about three days. I was very ill.
MS: Bay of Biscay is notorious anyway.
AK: I got my sea legs eventually and enjoyed the sunshine on the way down. Down to, well we went to Cape Town. Well we went to Freetown first. Gibraltar, Freetown, Cape Town. That was the run.
MS: Freetown. My dad was based in Freetown. He was in West Africa quite a lot I remember and Freetown was one of the places and then there was Liberia.
AK: For all I was seasick.
MS: And a lot of that stuff.
AK: And you can be so sick that in the end it hurts and it hurts like hell if you have to go on too long. When we, when we went into Gibraltar they came out and turned into the Mediterranean at night. Waited till night, turned and then came out and down the Atlantic to Cape Town.
MS: To look as if it was crossing into the Mediterranean and then came out.
AK: Yeah. So people watching from the shore would think that we’d gone into the Mediterranean and then with everything, all the lights turned off etcetera they turned around and went out and down to Freetown. All trying to deceive.
NM: Yeah.
AK: There was a time when the destroyers who were escorting us they were letting off depth charges way out on our starboard side at one time but we didn’t have any, didn’t strike any trouble. But as I say I got my sea legs. That’s where I started playing Bridge. They let us sit up on deck stripped to the waist in the tropical sunshine. No wonder my skin suffered a bit. Definitely overcooked.
MS: ‘Cause there were so many American bases weren’t there in was it Norfolk, Suffolk or East Anglia?
AK: Well Lakenheath was the big one. Lakenheath was the big one.
MS: Was it? Right.
AK: That wasn’t very far from us.
MS: Because Nigel you were Bushey. Lincoln’s Field in Bushey, that was, wasn’t that where they organised the Berlin Airlift from?
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 Anthony William Kent
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Nigel Moore
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
2017-02-02
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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
Identifier
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AKentAW170202, PKentAW1701
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:18:10 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
South Africa
England--Norfolk
South Africa--Cape Town
Description
An account of the resource
Anthony Kent was born in Wood Green, London, and his family settled in Eltham. Tony started an apprenticeship with Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, at the start of the war and worked as an apprentice draughtsman for eighteen months before volunteering for the RAF. After initial training, he sailed to South Africa to train as a navigator. He completed his training at RAF Stradishall, initially flying Wellingtons, then Stirlings, before joining 149 Squadron at RAF Feltwell where his first operation was mine laying at the Bay of Biscay. After his third mine laying operation, they converted to Lancasters at RAF Methwold. Tony recalls returning to the station after an operation and a bomb dropping to the ground when the doors opened, as it had frozen in place, causing the ground crew to dive to the floor. He describes the nearest they came to ‘not making it’ when a Polish aircraft collided with the tailplane during a training exercise. They landed safely but the Polish aircraft crashed. He describes the use of Gee and Gee-H, and the perils of bombing while aircraft above dropped bombs at the same time. On his last operation, the aircraft was late leaving due to a fault, so Tony requested permission to fly across London and catch up with the bomber stream. This was granted and he believes it was the only Lancaster permitted to do so. As they returned, they were diverted to RAF St Mawgan and as the aircraft reached the end of the runway, all four engines stopped because they had run out of fuel. After completing thirty operations (mostly during daylight) he was transferred to Transport Command, and after the war worked for British European Airways.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Nick Cornwell-Smith
149 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
Gee
Lancaster
memorial
mid-air collision
mine laying
navigator
perception of bombing war
RAF Feltwell
RAF Methwold
RAF Stradishall
Stirling
training
Wellington
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841499b815a584b52bc4b555540f5b4f
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1224/3356/ABrownJ170118.2.mp3
a8113fdf85b50ce4324c3cbdb34aa73f
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
Brown, Jeff
Jeffrey Brown
J Brown
Description
An account of the resource
35 items. One oral history interview with Flying Officer Jeff Brown (b. 1925, 2205595, Royal Air Force), his log book, service material and photographs including 16 pictures of B-29s. He flew operations as a Flight Sergeant air gunner with 576 Squadron from RAF Fiskerton towards the end of the war and took part in Operation Manna.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Jeff Brown and catalogued by Peter Adams.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2017-01-18
2017-01-31
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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. 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.
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Brown, J-3
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SP: So this is Susanne Pescott I am interviewing Jeffrey Brown today for the International Bomber Command Centres Digital Archive, we are at Jeff’s home and it’s 18th January 2017, so first of all Jeff thank you for allowing us to talk to you today and also present is Yvonne O’Rourke Jeff’s daughter. So Jeff do you want to tell me about your early life before you joined the RAF.
JB: Well after school when I was fifteen I became an apprentice electrician in the local bus depot working on buses and trolley buses and then when the, I was always interested in aircraft model aircraft my neighbour friend and I used to make and fly model aircraft er we had a good place to fly them because across the way from where we lived was the Ashton Golf Course so when nobody was playing golf it was our flying area [laughs], so when the Air Training Corps started I think it was 1941 I joined that and er got interested and of course the war was on then and er there was the possibility of later after a year or two I might be called up to go in the services so er at that time if you waited until you were called up at eighteen every tenth conscriptee was sent to work down the coal mines, it was a scheme developed by a Government Minister called Ernest Bevan because they were short of miners, and if you were unlucky enough to be caught in that you had to go and work in the coal industry now I didn’t want that I wanted to join the air force so to be sure of going in the air force at seventeen and a half you could volunteer for the air force and you went and had a medical and aptitude test and if you were accepted for training as air crew you were given an air force number, you were paid for the days you were at this centre which was at Warrington, and you were in the air force but you were then sent home on what was called deferred service until you were eighteen and at eighteen you could be called at any time to start serving properly and this ensured that when you registered at eighteen they couldn’t send you down the coal mines because you were already in the air force that was one way of avoiding coal mining [laughs]. So I was accepted initially to train as a wireless operator air gunner and at about eighteen two three months I was finally called up to serve and er in those days air crew trainees the first place you reported to was Lords Cricket Ground in London which was rather [laughs] an unusual place to start service and er there you were kitted all your equipment had medicals and so on and then after a few weeks you were sent out to start your training properly, after about three months of this er which was largely basic air force training and learning to receive and send Morse Code er we were called to a meeting by a group captain and he said ‘I’m sorry to inform you that we have so many wireless operators under training we cannot cope with the numbers so we are going to have to suspend your training may be for six months possibly indefinitely’ but he said ‘we are at the moment of short of trainee air gunners anyone wishing to change can do so by leaving a name now’ so most of us being young and daft said ‘oh yes we want to be air gunners’ so we started training again as air gunners, er the basic training was done at Bridgnorth in Shropshire er after that we were sent to an Air Gunners School at RAF Dalcross near Inverness, we trained there for about three or four months and then we qualified as air gunners er the training was done in Ansom aircraft er we flew with another aircraft pulling a target which was a long canvas sleeve and you fired ammunition which had been dipped in paint, the nose of the bullets were dipped in paint, so if you hit this white canvas sleeve besides making a hole in it it left a little colour smear this way the scores could be counted afterwards and er we did this all types of different exercises out over the sea the Moray Firth er following that I was sent on leave and then posted to Operational Training Unit which was at um a place called Westcott and there you were crewed up in a crew, um it was a rather haphazard method all the different air crew categories were put into one large hall and told ‘find yourself a crew’ and I wandered round a bit lost and I was approached a a little chap an air gunner he said ‘have you got a crew yet?’ I said ‘no’ ‘well would you like to join ours?’ and I said ‘yes I would’ and that was how I was crewed up, er my pilot was a New Zealand lad flight sergeant and the rest of the crew were all English boys, so [coughs] we were flying in Wellington aircraft we did various exercises all kinds of things for the different trades, navigation training, bombing training, gunnery training and so on and um after this we were sent to er what was it called Heavy Conversion Unit this was at RAF Bottesford in Nottinghamshire where we were introduced to the Lancaster bomber and also another member joined the crew this was the flight engineer, er in our case our flight engineer was also a pilot this had happened because they had a large surplus of pilots and to give them something to do they trained some of them er as engineers so we had two pilots in the crew which was handy, er we did this training again doing all kinds of exercises including the dreaded corkscrew evasive manoeuvre which was quite horrendous, and from there we were posted to RAF Fiskerton to join 576 Squadron this was in April 1945 towards the end of the war, we did further er what you might call squadron training for a week or two before we were considered qualified to go on operations and the big thing at that moment was called Operation Manna this was dropping food supplies in Holland because it was an area which had been cut off by the advance of the armies and in the last six months or so of the war there had been dreadful food shortages and people were dying of starvation thousands and thousands of Dutchmen died through lack of food so we and the American Air Force were tasked to drop food supplies for them and the area was still under German occupation er a rather dodgy truce was organised with the Germans a kind of er ‘don’t shoot at us we won’t shoot at you’ but it was a little bit of a flimsy thing and several aircraft were shot at ours luckily wasn’t but one American aircraft was shot down and the crew killed by the German Occupation Forces, so I did five of these trips er mainly to Rotterdam and we dropped these food supplies er they were simply bundled into the bomb bay of the aircraft and they weren’t dropped on parachutes they just opened the bomb bay doors and everything fell out in a huge cloud tins and boxes and sacks and all kinds of food which were collected by the Dutch authorities and then distributed to the people who needed it, er we did the last flight on 8th May 1945 which was VE Day, the war ended on that day. After the war we continued flying doing various exercises er one thing we did was to fly to Brussels and bring home Army personnel who had been prisoners of war, another thing we did was to fly to Naples in Italy and bring home again Army personnel who were due for early release from the forces er we continued to do this for about I think four or five months and then the big run down of Bomber Command started the squadrons were disbanded and we were all thrown on the scrap heap not really knowing what would happen to us, but um eventually much against my wishes I was sent on a course to be an equipper demanding and issuing supplies and in this role I was finally posted to a small radar unit in Germany er initially in the British zone of Germany and then er eventually in the American zone and finally in the French occupation zone and er I was there for two and a half years something like that, during that time we had on this little unit when I say little there were a total of about thirty five personnel you could tell how small it was we required an interpreter somebody who spoke German and French because we had the contact with the French Occupation Forces and a young lady called Dorothy Bush who lived nearby she was the daughter of the local school teacher became our interpreter and er many well not many years several years later Dorothy and I were married [very emotional].
SP: Do you want to stop?
JB: Right after some time on this small radar station in Germany I found that you could er re-engage you could sign up for regular service and that would be as air crew to be flying again so I applied for this er I was sent to London to have a medical examinations and so on and I was accepted to fly again as an air gunner but before you could start the flying training er as gunners we had to be trained with er er sort of auxiliary trade and we did this at RAF Kirkham near Preston it was a school of armament trades we learned about all the armament equipment in use at that time in the RAF guns and mines and all the er ancillary equipment, and then we had to do a course at a place called Wellesbourne Mountford on aerial photography that took another couple of months or so so we were quite highly qualified in the trades by that time and then we were posted to RAF Marham in 1950 to join 149 Squadron which was reforming it was the first squadron in the RAF to be equipped with American B29 Super Fortress Bombers the type of bombers that the Americans had used in the Pacific to bomb Japan and drop the atom bomb with so we did this course at RAF Marham and then we had to move out and make room for the next squadron to come in and do the course and we were sent to RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire which at that time was shut down and we arrived there but we didn’t have any aircraft because in the meantime the war in Korea had started and the Americans stopped the supply of B29’s to the RAF because they wanted them for themselves [laughs] so we sat at Coningsby fully trained squadron, air crew and ground crew, for six weeks and the only aircraft we had was an Oxford and a Tiger Moth [laughs] had the Russians known they could have walked in [laughs]. So finally one B29 arrived and our crew had the honour of making the first B29 flight from RAF Coningsby er in I think it was November 1950 er so eventually more aircraft came and the squadron got rolling and operating as it should do and er we were there for a couple of years doing all kinds of exercises, some very very long range flights lasting fifteen sometimes as long as eighteen, nineteen hours without landing or refuelling and then of course jet aircraft began to enter service and on these aircraft no requirement for air gunners so once again facing redundancy, several of the chaps applied to retrain and were accepted as navigators, pilots, so I thought I’m going to have a go at this so I applied and after the interviews and medicals I was accepted for pilot training but by this time the RAF had decided that if you were pilot or navigator you had to be commissioned not like in the old war time days where you could have sergeant pilots etcetera so we had do to a commissioning course which lasted about five months at Jurby in the Isle of Man, having qualified for that and gained a commission I was fortunate to be chosen with a small group of chaps to go and do our flying training in Canada under a NATO training scheme so we flew to Canada in er civilian aircraft and after some time in kind of transit units we eventually landed up in Alberta a place called Claresholm which was about sixty miles south of Calgary, this was a flying training school and unlike the British trainees who started their pilot training on a light aircraft like a Tiger Moth we went on day one on Harvard aircraft which for a trainee were quite a handful they were a sturdy little aircraft with a big five hundred and fifty horsepower engine and they took a bit of handling when you were a novice but er we coped with it and we did the all the necessary exercises day and night flying and er finally after I think it would be nine or ten months er we qualified but we were caught in a rather unusual situation previously at the end of flying school training they had a big parade and celebration and you were presented with your wings the Canadian authorities had decided they were not doing this any longer they were giving our chaps their wings when they’d done a further advanced flying training so what was going to happen to us we were due to come home then and nobody could really tell us what was going to happen when are we going to get our wings, so we flew home in a civilian aircraft we arrived in London airport and were taken in buses to the Air Ministry this was about half past six seven o’clock in the evening by then going dark and we were ushered into a dismal basement room where we met by a civilian clerk, who from the smell of his breath had been out and had a few pints whilst he was waiting for us so, he then issued er instructions of where we were to be posted to and in those days we were still on rations so he issued ration cards and as we were due to leave he said ‘before you go any questions?’ and one chap piped up he said ‘when do we get our wings?’ and this half drunken clerk said ‘oh it’s okay you can put them up now if you want to’ that’s was how we were awarded our wings I thought it was the most miserable bit of service time the whole of my air force career. So we were then posted to RAF Turnhill to do a course on instrument flying to get a qualification called the white card er instrument flying this and they wanted you to fly under various weather conditions, er the grades were white, green, and master green, if you were so experienced and qualified if you got a master green you could fly in any weather conditions whatsoever so we got the white card which had limitations and when we had arrived there some of the chaps not believing what this clerk at the Air Ministry had said arrived not wearing wings odd chaps who had previously been other air crew like a engineer or air gunners were still wearing their old air force air gunner engineer wings and the first day we were introduced er by a squadron leader to tell us what the course was all about and he started his speech and then after a moment he stopped and he pointed at the lad in the front row who was wearing the single wing of a flight engineer and he said ‘who are you what are you doing here?’ so the lad said ‘well I understand sir I’ve come to do an instrument rating course’ so he said ‘well are you a pilot?’ and the lad said ‘well I’ve done a pilot’s course’ and he said ‘why aren’t you wearing pilot’s wings?’ so the lad said truthfully ’because I’ve not been awarded them’ and the squadron leader took no notice of this at all he looked around the room and he said ‘well if you want to do this course you better get some wings up damn quick and that goes for all the rest of you not wearing them’ that was our introduction to being pilots. [Pause] So this business of the wings I thought was disgraceful and thinking about it years later I feel that about that time due to the way we had been treated I really began to lose interest it destroyed my enthusiasm for the RAF, and for flying, and for the whole bloomin thing, however, we did this um instrument training course and then we were posted on to er Meteor Jet Fighters a twin engine jet fighter of that day er and we did conversion on to those and er I did I did conversion I went on solo on them they were comparatively easy to fly engine wise because you didn’t have too many points to consider with a jet engine as you did with a piston engine aircraft and er we carried on with this course till we got to the stage where we started aerobatics and then I found that due to the violent manoeuvres with aerobatics er I started blacking out so I was removed from the course and after a while I was sent to the er er the School of Aviation Medicine School at Farnborough where they have flying doctors who took me up in a Meteor equipped with G measuring device and they flew the plane around and blacked me out all over the place and declared that I had a low G tolerance and I would be grounded so that was a big disappointment after all that I’d been through before, I I was then offered the choice of one or two ground trades which I didn’t fancy doing if I wasn’t flying I didn’t want to be in the air force so the other alternative was to leave so I was then discharged having been in the air force something like eleven years altogether, and um I came home and I started applying for jobs and I went for various interviews and er people asked me what I’d done and so on as usual the case ‘oh that’s very interesting but your no use to us’ so I got a bit despondent I was out of work for may be about six weeks and I was walking along one evening I bumped into an old school chum of mine and the conversation got around to jobs ‘what are you doing?’ I said ‘I’m looking for a job’ ‘what are you doing?’ he said ‘I’m on a management training course in Manchester for the CWS the Co-opertive Society’ er he said ‘come round to my house I’ll show you what we are doing’ so I went to his house and he showed me all these books and information and I thought oh how boring after flying [laughs] doing that didn’t appeal one one little bit, all this time his father had been sitting there quietly reading a newspaper and he chipped in he said ‘have you tried our place?’ so I said ‘well where is our place?’ he said ‘A V Roe’ and he gave me the address of the employment officer so I wrote in and er they called me in for an interview and I think they had it in mind that I would fit in to some kind of position in the works so they sent me home and said we’ll notify you and then a letter came sorry we can’t do anything for you so disappointment again and then almost immediately another letter came from them would I go for an interview with the chief draughtsman ‘cos at that time the Avro factory at Chadderton was the main design office for the company, so er I went for this interview it was a Friday afternoon and er I saw this gentleman the chief draughtsman and he asked me all about my service career and so on and then he said ‘I think we could find a place for you in here’ so he said er ‘when would you like to start Monday?’ [laughs] following just a weekend away [laughs] oh rather puzzled I said ‘oh yes that’d be fine’ so on Monday morning I turned up and I was placed in the middle of the design office and due to my armament work that I had done in the forces I was put onto what was called the armament section the design office was broken up into sections groups of about a dozen men each section did a different type of work some did air frames, some would do engines, some would be radio, and I was on the armament section and quite a lot of the work they were doing was stuff I already knew that I’d seen and worked on in the air force but of course there was a lot of new stuff because at that time they were just introducing the Vulcan Bomber so I fitted in very nicely and er got going steadily working on the Vulcan and the Shackleton and later on the Nimrod and er several aircraft we did er certain parts of those and er so I worked quite steadily and happily for several years I think about twelve years in the design office on armament equipment mainly of the different aircraft and then the company decided to have a huge reorganisation, er they moved the design office to the company airfield at Woodford and of course it was practically impossible for me to get there I didn’t have a car at the time it would have meant several bus trips a train journey and er it was just impossible so I joined a bunch of rebels who said ‘we’re not going’ [laughs] so we were kept for a while at Chadderton in the design office on a sort of queries section and I thought well this will just potter along until the company get fed up with it and then you’d be given the ultimatum either get to Woodford or get out [laughs] so I left and I got a job at a local firm building er commercial vehicles again in their design office which was quite different to what I had been doing before but it was in a way quite interesting. I did this for a year or two and eventually I bumped into a chap er who I’d worked with in the design office and er we got chatting and I said ‘I’m a little bit bored with this job I’m doing’ and he said ‘well we’re looking for people at Chadderton in the publications er department’ ‘cos each aircraft has a huge set of books for servicing and maintaining them er he gave me the address to write in to and er eventually after had an interview I was accepted there and I started back again on my beloved aircraft in the publications department and I worked in there for about twenty years [laughs] until I finally retired in 1989 [laughs] so that was the end of my life with aircraft more or less right through my whole working life [laughs] it had been aircraft one way or another.
SP: So Jeff you talked about when you first joined up you went to Lords Cricket Ground do you want to tell me a little bit more about that?
JB: Yes, oh for aircrew trainees during the war the place you reported to when you were called up was Lords Cricket Ground in London, rather unusual setting to think you are going in the air force er we were billeted in blocks of flats all around Regents Park and we were kitted out you got all your uniform and equipment and er you had your introduction to things like how to march and drill and so on, and one day we were taken back to a building on the side of er Regents Park which was a medical centre we were led into the backyard amongst piles of coke and coal [laughs] taken upstairs to about er the third floor on the way up you had to take your tunic off and roll both sleeves up when you stepped inside the door there was a duty airman on each side with a basin with some sort of disinfectant fluid in and a scrubbing brush and he scrubbed both your upper arms, you moved on into the next room and there were doctors in line and you were given various injections inoculations er oh what what was it something fever they had in those days, and then you were led out down some stairs onto a road at the side by the railings of Regents Park [laughs] it looked like a scene from a battlefield there were chaps hanging over the railings vomiting, there were others lying flat out on the pavement having fainted not being used to all this injections and inoculations [laughs], luckily it didn’t affect me although I did have a rather sore arm for a little while [laughs].
SP: So Jeff you were talking about during when you were on the plane the dreaded corkscrew.
JB: Yes
SP: Do you want to tell me a little bit about that?
JB: Yes er when we did the course er on er to train on the Lancaster er one of the exercises we had to do was to er learn er called an evasive tactic in case you were attacked by a fighter they had this manoeuvre called the corkscrew where the aircraft went into steep dives and turns and climbs in order to put the aim of the attacker off and you had certain drills to carry out er in order to aim your guns correctly and try and hit him whilst you were doing this, now the main people involved with this were the gunners and the pilot um you gave the instruction to the pilot when to start this manoeuvre and whilst he was doing it he told you what you were doing because you were thrown about so much you could hardly realise whether you were turning left, right, going up or down whatever it was very very violent and er you repeated back to the pilot so he understood that you knew and according to what he said you had to apply certain rules of sighting in order to hopefully hit the attacker, so the the manoeuvre would start like this, oh before I say anything more I should say that our first corkscrew was done by an instructor pilot an experienced fella, the manoeuvre went like this you as a gunner had a thing called a reflector sight you looked through a glass screen and it had a red ring with a dot in the middle you compared the size of this to the size of the attacking aircraft you had to learn the wing span of the groups of the attacking aircraft when he filled a certain amount of your ring and bead sight he was at six hundred yards that was the distance when you were to open fire ’cos it was the best range for the guns you were using, so you watched this attacker and make him he came in a curving dive which is called a curved pursuit and you raced him with your gun sight you warned the pilot he was coming in when he got to six hundred yards you said ‘corkscrew’ either port or starboard depending which side he was coming in from the pilot then we did the first one to port which is the left side he just simply stood the aircraft up on it’s port wing tip and we went down in a screaming dive after a few hundred feet he rolled and he went down on the other side the starboard side for a few more hundred feet and then he pulled up violently, on the way down you were virtually weightless you just floated up off your seat the only thing I was holding onto was the two control handles for the gun turret [laughs], all this time you were trying to apply these what we call sighting rules where you aimed your sight at the attacker you didn’t aim directly at him and then the pilot pulled up and he did the same manoeuvre going up and then the G Force came on you were slammed literally just slammed down into your seat became several times heavier than you normally are [laughs] and it was so severe you couldn’t raise your arms try as you may you couldn’t lift them and you had an oxygen mask on your face this pulled away on the straps and then you climbed up to your starting height and then you went down and started another corkscrew [laughs], all this time other members of the crew that weren’t involved with this as I said it was just the pilot and the gunner the other people such as the navigator and wireless operator were sitting there with their stomachs churning and quite a lot of them being airsick but due to the fact that you were so concentrating on what you were doing it didn’t make me airsick strangely enough so that was our introduction to the corkscrew [laughs].
SP: Jeff you also talked that you were at Fiskerton on VE Day do you want to talk me through what happened on VE Day what you did?
JB: Yes er VE Day 8th May 1945 we were scheduled to do the last Manna food drop in Holland [coughs] we got out of the aircraft and a photographer suddenly appeared and asked us the crew and the ground crew to pose in front of the aircraft and took our photographs which I still have, and then something happened that had never happened on any previous operation a car drew up and it was the station commander the group captain wishing us well [laughs] and hoping that we had a good trip of course we knew that it was the last day of the war [coughs], my pilot and two other pilots from our crew had made a secret arrangement that on the way back at one of the turning points on the route back was Cambridge that we were going to meet up formate and fly back from Cambridge to Fiskerton and beat up in the airfield in formation, so [laughs] we arrived at er at er Cambridge and [coughs] they’d arrange [coughs] not to use the radio so that it wouldn’t be identified [coughs] they arranged to fire off a coloured vary cartridges so these two planes were milling around at Cambridge when we arrived and they were shooting off these coloured vary cartridges I think they were green and we fired some off so we knew who we were and we all joined up together and headed off to Fiskerton, now we were flying a rather old Lancaster and we were slowly dropping behind these other two aircraft we couldn’t keep up with them ‘cos they were going flat out and our engineer told us he said they had er a sort of toggle which was called an emergency boost button to give the engines a little bit of extra power he said ‘I’ve pulled the emergency boost and we still can’t keep up with them’ and we were dropping more and more lagging behind them dropping away so eventually our pilot said ‘okay well we’ll forget it’ but because of all this extra power on this old aircraft was shuddering and shaking suddenly there was a loud bang and a whole sheet of metal fell off from underneath the starboard wing [laughs] we didn’t know what it was at the time [laughs] but I reported it to the pilot he said ‘well I don’t know what it is but we’re still flying okay so we carry on’ and we flew back to Fiskerton and of course this beat up had occurred by the time we got back and when we landed we found that this vibration had loosened some of the skin coverings on the outboard engine nacelle and it had ripped off with the airflow that’s what we saw some farmer would find a nice sheet of aluminium in one of his fields [laughs], so we then went to the debriefing and the station commander came up on the dais afterwards and he said ‘all pilots are to remain behind everyone else is dismissed’ he didn’t know he hadn’t identified who had done this beat up at the airfield so we scurried off to get our bacon and egg which was the meal you got after flying [laughs] whilst all the pilots got a tremendous bollocking from the station commander [laughs] that was VE Day [laughs].
SP: Jeff do you want to tell me about the time in the Wellington bomber that you were talking about?
JB: Yes um we were introduced to the Wellington at a unit called Operational Training Unit OTU this is where you joined a crew [coughs] and amongst various exercises you did of course there was quite a lot of practice bombing er you dropped small smoke bombs on er des designated targets where er how well or badly you had done there were staff there could record it and send the results back to your unit [coughs] now to do this exercise er we were based at this er place er Westcott near Aylesbury we had to fly er about thirty miles in a northerly direction to the area I think it was Northampton and back for the navigator to calculate the wind ‘cos this was a vital thing for the bomb aimer to know he set this into his equipment er the target we were to attack was on some moorland in the Oxford area, so we took off and we had to climb up to twelve thousand feet to fly this course to calculate the wind er on the way we flew through quite a few heaps of cloud it got a little bit bumpy and unknown to us behind all this cloud was a cumulus nimbus thunderstorm cloud and we flew straight into it and it was a fantastic all of sudden it went grey and then it went almost completely dark this is sort of ten o’clock in the morning and the turbulence we were thrown about up and down and in a flash then the the inside of the gun turret was painted matt black in a flash it just became white all over with hoarfrost and I made the aimless gesture of trying to scrape some of it off with my fingers [laughs] I don’t know why I did that [laughs] but we were thrown about we went up and down and the pilot said ‘we’re getting iced up I’m losing control’ he said ‘we’ll have to get out of this’ and he did the worst thing he could have done he tried to turn round to go back out of it, the rule was if you were in that position you flew straight through it, so he started this turn and he collected so much ice on the wings he lost control of it he called out ‘I can’t control it’ and he gave the order ‘fix parachutes and standby’ now you wore your parachute harness all the time in the aircraft but your parachute was in a pack in a stowage near to where you were sitting so we grabbed the er the parachute out of its stowage and it fell to the floor just at the moment we started to be lifted up at some tremendous speed and the G was so strong I couldn’t lift the parachute pack and I thought if this carries on I going to die pretty soon [laughs] ‘cos I’ve heard of stories of planes flying into thunderstorm clouds and coming out in bits in the bottom so we were flung up and down, up and down, and then eventually we came out of the clouds and we began to lose some of the ice that had got into all our and the pilot regained control so he said ‘stand down’ we didn’t need to put the parachute on to jump but we fell out of control iced up from twelve to four thousand feet totally out of control and the air speed indicator broke the the air speed indicator pointer the needle was just hanging down and swinging like a little pendulum so we’d no air speed however our pilot er was experienced enough to know that if he put certain power settings on the engine it would keep us flying [coughs], so we abandoned the exercise and flew back to Westcott where we were based told them what had happened they then divert, oh they asked how much fuel we still had so we had sufficient fuel, they then diverted to us to RAF Wittering which is in the Peterborough area and Peter and Wittering was a big pre-war airfield and across the fields from it was a smaller wartime airfield called Collyweston and there was a flat land flat fields between the two and they had laid what was called pierced steel planking between the two airfields to create an emergency landing strip was a bit longer than the normal landing strip so we were given instructions over the radio and we told them what had happened to us what power settings to set on the engine to make a faster than normal approach so there was no danger that we would stall and we all got down in what we call crash positions we were trained to do this and we landed on this pierced steel planking runway which made a hell of a noise [laughs] when you ran over it but we got down safely and then motored back to the Wittering side where we were interviewed as to what happened then we were taken for a meal whilst the aircraft was prepared and then later on that day we flew it back to Westcott, but that from that day on until we got on the Lancaster which was an all metal aircraft I was always a bit scared [laughs] when we flew into big heaped up clouds [laughs].
SP: So Jeff you talked about Operation Manna how did you feel about doing that?
JB: Well at times it was quite emotional because so many people had died twenty odd thousand in total I think in the last months of the war er and many people had suffered so greatly through this starvation and eating all sorts of weird food like the flower bulbs they used to fry flower bulbs and all kinds of stuff, they used to make from what we were told foraging trips the people in the big cities suffered the most because they could out may be on bicycle or walking ‘cos they’d no vehicles er into the country areas and barter for food with the farmers to get a few eggs or potatoes and give away their valuables and all kinds of thing and when you spoke with some of the people that had suffered with this er it’s quite er emotional, little old ladies would want to come and hug you [laughs] and that kind of thing, and er one boy I think about probably twelve years old came to me spoke very good English as most of them do and he said ‘I want to shake your hand and thank you’ so I said ‘well what do you want to thank me for you weren’t born at the time we did this’ he said no ‘you saved my grandparents lives’ and that was the kind of thing that er happened to you people come ‘thank you thank you’ and giving you gifts it was utterly amazing the gratitude that er they showed was just overwhelming at times.
SP: Okay thanks for that is there anything else at all that you feel you haven’t had a chance to say?
JB: Well one little amusing story er when we came back from Canada and we did this instrument flying course at Turnhill er the course included normal exercises besides instruments and navigation exercises and so on and er we were being briefed to do the first solo night cross country flight we we had a rather er broad spoken Yorkshire flight lieutenant flight commander who was giving this er briefing before the flight and er he told everything we were supposed to know the weather and everything and er at the end he said ‘just a word of advice before you go’ he said er ‘if’ in his broad Yorkshire accent he said ‘now if you get lost or owt bloody silly like that for god’s sake give us a call even if it’s only to say goodbye’ [laughs].
SP: [Laughs] That’s great Jeff so thanks for all the stories there [Laughs].
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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ABrownJ170118
PBrownJ1721
Title
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Interview with Jeff Brown
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.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:03:08 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending OH summary. Allocated T Holmes
Creator
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Susanne Pescott
Date
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2017-01-18
Description
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Jeff Brown worked as an electrician until he joined the Royal Air Force. He flew with 576 Squadron from RAF Fiskerton.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Netherlands
England--Lincolnshire
Temporal Coverage
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1945-04
1945-05
Contributor
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Jackie Simpson
149 Squadron
576 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
B-29
bombing
crewing up
Harvard
Lancaster
Meteor
military service conditions
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
pilot
RAF Bottesford
RAF Dalcross
RAF Fiskerton
RAF Marham
RAF Westcott
training
Wellington