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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1943/35487/AGuyanS[Date]-01.mp3
18ed3eafa76cc4c5d5761d681cfe81ac
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Title
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Guyan, Samuel
S Guyan
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-09-23
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Guyan, S
Description
An account of the resource
40 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer Samuel Guyan DFC (Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, audio memoir and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 90 and 115 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Andrew Guyan and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Jock here. After listening to George reading about our ops from the official records I realised how bare they were so I thought I’d say a few words about our ops as in the mid-upper turret I saw most of what went on. [radio recording begins] “While US bombers mass raided Germany by day, RAF Bomber Command pounded it by night.” “It was the point of entry in to Germany where the German fighters were under full control in their boxes and by their ground controllers and that’s where they had a sort of first exact knowledge of which way they were coming in and how many were coming.” [pause] “The Germans were waiting with their night fighters and anti-aircraft guns. Prepared for the allied planes coming and going [sounds of gunfire] The crews of Bomber Command flew in darkness to names on maps illuminated by the Pathfinders to drop their bombs. They flew through walls of flak waiting to be attacked by an enemy they could not see. Nowhere else over Europe were such desperate air battles fought [sounds of gunfire] Some would reach home again and some would not.” [radio recording stops] That was just the sound of the action to set the old adrenaline flowing. Butch Harris was one of the speakers there. I’ll start with that mining op at Bordeaux. Coming in from the sea we weren’t sure where we were so we came down low. Five hundred feet Bill said when we met. When we met at the reunion. We came down low to pinpoint some lakes. That was when the light flak guns opened fire at us. Bill lying in the bomb aimer‘s compartment shouted to Gordon and Gordon reacted immediately. ‘Dive to the starboard.’ Yes, Bill and Gordon, you saved our lives that night. I’ll never forget the tracer whizzing by my turret and bursting just above us. I made the joke at the time that I swallowed my chewing gum. I can’t remember whether I did or not. Probably just said it to hide my fear. As I said to Jack, I remembered looking at the side of the aircraft by my turret the next day up at the dispersal looking to see if there were any burn marks. It was that close. If we’d dived a second later I would have been split in two. You needn’t laugh about it Jack because your head would probably have been blown off as you were just up the gangway from me.
[recording paused]
I think that that flak battery probably shot down a few bombers who were doing the same as we were. That op, funnily enough was our first from Wratting Common and our next one was also a nasty one. Dusseldorf. This was the one where we were caught in the searchlights. Twenty four I have down in my logbook and for sixteen minutes. I remember Gordon saying that he was sorry he looped the loop that night. I wouldn’t be surprised Gordon. John and I in our turrets had three or four upside down views of the searchlights that night. By the way that was our first op in P-Peter. A few nights later we went to Krefeld in the Ruhr. I mention this op because this is the op that Peters went missing. He was a pilot I always remember. Tall, red headed. He was very commanding in his Aussie blue uniform. I suppose you knew him most of all, Gordon. I remember walking in to the debriefing room and a voice saying, ‘Peters is missing.’ I can still hear that voice. Later on walking up that narrow concrete path to our Nissen hut I thought somebody would be saying one morning that, ‘Appleby is missing.’
[recording paused]
Wuppertal was a good op. We hammered that one and we weren’t flying all that much above the smoke that night. I’ll talk now about the op when our lives depended on the whim of a Luftwaffe pilot. The pilot of that ME110 when he was faced with the choice of which Stirling he would shoot down. It certainly was a case of eeny meeny miney mo. I am not sure which op this was but I’ve an idea it was Cologne. It was one of the blackest nights ever. Suddenly the sky was lit up by this Stirling catching fire. It was less than two hundred yards in our port beam. The same height and no more than ten yards behind us. I saw this ME110 breaking away to port and then he was lost in the dark. This 110 must have opened fire at very short range and he was less than fifty yards from the Stirling when he broke away. As I said it was a very black night and I doubt that John and I could see more than forty or fifty yards. The pilot in the ME110 of course had us on his radar screen. He had two blips to pick from. Why didn’t he pick us? Was that ten yards that we were in front of the other vital? Or was it because the pilot of a plane was always sat on the port side and breaking away to the port was easiest. We’ll never know.
[recording paused]
I didn’t see anybody bale out of the Stirling which crashed behind a farmhouse. We lost two crews that night so there’s possible that that Stirling could have been from 90 Squadron. Same height, same course. I couldn’t pick up the marking because the flames spread all the way along the fuselage.
[recording paused]
Hamburg. Four ops in nine nights plus a Remscheid in between when we had to turn back because the starboard outer went u/s. The first op on Hamburg of course was when they first used Window. The sight over the target that night was unbelievable. Searchlights were flapping all over the place but also were just straight up in the air. They were completely confused. That was the night that we were diverted to Newmarket when we got back because a plane had blocked our runway. I remember we had to sleep in an empty hut that night. Even had to wait for a van to bring the bedding and make our own beds.
[recording paused]
Our second op on Hamburg of course was the big one. This they say was Bomber Command's most successful raid. Up to forty thousand people were killed that night. I’ll never forget the smoke which was rising away above us. A fourth Hamburg was another nasty one for us. Flying through thunderstorms all the way. The plane covered in a blue light. George said he remembered the ice crashing on to my turret. Most of the crews turned back that night. Why didn’t we? Now Len, never mind that joke you made at the reunion when you said that that sod wouldn’t come back with us meaning Gordon. Good laugh. I don’t know whether Jack picked anything up on the wireless about other crews turning back. He didn’t say anything. In fact, turning back was never mentioned by any one of us. We just pressed on.
[recording paused]
Turin. Crossing the Alps in moonlight. One of my finest memories. We were coned over there but that wasn’t too bad, was it? This was the op when after we just crossed the Alps John and I saw this Wimpy flying the other way. A few seconds later there was an almighty flash. Did he crash in the Alps or did he collide with another plane? We don’t know.
[recording paused]
Peenemunde. Another moonlight op. This was when that unidentified plane buzzed around us. Gordon had thought it was a 110. I thought it might have been a Beaufighter. As I remember it he came out of the moon and flashed across the front of us from starboard to port. He then flew around us and came up behind. I was just going to say to John, ‘Fire a short burst to let him know we’ve seen him,’ when Gordon asked what he was doing. And just then the aircraft turned away to port and we never saw him again. Mind you he wasn’t more than a thousand yards away. Very funny that was. I remember flying over Denmark and somebody flashing the V sign. Peenemunde. We just got clear in time didn’t we before the fighters came into the bomber stream? Remember all these fires in the sky behind us John? [recording paused]
Mannheim, when a piece of flak hit me on the head. I suppose breaking through the Perspex took some sting out of it. It left me with just the tiniest bump. My second op on Mannheim was our last op but we still had a rather shaky do to come, hadn’t we? [recording paused]
Farnborough. After a very enjoyable week there doing the experimental flights with that captured JU88 with the old Spitfire hanging around we took off from Farnborough to fly back to Wratting Common and minutes later bad weather set in. It was so bad that Gordon was really hedge hopping. We skimmed through a tree. John remembers his turret crashing through the branches. When George came to see me he said he remembers this as one of our bad ones. I must tell this story. He said he was sat down by his dials when he realised that the dialogue on the intercom was getting a bit frantic so he thought he’d go and have a look through the astrodome and he said, ‘There we were just flying over the traffic lights in Reading.’ We were alright though because I think the lights were on green at the time.
[recording paused]
Make no mistake it was a tremendous tour in Stirlings 1943. The Battle of the Ruhr, Hamburg, Peenemunde. When people talk about Bomber Command these are the ops they talk about. You have no doubt read that book by Len Deighton called, “Bomber.” He said that one of the reasons he wrote it was because one of his boyhood friends was a flight engineer on Lancs and he told him that during the briefing the Lanc crews had cheered when they heard that the more vulnerable Stirlings would be flying below them. I’d like to mention that I went to a do at the RAF Officer’s Club in Piccadilly in 1975. The Air Gunner’s Association thirtieth anniversary of VE Day dinner. I managed to get a couple of words with Butch Harris of all people and I was saying that I had done two tours. One in Stirlings and one on Lancs. He lifted his eyebrows and said, ‘Stirlings eh? Well done.’ I can understand that more now after reading the book by Max Hastings called, “Bomber Command,” when he quotes Harris saying to Churchill, ‘I want more Lancasters because it is cold blooded murder to send my crews on ops in Stirlings.’
[recording paused]
When I listened to George reading our briefing reports on the Ruhr and bombing from eleven thousand feet some of them that made me wonder. There was I on my second tour, in a Lanc bombing the same targets from twenty one thousand feet. According to George’s missing crew sheet twenty four crews went missing during our stay at 90 Squadron. John, that’s forty eight air gunners. Remember Nobby Clark? He went missing. You swapped his best blue and I swapped a couple of shirts and socks et cetera. It was all part of the game. We told him we’d see him off, didn’t we? He would have done the same to us if we’d got the chop.
[recording paused]
We were talking about lucky mascots at the reunion. [Jack Sherry] made sure he took the same pen every time. Bruce said he had something and somebody mentioned that John took a silk hankie. And I had a scarf. I remember that. And I don’t laugh, this tune which I used to sing. I’m telling this to John really because I mentioned this at the reunion to the rest of you so bear with me. On our second op just as we were crossing the English coast Bill said, as he always did, ‘We’re crossing the English coast.’ I realised that when he said that the previous op I was quietly singing to myself the tune called, “Dearly Beloved,” which was one of the pop tunes at the time. So, I sang it again. Eventually when he said we were crossing the English coast I made sure my mike was switched off and I used to sing it [singing] “Dearly beloved, how clearly I see. Somewhere in heaven you were fashioned for me.” Yes, Jack, you were right it’s a good job my mike was switched off. You may all laugh but it was silly things like that that helped us to cling to survival. By the way I sang it all the way through my second tour as well. Another twenty eight times.
[recording paused]
Bob [Meadows] said that George was always checking and double checking things. This is what survival was all about. We all agree that Gordon did a super job but I would also like to say that we landed lucky in having George as our flight engineer. Thinking back now I realise that he was the best flight engineer in the squadron.
[recording paused]
It’s unbelievable that there wasn’t a Bomber Command campaign medal. I’m thinking of the ground crews as well who worked all hours to keep the aircraft serviceable and they got nothing to show for it. There was a Battle of Britain campaign medal. Bomber Command lost more aircrew in one week than was lost in the whole of the Battle of Britain. Looking through the Stirling bomber book I noticed that Stirling losses were around ten percent on some of their ops. Krefeld, a hundred and fifteen Stirlings — nine were lost. Mülheim, a hundred and three Stirlings — nine were lost. Wuppertal, ninety eight Stirlings — ten were lost. Gelsenkirchen, seventy Stirlings — ten were lost. Cologne, seventy five Stirlings — seven lost. Remscheid, seventy six — and eight were lost.
[recording paused]
I think that Geordie Young going missing on his thirtieth op probably saved our lives as well. If they’d asked us to go on to thirty ops I don’t think we would have made it. We were all feeling the strain by that time.
[recording paused]
[radio recording begins] “Sergeant Brian Bacon was one who did not. He was navigator on a Stirling bomber shot down on May the 13th 1943. His sister Beryl remembers her reactions when told her brother’s remains had finally been found by the Dutch Air Force.” “Oh it was stunned silence at first quite honestly but after that I was very relieved. I can’t say I was happy. That’s not the word I want but I was pleased that at last he had got a, a resting place. We knew where he was and we knew that he’d obviously died instantaneously and that he hadn’t suffered. He hadn’t been a prisoner. He hadn’t wandered the countryside even, you know.”
[radio recording paused]
That was Wesley Morey’s navigator they were talking about, Len. I suppose you knew him. They had dug the plane out of the Ijsselmeer three or four years ago. I believe the tail wheel and other parts of the Stirling are in the basement of the RAF Museum at Hendon.
[recording paused]
[radio recording begins] “Missing. That’s a very big horrible word. It’s, from the point of view of your family it’s worse than being dead I would say.” “You never hardly ever saw anybody die, unless somebody in your own crew was killed. It was just a face there in the morning eating breakfast with you and in the evening he’s not there. And of course, Bomber Command were so efficient that if you lost three or four crews off your squadron you got back at 6 o’clock in the morning, you went to bed. When you got up at lunchtime and went in the mess their replacements were there.”
[recording paused]
“On British airfields they counted the bombers as they returned. Some unscathed, others with wings or tails shot away and inside many the dead, the wounded and the shocked. It was just another day. Another mission.” “Any commander is distressed by losses but of course in any war losses were bound to happen and the heavier they are the more commanders concerned are distressed by them but there’s little that one can do about it.”
[radio recording stopped]
That was Butch Harris saying a few words again.
[recording paused]
We were never attacked by fighters so how John and I would have coped we don’t know. One thing is for sure we were prepared to die for you. As Bill was saying, in the end it was a team effort that counted.
[recording paused]
This is part of a letter which Butch Harris sent to a newspaper in 1949. “To the men and women of Bomber Command, my greetings to the ground staff who kept them flying regardless of the miseries of wet and winter, my salaams to the instructors who kept their necks stuck out, to lessen odds on other necks. But above all my admiration to those too few survivors of our devoted air crews. Happy landings even if the wheels are up. My respect and affection to you all. Butch Harris.”
[recording paused]
I’m quoting Butch Harris again from his book, “Bomber Offensive.” “There are no words with which I can do justice to the aircrew who fought under my command. There is no parallel in warfare to such courage and determination in the face of danger over so prolonged a period of danger which at times was so great that scarcely one man in three could expect to survive his tour of operations. It was moreover a clear and highly conscious courage by which the risk was taken with calm forethought. The aircrew were all highly skilled men, above the average in education who had to understand every aspect and detail of the task. It was furthermore the courage of the small hours of men virtually alone. For at his battle station the airman is virtually alone. It was the courage of men with long drawn apprehensions of nightly going over the top. They were without exception volunteers for no man who was trained for aircrew with the RAF who did not volunteer for this. Such devotion must never be forgotten. It is unforgettable by anyone whose contacts gave them knowledge and understanding of what these young men experienced and faced.”
[recording paused]
Flying over the Ruhr, Happy Valley we called it, one night and then going to the pictures the next night. Killing nearly forty thousand people over Hamburg one night and then having a quiet drink in the Red Lion at Brinkley the night after. Crazy, wasn’t it?
[recording paused]
Gordon, Len, George, Bill, Jack, John. Well done each of you. I’m proud to have been a member of such a fine crew. Thank you for those unforgettable memories of 1943, on 90 Squadron and good old P-Peter. 90 Squadron. Remember we flew on 90 Squadron when it was at its mightiest and its bloodiest. Is there anything stronger than love? No. I don’t think so. But next in line must be this bond. This wonderful comradeship of a bomber crew. People think we’re silly and knock us down a bit but they don’t understand. We do, don’t we?
[recording paused]
[singing] Ops in a Stirling. Ops in Stirling. Who’d come on ops in a Stirling with me? They laughed and they sang as they pranged all over Germany. Who’ll come on ops in a Stirling with me?
[recording paused]
When I finished my tour with 90 Squadron I was sent to Number 12 Operational Training Unit at Edgehill as an instructor gunner flying Wellingtons. The old Wimpy as we called it. I remember a pilot there called Flight Lieutenant Pettit. He was very short on patience. We set off with two or three gunners, fired our air to air firing which is firing at a drogue plus cine camera gun firing. Firing at a fighter who would do a few dummy attacks on us. His patience was very very short. Every trip the guns used to jam and I used to go in the turret and put them right again and then the gunner would go back and finish his work. This used to happen two or three times a trip. One day Pettit said, ‘When the guns jam again, Jock,’ he said, ‘You stop in the turret, fix the guns and fire all the ammunition yourself,’ which was the cine gun camera ammunition. Of course, after a trip or two like this somebody told the gunnery leader and he had me in his office. As I went in I noticed that Flight Lieutenant Pettit was hanging about outside but he needn’t have bothered. I took the blame. I think that Pettit had a good word to say about all Scotsmen after that. Funny thing he went missing on D-Day on his second tour. They posted me to Dalcross near Inverness. Number 2 Air Gunnery School, Dalcross doing the same sort of thing. This time flying in Ansons. I always asked a new gunner if they wanted to sit by the pilot. Their faces beamed. But it wasn’t until we got airborne when they realised that whoever sat there beside the pilot had the job of winding the undercarriage up and down and it was hard work in the old Anson. They weren’t so keen then. Dalcross sometimes four or five, six trips a day flying up and down the Moray Firth with the Scottish Highlands in the background. It was a beautiful war then.
[recording paused]
I think that when the RAF found that you were happy on a station they had you posted. They sent me down to South Wales. Carew Cheriton in Aberporth, near Pembroke. Took me a day and a half to get there. This time I was flying in Martinets and Henleys as a winch operator. It made a change winching over the rocket and gun sight at Manorbier. I let a drogue out and they would fire at it with the flak guns. Or else we would just go up and fly up and down and they’d check the radar. They always said if they hit us with any flak they’d give us a bottle of whisky but I wasn’t that lucky. Or was I?
[recording paused]
The 9th of June 1944. A day I’ll never forget. I was flying with a Polish pilot, Pilot Officer [ Zadonka ] All the pilots seemed to be Polish on Training Units. We were on a silent op in a Martinet flying over the sea. I was taking my flying very casually then sitting at the back of the pilot, reading a book as a matter of fact when the engine cut. I looked forward in to the pilot’s cockpit. He didn’t seem too concerned. Then he started fiddling about and when he put his hands in the air I knew we were in trouble. The pilot looked around at me. I could see he was sweating. I was standing up by now. Thoughts flashed through my mind. Bale out. But the pilot hasn’t said anything yet. He’s not jumping. Clip your parachute on anyway. I realised then it was too late. We were too near the sea. I think I was just about to start screaming when the engine picked up again and we gained some height. The pilot turned around and smiled. Smile of an angel. Later on my room mate Fred who lives in West Bromwich said that when he went in to the sergeant’s mess that day the chap behind the bar had said, ‘Go and have a look at Jock. He’s just come in and he doesn’t look too well. He’s had a double whisky but he’s gone off to his room.’ Well, looking at the face of death when you weren’t prepared for it was rather uncomfortable. I never did like flying over the sea. Given the choice I’d rather have crashed on land and gone up in a ball of smoke than have gone into the sea and drowned. I imagine much of aircrew must have gone to their deaths screaming their heads off when they couldn’t get out of a diving spinning crashing bomber.
[recording paused]
Talking about air to air firing at a drogue reminds me of my gunnery course at Penrhos. Three of us would go up in a Blenheim and we’d fire at a drogue with two hundred yards at our starboard beam. We’d each have about two hundred rounds, different tipped bullets in different colours. It was great to see the tracer going into it. We thought it would be full of holes. When we landed we checked the drogue laid flat out on the ground. It would be about thirty foot long and five foot wide I suppose. You’d be amazed. We only found four, five or six little holes of each colour. Amazing. We all expected to find about fifty. I think my highest percentage on that was eleven point one. Wasn’t too bad really. I noticed the remarks here at the end of the course. The course officer says, “A good sound air gunner. Has done well in theoretical subjects. Will make a very worthy member of an operational aircrew.” He should have said will make a very lucky member of an operational aircrew.
[recording paused]
On the first part of my air gunner’s course which was at Llandwrog, North Wales our billets were five or six miles from the mess. Yeah. Five or six miles. And we used to get transport back every night and in the morning in the RAF crew bus. If you missed the bus at night at 6 o’clock you had to walk. There was one chap there, I hope he came through alright. He used to amuse us. He used to sing umpteen verses of this song. We used to sing the last line. Here are some of the cleaner ones — [singing] When she got them they were fluffy, now they’re faded and they’re scruffy. The old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore. When she sent them to the laundry they were seen by all and sundry. The old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore. We sometimes laughed and grinned when they came up to her chin. The old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore. She daren’t try to sneeze, they’d fall down to her knees. The old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore. She’d say stop it, that’s enough when we tried to take them off. The old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore. She’d be sometimes sick with fright if the elastic was too tight on the old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore. She’d run and she would kick us when we’d say, ‘Show us your knickers.’ The old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore. They were patched with a piece of rag where someone had dropped his fag on the old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore. She went out with a second dickie but he tried to take the mickey out of the old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore. She liked the band of Harry James, she sewed all their names to the old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore. She went out with the soldier, they came back a little bit moldier. The old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore. The night she went with Taffy they were found behind the NAAFI. The old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore. On the line we knew them. You could almost see right through them. The old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore. One day in her vest she stood. They were wrapped around the Christmas pud. The old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore. She wouldn’t go with groupie ‘cause he said they were too droopy. The old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore. They were tattered, they were torn around the bleep hole they were worn. The old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore. One day for a prank someone tied them to a Lanc. The old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore. They went off on an op and they all got the chop with the old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore.
[recording paused]
Now, one or two stories about my second tour in Lancasters with 115 Squadron. In my first few ops there I was a mid-under gunner with a .5 Browning machine gun. They fitted this mid-under gun as they had learned that some German fighters were fitted with guns that fired straight up and they were shooting down a lot of bombers without the bomber crew seeing them at all. Then the rest of my ops were as a rear gunner. I had a busy start. Two ops in one day. Duisburg in the Happy Valley again. We took off at twenty to seven in the morning and we got back about eleven in the morning as well. We were looking forward to a nice lazy afternoon and a bit of fun in the mess that night but they said, ‘Get to bed. You’re on ops again tonight.’ We took off at 11 o’clock and got back about half past three in the morning. Plenty of flak both times. We did two ops on Essen. In the Ruhr again. One day off and one night off within three days. I think that finally knocked out the big Krupps factories there. Our next two ops were on Cologne. In the Ruhr again. Yeah. One day and one night. I did six ops on Cologne and on nearly every one got hammered by the flak. I’ll talk about the daylight op first. One thing about daylight raids there were no searchlights to fly through but the flak was more accurate. ‘Bomb doors open,’ said the pilot on the run up to the target. Always a terrifying moment this. A little piece of flak hitting the naked bombs in the bomb bay would have been the end of all of us. ‘Steady. Steady [pause] Bombs gone,’ said the bomb aimer. But they hadn’t. There were still a few stuck in the bomb bay. ‘We’ll go around again,’ said the pilot. This time some more bombs were dropped but still one or two hadn’t. ‘We’ll go around once more,’ said the pilot. I thought he’s mad, as we were being caught by the flak. The third time the flight engineer put his hand through the slots in the floor to release the mechanism by hand. When they got clear of the target we realised that one bomb was still with us.
[recording paused]
The pilot tried all sorts of tricks to shake it loose. I remember I jumped up and down on the gangway above it but it still wouldn’t go. When we got back to base at Witchford he said, ‘We just have to land with it.’ We were all a bit apprehensive. As soon as we touched the runway there was one almighty bang. Our hearts did turn over. Somebody shouted, ‘The bomb has fallen off and is jammed in the bomb doors.’ When we got to the end of the runway the pilot told the control tower and they said, ‘Taxi clear of the runway and abandon aircraft.’ Which we did. Very quickly. It was left to the armourers to sort everything out in the end. Two nights later Cologne again. Another hammering. The pilot got a DFC for these ops. I’ll read part of his citation. “In October 1944 he was captain and pilot of an aircraft detailed to attack Cologne. On his first time over the target the bomb release mechanism became defective and the bombs failed to drop. In spite of considerable anti-aircraft fire Flying Officer Andrewartha made a second and yet a third run over the target from which the bombs were dropped manually. Some days later he made another attack on the same target. Although his aircraft sustained extensive damage when hit by anti-aircraft fire he completed the mission successfully.” I enjoyed a reasonably low level daylight op in a place called Heinsberg. This town was supposed to be full of German soldiers. I fired a few rounds off with my .5 but the place had just vanished in the smoke and fires. I was rear gunner on the raid on Dresden. This was Bomber Command’s most murderous raid. They say that more than fifty thousand people were killed. It was an undefended city. No flak. No searchlights. It didn’t half burn.
[recording paused]
Five days later another real frightener. A daylight op on Wessel. We were belting along the runway on take-off. I was sat in the rear turret when suddenly smoke and flames came by me. They were shouting on the intercom, ‘The starboard inner has caught fire.’ ‘Too late,’ shouted the pilot, ‘Can’t stop. Must take off.’ And we did. Scraping a few hedges we crawled up in to the air somehow and the engine fire extinguisher was switched on and the fire went out. We couldn’t get any height on three engines with a bomb load. The pilot contacted the control tower and they said, ‘Drop your bombs in the North Sea.’ When we got back he was later reprimanded for breaking radio silence and was stopped two weeks pay. He didn’t buy a round in the pubs and we were all glad when the two weeks were up. It was a very hazy day that day. The fire engine and the ambulance, the blood wagon we called it said they were out scouring the countryside for us as they thought we had crashed.
[recording paused]
Next op. Osterfeld. Another hammering from the flak. We had just bombed and were a bit slow getting back in to the safety of the bomber stream. They were all dropping this aluminium foil called Window which upset the flak gun’s radar. We were out on our however when this heavy flak hit us. We went into a dive and I thought we’d had it. ‘It’s okay, boys. I’ve got it.’ Lovely words from the pilot. We came back on three engines. [pause] One day, on our day off I got up and started to get dressed. The lads in the hut said, ‘Where are you going?’ I said, ‘Down to the mess to get some breakfast. I’m hungry.’ They said, ‘You’re too late. It's gone 9 o’clock.’ I said, ‘Oh, I’ll try anyway.’ So, I went down and they did say that breakfast was finished. It was flying meals only as there was ops on that day. So, I said very cleverly that I was down as a spare gunner. So, I had my breakfast. I was enjoying it immensely when this WAAF came over and said, ‘Are you an air gunner?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ She said, ‘Will you answer the phone then, please.’ It was the gunnery leader. He said, ‘Who’s that?’ I said, ‘It’s me. Jock.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘You’re off today, aren’t you?’ He said, ‘Your crew’s on a stand down.’ I said, ‘Yeah. That’s right.’ ‘Go and see if there’s any more gunners in the mess will you?’ I looked around. I said, ‘No. There’s only me. There’s just me in the mess. Mealtime.’ He then said he was in a jam as a couple of gunners had gone sick at the last minute and he was one gunner short for a crew. So, he said to me, ‘How’s about it? Will you help me out?’ So, I said, ‘Okay.’ And he said, ‘Thanks. Come up to the briefing room as soon as you can.’ I got a bit of a shock when I found the target was Cologne again. And that one to pick for my fiftieth op but this was an easy one for a change. My own crew wondered where I’d got to. They were amazed when they found out I’d gone on ops with another crew. All because I went out for breakfast.
[recording paused]
On one daylight raid we were on the way to the target and there were two Lancs ahead of us. I was in the front turret that day as we had engine trouble on E-Easy and had to use a spare aircraft which didn’t have a mid-under gun so I went to the front turret. I don’t know which op this was but I seem to have put down E-Easy in my logbook. Force of habit, I suppose. Anyway, about these two Lancs ahead of us. The pilot said, ‘I’ll try and catch them up and we’ll fly in formation.’ A minute or two later instead of two Lancs there was a small ball of fire and one Lanc. And then a large ball of fire and a small ball of fire. Then two huge balls of fire. Then smoke. Then nothing. And that was it. One Lanc had blown up and the explosion had blown the other one up. It’s a good job we didn’t catch up with them or we would have been just some more crosses in the sky.
[recording paused]
I remember an air gunner called Bob [Hogman] He was in our hut. I was sat in the mess one night when he came in, just back off leave. I said, ‘Hello Bob, did you have a good leave?’ He said he hadn’t. He said he was very fed up and didn’t feel like flying any more. ‘It’s just not worth it.’ he said. ‘And I see by the battle order I’m on ops tomorrow.’ So, I said, ‘What’s up, Bob?’ He said his wife was six months pregnant so he took her to hospital for a check up. They went on the bus, he said and it was standing room only both ways and nobody would give his wife a seat. He was quite upset. The next day he was flying beside us over the target when his plane got hit by flak, caught fire and dived straight in. As I was in the mid-under I didn’t see it, thank heaven. The other two gunners did and were rather shaken by it.
[recording paused]
On that trip my mid-upper was wounded. Got some flak in his ear. Bob [ Hogman’s ] rear gunner used to have some records. One of them used to give us a laugh when we played it in the billet because one of the lines was, ‘Chop, chop, chop and his head came off.’ I played it once more. Then threw it in the dustbin.
[recording pause]
There were two brothers in the squadron. Two Canadians named Flood flying in the same aircraft. One was a mid-upper gunner and the other one was a rear gunner. Another Canadian named Brown used to waken us many times in the billet by grinding his teeth in his sleep. It was terrible. The brothers went missing. The grinder survived. I wouldn’t be surprised if he and his wife sleep in different rooms.
[recording pause]
On one daylight op about twenty ME109s attacked the bomber stream and shot down about seven Lancasters before the fighter escort sorted them out. That was just in front of us so we escaped once again. I remember one time I had a month off flying as I had damaged my ear drums. Had a week in hospital. On another daylight raid the target was covered by cloud. We were told in that case that if we couldn’t see the target to bomb targets of opportunity so we flew around a bit and then noticed this bridge over the Rhine. So we bombed it and missed. The bombs going each side of it. I’ve often wondered if this was the famous Remagen Bridge which the Germans failed to blow up and that the American Army crossed over. It was around about this time. In films and books about it they said the bridge was bombed but it was still standing. Yes. It could have been us. Another time we bombed a small town. Five hundred pounders went straight up the main street and the Cookie hit the big building at the end. The Town Hall I suppose. I hope it wasn’t a church. Or a school.
[recording paused]
Dortmund. Happy Valley again. This daylight raid was the one where I realised that my nerves were getting the better of me and I had done enough. I could have finished flying two or three ops before this as I had done twenty ops with 115 Squadron and that was the amount you had to do for your second tour. This op was my forty seventh. We were flying in cloud when suddenly heavy flak burst all around us. I couldn’t see it but I could hear it. And when you could hear it it was close. We flew on but the flak kept with us. I realised the flak batteries had got us on radar on and were after us. This lasted quite a while. I said a few words to God that day and made all sorts of promises. When we landed I thought well I’ll do three more to make it the round fifty. And then I did one for luck. Fifty one. Eight more than I should have done really.
[recording paused]
[singing] No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more dicey targets. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more Jerry fighters. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more Jerry flak guns. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more Jerry searchlights. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more P for Peter. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more Peenemunde. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more missing room mates. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more flak for breakfast. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more E for Easy. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more frozen fingers. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more flying heroes. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more Happy Valley. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more tail end Charlie. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. No more ops for me. I’ll live to be a hundred. No more ops for me.
[recording paused]
It used to get rather cold in the rear turret. Above everything else I used to wear a couple of blankets over my head and shoulders. Sometimes I used to take a bottle of good Scotch specimen and throw it out from the rear turret. I painted a bottle yellow one day so that I could see it better going all the way down on a daylight raid and would you believe it? It landed in the river. I was quite attached to an old cap I used to wear until the folks at home said, ‘For Pete’s sake why don’t you lose that old cap.’ So, I chucked that overboard as well.
[recording paused]
A bicycle was always handy at the airfield but at 115 they’d all been issued out so I carried on without one. Did quite a bit of walking. Then one day I noticed one outside the sergeant’s mess. It would be covered up at dinnertime and teatime by fifty or so more bicycles and then it would be left standing on its own again. So I kept my eye on it for a day or two and realised it must have belonged to someone who had got the chop so I claimed it and became the new owner.
[recording paused]
I’ve been asked what was it like over the target. Well, going in to a main German target was like walking through the gates of hell naked. We always felt naked once the bomb doors were opened. Searchlights everywhere and plenty of flak. Lots of smoke where the flak had been. I half expected them to burst back into life again when we flew near them. Sometimes we’d see a plane caught in the searchlights and being hammered by the flak. This was handy because we used to creep over the target unnoticed then. Bombs bursting on the ground everywhere. Huge fires. Now and then a huge explosion and smoke. Always smoke. Photoflashes turning night into day for a split second. The Pathfinder flares horrifyingly beautiful. Sometimes hanging in the sky for sky marking like chandeliers and falling to the ground like huge Christmas trees. Lying there till they were bombed out of existence and a fresh lot were dropped. Gorgeous colours they were. Especially the reds and greens. Sometimes we’d hear a master bomber, ‘Bomb the reds. Bomb the reds. Leave the greens.’ Whichever was the nearest to the aiming point. It was comforting to hear another voice. It made us all feel we weren’t alone. Our mouths were very dry after leaving the target area and had a nice cup of coffee out of the flask. Nearly as nice as the mug of coffee and rum we had when we got back.
[recording paused]
There seemed to have been more incidents on my second tour but I think the first one in Stirlings was the hardest. The most fearful. Probably doing some daylights on my second tour helped a bit. It’s a good job they weren’t vice versa. The other way around. I wouldn’t have fancied doing a tour on Stirlings after a tour on Lancs.
[recording paused]
I was waiting for a train at the local station to take me home on leave one day. We had six days leave every six weeks while on ops but I did enjoy them. I never knew which one would be my last. I got talking to another air gunner who happened to be waiting for transport to the squadron. He was a Scots lad. Nice chap. When I got back off leave I couldn’t see him about. He’d gone missing on his first op. The war was still being cruel.
[recording paused]
Remember this. The BBC news at 1 o’clock three or four times a week. [radio recording begins] “This is the BBC in London. Here is the news. In the early hours of this morning RAF Bomber Command launched a major raid on Berlin. Of the five hundred and ninety six aircraft which took part in the raid forty six are missing.” [radio recording stops] It must have been terrible for the wives and mothers and sweethearts of aircrew to hear that. Then waiting for a phone call or a letter which sometimes never came. We often lost a lot more bombers. The worst one of course was Nuremberg. Ninety three missing.
[recording paused]
On 90 Squadron one day we all had to report to the briefing room. An aircrew chap was telling his story of how his Stirling was shot down and he had to bale out. He managed to get back to England with the help of the Dutch and the French Resistance. One thing he said stuck in my mind. ‘If you have to bale out through the escape hatch don’t just fall out. You must jump out.’ He said, ‘A member of my crew baled out just before me. He just fell through the hatch and scattered his brains all over my flying boots.’
[recording paused]
I finished second on my air gunner’s course. Just a half a point behind another chap. They offered us both a commission but we turned it down. We were too young then to know what it was all about. But that was another stroke of luck. If I’d taken a commission I would probably have gone to a different squadron with a different crew and it’s practically certain I wouldn’t have survived.
[recording paused]
When I was at Benson Aerodrome just after I’d finished my second tour somebody in the mess said the station adjutant wanted to see me. When I went in to his office he said, ‘Warrant Officer Guyan, when I came around inspecting your hut this morning with the CO you were asleep in bed.’ I said, ‘That’s right. It was my day off.’ He said, ‘That makes no difference. On a CO’s inspection you are supposed to be dressed and standing by your bed.’ So for punishment he made me orderly officer twice a week for three months. Whenever anybody else had to do it for the first time they were told, ‘Go and see Jock. He’ll tell you all about it.’ A day or two later I was told the adjutant wanted to see me again. I thought what now? I went in to his office and he said, ‘Warrant Officer Guyan, I wish to inform you that you have been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. You can wear the ribbon as from today.’ Back in the mess there was cheers all round until somebody said, ‘What about the money?’ I said, ‘What money?’ He said, ‘You’re supposed to get some money with the DFC. Didn’t the adj mention it?’ I said, ‘No.’ Anyway, I went down to see him again. He must have been sick of the sight of me by now. So, I asked him if there was any financial reward with the DFC and he said, ‘Yes. Twenty pounds. But officers usually give it to the RAF Benevolent Fund.’ So I said, ‘But I’m just a non-commissioned warrant officer and twenty pounds is more than six weeks pay.’ So he said, ‘Alright. I’ll see you get it at the next pay parade.’ When I did get it we had a nice party in the mess that weekend.
[recording paused]
All this might not have happened if my name had not been Guyan. I’m going back to my air gunner’s course. The big day had arrived, we were going to fly for the first time. We’d been issued with our flying gear weeks before and now at last we put it on ready to fly. Now we were kings of the air. We were going up in a Blenheim for twenty minutes or so to check that we could, that we wouldn’t be too sick. I never was. The instructor shouted, ‘Form up outside the hangar.’ And we all rushed out and started to queue. ‘Come on’ he said ‘Come on, sort yourselves out. Let’s have alphabetical order.’ Which we did. We enviously watched the first three get in the Blenheim. One was a chap called Anderson, I remember. We watched it speed along the runway and take off. Then it suddenly turned over and crashed. They were all killed. So, all the flying these three air gunners did was less than ten seconds. So, Guyan you say. Funny name. Now, Guyan, lovely name.
[recording paused]
I’ve often wondered why I stayed alive when so many other men, better men around me were killed. What have I done to justify it? I haven’t done much with my life. I’ve been good to my dear wife, Helen. My two smashing sons, Andrew, Rob. Will that be enough? I suppose one day I’ll know the answer.
[recording paused]
It’s probably true that if you gave a chap who flew during the war one hour to talk about his life he’d spend fifty minutes talking about his flying days. So, I’ll finish with a touch of the Len [Howards] I suppose and the help of Jimmy Shand.
[recording paused]
[singing] We fly, you and I, in the sky, laddies to fight for liberty. We’d fight day and night in the sky, laddies so that people would be safe and free. We hoped we’d come back over the sea, laddies. For some it was never meant to be. I sighed when they died in the sky, laddies but they still live in my memory. We hoped we’d come back o’er the sea, laddies. For some it was never meant to be. I cried when you died in the sky, laddies. You still live in my memories.
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
Samuel Guyan comments and memoirs
Description
An account of the resource
'Jock' Guyan comments on his operations. the recording includes audio clips from a documentary including excerpts of Arthur Harris, engine noises and interviews.
Samuel Guyan flew an operational tour with 90 Squadron and a second tour with 115 Squadron where he manned a .5 calibre gun beneath the aircraft. In all he flew fifty one operations. Including one where his crew thought he was just going for his breakfast but found himself flying that night with another crew as a spare gunner.
He sings several songs including 'Ops on a Stirling' to the tune of Waltzing Matilda, 'The old red flannels drawers that Maggie wore' and 'No more ops for me'.
Creator
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Samuel Guyan
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Great Britain
Italy
England--Farnborough (Hampshire)
England--Suffolk
France--Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine)
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Peenemünde
Germany--Wuppertal
Italy--Turin
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Hampshire
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
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Format
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01:28:55 audio recording
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944-06-09
1945
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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AGuyanS[Date]-01
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Carolyn Emery
115 Squadron
12 OTU
90 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
Distinguished Flying Cross
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Ju 88
Lancaster
Me 110
military discipline
Operational Training Unit
RAF Benson
RAF Dalcross
RAF Farnborough
RAF Penrhos
RAF Shenington
RAF Wratting Common
searchlight
Spitfire
Stirling
superstition
training
Wellington
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1186/11759/PWatsonC1704.2.jpg
cf1ce61de2dfa140b6b4109391b34f14
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1186/11759/AWatsonC170719.1.mp3
3acf8972d2caa050da565dd3def161fc
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
Watson, Clifford
C Watson
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. Two oral history interviews with Flying Officer Clifford Watson DFC (1922 - 2018, 1384956, 188489 Royal Air Force), a memoir, his service and release book, and a scrapbook containing photographs and documents. He flew operations as an air gunner with 150 and 227 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Clifford Watson and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-06-28
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Watson, C
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 19th of July 2017. I’m back in Fenstanton talking with Bill Watson again, about his experiences and we are just going back to the Rhodesia days on initial training, so what was the form there? You started with pilot training
CW: At the Elementary Flying Training School in Salisbury there were fifty of us on the course, at the end of six weeks there were thirty still on the course, twenty had been scrubbed, and there were only fifteen of the thirty still on the course, I’ve gone solo, I was one of the fifteen who hadn’t, so we had to see a fly test and all fifteen of us failed, we all failed [unclear] a fly test, twelve of us notified a grievance and we were interviewed and we wanted to know why I’d failed, I failed, you failed Watson on two points, you did wheel landings instead of three-pointers and secondly you took off and climbed at half throttle. And my final remark there was that I landed exactly as I was instructed, I was running out of landing area so I’d to get down, either get down or go round again and I chose to get down exactly as I was instructed, secondly if I took off and climbed at half throttle I performed a miracle and we could [unclear] one of them and that was it. And that was before the group captain, no, before the wing commander, Speedy Powell was our wing commander in charge of all flying in Rhodesia, a long time later he became our group captain in North Africa and I reminded him about Rhodesia, he said, don’t tell me you failed the pilot’s course, you didn’t, he said, it’s just that there were too many of you on it and there were several hundred people waiting in Bulawayo, they’d already completed the EFTS waiting for Service Flying Training School, bigger aircraft, and there was too big a delay so not everybody could be trained as a pilot. We were offered observer trading and they said there could be a little delay in taking the course and we’d already met people who’d waited six months for the course, we knew better, so we all remustered to air gunner, there’s a picture of that course
CB: Yeah. In your book.
CW: So, we then went to Gwelo, to Gwelo, place called Moffat,
CB: Right. Now, we were talking earlier about how you got paid, we’re going fast forward now onto the Wellington so what were the rates of pay cause you were all sergeants except you in this particular case on the Wellingtons. So, what was the rate of pay?
CW: The same as when I became a sergeant
CB: So, the pilot got twelve and six a day
CW: [unclear]. During the training?
CB: No, after the training
CW: Until we qualified, we were LACs
CB: Right, yes
CW: I think, I think it was seven shillings a day as LACs, I’m not sure, I don’t, I’m not sure. As an AC2 initially I was on three and six a day. And, when the training started, it went to seven shillings a day. And as a qualified air gunner, sergeant air gunner, seven and six. And later as a warrant officer, twelve and six. As a pilot officer, twelve and six [laughs]. We did get a [unclear] once in those days, I don’t recall what it was, every little helps [laughs].
CB: Yeah. But the pilot got paid more.
CW: The pilot was more all the time.
CB: Yeah. So, he got twelve and six a day, the navigator
CW: On the observer course, I’m not sure
CB: In the Wellington, he got twelve and six a day you said, and the others got the seven and six a day
CW: Yeah.
CB: Going fast forward now to, because we, this is just extra information for what we covered before, but fast forward now to the end, at the end of the first tape, we got to the point where you’d had to make an emergency landing at Horsham St Faith near Norwich and you didn’t realise it but there was a hang-up of a four thousand pounder and the question on that was, was the fuse live or not? And having talked to a bomb aimer, he thought it probably had been earlier on, but after that incident, what did you do?
CW: No, we didn’t discuss, at the time we didn’t discuss whether it was live or not.
CB: No. Left it to the groundcrew.
CW: Didn’t’ occur to us. I suppose the bomb aimer was a bit doozy, he was a Canadian [laughs].
CB: After that experience what did you do, cause your plane had been moved to the other side of the airfield.
CW: Well, the skipper informed base and base organised a team to come out and remove the bomb, as the Yanks had damaged the coupling. Was rather amusing really when the Yank came in and said, say, fellow, we can’t get off, take off the overload tank and the skipper said, well, oh, don’t worry about that, leave it, and then the flight engineer, the flight engineer woke up and said, we didn’t have an overload tank, yeah, sure, but it’s, about six foot long, and the bomb aimer woke up and he said, no, no, no, that’ll be the four thousand pound bomb, no, they don’t make bombs that big [laughs], meanwhile I’m just sitting back resting [laughs]. A crew came out and we were there for three days. We tried to enjoy it because I’d been to school in Norwich, I went to see an old girlfriend there, a girl I knew at the arts school called Joyce, went to the door and asked to see Joyce and it was a warrant officer who came to the door, interesting chap, he was on Lysanders
CB: Oh, really?
CW: Taking spies over, oh, he quite a chap [laughs], interesting really
CB: So, you beat a hasty retreat after that, did you?
CW: No, no, oh no, no. No, I used to walk home from school with Joyce, that was all.
CB: Yeah. So, the aircraft was fixed, what happened then?
CW: Oh, then we took it back to base. And the chaps had already taken away the bomb
CB: Yeah.
CW: The question whether it was [unclear] just didn’t arise, at least, I wasn’t aware of any discussion. It couldn’t have been [unclear], could it?
CB: Depends how the sequence went, as I understand it, talking to a bomb aimer
CW: It might have slipped out, well, it must have slipped out, they wouldn’t have messed around with it live, could they?
CB: Well, they’d defuse it first, wouldn’t they?
CW: Could they do that? I don’t know.
CB: Bomb disposal.
CW: [laughs]
CB: Anyway, we don’t know.
CW: We don’t know.
CB: So, you got back to base, then what happened?
CW: Oh, we just carried on then, as usual. There wasn’t, that wasn’t the last trip, was it?
CB: No. So, what was the last trip?
CW: I don’t know, it’s in the book.
CB: Yeah, we haven’t got the book here.
CW: No.
CB: So, the war ended in Europe, VE Day, 8th of May 1945, what did the squadron do then?
CW: Couple of days before D-Day, I went on leave and I was at home where I [unclear], on D-Day I was at Du Cane Court in Belham, my father’s secretary, my father had just come back from Africa, I was with my wife Hilda during Churchill’s speech and we listened to that, listened to Churchill’s speech on the radio and was quite emotional really, we realised that, we realised we could make a decision on what to do more than ten minutes ahead, it was a tremendous feeling, I found later there was a victory parade on the camp like everywhere else, eventually I suppose I went back to Balderton. From there I was put, I went on a photography course at Farnborough, that was interesting, I went up in a Junkers 88 cause at Farnborough there was the, what do we call it, the?
CB: Well, they had the enemy aircraft evaluation flight
CW: Yes, yes
CB: [unclear]
CW: What was it called, I forget, they were studying enemy aircraft there, I went up, an English pilot in a Junkers 88, I realised that when he, when the Junkers 88 was attacking, he couldn’t and he was aiming ahead of an aircraft, he couldn’t see what he was aiming at, he was aiming ahead, and the bomber was behind the nose of the Junkers 88
CB: Oh.
CW: Which, which I found interesting, yeah, [unclear] the course was a waste of time really because obviously no vacancies and RAF photography had little in common with normal, my type of photography and from there, [unclear], I think the next posting was to Graveley and my diary records that I was adjutant of 106 Squadron and I think and that turned out to be wrong, I was squadron, I was adjutant at a squadron with no personnel and there were twelve officers there waiting for demob, I had an office with a desk and there was a safe and that was it, I know, eventually I said, who the heck am I responsible to? Balderton or the station adjutant? And I was [unclear] back to Balderton. Oh dear. Eventually I was recalled and posted to 61 MU, I think we’ve covered that.
CB: I don’t think we’ve covered that bit.
CW: No?
CB: No.
CW: 61 MU Handforth, I think perhaps that’d go off, no.
CB: We’ll just pause. We’re restarting now and I got to correct myself when I said Bill Watson and I meant Clifford Watson [laughs], so here you were, posted to an MU and the group captain says to you
CW: Yes, he stood up and he said, sorry old chap, I didn’t get your name. Must excuse that fellow, he said, he was in that office before the war when that was natural
CB: Regulars
CW: [unclear] type of thing, that was, he was in charge of this unit, it was a [unclear], a big [unclear], he was in charge of this before the war as a civilian and when the war came he stayed there, was commissioned and continued to run it [laughs], it is rather remarkable, so I then collected my kit and I was told where the living quarters were
CB: Just interrupting before that, he knew somebody you knew in Africa. This group captain.
CW: Oh yes. Oh yes, the group captain at the MU
CB: Yes
CW: Knew the group captain in the earlier days, group captain Speedy Powell, he knew him in the earlier days, and he was very pleased to learn that, but I hadn’t seen him since of course
CB: Cause he was a wing commander running the training in Rhodesia you said.
CW: Yes, he was a wing commander then
CB: Yes
CW: And the group captain in North Africa
CB: Right
CW: Speedy Powell, did you see the film Target for Tonight?
CB: Yes
CW: Well, Speedy Powell was the flight lieutenant briefing officer there, they used to have quite a , what you would refer to as an Oxford accent, very posh accent, nice bloke and a leader from the front, yes, he didn’t come into it later
CB: So, the group captain then told you to get on with your job at the end.
CW: Well, after the interview with the group captain, I went to where I was to be billeted and there, I met the other twelve officers, yes, no, I’m sorry, I’m off track. That wasn’t at the MU, yes, it was, my mind’s a bit hairy, yes, I met the other twelve officers but they were on duty all the time and they were very unhappy, I’ve been there about an hour and an orderly came in with a new [unclear] and I was to be assistant duty fire officer under training but for twenty-four hours, the day after I was duty fire officer, duty officer fire under training, the third day I was duty fire officer, and so it went on when after the fire officers there was cypher officer three days and so on, in line fire picket officer and all that and everybody was on duty every day and there were briefing about this, they weren’t allowed in the mess in the afternoon and so on and they decided that, to complain, not a mutiny but to complain and I drew the short stick or the long stick and I went back to see the group captain and he was quite receptive and I gave him the proper story of what happened and he dealt with the problem and what happened then at 61 MU? Then think I was recalled to Balderton, yes I called to Balderton and then I was sent to Oxbridge for demob and that was in June ’46. And I was given a cardboard box and a demob suit and I went straight to Whitehaven where Hilda was, my wife was sort of looking after things whilst I got there and I got stuck into a job then in Whitehaven, the firm had taken over a rundown radio relay system, it had four hundred installations there and I thought, well, I’ll give it two years and see what I can do and I built it up to two thousand and forty, two thousand four hundred installations in two years, after that I went to London as a [unclear] manager and I opened three more branches and in 1949 I’d come from eleven stone seven, which was my weight throughout the war, to sixteen and a half stone and I saw the doctor about it, a lady, and she said, oh, I think you should have a change of diet, a change of job and a change of environment, I recommend you emigrate [laughs], so I did. Meanwhile, my father had retired to Kenya, he’d sold out the business, the relay business and gone to Kenya, where he’d acquired a farm during the war, which was derelict. And he’d gone to Kenya and I thought, well, I’d go and see the old man. And we did. We didn’t intend to stay but I’d experienced Rhodesia and the desert and England really, didn’t appeal to me very much, frankly, so we went to Kenya and joined my father on the farm. It was six hundred acres in Kiminini, yes, just outside Kitale, in the southern highlands two hundred and fifty miles from Nairobi. I’d been there six months when I’d a letter from immigration saying that I’d violated the terms of a visa so I checked on the visa which said that I was authorised to enter the colony of Kenya within three months of the above date, it made no reference to how long I could stay, so they got it wrong, I saw the labour officer and he said, I’ve seen this before, they have got it wrong, but they don’t mean what they say, I said, well, that wouldn’t stand up in court, when we go to court I produce my visa and it doesn’t say anything about staying for three months, he said, he would never go to court, he’s [unclear] to himself, that fellow, he said, the only way you can stay in Kenya is get a government job and he looked through his file, he said, there is one vacancy which might be suitable, prisons, in the prisons, [unclear], prisons warden? No, assistant superintendent Grade 2, accommodation provided, leave after two and a half years, two weeks home leave, local leave each year, six months home leave after two and a half years, after four years, I’m sorry, after four years, that sounds interesting, shall I make an appointment? And he did. So, I went to Nairobi next day, stayed at the New Stanley and saw the commissioner of prisons the day after and I, after a long conversation I got the job and we moved down into prisons, prison accommodation there which was just outside the wall, it was interesting but I didn’t fancy staying there for the rest of my life so at the end of the year I resigned and that evening I told my father on the [unclear] that I’d resigned from the prison, I’d like to come back to the farm for a while, he said, Cliff, go and see Joe Furniss, the director of civil aviation, go and have a word with him, he’s a decent bloke, I’ve seen, I know him, so I went to see Joe Furniss, so I went to the head office of the directorate of civil aviation and inquired if there were any vacancies and Burt Leeman, staff officer gave me a form to fill in, now I just filled it in when Joe Furniss walked in and I was there in uniform and he started asking questions and in fact I didn’t need a further interview, I was offered the job but he said, the first posting will be to Mbeya, which is in South West Tanganyika, near the Rhodesian, Northern Rhodesian border and join another fellow there, he will be leaving in about four or three weeks and you take over and it’s a one man station, you will be on your own so think about it, I thought about it, please call me in, a few days later, alright, I went back to the prison, to tell the, the commissioner had said, you can leave when you like, you will finish with us in six weeks, that’s your four weeks’ notice and two weeks leave that you’re entitled to but you can leave when you like and I went back to the prison to tell him that I’d be leaving within a few days and before I could say anything, he gave me a letter terminating my appointment, I don’t want this, I just resigned, not through the proper channels, I tore it up, put it in the basket, I said, I’ll be leaving tomorrow, and I did [laughs]. And we went to Mbeya, nice place, that’s where Colin was born, no, John
US: John and Cris
CW: John was born in Mbeya, yeah. It was a one man station where the one man is responsible for absolutely everything that happens on the station, working hours, I was under obligation to meet or to be there attending to scheduled aircraft and there was only one a day on average, the rest of the time I had to deal with any situation that arose, there were no working hours, it was all the time, and we lived on the spot, there was a DFg 10 direction finding receiver there, it didn’t work, it was on a table or a desk about five feet long in metal built up at the back and the receiver was inside the, where it was built up, and the valves on this receiver, five of them, plugged in from the front, the thing didn’t work and one valve wasn’t, didn’t light up but that was the second RS stage, I thought I’ll fix this thing so I requisitioned another valve but they didn’t have any, the facility had been taken out of use at the end of the war, no valve, so I [unclear] out the grid and [unclear] little capacitor, I [unclear], the tune circuits were still there, fixed that but there was no HT so I had to fix that, fitted a modern rectifier instead of the old selenium thing and the set worked, it was beautiful, about a month later an aircraft, what was that aircraft? a type of aircraft, big biplane, can’t remember the name, an aircraft called [unclear], it was flying from Blantyre in Nyasaland back to Cairo
CB: Not a Rapide
CW: Three thousand
CB: Not a Rapide, was it?
CW: Rapide? No, a big monoplane.
CB: A monoplane.
CW: I couldn’t remember it the other day, we are wasting time there, Anson, an Anson aircraft, the Anson called [unclear] and they flew [unclear] and I would rely on the beacons, [unclear] can you make any suggestion? I said, transmit on [unclear], can you transmit on 333? Yes, he could, give me a call on 33, so I took a bearing on him and he was way over to the south west, instead of being due south he was south west, so I gave him a QDM, brought him overhead, he was above cloud and eventually he could see Mbeya Peak, brought him over, but he was above cloud, had to get down, meanwhile I had spoken to a Dakota and I could see the cloud was clear to the east where the Dakota was coming from and I checked that he could see the ground so I suggested to the bloke he flies on 090 until he could see the ground and then descend and I brought him back under the cloud and he was really chuffed, I went down to see them, I said, there can’t be much wrong with the DF loop, there was nothing wrong with it, there was a link between the loop and the J type twitch, cause there were three aerials on the Anson, one for HFRT, one for direction finding and the trading aerial and they there, those three were linked to the switch which was linked in turn to the receiver and the transmitter, the screen on the [unclear], on the link, the screen had come undone which put the thing out, it was no longer balanced, so it wasn’t defect, it was a loop, and I took out, all I had to do was change the link and it would have been ok but I took the link out, took the link out, took it up to the workshop, fixed it, put it back and it worked, fine, he was pleased. Following day they took off and two weeks later I got a letter from Joe Furniss, a superior reprimand, using equipment which was not authorised, you must realise that, had that aircraft come down, that aircraft was lost, had it come down, in the bush, you would have been under severe criticism and subject to the law, I thought, Crickey, Joe, that’s not Joe, signed director of civil aviation, and underneath is, underneath is written, bloody good show, Cliff [laughs], bloody good show, Cliff, keep it up [laughs]. I had that letter for many, many years but it disappeared.
CB: Not in your album then.
CW: I don’t think it’s there.
CB: I had a file, well, I still have, with sort of things, and recommendations, also the, what would you call them? References, really. Things that I could quote [laughs]. Where was I?
CB: We’ll just stop there for a moment. So, when you arrived at
US: Guest house.
CW: Sorry?
CB: What was your accommodation when you arrived in this place? What sort of house did you live in?
CW: In Mbeya?
CB: Yeah.
CW: In Mbeya, you refer to the one
US: Yeah.
CW: On the open, on the runway. We lived in the old Wilson Airways resthouse, it was a 1930 terminal building really, and the combined resthouse where people used to stay overnight, there were about ten bedrooms, weren’t there? About ten bedrooms, no electricity
US: No bathroom
CW: Ey?
US: No bathroom
CW: No bathroom, oh.
US: [unclear] the loo [laughs].
CW: And we had oil lamps for lighting. There had been a twelve Volt wind thing but that wasn’t there. But there was a very big place enough for twelve people.
CB: There must have been power to run the DF station. So, why wasn’t there in the accommodation?
CW: But the DF station was about four hundred yards away up the hill. And there was a cottage alongside the transmitting station, a very interesting place, we decided to move up to the cottage, and I ran a line from the transmitter station about fifty yards over, no, maybe a hundred yards over to the cottage, a bit of wiring for lighting and heating in the cottage and we had power then from six in the morning till six at night except on occasions when aircraft were overflying that night and I was asked to put the beacon on and we lived in that cottage and my [unclear] radio shack was in what used to be the boys quarters at the back of the cottage and one day I was talking to another amateur in South Africa, I told him where I was and he said he was in Muizenberg, I said, I remember Muizenberg, we were working down on the beach and a lady invited us to dinner or to lunch and she said, what are you doing for lunch? We said, well, we probably aren’t, come and see me at twelve o’clock, have lunch with me, it’s a big house up there, number so and so, ask for Mrs Macbeth, I’ve not covered this one?
CB: Go on.
CW: No?
CB: No.
CW: Ask for Mrs Macbeth, it’s a big house, and I did, went to the door, the three of us, and I asked for Mrs Shakespeare [laughs]. Well, In Mbeya I mentioned that and he said, you know, that very house is where I’m living, where I’m speaking to you from and Mrs Macbeth told us a few days ago that incident and we had a good laugh and he said, whereabouts in the cottage are you? And I told him, in what used to be the boy’s quarters at the back of the cottage, can you see the backdoor of the cottage from there? Yeah, yes. Have a look, he said, is there a hole about twelve inches above the floor, in the middle of the door, about two inches above the floor? Is there a hole in the door? I said, yeah, there is. Yes, there is, oddly enough, he said, and look on the wall at the back of the door, there should be a big dent in the wall, I’ll go and have a look, there was, well, it had been repaired, you could see where something had been repaired, he said, that was a 303 bullet that went off by mistake, he’d moved, there was a rifle there and he’d moved the rifle, it was loaded and cocked, and it went off, and the bullet went through the door, hit the wall at the back, that was a billion to one coincidence, it was a coincidence on two coincidences but he lived there for a while, during the war and he was in the place where Mrs Macbeth became Mrs Shakespeare. Lovely place. I used to go to work at six o’clock in the morning, sometimes a bit earlier, just as it was beginning to get light, and on occasion, it was still a bit dark, and I went to the top of the narrow road which led down to the DF station, my place of work, and I met the night-watchman the African at the top of the road, he was waving his arms, oh Buana, Buana, [unclear], Tembo mingi, mingi [unclear], matata mingi, Tembo, and he was like this, what he was, he was referring to Tembo, the blend of beer used by the African was called Tembo and I thought the bloke’s been drinking, he’s telling me he’s drunk, anyhow I went down to the DF station, opened up the radio, contacted Nairobi and [unclear] a funny smell, it was getting light, so went outside, we were surrounded by elephants, there must have been about twenty odd elephants there and they were having a meal in the maize [unclear] opposite the station [unclear] some of the Africans were living and they were growing maize all round them and the elephants were there, enjoying themselves with the maize and the Africans came out and they were throwing things at the elephants and three of them got killed, three were killed
CB: How did that happen?
CW: They attacked the elephants and the elephants didn’t like it and all the elephants had to do was knock them over and then kneel on them, what a mess, it was an occasion there, a bit of tribal warfare, and three of the injured came to the cottage, could we take them to hospital? And I did and of course had to give my name, name and address, and I got the bill, I got the bill, it happened again, so I gave my name and address, Ramsay Macdonald, 10 Downing Street [laughs]. It was a very nice place Mbeya.
CB: We’ll stop there for a bit.
CW: From six months leave
CB: From Mbeya.
CW: From Mbeya. Aircraft to Entebbe and then six months leave. End of leave, back to Tanganyika, this time to Mwanza, Mwanza was on the southern end of Lake Victoria where we were, where we lived in an old German villa which was about a hundred feet up the hill overlooking Lake Victoria, nice view and Hilda enjoyed the paintings from there. Whilst on leave, I spent a month getting qualified in the job I was doing, that’s another story, when I joined the department, the smaller aerodromes or the aerodromes other than the international ones were manned by post office people, there was a radio station and a European wireless officer, wireless operator and that was his sole job, the rest of the work was done by Ministry of the Public Works Department and Administration and when I joined it coincided with DCA, my department taking over total responsibility and they took over the radio stations and the Europeans running them but those people were ex-army with no background of aviation at all, they were running into trouble so they decided that they would all get qualified and that included me, so I spent a month doing a bit of squatting and then I got a flight aero licence, Ministry of Aviation licence and a PMG first class licence was, either one was enough, and being stupid I decided to get both but in fact the DCA didn’t know it, but the PMG licence with the aero endorsement was no longer in use, well, I got a PMG anyhow. There were several emergencies at Mwanza and one night we had to put the flight path out, the flight path was using [unclear] like watering cans with a big [unclear] full of paraffin with a wick and that had to be laid out and it was used for the first time since the war, there was, the [unclear] came, now what happened there? There was an aircraft should have arrived at Dar-er-Salaam and hadn’t so they opened up all stations, no contact for over two hours with the aircraft, all stations were opened up overnight, during the night, Nairobi found opened up, I had to get to the airport quick and open up the BHF and I sped down the main street doing about sixty and I was picked up by the police, anyhow I didn’t slow down, full speed to the control tower, dashed in, upstairs, switched on the VHF, everything else with beacon, was working full time now, switched on VHF and three Askari [unclear] European came bounding up the stairs and I said, be quiet! Just be quiet! And I called the aircraft. The second time I called in, the aircraft replied and I gave them QDMs to get to Kisumu and he landed and that was the night we put the flight path out and he landed just before dawn, I was charged and it cost me, I think it was a hundred shillings in [unclear] for speeding and I said to the magistrate, what was more important than speeding was getting on to the radio and working that aircraft and getting him, giving him some help, find a hundred shillings, well, [unclear] later on I used to help the radio, the police radio technician and now and again he’d give me a day off cause he used to be in our department and he knew my job, no, I’m sorry, I’m jumping the gun here, that occurred at Kisumu later, oh dear, are we on tape? We can’t delete that, can we?
CB: We can.
CW: At Mwanza, yes, that was a difficult station, my car then was a
US: [unclear]
CW: An A70
CB: Oh yes, Austin A70.
CW: [unclear] after the airport and there was a jackal, no, not a jackal.
US: Hyena?
CW: Hyena, was a hyena coming down the road at ten knots, I was doing sixty and we collided, went over the top, oh well, but the rule is if you damage an animal seriously, you destroy it, that was the rule in there which was fair enough, so I stopped and went to where the hyena had landed and it got up and wobbled off, so I didn’t have to shoot it, one [unclear], there was an aircraft at Mwanza, it was, belonged to the Lint and Seed Marketing Board, that was a posh name for a cotton board, and this chairman used to go out to the farms and deal with quality control and so on and I used, went out many times with him and finally he allowed me to fly the thing, when he’d learned that I’d been on a pilot’s course, he said, if I’ll come in and go, wow, lovely, no problem at all, and took off, flew around and landed and after several flights on that I was quite happy and then one day he said, I’m going out to New Saza, New Saza goldmine, care to come? And we did, I was passenger, and he left me at the goldmine, got in a Land Rover and went to deal with his cotton, and a couple of hours later he came back and he was laid on the backseat of the Land Rover, he’d been bitten by, what was it? I forget the name of the snake now, a very poisonous snake and he was unconscious and there’s an Indian doctor he said, he’s got to get to hospital quite quick, well, there’s only one way, we’ll put him in the aircraft and I flew the thing back to Mwanza but that, I don’t think that’s in my diary
CB: No
CW: As soon as I was airborne I called Mwanza on HF, spoke to the assistant who normally wouldn’t use the radio, I called him by name and phone, get an ambulance to meet the aircraft, I’ve got an urgent case and he did, I got this trouble, do you mind?
CB: We’ll stop. So, behind the house you had leopards.
CW: Yes, we were told about it when we arrived, but we sort of brushed it off. Yes, in the back garden there was a big, what used to be an outside kitchen and access to it was a five steps, was a well-appointed place and I used that as a workshop, as in my spare time I repair radios, and that paid the school fees and so on, I must have repaired well over a thousand radios, literally, I know that number from the number of invoice books I got through, they were African, mostly African radios, dry battery sets, and the plug on most of the dry batteries was a very crude affair, and it was too easy to put the plug in the battery the wrong way and when you do that, you put HTU where the [unclear] and I was buying wholesale batteries, scores at a time, and I wasn’t charging very much, a set of four batteries, four valves, the repair each of the sets needed a new set of valves of course
CB: Yeah
CW: And that was costing me one pound per set roughly, but the shops were charging more like five pounds for a repair, I was charging fifty bob
US: It’s rather hot
CB: We’ll stop there just for a moment. So, you were charging fifty bob?
CW: I charged fifty bob, the [unclear] were charging more like six pounds so I was doing that all the time, had a very nice workshop and one evening, it was dark and I was carrying between my fingers a couple of pounded milk tins, empty tins, and I got at the bottom of the stairs, steps and this leopard sitting on top there and it just looked at me and then it jumped and I went down and the thing went over the top, it wasn’t attacking me, it was getting away.
CB: Yeah.
CW: There were no records of any attack on people, not even on Africans, their diet was the hyena and monkeys and so on. But the leopard
CB: And what?
CW: Oh, I, but I nearly cut these two off, I cut, the tendons were cut and that was hanging off, anyhow I [unclear] to hospital and the doctor put the whole thing in
CB: Plaster?
CW: Plaster and I was having penicillin injections
CB: Ah, right.
CW: After a couple of weeks the pain was really dreadful and the only painkillers were Paracetamol so, oh dear,
US: That was your idea to have sausage roll? Oh, sorry
CW: You’re too kind. And I said, the pain’s wicked, please have a look at it, no, he said, it’s better where it is, I thought, no, there is something wrong there, I said, doc, if you won’t take it off, take that plaster off, if you won’t I will and the nurse had a word with him so he took it off. Oh, what a mess, it was like a tapioca pudding, all piled up, I said, you’ve got to get
CB: The infection
CW: That hand, gangrene is the trouble, he said, that hand’s got to come off, oh,
CB: Thank you.
CW: He said, you’ve got to get, that needs surgery,
CB: Excuse me.
CW: And the nearest surgeon’s in Dar-es-Salaam, they’re all at a conference, I said, ok, wrap it up, I’ll get to Nairobi, you couldn’t get to Nairobi just like that [laughs]
CB: Flying
CW: In aircraft at three o’clock, I’ll be on it and I went to Nairobi, no ticket just [unclear] crew
CB: Right
CW: And into hospital and they fixed it, but the tendon, the tendons had grown onto the scar tissue
CB: Oh!
CW: So that’s all I can do
CB: Yes
CW: With those two
CB: Yeah
CW: They were very good at the hospital, I was in there a month
CB: Were you?
CW: Yes, a month. But all they did in ten days there was a big bowl on the floor full of something and it was soaking and it was a few days before they identified the particular [unclear]
CB: This was a salt-based fluid, was it, that you were putting on? [unclear]?
CW: Yeah.
CB: We’ll stop there for a bit because we’ve got some brilliant sausage rolls.
CW: [unclear] Police came there from all over the place.
CW: To protect the Queen Mother. Yeah.
CB: And the Queen’s pilot and another chap on the crew, I took them to the hotel and when I took them back I was stopped by the police at the entrance to the airport, you need a permit to get in there, I said, I don’t need a permit, everybody needs a permit, I said, look, if I don’t see to that aircraft, the Queen Mother is going to be awfully annoyed, oh. I didn’t know the copper, he was from somewhere else, of course I got in. The hangars on that airport were taken over by grain storage and they were full of maize and there was enough maize there to feed the entire population of Africans for two years. And maize was being taken out, more fresh maize was put in and one day there was a problem on the door, one hangar, and when that was dealt with they found a propeller up above the hangar door and they told me about it, so I recovered the propeller and put it in the transmitter room, about a year later the grain storage me a letter from a chap in England who referred to the propeller and eventually there was a survey going on, with somebody’s surveys, the survey people
CB: Aerial photography survey, was it? Skyviews or somebody?
CW: Somebody aerial surveys, a popular firm, when they returned to England, they took the propeller back with them so all the chap had to do was collect it from them. Many years later, the level of the lake came up eight feet when they built the dam at Jinja in Uganda but somehow the Nile was diverted and the level of the water came up eight feet, I actually saw the shadows of a couple of aircraft which were submerged in the lake, they were amphibians
US: [unclear]
CB: What, Walruses, were they?
CW: No, they American [unclear], Catalinas
CB: Catalina, yeah.
CW: A couple of Catalinas were submerged just off the end of the runway in the lake and they were about two feet under water when I saw them, when I saw their image, now they are under ten feet of water and the lake rose eight feet. And that became the largest inland lake in the world, bigger than the one, Lake Ottawa, because when the lake came up, when the level came up it spread out and one or two villages got submerged, so that [unclear]
CB: What happened when Princess Margaret came?
CW: Yes, they made a big fuss when Princess Margaret came, there was a passenger ship called the Sybil which was completely refurbished and that was put out for her disposal
CB: On the lake
CW: On the lake. I had to fit a radio to work aircraft from the Sybil, railways and harbours had to fit a radio to work their network and then they had to fit a police radio so there were [unclear] of radio on the Sybil, that’s ridiculous and in the end she didn’t go, she didn’t go on the Sybil, oh, and not only that but the Wigen, the Wigen came and was based there while she was there, just in case she ran into trouble out of sea, out on the lake, ridiculous, apart from that the road to the airport was seven miles from town to the airport and it was on Merron Road, just sand, Merron Road to the airport and for that [unclear] visit became a tarmac pit, they put down layer of [unclear] and then spread it and it was a beautiful road, really wonderful road and the princess went on it, thought that jolly good and about two weeks later it rained [laughs] and the rain went under the tarmac, what a mess, it was back to Merron Road, goodness knows what that cost. What else happened at Mwanza? Got one of Hilda’s pictures at each end of the terminal building and he said, what did you [unclear]? Those pictures, get them draped, I said, I don’t have any [unclear], any drapes, snaps his fingers to his PA, Pa [unclear] to local purchase order, what is it you need [laughs]? And we [unclear]
US: I never actually saw them because we weren’t there then, Colin and I had been sent home
CB: This was the regional commission you were talking about.
CW: Regional commission, yes, regional commissioner, PC, provincial commissioner
CB: Ah.
CW: Well, he was the senior man in the province, and he wanted to see it draped so we did that. I gave one to the director, by then the director was Stacy Coles, commander station Coles, was actually a retired naval captain but he used the rank of commander because, well, there were too many captains there, captains of aircraft so to get, avoid confusion, he called himself commander. Stacy Coles later, yes, that was a point, I got a message from Nairobi, that Stacy was in jail, at Kisumu, I went to see him, and what happened he was due for home leave and he was issued with air tickets, by government tickets but Air France gave him some complementary tickets with a stopover of two weeks in Paris being entertained royally, but they did some favour of some sort to the director and with that in line he used the Air France tickets and the others went back to the treasury and the others went back to the treasury but it wasn’t, they were debited or rather credited to the wrong bank, they were credited to his bank and he wasn’t aware of it until he got back and he was arrested, arrested for theft cause he wasn’t used, he used, he’d cashed in the tickets in fact, he did no knowledge of it, he was set up by an Indian in the treasury and that Indian was caught about a year later, but meanwhile Stacy was given three years in imprisonment but after a year he was released and I don’t, that’s when Joe Furniss became director.
CB: Right, stopping there.
CW: After about a fortnight an Askari brought the radio back to me, not working, one valve had been unplugged and wrapped in paper and put back in and there was a letter in there for me, Cliff, do you think you can put a transmitter into this? There’s a spare hole on the chassis [laughs], I had in fact built a one valve receiver, which people got to know about because I’d used it on, with a key transmitting to an aircraft, who was a one valve transmitter radar, not receiver and I’d used it and it became known in the trade, could I put a transmitter in? Well, that was fair enough, that was quite easy, I did, put a transmitter in, I had a spare crystal for some cash frequency which was clear and I took the set back to him, for an aerial we used the iron mattress on the [unclear] but the airport was only a mile away, across from the prison, the prison was a mile away from the airport, only a mile, and I was able to talk to Stacy as I built another tiny transmitter for the low power, couldn’t use one of the big ones, so had two low power transmitters there, I knew the prison’s officer there and I met him in town one day and he said, bloody funny thing, Stacy came to me, Stacy said, he told me there was another prisoner being transferred to Kisumu, he said, I don’t want him in my cell, make sure he’s not in my cell, please, how the hell did he know that another prisoner was coming? I said, Stacy can hear the key clicks on the prison transmitter and he probably tuned to Nairobi or something, tuned to the prison network, he said, no home then, yeah [unclear], he could in fact listen in to the prison radio,
CB: Right
CW: Because he was a good communicator and he knew the Morse code [laughs]
CB: How did they find out who this man was, who had corrupted the ticket refund?
CW: I don’t know, I think he bragged about it, yes, he bragged about it in the wrong place
CB: How long were you out there? In the end, when did you come back?
CW: After eighteen years
CB: What prompted you to return?
CW: Sorry?
CB: What prompted you to return to the UK?
CW: Independence
CB: Right
CW: That comes later, yeah, after several, several trips, every two and a half to four years, we came home on leave for six months
CB: Right
CW: So that was from Mwanza we returned to Entebbe and there, Entebbe was a very snooty place, it was the domestic, was the domestic site with Kampala, government people all worked in Kampala but they lived in Entebbe, very snooty, on arrival I was met in Entebbe by a chap I knew well, he, I’d worked with him, and he took me to the club, Entebbe club, sat there in front of the fire on a very hot day and having a drink of some sort, and a fellow came in, came to us, he said, exactly who are you? To my chum, he said, I’m exactly Harry Jenkins and this is exactly Cliff Watson and who exactly are you? And every word he said was exactly this, exactly that, what exactly do you do? Where are you employed, exactly? Well, I’m exactly in charge of the exact radar, cloud radar, cloud of the radar system and Cliff’s exactly in charge of the, everything, all the other communications at the airport and he said, you’re exactly high commission people, exactly, yes, yeah. Everything was all exactly. Are you a member, he said, exactly? Are you exactly a member? I said, not exactly, it’s just about to expire, are they exactly like, everybody like you around here? He said, well, government people sit here, high commission people sit at that end and commercial people at that end. And I said, well, exactly so what? Well, he said that’s just a matter of protocol. He said if they’re, my chum said, if ever are exactly like you I don’t think I’ll exactly renew it and he didn’t [laughs] and I didn’t join the club. What else?
CB: So, you had to leave.
CW: Oh, I was doing radio repairs at Entebbe
CB: Yeah.
CW: And a fellow brought me a portable shaver for repair and I got spares for it, I fixed it and took it back, he said, oh, this is not the one I left you, [unclear] I’ve never seen another, he said, this belongs to BOAC, I said, I can see that, but this is the one you brought, oh no, definitely not, it was, I’d never seen another, never handled another, I said, well, if that BOAC’s I’d better hand it back to them and I did. It had been pinched from BOAC and I handed it back to BOAC. Oh, and then, chap from the chief secretary’s office brought a radio round and it was in a mess and I went through it and fixed it and I gave him a bill and he thanked me, he said, of course I’m not allowed to pay you old chap am I? Why not? Well, you’re a government servant, you are not allowed to take on private work. I said, I’m not a government servant, I’m a high commission servant, different, I said, anyhow, forget paying, I’ll put the bloody thing back exactly as it was, well, no, no, no, I said, if that’s not paid by twelve o’clock tomorrow I’ll do that. And he sent some Africans with the money. And they took the set. But I didn’t do any more radio repairs in Entebbe, not even for Africans. I didn’t like Entebbe, it was, it was too [unclear], then Joe Furniss came on a visit, quite frequently visits, and I said, well, Joe, there’s no challenge in this job, all I got to do is supervise an operator on the key or on the teleprinter and a European on the RT, on HF. There’s not a job at work, I don’t need to supervise the engineers, they’re ok. Ok, let’s see what I can do and he organised [unclear] leave of this chap leaving Kisumu and I was posted to Kisumu, that’s where the Katalinas were submerged at the end of the lake, Kisumu, not Mwanza, so we left Kisumu, I did about three years at Kisumu and then Nairobi, I was posted to Nairobi, I was there in charge of the tape relay centre in Nairobi and then I moved into head office, I thought it was all gradual promotion and in the end in head office I was in charge of all communications and all personnel involved in that. Eventually we went on leave and back to Nairobi, meanwhile a white paper so-called had been issued that we’re going to get independence and independence, they gave a date and everybody would be gone by that date, everybody would have handed over by that date and we had to give six months to, six months notice within two years for that handover and a fellow, and African joined me, fellow called [unclear] and he had a very posh briefcase, with his name on the front, in cold [unclear] BFC in brackets honest and he came to me, he was to take over from me, I said, this BFC what in communications presumably? Oh yes, yes, in communications, what, how far, how deep did you go into the engineering aspect? He didn’t know what I was talking about, no, he was stuttering away, communication in many ways, seeing with the eyes, that is communicating, and listening with the ears communicating, and you got around, you can communicate on buses, aircrafts and he talking a lot of gibberish, I said, did you [unclear] this [unclear] what university? And it was all there on a piece of parchment he brought out BFC honest, it didn’t mention what it was all about but it was utterly futile then he [unclear] out another document, a pilot’s licence on the front, pilot’s licence [unclear] BFC a [unclear] thing A5 size and he gave it to me, I opened it up and the fly sheet under the front cover I lifted it up because on the front page it said, pilot’s licence valid in all parts of the world, in all countries in the world for all types of aircraft [unclear] and then I lifted the fly sheet and across, right across it there’d be a big stamp not valid in the USA. I said, you went to university, you got a BFC and a pilot’s licence, how long were you in the States? Six months, it was very difficult, very hard, very hard work, I asked what sort of aircraft did you fly? He wasn’t sure, he didn’t, he’d forgotten, but whilst I was in head office DCA established a training school, well, we established it, expanded into air traffic control and everything and we were all, most of us had to pick out of the hat the subject we were going to teach and we had, yes, we had twelve blokes, or was it six? six blokes, we had six Africans at university and they weren’t doing so well so we re-established a training school, or [unclear] did and these chaps during the summer recess, the students were going to come and do a bit of revision and we’d to take the subject out of the hat and mathematics [laughs], I’d got mathematics, oh dear, well, ok, I got a school certificate standard in mathematics which was university entrance exam with five credits, so I was at university entrance exam, these fellows were in the second year university and I had to go and teach them and revise their mathematics, and other people had other subjects, we’re not on there, are we?
CB: Yeah.
CW: Well, I’ve been, talk, teach mathematics and I knew two other chaps and I spoke to one, to John Molengeke, I said John, mathematics, where do you, where are you having difficulties? Well, he said, you can put a figure and another figure under that and you can take the bottom on from the top one and get another figure and he was serious, I said, come on, John, don’t take the mick, don’t mess about, what’s that you are having trouble with? Oh, with that and there are other things with a cross, I said, you can put a figure and another figure and it is so many times that first figure, yeah, ok, so I listen to them, and then I went to see the boss, I went to see the director and I said, look, please, on the next math lesson you do it, you have a go and you’ll be surprised, oh, he said, I was never much good at maths anyhow, no, he said, that’s not my thing, that’s not my cup of fish, and I described exactly what had happened, I said, that’s not mathematics, they are at university doing what? There’s no good in trying to take on real mathematics but they were still there when I left but I didn’t do any more teaching [laughs].
CB: So, this was all when you were at Nairobi headquarters?
CW: Whilst on HQ and [unclear] I did a bit of flying on the Anson and that was later changed for a Heron, I mean, I was the only one there with a flight RO licence and we’d been somewhere, well, we’d done an air test on the Anson and it was in the hangar and, no, I’m sorry, it just had a [unclear] and we were going to convert it to do an air test, the following week we’d been on quite a safari with it, so it was in the hangar, we’d get in or we were going to get in, we did the air test, no we didn’t, I’m getting very confused, the aircraft had a [unclear] and we had to take it out to do an air test and as we went by the side of the wing, the tip of the wing, the skipper, who was not our normal pilot, he put his hands on the tip of the wing and chinned himself and there was a horrible creaking noise and the wing root, the wing root had collapsed, so we had dihedral on the starboard wing and the port wing it was anhedral, we just couldn’t believe it, it just had a major inspection, but the major inspection doesn’t remove the cladding on the wing, look at the wing root, which was wood, all wood and white ants had got in there, termites, well, of course, when we were flying the thrust on that was downward, well, was like that, forcing upwards, but when he forced it downwards it collapsed and we’d been flying about a week before
CB: Sounds frightening.
CW: What a way to go, in an Anson [laughs].
CB: So, you were saved.
CW: We suggested that the men, the schedule of tests by doing precisely that [laughs] we [unclear] did anything else, and remove the cladding, which was canvas, remove the canvas cladding and have a look at the wing root
CB: So, then you move to the Heron.
CW: Oh, then we, that [unclear] the fire practice on the Anson
CB: The Anson, yeah.
CW: We took the radio out and it was used in fire practice and we got a Heron where the equipment was quite different, modern equipment, not wartime stuff,
CB: It’s all, all metal.
CW: It had a twilight in the, in that one [laughs]
CB: So now we are getting close to when you returned, are we?
CW: Oh yes, we
CB: Why did you return? There was political upheaval at the time so
CW: [unclear]. Yes, we returned, oh, there’s a long way to go yet, we returned and my first job was in Whitehaven.
CB: Oh.
CW: They’d broke, they’d taken on a rundown old Sissan and I gave myself two years to build it up and we did build it up and I left there after two years went to London, we’d mentioned
CB: We have, yes, that was earlier, you started with that, didn’t you? Long after the war.
CW: Yeah.
US: You got to [unclear]
CW: Oh yes, yes, we got back, yes, initially we went to Wales, yes, I got off track there, that was silly, we initially went to Wales, lived there and that’s where two met
US: [unclear]
CW: I was invited to go and see a chap in Surrey who was starting, who was running, managing a telecommunication business and I went to see him but on his letter heading there was a big factory and on the right of that a little cottage and I was invited, he was looking for a development manager, so I went to the big factory and asked to see him, oh no, he doesn’t work here, he is in the cottage over there, so I went there and he said, we’ll be getting invitations to tender for radio systems, your job will be designing the system to what they want and then we get the equipment eventually installed and so on, he said, can you type? I said, well, with two fingers, yeah. Why? Do I need to? Why do I need to? Well, you need to for a little while until we got cracking. I said, what sort of cracking, what sort of staff have we got? Well, we have, we’ll recruit the staff easily enough once we start. I said, no, that’s, I’m sorry, chum, but it’s pie in the sky, to do that you need an organisation, you need a laboratory, you need production and no, you need engineers, accountants, no, forget it, anyhow thanks for the invitation, and that was it. From there I went to Croydon and the job there was running the communications centre [laughs] and I was, they said, they talked about things and said, well, we’ll let you know, ok, but before I got to know I moved to
US: Cambridge.
CW: Cambridge. I didn’t [unclear] the letter which offered me the job, I went to, I made several visit all over the place, one was a job which I found to be communications, comuter engineer, comuter service engineer, when I found out what the job was I said, no, that’s [unclear], I’ve never seen a computer, I don’t know anything about them which was true so that didn’t work so I went to the resettlement bureau at Victoria, overseas services resettlement bureau at Victoria and the bloke said, well, I told him where I’d been and that I didn’t [unclear] any of it, I’m not very keen on what I see, he said, what is it you wanted to do? Well, I wrote to Pye but there are no vacancies. Pye Telecom? Yes. What department? I wrote to Pye Telecom telling them I was looking for a job in communications, dealing with communications equipment and he said, do you still want the job? I grinned, [unclear], get me [unclear] at Cambridge. Ernie? Yes, Jock, yeah, another bloody colonial there for you [laughs]. That’s’ how he spoke, that was how he, how he introduced the thing. He said, he said that you, a vacancy at systems planning department, I said, that’s what I’m looking for, ok, when can you go? When can you go and see him? Tomorrow. Ok and he arranged that, he arranged it for the day after tomorrow, I went to Ernie, saw Ernie and during the interview, he got so many interruptions by telephone that I had lots of time to think of the answers [laughs], and I really enjoyed my work by Telecom. A silly job came to me one day, an associated company had designed a system for Reunion Island, I’ve not mentioned this, have I?
CB: No.
CW: No. They’d drawn up this system, they were grateful if we’d give it our approval, I think that’s an odd thing, it’s a simple enough system, everything, every transmitter around the sea, around the shore, every message is repeated by the transformer on the land and in the middle, I thought, something funny here, I come up with a decent map of the Reunion, well, we didn’t have one, try the university library, so I did, went there, had the chap at the reception, do you have the entry permit? What, to get in there? Yes, you need an entry permit, oh dear, how do I get one of them? Just fill in this for me, filled in the form, name, address, representing, at the bottom university degree college, I said, oh dear me, so I wrote in there, DFC, Hamburg, DFC Hamburg, oh, ok, mate, and he, that’s fine, and he gave me a pink sort of postcard, a little card, put my name on it, signed it, put the date on it, there’s your entry permit.
CB: This is the unintended end of the Clifford Watson interview when we ran out of battery unexpectedly.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Clifford Watson. Two
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-19
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AWatsonC170719, PWatsonC1704
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:57:53 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Clifford Watson remembers his training as a pilot in Salisbury, Zimbabwe, but being scrubbed at the flying test. Tells of when he flew a Ju-88 at RAE Farnborough. Talks about the different wages in various trades. Tells of an emergency landing at RAF Horsham St Faith and the removal of a four-thousand-pound bomb. After being demobbed in 1946, he initially worked for a firm on relay systems installations at Whitehaven. Afterwards, he moved to Kenya, where he was employed as a prison officer, and then to Tanganyika, where he worked for the Directorate of Civil Aviation. Gives a detailed and vivid account of his time spent in Africa: tells of the visit of Princess Margaret; repaired radios for the local population; tells of submerged Catalinas in Lake Victoria; underwent surgery in Nairobi for the amputation of two fingers; encounters with the local wildlife; helped an aircraft to land safely. Remembers carrying out radio repairs at Entebbe. When he went back to England, ended up working for Pye Telecommunications.
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Spatial Coverage
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Kenya
Tanzania
Zimbabwe
Kenya--Kisumu
Kenya--Nairobi
Tanzania--Mwanza
Uganda--Entebbe
Africa
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945
air gunner
aircrew
Anson
Catalina
Ju 88
RAF Farnborough
RAF Horsham St Faith
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1077/11535/APlenderleithJ151007.2.mp3
cd3b1395d95d7734637103a4e5584cff
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Plenderleith, John
J Plenderleith
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with John Plendereith (1822478R, Royal Air Force). He served as a wireless operator air gunner with 626 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-10-07
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Plenderleith, J
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PL: Ok. So, hello. My name is Pam Locker and I’d just like to thank you very much indeed for agreeing to talk to the Bomber Command Memorial Trust. And I’m in the home of Mr John Plenderleith and he’s going to tell us all about some of his experiences through his life. Not just in Bomber Command but through his life. So, John, if you’d like to just to kick off. Perhaps telling us how you, perhaps a little bit about your earlier life and how you came to be involved with Bomber Command.
JP: Thank you. Right. I went through the normal training of an air signaller from 1943 onwards. I did my ITW at Bridgnorth. And Radio School at RAF Madley, in Herefordshire. And OTU, Operational Training Unit in sorry AFU, Advanced Flying Training Unit at Mona in Anglesey. And Operational Training Unit at Husbands Bosworth in Warwickshire. Then I went on to Heavy Conversion Unit at North Luffenham on Lancasters and during that time of training we took part in a diversion raid for a target in Germany. After that I moved on to 626 Squadron at Wickenby in Lincolnshire on, and that was in April and May 1945. During that time I took part in four Operation Mannas which was delivering food to the starving Dutch people in Holland. In enemy occupied Holland. And also at the end of the war I took part in Operation Exodus which was ferrying, flying prisoners of war from Brussels to the UK when the war finished. And also later I took part, part in Operation Dodge which was bringing the 8th Army back from Italy to the United Kingdom. Can we have a break?
PL: Of course. We’re just stopping now.
[recording paused]
PL: Restarting the tape. Ok John.
JP: When the war finished in Europe the RAF asked for volunteers to continue the war in Japan. Well, we had only just started our, our bomber programme and we volunteered for Tiger Force. Now, this was to continue with the Lancasters in the war against Japan. It carried on for quite a while and eventually the, the atomic bomb was dropped and of course the war in Japan ended in August. So we never really reached Japan but eventually ended up in Egypt and replaced 104 Squadron with Liberators to Lancasters. And we joined 104 Squadron for a short time. I was there for only about six months practically and the crew became split up. And I volunteered to carry on flying which I did do and I ended up in Air Headquarters Greece and spent the best part of two years there during the Greek communist civil war. Which was interesting. After that I came back to the UK and various postings. The main one was Transport Command at Lyneham on Hastings. And I did a good few overseas trips there. Including Australia for the testing of the atomic bombs. And after that the main flying I did was at Farnborough where I flew on the experimental side for up to seven years. And that completed my flying in somewhere about six thousand hours. After that I became an air traffic controller. And I was approach and radar controller at Lyneham until I retired in 1968. After retiring I took the Civil Air Traffic Control Licence and became a controller for the Army Air Corps and I spent a further twenty five years with the Army Air Corps which made sixty years service with the military in all.
PL: That’s amazing.
JP: That was a rough account of my service. Service history.
PL: That’s wonderful. Thank you so much. A couple of things I wanted to return to.
JP: Hmmn?
PL: A couple of things I wanted to return to —
JP: Yeah.
PL: Going back to Operation Manna.
JP: Uh huh.
PL: Can you just expand on that and expand —
JP: Sorry?
PL: Could you expand on your experience of Operation Manna and how that all worked, and you know. And your personal experience of that?
JP: It’s a job remembering now. Well, as with regards to Operation Manna I did [pause] where are we? [pause] I did four trips on Operation Manna. The first one was to the Hague and the second one was to Valkenburg. And the next two were to Rotterdam. As you know this was for dropping food for the starving Dutch people. And we flew out ultra low level. Mainly five hundred feet and below. We flew out and, to the drop zones and we did observe. It was occupied Holland and we did observe military. German military. But there was a truce which was more or less kept over all but occasionally it was broken with small arms fire. And that was really about it. That was the, the four places we dropped on and of course the public were most appreciative of what was happening at the time, dropping the food to them. And they made a great, it became a very important part of the war. Operation Manna. And we returned there four or five times and looked after the Dutch people who were, who really appreciated what was done. And I think it was a good thing to take part in a mercy mission rather than a bombing mission. Much better. Any more?
PL: So when, when you got to the to the sites, the drop sites were the people there? Or what could you see from from the air? Were the people waiting to pick up the food or how did it work?
JP: No. The Germans kept the crowd back, you know, from the drop zone. Because it would have been dangerous, you know. Because we dropped the stuff without parachutes and it would have been rather dangerous if it, if it had fallen on the crowd.
PL: And then they would be allowed to to go forward and —
JP: Well, it was then all collected to a centre and distributed. Yeah.
PL: Right. Ok. Ok . That’s fascinating.
JP: Yeah.
PL: And after the war did you hear any more about that and the affect that it had had? I mean obviously it was of such —
JP: Hmmn?
PL: Did you ever, after the war hear any more about the effect of Operation Manna? Obviously it was —
JP: Oh yes. It was quite often during, over the years it was quite often brought up that this was carried out. I think possibly to give a good name to Bomber Command. Which it did. Yes.
PL: Because it, it was stopped wasn’t it? Do you know anything about that? Why it was stopped.
JP: What?
PL: I think that it didn’t go on right until the end of the war did it? Or did it?
JP: Operation Manna?
PL: Yes.
JP: Yeah. Well, right more or less, up to right to the end of the war. Yeah.
PL: Right.
JP: Until Holland was liberated and there was then freedom of travel and, you know it was delivered by road as well.
PL: Fantastic. So, the crew must, it must have been such a different, a different experience to, to going on the raids. It must have been a wonderful uplifting experience. Did you feel safe?
JP: Well, you felt, I don’t say, I mean on the first one when we went to the briefing and found out what the trip was and we thought well at five hundred feet.
PL: Yes.
JP: We’d be been blown to bits.
PL: Yes. Yes.
JP: If they do, you know. But yeah. We did wonder and the first time really what would happen. Yeah.
PL: So quite nerve wracking.
JP: Hmmn.
PL: Yeah.
JP: But anyway, and then as I say after Manna there was Operation Exodus. That was bringing the POs. That was on the 9th. The 9th of May. The day the war was supposed to have ended. And there we went into Brussels and picked up a lot of the aircrew who had been shot down. And we brought them back alive to, to the UK. And that was —
PL: So was it specifically aircrew then that you brought back?
JP: Mainly. Mainly it was, yeah. Yeah. We brought back, I think it was, yeah it was twenty four. We had twenty four prisoners of war in the Lancaster. And there was never seats of course. They just sat on the floor of the aircraft. And the trip took what? There and back was four hours forty five minutes. But the, it was, you know bringing them back. When we came to the coast of England coming back. Some had been there, prisoners of war, for up to five years. And it really was something, you know. They really did appreciate coming back.
PL: It must have been very emotional for them.
JP: It was. Yeah. It was for us as well. Yeah. So —
PL: Yes. Good. Wonderful. And it must have been a bit tight having twenty four. Was there, was everybody a bit squashed in?
JP: Well, they were mainly, mainly from the crew compartment at the front to the back of the rear turret. And they were all on the floor there. Yeah.
PL: Fantastic. Did you want, did you want to say any more about that before I move on?
JP: Sorry?
PL: Did you want to say anything more about Operation Manna before we move on? Or the, or indeed Operation Exodus.
JP: Not really. The big thing about Manna was how appreciative the Dutch were that it was carried out. I mean, when we were at the Bomber Command Centre this last week a Dutch officer came and presented to the Centre a picture of the Lancasters flying low over Holland and dropping the food. And they want that to be shown you know, in the Centre. As part of the war. Yeah.
PL: It must make you feel very proud.
JP: Yeah.
PL: Wonderful. Thank you. So something else that you touched on was your involvement with the civil war in Greece. And you said that was an interesting experience.
JP: Yes. Well I was on the communication flight there for the RAF delegation to the Greek Air Force and we did quite a bit of flying in the operational area where the communists were. And we carried the Greek generals and British generals who observed what was going on. And with the fight against communism. I don’t, I really shouldn’t say this but the Greek Air Force, they awarded us their General Service Medal for what we did. RAF, the Air Ministry turned that down because it would mean that we were showing an active part to the Russians. So, that was cancelled. Yeah. It was amazing really.
PL: It’s all about politics in the end.
JP: Yeah. Yeah.
PL: So how long were you involved there?
JP: What? In Greece? Best part of nearly seven and a half years.
PL: Goodness. A long time.
JP: Yeah.
PL: Goodness.
JP: And during that time I married a lovely Greek girl. The photograph’s there. Do you see it?
PL: I can’t see it.
JP: Well, have a look—
PL: Oh there.
JP: Yeah.
PL: That was my first wife.
JP: She’s gorgeous.
PL: And she died when she was twenty eight years old.
JP: Oh no. Oh, I’m so sorry.
PL: Yeah.
JP: That was Maria. She died of cancer. And then five years later I married again. To Reina. And she died of cancer as well.
PL: Oh dear.
JP: Yeah. Anyway, that’s just bye the bye you know.
PL: So did you have children?
JP: Hmmn?
PL: Did you have children?
JP: Yes. I had three children. I had one by my first. First marriage. Who’s sixty five now [laughs]. And two by my second marriage. Yeah. And they are in their forties.
PL: Right.
JP: And my daughter, she just had breast cancer. So —
PL: You’ve had a tough time of it.
JP: Yeah.
PL: So Greece was a really significant —
JP: Hmmn?
PL: So Greece turned out to be a very significant part of your life.
JP: Oh yes. Yeah.
PL: In all sorts of ways.
JP: It was, flying wise it was interesting working along with the Greek Air Force, you know.
PL: So did you make lots of friends in —
JP: Hmmn?
PL: Did you make lots of friends in the Greek Air Force?
JP: In the Greek Air Force.
PL: Yes.
JP: Well, yes. Not a lot. No. But I met quite a few. I flew the odd trip with the Greek Air Force and just as young and daft [laughs] Yeah.
PL: But that was a very different experience.
JP: Yeah.
PL: Right. Ok.
JP: So, that was my history really in the services.
PL: Well, something else I wanted to ask you about that you mentioned that I thought would be really interesting to talk about is you talked about your involvement with the atomic bomb.
JP: Oh yes.
PL: And you mentioned that a couple of times. Do you want to just expand on that and say —
JP: Well, the one. Oh sorry.
PL: No. No. Don’t worry.
JP: I flew on the trip to Australia. To, it was either Woomera or Maralinga. And we carried the head for the hydrogen bomb. That was some trip because they had the, the head of the bomb in the centre of the aircraft and a yellow circle painted around it. And no way had we to step within that yellow circuit, circle. And an RAF squadron leader sat with it all the time until we got out to Australia. Yeah. That was, that was interesting. But —
PL: Was that, was that just a security procedure then?
JP: Sorry?
PL: Was that just a security procedure that you weren’t allowed to step within the ring?
JP: No. That was because, well the possibility of what do you call it?
PL: Radiation.
JP: Yeah.
PL: Right. Goodness. It just seems so —
JP: Anyway.
PL: Yeah.
JP: We were all —
PL: So how many, how many times did you do that? Was that just the one trip to Australia? Or —
JP: No. I did two, two trips to Australia. To the base in the south of Australia which was Maralinga or Woomera. Yeah. And that was, that was a long trip there and back in those days because it was in a Hastings aircraft which was a piston. And a piston aircraft and rather slow.
PL: Goodness. So how long did it take?
JP: The flying was somewhere over a hundred hours there and back. Yeah. Yeah.
PL: Goodness me. So you stopped off along the way.
JP: Oh yes. Yeah.
PL: Can you, can you remember where you stopped off and what the arrangements were?
JP: I think the first stop was Castel Benito. I’ve got it in my logbook there somewhere. And first stop was in North Africa. And the second was Iraq at Habbaniya. The third was Karachi. The fourth was Ceylon. Ceylon which is now —
PL: Sri Lanka.
JP: Yeah. And then on to Singapore. And then down to Darwin. And then down to Adelaide. And then across to, to Maralinga. Yeah.
PL: Amazing. Amazing.
JP: And then when I was at Farnborough and then the last years of flying I was mainly on the training. The, mainly on the trials of a navigation aid to cover the whole world. So, to do that we had to fly the whole world. Which was great because I went from South Africa to the North Pole to the Far East. To Hong Kong. To Australia. To Canada. What do you call it? The Caribbean. And South America and that. We had to fly world-wide which was very interesting. But of course all that’s been superceded now by what? Sat nav.
PL: Well, it’s everything is part of a process.
JP: That’s it. Yeah.
PL: And without your process then, you know nothing else could have followed.
JP: No.
PL: What an extraordinarily adventurous life you’ve had.
JP: Sorry?
PL: What an adventurous life you’ve had.
JP: Well, yeah. It was. It was. The two sad times was the loss of my wives.
PL: Of course.
JP: But, with regards to the rest of it. As regards to the services I wouldn’t have changed anything. No.
PL: Wonderful.
JP: Yeah.
PL: I I know we’re going right back to the very start but I’m curious to know how you became involved in signals in the first place. What drew you to that particular discipline?
JP: What? Sorry?
PL: I’m curious to know how you became drawn into signals in the first place.
JP: Well, we, it was what, well — you volunteered for aircrew. All the aircrew were volunteers. Nobody was called up to fly. I volunteered in Edinburgh. And at the time it was, what they were after at the time was air gunners and wireless operator air gunners. That’s what they really were after. And I became a w/op AG. What was known as a w/op AG or wireless operator air gunner. Eventually that became a signaller. Yeah. But —
PL: So that side of it appealed to you.
JP: Hmmn?
PL: That, that side of things appealed to you. The wireless operation. Had you had any experience before that? Had you had any interest before that or was it just something that you wanted?
JP: In the Air Force generally —
PL: No. No. In the, to be a wireless operator.
JP: Well, no. I was in the Air Training Corps of course. As a youngster in 1940.
PL: Right.
JP: And I was good at Morse. And of course they gave you, this was part of the selection procedure. I, I was then able to do what? Fifteen words a minutes Morse. Which I’d done and of course that was it.
PL: Fantastic.
JP: Yeah. Because the communications with Bomber Command was all done in Morse in those days. Yeah.
PL: And when you joined your crew were you with the same crew throughout Operation Manna and —
JP: Yeah. Same crew with me. Yeah.
PL: Right. So can you remember how you all came to be together?
JP: How did everybody —
PL: How, how —
JP: How did we come to be together?
PL: Together as a crew.
JP: Well that was at OTU. The Operational Training Unit on Wellingtons. What they did was they put all the aircrew in a hangar and the group captain said, ‘Sort yourselves out into crews [laughs] So it was, you know —
PL: So, how did you do it?
JP: Well, just sort of went around and speaking to each other and — yeah. Our skipper, Flying Officer Hall, he said, ‘Have you got anybody? I said, ‘Not yet.’ He said, ‘Well, you have now. You’re going to be my wireless operator.’ [laughs] You see. And that was how the they selected you. You selected yourselves.
PL: Fantastic.
JP: I had no idea what — really when I think of it now. We all volunteered. We didn’t know what we were volunteering for. My God we didn’t. I mean the losses were something terrible weren’t they? I remember when we went to, went to the squadron. Posted into 626 we were, we went to the picket post and they said that we would be in hut twelve and as a crew. So we went to this hut twelve and there was all the beds there. And you know people that had got up from there and, you know. Haven’t they got rid of them? We went back to the picket post and said, ‘It’s occupied.’ They said, ‘Well, they were shot down last night.’ And that was that. But I thought, well what an introduction to the squadron. Yeah. Yeah.
PL: Terrible.
JP: Still —
PL: And you all, did the whole of your group survive the war?
JP: The whole of — ?
PL: Did your, did your group survive?
JP: My, our crew.
PL: Your crew.
JP: Oh yeah. Yeah. We all survived. Yeah.
PL: Fantastic. Fantastic. And have you, did you keep in touch at all?
JP: Yeah. Kept in touch with the, with the bomb aimer. The two gunners were Canadians. Of course they went back to Canada when the war finished. And I kept in touch with the bomb aimer right until he died. What? A couple of years ago now and we used to go together to Holland for the Operation Manna. We went together on that. And, you know we were good friends right until he died. Yeah. Arthur. He’s up there on that photograph. That’s 626 Squadron.
PL: Fantastic. Fantastic.
JP: Yeah. That was taken in May ’45 when the war ended. These were all aircrew. It just shows. You know. I think the, those killed in 626 was somewhere about a thousand two hundred. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Right then.
PL: Well, there’s one more thing I want to ask you and that is about your feelings about how Bomber Command were treated after the war? What did you think about that? Do you have any comment that you’d like to be recorded?
JP: Well, there’s no doubt that the bombing of Germany [pause] was it right? Was it wrong? It’s difficult to say. I think, I think it was a means for the ending of the war but of course they always bring up Dresden don’t they? And Hanover. But I’m convinced that if the Luftwaffe had had an aircraft equivalent to the Lancaster we would have been bombed off the face off this earth as well. But they didn’t have a an aircraft that carried the load that we did. I mean they were mainly twin-engined in the, in their bomber force. Heinkels. But the Lancaster was a marvellous aircraft. And, was it right? Was it wrong? Difficult to say. I’m glad I ended up on Operation Manna. That was the, the saving grace wasn’t it? But no. It was wrong in a way and of course it was right in another way.
PL: Of course. Do you think that Bomber Command should have had more recognition for their contribution to the end of the war?
JP: Oh yes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it’s funny. Last week we had a picture taken against The Spire. And I don’t know how many of us were on the picture but there was quite a few. And there was one chap who said that. Why have they never given a — what do you call it, a campaign medal for operations in Bomber Command? It’s true. Why they didn’t I don’t know. They wanted to keep it quiet I think. But now. Now, they talk about it don’t they? Yeah. I mean the Memorial down at, in London. That came, what a couple of years later on. No. Two years ago or something like that isn’t it? And now the Spire. They’ve shown. Yeah. Because when you think of it fifty five thousand five hundred and seventy three. God almighty. Imagine a football ground full of fifty five and a half thousand airmen. That was the amount of aircrew that were lost. And they were all volunteers. Yeah. Well, anything else you would like to know? There’s nothing much more I can say.
PL: Well, unless there’s anything else you’d like to tell me then I guess the most important thing for me to say is to thank you very very much indeed on behalf of the Bomber Memorial [coughs] Bomber Command Memorial Trust.
JP: Yeah.
PL: For sharing your experiences with us. So thank you very much indeed.
JP: That’s alright I’m sure.
[recording paused]
PL: So, there was just another operation that you didn’t have a chance to talk about. Do you want to just tell me a little bit about that?
JP: Well, Operation Dodge was bringing the troops back from the end of the war in Africa and that. And we, we flew back. I think it was twenty four on each trip. That was much the same as Exodus. They were seated in the fuselage. And it was a longer trip of course. It was over six hours from, from Pomigliano and Rome to the United Kingdom. And I did that trip twice. So, we, we flew out there. Spent one night and then back the next day to the United Kingdom. This was to speed up the evacuation and the return of the troops. There’s nothing much more to say really. That, again that was they all looked forward to home coming and it was a quick way to, for them all to return home.
PL: Wonderful.
JP: Yeah.
[recording paused]
PL: So you were just telling me John about the cathedral.
JP: Yeah.
PL: So you set off and then you circled around.
PL: Well, how shall I put it? We, we often passed close to it you know. After leaving. Yeah. And of course it was always, I mean all those airfields were all, a lot of them were in sight of the cathedral, you know. It was a point that —
JP: A landmark.
PL: As I said it was a point that some of the, a lot of the crews never saw again and that was it. You know. They didn’t come back. But yeah. Anyway, that Spire. The height of it is the wingspan of a Lancaster. Yeah.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with John Plendeleith
Creator
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Pam Locker
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-07
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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APlenderleithJ151007
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:42:36 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Description
An account of the resource
John Plenderleith was in the Air Training Corps before he volunteered to join the RAF. He was posted to 626 Squadron at Wickenby and when the crew were allocated their hut they were surprised to find it was still occupied with another crew’s personal possessions. When they enquired they were told the other crew had failed to return from their last operation. He took part in Operations Manna and Exodus and recalls the appreciation of the Dutch people for receiving the food aid and of the ex-prisoners returning home. After the war he was posted to Transport Command and flew in Greece and also carried the nuclear head for the atomic bomb for testing in Australia. While at RAF Farnborough he took part in testing of new navigational equipment. When he retired from the RAF he became an air traffic controller for the Army Air Corps.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Egypt
Great Britain
Greece
England--Lincolnshire
England--Farnborough (Hampshire)
England--Hampshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
104 Squadron
626 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
crewing up
Lancaster
memorial
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
perception of bombing war
RAF Farnborough
RAF Wickenby
Tiger force
training
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/735/10735/ACayhillE180208.2.mp3
fae5c508c5967105b298ae8a271038de
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Cayhill, Edward
E Cayhill
Edward Cahill
E Cahill
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Edward Cayhill (1921 -2021, 157619 Royal Air Force) He worked as a civilian Meteorological officer at RAF Scampton before joining the RAF and flying as an observer on Meteorological flights with 519 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-08
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Cayhill, E
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslin. The interviewee is Mr Edward Cayhill. The interview is taking place at Mr Cayhill’s home in North Wales on the 8th of February 2018.
EC: Correct.
JM: Mr Cayhill, Edward, please would you tell us a little bit about your family background first of all?
EC: I was born in Scotland in, near Motherwell. Motherwell, on the 11th of August 1921. A big family. A family of eight of us and I was the eldest son. Therefore, in Scotland the idea was that the eldest son would be encouraged financially and otherwise to further his education and so I was, my father said, ‘We’re going to try and get you in to university.’ So I worked hard at my studies and [pause] in 1938 my father died in Scotland. A big family. 1938. So my, and I applied for a place at Glasgow University and I was accepted for a place. However, it all came to fruition that there was no way in my family set up that I could continue with university. The war was imminent. We had advisors, advisories, advisors coming around the schools suggesting jobs for future careers and so on and I went up to the Civil Service place in Edinburgh and had a, take up there and I was accepted as a technical assistant grade three in the Meteorological Office. Now, as the days went by things were heating up. The war was about to start. I [pause] stop here. Can it be stopped?
JM: Yeah.
[recording paused]
EC: I was sent to the Royal Air Force Abbotsinch as an observer.
JM: Yeah.
EC: A weather observer, and worked there for a couple of years. And this is, I’ve got, I was very keen on getting airborne so I was flying with any chance I could get. And that went on for a couple of years. For instance I went up to Scone Airport, Perth as an observer teaching newly entrants and aircrew lectures. And then I spent about probably three years doing various jobs around Scotland and then from that stage on I [pause] my next move was to Aldergrove in Northern Ireland, and in Northern Ireland I trained [pause] Oh, I’m sorry about this.
[recording paused]
EC: 1674 Heavy Conversion Unit, Aldergrove in July [unclear]. Now, that was when I’d left the Meteorological Office in Scampton where I was. Posted there. I was still a civilian and my job was to brief the crews who at that stage, 1674, at that stage Guy Gibson who was the CO of the Dambusting squadron they had been recently, on my arrival they had just recently done the bouncing bomb. So I was a civilian still then and, but the Squadron, 617 Squadron continued similar training. That is about the bouncing bomb, and that meant low level. When I say low level I mean low level. So, I would come in each day and brief the crews. And now, the bouncing bomb having done, Guy Gibson was still there and the squadron which included Flight Lieutenant Allsebrook continued doing similar training when the training area was [pause] we would take off from Scampton and we would fly low level. When I say low level, low level up across Yorkshire into Scotland and then on the road to the Isles. That’s by Tummel and Loch Rannoch, out there and I had cadged a trip and my position was the one that the pilot was Allsebrook, Flight Lieutenant Allsebrook, but he said, ‘Well, my mid-upper gunner won’t be coming so you can have the mid-upper seat.’ So I, low level all the way up there and it was really low level and we came through the valleys with the idea of a drop then. However, down at very low level over Scotland there was a God almighty bang and wind came through the aircraft all over the place and silence for a while and full bore climbing and we were on our way back home. And then eventually, this is your, ‘This is your captain speaking. I want you to [pause] what happened back there, we hit a rabbit. We hit a rabbit. And what did we hit? I want all the crew to answer this,’ [laughs] So everyone sitting up there, ‘You hit a rabbit.’ ‘That’s right.’ So, on the way back, now the idea of this rabbit business was, what he had said, we were not on intercom with them, he had said to the bomb aimer who was down there and was covered in blood and feathers and a bird strike, it was a bird strike and so the skipper said to the bomb aimer, ‘Take up all those big feathers and get rid of them. And all that gory mushy messy stuff put in our sandwich bag.’ In those days it was brown paper bags. ‘Put them in there and who knows. That could well be a rabbit.’ And so anyway [laughs] now every squadron I believe, bomber squadron had a line. They called them line books, and the line book was tall stories usually, and this story went into the, I’m sure this is still in the book [laughs] And so I cadged as many trips as I could while I was there. And then I was transferred on to other things and I went on to the flying side of it.
JM: That’s lovely. Could I just ask you a little bit to go back a little bit in that sense? You were saying that you were doing the meteorological briefing for the crews.
EC: Correct.
JM: Where did you get the information, the technical information from? Was it from the station or did it go through a network?
EC: A network. It all came in on the printer. Various sources.
JM: Right.
EC: We had, well information was short but we got a lot of stuff on the teleprinter.
JM: And did you have to make your own synoptic charts up, or did you simply have the job of relaying what somebody else had done somewhere else?
EC: No. We would automatically draw the charts up.
JM: You would.
EC: Yes. That was something I was also trained in.
JM: Yes. Yes. Yes. So you were strong in maths and science at university level to do that work.
EC: Not, not really. No. Most of the basic stuff came through on the printer.
JM: Right.
EC: You plotted the charts.
JM: Right. Right.
EC: You analysed the charts, you know and —
JM: Yes. I mean the information that you were being given. The pressure, winds, whatever. Where was that coming from because you need information from all over the place but you didn’t have it from Europe? You only had it from the Atlantic.
EC: Well, from Bracknell.
JM: From Bracknell.
EC: From Bracknell. It was Meteorological Office Headquarters.
JM: At Bracknell. Still is. Or was.
EC: What information they had.
JM: Yeah.
EC: And who, the out stations had received it.
JM: Yeah.
EC: Used it to their best advantage.
JM: Yes. Yes. That’s very interesting. So you do, you do your, you make up the weather forecast based on the information that you were given.
EC: Correct.
JM: And then you go in to the briefing room to brief the crews before the sortie.
EC: That’s right.
JM: Did you, were you there for the whole of the briefing or simply for your bit of it?
EC: Oh no, we stayed on there and the others did their bit. Bomb aimer and —
JM: Yes. Yeah.
EC: The CO and all the rest of it.
JM: What was the atmosphere like if they were going out on a bombing sortie? Do you remember the atmosphere in the, in the briefing room?
EC: They were very [pause] they didn’t make any, there was no fuss. It was a job to be done. That was my understanding of it. We all did our bit. The wireless operator. The bomb aimer would say his bit. Each expert as it were to be known would say his bit and then the CO would then say, ‘Well, ok boys. That’s it now. Off we go.’ Da, da, da, da, you know.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And when they came back after the sortie it was quite likely that the weather forecast over the target wasn’t very accurate.
EC: Well, quite right.
JM: How did you react to that?
EC: Well, it was you debriefed and you’d, there was a lot of jocularity, you know, ‘I’m back Jocky,’ [laughs] you know, but we took that as part, part of the job.
JM: Right. Right. So we have you there at Scampton in the summer of 1943 after the dams raid. Gibson —
EC: Immediately after. Yes.
JM: Yeah. Gibson was still around. Did you speak to him? Did you meet him at all?
EC: Yes, well I briefed him.
JM: You did.
EC: He’d be at the briefing. He was always at the briefing.
JM: Right. Yes.
EC: He’d kind of retire, you know but he was there.
JM: Yes. Did you form any impressions of, of Wing Commander Gibson? He has had so much publicity, I wondered if having met him if you had a view of him.
EC: He was a cool, cool, cool, cool customer.
JM: Was he?
EC: He didn’t seem to get excited about anything. ‘Oh yes. Is that so?’ You know.
JM: Just like that, yes.
EC: Yeah.
JM: Yes. Yes. When he, when he left the squadron he was replaced by Squadron Leader George Holden who had come down from 4 Group. I wonder if you remember Holden at all?
EC: No. That doesn’t ring a bell.
JM: No. No. Are there any of the other 617 crews that you do remember as characters, or did you have much to do with them?
EC: Not really. Well, I was a civilian, you know. I lived out and travelled in.
JM: Right.
EC: To do my briefings.
JM: Yes.
EC: Plot my charts and do my job and envying them. I wanted to be a flyer. Be a flyer, as well.
JM: You did.
EC: Yes.
JM: Yes. Yes.
EC: So —
JM: But so there’s none of them that stand out.
EC: There’s no. I —
JM: As people you particularly knew, knew well.
EC: No. My memory doesn’t recall.
JM: No. Do you remember if they actually talked about the dams raid in the summer after the raid had taken place? Did they talk about it at all? What they had done. The crews.
EC: Well, each one had a debrief. You were debriefed. They were debriefed.
JM: Yes. I meant more informally. Did they chat about it? Was it something that they knew what they’d done informally? You can’t remember.
EC: I can’t remember. No. Sorry.
JM: No. That’s ok. No. Ok. Were you there in September of 1943? Had you, were you still on the station then?
[pause]
EC: I’ve got my flight with Allsebrook was in May ’43. I’ve got that. And then I’ve got the 18th [pause] Well, I don’t know where, the 18th ’43 [unclear] Flight Lieutenant Sanders and then September ’43 the Ventura, [unclear]
[pause]
EC: So, all I’ve got here is that on the 5th 1943.
JM: 5th of —
EC: 5th of, that was when the [pause] sorry, sorry May ’43. Fifth. It was the fifth month.
JM: Yes.
EC: I don’t know about the date. That was the Lancaster with Allsebrook.
JM: Yes.
EC: Ok.
JM: Yes.
EC: And that was described here as low level training. Scampton, Fort William, Stranraer, back. That’s the one I‘ve just talked to you about.
JM: Yes. Yes. Yes.
EC: Now, in August I would be, would not have been in that area.
JM: Right.
EC: Would not have. In August. September [pause] I was posted up to Northern Ireland.
JM: Right.
EC: And then in, here’s something specific. Posted to Number 2 Observer’s AFU Millom. Ah. This was for the training to become an air met observer.
JM: Yeah. Millom is —
EC: That’s a jump.
JM: Millom is in Cumbria, isn’t it?
EC: Yes. In Cumbria.
JM: Yes.
EC: And it was on that one that we did the nav course. Air gunning — there was a gunnery range over on the Isle of Man. And we did a navigation course which we did in the, flying on Ansons.
JM: Yes. Can I just —
EC: And just come back.
JM: Can I just take you back a little while there. I’m interested to find out what it was that persuaded you to join the RAF. You were already making a major contribution to the war effort as a, as a meteorological officer. Why did you join up?
EC: Because I wanted to go on flying. I particularly, I was surrounded by these in uniform and flying. I wanted to fly. And the only way I was going to get into flying, they’d started the Meteorological Reconnaissance Flights and the training was, the initial one was Millom. We went up to Millom and, well I would go, that’s when I went back, went into uniform at that change. But the base was Millom and we were trained in navigation, air gunnery, quite a few of the essential things.
JM: Yes.
EC: Training then from Millom.
JM: Yes.
EC: I don’t know if that’s any help to you.
JM: It is. Do you remember very much about the training that you were given in terms of navigation and observations? Do you remember that at all?
EC: Yes. We had lectures on the navigation.
JM: Yes.
EC: And we had when we were airborne in the Anson we were given tasks like fly from here to [pause] it was almost invariably you would fly over ‘til you saw the, the tower at Liverpool and you would then go up to Scotland. Down to Stranraer.
JM: Yeah.
EC: In to the Stranraer area.
JM: Yes. Yes.
EC: And there would be a qualified navigator with you, you know to [unclear]
JM: Yes.
EC: And so on. But it’s becoming vague now. It’s very complicated. Not vague but complicated.
JM: So how long was the training that you went through at that stage?
EC: [pause] the whole thing probably lasted about six weeks.
JM: Really? Yes.
EC: That was to four to six weeks.
JM: Yes.
EC: I would think.
JM: Yes.
EC: It was a kind of crash course.
JM: Right.
EC: A crash course.
JM: And where were you sent after that, please?
EC: There is something here [pause] I’ve got my glasses [pause] Posted to Number 2 Observers AFU, Millom in June 1944. That’s, that’s a fact. Training flights were in Ansons for air experience and map reading. Second navigator to first navigator and the area’s bounded by Bardsey Island, Inishtrahull, Isla, Millom and down to Birmingham. And then I was posted to 1674 Heavy Conversion Unit, Aldergrove. Ok.
JM: Northern Ireland.
EC: In July 1944.
JM: Right.
EC: So, I was then in to flying.
JM: So you —
EC: I told you I was probably not much help.
JM: It’s wonderful. It’s very valuable. So you were at the Heavy Conversion Unit.
EC: Yes.
JM: And were you training to fly Halifaxes or Lancasters?
EC: We were then in Halifaxes.
JM: Halifaxes. Right.
EC: Not Lancasters.
JM: No. No. So where did you, where were you posted after you’d finished at the Heavy Conversion Unit?
EC: I think I was posted to 1674 Heavy Conversion Unit, Aldergrove in 1944. Training. These were the training flights. Halifax air observer flights in the base area. Stornoway. Rockall. Climbs to eighteen thousand feet. And then I was, in September ‘44 I was posted to 519 Squadron at Skitten. So I’d done all my training.
JM: Yes.
EC: And then they had opened up these weather flights.
JM: Right.
EC: Weather reconnaissance.
JM: Right.
EC: And I got on to the weather reconnaissance. And that was, that’s my life since that date. September ’44. I’ve been mostly on weather reconnaissance. I’ve got, this is all small stuff which is you don’t mind me just opening that.
JM: No. Please.
EC: There’s my log book which I kept up to date just to [pause] back to [pause] The research flight, Farnborough, that’s it. [unclear] What we did at the Met Research Flight, Farnborough, I flew, we flew Halifaxes and Mosquitoes.
JM: Right.
EC: On a bit of research.
JM: Yes.
EC: Flying as high as we could go.
JM: So the high altitude meteorological research.
EC: Yes.
JM: Yes.
EC: Met research. It was called Met Research Flight, Farnborough.
JM: Right.
EC: So I was on that. What we had was, we had Halifaxes and Mosquitoes. Two pilots, one engineer. The pilots took alternate Mosquito. I was, every Mosquito flight I would be on that and we would fly as high as we could until we stalled. You know, you’d think [unclear] so and like and there were two pilots [Thomason] Thorne. Thorne. [Thomason]. These are all the 1st 2nd 5th 9th 12th 15th 20th at Farnborough. So on and so on and then it was all authenticated by the, signed by the officer commanding M RAF. So this was all authenticated and then still at Farnborough in January 1950.
JM: So you were staying, stayed on in the RAF after the war was over.
EC: No. I was flying as a civilian then.
JM: You were back as a civilian.
EC: Back as a civilian.
JM: Yes. Yes.
EC: And I used to, like with [Thomason] and Thorne I used to fly with them on the Met research flights in uniform. But then I was demobbed.
JM: Yes. I see. Tell me about flying in the Mosquito.
EC: Beautiful. Beautiful. My position, it was naturally a two seater. Pilot on the left, met observer on the right with my judgement on all the weather and then when we came down from, we’d go as high as possible. You can see by the heights. I always put the heights in. The Halifaxes went up to ten thousand feet. The Mosquito to forty thousand feet. A fifteen thousand foot descent. There’s mostly, like in February 1950 I had, on the 2nd I was airborne on a Mosquito. On the 7th I was airborne in a Mosquito. On the 8th, on the 13th on the 14th 15th 16th 21st 21st 22nd. Climbed to, well climbed to forty thousand feet or as high as you could go. Thirty eight thousand five hundred. And then when we came down to fifteen thousand feet my job was then finished and the pilot, I knew him, we were great pals, pilots. He said, ‘Do you know, I’ve always thought this, the Mosquito could do a loop.’ So at fifteen thousand I had finished with the meteorological stuff so I just strapped myself down and said, ‘Ok.’ So he said, he put the nose down, [unclear] feet and he flew it back and came from out there and stalled out.
JM: Oh, it stalled at the top did it? Yes.
EC: But oh, but that I told you I was not —
JM: No. It’s wonderful. It’s absolutely wonderful. I’m interested, when you were making the observations on these weather research flights were you making them with symbols in a notebook of [pause] What was it that you were actually recording?
EC: We had the, a special form actually.
JM: Right.
EC: A meteorological form.
JM: Right.
EC: For each position.
JM: Yes.
EC: I don’t think I’ve got one. But anyway yeah there were special forms.
JM: And were you, were you looking at instruments that were giving you recordings of outside air temperature or whatever it happened to be?
EC: Both. Instruments and weather and visual.
JM: Right. Instruments and visual observations.
EC: And visual.
JM: Were being made by you.
EC: Stratocumulus, cirrus.
JM: Yes. Yes.
EC: Above us or below us.
JM: Yes. Yes. Operating at that height, forty thousand feet. That was quite exceptional in those days.
EC: Oh, yes. Well, the highest —
JM: Did you have any special kit or special training for operating at that altitude?
EC: No.
JM: No.
EC: No. No special training.
JM: No special —
EC: No special pressure suits.
JM: Nothing like that at all.
EC: No. No.
JM: So just normal RAF flying equipment.
EC: That’s right. Come out in the morning, go to the parachute section, draw your parachute out, and the truck would be there to take you out. Then you would go to the met office and have a briefing and then off you go.
JM: Off you go. Was it cold at that height?
EC: Well, you had heating in there.
JM: You had eating in the aircraft.
EC: Oh yeah. Yeah.
JM: Good.
EC: Oh, very cold. Very cold.
JM: Yes.
EC: Just trying to get something that might help you [pause] No. I’d just be repeating myself. So, what I did, I was in the met office. A civilian until the Scampton episode. And from then on I was going in to uniform.
JM: Yes.
EC: And they had started these meteorological reconnaissance flights.
JM: Yes.
EC: And I got in to them.
JM: Right. So you operated in Halifaxes and Mosquitoes in a meteorological —
EC: In a meteorological. What happened there was, when did the Mosquitoes come in? [pause] Well, of course the war ended. Where does that put us?
JM: ‘45.
EC: ’45, the war ended. So, what did I do then? Oh, the war ended and I thought, ah this is going to confuse still further but this is my memory. Ok. The war ended and I thought, oh no. I want to emigrate to America. Get away from all this. Get over to America. So I thought where’s the money? You’ve got no money. So I attended a Civil Service Commission and anyway, I got in to the Met Office as a technical assistant grade 2, I think it was. Whatever it was. And they said, ‘Now, what we want you to do now is they’re [pause] they’re going to, we have discovered we have a jet stream in the northern latitudes but there has been some suspicion on some very high flying aircraft that there’s one in the Middle East somewhere.’ That was it. ‘So what we’re doing we’re sending you out there,’ And there was, the war ended boom boom and there were pilots by the hundred. No jobs. Aircraft by the hundred. No purpose. So they said. ‘What we’ll do is we’ll send you out to Habbaniya in Iraq and we’ll send [pause] — the RAF have promised a squadron of —’ [pause] that was it, ‘Of Mosquitoes for this investigation.’
JM: Right.
EC: For the Middle East.
JM: Right.
EC: Jet. And you’ll be the kind of organiser and so on.
JM: Yes.
EC: So I said, ‘Ok, that’s fine.’ Maybe I’ll save some money while I’m out there. So, I went out there and, you know I was told to report to a Squadron Leader Shellard who was the officer in charge of RAF Habbaniya which is on the Euphrates about fifty miles from Bagdad. And so I got off the aircraft, went into the flight lieutenant. He said, ‘Oh, you’re, you’re Cayhill, are you?’ He said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you what,’ he said, ‘I’ve got good news for you and bad news for you.’ He said, ‘First of all your flight won’t, you’re flying won’t come to anything because the Mosquitoes that came out, there was no hangar space for them so they were moored on the airfield on the bund. Open air.’ June July temperatures. The aircraft wood warped.
JM: Warped. Yes.
EC: And they were declared unfit for flying.
JM: Oh.
EC: So, I was [pause] but so Shellard said, ‘Well, look we’ve got problems here. We’ve got a war going on in the Far East and the French are getting kicked right, left and centre and they are flying the evacuees, injured back home and they’re coming up through one of my wee stations down in Shaibah.’ The north end of the Persian Gulf, and so, ‘There’s no forecaster down there. There’s just the assistant and passing stuff. It would be better if we had a forecaster down there so you’re going down to — ’ That’s when I, that’s before I went out on this job I had sent all my gear including my logbook out to, and it was as the ship came around to come up to Basra it ran aground in the Persian Gulf.
JM: And that’s when —
EC: Five hundred, so the papers said, five hundred armed natives rushed on board and pilfered all they could except things like bulldozers and things like that.
JM: Right. Yes.
EC: And so I went down to Shaibah and then I had to spend my time there. And anyway, sorry we’re diversing and we don’t —
JM: We are but that’s fine. Again, if I may I’d like to take you a little bit back because you were telling us about operating the Halifax on the weather reconnaissance flight.
EC: Oh course.
JM: Could you tell us a little bit more about how that would, how often you’d go up? Where you’d go to? How did that actually work please?
EC: We had fixed routes which you would select on, the meteorologist would select on the day and then the routine would be, you’d got the full crew, the met observer, depending what kind of aircraft. I started off on Hudsons. Twin engine. Now, the twin engine we don’t, that was from Wick. When I was at Wick. But before that it was the Halifaxes. Now, in the Halifaxes there were fixed routes which were there in black and white.
JM: Yes.
EC: So you would fly out and do low level for part of the way. Every fifty nautical miles you would make a weather report. You would climb, clamber through bomb bays and whatever up to the wireless operator and he would send that message back to base.
JM: Right.
EC: And then after so many miles out you would do a climb to five hundred millibars. That’s about eighteen thousand feet. Now, we were very primitive in those days. The idea was you would climb to maybe, it was in millibars but call it two thousand feet and you would then circle there to allow the temperatures to regularise. Steady up. And then you would take the temperatures, the dry bulb, and wet bulb, and put that in. Always in code for that part of the war you know and so on. So you had to then encrypt it and then you climb another roughly eighteen hundred feet, level off, allow the temperatures to level off, take the readings, code them up, go up to the wireless operator to send them out, and then up to five hundred odd. Now you do two climbs to five hundred millibars, eighteen thousand feet and then you’re coming back home doing a kind of triangular somewhat penetration. A long way out. A long way back.
JM: That’s very interesting and there’s a couple of things that you’ve said that I want to clarify for the, for the recording. You were climbing to heights in millibars where there would be a certain known pressure.
EC: That’s right.
JM: So you weren’t climbing in feet. You were climbing to a pressure level.
EC: You had the altimeter beside you as well.
JM: Yes. Yes. That’s good. The second thing is that the information was sent back as you were recording it via the wireless operator in code so that if the Germans were listening they wouldn’t be given —
EC: That’s right.
JM: A free weather forecast.
EC: That’s right there was a decode book. You know it was book. Decode book.
JM: Yes.
EC: Number so and so, page so and so line so and so.
JM: Yes. Yes. Yes. Were your, were your crews, the pilots and the other members of the crew were they perhaps men who had done a tour of duty on bombing operations or had then been specially selected for that sort of work?
EC: They weren’t specially selected. No.
JM: No.
EC: No. They all had so many flying hours in, on different jobs.
JM: Yes. Yes. So they might have been men resting between tours of duty.
EC: Could be. Yes.
JM: For them that would have been a fairly easy task I imagine.
EC: No problems for them. Yeah.
JM: No. Was there any risk of you being intercepted by long range enemy fighters?
EC: There was always that risk on, on all these flights were given names. Code names. The one I started talking about, the one over the Atlantic that was Business.
JM: Right.
EC: The one over the North Sea starting was Rhombus. The one that went straight north out into the Arctic —
JM: Yeah.
EC: Was Recipe. The one down from Cornwall was Epicure. Epicure. They all had. The one, the one from Gibraltar. I didn’t do the Gibraltar one. The one at Gibraltar was, what was the one down there? Just missing for the moment.
JM: Yeah. That’s fascinating. So we had these separate routes identified by code names.
EC: That’s right.
JM: Taking weather aircraft north, south, east and west and you could, you could be ordered to fly on any of those depending on your duties.
EC: That was done at briefing.
JM: That was done at briefing.
EC: Yeah. The weather forecast. They’d see the weather forecast. They’d see that was a pretty blank area now. We need some information. Do that route.
JM: Yes. Yes.
EC: On the, on the Recipe which was taking off from Wick originally and then we moved to a wee place further north, would you believe it? To Skitten. Took us far north because at that time you had the Germans at the Dutch coast err the —
JM: Norwegian.
EC: The Norwegian coast, and they would come out and of course you had the convoys coming from Liverpool. The sea convoys from Liverpool going all the way around there to Murmansk to feed the Russians.
JM: Yes.
EC: And they were open targets. The Jerries used to come out there and —
JM: Yes. Yes, yes. You mentioned the Jetstream earlier on. I think I’m right in saying that’s a narrow band of high velocity air.
EC: That’s correct.
JM: When did you first get to hear about the presence of the Jetstream?
EC: Well, it was, you mean the second one? The one down in —
JM: No. The concept of the Jetstream. The fact that it existed over, over north west Europe.
EC: I wouldn’t like to say then, I did give you a date I think. I would suggest that like airlines flying to America and so on the, it was very rarely. They wouldn’t, at one time they wouldn’t allow a two engine aircraft to fly direct to America like I did, a long time at London airport briefing crews there, and they, and they’d come in and what are the winds? Ah. Then we’ll do the polar route depending on the winds and whatever winds we had then they’d probably, I don’t know. I don’t know exactly when they said jet, that’s a Jetstream.
JM: Yeah. The reason I ask, Edward is that I had it in my mind that it was the United States Army Air Force with their very high flying B17s and B24s leaving the contrails. I had it in my mind that it was they who first of all identified the Jetstream, and I wondered if that was you believed to be the case.
EC: I would believe that is the case.
JM: Yes.
EC: I’m not sure but I would believe. They always had the higher flying aircraft over their own country.
JM: Yes.
EC: And certainly the Jetstreams over there.
JM: Yes. It must have been fascinating to be a part of the science of meteorology at a time when with computers, balloons, rockets so much more information was coming through and you saw this. Perhaps after the war was over.
EC: Oh yes. Did. Did. We, clearly the details which are probably not too relevant, but my position I would say with flying with what we were flying but we had to be started using B17s eventually.
JM: You did. B17s as well.
EC: Oh aye. Towards the end of the war.
JM: Yes.
EC: We had Hudsons which [laughs]
JM: Yes.
EC: Twin engine things got no distance at all and then we got B, the B17.
JM: Yeah.
EC: That was fabulous. Up to thirty thousand feet. But what would I say was special about it? Well, they changed our job totally from being just getting north of the Orkney Islands or the Shetlands with a Hudson to a much longer range. We used to go way, way up there. But I remember my, as a Met observer my position would be in the nose of the Fortress. I would do my weather and then I had to take, and then I put it in to code and then crawl, push on a trap door to get up there, through there, through the wireless cabin and give him my message and he would then transmit. It was all in code, you know. And then, however in the meantime there was aircraft [laughs] Jerries were coming out across our path looking for ships to torpedo.
JM: Right. Yes.
EC: And the [pause] it’s like suddenly there would be an aircraft showing up and he’d say, ‘Ok. What’s the colour of the day?’ Now, the colour of the day might be two, two red cartridges and a green or something, or whatever and that was, so that was then my job. So everything black as pitch, you know most of the time in the winter time, ‘What’s the colour of the day?’ Get your torch out. We could have been shot down before you could work out the colour of the day. I’m rambling on. The old memory’s beginning to —
JM: Well, we’re having a lovely conversation. I hope I’m not tiring you too much.
EC: No. But —
JM: It’s fascinating.
EC: But I’m sorry not to be so specific.
JM: No. No. So, after you’d served as a civilian in the, in the Middle East.
EC: Yes.
JM: What did you do with the rest of your working life? Did you stay in meteorology?
EC: Yes, I, when I came back from those two years in the, and I told you I was going to go.
JM: Yes.
EC: I had been writing to the American Consulate and you needed in those days a sponsor to get, to emigrate to America. And so I, one of my friend’s uncle was a solicitor over in Detroit. Lafayette Buildings. Memories, it’s weird isn’t it? Lafayette Buildings, Detroit. And I thought, ok so I saved up a fair bit of money. I had been corresponding with the Americans and the last one read my letter. I got a letter from them, from their Consulate in Baghdad. So when I got home to Scotland there was no letter. I thought, you know what? So I thought, well I said, I know I’ll emigrate to Canada and then go across from Canada. So I booked a flight over on TC or something, and landed at Montreal and then came down to Winnipeg was it? No. It wasn’t. Anyway, at the junction where you go across they said, ‘Sorry, you can’t come through. You’ve got to have a working permit that you’re working in Canada.’ ‘I’ve got to have a job in Canada?’ ‘Yes.’ So I took a job emptying a grain ship, you know. And then out of a job. The second job was more popular on an assembly line in the car industry making body parts and so on. So once I had that I went across and I thought ok here I am in Detroit. I’m in Detroit but I’ve got to go back there and I went to the Lafayette Buildings where he was and I said, ‘I’d like to speak to [pause] anyway there it goes again. ‘Oh, he died three weeks ago.’
JM: Oh dear. Oh dear.
EC: He died three weeks ago.’ So I thought that’s it. So I thought, ok. I’ll go back in to the Met Office in the UK and just to make the best of it. See what they can offer me. So I booked from New York. Sailed from New York. It was mostly boats in those days. So I got on a bus around there and somewhere enroute the bus driver, we stopped for refreshments, he said, ‘Mr Cayhill?’ I said, ‘That’s me.’ He said, ‘Oh, there’s a message here from the place you booked your ticket.’ So it was to say that there’s a strike in New York and the ship has been diverted to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Oh no. So I pretended I couldn’t hear and hung up. So I went on to New York and stormed on to it [laughs] I stormed into their offices. ‘Don’t panic. Don’t panic. We’re laying on a special train from New York for us and you’ll go all the way around up to Nova Scotia here.’ So [unclear]
JM: Marvellous. Marvellous. I’d like —
EC: You’ve got nothing out of me.
JM: I’ve got a lot of out of you, but I would like to take you back if I, if I may to the, that time, the summer of 1943 when you were a civilian working at RAF Scampton with the 617 Squadron. In the period of time after the dams raid.
EC: Yes.
JM: What, what do you remember about Scampton in those days? Do you remember the base? Do you remember where you had your office?
EC: Yes. I do. Yes. A very small office there. Briefings, we always went to the briefing centre for all the briefing.
JM: Yes.
EC: Operations. I presume it was operations for, the next briefing is from so and so and so and so to so and so. So you prepared all the documentation you could.
JM: Yes.
EC: And you went over and you gave your spiel.
JM: And some of the briefings that you gave to 617 Squadron were part of the operations that they took part in in the summer of 1943.
EC: Yes.
JM: Do you remember any of those operations at all?
EC: No. The only ones were associated once the low level training part subsided and that was with Allsebrook.
JM: Yes.
EC: That was the last time that I flew with them.
JM: Yes.
EC: Or probably the last time I briefed any of them.
JM: Was it? Yes.
EC: Yeah.
JM: Right. Because I was keen to find out something about the atmosphere on RAF Scampton in those weeks after the dams raid. They had trained so hard. They had achieved so much. To find out what it was like to be there in the aftermath of that. That’s —
EC: That’s right. In actual fact Gibson himself, I think it was a fact was shot down by one of the RAF, a Lancaster.
JM: That’s, that’s one of the stories. It is. Yes.
EC: Oh, it’s a story.
JM: Yes. Yes. I tend to not to agree with that but it is one of the stories that we have heard. But that was two years later wasn’t it?
EC: Yeah.
JM: That was, one year later 1944.
EC: You don’t believe that.
JM: I tend to go with the view that it was an accident as a result of his relative unfamiliarity with the Mosquito.
EC: That’s right.
JM: And the fact that they didn’t transfer the fuel as they should have done.
EC: And they ran out fuel.
JM: And they ran out of fuel. I have been to —
EC: I accept that.
JM: I’ve been to the crash site in, in Holland and his grave, and Squadron Leader Warwick was the navigator who was killed with him. I’ve been to that. I have looked into it but it’s quite right that recently a rear gunner came out and he said that he had shot it down. A two engine aircraft.
EC: Yeah.
JM: Not knowing what it was.
EC: Yeah.
JM: So, we’ll never know. We’ll never know. But that was 1944. In the summer of 1943, you know you were there and 617 Squadron was operating against targets in Italy and elsewhere. I wondered if you’d remember that but perhaps you’d moved on at that stage.
EC: No. I can’t. No.
JM: No.
EC: Sorry.
JM: No, that’s ok. That’s fine. I have to ask. Shall we have a rest there for the moment?
EC: Ok.
JM: Yeah.
[recording paused]
EC: Have you had, the squadron was based in Darwin with daily flights. They made long period daily flights until the bomb itself went off.
JM: What year was that roughly?
EC: The year was exactly [pause] Darwin. Darwin. This was the period [pause]
JM: So, for the, for the record Edward is telling us about the time when he was operating in Australia, in the Pacific Ocean in support of nuclear weapons testing on the Caicos Islands and you were doing weather reconnaissance to ensure that the winds did not bring radiation on to the mainland of Australia.
EC: I think [pause] Yeah. That was 18th of February 1956. Shackleton, 818. Wing commander flying. That was our crewmen. I was air met observer. Ballykelly via Bordeaux. The Carcassonne Gap to Idris. This was on, out —
JM: Right.
EC: And then again Idris to Habbaniya and then [pause] No. I’ll start again and then Habbaniya. Shaibah. Sharjah. Do you know all these?
JM: Yes. I do. Yes.
EC: Sharjah, and then Mauripur. And then on to Mauripur. Mauripur to Negombo. Negombo via Subang to Changi, Singapore island. And then Changi to Darwin. Darwin, Pearce Field, Perth down to Perth, this is setting it all up.
JM: Yeah.
EC: Pearce back to Darwin and then I set up tracks which we were flying so we were flying but the —
JM: So this was 19 —
EC: Conditions were, those ones there were twelve and a half hours.
JM: This was 1956. You just gave us that date. 1956.
EC: 1956, yeah.
JM: And this was in support of the nuclear testing.
EC: That’s right.
JM: That was taking place at that time.
EC: That’s right. That was the atomic bomb.
JM: Yeah.
EC: Test that.
JM: Yeah.
EC: Still at Darwin and that was [pause] so the summary of flying hours as an air met observer on 269 Squadron for the period 5th of Jan ‘56 to the 16th of May, da di di da, on Shackletons. The two hundred and eighty five hours and then there was still a Shack and then because I was the top man, you know [unclear] with the wing commander we went down to different, to Alice Springs and Alice Springs back to Darwin, you know. And then we did our trips in the [pause] we were flying regularly 5th 8th the 11th, 14th of June, 17th of June, Shackleton to [pages turning] still in Australia. Darwin. Then transit Darwin to Essendon. Laverton, Richmond, Sydney, Richmond, Darwin, Darwin, then go Darwin to Changi. Changi to Negombo which was Ceylon. Negombo, Sharjah. Sharjah. Habbaniya. Habbaniya. Idris. And Idris back to Ballykelly. That was all in, the last of those flights was the 10th of July 1956. And then we have a transit to the Christmas Island for the whole set up. That was in, the 19th of January 1957. Flight Lieutenant Kerr. Air obs, acting air observer, St Eval to Lurgans. That’s going out the long way around. Lurgans to Kenley Field. Kenley Field to Charleston. That’s South Carolina. Charleston to Moisant. Moisant to Biggs Airfield in El Paso. Biggs to Travis Air Force base up in California and then a big long one across the Pacific to Travis which is California to Hickam Air Force base Honolulu. And then Hickam down to Christmas Island and so on and so on.
JM: And of course Christmas island was the H-bomb tests, wasn’t it?
EC: That’s right.
JM: I have a —
EC: Well, I’ve done, I’ve seen and experienced three personally and I’m very closely associated for the rest of them. I set up the Met set up for that. On the day of the decision — have you been to Christmas island?
JM: No. I haven’t.
EC: It’s a very large coral island, about the middle of the Pacific full of little waterways and so on and there was an airfield. They made, the army made an airfield. Rolled coral in the north end of it there and then the ships would, could come into the fjord, the waterways. And on the day of the, if I say the first bomb they would say, they would wake us all up about three o’clock in the morning, those who weren’t flying. I would have all the time twelve hour meteorological flights going on. I had a team of six. One flight sergeant and five sergeants and myself who used to fly twelve hour flights. Reconnaissance all around. Anyway, my job was, I would go aboard as the weatherman to the target and then the [pause] I would report when I’m on the target back to headquarters, it’s satisfactory or its not satisfactory for a drop and then in my aircraft which would stay on site the weatherman, we had all the cameramen. Ok. With their cameras. And then the target was four hundred miles south of Christmas Island. A little island called [pause] anyway a tiny little island which was mostly unoccupied and we’d use that to bomb. A Valiant would come on top at forty five plus thousand feet. He would come across and if it was decided it was on, drop from that height. And then the Navy had a ship over to the east of the target and they were monitoring everything, the bomb all the way down and they would call, ‘Forty five seconds. Forty seconds. Close eyes everybody.’ [laughs] And then, my position in the nose there would be a bright flash. You’ve got no goggles on, gloves on, curtains pulled past the, around all that, would, would be again a funny light through all the sounds, and then, ‘Ok. Eyes open everybody. Forty five seconds,’ and then would be the countdown. And then the first thing would be apart from the light, was an attack. The aircraft really shook [pause] and then it stopped, and then there was another smaller one. And in the meantime then the cameras were turning and photographing it all.
JM: And that shock was the shockwave hitting the aircraft.
EC: That was the first one which was direct to the aircraft was the shockwave from up there, and the second one was a reflection off the sea.
JM: Right.
EC: And that was a minor one. Now, the British are fantastic, I think. Now, the, from then on I’d say it was all being controlled by the Navy over there who were at sea. The aircraft, Canberra aircraft were sent off and they timed it beautifully, and they were timed to go through at different levels into the stack, you know and they were called Sniffer, their call sign. Sniffer One. Sniffer Two. Sniffer Three. Go through the cloud at different levels taking samples. Back to Christmas island. There was an RAF York on the ground there and all those samples were on there. The route, the usual route was up to Honolulu, or to San Francisco and they were in Aldermaston the following morning at 9 o’clock. Incredible.
JM: Were you ever concerned after that about the health issues of operating there? A number of servicemen —
EC: Oh, I was told about it. They said, you know. I had no [pause] we became so good at dropping this bomb.
JM: Yeah.
EC: All our accommodation on Christmas Island was tented.
JM: Yeah.
EC: There was only one kind of wooden hut and that was the CO, but because we knew exactly what was happening we used our own island, the southern tip of our island as a delayed drop from our own island and we were all at the top end of our island, you know. And really fantastic.
JM: And how long were you there for in total?
EC: Oh, exactly I’ll tell you [laughs] [pages turning] [pause] Christmas Island. Transit Christmas Island, down this area.
[pause]
EC: I was there all of the 19th [pause] These are the days I flew — 19, 20, 21st reconnaissance flights [pause – pages turning] I did, I finished with it [pause] for the period of 10th of January ‘57 to the 28th February ‘57 I did a hundred and twelve hours ten, ten minutes of flying time. And then it went on and on and on [pause — pages turning] The last entry in my book [pause — pages turning] I went back to training. Air met observer from then. So you can then, my grand total of flying was two thousand six hundred and four hours. Mostly meteorologically associated.
JM: Yeah. That’s a wonderful record.
EC: But again, I haven’t —
JM: Yeah. Just to complete the story when you came back I gather you spent your career as a meteorologist with, with airports. Is that correct? Were you doing weather forecasting? Did you say earlier you were doing weather forecasting?
EC: Yeah.
JM: For airlines. It doesn’t matter, Edward. It doesn’t matter.
EC: No.
JM: We can leave it there. Edward, thank you so much for allowing me to go back with you into your story and you are a unique individual and your stories are very valuable. Thank you very much.
EC: I know I haven’t answered you, what you, specific points you wanted me to raise with you.
JM: Well, you have answered as best as you can and that’s all I can ask for.
EC: Ok.
JM: On behalf of the IBCC thank you very much indeed.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Edward Cayhill
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Julian Maslin
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-02-08
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
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ACayhillE180208
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
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01:03:35 audio recording
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eng
Coverage
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Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Christmas Island
Great Britain
Iraq
England--Cumbria
England--Lincolnshire
England--Hampshire
Northern Territory--Darwin
Scotland--Stranraer
Northern Territory
Temporal Coverage
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1943
1944-06
1944-09
1950
1956-02-18
1956-07-10
1957-01-19
Description
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Edward Cayhill was the eldest of eight children and with his father’s encouragement was hoping to go to university. His father died in 1938 which meant that the university dream was cancelled and Edward went to work as a Civil Servant in the Meteorological Office. He began his work as a Met observer with the RAF at RAF Abbotsinch before being posted to 617 Squadron at RAF Scampton. Edward desperately wanted to join the RAF as aircrew which he finally did. He joined the RAF and was attached to the Meteorological Reconnaissance Flights at RAF Farnborough where he flew on Halifaxes and Mosquitoes. When he was demobbed he continued to fly with the Met Research Flight as a civilian. He eventually joined 269 Squadron and took part in the Met research flights in relation to the nuclear testing in the Pacific.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
1674 HCU
617 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
briefing
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
ground personnel
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
meteorological officer
Mosquito
observer
RAF Farnborough
RAF Millom
RAF Scampton
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/726/10726/PBridgesCH1701.2.jpg
8240dd1ff09882d4b4866a93efc69914
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/726/10726/ABridgesCH171013.2.mp3
444cd10fe0ae2456ea567945abe0a2f7
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Bridges, Cyril Henry
C H Bridges
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Cecil Bridges (b. 1922, 1654795, 183040 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a flight engineer with 115 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-10-13
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Bridges, CH
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CJ: This is Chris Johnson and I’m interviewing Cyril Bridges today for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive. We’re at Cyril’s home in Ramsgate, Kent and it is Friday, the Thirteenth of October 2017. Well, thank you Cyril for agreeing to talk to me today, perhaps we could start with your story and if you could tell us please where and when you were born and what your family background was.
CHB: Well, I’d be pleased to do this, I, my name is Cyril Henry Bridges and I was born in Ramsgate and my father and my mother, my father was a very brave man, he served in the First World War, he was a deep sea fisherman had a [unclear] in Hull in Grimsby and he signed, I got records of his signature on a parchment when he took his indentures brought up apparently in a [unclear] work home, he and his two brothers were then apprentice to the sea, I’ve got this big manuscript, he’s joined it, his joining and at sixteen he decided he had enough of the sea and wanted to join the army when all the villagers were joining the army, so he absconded from the sea and went to France where he was wounded with a shot gun through his, top of his shoulder, and came out of the bottom of his shoulder and he eventually was sent on into, back to England after having treatment and he joined, there was this port at Richborough near Sandwich where they were shipping troops and ammunition and returning stuff that had been used from the battlefield and where he met my mother who was a waitress and she worked at, on munitions at this place at Richborough and they got together of course and he went back to, after the war, he went back to his Grimsby as where he lived and he corresponded with my mother and eventually he decided to become local. In the meantime, he joined this, the fishing fleet and got this document endorsed on the back that he had deserted his fishing trawler in the beginning and then they had, he’d come back to complete his apprenticeship. He did that and when he’d done that after a while he’d come to Ramsgate cause we had steam trawlers then, just the trawlers and he was able to join those and he married my mother, my mother and father had four of us, there was, I’ve got three sisters, I was the first born and I had three sisters born after that, at three year intervals. Anyway, I lost most of my family at the moment, father, mother and two of the, two of the sisters. Anyway, I joined, as a schoolboy, we had nothing, very poor, we were a very poor family, I’ve done a lot of errands for people to make up my father’s his shortfall on his money which was only thirty shillings a week, I then, I joined, collecting coke from the coke house to neighbours and working at a butchers, I was a butcher’s boy, then I got sort of a job that I could better myself, didn’t want to deliver meat anymore, I joined The Maypole, The Maypole was the sort of old fashioned superstores, there was Maypole, there was Home & Colonial, the international stores in perks, they all belonged to this one which I joined, which was The Maypole; I joined The Maypole for a few years, started bringing in a little bit of money my mother, prior to this my schooling had to end at fifteen, I was in Kent, class six, at St Lawrence School and then I then had to sort of go and earn some money to keep me in trousers, slippers, plimsolls etcetera. After a while I decided to join The Maypole as, when at first I started as a cellar boy looking after the cheeses and things like that and then after that on the counter serving butter and groceries. Then the next step I got was when the troops were being evacuated from Dunkirk and my father was on his way to Milford Haven, they used to spend three months fishing in local waters, the rest of the time in the western waters in the Irish Sea etcetera, he was on his way to Milford Haven or Padstow I think but I think Milford Haven was his [unclear], the place he got to in the end and having got there or before he got there they’d taken the boat as far as Dungeness and from Dungeness he was ordered to go to the beaches of Dunkirk to pick up soldiers. He did several trips, this I understand, to pick up soldiers and return them to Ramsgate and I recall the trains, the troops marching from the dock, the high street to the station and that was, [coughs] excuse me, that was that one little episode and my father then eventually got to Milford Haven, subsequently they were sunk by a Condor and they evacuated the boat which had beached in the Barry Islands, Lundy Island I mean, Lundy Island and they launched the boat to try to get away, get ashore with the boat, and he, the German come back and one sailor was, one fisherman was killed, he then spent a few days on this, on that island before they discovered that he, people discovered that he was on there. Anyway, he then got ashore and returned [unclear] in Milford Haven. My mother said to me, I don’t like your dad being on his own, she said, in these times cause by then two of my sisters were evacuated to the Midlands somewhere and the other sister, the younger sister was left with my mother and she said, I’ve got the [unclear], she said, and you go down and comfort your dad. Anyway, I got a transfer from The Maypole to The Maypole in Milford Haven and after spending some time at Maypole, my father says, do you want a bit of a leg up? What sort of a job do you want now? He said, I said, well, I’d like to go on the docks, see what I can do in the war effort, because we constantly had the warships coming in there for repairs and the dock was Milford Haven, it was Peter Hancocks, I was then there [unclear] and was still sending money home for mum and I was a poor kid really but I wanted to make a name for myself and I got fed up with doing mundane jobs for the dock, so I volunteered for the navy. I had a letter back saying that they weren’t recruiting and in any case I was stuck in a job that I couldn’t leave, so I said, what could I leave? They said, you could join the Air Force, they are looking for crews, [coughs] excuse me, I then, I then got a stop with this on the docks, as a shipwright apprentice, and after a bit of that, of boats going back in, being repaired, I thought, got a bit, just got, just going to be, I thought, better be doing a bit for the service if I can, so I decided to join the Air Force. I joined in the Air Force on Swansea, my first posting was, first place I got the uniform, or part of it, was Penarth, I joined a train at Penarth and it got underway and I thought I get a go on it, was issued with the tropical gear, and I thought, well, I’m going to, overseas, so the train travelled by night and at daytime was pulled into a station and in the end we ended up at Blackpool, so I’ve done my share of square-bashing at Blackpool and then I was transferred then down to a place in [unclear] Wales which was, I don’t know the name but, I’m sure, I can’t remember the name, it was near Cardiff anyway and that was for introduction to flight engineer, we worked with [unclear] hat, then I done that course and then I went on to the squadron and then I started servicing Spitfires, that was in Andover, and after that I was sent to at Cosford, where I’d done a flight engineer’s course at Cosford but that’s near Wolverhampton and then after that I went on, back on the squadron again and started working, went back then to a place called Innsworth which was in Gloucester where I had to choose what I wanted, they wanted me as a fitter or as a rigger but I had no choice but they said, oh, you got to go as a flight engineer, so then I went to Innsworth as a flight engineer and having completed my ops, I went to, transferred to a squadron which was, it was 115 Squadron. I got a notice sent to report to squadron and having reported there within a short time, I was booking into my flight sergeant’s building or room and he showed me that I was on that night, that was the first day I joined the squadron, and he said, I said, oh, that’s good, that’s what I’ve been training to do, so then he said, you won’t like what I said, I said, he said, do you want the good news or the bad news? I said, oh, I want the good news, he said, well, you’ll be on ops tonight, said, the bad news? You’re going as a spare flight engineer. Engineer’s gone sick on me and I put you in as a replacement. That was to Schweinfurt. And it was with a chappie, with a Canadian pilot, and it was a successful trip and it was a long trip and we’d come back all the better for it. In the meantime, I heard that my pilot had already, on the night I was doing the Schweinfurt trip, he was going as the second dickey to get used to the bombing. After that, I, well, I don’t, I just done what I was told and completed the tour. I’ll tell you a bit more about that later.
CJ: So, could you tell us, as a flight engineer please, what your responsibilities were? How you’d prepare for an operation and what you actually did during the operation?
CHB: Yes, what we did when we went to the mess and saw that we were on ops, we were never told, told where we were going by a map on the wall, marked with blue and red, comings and goings, what was here and what was there in a way of navigation, lights, the searchlights, and fighter areas that should be avoided. You go into the room where they are doing the, they give you a “gee-up” course with the CO and then the navigator, navigator officer does his bit, tell you all about what to avoid and what not to, you sit on a row of seats with your crew of seven and you all get a, one big bag with seven little bags in it so you filled your little bag and it went into the one big bag, that was for safekeeping, was made sure you took, nothing with you in a way you could be identified, apart from the medals you wore around your neck. What we get as an engineer, when I [unclear] in the mornings before we went to the assembly, they told us that we were on and I used to go up to my aircraft and go round the aircraft and check everything, checked with the groundcrew what needed to be done, what they felt was needed treatment, and normally the groundcrew was the same groundcrew that served you all the time, you got to know him, and he [unclear] to tell you any difference, any differences that [unclear] or any repairs that they had done in the meantime. I used to check, the ailerons, checked the pitot, schecked the tyres, checked that we had, on board we had the fire extinguishers, checked that we got an axe and generally checked the engines, but mostly came from the fitters on the ground to tell you the state of your aircraft. They made an awful sacrifice in doing this because the job was never ending and there was always repairing or checking. Anyway you got quite used to your crew when you went to the assembly in the evening, you were told then where you were going and it was all mapped out on the board, you weren’t allowed to leave billets and it was just a question of being available with the rest of the crew, the crew of course slept together, some were talkative, some did talk, some didn’t talk, but it’s just the question of getting in the aircraft and the engineer then, he’d already checked the fuel that was going aboard, he already checked how much it was and he used to put, check that the engines, [coughs] excuse me, engines were in good nick and after I’d satisfied that the Perspex in the windows and the door closed properly and one or two other things, he went back to billet and didn’t speak to anybody, just wrote a little note to your family and then, when you went out on the runway, to go at night time or in the early evening, you [unclear] up the crew, you make sure you got fuel in the body, two tanks in the body and in the case of the Lancaster, [coughs] excuse me, there’s two in just outside the fuselage, make sure it was in the right, you made sure you, when you took off, you took off with the inner tank, which had the most fuel in it, you took off with that and then you switched to the other, if you were in the air and one was punctured, you switched to that tank to empty it before it ran away. When you got out on to the runway I’d already, when I walked out to the aircraft again, checked that [unclear], the cover was off the pitot head, cause that was covered, that was and checked that everything was [unclear] in the morning and there we go on the end, we taxied to the end of the runway and gradually took off. I took off with both hands on the throttles, assisted by the pilot giving a nod, and I go to, [coughs] excuse me, go through the aircraft, the checks before we took off you go through the engine checks, run them up and test the magnetos and carburettors and things like that, got both my hands on the throttles, the pilot had already run down the fairway with it and I took over from him because we had to go to full boost, so I pushed them through the full boost, got the aircraft half way with the load and got to circle the aerodrome and I just throttled back to running throttle and it seems, when you are waiting for the time to start our bombing run. Well, we took off and I had a spare, I was sitting on a reversible seat, I could change it from looking out the front where I, where all my buttons were and a lot of [unclear] also on the right hand side of the fuselage, which was of course the starboard side, and I had gauges and throttles there so I could never [unclear] static is that the view rolled over. Anyway we then took off, the navigator giving the route where we going and we never, in our aircraft, we never said anything to anybody unless there was something to be said, eyes everywhere and you had to report anything that was heading your way but flying was another thing, it’s odd experience, cause when you took off, you got up to top speed and of course the undercarriage, you lifted the undercarriage up, you lifted the undercarriage up, and on the Lancaster the rear wheel was fixed but on the Stirling of course it was retractable, well you had to go back and check that it was up and locked, so, didn’t have to do that on the Stirling, on the Lanc. Anyway we, well, I think it’s another, I think, I am going another way now, did you [unclear] want me to
CJ: Perhaps you could tell us what it was you were as an engineer you were doing during the flight? I presume you were checking engines settings and fuel use.
CHB: Yes. One had to as engineer, we had to fill a form in, and rank the periods and that we [unclear] that we’d have enough petrol and done an awful lot of calculation as well we, we had instruments but we didn’t depend solely on the instruments, we had to do stuff mechanical [coughs], anyway, that, in the flight we said nothing to nobody, as I say, nobody talked to anybody, there was one particular, do you want me to go through into, the one particular and bombing trip which we had of the thirty or twenty nine trips we had done, the most hairy was the one that we was on the Stirling, and it was quite early in the days of joining the squadron, we went on a diversion to try to force somebody I don’t know who but I know we never got informed but we then tried to land at our base, our base was fogged up, we couldn’t get into our base, so we had to fly on to Downham Market by then from there to and it wasn’t as bad as we were expected from our own aerodrome so we, we went to land and I’d done these usual checks with the pilot and we had a [unclear] to tell to check things and I used to make sure that we was in the correct m gear as opposed to s gear cause there was two gears over your head, make sure that the thirty degrees of flap so that we could land, I went all through the checks and the undercarriage, [unclear] as I said, in the, in the other aircraft, we had to go back and check that the rear wheel was up and locked or down and locked, whichever, which way we go, up or down. Anyway we went to Downham Market and the first thing we did, we flew along the runway which we thought was the runway but it was a roadway that ran parallel with the runway and I had to cut the engine off, the starboard outer, I think it was the starboard outer, anyway it was playing up so I put it into no motive and with no motive, the propeller stopped and we went round again, the pilot on three wheels, on three engines, went round correctly into the fog very fast I had to, while we, when we, he said we are going to land and I had to check that the, I checked that the wheels were down and thirty degrees of flap and full flap but when you get it down, what I said to him, I think we are not on the runway, we’re on a roadway, [coughs] he said, I’ll go round, so we went round and ideally pulled the undercarriage up, pulled the flaps up and adjusted the engines, we went round again and I don’t know if it was the second or third time of trying, he turned on the dead engine and the aircraft just slid along and hit the ground and he was an Australian pilot and he got all of us clear and he was the only one that was barely injured but he never flew Lancasters, never flew Stirlings again ever. They sent him to the Middle East on canvas twin engine jobs, [coughs] I since been, a word [unclear] lucky to have a word with the pilot later years and he apologised for the and he said, I nearly killed you, I nearly killed all of you, I said, no, you didn’t, you saved all of us, he was the only one who really suffered from it but when you, when you were flying, went full boost, get off on the runway which just staggered off sometimes and then you sort of back to about 120 or whatever you did, the navigator determined what you needed to get to the target on time. We got then into a circuit to gain height and before you set off to the target, so the time to set off was fixed, so you might have done one turn or two turns, two or three turnings on your airport to gain a bit of height, cause you had to get to, get over the target by eighteen thousand feet else they’d shoot you down so you made a stab to get to the coast, get over the coast, then you, the next one is the, get over the enemy coast and you get up to whatever the bombing, bombing height got to be. [unclear] Aircraft, some were good, some were bad, some you couldn’t make it was like hitting a ceiling, tried to get higher than the aircraft, anyway the rest of, target [coughs] sorry got the lack of oxygen [laughs] anyway we, then, when you get to flying at night time, all you feel is the air, your comrades are there cause the aircraft, it’s the back lash of another Lancaster and got every eyes peeled to see what’s about, you couldn’t see much but you could see the Jerry if they come on you, anyway they, everybody had their eyes peeled to what, you had to see what aircraft were around us, and you were always able to [unclear] when one stirred, one Lanc there and a Lanc there and a Halifax here and a Halifax there, and you carried on to your bombing, on to your bombing run, and then it’s up the doors to keep us steady on one course, that was up to the, up to the bomb aimer, who was selecting the target, and then, we keep as steady as we possibly can, everybody with their eyes out, but aircraft cutting across in front of you, and underneath you, a lot I should think were [unclear] throwing bombs flying underneath, but you got on the target then you got out as fast as you possibly could, you got into a circuit, come back on track again, and you did it all over again the next day, until you completed your tour.
CJ: So, how did the crew manage to keep the aircraft straight and level if you’re flying through anti-aircraft fire?
CHB: Well you ignored the anti-aircraft fire because there’s nothing you can do about it and as regards the aircraft flying with you, there’s nothing you can do about it them either, providing they all held their breath, if you like, the pilot [unclear], out the [unclear] if you like, done the correct thing, and the pilot if you had a good pilot, which I had, best pilot in the world, he was an elderly man but a very, very good pilot, I owe my life to him and only had one bad incident that when, my life was saved by the bomb aimer, we’d gone down over the target, and he’d done his work and he got up, he looked up and he saw that I was lying on the floor of the aircraft and he come over and put the oxygen mask on me again, I was right as ninepins after that, the only bad incident I had [coughs]. All the bombing trips were all different, you couldn’t say one was the same as another, if you got a long trip to Friedrichshafen or somewhere long, it was just mundane but if you went to the Ruhr, you’d do it there in no time and there and back, the trouble with the Ruhr is that they were so gallantly manned by the Germans who would let nothing through and if you get the odd German captured the bomber flying in your lane, the detail in the instruction to his fitters, his fighters and that was the thing that I don’t know. You don’t know how you get through it, you just get through it, you just sort of fingers crossed, nothing you can do about it, if you [unclear], we had several incidents when the bombers were on your tail, the fighter was on your tail, and you have the corkscrews to deal with, you know that he is faster than you are and that sometime someone has got to give away [unclear] the fighter, you either go to his right and down or left and down and then you had a great chance of undergoing him because you were doing, you started doing a corkscrew then on your downstroke you had a chance to get at him and on the upstroke you had another chance to get at him and if he, if you tackled them they went, they had so much to pick, so much to choose, that if you started, you just showed him that you were aware that he was there, he would leave you alone and that’s what we found, was the best thing to do but we did keep straight and level so that we get a photograph of what we just done and in the latter part of course when you the Pathfinders, their chaps in Mosquitoes at zero feet telling you well now bomb the red, then bomb the, now bomb the green and you straight knew all the time where you wanted the bombers to fall over the cities and they were very fine people, in fact all the boys were good, lost too many of them, didn’t we? I think that’s the [unclear] all I can remember.
CJ: Then did you ever discuss between you what you might do if you were shot down and got out of your aircraft? Did you have escape equipment with you?
CHB: Yes, we had a dinghy in the wing, when we were at sea, we had, a bit of a problem in as much as we lost a few people. We lost the mid upper gunner, that left us while we were being attacked, he thought we wouldn’t going to make it, so he left, he leapt out of the door, but he survived the parachute, apparently, I never saw him after, nobody could ever find him after, apart from a NAAFI girl that says he got down safely and then you had, I had certain things that I couldn’t do, they limited what a parachute couldn’t do when you’re flying, you hear tales of people getting out on the wing and all that sort of thing, in my opinion that was not possible. I, at one time, there were [unclear] the rods, the aileron rods within the aircraft had to try and turn them together that’s a bit of a [unclear] didn’t’ get [unclear] but you get used to it, it’s something that you take it for, you don’t take it as for granted, you are on the alert all the time, that never leaves you but I didn’t worry too much about whether I was going to make it or not. I was with a band of boys and it’s something we had to do, it’s as simple as that, but we couldn’t do an awful lot when we was in the air, I at one stage there when this particular chap that bailed out, we’d been chased by Germans to a [unclear], and we were, do you use that petrol? Because you didn’t get too much extra petrol, and we eventually thought, we started to, thought about it a bit, the engine [unclear], the engine got out of control the engines which I had to fill out and we started to stagger home and we were very short in petrol and I said to the pilot, we want to get down as soon as we can, he said, well, we don’t want to be taken as prisoners, no, not that, I said, I’d rather jump in the Channel, so we did that and landed at Manston. We got off, were serviced, I went to the engine and borrowed four bikes which got to our mother who said to me, what are you doing in all that Air Force gear? I said, well, we just come back from a place, she was taken by surprise I must admit, but Manston was a lovely, lovely runway there, we landed on that but we had crosswind, we took off crosswind when we joined our squadron the next day but no, I had a good run really, I got [unclear] wonderful, this particular occasion I was talking about was this chappie bailing out, we got into trouble and when we was clear that this fighter or two fighters there we got away from them, our pilot was a clever pilot, clever, clever, he, we got, he got, the little bit of, pressure off us, and he said, go back and see what you can do, so I went back and I saw the rear gunner was on his way up to me, so I said, what’s the matter? He said, I thought you would have left them, he said, that’s what the mid upper gunner must have thought, I said, well, get back in your turret and see, ok, was nothing wrong, anyway as I say, that was the mid upper went out. Another time when we were chased about all over Germany and the navigator was asked, this was a different navigator, he was asked to give us a course home, so he said, I can’t find a course, you’ve lost me, he said, it was all over Germany, you lost me, so the pilot said to me, go and give him a map, fine, so I got a map, and we come back via Manston aerodrome that was the time, we landed after being attacked but the another occasion was so that navigator was lost. When we were landed he was in trouble, he was just passed off, I never saw him again. Then the rear gunner, he tells me he had a fighter in his sights and he started to take the fighter and he got a jam with his belt, his ammunition belt, so he took off his gloves and it stuck to the gun and he got frostbite so we lost him, he went to another squadron and after being hospitalised he went to another squadron and completed a tour of ops with them. He’s still about, I’m in contact with him, but he’s the only one, I lost the wireless operator which was the same man we had all the time, the navigator was changed, we had two navigators besides the one we started to, and we had two pilots when we started to, bomb aimer, he’s the same bomb aimer, the pilot and the navigator were both awarded the DFC, and the bomb aimer and myself were given the ranks of officers. I tell you it was our reward to, it was good, was interesting. After that, if you want me to go on after that? We were sent to, we were sent to Scotland for a break which I enjoyed very much. After that I went to Farnborough for [unclear] and [unclear], we picked up Wing Commander Winfield and used to pick him up out of, by Anson, we got an Anson converted with a winch and used to dive to [unclear] the men on the ground, sort of goal post to sit between and we had an arrester hook sort of what the navy had on their fighters when they can land on airship (aircraft carriers), boats but used to pick him, pick this chappy up him up [unclear] dinghy and off land. I was based then at White Waltham so we used to travel between White Waltham and the base where the aircraft was.
CJ: So, this was a new method for rescuing airmen who were downed, is that it?
CHB: That’s right. It was, they then they brought in the helicopter then. So we was, they discontinued then and then they sent me to Hereford to the admin school, didn’t like it very much, it’s where the, I think it’s an army unit that’s trained airborne or something at Hereford and I’d done a bit there but halfway through the course, they said to me, we want you to go and up to Dishforth and talk about going onto Yorks. So we done this short training course there at Dishforth and two other places in Scotland which were close to each other and then we went, then I was transferred to Ossington where I spent a very good part of my life and we were on Yorks training, this was after the war, we were training ex pilots, ex RAF pilots getting them ready, I think, for Civvy Street and I used to electrics and carburation and fly as flight engineer on Yorks and done that for a long time and then I sent to, when I finished, I was sent to Manston as currency officer, few places in between but I can’t remember for the moment.
CJ: So then were you demobbed after that?
CHB: I was demobbed after Manston. Yes, that was in ’46.
CJ: What did you do then?
CHB: Then I enjoyed my freedom for a bit and met the ladies of course. I then had about a fortnight off I think and a man said to me who I found, I was in the pub one night and a man come up to me and he said, I see you’re in uniform, I said, yes, he said, well, I’ve got a business in London, I’m moving down to the coast, would you like to come and work for me? So I said, well, what do you do? He said, well, I am an engineer for a die sinking company PDS tools and there were two companies he owned and he said, we are bringing these, all their equipment down from London, setting it up in an old skating rink in Thanet, so he said, I’d like you to be there when they bring their machines down and install them, so these machines, shaping machines and mills and lathes and capstans and all sorts of the machinery that had come down and was installed in this old skating rink and I, he said, well, being as you done that, work for me, I’d like you to make progress, engineer in charge of progress and I said, oh, that’s fine. So I got it up on his feet, done very well, the owner of the firm was a chap by the name of Gutteridge, Mr Gutteridge and he was then associated with Haffenden, rubber people that made hats and rubber caps, swim caps and mats and rubber mats and electric plugs and hot water bottles and they were in Sandwich and they employed a couple of thousand people and I went in and we started engineer work, we moved from, we moved from the skating rink and moved to Sandwich, moved with all our equipment into Sandwich, so we operated then under W. W. Haffenden which were the people that owned the rubber works. We operated as their, as their tools, made their tools, made their hot water bottle tools, electric plugs, made all their tools, and also had a good clientele outside where we made other people’s tools as well so on the engineering side, we employed about fifty registered toolmakers and the light machinist toolmakers and I was there about thirty five years and I got myself up to director, this auxiliary Sandwich engineering and Haffenden Richborough I was on the board there, well, it wasn’t a board, it was a collective board, but the main owners of course were the real bees’ knees but I was there thirty five years and they said to me, we are going to make some changes on in the tool, we are going to do various bits and pieces and wondered if you wanted to stay in, see it through. I said, well, what’s the alternative? I leave, they said, yeah, you leave with our blessing, and with a salary introduced, that was I was sixty then, leave with a pay until you are sixty, next five years at sixty five, we can give you a golden handshake, and we will make it so that if you are ever called into work, a question to be asked we pay you thirty quid an hour, so anyway, I decided that I would take the money, and I was out of work for a week and I then went as a manager of another tool company, Steven Garlotty, I was there for about five years, then I had enough then, and that was all my work until I finished. I’m still here.
CJ: Coming back to the period after the war, did you encounter any bad feelings at all towards Bomber Command aircrew?
CHB: Yes, really, and they all stem from some chap in the, an MP, he was an MP for the West End in London and he, I’ve been reading the books, he put bosh on it, he wouldn’t have anything to do with the Air Force and it brought bad feelings towards the Air Force, they couldn’t [unclear] weren’t entitled to have a medal and [coughs] for the number of people we lost, I thought we would’ve been better treated but we weren’t, I’m trying to think of the man’s name but he was the one that stopped us getting medals and went to drag this down to bombing innocent people. I agree that bombing innocent people wasn’t the thing I liked doing but they [unclear] bombing [unclear] to kill me, it was a thing to do, we did the right thing, Germany was doing the wrong thing, taking people and gassing them and I was against that lot so it never come hard to me to dislike what had been done to that. I joined these things like Aircrew Europe and lucky I got the Aircrew Europe Star and the France Germany Star but you don’t wear the France Germany, you just have a clasp, you’ve got the Aircrew Europe, and I got on various committees locally from there, I never really done much and
CJ: And I believe you had an award from the French recently.
CHB: Yes, I did, I was lucky to be recognised by the President, then President of France, I always say it’s the Croix de Guerre, but unfortunately it wasn’t the Croix de Guerre, I don’t know what they called it now.
CJ: The Legion d’Honneur
CHB: That’s it, the Legion d’Honneur and I was very pleased to get it, we never did anything like that, I always got my [unclear] bit was in the First World War I’ve got all my Dad’s medals and his name and rank and his identification all along the rim of the medals that he’s got but just compare that to what the medals we’ve got, you can go in a shop and buy as many as you want without being asked what you want and we were never recognised and that always bothered me. They never gave the thoughts of the people that were killed, I think it was a hundred and twenty six flight engineers, and fifty two of them were dead, but I think, don’t quote me on the number, I don’t think that’s right
CJ: And did you join a squadron association, go to reunions?
CHB: Yes, the Aircrew Association has a, the local branch, I went there and also I went to the French one, the Normandy vets, I went to both associations, kept that going and of course I joined the museum in London, got a free life pass there
CJ: Is that the RAF Museum?
CHB: The RAF Museum, I belong to that. I belong there in Piccadilly, I’ve been a member there from when I left Haffenden’s and my wife was a member there too, but she has since passed away, but I still am a full member of the Piccadilly Club, I’ve only been there once in a lifetime I think. But apart from that I went merrily along and enjoyed my golf, never got it [unclear] but enjoyed it [laughs]. That’s about it I suppose.
CJ: Well, thank you very much indeed for speaking to us today.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Cyril Henry Bridges
Creator
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Chris Johnson
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-10-13
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ABridgesCH171013
PBridgesCH1701
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:04:43 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
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Cyril Henry Bridges was born in Ramsgate and served as a flight engineer in the RAF. He tells of his father, a deep-sea fisherman, who fought in the First World War and later helped evacuate troops from Dunkirk. Remembers his early life, taking on different jobs, as a butcher’s boy and working in a shop, to help his mother. After initially wanting to join the navy, he joined the RAF and trained at Penarth and Blackpool. After further training, he was posted to 115 Squadron. Remembers flying an operation to Schweinfurt as a spare flight engineer. Explains his role and duties as a flight engineer before take-off and landing and during operations and vividly describes the circumstances under which they were flying. After the war, he worked for a company making rubber mouldings and electronic accessories.
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Chris Johnson
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Hampshire
Wales--Milford Haven
115 Squadron
aircrew
flight engineer
fuelling
RAF Farnborough