Interview with Andrew Barron. Three
Andrew said that during leisure time the crew drank, sang silly songs but didn’t really socialise much. He recalled an occasion when the Germans sent in about 200 night fighters infiltrating the main force on its ways home. They shot down a B-17 as it came into land and all crew were killed. The German aircraft had passed Andrew’s one as it was waiting to land. He mentions four daylight operations: over a fairly short period the squadron did 38 operations. Andrew remembered on 1 January 1945 he was on operations and made some gross navigational error – he had been up late on New Years’ Eve and had drunk quite a bit. May 1945 ended operational flights: on the 26th Andrew did a trip with 223 Squadron from RAF Swannington, in a B-17. When the war ended, they were allowed to go on one of the Cooks tours around the Ruhr to see what damage had been done. Andrew was then posted to 102 Squadron at RAF Pocklington doing local flying with circuits and bumps. They did three flights in a Halifax disposing bombs into the sea. Following various postings, he was demobbed and trained for a civil license.
<a href="/omeka/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Nigel+Moore">Nigel Moore</a>
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2019-05-10
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01:56:35 audio recording
<a href="/omeka/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=44&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=eng">eng</a>
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ABarronAJK190510, PBarronAJK1901
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Interview with Kenneth William Munro
Ken was a 456 Squadron Mosquito navigator. He initially joined the Army’s Victorian Scottish regiment but changed to the Royal Air force. He was selected to be a navigator and sailed to Canada. Ken did a course at Edmonton and was made an officer. He then sailed back to Scotland and went down to Brighton. After undertaking a new course on radar, he went to RAF Ouston to learn how to operate it. He flew in Ansons and Beaufighters before going to Cranfield to fly Wellingtons. Ken met his wife there, a Women's Auxiliary Air Force who managed the officers’ mess. He was due to join Bomber Command but eventually became night fighters aircrew and joined 456 Squadron. Ken was stationed at RAF Ford.
Ken describes how he met his pilot. They initially shot down V-1s flying Mosquitoes. They went to northern France and did cross countries. Ken missed D-Day as he was training on Mark 10 radar at RAF Twinwood Farm. They did intruder raids. He describes going to Linz and Linz and their encounters with fighters. His squadron, along with another Mosquito squadron, were sent to the Channel Islands and was instrumental in the surrender German forces stationed there on 9th May 1945.
Ken was a recipient of Lady Ryder’s Dominion and Allied Services Hospitality Scheme and describes some of the hospitality and leisure pursuits he experienced.
After the war, Ken received the Legion of Honour.
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2016-05-22
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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.
01:25:28 audio recording
<a href="/omeka/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=44&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=eng">eng</a>
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AMunroKW160522
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