1
25
4
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/917/11159/PLambertRW1801.1.jpg
50acb4821fe24c967c2fcc3a49e4e7f9
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/917/11159/ALambertRW180820.2.mp3
7d38449922f636d635cac0250fdd78b3
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
Lambert, Richard William
R W Lambert
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Richard Lambert (b. 1925, 1850934 Royal Air Force). He served as a flight engineer with 101 and 15 Squadrons.
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
2018-08-20
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
Lambert, RW
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
RL: Ok. This interview is being carried out for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewee is Mr Richard Lambert. The interviewer is Jennifer Barraclough. The date is the 20th of August 2018 and it’s taking place at Mr Lambert’s home near Auckland in New Zealand. Ok, Mr Lambert.
JB: Right.
RL: Thank you very much for —
JB: Ok.
RL: Taking part. Could you tell us a little about your early life and how you came to join up?
JB: I couldn’t wait to join up and at that time the recruiting age was seventeen and a quarter whereas in the Fleet Air Arm it was seventeen and a half so had to go to the seventeen and a quarter. On that day I cycled in to Guildford in Surrey to, to volunteer and the office was closed. Here we are with a war on, and a volunteer and they’re closed. Anyway, I went, went back on the Monday and volunteered. That was at seventeen and a quarter and a couple of days. So I always wanted to join the Air Force anyway, and so there was a scheme. PNB. Pilot, navigator or bomb aimer. And the initial part of that training was that you would be, you were all about the same intelligence but you’d be graded at a Tiger Moth flying school which was one of the three things you could be, a pilot, navigator, bomb aimer. So if you went solo the chances of getting a pilot’s job were enhanced. If you didn’t obviously they sent you off to Canada to be a navigator or whatever. So that was ok. But then the work for D-Day was well on the way even in 1943. And so, yes having volunteered the first thing we’d do of course is sit around and do nothing because the training was already catching up with surplus to requirements virtually. So we reported to Lord’s Cricket Ground to be uniformed and pick up all your gear and so on. Then off to the first course, the ITW which was in a place called Cannock Chase in, in the Midlands. And that was a six months course but basically having read about it since then it was just a time filling exercise because we went, after six months we went up to Scotland for an ITW, Initial Training Wing which was part of the normal training. So we lost six months already. So down to the Grading School on Tiger Moths. Then around about that time well we went down to London. No. That’s not true. We went to London for regrading and they, they had V-1s and V-2 bombs dropping on us. Dropping on us from Regent’s Park. Anyway, after all of that I was once again declared redundant and we were in London. We did aptitude tests and I became a trainee flight engineer. And then that went to the Technical Training Schools in Locking and St Athan’s. Big places. All part of the 1933 expansion and yeah so I became a flight engineer in those, in those days you didn’t do any flying at all. You just did technical work. So then of course once more I was redundant and I became a ground engineer. Flight mechanic’s course at Cosford. Cosford was the holding place for the returned prisoners of war so they became, they had priority to go in to Cosford. Cosford’s accommodation. And we were shipped to Hereford. And then we were redundant once more. We went up to Lossiemouth of all places. And then from Lossiemouth they started a new scheme for people that could sign on for a three year engagement for just three years and a bounty. Anyway, I was lucky at Lossiemouth. I found favour with the group captain even though I was just a scruffy redundant flight engineer and he got me on the next course to, back to St Athans. So that was about 1947 or something like that. And finally I went to Lindholme which was a Bomber Command base and finished my training as a flight engineer. And then I went to, all the bomber bases in those days were commanded by ex-prisoners of war. The squadron I went on was 617, not that you would recognise it as 617 with a Squadron Leader Brodie who had been a prisoner of war. And of course some of the pilots were flight, were chaps who’d decided to stay on and they became, Peter [Dunstall] was an escapee from Colditz. Although I don’t think he’d escaped from there but anyway Peter was in charge of 101 Squadron which during the war was a radio counter measures squadron, and I believe the shot down rate for that was higher than the rest of the, of Bomber Command. Anyway, I soldiered on in Bomber Command for a little bit longer and then they started, by then it was, the war was off and but they, the Cold War was winding up. We were still flying Lancasters and Lincolns, Lincoln and, but they started pilot recruiting. So this is what I really wanted to do in 1943. So after various aptitude tests in North Weald I went on a pilot’s course and finally became a pilot and rejoined. I could have gone anywhere after that course. I could have, I didn’t have to get back to Bomber Command but I thought well I’ve done all this time with Bomber Command I’d go back because I was familiar with it. So I went to a place called Hemswell and stayed there for quite a long time, 97 Squadron which was a Rhodesian squadron. And then I did some, did some flying for the Dambuster film which, which was fun. And then, then I was grounded. I had a bit of trouble with my ears so became a station adjutant at a place called Tern Hill in Shropshire, and I stayed there two or three years. And then what did I do? What happened then? I can’t think. Oh, I went down to Thorney Island as a, I did a jet conversion course on Vampires and Meteors training navigators and that was a pleasant stay because I had a house further along the coast in a place called Rustington and so I was, I was living at home, commuting to work, it was all very pleasant. So I was there for a couple of years and then I became a bit disillusioned with, I had passed all my promotion exams but the chances of getting a squadron was a bit remote and so I, I resigned and I was going, I had some property to build in a boatyard but the government changed and the money was not available and so on and so on. So I then went down, I had a contact with a chap who had an executive aeroplane and I went to, went to see him and he said, ‘Oh, that’s alright. Come and see me.’ So I flew. I was initially going to say, ‘I’ll fly for you for nothing,’ because I just needed the experience. Not the experience. The time. So, I then worked in [pause] doing executive work and then living at my, I just carried on living at home which was all very pleasant. So I was just like an airborne chauffeur which after a while I didn’t really want to do so I joined British United Airways. And then I stayed with them for eight years, something like that flying various aeroplanes until we, it became jet conversion on BAC 111s. Then my first wife got ill, but she had relatives out here so I thought it would be a good place for her to be. So we came out here and I joined, luckily Air New Zealand. So I was a ground instructor with Air New Zealand. Stayed with them for quite a few years and then retired. And that was me more or less.
RL: Fine. Thanks. That’s really interesting. Thank you.
JB: It’s a tale of perseverance to become a pilot and enjoying the piloting. It was fun working for this, as an executive pilot had its fun sides but my wife was ill, and it was all sort of a bit all downhill for us then. But anyway, there we go.
RL: Thank you.
JB: Oh I could tell you something about —
RL: Yes.
JB: Around Scampton was obviously, it was Bomber Command, but Scampton and Lincolnshire was Bomber Command. Apart from Yorkshire. But there was, there was a pub just down the hill called the Dambusters. And that’s where we did the flying for the Dambusters. They resuscitated four Lancasters. Three of them they put dummy bombs on so they could take them on, take them off which showed some close up pictures of the bomb which was in plywood. And yeah, I can’t remember then when that was but rationing was still on in England and they had, for the film unit they had a mobile caravan canteen. And so rationing as I say was still on and so we ate with the, with the film people. I can remember big T-bone steaks and stuff like that which was fun. And we did all the all the crowd scenes. They used RAF people to do the crowd scenes and the Lancasters were flown by me and four other blokes, and Richard Todd would come on. He would, he would go on the leader, the flight commander’s aeroplane and I went with, it was supposed to be Micky Martin, the Australian flight commander. So that was, we took off on the grass airfield which was at Kirton Lindsey which, Scampton at the time of the war didn’t have any runways. So they took off in a three and they ran at that two or three times to make it look more than it actually was. And then we did the routine flying which was identical to the 617 Squadron briefings, and the same accommodation. Same airfield except they had runways which we were at Kirton Lindsey for no runways. And yeah, we flew late afternoon or early evening over all the reservoirs that they could find and Derwentwater was the main one of course. And yes, so finally of course the film is repeated over and over again. It’s been on, it’s been on the Chaser. You know, which aeroplane of Bomber Command which of course it was a fantastic exercise to do and successful but of course they lost a lot of chaps. Yeah. And they lost the reminder on a raid on the Kiel Canal I think soon after that. And they lost the chaps on the way back across the North Sea. So having survived the Dambuster raid they were shot down. Terrible time and I have found since then of course that all the things I volunteered for as a young person were absolutely suicide jobs. In desperation when I was on the ground I volunteered as a parachute instructor. So I went to Ringway and jumped out of a, out of a barrage balloon and that sort of thing. But one of the chaps on the course got spinal meningitis so we were all quarantined and then I was sent back to Lossiemouth. Yeah. It’s crazy what you do. What else can we say?
[recording paused]
RL: Ok.
JB: One of the Bomber Command exercises that we did which again was good fun was again to go out to Egypt. Their detachments were called Sunray and the idea was to fly out through Castel Benito and into the Canal Zone and we’d stay there for a month. So we’d do bombing and gunnery exercises. It was just like a camp that they used to have before the war. So we’d stay there for a month and fly home again. On the way back once, Peter Tunstall who’d just been released from prisoner of war camp and so on got in to trouble with the storm clouds in the south of France. And of course he went so high he didn’t check that the, an airmen that, we were carrying passengers home subsequently died because he was ill. They landed at Tangmere but it was a bit late then. That was one of the exercises. And then of course the film thing. That was, that was pretty good. Yeah. I can’t get over the fact that we were still flying wartime aeroplanes that were long gone. Although the V-force aeroplanes were just coming in. Valiants and so on. Fran, has just, this is going to be edited I guess. Fran just mentioned that.
Other: [unclear]
RL: The, there was, well one of the biggest things that influenced my life in the Air Force was I was so lucky. I was overpaid on a pay parade. This was when I was on Lossiemouth. Over paid ten pounds or something like that and at the time I didn’t realise it but after lunch I went back to my room and realised I’d got ten pounds more than I should have. Lossiemouth was a long way from home and I thought now, I could go home, see my mother with this extra money. Buy a ticket and so on. But common sense said go and report it. So I went around to the accounts office and said, ‘I think I was overpaid,’ and the, the accountant was so pleased to see me because he was responsible for the ten pounds. He would have had to find ten pounds. Anyway, he came and said, ‘Thank you very much.’ And they said, ‘Just a minute,’ and I was taken in to the group captain. And this is, I was working outside at the time on aeroplanes so I was pretty scruffy I guess. Anyway, we talked together and he then said, ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve just signed on for three years but I’m not doing a refresher course.’ And so he obviously, he didn’t promise anything but a few days later I was on the refresher course at St Athans that I mentioned earlier. So that was, if I hadn’t been there I would have done the three years on the ground and never flown. But then I did, and of course I got a civilian licence when I left the Air Force so that was lucky. Yeah. So there was something else I was going to mention.
[recording paused]
RL: Go again.
JB: Yeah. I said, I mentioned about volunteering for things. These chaps in in Bomber Command there was a Flare Force. That’s right. I remember. Bomber Command had closed down after the end of the war and the Pathfinders and all those top class people were just let go. And they suddenly realised that Russia was getting nasty and that they needed what they subsequently called the Flare Force and a lot of people might not have heard of that. So we went from the Pathfinders to Flare Force and the squadrons were 97, 101, two Mosquito squadrons 103 and 197. I think that was it. So, and then we just did exercises. People get killed on exercises. Mosquitoes crashed once or twice. Yeah. And of course, most of the people, most of the people became instructors and or either left, and left the Air Force. But it was hard times in those days. If you came out of the Air Force the chance of getting a job was a bit remote. And if you weren’t selected for a commission or, I was, again I was lucky. I was junior chap on the squadron and I always liked to fly the communication aeroplanes which might have been an Anson or an Oxford or something. So I would go and volunteer to get checked out on that aeroplane. So on, on 15 Squadron which was flying B29s we had some, they called them Washingtons. They thought I was going, it would be a good sort of Joe job, ‘Give it to Dick. He’ll do it.’ Anyway, the phone went and it was this group captain who was Gus Walker who’d had his arm blown off during the war. Gus Walker wanted to fly so I, I could fly the Oxfords and he wanted to fly so, and he was a major winner of some golf. One armed golfing champion. Gus Walker. Anyway, I said I’m going to go to with the group captain with his one arm and I’d operate the throttles and generally keep a look out. So that was quite pleasant. So, it was good to have lots of Brownie points when you’re doing that. When you’re a junior and so on. So that was, that again was lucky. And then as I say with my ten pound win that was a good introduction to the group captain and so on. Yeah. I can’t think of any other Brownie points that I achieved at the time. You need Brownie points. Yeah. What do I say then? Bill French was my wireless operator who was, I think he’s anglo-Indian. I’m not sure. But anyway he was Indian of some kind. A jolly good wireless operator. So we’d operate doing that. I kept in touch with the crew initially but they all seemed to die very young. My navigator Roddy Williams, he died ages ago. And a chap called Coffe. C O F F E. Coffe or something like that and he was a a navigator. And my crew, I went to be a station adjutant but my crew went to, out to Christmas Island to do the initial bombing with the atomic bomb for the RAF. Yeah. That was, but I missed that. Yeah. I did do a very hush hush photographic exercise in, over turkey which is I don’t know what that was about. Anyway, there you go.
RL: Ok. Thank you very much.
JB: Ok.
RL: That was great.
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 Richard William Lambert
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Jennifer Barraclough
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
2018-08-20
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ALambertRW180820, PLambertRW1801
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:21:41 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Herefordshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Shropshire
England--Somerset
England--Staffordshire
England--Sussex
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Moray
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Description
An account of the resource
In 1943, when Richard was 17 and a half, he cycled into Guildford to sign up to volunteer for the Royal Air Force. He reported to Lords cricket ground to collect his uniform and gear and then went for training at RAF Hednesford for a six-month course. After that he went to the initial training wing in Scotland on Tiger Moths. He became redundant, but then went to technical training schools in RAF Locking and RAF St Athans and became a flight engineer. After becoming redundant for a second time he became a ground engineer, doing a course at RAF Cosford, before going to RAF Hereford and then RAF Lossiemouth where he signed on for a three-year engagement. Richard was posted to RAF Lindholme and became a flight engineer with 617 Squadron. After various aptitude tests and a pilot course he finally became a pilot and went to RAF Hemswell with 97 Squadron. He then stayed in RAF Ternhill, Shropshire for two or three years before going to RAF Thorney Island for a jet conversion course. After leaving the RAF he joined British United Airways, staying for about eight years. When his first wife became ill, he joined Air New Zealand as a ground instructor before retiring. Richard was involved in the making of the Dambuster film.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
Julie Williams
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
101 Squadron
15 Squadron
617 Squadron
97 Squadron
aircrew
entertainment
flight engineer
ground crew
Initial Training Wing
pilot
RAF Cosford
RAF Credenhill
RAF Hednesford
RAF Hemswell
RAF Kirton in Lindsey
RAF Lindholme
RAF Locking
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Scampton
RAF St Athan
RAF Ternhill
RAF Thorney Island
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/712/9286/PBlakeMMD1801.1.jpg
9e2b7e400848014af7301ef833337514
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/712/9286/ABlakeMMD180711.1.mp3
37e7de00f292211ac03458c3996c36e1
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
Blake, Muriel Mary Doris
M M D Blake
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. An oral history interview with Leading Aircraftswoman Muriel Blake (b.1922, 489709 Women's Auxiliary Air Force), her identity card and four photographs. She served as a parachute and dinghy packer at RAF Mepal.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Muriel Blake and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-07-11
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
Blake, MMD
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
HB: This is an interview with Muriel Blake [buzz] Harry Bartlett on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive carrying out the interview. It’s [pause] looking at the clock —
MB: Oh no. Don’t look at that. No. No.
HB: Which is broken.
MB: It’s not [laughs] It’s so old I daren’t let it go.
Other: Five to eleven.
HB: Right. Five, its five to eleven now in the morning. Right. Muriel. Your chance to tell us your story. Can you just start off where, where where you were born?
MB: I was born at Oakham in Rutland. My parents came from Lincolnshire. Mother from Market Deeping. My father from Stamford. And they were married there and there’s lots of photographs. I’ve got the wedding photograph and everything there. But then my father went in the war, the First World War and when he came back they moved to Oakham. Father started up a business there and I was born there. My sister was born in Stamford during the First World War.
HB: Right.
MB: Because she was six years older than me and I was born in Oakham. Educated at Oakham Central School which was a very good school. The, took the eleven plus in those days but there was only one, one girl and one boy that passed every year to go to Oakham School which was the school.
HB: Yeah. Yeah
MB: And the Girls School at Stamford. So you didn’t get a chance and we were not Oakham people. My sister passed but they made some excuse because she’d made a mistake because we’re Catholics. And they said, my father said they said she’d passed you know and she was a clever girl and then they let my father know that she hadn’t passed. That [Monica Clark] had which was a very old Oakham very classy, you see the Oakham ones. And as I say Father wanted the investigation and they said she’d, her mistake was that she said who was the head of the church and my sister said the pope [laughs]
HB: Oh, right. Right.
MB: That was their excuse.
HB: So, did, did you what what year would that be as you were coming up towards leaving the Central School.
MB: About 1922. And I was eleven in 1933.
HB: About ’33.
MB: When I, when I took the —
HB: And were you, were you expected to go out to work? Did you look for work or what happened?
MB: I left school when I was fifteen wasn’t I? I was, what’s that? I was eleven when I was, ’33 wasn’t I? So how many years was that? Four years wasn’t it? No. I started off, I wanted to be a children's nurse. A nanny. My mother had been a nanny and my one ambition was to be a nanny with a posh family because they were all posh families round Oakham. Well, only for the winter. They came for the hunting season and all the big houses. Big estates. I wanted to be a nanny you see but I wanted to travel abroad with the children.
HB: Oh right. Yeah.
MB: And I was going to, I was hoping to go to a very posh nanny college to train you see. But then the war came out didn’t it and that spoiled a lot of us didn’t it? Then that’s how I went in to, my father was a plumber and decorator [squeaking] I think it’s my feet.
HB: Ah.
MB: And he got his workshops you know and then he got a front shop and he was about do it yourself wallpapers and all that and I went to work there to start with. And then unbeknown to me, you didn’t have a life of your own, well I mean I had a lovely life but we didn’t do what the kids do these days. I mean the man up the road came up and said to my father, ‘They’ve got a vacancy. They’d like to have your daughter.’ So dad said that was alright. Then when I went home at lunchtime he said, ‘You’re now working at Peasgood’s.’ [laughs]
HB: Right. Oh. As simple as that.
MB: There was nothing nasty about it [laughs] but, you know.
HB: Yeah.
MB: That’s how life was.
HB: Yeah.
MB: You did as you were told.
HB: Yeah.
MB: But I was still hoping to go and of course then the war broke out so there was no chance of ever going to a posh, to be a nanny, you know.
HB: No.
MB: All that sort of thing was going by the board and, and then my sister, Pete’s mum she was married and they lived in Leicester and they had a restaurant and they were really working at war work because they had a three rest, café rooms but when the war broke out all round East Park Road and as I say there’s [unclear] all around there and they were all factories in those days.
HB: Yeah.
MB: But they lived down the East Park Road. A big house on East Park Road and they cooked their dinners. They had the lower stairs rooms were for the females and two more rooms downstairs for the workmen and they, they were on rations. I mean, my mother never went without. I found a letter the other day, ‘Could you please bring, if Muriel comes home for the weekend could she please bring some butter. I’m running out.’
HB: Right. So, she was, so they were feeding the factory workers.
MB: Yes. Feeding the factory workers but not only were they —
HB: Right.
MB: Feeding them at lunchtime. And it was a hot dinner and maybe it wasn’t —
HB: Yeah.
MB: It was a hot dinner, and a pudding and a drink. And do you know how much it was?
HB: No.
MB: A shilling. That’s all it cost in those days and, and she had her rations of meat and of course they all came because they were getting these good dinners, you know off the ration and one day she had, they had to have rabbits. You used to get, the butcher used to deliver all these rabbits. I mean, I love rabbit but they used to do rabbit pies and steamed puddings and all that sort of thing.
HB: Right.
MB: But then and so I went to, by this time Pete, Peter wasn’t born then. His elder brother was who spent his life in the Air Force. He’d done his career as an airman. Pete’s dad had gone. I mean he was the chef but he went in the Air Force, you see.
HB: Yeah.
MB: And so I went to help her out. She’d got waitresses and all that sort of thing. People doing the cleaning and everything. So, I got [unclear] you know, I didn’t get called up for quite a while because of that you see.
HB: Yeah.
MB: And then —
HB: So, so how many were in your family then, Muriel?
MB: In my family?
HB: Yeah.
MB: Just my sister and I.
HB: Just you and your sister.
MB: Yeah.
HB: Yeah. And your sister was called —?
MB: Frances.
HB: Frances. Yeah.
MB: Frances Johnson.
HB: Yeah.
MB: And then Pete came along like so that made an extra one. And then, eventually I went in to the now, we’re getting desperate I think. It was a case of, ‘Do you want to be in a factory?’ ‘No, thank you.’ ‘Do you want to be on the land?’ ‘No, thank you.’ ‘I want to go — [laughs] I always wanted to go in the WAAF because while I was young they built Cottesmore you see.
HB: Right.
MB: So, I always associated with them.
HB: Yeah.
MB: The Air Force sort of thing. And one of my cousins —
HB: Yeah.
MB: He was, he became a wing commander in the Air Force.
HB: Right.
MB: And then he went out to Canada with the, after the war he transferred to the Canadian Air Force.
HB: Right.
MB: And spent the rest of his time out there.
HB: So, so you actually you were working in, in the restaurant but then as as the war was declared were you obviously you carried on in the war. Roughly when were you called up then Muriel?
MB: About, what’s it say on that mug, Peter. No this —
Other: This one here?
MB: Yeah. Tony did that for me.
Other: What would you say? The glasses. I haven’t got my glasses.
MB: Oh, you haven’t got your glasses on. My nephew has done this for me. Oh, that is the right number. You can have a look at that if you like.
HB: So, this is, this is a lovely —
MB: Tony had that done at the museum at —
HB: Cup for a WAAF.
MB: Where was it at. What’s that museum called down in Shropshire? They have got —
Other: Near Telford.
MB: Yeah. Near —
HB: And you were right with your service number because this mug is, has got the crest.
MB: Yeah.
HB: With WAAF in the middle and it’s got 489709.
MB: I’ve got that.
HB: ACW1 Muriel Blake. Safety equipment worker. RAF Mepal.
MB: Yeah.
HB: January 1944 to February 1946.
MB: Yeah. Because then I came out sick.
HB: So it was the beginning of 1944.
MB: Oh, yeah.
HB: That you went in. So what was your, what was your, how, what was your process for joining?
MB: Well, as I say I’d always, when I was young I wanted to be in the Fleet Air Arm. Don’t ask me why because it fascinated me [laughs] Planes fascinated me and so I wanted to be in the WAAFs so I said I’d volunteer, to choose and go in the WAAF. So that’s where I went and that was when I down here I went down to Ulverscroft Road. Do ad they still do that there? We did all the recruiting. All these girls [laughs] all these girls.
HB: That’s Ulverscroft Road in Leicester. Yeah.
MB: Yeah.
HB: Yeah.
MB: I had a quiet life really and all these girls were all out of the country and that. I didn’t know Leicester people. I thought, well, a lot of Leicester people were awful you know. All these women used to walk about with their rollers in their hair. I used to say to my mother. ‘Do you know they go in to town on a Saturday afternoon. They’ve still got their rollers in their hair.’
HB: Oh dear.
MB: She said, ‘Yeah. But they’ll all be dressed up tonight in the pub.’
HB: Yeah. So, you went to Ulverscroft Road to sign up.
MB: Signed up there.
HB: Yeah.
MB: And —
HB: And what, what was that process like there?
MB: Well, it was alright to start with but we were all sitting there. There was two girls from Coalville and we, we all went for a medical and then the girl next to me they called her back and when she came back she was crying. So I said, ‘What’s the matter with you?’ So, she said, ‘They’ve just found out I’ve got TB,’ she said. So, I mean living in Coalville you could understand that really. All that dust. Can’t you? So, she said. Coalville. So, the next thing you know they called my name out. Muriel Blake. So, they said, ‘You’ve got to go back. The doctors want to see you again.’ I thought, ‘TB. I can’t have TB. I’ve lived in Oakham all my life. Nothing’s fresher than Oakham air.’ I was that indignant [laughs] I thought —
HB: Yeah.
MB: How can they call me back? There’s nothing wrong with me. I used to have rosy cheeks. So, I got back on the bed and I said, ‘Why have you called me back?’ He said, ‘It’s your hammer toe.’ [laughs] So I said, ‘It’s a family trait this is.’
HB: Oh right.
MB: It come from my mother and you know, goes through the family. I said, ‘I’ve always had a hammer toe ever since I was a child.’ So, he said, ‘Yes. But you can’t have a hammer toe. You can’t go in the forces with a hammer toe.’ I said, ‘Why not?’ ‘Well, you won’t be able to do the square bashing.’ So, she said, ‘You won’t be able to wear the shoes.’ I said, ‘I hope I’m not going to be square bashing all the time.’ [laughs] Anyway, all these doctors stood around me. They said, ‘No. You definitely won’t be able to go.’ So I said, ‘Don’t be so ridiculous.’ I said [laughs] ‘I’ve got through school and everything else. They aren’t painful.’ So, anyway, they let me go.
HB: Oh right.
MB: So then we went for interview for what job you were going to, wanting to do. So I wanted to be a driver and my father had taught me to drive through fields around, all around Luffenham and that. I mean they didn’t have to get licenses in those —
HB: No.
MB: In those days. So, I said, ‘I want to be, I’m going to be a driver. I would like to be a driver please.’ So he said, ‘No. You can’t be a driver.’ So I said, ‘Why not?’ He said, ‘You’re not tall enough.’ [laughs] I’m five two.
HB: Right.
MB: So, he said, ‘Anyway, you don’t weigh enough.’ I only weighed six and a half stone but I was as healthy as anything.
HB: Yeah.
MB: There was nothing wrong with me. So, I said, ‘Now, what am I going to do?’ I said, ‘Why can’t I drive? My dad’s taught me to drive.’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘You wouldn’t be able to pull the crew buses. They’ll be to big for you, you see.’ Well, that’s what I wanted to do, wasn’t it?
HB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
MB: So I said, ‘Well, what other trade can I do?’ He said, ‘We’ll put you down as a mechanic.’ So I said, ‘You’ve got to be joking.’ I said, ‘If I knock a nail in the plane the plane will fall to pieces.’ I said, ‘I haven’t the faintest idea how to do anything like that.’ Still haven’t. So, he said, ‘Well, I don’t know. What can you do?’ he said, ‘You could be set, we’ll try safety equipment.’ So they put me down. I’d no idea what safety equipment was but that’s what they put me down for. So offer came back, waited for the papers which eventually came and my dad, I went from Leicester and my dad, my mum and dad came over to see me off on the train. Very, we were all tearful and that you know like you would be. And I went to near, [pause] where’s the big training camp place. I’ve forgotten that now. Oh hell.
HB: There was quite a few.
MB: Yeah. Where they, where we all went.
HB: Was it up near Blackpool?
MB: Yeah. No, it wasn’t Blackpool. No. It wasn’t Blackpool.
HB: Yorkshire.
MB: Wilmslow. At Wilmslow.
HB: Wilmslow.
MB: Yeah.
HB: Right.
MB: We went to Wilmslow. And they sat, they all got on the train. There were a lot of girls on the station and we all got on the train and I thought coming from the country you see I thought all these city girls, they were born wiser than me and I thought well I’m not going to cry on the train. I wouldn’t let anybody know that I’m upset. So I sat in the carriage you know, I’m full of myself and all the rest. I looked at the rest of these Leicester girls and they were all crying [laughs]
HB: Dear.
MB: And we gets to the hut and they said, [unclear] to have something to eat. And we sat at these long tables. We’d always, you know done everything right because we was at nanny, you know. I mean at teatime we had an embroidered cloth and at lunchtime we had a proper, you know we used to have a dinner at dinner time. Everything was always very proper. And somebody said, ‘Pass the jam.’ And there was a big dish like that with all this horrible jam in it and they went whoosh like that and shot it [laughs] And I thought oh my mother would die.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. Not at home anymore.
MB: No. No. And they, they gave us all this stuff for carrying. You know, your uniform and your blankets and that and took us to this hut and just as we were going to bed all these girls were crying again [laughs] I thought they’re not as tough as they look, you know. They all looked as if they knew it all.
HB: Yeah.
MB: And that was it. We did they square bashing which I wasn’t very keen about really. I don’t think anybody was in those days. And then I got sent to [pause] Where? The one near Cambridge.
HB: Mepal.
MB: No.
HB: Mepal.
MB: No. The one at Waterbeach.
HB: Oh.
MB: Waterbeach, because Waterbeach was the —
HB: Waterbeach. Right.
MB: That was near Cambridge. That, that was the main one and Mepal and Witchford were new ones that had been built.
HB: Right.
MB: During the war, you know. Quickly.
HB: Yeah.
MB: They were the satellite ones but we went to the, I went to the Waterbeach one. I mean that was another thing. I mean people don’t understand in those days I mean it wasn’t that you didn’t have perhaps the money but people didn’t dash around on holiday and, I mean, we used to go out for days you know. Dad would take us to Hunstanton and things like that and I think I’d been to London a couple of times and he’d taken us round. But you hadn’t done things on your own so much. And there you were with a kit bag [laughs]
HB: Yeah.
MB: And a big paper telling you where you were going. And we got off the train at Cambridge and thought how the devil am I going to get to Waterbeach?
HB: Right.
MB: And then you see somebody in uniform, you know. They tell you what to do. And, and then of course I went in to the safety equipment section and they’d heard nothing about it. And there was mostly men in there in the parachute section and I was fairly new I suppose. A bit young and inexperienced. And there was one little fella and he, he was a lot older you know. He was a bloke in his fifties or forties I should think perhaps, been in the Air Force before but he was lovely and he taught, he was teaching me how to do them. A parachute. And I always used to forget the rip cord handle. The last bit you put on is the most important bit which pulls the parachute out and I always used to forget to fasten it, you know and me being anxious like. And I wasn’t there very long before I got posted to Hereford there, and Credenhill and he, and he brought me a little present, and inside the present, now that’s upstairs, I think, a scruffy little bit of paper like that, and it said, “Don’t forget the ripcord.” [laughs]
HB: I like it. I like it.
MB: And so then I went to, we went to Credenhill which was terrible. Horrible. Half way up a mountain.
HB: Where was that? Grand hill?
MB: Credenhill.
HB: Credenhill.
MB: Is it still there?
HB: I don’t know.
MB: No. It’s outside Hereford. It was halfway up [laughs] halfway up a mountain somewhere.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
MB: And it was absolutely isolated and it was freezing cold and they, that’s where we did the training, you know for the, it was, there was, it was a big place.
HB: Did the, did they fly from there or—
MB: No. No. No.
HB: No. That was purely —
MB: That was just pure training.
HB: A training place. Yeah.
MB: It was a mixed. There wasn’t just parachutes and dinghies and, you know it wasn’t just safety equipment. I tell you who were there, not that you saw them because it was so big except if you happened to be in the same section, you know, training on, on the same things was the paratroopers. They’d never let anybody pack their parachutes. They packed their own.
HB: Yeah.
MB: And of course, they used to have to have them for you know all the materials and that that they dropped.
HB: Yeah.
MB: I mean their parachutes were much bigger and much more complicated than ours were. And so we went on and of course we went from one section to another and we marched all the time. We had this awful [laughs] awful sergeant. Auburn haired she was. And she marched us. Marched us there and she marched us there and because we were all new you know and a bit rebellious so when she wasn’t looking we used to nip between the different buildings and come out the other side and so she used to lose us. In the end she bought, got herself a bike.
HB: Just so she could check if you were.
MB: She got track.
MB: Yeah.
MB: Cycling round these buildings. ‘There you are. What are you doing?’ ‘Oh, well we just went around that way. We thought it would be quicker.’
HB: Dear me. So, so you learned you, what you’re learning then is, is packing the parachutes and getting them ready.
MB: Yeah. And the dinghies. And the dinghies.
HB: For the crews to use.
MB: And the big dinghies.
HB: I was curious about the dinghies because I don’t think people really think much about the dinghies but —
MB: Well, they were, that was what did my back in. That’s why I had to come out you see.
HB: Right.
MB: Because I slipped my disc. They were the hardest and especially if you got new. You see, when a plane crashed you lost everything so it all had to be replaced.
HB: Right.
MB: And the dinghies you’d get the rubber so they were really hard but we used to have to go every so often. The parachutes we kept you know. They came and collected, as they were going off on the ops they’d come and collect their parachute. But the dinghies were always in the plane and then we did this big one in the wing as well.
HB: Yeah.
MB: We used to climb out on the wing. But they, we used to have to fetch them out every so often and replace them and bring them back in to the, there was, there was a parachute section and a dinghy section. They were separate. They weren’t —
HB: Yeah.
MB: They weren’t all in the same building. And the dinghy section it was you had to wear, well they were made I suppose, blanket slippers over your shoes. You weren’t allowed to go without anything on your shoes and everything was absolutely perfect because when you blew them up you blew seven parachute err dinghies up. You know the least little bit of petrol or anything would make a hole in it.
HB: Yeah.
MB: So —
HB: Yeah.
MB: We used to have to, and we’d blow them up for so many hours and then we used to have to repack them again and then we used to have to let them down again. But they went in a pack, like a parachute pack so and we used to have to, used to, we used to get literally there was three, three girls in our section. The rest were men and we used to literally have to kneel on the table you know to get our balance to get them done.
HB: Right.
MB: And you’d get to the last bit, you know and you’d be bounding away. And then we used to have to take them back. And we used to ride all round the perimeter tracks, me and another girl and there used to be a fella used to go with us and we used to have one across the handlebars and one on each handlebar cycling round the perimeter track because all the planes were all the way around.
HB: Yeah.
MB: So you’d go from one bay to another.
HB: On bikes.
MB: Yeah. On bikes. So, you’d have, I’d have three, Vi would have three and the other, the fella, I can’t think what his name was. A Londoner, he was lame. And he, I think he had two. He were in charge I think.
HB: Yeah.
MB: Or he probably only had one knowing him. And then we would have to replace them. But then we would have to bring the others back you see as well.
HB: Did you, did you actually go in to the aircraft and go out on the wings to do it?
MB: Yeah. Yeah. Yes, so then we used to go in the, used to go and get in the planes you see and sometimes you used to be, they used to be revving them up. The engineers did and that.
HB: Yeah.
MB: The mechanics. And Vi and I used to hide you see. We used to put them in, put one in and then you think how manys going off any minute now. They never did. And we’ll hide and perhaps we will get a ride. And they used to be, ‘Come on you two.’ ‘Oh, I thought we were going to get to do, you know circuit and bumps around the camp.’ But no such thing.
HB: Yeah. Right.
MB: And we used to come. Yeah. We used to put the big ones —
HB: So that was at, that was at Mepal.
MB: That was at Mepal on the way back. Yeah.
HB: After you’d done your training at Hereford. Yeah. Yeah.
MB: Yeah. Yes. As I say I didn’t go back to Waterbeach. I went back to Mepal. And there was Mepal. Witchford was three miles from Ely and Mepal was six miles from Ely.
HB: Right.
MB: So, we used to —
HB: So, what, what sort of aircraft were they, were they flying out in your particular —
MB: Lancasters. When I first went, when I went to Waterbeach they were Stirlings.
HB: Right.
MB: But by the time I got back, we got back, well I got back, I don’t know where the others went. I expect they were spread all over. They were Lancasters.
HB: Right.
MB: They’d got Lancasters. It just, you know. They were just becoming very popular like everywhere.
HB: Yeah.
MB: Yeah.
HB: So you, so you would go out. So you, although you were doing the dinghies you, were you still doing the parachutes as well?
MB: Oh yeah. Yeah.
HB: Yeah.
MB: We used to swap over.
HB: So you’d swap over.
MB: You see. Yeah. We used to fetch the, we always used to have to hang the parachutes every so often. You had to unpack the parachutes and in a parachute section they had what they called a well, like that. They had this huge table and then there was, they called it a well and then there was like, like pulleys like you had for washing lines really.
HB: Yeah.
MB: And we used to have to take the parachutes out and hang them and hang them for so long so to get the creases out and that. And then we used to have to take them down and repack them but the tables were, well the length of the whole parachute really.
HB: Right.
MB: And you had to get the top of it and hook it on the top end and then spread it all out. There was all the silks, you know all on panels like that. Then there was all the cords and then a pack at the bottom and you were at the bottom with this length and you had to shake, shake all your cords out like that and then separate them and separate all the folds and then get them all perfectly straight. And then in the pack it was all zipped like that and you had a big hook and he had to say you had to start with the cords and hook that way in, out, in, out. Well, if you didn’t get it in out right the parachute wouldn’t come out. You’d got to get it —
HB: Right. Yeah. Yeah.
MB: You’d got to get it perfect. So then you’d do that, you’d do that and then you’d pull up again and you’d keep doing it. I mean, it wasn’t just a little length it was, well, you can imagine. It was quite long and you’d got all these cords that you had to have in the right place. Well, that was alright when you got that. But being small and the table was high we used to sit with our bottom on the side, the side of our bottom on the table.
HB: Yeah.
MB: And when Tony’s brother went for the same thing which was completely different, you know. With ejector seats and everything else in his day. I, he, he took me one day to one of the, he said we’ve got, we’ve got another section with the old stuff in. I’ll take you. Well, some of the fellas because he was a sergeant, some of the fellas that were working in the section when they came to look and I couldn’t even get up on the table.
HB: No. No. No.
MB: They said, ‘Oh, you’re rubbish.
HB: Yeah.
MB: But then when you’d got all the cords all in perfect then you started bringing in the silks you see. But you had to, you had to have two hands for the silks. You got them parted like that. They were narrow at the top like that sort of thing.
HB: Yeah.
MB: Like that curtain. Then you took the one panel over, then you took the other panel over, and then you took them over until you got it down to about as narrow as, like that.
HB: To, to about what? Just over a foot wide.
MB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB: Yeah.
MB: And then you’ve got to start bringing the silks in on top of the cords.
HB: Ah right.
MB: But you’d got those in at the certain way, you know.
HB: Yeah.
MB: Wave them in a certain way and then you got those all in and then you’d got side panels and you brought the side panels up and, like that and then you brought the second lot of panels up and then you’d got this little pack at the back with the rip cord in you see [laughs] That was the one I always forgot.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
MB: Because after you’d got that hold of you used to have these like concertina elasticy things with hooks on you know put over and then you had to do this little pocket thing for last with the ripcord handle and make sure you’d got the rip cord handle in right. So that when they ripped it open they just got the handle and as they pulled so they pulled it, pulled it all out sort of thing.
HB: Right. Yeah.
MB: And if they did it and if they, you know well landed in the, in the Channel like or they landed on this side because a lot of them did, got shot down you know.
HB: Yeah.
MB: And managed to just get here before they crashed and parachuted out. And then we used to have to sign for them all and when they carried them, because they came back to work they’d come to the girl and they’d look in the book to see who had done it and they’d give us a pound [laughs]
HB: Would they?
MB: Yeah. The crew would give you a pound. And a pound was a lot because we only got —
HB: Wow. Yes.
MB: Two pound fifty a fortnight [laughs]
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
MB: And they’d say, ‘Thank you very much,’ you know, ‘For packing my parachute and here’s a pound for you.’
HB: Yeah.
MB: It wasn’t on all camps but it was on ours you know. We used to be chuffed to death. Not we weren’t chuffed to death. The poor bloke got shot up.
HB: Yeah. That’s right, but a pound for a life isn’t a bad price, is it?
MB: No. Not for a life is it?
HB: Yeah. So, so yeah so, so that was I mean that was quite well it wasn’t just a responsible job, that was very obvious it was a responsible job.
MB: It was a very responsible job but I don’t think it was ever recognised. The funny thing is that Tony I say is at, where is he now? Shropshire, isn’t it? What’s the, what’s the name of his camp?
Other: Cosford.
MB: Yeah. Cosford, he ended up at, he was, he’d been in ever since he left school. Well not quite as soon as he left school.
Other: Yeah.
MB: But when he was old enough. He was the last of the conscripts Tony was. Not just him but his [whole] crew.
HB: Yeah.
MB: But he, as he said they, when he went to Germany, Malta and Cyprus and I think he went to Iran with the, either Iran or Iraq with the crews, you know. His wife didn’t go there. I should think she’s stayed in Cyprus. But it, as he said the thing is that everything was so different now isn’t it? I mean there’s the ejector seats and the, they had to be in charge of them. And, and —
HB: Well, if somebody, somebody had probably still got to pack the parachute and —
MB: Yeah. Yes. Oh, yes.
HB: And that, and that wouldn’t and that still wouldn’t be a lot different to what you used to do.
MB: They used to sit on the parachutes, the parachutes. They used to sit —
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
MB: No, they didn’t. They sat on the dinghies. That’s it. They had the dinghies round the bottom. They sat, because we used to have to take them over when we took the dinghies in and out. We had to go to each section. We used to have to go to the rear bomber you know at the end and the rear gunner and put in his. I mean he had a very isolated job really. I mean, it was right at the other end and he was completely shut off. We had one lad, he got shot up and the, the plane got back but he’d been shot in the eye. You know, the plane had been shot and he’d got shot in the eye and we had to go and fetch the parachutes and it was absolutely covered in blood you know because basically it was on his front. And he lost his eye. He was only nineteen but he came back and he came back to you know to see us all it was. That was rather nice but I never liked this. It hung up for ages this bloody parachute. You know. With all his blood on it.
HB: Yeah.
MB: I suppose it was all [unclear] but it —
HB: So what would, what would happen with that then? Would you, would you have, would your team have cleaned it and —
MB: Well —
HB: Got it ready again or —
MB: No. No. No. They wouldn’t have used that one again, no.
HB: No.
MB: But it was, I suppose it was all a bit, you know they had these consultations and God knows what because I mean when they come back from bombing raids we, my friend and I she was a tailoress and of course she was very popular because if a crew went missing they had to keep up the, you know sergeant’s and officer’s —
HB: Yeah.
MB: And that sort of thing. They’d got to keep the compliment up all the time.
HB: Oh yeah.
MB: How many at each camp. So, if a crew, two or three crews went missing then there would be an officer, sergeant and corporal and they’d all want their flashes altered on their uniforms.
HB: Oh, right. Yeah.
MB: So, they’d be all, I used to go in to the tailoring jobs. She wasn’t the only one. There was a man in charge. He was a tailor as well. And they’d all be in there with the uniforms and, ‘Oh look, can you put my sergeant’s on.’ Can you do this? Can you do that?
HB: Oh right. Right.
MB: She was always very popular.
HB: Yeah.
MB: And as for going out on leave we used to get, I used to get heading out the gates it would be [laughs] —
HB: Yeah.
MB: She was so popular and I was. We used to go out at night. We never used to sign out. They used to say, ‘All right, girls you can come in.’ Us two.
HB: Yeah. Oh.
MB: Everybody else used to have to go around the other side.
HB: I see.
MB: Oh, she was a very popular girl she was.
HB: Yeah.
MB: But, yes —
HB: So, so you were, you were at Mepal. That would be what? 1944 through to ’45.
MB: Yeah.
HB: And you didn’t go, you didn’t go anywhere else other than Mepal until —
MB: As I say I came out then because I slipped my disc doing the parachutes.
HB: Right.
MB: And I get a pension actually.
HB: Oh right.
MB: And I was ill for about two years. Not ill ill but I —
HB: No.
MB: I couldn’t walk you know. I was in a terrible state really.
HB: Yeah.
MB: But —
HB: Well, put that to one side and we’ll go back a little bit to the happier times. So, what was the social life like?
MB: Well, it was good. I mean that was the, everybody was friendly and that. We used to go to the sergeant’s mess and as I say we used to go to the dances at the sergeant’s mess but you see we were on, I was on a New Zealand squadron and it was, I didn’t realise that, I think I read it somewhere a little while ago. That the New Zealand squadron was already here before the war. Whether they’d come like when Tony went to Iraq and Iran, one of those countries he went to and he went with the crews to, you know kind of a practicing for good,, you know fellas appearing, and when the New Zealanders belonged to or were part of us anyway weren’t they —
HB: Yeah.
MB: New Zealand and the Australians. And they apparently, they were already over here. They’d already set up a base here and —
HB: Right.
MB: But how they got up to Mepal I suppose they moved them there when they’d come.
HB: And that was 75 Squadron.
MB: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah.
HB: Yeah. The New Zealanders.
MB: But they were, they were nice. They were very nice. Nice, the new Zealanders were but we also had Australians and South Africans as well. So but, because one of the girls in our hut where I was they sort of all the trades were in huts you know. Were together in huts. I mean, the cook, the cook, cooks oh, it’s awful really but I mean the girls were probably ever so nice but the cooks were in completely different huts to what we were because, well they had to get up at the crack of dawn, didn’t they? You know.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
MB: Get the breakfasts and that.
HB: Disturb everybody if they didn’t.
MB: The awful breakfast that we used to get but and so if you, and us girls used to have to be on, used to have to do duty you see in the office, in the what do you call it by the guard gate there and if you did, if you were on the night there you had to wake the [laughs] you had to wake the cooks up and you used to get a list like this of the huts in the dark with the flashlight. You daren’t make too much light, you know. And hut so and so. We had to find that to start with. It was quite a big camp and then, and then you had to go in and it was the third bed on the left. On the left. At 4.30. Right. 4.30. Off you’d go creeping, frightened to death of frightening anybody. Go one, two, three. ‘It’s 4.30.’ ‘What?’ ‘It’s 4.30. 4.30. You’ve got to get up at 4.30.’ ‘It’s not me. It’s her over there.’
HB: Oh no.
MB: By this time they’d got the whole hut up and they could swear those girls I can tell you.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine.
MB: ‘It’s not me. It’s not me. It’s her over there. Why did you wake me up for?’ So, I used to, used to go and ask the others and I used to creep out and used to look. There was six there. Oh God, it’s the same hut.
HB: Oh no.
MB: I used to hate that. When we used to be on guard duty. That was the worst bit when and then when you used to go for breakfast you know we used to have to go down for, used to go down for breakfast.
HB: You said, now you said something earlier there. You said about the horrible breakfast. What did you used to have for your breakfast then?
MB: Constipated egg.
HB: Oh right.
MB: Dried egg.
HB: Yeah.
MB: You see and that was the other thing that when the aircrews were you know they had an idea when they were going off and they and they’d get, they’d get a meal you see. They always had egg and chips. Egg and chips. I mean, that was a luxury for us.
HB: Yeah.
MB: Egg and chips. So they got egg and chips when they got bacon or whatever they got but they’d go in the sergeant’s mess and they’d have all this lovely meal. I mean they were entitled to all this lovely meal but we girls, us girls in the parachute section when they used to go we used to say, ‘Why do you get egg and chips every time?’
HB: Yeah.
MB: ‘It’s not fair.’ ‘Well, we’re, we’re entitled to it.’ ‘No. You’re not. We never get fresh eggs.’
HB: Oh dear.
MB: Makes me laugh really. And then perhaps it would be scrubbed and, you know they were going later so they would probably get another meal before they went.
HB: Yeah.
MB: They’d probably get two lots. And we used to cycle six miles to Ely just to stand in a queue, now you won’t believe this down the street at this little café that used, where she got her eggs from I don’t know but she used to serve egg and chips and there’d be a great long queue of people and you’d probably stand there an hour because the place is only tiny and it would be full. You had to wait until they’d ate their egg and chips and then you’d move forward.
HB: Wow. Yeah. I can believe that.
MB: Just to get [laughs] get a fresh egg.
HB: Yeah. So, you used, you used to, you used to cycle to Ely.
MB: Yes.
HB: Did you used to go to Ely for dances and things like that?
MB: Yeah. No. No, because we used to have the dances on the camp. We had enough dances on camp. We were allowed in the, we didn’t go in the officers we were allowed in the sergeant’s mess, you see. We used to go to the sergeant’s mess to the dances. But we used to go to the pictures at Ely. We used to go to the pub and we used to go to the pub at Mepal and Sutton. The nearest village was Sutton and if, if a crew had finished a tour of ops which was thirty then they would, it would go around the camp such and such you know they’d only got their own markings. K for Kiddy or whatever they were. They’d finished their tour of ops and having a do at the pub at Sutton they’d say and off we’d go.
HB: Right.
MB: Someone would get on the piano you know and they used to drink. They used to have this, I didn’t do it but they used to have this, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it, they used to have pints of beer and they used to sing this song. And I can’t remember that now but it was all about a good old fella and so and so and every time they said something they all, they had to drink, you know.
HB: Right.
MB: I think they were about sloshed by the time they’d finished.
HB: Yeah.
MB: But that used to be good because they’d be finished then. They’d be going off the camp, you know. Another crew would be coming.
HB: Yeah.
MB: But when they, we, I used to have to go. We used to have to go, well I used to go down to the office, the main office to pick up the dead list in the mornings to see, you know it was to find out how many parachutes and dinghies we’d lost you see. So that used to be —
HB: Of course. Yeah.
MB: Used to get down and pick up the, pick up the list but it used to be when I think about it now I mean of all the computers and that well they used to have a kind of a machine with the photographs because they always had cameras on their planes and they’d, they’d spot it, you know. One would be on and I’d be waiting to sort, and I would be looking and somebody goes. ‘What are you doing? Leave that. You’re not looking at that.’ You know.
HB: Yeah. Of course, you don’t, you know people like us we don’t, we don’t relate that, you know. Obviously, planes had been shot down. Crews had been lost.
MB: Yeah.
HB: And as you say you need to know.
MB: Yeah, because we’d got to know because I mean and it’s, I mean it, I think people that made the Lancasters, the bombers during the war, they were fantastic because I mean as soon, you weren’t, again you’d got to keep the number up all the time and the thing is that as soon as you’d lost a plane or two or three planes overnight. Whichever. They’d have to be replaced. You’d get a new crew in.
HB: Yeah.
MB: You see. That was the thing because you’d got to keep the number up of the squadron. You’d got to keep the squadron number up all the time.
HB: Yeah.
MB: Apart from the sergeants wanting to be promoted.
HB: Yeah.
MB: I mean those that were left you had to get new crews in. When you think of all these young girls that were making all these Lancaster bombers. I mean you see pictures of them now hammering these great big bolts in. Well, now it’s all done by electricity, isn’t it?
HB: Yes. Yes. Yes.
MB: I mean, I think they, you know they should have had medals as well.
HB: So, you’ve got, you’ve got 75 Squadron and, and you know, you’re coming towards obviously 1945. You’re coming towards the end of the war.
MB: Well, that’s why we were so busy, I think. You know.
HB: Yeah.
MB: You see, that’s when the Lancasters first came in to themselves, didn’t they then?
HB: Yeah.
MB: It was the Lancasters that really helped to finish off the war, wasn’t they?
HB: Yeah. And you had other squadrons at Mepal then towards the end of the war.
MB: Well, not on our camp where I was.
HB: Did you not, did you not have the Rhodesia Squadron? 44. 44 Rhodesia Squadron because weren’t they going out to the Far East or something.
MB: I don’t know. Don’t know. Not while I was there. It was still —
HB: Right.
MB: But they were, they were, it was a mix. They weren’t all New Zealanders, you know. I mean they were, I say they were from South Africa, Australia and all over the place.
HB: Yeah.
MB: But in our hut we had the Met girls. They were very posh you know. They were really posh well you know I suppose but they were all college girls. Clever girls you know.
HB: Yeah.
MB: The Met sort of thing. I couldn’t have done it. But they were, they were smashing girls. They were all very well educated. I mean again everything is done on computers now, isn’t it?
HB: It is. Yes. Yeah.
MB: It was all the weather and that you know but they were ever so, they really were friendly. And I I used to go home. We used to go home at weekends and without a pass and they used to put the, they used to put all sorts of things. Your kit bag in your bed you know and make it look like you were asleep when the sergeant came.
HB: So, you went absent without leave were you?
MB: Yeah. Well, we had the Armstrong Siddeley men came to mend the planes. They didn’t mend all of them because I mean they all had the —
HB: Oh the civilian contractors.
MB: Yeah.
HB: Yes.
MB: They were in the next group to us and they came from Coventry. Well, they knew that I came this way so if they went home, they used to go home on a Friday so they used to say they’d give you a lift you see. So there used to give me a lift. So there used to be two of them. One used to give me a lift and the other one used to take me a weekend case so I didn’t have to go out with a weekend case.
HB: Right. Were you in uniform?
MB: Yeah. Of course, I was. Yeah. They used to, they used to drop me off at, before Market Harborough for some reason. And that was it. That’s where they dropped me and I used to stand there, you know, thumbing it.
HB: Did you?
MB: And I used to get I thumbed down to Leicester to my sister or if I was lucky I got further on to Oakham. That was on a Friday and I used to come back on a Sunday. I used to get the last train from, from Oakham to Stamford and Peterborough and then from Peterborough to Ely. I used to have to change and I mean they grumble now but Peterborough Station was down there and the station that was going to take me to Ely was right the other side of Peterborough town. So in the pitch dark you used to have to walk there to get this last train which was about ten, half past ten at night and I used to get on this train and get off at Ely. But now that’s what the other fella used to do. He used to take my bike and he used to put it in the pub. There was a pub right on the station at Ely.
HB: You got it all sorted, hadn’t you?
MB: And no, not me, not just me. I mean all the airmen used to do it. It used to be full of bikes and they never charged us. So you used to get off. You’d see, this was Sunday night. You’d get off about 11 o’clock at night and in the pitch dark. You’d have a little torch and you’d go around until you found your bike. You’d get your bike and you’d creep out of the station. Get on the road and there were no lights and it was all fenland, you know.
HB: Yeah.
MB: There were no trees or anything and you’d be cycling all along all on your own and then suddenly an airmen would catch you up and he’d say, ‘Hello. Are you alright?’ So, ‘Yes, thank you.’ ‘Where are you going?’ ‘Mepal.’ ‘Oh, I’m just going to Witchford. Do you, shall I ride at the side of you?’ ‘Oh, thank you very much.’ So they’d ride along you see chatting away and he’d say, ‘I turn off here for Witchford.’ Because as I say we were all groups. Off he’d go and then I’d be cycling along again and you couldn’t go in the main gate so you used to have to go around and creep through a hedge. And I just got in. Got in through the, there was a hedge between the WAAF site and one of the bays. And I just got in one night and I heard this woman say, ‘Airwoman,’ in the dark. ‘Yes. Yes.’ ‘Where are you going?’ ‘I’m just going in.’ ‘Where have you been?’ ‘Oh, I’ve just had a little ride around.’ [laughs] ‘Come and see me in the morning,’ she said. So of course, I went in.
HB: Was that one of the officers?
MB: Yeah. And I woke up. I woke my, I think I must have woke the hut up, you know and got, ‘Serves you right. You’ve been doing it for ages.’ [laughs] I got no sympathy.
HB: So, you got caught.
MB: And I got caught.
HB: Basically.
MB: I can’t remember what happened. I got away with it I think in the end.
HB: I don’t know. I don’t know.
MB: But we, where the WAAF site was we weren’t on the main camp. That’s another thing you see. They kept the women away from the men.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
MB: I mean it’s, it’s so different now isn’t it? I mean we were only sort of outside but they were big these camps were, you know so we, there was a hedge there where our hut was and we used to creep through the hole on the hedge and we were on the perimeter track and we used to watch the planes take off at night. So, it was a fantastic sight really because all these Lancasters would be coming round and as they got to each bay they felt they’d got in to the queue.
HB: Followed on.
MB: Until they got to where they took off you know. And I mean when you see the, when we used to fetch take the dinghies and that I mean when you see the amount of armoury that went in you’d wondered how they ever got off the ground because they were big enough without all the bombs that went in.
HB: Yeah.
MB: And the girls, two of the girls in the armoury in our hut and I mean more female girls you’d never know but they used to ride on the bomb trains. They used to sit astride the bomb trains going around from one. They used to be ever so long you know.
HB: Yeah.
MB: Sort of, they went all the way around and that.
HB: Yeah.
MB: But its as I say you know nobody, nobody took any notice really. But one night there was one night we got bombed. One of the German planes had followed our planes in.
HB: Right. Yeah.
MB: And started firing and I think they got rid of them in the end. But then one night I was fast asleep and everybody was screaming my name. ‘Wake up. Wake up.’ So, I said, and they kept saying, ‘Wake up. Wake up.’ And there was this terrific bang and I opened my eyes and being a good catholic I thought I was dead and I’d gone to hell. Now —
HB: Right. Right. Yeah.
MB: I really thought I was on my way to hell. It was everywhere in this camp, in the hut was bright red and they, they, it was before the invasion really. They they’d taken, it got there was going to be a raid, there wasn’t going to be a raid. There was going to be a raid. They kept on and on and they kept taking the bombs off, putting them back, feeding the what do you call it’s with their egg and chips.
HB: Yeah.
MB: And that. And then this one particular night they decided that they weren’t going to take the bombs off so they left this time the bomb on and it was the plane in the bay. I say it was just a matter of over there and through the, through the hedge and this one, the time itwent off and we went over to see the next day and it was just a hole in the ground and nothing left of the plane or anything else. There was a wonder there was anything left of us.
HB: So, that just, the bomb just went off.
MB: The bomb on it
HB: It wasn’t a raid or anything.
MB: The timed bomb went off on the plane and it just blew the plane to pieces. But the funny part of it was which it was funny I mean the fact we all got when we realised what had happened you know eventually. Nobody dare move to start with but we all got outside in our striped pyjamas you know shivering like but not one person came to see if the WAAFs were alright.
HB: Right. Oh, I bet that didn’t go down well.
MB: No [laughs] Pitch dark, freezing cold, in your pyjamas. Everywhere was red.
HB: Right. Yeah.
MB: Yeah. They never came to say, ‘Are the WAAFs alright?’ Perhaps —
HB: So did you, so actually so Mepal got attacked then. It was actually attacked by the Germans. The airfield.
MB: No. Only that once.
HB: Oh, just the once.
MB: This one fighter, German fighter. When the raid was on his way, I think he was on his way back from bombing, you know. Coming over here and he got caught up with ours coming back. I think that’s what they said.
HB: Right.
MB: So he thought he’d make himself followed them in and get himself a bit of glory but what happened I don’t know.
HB: Right. Yeah.
MB: But, but then we had an American got bombed up when they landed on our camp so great excitement. ‘It’s a Flying Fortress. Goy a Flying Fortress got bombed up last night.’ The crews have landed here. So we all went to see it. This Flying Fortress. A lot of us anyway. And the airmen were coming out. So we were counting them. They’d got, was it eight or nine. I said to one of them, I said ‘How many, how many crew have you got in your van?’ ‘Nine. We only have seven in our Lancasters.’
HB: Yeah.
MB: And right next to them they had their own feeding waggon. They didn’t eat our horrible food. Never once did they come in. And they used to have all these hot dogs and all this lovely food.
HB: Yeah.
MB: Being fried. And then the crew because obviously the crew went away and the mechanics came to repair the plane and they had this. It was right next them, this waggon that they were serving all this food to them [laughs] They never gave us any of it.
HB: That would be a popular job that would. Yeah. So so you got to you got to 1945 and you’ve got to around about May, June, July time and war’s coming to an end and finishing. So, what did you, what were your feelings then?
MB: Well, I came home at Christmas. That’s what I did I, as I say it was through the dinghies that I had my, I got this bad back but I came home at Christmas. Yeah. Because Pete and [Bar?] I brought them some toys because they, some of the mechanic ground crew used to make, make toys. They made lovely toys. I’ve got some pictures of Pete with one horse and cart thing they used to make and I came home with them because I went to Oakham first and then came back. Came around to Leicester because my sister had got all the Christmas dos to do, you know and I thought I’ll help her. I’d only come on leave but I could hardly walk and then I got said I couldn’t go back and that was it. I I went on the sick and then I had my, I ended up going to one of them, I can’t think where that was. Went to a big RAF hospital to start with and, and then they put me on sick leave again and then I ended up at the Royal here. Mr Morrissey. He was a wonderful orthopaedic surgeon at Leicester and he sent me to Oxford. To the Radcliffe Hospital there. That was the leading hospital for orthopaedics and that was when they decided that I’d got this. I’d slipped this disc. You know. I’d pulled a disc out. Of course, it comes out as a big nerve that it sits on but then that nerve split so that was split all the way in.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
MB: You know, this leg. It’s funny now now I’ve got an ulcer on it but it was, I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t feel it, you know. They were sticking needles in and all sorts of things.
HB: So that would have been what? Christmas 1945?
MB: Yeah.
HB: Right. So, what happened? What happened in camp when, when you know they said, ‘Right. That’s it. The war’s over.’
MB: I don’t know because I wasn’t there was I?
HB: You weren’t there.
MB: I was still at home.
HB: Right. Right.
MB: It, so I don’t know. It was quite a, when I when I did go on leave I went back to say, and I went back in the were there [unclear] and went back in a civilian coat and to say that I was, you know I was on this permanent sick. They made such a fuss of me because I was in, in civilian clothes. You know, they hadn’t seen a girl in civilian clothes for years. I bought these clothes from Adley’s shop was in those days. My mum went with me, bought this tweed coat. It were very posh that was.
HB: Right.
MB: I thought it was. But as I say I don’t know. I don’t know what happened on the, on the camp but I think eventually where, next to our bay there was another bay that never had its doors open. But one day I was outside doing something and the doors were open and so being nosy I went, I said to one of the airmen that was there. I said, ‘What’s in this? They never open the doors at this. I’ve never seen anybody in here.’ ‘Oh, you can’t see what this is,’ he said and it was all those strips of silver that they, they [pause] for the radar wasn’t it?
HB: Window.
MB: Yeah. The Windows, yeah.
HB: Yeah.
MB: That’s where they kept it. Next door. I didn’t realise that.
HB: Oh right.
MB: I never realised that. It was all full but they used to drop them to —
HB: Yeah.
MB: Do something to the radar according to a woman I worked with after the war. She, she was in the WAAF and she was on the radar section and she went blind and it was through the job that caused her eyes to, she lost her eyesight.
HB: Oh dear.
MB: Not during the war. It was after the war.
HB: Yeah.
MB: Her eyes got so bad but that’s what they put it down to.
HB: Yeah. So, we’ve got to, we’ve got to what? 1946.
MB: I think so. I don’t know. Don’t ask me.
HB: Around about 1946 and you’ve been invalided out. You’re coming out.
MB: Well, that was ages before when I was invalided out. I mean —
HB: Yeah. So you, so obviously all your kit had to go back. What did you do? Did you —
MB: No. Yeah. Well, that’s why I went back eventually. To take my kit back. What did I do then? I stayed at my sister’s until Dave,‘til their dad came back and then I went to, eventually when I could walk I was still lame but I went to the Post Office to train as a telephonist. They were advertising for ex-Service girls and because they were on war work. The telephonists were, you know. They couldn’t leave but when, that was funny it was the other day they was on about that. Yesterday. That even then they were civil servants. When you got married at the GPO you had to leave because you might one day have a baby.
HB: Yeah.
MB: And so you know if you got engaged well you know it was pretty short when you got married. You’d have to leave the job and so of course all the girls during the war, or a lot of them had got married to Forces and things like that and so their husbands were coming back and I suppose they wanted to set up home.
HB: So where did you do your training then, Muriel?
MB: Free Lane.
HB: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
MB: You remember Free Lane.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. The big, the big exchange. Yeah.
MB: Yeah, and yeah, we did. That’s where I was but we did our training on London Road. They had, down London Road they had like big offices there and that, that’s all gone now. we did a lot —
HB: Yeah.
MB: Of training down there. They had a big training section and so we did all the writing down there and then we used to come up on to the Exchange and used to sit behind the telephonist, you know and listen in and then they’d let you up on the board and somebody would be used to be sitting at the side you know in case you made a mistake and oh it was ever so strict that was and there was it was quite nice because there were all these girls, ex, I had some good friends. I had a girl, well one girl she’d been in the Army and she’d been down Bournemouth way and she was all involved in the invasion.
HB: Right.
MB: She was a telephonist on that.
HB: Yeah.
MB: And she was saying while before the invasion she said all along the roads there was all the Army and the Americans all camped, you know. Sort of in fields and that all waiting to go abroad you know.
HB: Yeah.
MB: All the ships were all waiting and that.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
MB: And another one, another friend of mine she, she was in the Wrens. She was in the Wrens. She was in the sea, at the sea and I was, there was me from the Air Force and. There was crowds of us and it was good really.
HB: Yeah.
MB: It was funny I was saying the other day you didn’t, you didn’t talk about your experiences like they say men don’t talk about it but my dad never talked about the First World War although you know he was out there all that time but I suppose this sort of thing, you sort of want to forget really.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
MB: But it —
HB: So just go back a bit. D-Day. June’44. What, how did you get the message that they’d actually landed or did you know it was going to happen?
MB: Well, I don’t know. Like everybody else I suppose. I don’t know. I know [pause] I was at my sisters I know because I know mum and dad, my dad went out for. I remember my dad going out for a drink at Oakham and my mother’s next door neighbour said, ‘Has Mr Blake gone out for a drink?’ So mum said, ‘Yes. It’s the usual thing. Left the women at home.’ So he said, ‘Come on then.’ So they went down the George which is the, was a good hotel down there and they walked in and my dad was there and he nearly fell on the floor when he saw my mother walking in, you know. It wasn’t the sort of thing ladies did in those days on their own.
HB: Yeah. I like it.
MB: But then they were, I can’t remember really. I can remember the, we had a big party and was Dave, Dave was born then and Dave was only a baby. That was another one of his brothers.
HB: Yeah.
MB: But show them the picture, Peter.
Other: Which one?
MB: You and Dave, you and Tony but we used to have a neighbourhood, we used to have neighbourhood league teams you know.
HB: Yeah.
MB: In the streets.
HB: Yeah.
MB: They all used to look after each other. They were good. We used to do all their apart from, well my sister did. She used to do weddings.
HB: Yeah.
MB: She used to do no end of weddings. She used to make beautiful wedding cakes. Her brother in law did because he was a chef because but then of course he came home so it was better but yeah, it suited them doing the catering for the weddings.
HB: [It would be] yeah.
MB: You see, it was good to get a wedding to get all the, you know nice food sort of thing.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I mean it’s a really really impertinent question to ask a lady but, so you never married.
MB: No.
HB: But did you have any near misses?
MB: [laughs] I’m not talking about them.
HB: You have then, right
MB: I laugh at that little book. It says something about, “I don’t know where Ron is tonight. I think he’s gone off me.” I said, who the devil Ron was I’ve no idea.
HB: That’s your little diary.
MB: That was at Hereford.
HB: Yeah. That was your little diary. Yeah. Yeah. So, right. Well, we seem to have come to a sort of a bit of a natural conclusion Muriel. When you, when you look back at your time in the WAAF what what do you think your best memory is of it?
MB: Well, I don’t know. The companionship. I mean my one regret is I mean I would have gone back if it hadn’t have been that I was no use to them because I just couldn’t.
HB: Yeah.
MB: I couldn’t. You know, I was, I was absolutely lame. I was in terrible agony. Firstly, they were going to operate and my niece who lives in South Africa she has had the operation. I think it’s a family trait and she can’t walk now.
HB: No.
MB: At Oxford they said that no way. They said, ‘She’s much too young to have a, have the operation.’ Have you know the disc put back. What they did they put me in plaster from here to here. Pulled me up on like, on ropes so that just my toes were on the ground and slapped all this plaster of Paris around me.
HB: Yeah.
MB: I was in that for months with just my head sticking out.
HB: Right.
MB: And my legs sticking out and that actually cured me and I know when I went again a few years later and I went back in to them again and it cured it again but that’s gone.
HB: Yeah.
MB: They don’t do that.
HB: No.
MB: They do this operation and my niece has had a steel rung cut up in to her spine and she’s in such agony now and they can’t even x-ray her because of this steel rod —
HB: Yeah.
MB: That she’s got in. So the old ways were [pause] better.
HB: Yeah. So obviously you’ve had this fantastic companionship and what not. What, what do you think was probably your worst memory? What was —
MB: The food.
HB: The food. Yeah.
MB: Yeah.
HB: Yeah. That’s a bit of a theme.
MB: Yeah. I suppose being away from home. I mean, you know although you had, I suppose it was so stark. I mean the hooks were cold and you had these old blankets and and we weren’t I mean when we got up in the morning everything had to be folded up you know and put in a heap on top and we were in the middle of fields and your windows were open and when you went back at night you used to pick your pillow up and it would be full of black beetles. You used to have to knock all them off. You know.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
MB: And the toilets and the bath things you know I mean they were so stark.
HB: Yeah.
MB: There was no comfort whatsoever. I mean it’s the, it’s the thought. You made the best of it, the fun of it and they used to have these little round fires you know. Little stoves. I mean that was all that kept you. Kept you warm. And I remember at Hereford at Credenhill a friend of mine we decided, we thought I mean people you were innocent in those days. I don’t care what anybody says. I mean even though you were in the Forces. We decided that if we put two beds together and then we’d have a double layer of all these blankets and we’d be really warm. She’d been in her bed, I’d be in my bed but we’d have all these. So we carefully did it during the during the day one day. We put the beds together and put all these blankets in and we were just about to get in and suddenly this, there used to be a sergeant at the end. She had a little room at the end of the huts and they were always a bit [unclear] so she came out, ‘Airwomen, what do you think you’re doing?’ ‘Oh, we thought it would be a good idea because we’re so cold that we could share the blankets.’ ‘Get those beds put apart,’ she said. Well, I’d no idea. I’d never heard of homosexuals or, or whatever they called women. It really never entered my head [laughs].
HB: Oh dear.
MB: And I don’t think the rest of the girls had. They just laughed because they thought we’d gone to so much trouble. And then I met another girl at another camp and she was the hairdresser. She was doing my hair and she was moaning and groaning about a friend who’d been posted. Well, you never got posted, you always got posted on your own and I mean you always had to pick up your stuff and go from one end of the country to the other and make your own way and find out, you know how you were doing it. And they, she kept on about her friend who had gone to Oxford and Oxford way and she so missed her and she was going to like, meet her halfway and if she’d got a day’s leave. And I thought what’s she making such a fuss about, you know, because you moved and you, you made new friends. Everybody immediately made friends, you know.
HB: Yeah.
MB: You weren’t isolated unless you were pretty horrible and, and that never failed. And then these two girls that worked in the armoury now they, they were ever such nice girls and they, they were very good friends but the sergeant she was a real mannish, very good looking blonde but she was like that apparently. She took one of these girls it was just like well I can’t explain what it was like. I couldn’t believe it and I still didn’t know what was going on [laughs]
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
MB: I mean you can’t believe in your early twenties you’d no idea what was going on.
HB: No. No. That’s very true.
MB: Now they’re flaunting it in front of you all the time.
HB: Yeah.
MB: But then when I, when I was at the Exchange the police wanted, the police advertised because they wanted some, they were going to have girls in their switchboards. So we all applied because we were all, you see there was, a lot of girls it was a big place Free Lane was, you know, it went all around the room, and of course we all worked shifts and but we always had you were on the board and then behind you was a supervisor for so many girls. Behind her was a Class 1, and then behind her was Miss Huddlestone who was in charge and she sat there in the middle of the room watching everything. She never missed a thing. And if you put your head like that to talk to the girl next to you, a hand would come out, take up a peg and plug it, and of course there were lights everywhere. Plug it in. You weren’t allowed to talk to anybody and if your wanted to go to the toilet you had to put your hand up and if there was anybody else had gone you didn’t go. You had to wait. It was ever so regimental. It had been like that since before the war, you see.
HB: Yeah.
MB: And I think they didn’t, they’d never met girls from the Forces before.
HB: Right. Yeah. So you didn’t get a job with the police then.
MB: Well, there was seventy tow when I went for the, Mr Cole it was when I went to the interview he said to me, ‘You talk to me,’ he said, ‘He says Now, I’m fed up.’ He says, ‘Do you know,’ he says, ‘I’ve had seventy two interviews from the girls from the Exchange.’ He said, ‘What’s the matter with the Exchange?’ So, I said, ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I said, I said, ‘Most, a lot of them are ex-forces now.’ I said, ‘They’ll, you know they’ve got to get settled down I think.’ ‘Hmmph,’ he said. Anyway, the next thing you know I’ve got a notice to say to go for a second interview and there were six of us out of the seventy two and I was one of the six. And they, the four, they wanted four and then the four that got it had all been telephonists in the Forces. They’d all, and I’d not done PBX telephony.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
MB: I’d done the GPO ones and that was, but I hadn’t done the private work and she said they didn’t think that we were experts and me and another girl there was. So we went back the next morning and she said, ‘No. She hasn’t got it.’ And I hadn’t got it. And within a week we had a letter from the Fire Service to say that they’d got two vacancies in their control room and we’d both got the job if we wanted it. We’d been recommended by Mr Cole.
HB: Wow. Yeah.
MB: So we were back in uniform then.
HB: Oh, right. Yeah. Of course, you would be. Yeah.
MB: Back in to the [unclear] uniform and stayed there until they brought the men back. Then of course —
HB: Yeah.
MB: Eventually they brought the men back. There used to be eight girls and then it got down to there was two of us eventually because the other girls spread out you know eventually but yes it was a good job that was. I cried my eyes out when I had to leave there.
HB: Oh, right.
MB: I had to leave because the men were coming back, you know.
HB: Yeah.
MB: Eventually. But —
HB: Well, I’ll tell you what Muriel you’ve got a good memory.
MB: Have I?
HB: Yes, you have. You have. Yeah.
MB: I’ve got a good tongue as well.
HB: It’s a shame we skated over a couple of bits I think but never mind. [laughs] We’ll, we’ll not go back to that.
MB: Oh right.
HB: Muriel can I thank you ever so much for that. It’s been really interesting. It’s a whole different aspect to what, you know to the normal sort of interviews you get and, and I really have enjoyed it. It’s been really good.
MB: Personal life.
HB: Yeah. So, if I thank you for that, Muriel.
MB: I’ve got a New Zealand button there.
HB: Sorry?
MB: I’ve got a New Zealand button there.
HB: Oh yeah.
MB: I cut it off his uniform. He wouldn’t give me his badge, cap badge so —
HB: Oh right. Ok. Well, we’ll draw a veil over that as well then. We’ve got stolen property, absent without leave.
MB: He said he wanted to take it back to New Zealand and I said, ‘Well, I want one.’ But, anyway he gave me a button in the end. He cut a button off his shirt.
HB: We’ll just have to check up on the regulations about whether or not you’re still wanted for being absent without leave. I’m going to stop the interview now. It’s, what time is it? I can’t see the time.
MB: No. No.
HB: Quarter past twelve.
MB: Is it? I don’t know. None of my clocks, oh it is. Yeah.
HB: Yeah. Quarter past two so I’m going to terminate the interview and thank you very much Muriel.
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 Muriel Blake
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Harry Bartlett
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
2018-07-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ABlakeMMD180711, PBlakeMMD1801
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:18:54 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Muriel Blake was born in 1922 in Oakham, Rutland. Being interested in flying and aeroplanes from an early age, Muriel volunteered when her job prospects ended. Called up in 1944, she joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. Being too short for driver, and turned down the job of mechanics, she became a safety officer. Throughout her service, she was posted to RAF Waterbeach, RAF Credenhill and RAF Mepal. Muriel recalls her time service stressing unpalatable food. She elaborates on different aspects such as service relationships, parties, celebrations, guard duty and having to wake people up, and finally packing parachutes and dinghies whilst working with 75 Squadron. One of her tasks was also to collect the list of crashed and missing aircraft to know how many parachutes and dinghies had been lost on operations and had to be replaced. It was tradition on her base that aircrew who had survived baling out would return, find out who had packed their parachute and along with their thanks paid the worker a pound. A slipped a disc ended her service in 1945. Following the war, Muriel moved around to several jobs, becoming a telephonist at the post office first, before eventually moving to a fire station
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sam Harper-Coulson
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Herefordshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
75 Squadron
ground personnel
military living conditions
military service conditions
perception of bombing war
RAF Credenhill
RAF Mepal
RAF Waterbeach
training
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/607/8876/AMaywoodRM151109.2.mp3
773cbbdec73ec1fb4e55919303593c37
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
Maywood, Dick
Richard M Maywood
R M Maywood
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Maywood, RM
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Richard 'Dick' Maywood (1923 -2016, 1623169 Royal Air Force), his log book and a certificate. He flew operations as a navigator with 608 and 692 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-11-09
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: This was the, this was the interview with Mr Richard ‘Dick’ Maywood at xxxx and he was a Mosquito Pathfinder navigator.
[Recording resumes]
RM: Above the main bomber stream. Twenty eight thousand. We carried one cookie.
CB: Four thousand pounder.
RM: Four thousand pounder.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And we had the Mosquitoes with the bulged belly. Now a lot of those — that was the B16. A lot of those appeared in the film, “633 Squadron.” Now, that film was the biggest load of bullshit you ever came across. It was so ridiculous that a lot of people would believe it. The bombs which they showed being loaded up on these, for the operation, were cookies. The four thousand pounder bombs that we carried with the peculiar tail fin added and they were supposed to drop these bombs so that they hit the base of the rock and bring it down. Now, with the four thousand pounder we were told safety height above one of those is five thousand feet or more. They wouldn’t have been more than five hundred feet away from that rock. So, the best part of that film as I was concerned was the theme song. The theme music.
CB: Yes. Exciting.
RM: Which I intend to have played at the end of my funeral service.
CB: Oh right.
RM: Because I’m gone.
CB: Yeah.
RM: The other Mosquito film they made. “Mosquito Squadron.” Again. That was largely, sort of, bull but there was one interesting point there which is true and that is the point where they had Mosquitoes practicing dropping bombs or lobbing bombs in to tunnels and that actually did occur. And one of the Polish squadrons. I think it was 305 was involved in that but other than that away we go. The Amiens raid which was a true one.
CB: Pickard. Yeah.
RM: That formed the basis of Mosquito squadrons attack. So, in actual fact “Mosquito Squadron” in spite of the American CO and all that sort of nonsense did contain certain aspects which were very true. Curiously enough, as I say, most of the light night striking force operations were either nuisance raids to divert fighter aircraft from the main bomber stream and were raids in their own right or they were on the same targets but about a mile higher than the main stream. So, some of them, the runs, were particularly with Berlin. They used to call that the Milk Run.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Yeah.
CB: So how did that work?
RM: In exactly the same way as an ordinary raid would be set out. You’d be given the route. You’d plot the route. And you’d be given the Met winds which the weather people had found and were vital because A — you needed it for navigation in the days of steam navigation. And you also needed it as the only setting to be put on the Mark 14 bomb sight. And that was the gyroscopically controlled one. I can tell you a story about that too. I shared a bombing range with a B17 on one occasion at Boxmoor near Oxford. We’re at twenty five thousand feet. We had six practice bombs. It was a NFT. And I was sharing a range with a B17 and he could not have been more than fifteen thousand feet. With the bomb and the pickle barrel from thirty thousand feet. Norden bomb sight. His bombing error was twice mine. I was knocking up around about sixty, seventy yards and he was around about the, probably a hundred and twenty, hundred and fifty yards and as I say he was probably ten thousand feet below me. Two miles below me. So much for the American bomb sight. And that Bomb sight the bombardier had to take it out of the aircraft every time he flew and put it back in to safe keeping and then draw it out because they didn’t want the Germans to get it. But what they’d overlooked was the fact that the Germans had hacked down quite a lot of B17s and knew everything about the bombsight. But there we go. I’m afraid that you are probably going to think that I am very biased against the Americans. I’m very biased against the American navy. And I’m not particularly, sort of enthusiastic about their air force either. Any air force which bombed in daylight, in formation. Well, at a steady height. Steady speed. Nearest approach to suicide you could get. The B17 crews, I must admit, were very very brave people. Very brave people. But in those days as I say we hadn’t got much reference for them because most of the big B17 stations were around here. in this area. Northamptonshire.
CB: Near Peterborough.
RM: Peterborough and that area.
CB: Yeah.
CB: And all that area. And George, my pilot, if we were coming off a night flying test he’d look around for one of these and he’d formate on a B17 and sort of drop his undercarriage and put the flaps down and sort of follow on its wingtips and then when he’d had enough of that he’d go clean. Both engines. And then he’d fly in a circle around them as they went along because I mean we could do a hundred and ninety knots quite comfortably on one engine. But to give you some idea. On one occasion, on an authorised low flying exercise an American B, a P47, the Mustang — formated on us. “Air Police” written along it’s side and he was going like this. More or less telling us to get up. I gave him the washout sign. I said to George my pilot, I said, ‘We’ve got a visitor.’ ‘What’s that?’ He looked, ‘Oh him,’ he said. He said, ‘Let’s teach him a lesson.’ And he just took both engines through the gate and we left.
CB: Left him standing.
RM: Within a minute he was a dot. He could have beaten us at low level because of course our B16s that we were flying at that time, although it’s low level, really didn’t get into their own until we were at twenty one thousand feet or over. But going through the gate gave us that little bit extra. And that was it. Because we used to — from Downham Market we exited down between the old and new Bedford Levels right down to Royston. That was our route out. Incidentally, after VE day they said, ‘You’re coming off high level bombing. You’re going low level daylight in the far east and map reading.’ Now, that is the equivalent of going off an HGV on to formula one practically. Now, a lot of people don’t believe this but I can assure you, hand on heart, that it’s true. We were told, ‘Now, when you go to low level that is fifteen to twenty five feet.’ And we did it. Fortunately, my pilot, when he was an instructor in Canada at Estevan on Oxfords had four instances of collecting rubbish from the undercarriage of his Oxfords. Low level. Unauthorised. But he was very very good at it [laughs] and we had quite an amusing incident to do with that but if we go back to the light night striking force. As I say that was part of 8 Group which was given the permission to put eight, in brackets, PFF force. Group rather. Pathfinder force. Because each station in 8 Group had one Mosquito which was mainly light night striking force and one squadron of Lancs which were again associated with the Pathfinder force and they were equipped with H2S which gave you the map. And of course H2S was the result of quite a lot of Lancs being shot down because the night fighters, German night fighters could tune in. Home in on them and bang. And then again, the Germans had a very nasty idea called Schrage Musik which you’ve probably heard of. The upward firing guns. So, they’d home in underneath an unsuspecting Lanc and bang. That was it. But once they got wind of this then they put the Mosquito night fighters in with the bombers and that did reduce the losses a little because it upset the Germans. Now, is there any aspect that I could fill you in on? Because I don’t exactly know what you’re after you see.
CB: That’s alright. So, what I’d like to suggest is that we start with your earliest recollections of your life. What you did at school? Where you were born? And then after school what did you do?
RM: Yeah.
CB: And how did you come to join the RAF?
RM: Yeah.
CB: I’m just going to stop for a mo.
RM: Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: Hang on. Let me just get it started again. So now we’re restarting with the early days, Dick.
RM: Yeah.
CB: So, where you were you born and —
RM: I was born —
CB: Just up the road.
RM: Just around the corner.
CB: In Peterborough.
RM: In Peterborough yes. I went to the local school which is about a hundred and fifty yards around the corner from here as an infant. From five to seven. They had the junior section then from seven to eleven and when I was eleven I got a scholarship to the local grammar school which was called Deacon’s School. Peterborough had two grammar schools. Deacon’s and King’s, of which, of course, there was very considerable a rivalry between the two [laughs] as you can imagine. Now, with King’s School it didn’t matter so much about passing the school cert exam. Eleven plus equal. With King’s School you had to be able to sing because that was the Cathedral School. And curiously enough at the service yesterday at the Peterborough Cathedral I remarked on the fact that we must be getting old because the choirboys looked smaller and smaller. I was actually in school to hear war declared. I’d reached the sixth form. And we were actually called in during the holiday to the sixth form to deal with the evacuees from London. Now they, that started on a Friday. The evacuees came into the school and we were there to separate these various children and give them to the groups to which they’d been allocated so that they could be taken to their future homes. And about half past ten, quarter to eleven on the Sunday morning the headmaster came around and said, ‘Forget about the evacuees. All of you assemble in the music room because Neville Chamberlain is going to speak to the nation at 11 o’clock.’ So, we went in there and we heard the war declared and that was that. Now, I came to the conclusion then that instead of staying on to go, say to do my A levels and go to university if that would be interrupted by war service. Now, I’d always been, from the age of about nine when I’d got a book called the Boy’s Book of Aircraft for a Christmas present I’d always been interested in the flying aspect. Biggles and all that sort of thing. And I developed quite an interest in flying from the reading point of view and from the model aircraft point of view. And I thought well why not volunteer for the air force. So as soon as I was eighteen, that was in 1941, I nipped up to Cambridge because at eighteen if I volunteered for the air force I wouldn’t be called up for the army or the navy. And so, I volunteered. I was accepted for further investigation. That was in 1941 and then in December ‘41 was called to Cardington where I had my aircrew medicals and aptitude tests and was accepted as future aircrew. And much to my annoyance, that was December ’41, I was actually called up to Lord’s Cricket Ground August bank holiday Monday 1942. I hopped off one foot on to the other. I thought that was a dirty trick [laughs] Anyway, we were assailed with needles and vaccinations and boots to be cleaned and uniforms. Paraded up and down Earl’s Court and so on and went to the zoo for meals. From there I eventually went to Number 6 ITW at Aberystwyth. I’d only been there about six weeks on a ten weeks course when I had to report sick on the Tuesday. I’d got a swollen throat and what not. Sore throat. Went to the sick quarters and the MO there sort of looked, ‘Ah, Mist Expect three times a day for three days. Come again on Friday.’ Well, this Mist Expect was a brown lotion. Yuck. Which was very evil tasting. Anyway, by the Friday morning I more or less managed to crawl up to the sick quarters and they said, ‘Strange. We’ll have you upstairs under observation.’ And that was on the Friday. On the Sunday morning I developed the classic male symptoms of mumps. Now, as soon as they realised this they whipped me off to the local isolation hospital called Tanybwlch where I was the only patient and I distinctly remember it. There were five Nurse Williams’ and one Nurse Prodigan there. I lived like a lord but the interesting thing was that I was there for a week and at the end of the week they said, ‘Right. You’ll be going home Monday. Fourteen days sick leave.’ Now, before the Monday, on the Friday, about twelve of the people who were in my flight at ITW reported in to Tanybwlch with mumps. And what they were going to do to me was nobody’s business until I mentioned fourteen days sick leave. I was the flavour of the month after that. Anyway, from there, after a week, a few weeks due to bad weather I finished up as Desford Leicester, grading school where I did my twelve hours on Tigers. Selected for further pilot training. The interesting thing was there the instructor that I had was a Sergeant Collinson. He was an ex-bank manager and three weeks after I’d finished and gone to Heaton Park word filtered through that he’d had a pupil who’d frozen on the controls and killed them both. And a nicer bloke you couldn’t have wished for. He was the exact opposite to the American instructor which I had at Grosse Ile. Anyway, as I say, we did this grading school and then from there we went to Heaton Park which of course was the centre from which all aircrew to Canada, America — the USA, South Africa were sent simply because there was no room in the sky to have UT pilots barging about and getting in the way even though the Tigers were painted yellow. But, and as I say from there I volunteered for the Flying Boat course which was rather ill fated. I did get about thirty — thirty five hours solo on Stearman N2S4s which I thought was a beautiful aircraft. It really handled superbly. The sort of one that the wing walkers are using now. Much nicer aircraft to fly then the Tiger. Had twice as much power and on Tiger if you came on the approach five miles an hour too fast you nearly floated across the airfield. You didn’t get down. With the Stearman N2S4 you came in and as soon as you got the right attitude closed the throttle, stick back and it would go down on a three pointer and stick. Much nicer. Also, had brakes which helped you to stop and manoeuvre because with the tiger they had to come out and take your wing tip.
CB: Now where was this? In the states. Where?
RM: This. Grosse Ile, Detroit.
CB: Grosse Ile.
RM: Yes. And the French Grosse Ile. And that was American navy. The only British officers that we had there were one RAF and one Royal Navy officer acting as liaison because of course not only did the RAF send pilots there but of course Fleet Air Arm. And it was the Fleet Air Arm course really. With carrier work and then Flying Boats because they had to be versatile with both but I could never understand why we were subjected to the first part of the course but it was a good thing in actual fact. But I couldn’t see it at the time. Because I couldn’t understand anybody would try landing a Catalina on a Flying Boat. It’s a ridiculous state of affairs to be. Anyway, from there, as I say, I was sent back to Canada. To Windsor, Ontario and had a re-selection board. Was re-selected as a navigator air bomber. The navigators could either be pure navigators, NavBs, NavWs nav wireless or Nav radio and in each case, it depended on the type of aircraft that they would be going on to for their training and radio mostly on fighters for instance. The day and night fighters. The —
CB: Can I just go — can I interrupt? Go back a bit? Why was it that you gave up the flying? The pilot training with the US navy.
RM: Why? I was washed off. Yes. I was washed off the course. They had a field. The main fields. Grosse Ile had several satellite airfields. Much more. And one of these was a square field on the edge of Lake Michigan and in the middle of the field was a hundred foot diameter circle. Now, it gets rather technical here because to explain it I’ve got to be technical. Imagine that there’s a line through the circle with the wind. Wind line. And this wind line when on the afternoon that I was taking my tests was at right angles to the shore of the lake. Now, this field was probably no more than four hundred yards long and the circle would be probably about eight or ninety yards in because you had to, sort of, do a touch down and off again. The afternoon, it was in August, the ambient air temperature was eighty five Fahrenheit. Now, you came down wind parallel to the wind line like a normal left hand circuit. Eight hundred feet. When your wings were opposite the circle you cut the engine and the rest was a glide. Now, you had to glide down across the wind line at between ninety and forty five degrees. Continue the left hand turn and make a right hand turn onto the wind line and in and drop. Because, of course with a lot of aircraft you’ve got no forward, fighter aircraft particularly, no forward vision. So they had to adopt this and they still do I believe. I’m not sure. Now, as soon as on the right hand turn, as soon as I crossed the shoreline I gained about fifty feet. Thermals. I’ve never done any gliding or known anything about it and I didn’t know what a thermal was. So I overshot. The next time. The second run. I came a little bit lower. I still overshot. And we had to get three out of six in the circle. The third shot. I came around and I still touched down just beyond the circle. So I knew that I’d failed but I opened up and ignored the instructor who was sitting by the side of the circle watching. Ignored his signals [laughs] I thought I will bloody well put one in and the fourth one in I actually undershot. But in order to do that my right hand wingtip on the right turn was almost in the water. It was that low. And as I say as soon as I muffed that third one I knew that I’d failed so it didn’t bother me much. Now, one difference between the RAF training aircraft and the American training aircraft was that with the Tiger Moth you had a two way Gosport system so you could talk to the pilot. With the Stearman N2S4s, both army and navy, they had one way Gosport. The pilot could talk to you but you couldn’t talk back. The other fact is that all of the instructors, army and navy instructors on pilot training in the States were usually first generation nationalised Americans. Now, they were not allowed to go to the actual warzones just in case they were spies and nasty types. So, you can imagine that these instructors had quite a bone to pick. You know. They were very bitter about being singled out for this and they took it out on us. Now, on one occasion I’d already upset my instructor. You know, before these circles landing. And if you had a high level emergency which usually occurred at two thousand feet you were supposed to glide round, selecting a field and then make this sort of approach. And we were stooging along on one exercise just before these circles and he suddenly cut the motor and said, ‘Right. High level emergency.’ And one of the satellite fields was just down there so, I gave it full left stick, full right rudder, organised a side slip and brought it right down in one go in to this field. Settled and did a three pointer. And I sat there and I thought bloody marvellous Maywood. The remarks that came over the Gosport were not printable. Definitely not printable. I had disobeyed every rule in their book. Disobeyed them. I was worthless. I was useless. He didn’t speak to me for a couple of days afterwards. He just took me up. But on the way back after the side slip he cut the visit short because we flew for an hour and a half at a time. We’d been flying for about a half an hour. He said, ‘Right. We’re going back to base.’ And he did flick rolls left right left right and obviously to try and upset me. And they had a mirror up in the centre section where they could see us and as he did these, the more he did it, you know, sort of thumbs-up which made him even worse. As I say for two days he would just take me out to the aircraft. We’d do what we had to do until this circle business and not a word was said. Now, after washing off this course, as I say, we had a re-selection board in Windsor, Ontario. It’s just across the water from Detroit and I was selected as a NavB. I had to do six months general duties work. Three months in Toronto manning depot. That was quite an interesting, mostly sweeping the floor but on one occasion. Two occasions. Two successive days. We had to, you know, two of us, another washed off pilot and myself chummed up and we were picked for guard duty in the detention barracks there. When we reported to the flight sergeant MP first thing in the morning we were handed side arms. 45 revolvers. And the SP said, ‘Now, the only thing I’m going to tell you,’ he said, ‘Is never ever let one of the prisoners get within shovel distance of you.’ Shovel distance. What’s that? He said, ‘Remember that.’ He said. ‘If they look like getting there,’ he said, ‘Shoot them because it might be the last thing you do.’ He said, ‘We won’t ask questions.’ Anyway, we went into this detention barracks and we were ushered in to a building which was about thirty feet wide. Probably ninety feet long and normal height of a shed. Say perhaps ten, twelve feet. Across the centre of the room there was a black line. Two inch black line that ran down the walls, across the floor and up the other wall. Now, you can imagine. You walk in there and you see this. At one end there was probably about fifty, sixty tonnes of small coal. The other end absolutely pristine walls and floor. Whitewashed. The prisoners had wheelbarrows and shovels and it was their job to shift this coal from one end to the other and then when they’d done that they scrubbed the floor and the walls. Whitewashed them. And then did the job again. Now, they were doing this probably for two or three months and they were, it was described as being stir happy. And this was the reason. They’d had one or two of the guards had been attacked with these shovels and had been seriously injured or killed and that was the reason why we were told. Now, we only had that for two days fortunately because we more or less stood back to back [laughs] watching each other’s backs and then back to the old sweeping routine. And that was for three months. Then from there I was sent out to a place called Goderich which is right on the borders. Western border of Ontario. That was a training station for twin-engined aircraft for Royal Canadian Air Force cadets. Spent three months there and then onto a place called Mountain View in Ontario to do the bombing and gunnery school. The flying was done on Mark 2 Ansons. You’ve probably seen pictures of those. And the gunnery was done with the Bollingbroke which was the Canadian version of the Blenheim 4. The turret. Have you ever seen the Blenheim gun turret?
Other: No.
RM: Most peculiar arrangement. Vertical column. And a beam pivoted on this vertical column. At one end of the beam is a seat. At the other end are two Browning pop guns. 303s. And handlebars. So when you — to operate the turret to elevate the guns or depress them you turn the handlebars like twist grips. And to turn the turret you steer it like a pushbike. So, if you were firing at aircraft up there your bottom was right down here and you’re looking up there. You’re not sitting in the chair and looking all over like did with the Fraser Nash and the other turrets. The locking ones. Anyway, we were quite interested because the first exercise that we did it was really a chastener. We had two hundred rounds each to fire. Now, what they did with the two Brownings — they put three hundred pounds in each with a dummy round of two hundred in each gun. So, the first person in to the turret, you flew in threes, first used the left hand gun. Two hundred rounds. Left it. The next person going in two hundred rounds from the right hand gun. And then the third one cleared both guns and a hundred from each. Now, the actual bullets — the tips were dipped in paint. So that when they went through the drogue, which was the target, you could see from the colour as to who hit and how many. The drogue was roughly in size a bit bigger say than the fuselage of a Hurricane or a Spit so you can see it was quite large. The first exercise was what was known as a beam target where the towing aircraft had towed the drogue on your beam two hundred yards distance. Steady. In other words you were firing at a static object. No lead necessary either way. And of course we just blazed away with these in short bursts and when we got down after the first exercise. This exercise. They gave us the number of hits. Now, believe it or believe it not at two hundred yards, steady target, no more than probably being on the gun boats — an extraordinarily good result was five percent hits. The average? Three percent. Which is amazing isn’t it? The reason? Vibration. The rigidity of the gun mountings of course allowed the guns to spray and this is one of the things where modern films and pre-modern films of aircraft fights where you see a nice line of holes being stitched across the fuselage — absolute bullshit. You were lucky if you get it off, peppered them. That was the gunnery and then we did sort of quarter cross overs and all that sort of thing. Mostly then with cameras attached to the guns. They took Cinefilms. They wouldn’t let us use live ammunition against [laughs] their aircraft. The bombing was done with Mark 2 Ansons. A very slow aircraft. And using the old fashioned Mark 9 bomb sight which was quite a Heath Robinson contraption really but it worked after a fashion. But it was designed to operate when aircraft were sort of doing their bombing runs at probably a hundred and twenty, a hundred and fifty miles an hour with very little relationship to the forthcoming four-engined aircraft. And for that reason they devised the Mark 14 bomb sight which was gyroscope labourised and it was a beautiful piece of work. But going back to what I was saying about the weather, aircraft and wind finding. With the Mark 14 bomb sight you had to put the wind velocity in. Feed it in manually. And the only other manual thing you did was fit the bomb type. Select the bomb type and it worked out the trajectory and everything. Not only that but with the plate glass, sight glass, you had the red cross with the sword and that was stabilised horizontally. So that it would, in actual fact, give you accurate bombing up to about ten degrees of bank. Whereas with a Mark 9 you couldn’t. You had to be absolutely spot on and running the thing accurately.
CB: Straight and level.
RM: Straight and level. Yes. So that was an advantage with it. And that was bombing and gunnery school. Then nav school, as I say, was at Charlottetown, PEI. Prince Edward Island. And it was there I had my first really narrow squeak. In training of all things. Now, the nav school at that time lasted for twenty weeks. At the end of ten weeks you got a seventy two hour pass. From the Friday night to the Sunday which you couldn’t do much about because by the time you got from Charlottetown on to the mainland it was time to come back again. Right out in the sticks there. You were in the boon docks. Anyway, because we had bad night flying weather in the first eight weeks of our course they decided that instead of us flying on the tenth week we would fly on our twelfth week and the next course — 97. Behind us. Two weeks behind us would fly in our place. Now, you can appreciate this obviously. We were, a group of us, were going into the local cinema and it was just getting dark. Nice bright moon. No wind. Not worth talking about. Beautiful night. When we came out of the cinema three hours later there was a forty five knot gale blowing. Now, I can visualise what I understood and if I was in the same position I might have made the same mistake. In fact, almost certainly would but the Met forecast for the whole of their four hours was light and variable winds. Now, a sprog navigator. They’d only done ten weeks. They were only half way through the course. You still, over there, only had radio bearings. Visual sightings. More or less. And astro compass. The old bubble sextant which I could never get on with to navigate with. And the first leg out probably — of course you see navigation in those, steam navigation the vital part was wind finding, direction of the wind because that meant that you would get to where you wanted to go to. Probably find wind— sort of ten knots. Well, that falls within the flight plan. Get on the next leg and then you suddenly find wind fifteen, twenty knots. Must be something wrong so you backtrack. Check all your doings and in the meantime still maintaining the same course. And eventually you think well the only thing to do is to go back to ten knots. So, you re-plot for ten knots. Come to the next turning point as you thought, make your turn and say ,with four legs ultimately, you’ll probably be getting, or getting readings of thirty knots, thirty five knots. Can’t be right. Must go back to flight plan. And at the end of the flight when you should have been back at Charlottetown if you’d sort of ignored the truth you were probably fifty, sixty nautical miles northeast of Charlottetown. Right over the main Gulf of St Lawrence. Well as I say when we came out of the cinema there was this forty five knot wind blowing. When we got back to the camp they said, ‘Course 96 report to briefing room first light.’ And they made sure that we were there at first light because they sent people around to get us up. And we were given a very quick course on how to conduct line square searches. And every available aircraft and staff pilot who were available flew us so that we did these searches over the Gulf looking for missing aircraft. Never did see any. I believe that just after we’d finished the course. Twenty weeks. And being on our way back that they found one empty dinghy out there. And I believe that in actual fact they found the wreckage of one on the coast of Labrador which is just across the other side. How many went missing we were never told. But I did find out from the archives of the Empire Air Training Scheme in Brandon near Winnipeg — that I think three crews were absolutely lost. But anyway, we measured that and as I say we came back to this country. We did, before they would turn us lose on anything, they said, ‘Right you’ve got your navigation brevets in Canada. From Charlottetown. Over the Maritimes. Where one road or one railway is a land mark. Now, you may find flying over Britain and the continent a bit different. So, before you do anything we’re going to give you three weeks intensive training on map reading.’ And we were actually posted to a lovely little station just outside Carlisle. I think it was called Longton, where we were piled in the back seats of Tiger Moths. They only had about eight of these Tigers with staff pilots there. So, as I say it was quite a small grass field and we did quite a lot of map reading and target spotting over the Midlands and the Lake District. And that was good fun actually. On one occasion we, I actually flew with a pilot. One of the staff pilots who was a little more daring than others and it was a very windy day and he said, ‘I fancy doing a trip. Do you want to come?’ So I said, ‘Yes.’ So, we took off and we were plotting our way around and the biggest rift that I calculated on that was fifty four degrees. And when we came over the airfield boundary at three hundred feet we actually landed ten feet inside the fence because the wind speed was virtually the approach speed of the Tiger. Yeah. That was quite interesting that was. Anyway, from there we went to AFU, Advanced Flying Unit and that was at Wigtown in Scotland. Halfway between Dumfries and Stranraer and that was on Ansons. Again, that was just generally getting used to flying over Britain. And then from AFU of course, straight on to OTU at Upper Heyford where we flew in Oxfords and we, more or less, we were [pause] our technique with Gee was a Gee fix every three minutes. DR after six. Six minutes. New course and again every three minutes. Every three minutes. And this was anything up to four hours. Which of course is the sort of navigation that we would be doing with the Mossies at night. And we also, we weren’t introduced to Loran until OTU and the snag there you see was the Gee would only be useful up to the Continent’s coast line. After that there was so much interference by the Germans. So much, what we called grass, that you couldn’t pick out the signal so we had to use LORAN which, curiously enough, they never did jam. It worked quite well and it worked out well over the Atlantic. Coastal command used it quite considerably. And as I say the last OTU trip we demolished a Mossie by going through the hedge and into trees on the way back with a single engine landing. Then, as I say, I’d only just started a tour before VE Day came. Just after VE Day the first thing we did were Cook’s Tours. We had two Mosquitos from each of the stations. 8 Group stations. Took off at one hour intervals during the day so that there was a route which went across northern Germany, the Ruhr valley then out more or less through the Danish border and back to home. And this was ostensibly to give us a picture of the damage which Bomber Command had done but if you bear in mind that these flights were every hour through daylight I reckon that the idea was a standing patrol just to tell the Germans we were still about. Now, at the risk of boring you here we were told that these Cook’s Tours would be a thousand feet. That’s a thousand feet above ground level obviously but George sort of took it upon himself to fly at a thousand feet. Now, the Ruhr valley is above sea level. About three hundred feet if I remember rightly. So, we were probably about seven hundred feet. Now, as I say the place was absolute rubble with steel structures. Just odd bits sticking up. Odd bits of concrete. Just like Hiroshima. And the Germans had bulldozed roads through this rubble so that they could get their troops. We were stooging along one of these roads. Sort of just ambling along at about a hundred and ninety knots. And we could see in the distance a chap ambling along with his stick and he heard us and he turned around. He recognised what we were and shook his stick at us. So, George said, ‘I’ll teach him a lesson.’ So, he sort of pulled up into a stalled turn and as he did he opened the bomb doors. Now on the B16 the bomb doors are big. Four thousand pound bomb size and from the front you can’t miss them. And this chappy, you could see, he sort of looked. Up went the stick and he was legging it down the road like mad, much to our amusement. Yeah. When it comes to low level flying though as I say our height was fifteen, twenty five feet. Clipping the grass almost. And on one occasion we were going across Wales, went down the valley and then up the other side. Big wide valley. Half way up this valley was a farmhouse and we were climbing up the slope and there was a woman pegging washing out. She obviously heard us and we could see her looking. Saw we were there and then she decided to look down and she could see us coming up and she legged it through this farmhouse. We could see her. And she ran out the other side as went over the top. Again, in those days our sense of humour was different to what it is now and as you probably [unclear] it was quite interesting. But fortunately for us — just after this 608 Squadron, the one we were on, was disbanded and we were posted to another 8 Group unit. 692 Squadron at Gransden Lodge which is just to the west of Cambridge and we, in actual fact, did one or two trips there and 692 was disbanded which meant that we were redundant aircrew. So we were sent first of all up to Blyton in Lincolnshire for re-selection board and I eventually finished up, although I’d opted for something different, on a flight mechanic engines course at Hereford. Credenhill. But there I learned all of the intricacies of the Merlin and the Pratt and Whitney Twin Wasp engine. And having finished that course I was posted to 254 torpedo Beaufighter Squadron at Langham in Norfolk. Langham, now, I believe is famous for its glass factory there which I think is on the old airfield where I became the flight tractor driver. And that’s what I stayed until I was demobbed. Now, they [pause] I could have opted to sign on with the air force. Not necessarily guaranteeing that I would fly as a navigator again but there was a pretty good chance. But in those days you had to do twenty one years for a pension which would have taken me from the age of nineteen when I joined up to forty. But you were too old to fly at thirty two. Now, as you probably appreciate after being grounded you don’t know what sort of job you’re going to get. General dogsbody usually. And the thought of eight years as dogsbody to get a pension didn’t appeal to me so I came out and I eventually finished up at teacher training college where I spent five years with a secondary mod trying to teach maths and science. And at the end of five years — because in the period between school and joining the air force I’d become an electrical trainee at the local power station so I’d got quite a good working knowledge of turbines, pumps and all that. Generators and so on. A good mechanical background. I managed to get a job as a lecturer in mechanical engineering at the local technical college on a one term temporary contract in 1954 and I was like old Bill in World War One. Unless you can find a better hole there’s no point in moving. And I eventually spent twenty eight years there and retired. Well, took voluntary redundancy in ‘82. And I’ve been a pensioner ever since. I think the Ministry of Education are busy making little plasticine models of me and sticking pins in because I’m quite expensive. Yeah. But that is that sad story of my life.
CB: Fascinating. Thank you very much. I suggest we have a break now.
RM: Yes.
CB: So, I’ll turn off.
[recording paused]
CB: So. Ken. We’ve just talked about Ken O’Dell being at Edith Weston near North Luffenham because he was also trained in America.
RM: Yeah. Now, if he was trained in America he wouldn’t necessarily be going to Grosse Ile because –
CB: He didn’t. No.
RM: He went under what was known as the Arnold Scheme and that would be usually around about Texas or somewhere like that. To one of the flying schools there with the American army and he would become an army pilot. Now, of course there would be some relevance there because the first part of their course would be for fighter aircraft. Fighter training. Single seat fighters. And this is probably where he went.
CB: Yes.
RM: Under the Arnold Scheme.
CB: His instructors were civilians.
RM: Yes. Yeah. And that did apply but not with the navy. The navy were all genuine navy types. For example, the chief petty officer who took charge of all the morning parades and what not — he had been in the American navy for eighteen years and he’d never seen the sea. Mind you, the Great Lakes, when it does get rough you do get thirty foot waves on it so it’s as good as the sea. And we can prove that because a group of us Fleet Air Arm and RAF types we hired one of these paddle steamers one Saturday night to go out on the lakes. You know, for an outing. This chief petty officer came with us. Now, admittedly it was a bit choppy but he spent all evening draped over the rail. Much to our delight. Much to our delight. Yes. Yes, he was not popular. The Americans for instance. The American navy have a very queer discipline which didn’t go with us. Very rigid. Whereas with the RAF you get a certain amount of latitude and humour. But not the Americans and for any minor misdemeanour the sort of punishment you got you went before the mast, you see and you were awarded this punishment. And that was known as square eating. Have you ever come across it?
Other: No.
RM: Ever heard of it?
Other: No.
CB: Never.
RM: Right. Now, at mealtimes because you were condemned to this you had to do a square eating. In other words [pause] that. That was square eating.
CB: So, lifting it up vertically and then pulling it, eating it horizontally.
RM: Yes. Horizontally. To eat.
CB: Into your mouth. With both knife and fork.
RM: Yes. Oh no. Usually with the fork because the Americans of course chop up their stuff.
CB: Of course. Yes.
RM: With a fork even. But if you did use the knife.
CB: Yeah.
RM: It had to be like. Now can you imagine anything more stupid? And that was the sort of typical sort of thing that you got. But the Americans, bless them, they weathered it so — good luck.
CB: Tell us about the accommodation. What did that they have?
RM: Oh, the accommodation was superb. These twin, these blocks that you see in the films. Two story blocks. Everything beautifully polished. Wood floors. The interesting thing is they had showers there and toilets. You had a single bed which was made up every morning. You know. Bullshit. And the interesting thing was the actual loos. Now, the loos were just like ordinary loos except there were no partitions [laughs] yeah. And we thought that strange. But they say you can get used to anything and it is so. Yeah.
CB: How many people? Were they, were you in dormitories?
RM: It was a dormitory. Yes. It would be about twenty — probably twenty four people. Twenty four cadets. Two sides. Twelves. Just like the dormitories you see on the films. The wartime films of the Americans. The American army of course were a bit more spartan than the navy. But everything was nice. The food though was good. Rather like the curate’s egg though. Good in parts. And you had very strange things like plum jelly with chopped celery in it and that would be a vegetable. Things like that. It was ingenious. Let’s put it that way. As I say, the discipline was very very good. If you heard the trumpet sound for the flag being lowered at the end of the day wherever you were and whatever you were doing you had to stand to attention, face the flag and salute whilst the trumpet blew. We did, in fact, there was one big navy battle that was conducted whilst I was there and I can’t for the life of me think what it was. I think it was Leyte Gulf but I’m not sure. On this particular occasion all flying stopped on this day. We were all assembled in one of the big hangars. All RAF. And five hundred of us all together. Fleet Air Arm types. All the officers there. The band. And the flags and banners and what not and we were given a very very stirring speech by the commanding officer on how good the American navy was and how brave they were and what a victory this had been. All this, that and the other. If you’d listened carefully at the back particularly with Royal Navy types, Fleet Air Arm types a series of raspberries. Yeah. Then having gone through all this marshall music we were all marched out again and continued. I remember that quite clearly.
CB: What time did you get up in the morning?
RM: Usually around about half six.
CB: And breakfast?
RM: Breakfast. Yes. You wandered over to the mess. That was one thing you didn’t parade for. You only paraded after breakfast. You know.
CB: Yeah. And what time did you go to breakfast?
RM: Usually around about half seven.
CB: And then you went for your parade. What time?
RM: About quarter past eight or so. From there disbursed to the actual flying field which — now this was quite interesting in actual fact. The main airfield at Grosse Ile didn’t have runways but it did have a huge circular patch of concrete about six hundred yards diameter so that you could land in any direction and you could land two or three aircraft side by side. Now, that was clear. All you had was hangars in the distance. And then beyond the hangars there was one vertical radio mast which was clearly visible. Now, that radio mast subtended a fraction of one degree from the field. So, you think nobody’s going to hit it. Wrong. Just before we got there some character flying solo. Chop. And the mast came down and hit the, fortunately the American seamen’s mess not the British mess and did grievous bodily damage to several of them. But nobody shed a tear from the British contingent for that. As you can gather I’m not terribly impressed with the Americans.
CB: Were the Americans training their people in similar numbers to yours or what was the situation?
RM: I don’t know what the navy situation was because this was the American navy base. And it was only RAF and Royal Navy.
CB: Oh was it? Training.
RM: Training.
CB: Right.
RM: Yeah. So, they must have had other bases. Probably in California and on the coast and so on. But we didn’t know anything about those and didn’t want to know anything about those.
CB: No. Tell us a bit more about these people who were first generation Americans. What sort of people were they and what was their attitude to the war?
RM: The one. My instructor and I only came across him really was a chappy who was a naturalised Dutchman with the rather curious name of Nieswander. Not spelt exactly as we’d pronounce it. N I E S W A N D E R. Now, he was, as a say, a naturalised Dutchman. First generation. And about six feet two, physique rather like a beanpole and of course like all of these other characters he had a chip on his shoulder. He wanted to be a fighter pilot. He was going to be a fighter pilot. Bugger this job sort of business. And he was, I suppose, fairly interested in teaching people to fly but you could sense and even it was expressed sort of rather obliquely to you by him that he wanted to go into the war zone but he was not allowed to.
CB: No.
RM: All of the pilots and this, of course, I think this also applied to the army pilots that they were not allowed to go into the warzone so they could either go on to training but curiously enough — transport. Cargo and all that sort of thing. And some of these cargo flights actually took them into the war zone. But they weren’t equipped with guns and what not so they couldn’t fight. Yeah.
CB: And what ranks were these people who were your instructors?
RM: Oh, practically all lieutenants. Junior grade.
CB: Right.
RM: Which would be equivalent to our POs. Pilot officers. Now, the interesting thing was there that in the RAF of course with commissioned and non-commissioned ranks you got upgrading in rank at given periods of time with aircrew and what not. Not so with the Americans. And I daresay that I was there, what, 1943. I daresay that in 1945 when the war finished he would still be a lieutenant. General. GJ. Lieutenant junior grade.
CB: And what rank were you at that time? An LAC were you?
RM: An LAC yes. Got, oh — Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, where I got y brevet. The Wings Parade there. Now that was in July. And we were all drawn up. We’d finished our training satisfactorily and I was assigned the rank of sergeant. We did get about three or four commissions straight away but mostly sergeant rank. And we were drawn up 2.30 in the afternoon on the parade ground there at Charlottetown and we were addressed by the Governor General of Prince Edward Island after we’d been given our brevets. And this gentleman to us, at that time, we estimated his age at eighty. He was old anyway. He was quite short and apparently, he was deaf. His aide de camp was an army type, lieutenant, who stood about six feet two and this Governor General was making a speech which lasted in total about fifteen minutes. And in the speech, he congratulated us on being — becoming pilots with the Royal Air Force. Went on in this vein and his aide de camp, his aid, was nudging him. Almost to tell him. You know, we could see it happening but he ploughed on and at the end of it the aide de camp had a real chat with him. Now we were standing to attention. Blazing sun.
CB: July. Yes.
RM: And by this time our tunics were turning black with perspiration. And what does the silly old bugger do? Once he’d been told that we were navigators he went through exactly the same speech and substituted the word navigators.
CB: Yes.
RM: Now, if any of us had had a gun we’d have shot him. Without any doubt. He was definitely not the flavour of the month. I had, I have never ever been so hot because of course the Canadians had the lightweight summer gear. Khaki. Like the Americans. What did we have? Blue serge. We never had any and those blue serge uniforms were quite warm. Yeah. We could have shot him quite cheerfully.
CB: Yeah.
RM: But –
CB: Now the Canadians. Excuse me. I’m going to stop a mo.
[Recording paused]
CB: So, let’s just talk about the Canadians.
RM: The Canadians except for the French Canadians in Quebec were charming people. Now, as far as the Americans are concerned — individually very charming. We had individual hospitality through their USOs where you go and have a weekend with a family and so on. Superb hospitality. But when you get them in a group you’re on a different planet. Terry Thomas had the best description of a group of Americans. Remember his –?
Other: No. I remember him but not –
RM: Described an absolute shower. Yeah. And we found that afterwards actually when my first wife and I went across to the Continent in the early 60s. On the ferry we bumped into a bunch of Americans. Loud mouthed. Uncouth. But if you separated them they were quite charming to talk to. Now, the Canadians — much more reserved but just as genuine and I made quite a few friends there except at Charlottetown. Which — there’s a joke about Charlottetown actually which was very true at that time and the joke goes like — that in summer they raise potatoes and in winter children. Now, they still had prohibition there when we were there. That would be in late ’43, early ‘44. And apparently, prohibition stopped only perhaps twenty years ago so consequently the local inhabitants made their own alcoholic drinks by filtering off brasso and stuff like that or using rubbing alcohol. And the weekend before we got there. Two of the erks off the station because there were RAF aircrew there had purloined from the stores a quart of glycol, mixed it with orange juice and two of the local popsies and these two had a beano at the weekend. On the Monday morning the two popsies were dead, one of the erks was in sick quarters blind and the other one was rather non compos mentis. And both of them by the time we got there at the next weekend were on the boat home to Britain. That’s the sort of thing they got up to. As far as I can remember with Charlottetown you had large numbers of children who did the same sort of thing as a lot of the children you see where troops are concerned, and where the Americans are concerned. You know. Chocolates. They wanted chocolates and sweets or whatever and I was not impressed. Nothing would tempt me to go back there again even though it has changed apparently. The Maritimes, the western provinces, New Brunswick and so on — very sparsely populated and very uninterested. The only thing with them is trees, more trees and even more trees with roads, odd roads going through. Nah.
CB: Now when you were flying in Canada —
RM: Yeah.
CB: Were the instructors all Canadians? Were they British? What were they?
RM: A lot of them were RAF seconded over there. What happened, say take twin engine aircraft. You get the RAF sent over there — say to Estevan. He would do his course. The few people at the top of the course, the really high flyers would be retained.
CB: The creamies.
RM: As instructors and would do a full tour. Now, this has a bearing actually on George, my pilot and 8 Group. Now, all 8 Group Mossie pilots had to have at least a thousand hours on twin engines and the twin engines were mostly of course Oxfords which handled apparently rather like a Mossie. Either that or they were tour expired Lancasters. But you didn’t get anybody who just got his wings becoming a Mosquito pilot. Now that was just 8 Group. I don’t know what happened with 5 Group or 2 Group which were the other two groups that I remember being a part of Bomber Command. And it worked. It worked quite well. There were Canadian instructors obviously. RCAF. That is, if they hadn’t been posted to Britain which they were. I mean, they were coming over. When it comes to going over to Canada and the States I travelled on the Queen Elizabeth and it was like a mill pond and of course the Lizzie and the Mary were run by the Americans. They were handed over to the Americans and based at New York. And typically from New York they would come across to Glasgow — Greenock, with a division of American troops. Eighteen to twenty thousand troops on. They would unload them. They would then load returning Americans or returning Canadians and all RAF aircrew that were going for training. Royal Navy and so on. Roughly about five thousand at a time. And they would go to Halifax. At Halifax they would discharge and pick up a Canadian division. Bring those back and then you’d have aircrew that were going to the United States on the Arnold Scheme and people like that. Returning Americans going back to New York. And that’s how they did it. Now, going over there the actual mess deck had tables for twelve diners. Twelve people. And the cooks cooked in batches of twelve and you had, each day, one person went from the table to the mess. The cooks collected a tray say, of twelve steaks. Twelve chops. Now, when I say steaks — American steaks. Not British steaks which were postage stamp sized. But these were genuine. Genuine pork chops. Sausages. Those twelve helpings came to the table. Now, we got on to the QE in Greenock at midnight. The engines were running. There was a bit of vibration there. We sailed on the first tide which was about 6 o’clock in the morning. Just breaking day. We had to go to breakfast around about 7.30 again. And of course, we collected this tray. There were only four of us on the table. The other, sorry, six of us on the table. The other six were in their bunks seasick and we hadn’t even hit the Atlantic. Anyway, we got out onto the Atlantic and it was like a mill pond. There were six the first day, six missing the second day, four missing the third day. And we ate like lords. You know, God, we thought, you know, this is marvellous. We really ate. And these steaks and that were beautiful. Couldn’t grumble at that. And on the last morning they did manage to come down for breakfast before we disembarked. But one interesting thing. Each of us was given a job. The job that I was given was to go from the main stores with one of the American seamen to actually re-store or re-stock the canteens. Chocolate and so on. Which was quite a — not a very onerous job. Over and done with in an hour and that was it. But this American seaman I was with he said, ‘Have you got any currency you want changing?’ So I said, ‘Well, you’re not allowed to bring any currency out. Only ten pounds.’ He said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Supposing you got a bit more than that?’ He said, ‘Would you like it changed?’ He said. So I said, ‘Changed to what?’ He said, ‘Dollars. American.’ Now in 1939 the pound was worth four dollars American and four forty dollars.
CB: Canadian.
RM: To the Canadian. So you had this ten percent difference. So, I said, ‘Well, what’s your exchange rate?’ He said, ‘Well. For you it’ll be four dollars to the pound.’ So I said, ‘Well, it so happens,’ I said, ‘I’ve been a bit naughty. I’ve brought an extra tenner out. Twenty. I got twenty pounds changed into American dollars which, interestingly of course if you spent them in Canada which they were spendable — for ten dollars you’d pay the American ten dollars and get a dollar change. So, it worked out quite well. But the — I was talking to this seaman and I said, ‘We seem to be going at a fair old lick.’ I said, ‘What’s it doing?’ He said, ‘Well, I shouldn’t tell you.’ He said, ‘It’s more than my job’s worth.’ So, I said, ‘Go on. Nobody’s listening.’ He said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘We’re cruising at twenty nine knots.’ But one night I woke up. It was only about 2 o’clock in the morning and the boat, you could tell from the vibration that they’d definitely sort of upped the steam but when we went to breakfast we were back to the twenty nine knots. So, I said to this chap, I said, ‘What happened last night?’ ‘Nothing very much,’ he said. So I said, ‘Go on,’ ‘You’re pulling my leg,’ I said, ‘You were going a lot faster.’ I said, ‘What speed were you doing?’ He said, ‘Thirty four knots,’ he said, ‘There was a sub scare.’ Now, of course the two Queens were unescorted but imagine this. A six inch gun fore and aft on the bow and the stern. On the main deck — Bofors and three inch guns. On the deck above you had Oerlikon cannons.
CB: Twenty millimetre.
RM: Yeah. Twenty millimetre. And on the roof you actually had two rocket launchers. So, as far as aircraft were concerned which of course would be the main thing they would have given them a very rough time. And on the second day they tried the guns out, you know, just to make sure they were working. And they did them one side and then the other. A big rocket flare went up, parachute flare, and they all opened up on this and it was quite deafening. Except the big six inch guns. They didn’t. But everything else —
CB: How many days did it take to get over?
RM: Four days and eight hours. As I say we lived like lords. Coming back. We came back on one of the old Empress boats. It was the Empress of Japan but it had been re-named the Empress of Scotland for obviously patriotic reasons. That took six days and a half. And on that they only had two meals a day. Not three. Now, you can believe this or believe it not. Going out the canteen had run dry so there was nothing on the way back. The first morning, I forget exactly which way around it was but this was the sort of thing. We had smoked haddock for breakfast. The evening meal — wiener sausages. Then for a change wiener sausages for breakfast. Smoked haddock. And we had that for six days. There was no sweets. No fruit available. And we were not in a happy mood. And then when we got into Liverpool Bay the boat had to anchor there for twelve hours before we could dock. And we could see the shoreline. People moving about. There would be restaurants there. And there we were. Stuck. We were not a happy crew. Funnily enough when we came back we had a full customs inspection. And you were allowed two hundred cigarettes, a bottle of Scotch say, or a spirit and a bottle of wine. The chappy in front of me, customs bloke ‘cause we were all queuing up, customs said to the chap. ‘Any cigarettes?’ Expecting two hundreds. The chappy in front said, ‘Six hundred.’ The customs officer looked at him and he said, ‘Surely you mean two hundred?’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’ve got six hundred.’ ‘Oh. Well, that’ll bloody well cost you then.’ [laughs] I mean how thick can you get? Dear. Oh, it was. I must say that in spite of our, got one, two or three near squeaks I can look back on my war service and it’s quite interesting. Very varied. And I met some jolly nice people.
CB: How many of those did you keep in contact with after the war?
RM: I kept in contact with my pilot up to a time and then I lost contact with him. The chappy that I was at the Toronto manning depot with we split up but I traced him afterwards. After we’d become civilians. And found out that he’d actually joined the Toronto Metropolitan Police. Been with them for ten years and then he’d left there and joined the Pinkertons.
CB: Right. In America.
RM: Now, I always thought that the Pinkertons was a mythical organisation and I was put severely in my place when Gordon — eventually I went over there in ‘86 and stayed with him and his wife. When I said that I thought it was mythical he said, ‘We’re international,’ he said, ‘We’re interested, more or less in industrial espionage and things like that,’ he said. ‘We’re not interested in police work.’ So, I was really put in my place there. Yeah. And my pilot. He died. Had a heart attack around about 1982 if I remember rightly going on a fishing trip from Vancouver to Nanaimo. Vancouver Island. And he died on the ferry. Had a heart attack.
CB: Was he a Canadian?
RM: No. He was a Londoner. But he had gone across to the States — to Canada. Done his pilot training, become an instructor at Estevan and while he was there he met his wife who was the daughter of a newspaper owner in Langley which is just outside Vancouver. And of course as soon as he was demobbed he shot off to Canada because he got free passage there. Free ticket back home. Yeah.
CB: I’ll stop there for a bit. Thank you.
[recording paused]
CB: Right. We’re now re-starting after a short break and we’re with Dick Maywood and talking now about LMF.
RM: LMF. Lack of moral fibre which was a euphemistic way of referring to cowardice. It was not unknown with, particularly Bomber Command crews that some of them lost their nerve. In fact it’s a wonder that they didn’t all lost their nerves on heavies. Anyway, if they were accused and if they did succumb to lack of moral fibre they more or less had a courts martial and were almost certainly stripped of all rank.
CB: Physically.
RM: Yes. And –
CB: In front of — sorry go on –
RM: They were also treated to so many months in the Glasshouse which was at Sheffield. And everybody knew. All their crew knew of Sheffield and what it entailed. And fortunately, from my point of view I mean flying in the Mossie was safe. I mean not like the heavies. Because the chop rate even in 1944/45 on heavies was still quite considerable. But on Mossies I think it worked out, on 8 Group Mossies something like about half a percent. But one thing that did strike me with that ‘casue in the Mossie, being wood, low thermal conductivity. Radiators between the engines and the fuselage on both sides with air bleeds. Sealed cockpits. We flew in battle dress. No gloves. But we did have the escape boots just in case we had to escape. That was it. And we had our own sidearms. In my case a .38 revolver and it was only about three years ago it that it suddenly dawned on me. Twenty five thousand feet. If we had been hit and had had to bale out we would have been dead. Lack of oxygen and cold because, I mean, the outside air temperature was around about minus sixty. Minus seventy. And apparently about thirty six seconds of that and its good night nurse. It was a good job we didn’t think about that otherwise we might have gone LMF. But no, I have the utmost sympathy because one or two of my friends I know have had a very sticky patch. One I was with yesterday he is ex-Bomber Command Lanc and he was telling a friend that on one occasion they had a twenty millimetre shell, or, no, it couldn’t have been twenty millimetre. It must have been bigger than that. Go in to the Lanc and lodge in the ironmongery and not explode. And Dennis said that they sort of fished this thing out and dropped it out. And the chap who was talking to him and said, yeah, ‘Didn’t it explode then?’ And Dennis said words to the effect, ‘You’re rather stupid. If it had exploded I wouldn’t be here.’ How silly can people get? It’s, but it’s surprising really. When it comes to the old Mossie they talk about the wooden wonder. They’ve heard of the wooded wonder vaguely. No idea what it did really. Couldn’t be very interesting because it’s made of wood. And when you consider it was the first RAF multi role combat aircraft. You had your weather versions. You had the oboe versions. You had the PR Unit versions. Night fighter units. You had the Coastal Command Banff Wing which for a time had those Tsetse Mosquitoes with the 57 millimetre gun and I know one or two of the 247 Squadron even now who flew in those. And one in particular and he said that every time one of those guns went off you lost twenty knots airspeed with the recoil. But they didn’t last long because they found that a battery of eight rockets, sixty pound rockets was a better bet than the Tsetse gun. That was known as the Banff wing. There was 235 and 247 Squadrons in the Banff Wing. Anti-shipping. You had second TAF who flew fighter bombers. That’s guns, cannons and two bombs in each and that would probably be either on interdiction, road transport, railways and what not. You had the night intruders. Now, had the war had gone on longer it would have satisfied my sense of humour to get on night intruders. Because I loved the idea of sort of just dropping an odd bomb on the runway as they were about to land or shooting the buggers down. Pardon my broken English. Shooting them down. It would have appealed to my sense of humour but no. No. But there we are.
CB: So, you talked about flying at very low level.
RM: Yes.
CB: Tell to us a little more about that. I mean we’re talking about being low indeed.
RM: Yeah.
CB: However you look at it. And what about the excitement and the danger? Or the other way around.
RM: Well excitement. Yes. Particularly when we were doing low level bombing because I’d be prone in the bomb bay looking out the window. The Mark 14 bomb sight was useless because it was a high level job. And they hadn’t got a low level bombsight so it was all done with Mark 1 eyeballs. Now we had a bombing range out at Whittlesea. Well, just the other side of Whittlesea. And flying PPL I often had a scout around there to find out where the field was and I couldn’t find it but this was a big square field with the target in the centre. Now, literally to go we were flying over trees and down again. That was, we were sort of doing. The reason for it was quite simple. We were told the lower — you were going out to the Far East. A lot of jungle. Clearings. The lower you fly the less time you’ll be a target for ground gunners. So, the closer you can get to the treetops and the ground the safer you’ll be. And as I say, fortunately George was extremely good at low flying. Quite interesting actually. If we were bombing on east west run we’d come in low level and then at the end of the run we’d do a slow climb up to about fifteen hundred feet and then do a turn, reciprocal, back down to height again and bomb in the reverse direction and when we were on that run. On the east west run. Our turn to go reciprocal was always over Peterborough Town Bridge. It was super you know. Sort of down there. Yes. Home.
CB: Now, what about navigating when you’re — because your vista is very restricted when you’re flying low. So how did you deal with the navigation in that context?
RM: That was extremely difficult because as you say your range of vision is restricted so you have to absolutely do the correct thing. You look out and you see on the map where you are. The common mistake with map reading is to look at the map and say, ‘Oh that must be it,’ Because as you are probably well aware it is in actual fact, it’s very easy to do that. To convince yourself but I’ve been ferried over the last two or three years on what was known as Project Propeller. And I have, I’ve had a variety of pilots and I’ve flown as passenger with them and quite interestingly I am deadly against wind — so called wind turbines. And I cannot convince the BBC or the papers just what a waste of money they are. But these wind farms shown on air maps are extremely accurate.
CB: Are they?
RM: And they make bloody good landmarks because they actually show the arrangement of them.
CB: Oh right.
RM: So, you can see an arrangement and you can look at the map. Well we must be there. But of course in those days we didn’t. And again, you see, over the jungle as far as I can make out fortunately we were three weeks from going out to the east with the B35s.
CB: Oh.
RM: Which was the later version of the B16. We were within three weeks and VJ day came. Now I cannot stand hot humid weather. Whether it’s a throwback to the Wings Parade with the Governor General or not I do not know but I just cannot stand it and the thought of going out there. I would have been a grease spot.
CB: Yeah.
RM: A grease spot. Yeah.
CB: Just picking up on the navigation.
RM: But it would be with maps.
CB: Yes but —
RM: And dead reckoning.
CB: Yes. Well, I was going to say you use IPs. identification points. Would you put more of those in?
RM: Oh yes. You’d put them on the map because you’d probably, you’d be looking for them on the course. And as I say you take the ground on to the map not the map to the ground. Yeah.
CB: Now, going back to what you were talking about before we started taping you talked about the three mishaps that you had. So, what were they?
RM: Right. The first one was at Navigation School at Charlottetown and that was the fact that due to bad weather we missed the bad weather which was not forecast for the people who flew in our place. So, they got lost and I’m pretty sure that if we had flown on that night and we’d been given that Met forecast — winds light and variable which would take as zero for navigation purposes. It might have been a case of there but by the God go.
CB: Yes. You might also have vanished.
RM: Yes. Yes.
CB: Yeah. In the Great Lake.
RM: No. The Gulf of St Lawrence.
CB: Oh, in the Gulf of St Lawrence sorry. Ok. Next one.
RM: That was the first one.
CB: Ok.
RM: Then at OTU on the return trip from France where we had to land on one engine. They put us on the shortest runway with no wind and of course we vanished through the hedge with rather dire consequences to the Mossie. But — and then the third narrow squeak we had was of course the first time we took off with a four thousand pound live bomb and we got off ten knots slower than we should have done.
CB: Now, the Mossie could take four thousand pounds.
RM: Yes.
CB: But it was just in this particular case. What happened?
RM: Well, we, we — it took us longer to maintain, to achieve height than it should have done. Let’s put it that way. There was considerable chance that if the engines had even stuttered under those conditions on take-off we would have wiped out half of Downham Market.
CB: Was it because of the wind? You took off with the wind? Or what was it that caused it?
RM: Oh, we always took off in to wind.
CB: I know but in this particular case why was it?
RM: George didn’t say very much but I think the engines were not producing as much as he expected or the flaps were not right or something like that but I was too busy then actually during take-off. Getting all the charts ready and getting ready to —
CB: Where were you going that day?
RM: We were going to a place called Eggbeck which was one of the satellite airfields for Kiel. The Kiel Canal in Denmark. And it must have been the name of an airfield because I’ve looked and I’ve actually been in that area. Motored in that area for quite some distance and never found a place called Eggbeck. But it must have been one of the fields which was known as that. Yeah. And that was the one and only.
CB: Right.
RM: I’m afraid. Much to my annoyance. I was really savage when VE day came along, you know.
CB: Yeah. I imagine.
RM: I wanted to get my teeth into the Germans. But these things happen. But as I say afterwards we did the Cook’s Tour. We did quite a few what were known as Bullseyes. Have you come across those?
CB: Yes. Would you like to describe that?
RM: Yeah. Bullseyes were exactly the same conditions you would fly an actual operation. The only difference was at the target area e didn’t drop a bomb. We took a photograph to prove that we were there and we got there on time. Now, to give you an idea of the difference because as I say we had the Lancaster squadron. 635 Squadron at Downham Market and on bullseyes we both did the same route. Now, the Lancaster chaps would go in for their evening meal, would go to briefing and would be taking off as we were getting ready to go to the mess for our evening meal. Our evening meal, briefing, take off. Fly the same route. Be on target at the same time. On the way back we would land, be debriefed and would be having our breakfast when the Lancs were coming in. So two hour difference. Solely due to speed. But here I can give you something which is even more interesting. The American B17, the Flying Fortress. Nine crew. Fourteen guns. Four engines. Bomb load to Berlin four thousand pounds exactly. Out and return nine hours. Now, our Mossies on 608 Squadron, 692 and the other ones on the, what we called the Milk Run. The Berlin run. Out and return time four and a half hours. Now, admittedly with the American the B17s there was time taken up getting into formation and breaking formation on the way back but a lot of people don’t realise with the Americans in daylight, they couldn’t fly at night. They couldn’t navigate. They didn’t know how. They flew in daylight. Formation. Now, they carried a master navigator and a master bomber and I think usually two deputies just in case. They’re in formation. When the lead aircraft dropped his bombs they all dropped theirs. So, what they were doing in actual fact was carpet bombing. Admittedly they’d blanket the target. They would hit the target but that would be covering an area. Now, of course Bomber Command was specific on target markers. You bombed a target and all of the aircraft bombed that target. Not just one or two. So, as I say the American B17 crews were very brave. Much braver than I’d be, I think, under those circumstances to fly in daylight, level thirty thousand feet. Fighter fodder. No doubt. Yeah. Whereas the old Mossie. You couldn’t describe [pause] they did, the Germans did do us an honour. I think it was the Henschel 219 but I’m not sure where it was designed as a two engine night fighter specifically to counter Mosquitoes.
CB: Was it really?
RM: And that was the biggest compliment they could pay us. Then of course the jets came along and that was a different matter. They could sort of commit mayhem. But the interesting thing was that on the raid that we were doing on Eggbeck we were going out and near the target one of the aircraft called out, ‘Snappers,’ and that was the code name for the fact that 262s were about.
CB: Right.
RM: But nobody got lost that night. So –
CB: Messerschmitt 262 jets.
RM: Yeah.
CB: Yes.
RM: I mean they were serious opponents those. The 30 millimetre cannon for a start. I mean you don’t argue with those. Yeah.
CB: What was your operating speed?
RM: Our normal cruising airspeed out was around about two hundred and thirty knots. But that was indicated air speed. I mean at twenty five thousand feet the true airspeed would probably be somewhere in the region of three hundred knots which was covering the ground fairly well. If we went flat out the highest ground speed that I ever recorded was four hundred and ten miles an hours. And that was without trying.
CB: Now, what was the pattern of your operation? Because you were much faster than the Lancasters so you took off late but you had to be there first so how did you do that?
RM: Well the oboe aircraft had to be first. And then the Mosquitoes that carried additional marker bombs would be on target more or less at the same time and they would be listening to the oboe.
CB: Which was the master bomber.
RM: Or the ground. Master bomber. Advising them where to drop their new flares.
CB: Right.
RM: Whether they’d drop them short, long, east or west and so on to correct the error. And then of course by this time the main force Lancs and Mossies would be coming up on the scene but in a lot of cases with 8 Group the light night striking force actually operated on different targets. These targets were designed to be diversionary to lure night fighters away so that they didn’t know whether to go for the Lancs or us and in that case you’d probably get about anything from forty to fifty Mossies attacking quite a valuable target. Yeah.
CB: Now, you talked about twenty five thousand feet. Was that your normal operating height?
RM: Yes. That was normal.
CB: Or did it vary much?
RM: It didn’t vary much. Anything from twenty five — twenty eight thousand. The oboe Mossies, of course, they went up to thirty seven thousand feet.
CB: Oh did they. Right.
RM: Because of course the radio waves were line of sight and at that height they could just get the Ruhr. And of course, the Ruhr was the main complex of the German war industry and after, in ’43 onwards it was systematically demolished with oboe and and with precision bombing. Yeah. As I say the whole area was completely derelict. There was nothing there.
CB: What was your most abiding memory of your experience in the war?
RM: Well, it may sound silly to you but the thing which stuck in my throat more than anything was catching mumps. I mean it was so demeaning. Orchitis. Which, of course is the classic symptoms of that. It’s not pretty and it’s painful and to catch that at nineteen years of age. It was a chance complaint and that, that really stuck with me more than anything. Yes. But that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
CB: Yes.
RM: I suppose in a way what with that and the fact that I got washed off pilots case and the fact we hit bad weather at Nav School. With the time I lost. If it hadn’t been for that I might not be here.
CB: But you might have done all sorts of other things. Operationally.
RM: I might have finished up on heavies with a much heavier chop rate. Yeah.
CB: Just going back to the American training experience. In essence it was to train for flying boats so that –
RM: Yes.
CB: What aircraft did they have in that area working on the lake?
RM: They didn’t. The Grosse Ile was the aircraft carrier part of the navy.
CB: Ah right.
RM: And once they’d completed that you then went down to Pensacola.
CB: Right.
RM: And the Gulf of Florida and converted on to Catalinas.
CB: Right.
RM: Now the interesting thing is that for many years RAF — the RAF Museum at Cosford encapsulated my wartime flying experience very very neatly. They had Canso, which was a Canadian built Catalina because it had a retractable undercarriage whereas the Catalina didn’t. And alongside it was a Mossie B35 which, to all intents and purposes, apart from an astro dome was the same, exactly the same as our B16s. And these were side by side. Now, nobody knew about me there so it was purely chance but I gather now that last year that they actually split them up into two different hangars. Which is a shame.
CB: Changing the subject a bit —
RM: Yes.
CB: A Mosquito is very cramped inside. Or is it? For the navigator? And how did you operate?
RM: Well, I was a lot slimmer than I am now. The amount of room we had. My seat was about that wide. In front of me we had a dashboard with a dropdown table for the maps and what not on. We were actually sitting on the main spar and the pilot’s seat was just in front of the main spar. Now, just here —
CB: In front of you.
RM: In front of me and to the left hand side would be the console with the undercarriage and flaps.
CB: Throttles.
RM: And throttles. For the pilot. Right handed. In front of me, underneath the dashboard would be the opening which I would go through to get into the bomb bay.
CB: Go in legs first.
RM: No. Head first.
CB: Right.
RM: Yeah. Because you had to be facing the front. Yeah. You could only go in head first. There was no room to do a hundred and eighty.
CB: Yeah.
RM: It’s very cosy. The pilot –he had roughly the same amount of room and all the gubbins in front of him and to his left. We were both slimmer and we could both get in. Now, the B, the bomber versions — you went in underneath. It had a floor entry. Like the prototype in South Mimms Museum. The fighter bomber versions had a side exit or entry and that was just aft of the propellers. About nine to twelve inches behind the propellers and in the event of getting out you had to go in. Go out head first facing the rear to make sure you didn’t get mixed up and come out as mincemeat. Yeah. They had a ladder which stowed in the aircraft that you climbed up. You went in facing backwards and then turned around. The pilot went in first, of course to get into his seat. Now, he would have a seat type parachute. We had just the harness and we had the parachute stowed down by the right hand side so that if we had to get out we could just pick it up, clip it on and out.
CB: So, if you had to get out are you going to go out through the canopy or through the floor?
RM: Oh you didn’t go out through the canopy except as we did when we crash landed at [unclear] when it was stationary. If you went out through the canopy you had a jolly good chance of being chopped in half with the rudder. So, you always went out the escape hatch at the bottom. Yes. It would be a very foolhardy thing to go out the top. Yeah. That was quite interesting now you’ve come to mention it. When we were at Gransden Lodge we were doing, going up on an air test actually and we got up to about ten thousand feet and all of a sudden there was a hell of a bang and a lot of rubbish and what not flying about and George said, ‘Get ready to jump.’ So, I sort of put the parachute on and he said, ‘Oh.’ he said, ‘The aircraft seems to be flying all right,’ he said, ‘I thought the front had gone in.’ You know, the nose, with all the rubbish and what not. We were looking around. Couldn’t see anything wrong. And then we looked up and we found that the top hatch had blown off. And of course the vacuum, the sort of [unclear] effect too place all the rubbish in the bomb bay had come out and he said just said, just tried it and he said, ‘The chances are it’s probably altered the stalling speed a bit.’ So instead of carrying on with the climb he played about and found out exactly how the aircraft handled at a hundred and twenty knots which was the normal approach speed and he found it was probably about a hundred and thirty knots with the extra drag. And so, we aborted and came back and landed. There was quite a hullabaloo, you know. ‘How come you lost that hatch?’ Well, one of those things. Yeah. They didn’t charge us for it [laughs] 664B. I take it you know what 664B was.
CB: No. Tell us. Tell us for the tape.
RM: 664B action was to re-claim from your wages.
CB: Yeah.
RM: The money for whatever it was that you’d lost, stolen or strayed. Yeah. A lot of people for instance lost their wristwatches and went on 664B because you could get a Rolex for around about six pounds ten shillings. The Longines. I had actually had a Longines wristwatch. We were issued with watches. I don’t know whether you realise this or not but we had, were equipped with aircrew watches and we had to rate them and adjust them so that they lost no more or gained no more than two seconds a day. Now, that stems from the vital necessity of having exact time to the second when you’re doing astro shots. Because one second in time can mean about a quarter of a mile in position. And for instance Coastal Command types. The Catalinas and the old Flying Boats.
CB: The Sunderlands.
RM: The Sunderland. If they were returning and they had very poor radio signals. Very few Astra shots. And could not be absolutely certain of their landfall because of the astro shots and wrong time. A few seconds. I mean a quarter of a mile could mean the difference between getting into a fjord or a bay or hitting the land at the side of it. So it was vitally important that you got the time down to a second. It wouldn’t have mattered now because course cards. So accurate. But of course with the spring you actually had to adjust them. Now, the first watch I had we were equipped with these at navigation school at Charlottetown. The first one I had was a Waltham. An American which was quite well thought of. But I just could not get it closer than about five seconds no matter how I tried. And after two weeks they said, ‘Right. That’s no use.’ So, I took it back and got a Longines and within a week I’d got that sorted out and it worked quite well. And kept that right the way through and stupidly I handed that in when I was demobbed. Because as I said 664B I could have had it for six pounds fifty. Six pounds.
CB: Even in those days.
RM: Another thing. Another thing too which I bitterly resent or regret handing in was my sunglasses. Now, they were Ray-Ban. Green. They were superb for sun. want a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses now. Ninety quid. Ridiculous isn’t it? They would have cost about three pounds.
Other: Yeah.
RM: On 664B.
CB: You talked about astro shots. You talked about astro shots so where would you put the sextant. Could you hang it on the —?
RM: Yes, you hung it in the astro dome.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Now, you can turn this off because I’m going to be in trouble.
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 Dick Maywood
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-11-09
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AMaywoodRM151109
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
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.
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
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
02:21:54 audio recording
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Herefordshire
England--Norfolk
England--Oxfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
Scotland--Aberdeenshire
England--Leicestershire
Canada
Ontario
Ontario--Goderich
Alberta
Prince Edward Island
Prince Edward Island--Charlottetown
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Ontario--Belleville
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1945-05-08
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sally Coulter
Description
An account of the resource
Dick was born in Peterborough and volunteered for the Royal Air Force in 1941. He was called up to Lord’s Cricket Ground in 1942. Dick went to No. 6 Initial Training Wing at Aberystwyth. He then went to RAF Desford, flying Tiger Moths and was selected for further pilot training. After Heaton Park, Dick volunteered for the flying boat course and flew on Stearman N254s at Grosse Isle in the United States. He returned to Canada, initially to Windsor where he was re-selected as a navigator air bomber. He was sent to Goderich and then Mountain View to the bombing and gunnery school on Mark 2 Ansons and the Bolingbroke. He gained his brevet at Navigation School in Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island.
Dick underwent intensive map training on his return and went to the Advanced Flying Unit in Wigtown on Ansons. He proceeded to the Operational Training Unit at RAF Upper Heyford on Oxfords, where he was introduced to Loran. He had just started a tour as a Mosquito Pathfinder navigator before VE Day. He describes the aircraft, Oboe, and the pattern of their operations. Dick participated in Cook’s Tours to the Ruhr Valley. He was in 608 Squadron but it was disbanded and so he was posted to 692 Squadron, another Group 8 unit, at RAF Gransden Lodge. This was also disbanded, and Dick was sent to RAF Blyton for a re-selection board where he was sent on a flight mechanic engines course at RAF Credenhill. He was posted to the 254 torpedo Beaufighter Squadron at Langham until he was demobilised.
608 Squadron
692 Squadron
8 Group
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
B-17
Beaufighter
Bolingbroke
Cook’s tour
flight engineer
Gee
Initial Training Wing
Master Bomber
Me 262
military living conditions
military service conditions
Mosquito
navigator
Oboe
Oxford
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
RAF Banff
RAF Blyton
RAF Credenhill
RAF Desford
RAF Downham Market
RAF Gransden Lodge
RAF Heaton Park
RAF Upper Heyford
sanitation
Stearman
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/297/3452/PMcBeanLW1602.1.jpg
8c7fbfb2845990a68d2b4ba40cd383c3
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/297/3452/AMcBeanLW161022.2.mp3
c1d0e5a458132c81e8eb1429d0346aaa
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
McBean, Lachie
Lachlan William McBean
Lachlan W McBean
Lachlan McBean
L W McBean
L McBean
Description
An account of the resource
117 Items. Collection concerns Lachlan William "Lachie" McBean (1924 - 2019, 430629 Royal Australian Air Force). He was a pilot whose crew had just finished their course at a Heavy Conversion Unit when the European war ended. Collection consist of an oral history interview and photographs of people, places and aircraft.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Lachlan McBean and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-22
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
McBean, LW
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AP: This interview for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive is with Lachie McBean who was a pilot at the tail end of World War Two. The interview is taking place at Lachie’s home in Ballarat in Victoria. It’s the 22nd of October 2016 and my name is Adam Purcell. Lachie, start from the beginning. Can you tell me something about your early life? Where and how you grew up and what you were doing before you enlisted?
LM: Yes, Adam. I was a country boy. I, we came from a place, a town called Seymour in Victoria. My people originally came from Moulamein in New South Wales but I was still, I was going to school in Geelong when I turned eighteen and on turning eighteen a friend of mine and myself both joined the air force. And we were told that we had to finish our school year out before we would be called up. So we did finish our school year out and then in January the following year we were called up then. So, I didn’t have any work experience or anything like that before I went into the air force.
AP: What, what were your thoughts and how old were you when you heard that war had been declared?
LM: Oh I think I would have been about fourteen or so and I remember, I remember the occasion very well when Mr Menzies announced that Australia had declared war. It’s quite vivid in my mind. I guess in those days being a school boy it didn’t, it didn’t have a great Effect on us but we were aware of people joining the services and going away. It was a little bit ahead for us being only about fourteen or so at the time.
AP: Did you have any thoughts about whether or how you might have been involved yourself eventually?
LM: Not initially. Not initially, Adam but as the time goes on when we were getting towards the age of eighteen it wasn’t discussed amongst school, school mates at all but we all, I think we all just automatically understood that we would be joining the services. There was no thought of, not in my mind, of doing anything else. I think everybody, almost everybody, just assumed they would be in the services.
AP: What — did you sort of see any effects of the war as like in those few years before you enlisted yourself. So home front type things.
LM: Sorry I didn’t —
AP: Sorry. Did you see any effects of the war? Like in, on the home front in the first sort of few years before you enlisted yourself? So as a, as a civilian essentially did the war have any effect on your life in Australia?
LM: Oh yes, certainly. Certainly by the, being aware of the people who were joining and going away and yes we were certainly as school kids aware of the effects of the war, but we certainly were pretty sheltered by it. Looking back on it I think we should have been more aware. But we still remember all of the, all of the more important things that were happening through newspaper reports of course and radio.
AP: Why did you pick the air force?
LM: It seemed to be an automatic choice. I just, I wouldn’t know when we picked the air force. I think I must have been always a little interested in the air force because I did know a little bit about some of the aeroplanes that were used prior to that. I remember, for instance, the Hawker Demon, the Bristol Bulldog. There was another one that I [pause] won’t come to mind at the moment. I remember when the Avro Anson first, first came out to Australia, well, pre-war. So I must have had a leaning. Leaning that way. I certainly didn’t give it a lot of thought.
AP: It was always, always going to be the air force. Alright. What about the enlistment process? So, once you were, once you were called up what happened next. How did you enlist? Where did you have to go and what did you have to do?
LM: Well, we, I went, I went to Melbourne. I can’t think exactly of where it was. We, in civilian clothing of course. We were put on to a troop train to go to Sydney that night. There was a troop train ran every night from Melbourne to Sydney. I well recall going for the troop train because there were all army, mostly army personnel on there and we were dressed in civilian clothing, young people. They knew we were in the air force. We got, we got a lot of cheek from the army blokes. And I do remember we were very pleased to get shut into the carriages that were there. Away from the [pause] what were they calling us? Blue orchids or something to that effect. But I know that we were quite pleased to get away from the army thing and I can even remember an incident on that troop train going. We were stopped outside, outside Wagga. I think it was just the southern side of Wagga. There was a big army camp there and a lot of the army people used to come from the camp, hop through and the train would stop and they would get a ride into Wagga on the troop train. And one of the, one of the army fellas was trying to get through the fence and he got his pants caught on one of the wires. And a train stopped there with hundreds of people hanging out the windows barracking at him [laughs]
AP: Can you remember much of the interview or medical process that you had to go through before you were accepted?
LM: No. I remember very little. Very little about it. We did a medical. We did a medical I’m not sure if it was on that day. Certainly we had to do a medical, a medical. But, no, I don’t remember any details about that.
AP: Were you on the reserve for any length of time or did you just go straight in?
LM: No. I went straight in.
AP: Straight in. Scratch that question off the list. Alright, so you were on a troop train up to Sydney. Presumably your Initial Training School was at Bradfield Park.
LM: It was at Bradfield Park, yes.
AP: Tell me something of that. What happened there? What was the place like?
LM: Well, it, it was a surprising place because it was the nearest railway station I believe was Lindfield and quite a built up area and the Bradfield Park camp was not very far from the station. Probably about a mile. But when at, at the camp you wouldn’t know you were in a built up area. There was a very steep bank at the back of the camp going down to the Lane Cove River. It seemed although, although in a, virtually in a built up area it wasn’t noticeable at all there.
AP: What sort of things happened there? What can you remember of what you did? What you learned.
LM: Well, certainly the thing that I most remember there was the drill instructor that we had. He was, he was a corporal, Corporal Sheriff. And Corporal Sheriff had more power than any officer that I’ve ever came across I think. He used to be a professional boxer and showed all the signs of it. He had a flattened nose. I had heard of cauliflower ears before I went into the air force but once I saw Corporal Sheriff I knew exactly what cauliflower ears means. His grammar was out of this world really. He, he would say to you things like, ‘What was the first thing I learned yous was when I seen yous?’ And you had to answer to him, ‘Corporal that yousil tell us nothing wrong.’ He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t stand you saying, saying, ‘You wouldn’t tell us anything wrong corporal.’ You had to say that, ‘Yous’il tell us nothing wrong.’ And I have great memories of Corporal Sheriff. And although he was rough and tough I now regard him as one of the people who had a lot of influence on my life. He was a strict disciplinarian. Disciplinarian. And he wouldn’t stand for anything but your best effort. And I think I learned a lot from Corporal Sheriff.
AP: What was the accommodation like at Bradfield Park?
LM: Oh well, I thought it was excellent. We were in a Nissen hut, about thirty people I think. And very good, and very good meals. Yes. It was, it was, naturally from a kid coming straight from school it was an experience. I hadn’t had any experience of the outside world and that was all new to me but I coped pretty well.
AP: Some of the, can you tell me some of the, well about some of the other people who were in your course? In your intake. Like — did you make any mates in particular?
LM: Well yes. I actually did go, one of my friends, the friend who we joined up together did go in with me so that was a help. And also another. I had another friend who unexpectedly was called up in the same draft. He was in a different flight from me but I knew him very well. But there were a few characters in amongst them. I had been used to, because I’d been at boarding school, I’d been used to living with other people. But there was certainly a few characters. One — Kevin Brennan, I remember was a great character. Another one — Lou Murray who was older than most of us. He was twenty five or six and had been in the army and Lou was a great character. That, we all got on pretty well together.
AP: There was a lot of helping each other out with the lessons and the study and all that sort of thing as well.
LM: I don’t know so much about helping each other out. Yes. I suppose we did. We all, we all [pause] well, we all coped. We all seemed to cope and we had, I can’t remember a lot about it but it was almost in a way like going back to school again because we, we had, most of the day was occupied with lectures of some sort or other.
AP: That was going to lead me to the next question. Was there any sort of time off or time spare at ITS and what did you do with it if there was? Was it go, go, go the whole time?
LM: We, we did have leave in the [pause] I’m not sure if it wasn’t every second weekend. No. It might have been every weekend we had leave and could go in to Sydney and do. Do little things. There wasn’t much in the way of sports from what I, what I remember. Quite a bit of work in the gym. But no, I don’t remember. I think we were kept pretty well, pretty occupied. I don’t know what we did in the evenings but we, we coped. I just don’t remember what we did in the evenings.
AP: That’s alright.
LM: We were not allowed out. We were not off away from camp in the evenings.
AP: So, I think it was at ITS that you did a selection board or something where they chose where you were going next.
LM: Yes. We had a Category Selection Board that we had to front up and I well remember that because I was the last one interviewed on, on the particular day. It was considered to be a pretty big ordeal for, for trainees to front the Category Selection Board. And when I was called, called into it there were three officers on the board and I certainly remember it well because Corporal Sheriff marched me in. He, he gave me, you know, ‘Right turn. Halt,’ in front of the, of the officers, ‘Left turn.’ And then said, ‘Sir,’ which meant that he handed me over to the officers. And at the time I thought I didn’t think. I thought there was something wrong with the interview. It didn’t seem to be going smoothly. And then I realised that I was, had put so much attention in trying to do everything correctly that I had forgotten to salute. We were supposed to give them a smart salute. And I waited until there seemed to be an appropriate answer and I threw a salute to the three officers. And something strange happened then because the one who was in the centre had a lot of papers in his hand and he picked these papers up and put them up in front of his face and he seemed to be shaking a bit. But the officer on each side of him both dropped their pencils on the floor and they took a fair while to get their pencils back again. I wondered. And when they did one of the officers made some sort of a comment which I thought was a bit like a school-girlish comment and they all burst into laughter. And of course, you know having this this recruit forgetting to salute them was a great joke to them. And after that the interview went, went pretty well. I know that they kept talking about my navigation. They asked what category I’d like to be and I said, ‘A pilot,’ and they kept talking about and saying my navigation was pretty good, ‘What would you I think if we made you a navigator?’ And I said, ‘Oh well if I’m made a navigator I guess that’s right.’ Anyhow, it turned out at the finish that they did select me for my first choice so that was lucky. But actually when I forgot to salute I was more worried about Corporal Sherriff standing behind me than I was about the officers. And in fact now that I remember it that Corporal Sherriff took me to task. He said, ‘You’s has disgraced me.’ [laughs] and he sent me down to his hut. He said, ‘At the double.’ He said, ‘There’ll be, there’s a couple of pairs of boxing gloves behind the door. Go and get those and meet me in the gym.’ Which I did. I was terrified about that and when I got there Corporal Sherriff was working on a punching bag and he was a lather of sweat and anyhow I thought this looks pretty bad but he said to me, ‘Put them down there and get out of me way. Clear off.’ [laughs] Which I did pretty smartly.
AP: Excellent.
LM: He was a great character, Corporal Sherriff.
AP: Obviously had you well, he had you well figured out. Or he had trainees well figured out.
LM: My word he did.
AP: Yeah [laughs] very good. Alright, so you’ve just found out you're a pilot. You then get shuffled off to EFTS.
LM: Yes. I went.
AP: Where was that?
LM: I went off to EFTS on Tiger Moths at Narrandera in New South Wales. Southern New South Wales. Yes. Can’t remember. I think there were two or three of us there but I don’t remember the other people who went there. So —
AP: What, what happened at Narrandera? Tell me about the learning there.
LM: Narrandera. Well it was, it was pretty interesting. The, it was in the wintertime and I’ve always thought since that you didn’t know what a frost was like until you’ve experienced one at Narrandera. You’d sometimes be flying at 7:30 in the morning and you could see the whole countryside absolutely white below as if it were covered with snow. It was very, and of course an open cockpit. When we got down you would probably not be able to feel your legs ‘til probably 10 or 11 o’clock in the morning. But Narrandera was good. Yes, we enjoyed that. And that’s about it, I think, for Narrandera.
AP: A question I have to answer every pilot — tell me about your first solo.
LM: Yeah, my first solo was interesting in that I was having a bit of trouble landing and I thought that I was probably going to get scrubbed because I could do, handle everything else but I was having a bit of trouble landing. And when it came to the critical time they gave me another instructor and he straight away, he straight away identified the problem that I was having with it. I was able to correct that to land it perfectly well. I had about two flights with him and then he, he hopped out and said, ‘You’re on your own,’ and so that was, I had no trouble afterwards landing. I think I was, I didn’t realise that, I think I was trying to sort of to wheel them on and didn’t realise, and hadn’t been really instructed by my original instructor about three pointing them. But it was just a matter of just one, you know, one comment, or one from the new instructor that fixed it.
AP: I can, yeah, I have a story that’s almost exactly the same. I was flying at Bankstown in a Cherokee and I’d completely forgotten how to land.
LM: Yeah.
AP: This was shortly after I’d got my licence. I just couldn’t land it. New aeroplane, new instructor ‘cause I was getting checked out there.
LM: Yeah.
AP: And I did about two hours with him and then, or two or three hours with him and I just couldn’t figure it out. And then I went with another instructor who had something like thirty thousand instructional hours.
LM: Yes.
AP: And he went, ‘You’re looking at the wrong place on the runway.’ It was as simple as that.
LM: Yeah.
AP: Fixed it. Never had a problem since.
LM: Well, I was trying to bring them in on a, I think, touch the wheels down instead of just holding it off. Stalling it on to the ground.
AP: Very good.
LM: Yeah. Very, very simple and very effective from the new instructor.
AP: How — did you spend any time there as one pilot’s called it, tarmac terrier? Starting engines up and things like that before you started.
LM: No. No I didn’t do any of that. No. No.
AP: Just straight into it. After EFTS you went to a Service Flying Training School.
LM: I went to, on twin engines on Avro Ansons at a place called Mallala in South Australia. Just north of, north of Adelaide. And I really, I really enjoyed being at Mallala. And —
AP: What happened there? Why did you really enjoy it?
LM: For some reason we, we used to have, I think, three days off every second weekend at Mallala and we could go into Adelaide. I’m not a city person at all but I really liked Adelaide. I felt at home over in South Australia and have ever since actually. But it was, it was a cropping area around Mallala and we used to do a lot of cross country flights to interesting places. Up to the Flinders Ranges and Port Lincoln over to the, to the west. They were, used to fly those with, with two trainee pilots. One would be navigator on the way out and swap over. Swap over with the other pilot and the course was very interesting. But for some reason I seemed to feel at home over in Mallala and I didn’t, I didn’t realise until later in life that my forebears first came to Adelaide in South Australia. And an old forebear arrived in Adelaide in 1838 and became an overlander. And I just seemed to feel at home there. So yes I enjoyed Mallala. Yeah.
AP: There was Ansons you said. What did you think of the Anson?
LM: The Anson. Oh I really liked the old Anson. They seemed reliable and not complicated. And I think a lot of people were not very impressed with them but yes I’ve still got a soft spot for the old Anson. Yeah. But they, they seemed to me to be simple and safe, yeah I enjoyed them.
AP: Where did you go from Mallala? What was next?
LM: I think, Mallala — after Mallala was to [pause] must have been to the Melbourne Cricket Ground as embarkation depot I think.
AP: Tell me about the MCG.
LM: Well, the Melbourne Cricket Club, the Melbourne Cricket Ground, yes. It was an interesting place to be. I lived there for three weeks. Under no circumstance were we allowed to set foot on the ground itself but we had parade grounds on the tarmac in front of the, I think it was in front of the old, the original old members stand. Yes, three weeks there for — I actually was, I was meant to go overseas a little earlier than I did because I’d been given pre-embarkation leave. My mother had gone to live in Canberra at that time and I had only a few days. I think about four or five days embarkation leave and the train, I was late back because of a train not connecting and when I got back the rest of the boys were all ready to go overseas and I remained there another couple of weeks. And, and by doing so the ones that I had been with had gone on a ship via the Cape of Good Hope. And the ship that I travelled on went via New Zealand and the United States. So I probably would have selected that way of going.
AP: Right. Tell me about that boat then. Tell me about that trip to the UK.
LM: To the — well we were taken to Brisbane. We were in camp at a place just north of Brisbane for two or three nights and embarked on a, on an American troop carrier called the Matsonia. The Matsonia was almost empty because they had taken troops to New Guinea and we, we travelled from Brisbane quite close to Lord Howe Island. I would think probably only a mile off Lord Howe Island. They’d got these remarkable high cliffs that I’ve always remembered there. From there to Auckland. Not allowed off the ship at Auckland and then from there to San Francisco, and we had about a week or so in San Francisco which was pretty interesting to young blokes like we all were. Not long left school. About a four day trip across the United States by train through — I remember going through a tunnel called the Moffat Tunnel which was, I think was something like seven and three quarter miles long. The longest tunnel in the world. I remember seeing the first snow I had ever seen. The place might have been called [unclear]. Salt Lake City. Places like that. Passing through. Detroit. Passing through them and then we had a week or so in New York. The American people were absolutely great to us. I know that on at least two occasions some others and myself had had meals in a restaurant and had gone up to pay for it and been told it’s already been paid for. And people had already paid for them and not even come up and told you they were doing so. That happened at least on two occasions. So, yes the American people were great.
AP: Can you tell me some more about New York?
LM: More about New York.
AP: Yeah. And your — well you spent a week there. What sort of things did you do?
LM: I think —
AP: What did you think?
LM: Well, first of all at San Francisco when we had a week or so there we were, we were camped on an island in the San Francisco harbour which was quite close to the famous prison island which is [pause] won’t come to mind now but there is a famous prison island in San Francisco and we were quite close to that. But in New York we, I know that we were billeted for a few days with a doctor who took us to an opera. It was, the opera was called, I believe, “Carmen Jones,” and it was all black, all black cast. He took us to his country, his residence in the country further to the north. I can’t remember just where but I do remember it was very cold at the time and I was with a friend of mine called Doc Davies from , who came from Perth. And there was a pond. He had a country property. There was a pond on this property that he had which was covered in ice. It was a beaver pond. The pond had been made by beavers and I remember Doc being, I suppose silly enough but walking out on the ice there and went through the ice and into the freezing water. But he was able to get out easily enough but, it — we looked of course at all the buildings. The famous buildings in New York. I think most of us went to visit Jack Dempsey’s bar. He was, I think, had been World Heavyweight Boxing Champion prior to that. That was a famous place. And anyhow it was a great experience for young people. From young people from the country in Victoria.
AP: You’re not the first person to tell me about Jack Dempsey’s bar, so —
LM: Is that so?
AP: Yes. A lot of people have mentioned it.
LM: Yeah.
AP: Yeah very good. Alright. Then you go across to England.
LM: Yes. We, we went to, if I remember correctly there were only seventeen in our party and yes, we, I was put in charge of the baggage of this lot and I was taken down to the wharf with all the baggage. The day prior to our sailing I think it was. But however we travelled on the Queen Mary and in New York harbour tied up along, beside the Queen Mary was the Queen Elizabeth. So the two biggest ocean liners in the world were tied up together. We were fortunate to travel up together in the Queen Mary which was a great experience. There were lots of rumours. The Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth carried lots and lots of troops to, to England. And there were lots of stories about u-boats looking for them. Hunting them. However, we had a, we had a — our trip was ok. I believe that the trip that I did was to that time had the record number of troops on it than it had so far. And I understand that there were twenty two thousand troops on because there were a lot of American troops being taken to England prior to D-day. And I understand they had one soldier sleeping in a bunk in the daytime and a different one sleeping in the same bunk at night. And I can remember them having the canteens on the decks and the American troops had to line up. To line up at these and they’d have to, they’d get their rations slapped on to plates and then they had to run for about a hundred yards away. They had American service police who were belting them on the backside with a baton and saying, ‘Get moving buddy.’ And they’d belt them on the backside with batons to make them run so they would clear the area out and not be hanging around there. And I might add they’re talking about the meals on troop ships the meals we had on the American troop ship, the Matsonia were absolutely magnificent because the ship was almost empty and probably four or five course meals, unbelievable for troops. Yeah.
AP: Lovely. This is the first time obviously that you’ve been overseas isn’t it?
LM: Oh yeah.
AP: Yeah.
LM: Yes. Yes.
AP: It would have made a fairly big impact I imagine.
LM: A fair?
AP: A fairly big impact.
LM: Oh yes. Oh well, but I guess, I guess we took it all in our stride. It surprises me now that they didn’t seem to be big deals. All the young people just seemed to take it in their stride.
AP: So you, you then land in the UK.
LM: Yes, at Greenock.
AP: In Greenock. And presumably you then, you probably caught a train down to Brighton or something similar.
LM: Yes we would have caught a train to Brighton. That was, that was our first posting in England, to Brighton.
AP: What did you think of England? Seeing it for the first time as a young Australian.
LM: I guess again, I guess again we just took it in our stride. We just accepted what we, what we saw. I don’t remember having any particular thoughts about it. No. I can’t think of any immediate. Any impressions that I had.
AP: Did you, when was the first time that you realised you were now in a war zone?
LM: Oh well it didn’t take long to realise that because of course there were — beaches were, were fenced off with barbed wire along there. There were anti–aircraft guns on the beach front. More or less in front of our billets. We were billeted in a couple of the big hotels. There was the Royal and the Metro. I can’t remember which one I was in but I know there were plenty of signs of wartime then. You often used to see in the evenings the, off the coast you would see what certainly appeared to be gunfire. I understand the little motor torpedo boats used to get involved in little actions off the shore. You saw plenty of signs of that at night. Occasionally at Brighton, even at Brighton occasionally sirens going, air raid sirens going off. Oh no, it was soon very very obvious that [pause] I think we could get down to the beach. The beaches were not sand. They were, they were pebble beaches and absolutely marvellous for throwing stones. Skipping stones across the water. And I had one friend Henty Wilson and I — there was one place you could get down to the water and throw stones and we regularly went down throwing stones in the water there.
AP: Where did you go next, after Brighton?
LM: I can’t quite remember. I was at Brighton for, for a while. I don’t remember quite where I went but probably there was a, we went to a camp which was an interesting posting. We went to one called Credenhill near Hereford and it was not to do with flying. I can’t remember the purpose of the camp. We did a lot of exercises. Climbing over walls with nets on them and through big pipes and all that sort of thing. We did a lot of, did a lot of, a lot of exercises but it was interesting in that camp because after we’d been there for a few days all of the pilots on the course were called in to be given a talk by an RAF officer. And I don’t think we, I don’t think we understood what the talk was about really. But when he’d finished his talk he, he said, he asked us if any of us would volunteer to retrain as glider pilots. And we could hardly believe this. Nobody was remotely interested in it. He not only asked, he not only asked if anyone would volunteer. He more or less pleaded. He seemed to be quite insistent and, but still nobody even remotely thought of doing. We thought it was a backward step. And I don’t think, I don’t think we thought any more about it after that but about a month later after breakfast one morning I can recall.
[phone ringing, recording paused]
AP: Now you were saying about a month later, a month after —
LM: About a month later, near at the end of the course we were out after breakfast doing some exercises and we could hear the drone of aircraft, and suddenly aircraft appeared towing gliders. Going straight over our heads. Not at great height. Probably fifteen hundred feet or thereabouts and the sky became full of aircraft towing gliders and if you looked to the north as far as you could see and looked to the south as far as you could see they were gliders everywhere there. Strangely, at the time we didn’t immediately realise what was happening. It was later in the day that it was announced that the D-day landing had occurred and then of course we came to understand why we were asked if we would consider remustering as glider pilots.
AP: Wow. That’s great.
LM: So that was a, that was a pretty interesting posting to that place.
AP: Wow. That’s a good story. I like that one.
LM: Strangely I, I can’t I can still see them going over today but I can’t remember. I think they were mostly DC3s towing the very big gliders. Mostly DC3s and I can’t, I can’t even remember anyone commenting on what the aircraft were that were towing them. But the sky was full of aircraft as far as you could see. North and South and even from where they were coming they took quite some time to go over us.
AP: Suddenly we understood. I like it. Alright, were there any other training, well there were some more training units. After that did you do AFU or something like that? An Advanced Flying Unit.
LM: Oh yes. We did, we did a refresher course on Tiger Moths and I think we did a beam approach course on [pause] I can’t remember what they were but we did, did an AFU or whatever on Oxfords. Airspeed Oxfords, which were a bit of a step up from the Ansons I suppose they were but I would still prefer the Ansons myself. And yeah, that was I can’t think where we were doing that but it was quite a comprehensive course on Oxfords. There was, there was another interesting posting. I think it was actually where we were doing the Oxfords. Yes. I think it was. It was at a place, at a small village called Badminton which I understand is pretty well known because of horse trials they have there. But it was, it was interesting in that in doing this course and yes I’m pretty sure it was with, with the Oxford — on one of the runways the one that was mostly used on taking off it went directly over the top of a very, very large mansion. It was, I think about three storeys high this mansion, and stone. Had a magnificent looking garden and driveways around it and had a big area of park like grounds surrounding it with scattered trees and a herd of deer in the, this surrounding land. And the deer didn’t seem to be worried in any way by the aircraft going over but, but the home belonged to the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort if I remember correctly. But we, and when it took off and going up straight over the top of the building we’d only be probably two or three hundred feet over it, night flying as well. And we couldn’t understand why that would be allowed because, especially because it was the wartime residence of Queen Mary. Queen Mary being the wife of the late George the Vth. I think he died in [pause] probably seven or eight years prior to the war. Anyhow, that was Queen Mary’s wartime residence and here are these aircraft flying directly over the top of the thing. Could not, and once we were very fortunate that we were invited. The dominion blokes who were on the course. Probably about a dozen Aussies and three or four Kiwis. Might have been a Canadian, I think. A couple of South Africans probably. We were invited to go to this. It was called Badminton House I think. We were invited to go and watch a film being shown. The film was, “Pygmalion.” And we were taken over in a bus, shown into this very large room barely furnished that had a screen for showing the film on. It had a row of about oh probably seven or eight more or less comfortable chairs and then probably about three or four rows of wooden benches. And also had a table with cups and saucers and things on it. Very big room. Very high ceiling. I reckon probably about twenty foot ceiling or something. So we were shown into that room and after a while a door opened and two very good looking girls walked in there and that caused a fair bit of excitement amongst all of our blokes. And soon after that they were followed by a couple of fairly foppish looking young blokes about the same age. That caused a bit of comment too I can say. And then two or three other people came into the room and then Queen Mary herself came in and she stood at the doorway and she looked at all the troops and beamed at everyone, looking around. Then she took up her seat and we all sat down. The lights went out. They showed this film, “Pygmalion.” I think later called, “My Fair Lady.” A couple of, I know a few of us were a bit worried about that because we knew the word, ‘bloody,’ was used a couple of times [laughs] in this film. Anyhow, we watched the film and enjoyed that and when it was finished the lights went on and Queen Mary stood up. And we would only be sitting, you know, probably three rows, three to four rows behind her. Probably ten or fifteen feet or something behind her. And she stood up and she beamed at everybody again and walked out followed by the others. Not a word was spoken in the entire time from when the time the girls came in ‘til everyone went out. Not one word was spoken. We were then given our cups of tea and some sandwiches and off home. So we were pretty fortunate to have that opportunity. Yeah.
AP: Yeah. Presumably Church Broughton happened fairly soon thereafter.
LM: Went to Church Broughton.
AP: Yeah. You mentioned Church Broughton.
LM: Well we would have gone soon after Church Broughton was OTU. Where we crewed up. Crewed up at OTU. Yeah.
AP: Tell me about that process. How you crewed up.
LM: I don’t remember much about it. I mean, I think the process was that we were, a whole lot of us were let loose in a room and we had to make up our own crews I think. And I don’t really remember much about that process but we came out of it with a crew. We had, two of us were Aussies, a couple of Scotsmen and a couple of Englishmen. Six in the crew at that time. But, yeah. I just can’t remember much about the process. I think, I think most people are you know, sort of understood pretty well what happened but, you know I just don’t remember much about it.
AP: What sort of flying did you do at Operational Training Unit?
LM: Well it was on Wellingtons there and first of all it was mostly daytime. It was getting familiar because it was the biggest step of all, I think of, of going from an Oxford on to a Wellington. It was , yeah it was a bigger step than [pause] certainly bigger than previously and then of course there was a crew there to be thought of us as well. And yeah, quite, quite a big step and did, did mostly daylight until I guess we became familiar and competent with it. And mostly night flying after that. And it was, it was good joining with a crew. We seemed to get on pretty well I think and I think most crews got on. Most people on crews got on well. I really can’t think of any times when there was problems amongst the crews. I guess there were at times but I’m not aware of them and, you know, our crews certainly got on well.
AP: What was I going to ask you next? [pause] So you’ve now been in England for a little while. What sort of things did you get up to on leave and when you were off duty?
LM: Well when I happened to have a few relatives that I was able to visit. I certainly didn’t do enough visiting them but I had an aunt, a sister of my father who actually lived at Hove which was within walking distance of where I was at Brighton. And I’m really sorry to say that I can only remember going up a couple of times while I was there to visit them. I had two half-sisters who lived in, were living in England then. One that was more convenient to go. I used to go there on leave to stay with them. She lived in Stockbridge in Wiltshire, I think. Might have been Hampshire. Later on I had a motorbike and I did a little. We had a lot of leave later. In the latter part and I was able to get petrol for my motorbike. I’m not going to go into too much detail how some of that petrol was got [laughs] but we seemed to manage that and sometimes on a few occasions the whole of the crew went. I remember going, all going to London once because one of the English boys lived in London and I used to like trying to do sightseeing and visiting, looking at famous buildings like Winchester Cathedral and Salisbury Cathedral and those sort of places. I can’t think too much more of leave but certainly at the, mostly at the latter time, of course, when the war had finished when we did have quite a bit of leave and that’s when I did the motorbike work.
AP: Can you tell me something more about that motorbike? What sort was it and where did you get it from?
LM: Well it was a Norton 500 and it was said to be the fastest bike on the station and the way I got it was that the flight engineer that joined our crew after we’d finished OTU, when we went on to Heavy Conversion Unit the flight engineer that we picked up had been a, been a racing rider, motorbike racing rider. And he organised this Norton 500 for me and he taught me how to ride it and that’s probably the most terrifying time that I had when I was, entire time when I was in England because he used to go — belt down these narrow country lane. We’d do a left turn for instance and he’d yell out, ‘Go over.’ I didn’t know much about going over as you turned a corner and then he’d yell out, ‘Come back.’ And we’d have to do but had traffic been coming the other way there was no way we could not have collided. He absolutely terrified the living daylights out of me. I don’t know if he was putting on a special show or for me or not, just to show me how good he was but anyhow I was pleased when my lessons were finished on that. It was years and years afterwards that I, it occurred to me that I don’t know whether the bike was registered or not. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have been insured and I certainly didn’t have a licence, and I didn’t think a thing about this. And I can’t remember what happened. When I finished either. I think I just left it on the station.
AP: What a shame [laughs] Very nice. Did you see or hear about any accidents while you were training?
LM: Any accidents?
AP: Accidents. Like flying accidents.
LM: Oh yes. Oh well, yes, there were. There were some. There was. On EFTS originally at Narrandera one of the chaps who was quite a good friend of mine he baled out. Had to bale out of his Tiger Moth. But unfortunately he hit the release button instead of pulling the rip cord and that’s the first. That was the first accident, but oh yes, there were. There were accidents throughout the training and it I remember, I remember when we went to Bottesford on the Lancasters when we were taken on to the station. The first thing I saw was that, well we all noted it, was a graveyard of two or three wrecked aircraft, which struck a bit of a cord. Yeah. But yeah, there were often accidents with undercarriage, through landing and that sort of thing. Taxiing accidents too. Fortunately, I wasn’t involved in any accidents at all.
AP: So after your OTU, you’re on a Heavy Conversion Unit. That was, you said was at Bottesford.
LM: That was at Bottesford. Yes. Yes.
AP: Ok. Can you tell me something about Bottesford.
LM: We picked up, picked up the seventh member of the crew.
AP: What, what did you do there? Actually tell me of your first impression of a Lancaster.
LM: Well, I guess they were, they were big and, was the first impression. Big and powerful. But seemed to be, seemed to be, you know perhaps easier certainly than the Wellington. The Wellington was pretty heavy on the, on the controls. And the Lancaster just seemed to be easier to come to convert on to. And they were, they were a marvellous aircraft yes. But that’s about it I think. I can’t —
AP: What did your position, your pilot’s position in the Lancaster? What’s around you? What does it look like? What do you feel?
LM: What was the —
AP: Well the pilot’s position. What does it look like and what does it feel like when you’re sitting in a Lancaster?
LM: Well, the viewing was very good. Seeing out of the, seeing out of the aircraft which was important. There was no obstructed viewing. They looked pretty high when you were sitting. Sitting in them when you first got in to them. Pretty high off the ground. They just, they appeared, they seemed to me to be fairly easy after the Wellington. And I suppose it seems strange with young people who are not even twenty one and that having, and not perhaps being mechanically minded or anything like that, but everybody coped perfectly well. I don’t think I can add much to that.
AP: That’s alright. Some, a place where many things happened was the mess at various airfields. What was the atmosphere like in a wartime mess?
LM: In the wartime, in the mess?
AP: Yeah.
LM: Well it was usually fairly lively most nights [laughs] and I think there was some who used to hang on there longer than others. But I think they were yeah, I just remember enjoyable experiences of the mess as far as I’m concerned. There were occasionally, there was a lot of line shooting went on there I think. You’d see people standing at the bar waving their arms and manoeuvring with their arms and I think that’s where there were a few tall stories there. But I used to, I used to enjoy going into the mess and everybody got there. We used to play darts and all that sort of thing in there and that was a great little hobby, like going down to the local village pubs at night. That was a great little thing and we used to do that a lot. Most of our crew would go down there. And we’d get home alright at night usually [laughs] without too much trouble. But I used to even have my own set of darts that I used to take down to play. And I can imagine the, all the locals how much it would have upset them with all these kids practically coming in and pinching their dartboard and making nuisances of themselves in the local quiet little pubs. They were a great atmosphere in those little country pubs, yeah.
AP: What, you’ve just gone on to the front door of whatever your favourite pub was, you open the door, you step in. What do you see?
LM: What do you see? Well you usually see a fairly good crowd of people in there. And you’d see the blokes, you’d see the local blokes sitting down and playing draughts. A few of the others playing, playing darts. You’d probably notice the great big pots they had instead of a, instead of what we would normally have. They’d have a pint pot and a pint was a pretty big, pretty big volume of liquid. But that’s what they mostly did have there. Oh yeah, well I just think often the pubs that we used to go into were little, little country pubs because you know having an airfield near them you’re not near built up areas. And they were a great atmosphere.
AP: What was the English beer like?
LM: Well, I think you were almost duty bound to criticise it [laughs] but, you know, for all that everybody drank plenty of it. I think it was thought to be warm and this and that and the other but everybody — it didn’t put people off drinking, drinking it. But I think for most Aussies I think it was part of your duty to be critical of it.
AP: Still is. Do any of your flights, all throughout your, your flying career with the air force do any of your flights stick out in your memory in particular?
LM: Do any particular ones?
AP: Flights, yeah, any of your flying. For whatever reason.
LM: I don’t, I don’t see, I don’t think of any being any being particularly remarkable for any reason because we finished our training. It coincided with the end of the war. Pretty neatly I think. We, ours were all routine, routine training flights. There were always times that everybody would have experienced, you know, some drama or other. That happened, you know all the time I guess. There were little things of drama. But I don’t remember any being of any particular significance.
AP: So the end of your, you came to the end of your training and it happened to be the end of the war. How did you find out? Did you know that the end of the war was coming? Did it, you know was there we’re just waiting for it to happen now or, how did it actually happen?
LM: No. It’s such a long time ago now. I think, I suppose my thought is that probably it was only in the last week or so that from from my point of view that I, it seemed it was going to. There was talk of it earlier but to my way of thinking it was only in the last when it was actually coming up to the last week or so that I realised that it was going to. You seemed to be involved in what you were doing and you know I really haven’t got, you know good memories of that time.
AP: What were your feelings when the war did end? You found out. It’s over. Now what?
LM: I I suppose, I think I just thought, well that’s it. That’s it, you know, what happens now? I can’t remember having thought about any great sighs of relief or anything. I think it was, in those days you seemed to, you seemed to live day to day. You did what you had to do and didn’t sort of speculate much on other things and, yeah. I just feel that you went on with life. What was happening, you just went on with it you know. One thing finishes, something else starts.
AP: What did happened next?
LM: What did happen? Well we were sent, from my memory then, when we finished the course, from my memory I think we were sent up by train up to 467 Squadron and we were not taken on strength by them. There’s nothing in my records about it but I think we were sent up to 467 and then, and then without being taken on to the station I think we were issued with new rail passes and sent back again to Bottesford. But that’s getting a long, long time ago and from what I understood was that the crews on our Heavy Conversion Course, the ones that were all English crews, as I understand it, they were, they were sent on to a tour of duty flying prisoners of war back from Italy. I think minus the gunners of course, but the pilot, flight engineer, radio operator and navigator. I think that they were sort of retained. That was my understanding that the English crews did that. And we were sent on leave virtually I think at that stage. We used to get leave extended by a couple of weeks all the time.
AP: And that’s when you were hurtling around on your motorbike most of the time.
LM: Yeah. Yeah.
AP: Great. I’ve seen some photos of Scotland in your photo album there. Tell me something of that little trip.
LM: Oh well I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to go to Scotland. And my forebears came from the Scottish Highlands so that was all very interesting, and that’s the, that’s sort of the destination that I eventually headed to. I did a lot around the Scottish Highlands, Isle of Skye, that sort of thing. And, you know, I was extremely lucky to have the opportunity of doing that. The motorbike seemed to go pretty well and I don’t think I ever had troubles with it. I can’t say what else but yeah, I got, I saw a lot of the Highlands and you know the, the lands that your forebears came from. So I was very lucky there. I wouldn’t have been able to do so otherwise. And I was able of course, with the motorbike, to get down to where my half-sister was living in the south of England. So I don’t know that I can enlarge on that.
AP: That’s alright. So travelled all over England after the war ended essentially is a summary of it.
LM: Well yeah. Well I travelled more, you know, more Scotland and — yeah. More Scotland rather than over the rest of England. Yeah.
AP: So how did you get home?
LM: I came home on a ship called the Athlone Castle. It came from Southampton and I don’t remember it but I noticed in one of the photographs I’ve got there is a photograph of the Queen Elizabeth at Southampton. So therefore I’ve seen the Queen Elizabeth on two different occasions. We came home through the Suez Canal. I think we arrived in Fremantle just before Christmas and if I remember we had Christmas Day between Fremantle and Melbourne.
AP: Christmas Day 1945.
LM: Yeah, ‘45 that would have been. Christmas Day 1945. And one thing I do remember about it. It would be about Christmas Day coming across The Bight between Fremantle and Melbourne. I remember seeing quite a number of whales that were spouting or blowing I think they call it. Yes. Which was quite interesting.
AP: So how long before you were demobbed?
LM: Not long at all. I was demobbed, I think, within a couple of weeks of getting home. As I mentioned my mother had moved, moved to Canberra and I think I had a, just had a short bit of leave, about five or six days or something and was demobbed soon afterwards.
AP: What happened then? How did you find re-adjusting to civilian life? Getting a job. A real job for once.
LM: It was quite unsettling really and I had, we were given, we were on the ship coming home we were given a few lectures on the future thing. We were, we were given the opportunity to go to, to apply for the university if we wanted to. And quite a few of my friends did take that opportunity of doing a university course. I think quite a few of them went. They had a campus at Mildura at the time. Straight after the war. And I actually think I filled in papers to do engineering at the university but I scrapped that. Soon after we got back I wanted to go on, decided I wanted to go on the land and do something because my people had always been on the land in the past. That didn’t, I don’t think that that fact that families had been on the land would influence me but I seemed to come to that decision that I wanted to do that. So I scrapped my, any thought of going to the university, to do engineering. But yeah it took a while to settle down.
AP: So you were a farmer for your working life. Is that what happened?
LM: Yes. Yes. I actually qualified to get a soldier’s settlement block under the Victorian scheme and I think I was very fortunate for that to happen. And it happened in a great area as far as I was concerned. So yes, I was very, very lucky. And until eighteen months ago I’ve lived on that. We lived on that property until eighteen months ago. We were over sixty years there. So that you know that was a really good opportunity.
AP: That was, that’s Lismore I think you said, wasn’t it?
LM: Sorry?
AP: That was Lismore area.
LM: At Lismore area. Yes. Yes
AP: Tell me about the book you wrote.
LM: Well I knew that I didn’t know much about family history but I knew that I had an old forebear who’d come out in the very early days to Adelaide in 1838. I didn’t know much about him really, really at all, and I think the first real interest that was sparked when I was training at Mallala. I had to do a cross country from Mallala across the, across the Mallee country to a place called Pinnaroo, somewhere. And where we crossed the Murray River, I noticed on the chart, just near the place we crossed the river on that flight there’s a place called McBeans’ Pound, and that made me wonder why that would be. I didn’t know anything about it but I knew there was a branch of the family living near the Barossa valley in South Australia and had been there for a long time. I did actually ring them up and speak to one of them while I was at Mallala and I was invited to call out. We used to do a lot of flights around. I remember [unclear] Kapunda, and things flying over, over there. They lived, their property was near Truro which I don’t think I ever flew over, but I did ring one of them. I was invited to go. To go out and visit them. I didn’t get the opportunity to, but that’s, that’s all that I knew and later on I got to, got to hear a few. There were always stories told about this old fella. He settled up in the Moulamein area mainly in New South, New South Wales, but there were lots of stories that were told about him. In fact, when I was boy of ten or twelve or something like that people used to visit my grandmother. And that’s all they seemed to do was tell stories about old Lachie and, but though they were mostly stories about his closeness with money or his eccentric ways or less eccentric ways. When I was a little boy, about ten or twelve or something like that I used to get really annoyed at these people telling these stories and I used to think, you know that story’s not true, and this sort of thing. And eventually, that must have been the first time really thought of the old fella and added to that scene this place called McBean pound on the Murray River caused me to look into it quite a lot. And so eventually I did research and as much as I could and put together this little book that I wrote about him. And I think it’s probably, probably one of the most important things that I have done because all of this history about the old bloke would have disappeared if I hadn’t written it down. Heaps of people in the past have had the opportunity and no one’s done it. And it would have all disappeared so I am pleased that I did write that.
AP: Lovely. Alright. Final question. What, to you is the legacy of Bomber Command and of your time in Bomber Command and how do you want to see it remembered?
LM: To see Bomber Command remembered. Well I suppose [pause] I suppose one thing it certainly taught discipline and that’s anyone who served learned plenty of that. There were certainly huge sacrifices made by, by young people with everything before them and you know as long as that’s remembered and known by people then it can only be a good thing. It would be, you know very sad if a lot of this stuff was lost, and there are not very many of them left these days. But [pause] well, all I can say is that I hope every, you know, every move that made us successful in remembering the efforts of Bomber Command and I don’t think I can add any more.
AP: Before we turn off the tape any final thoughts, stories.
LM: It would be a great weight off my mind if you turned off the tape [laughs]
AP: Alright [laughs] thank you Lachie.
LM: Alright. You know to think of you coming all this way just to do that.
AP: Not a problem at all. It’s been great.
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/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AMcBeanLW161022
PMcBeanLW1602
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Lachie McBean
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:22:58 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending OH summary
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Adam Purcell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-22
Description
An account of the resource
Lachie McBean grew up in Australia and joined the Royal Australian Air Force when he was 18. He was a pilot at a Heavy Conversion Unit when the war in Europe ended. After the war he returned to Australia and became a farmer. He also took the opportunity to research his family history and wrote a book about one of his ancestors.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945
aircrew
entertainment
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
mess
military living conditions
military service conditions
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Oxford
pilot
RAF Bottesford
RAF Church Broughton
RAF Credenhill
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington