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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/610/8879/AMillerP150601.1.mp3
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Miller, Peter
P Miller
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Miller, P
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Peter Miller (3008496 Royal Air Force). He served as an air gunner and gunnery leader with 12 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
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2015-06-06
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PM: You, you want my name or rank?
MJ: Yeah.
MM: Name and rank. Um I’m Peter, I’m [laughs] I’m nearly as bad as you. I’m recording this for Peter Miller, who is my husband, for the International Bomber Command Centre on the 1st June 20 -
MJ: ‘15.
MM: ‘15. We’re at Wragby in Lincolnshire.
PM: When I was called up. Is that alright?
MM: Ahum.
PM: 25th of the 11th ‘43. Went to Cardington. I was only there for a week getting kitted out and such. Was sent to Skegness, my home town, to do a couple of months foot drill. I was billeted about half a mile from home. So, when in the town I was the person sent by cycle on errands. Afterwards was posted to Halton on a flight mechanics course on which I was made AC1. Leaving Halton on the 29th of the 5th ‘44 I went to Digby, Lincolnshire, 527 squadron. Enjoyed time off, such, it was a Canadian station at the time. Then being posted to Bircham Newton, Norfolk, 695 squadron who were drogue towing. After a short while there I was sent to Blackpool in November classed as a PDC from which we went to Liverpool to get a boat. A Dutch ship called the [oanvan oldabarnevoort?] which after, after a late start we caught the convoy and going down the Med at Christmas Eve sailing past Gib onto Aden, then to Ceylon to drop some, some, some people off and then back up to Bombay to a transit camp. From Bombay we went to a place called Cawnpore [Kanpur]. That was our destination - 322 MU. Spending two and a half years in Cawnpore [Kanpur], returning from Bombay on the SS Somalia landing in Liverpool for being demobbed at a transit camp just outside Blackpool early July ’47. That’s, that’s my service career.
MM: What did you think to India?
PM: It was air, do you want the aircraft I worked on?
MJ: Oh yeah. I mean, well, that’s a, that’s a nice round off way of putting things how they are but yeah where, what, what, what did you do in Bombay because it seems a long way to be having an aircraft. I mean if you -
PM: It seems like a long way to what?
MJ: It seems to be a long way to go and play with aircraft so I just wondered what you had to do there.
PM: We were servicing them.
MJ: Yeah.
PM: Um Liberators.
MM: It was a big camp wasn’t it, Peter?
PM: A very big camp. Worked on Liberators to start with. About -
MM: Did you enjoy India?
PM: About five months.
MM: Did you enjoy India?
PM: Well yes. It was alright.
MJ: I suppose it was a good place to get a suntan.
PM: Yeah. Yeah but mainly. I had almost two and a half years on Dakotas.
MJ: So you mainly worked on Dakotas.
PM: Yeah, air frames.
MJ: Air frame.
PM: Air frame fitter.
MJ: Was it, was it very busy being in India fitting or was it -
PM: We were busy.
MJ: Quiet?
PM: Of course we used to service them from all over South East Asia Command.
MJ: So, so when people think that you were um in India probably having a quieter time than most you probably, you weren’t were you? You ‘cause
PM: Oh no, we weren’t living it up.
MJ: No. I mean that’s what people would think. I mean
PM: Yeah.
MJ: That’s what I’m saying. A lot of people don’t associate India with the RAF do they?
PM: Yeah. We weren’t living it up.
MJ: No. So, so how did you, I imagine it was very hot over there was it? Or -
PM: Very hot.
MJ: So -
MM: And you went up in the hills didn’t you on your leave -
PM: Pardon?
MM: You enjoyed going up into the hills didn’t you? On leave.
PM: We used to get on, we used to get our normal leave but also we had a, we used to go on hill parties, a month, probably fifty or sixty used to go by train to the foothills and then up by wagons to the place we spent the, spent the leave, the holiday. I had my twenty first birthday in Darjeeling.
MJ: That must have been interesting.
PM: Yeah. It was alright [laughs]. But the other places were, were very fair. They used to take us as far as they could by train, Then we had to go on, on wagons further up.
MJ: Did -
PM: We used to go by train to Darjeeling. Pre, pre, pre-war I think the moneyed folks had taken Darjeeling over and they weren’t all that keen on us blokes out there going to Darjeeling but er we made them happy.
MJ: Did um -
PM: But that’s a lovely spot that.
MJ: So even though the work was hard it was quite a nice place to be.
PM: Yeah. But, but regarding, regarding the weather it, it was very hot. During the hot season we used to go to work in the morning. There for seven and we used to work while one and after 1 o’clock the time was our own.
MJ: It was too hot to work?
PM: Yeah.
MJ: So, so, so in a way you were working nights really?
PM: [laughs] But we were we’ve had everything done I think. There was, it was a very big camp. There was three villages on the camp.
MJ: Was, was it more than just RAF then?
PM: Pardon?
MJ: Was it more than just RAF?
PM: Just RAF.
MJ: So -
PM: Yeah.
MM: There were locals. The villagers were locals.
PM: Local villagers. They were on, on the side -
MJ: Side.
MM: Doing your washing for you.
PM: Well they used to, they were our bearers and things were alright until the war finished.
MJ: What happened then?
PM: Until the Jap war finished. And then Pakistan and India were having a go at one another.
MJ: So you got stuck in the middle.
PM: Well more or less. We wanted to get home. They held, well, we believed they held our demob up for a while.
MJ: Why because of the conflict between the two -
PM: Well, in case there was going to be. Nothing happened. We got on the boat and came home.
MJ: So that, that was a better deal than you thought.
PM: Yeah. One of the biggest laughs we got was when we got to Liverpool on the way home. We were getting off the boat and a jet went over. Never seen a jet.
MJ: No.
PM: Only heard about them. You should have heard the cheer that went up.
MJ: That must have been, so you were probably one of the first people to see a jet flying.
PM: Yeah. In Liverpool.
MJ: You don’t -
PM: Vampire.
MM: Yeah.
[Tape paused].
PM: The cold season out there -
MJ: Yeah.
PM: Is about like this.
MJ: So it’s like having summer in the winter is it?
PM: Yeah.
MJ: So did you, you got warm -
PM: The, the snag is um these blokes that’s been in, in the desert and that, they reckon it goes stone cold at night. Not India. The sun, the sun sets and that’s it. Nothing else. Then the sun comes up and it’s daylight again and you’re getting warmer.
MJ: Yeah. So did you find you had to do more work in the winter per se or, or is it ‘cause, ‘cause the engine, or did you have to sort of -
PM: Yeah, in the, in the cold season we’d probably work another hour a day.
MJ: That, that doesn’t sound a lot but I imagine in those sorts of heats everything buckles including yourself does it?
PM: Yeah.
MJ: I mean, did, did you have to bring in, how did you get everything to where you were ‘cause you were saying you didn’t have any transport as such.
PM: When, when the war finished we, we were, they were sending in um Liberators to our place for scrap. We had a colossal scrapheap there. They were sending these Liberators there because - I don’t want it recorded because -
MJ: No it’s alright.
PM: Yeah well what we heard was that the Yanks wouldn’t take them back as returned lease-lend.
MJ: Well I mean that -
PM: And we just had to get rid of them but we weren’t allowed to sell them. That’s, that’s all we heard. They were wheeling them down to salvage and there was about seventy or eighty Libs there when I got posted home but on other places there was more Libs.
MJ: So I mean -
PM: And they just started destroying them. Took anything that, everything that was any use off the Libs and then, I can’t remember which station it was but there was one station in India was, had started to destroy the Libs. I, I don’t know what, well anybody that was in the RAF on aircraft would say it’s easier to build one then take one to bits. They um they took all instruments that were of any use out.
MJ: Right.
PM: Dinghies, first aid, everything like that. Armoury. All that out and then they took them onto the scrap, down to the scrapyard and drained all the oil out, out the engines and started the engines up and ran them flat out until they went bang.
MJ: So that they couldn’t be used again.
PM: No use whatsoever.
MJ: You know if -
PM: And then they recommended that what you did was have a, have a wagon or tractor fastened to the front of them and drive the tail unit up against a wall or something like that to break them up. Anything that’s riveted you see you can’t get it to bits by, by just undoing it.
MJ: It was built to last so -
PM: But that’s, that’s how it was but there was, there was about seventy at Cawnpore [Kanpur] when I came home that, that hadn’t been touched. Well, I say hadn’t been touched they’d been stripped but hadn’t been damaged.
MJ: I don’t think that was just yourself. I’ve heard things go, you know, because it’s hard to trans. Do you think it was hard to transport the stuff back? I -
MM: Distance.
MJ: You think -
PM: But the –
MJ: I would have thought it would be the pure economics of getting something, it was more expensive to -
PM: If the Yanks had taken them back they could have flown them back.
MJ: Do you think so?
PM: Yeah. I’m sure. They flew them there they could have flown them back.
MJ: Did, did any of the, anything else get left behind? Was it just the planes? Just, everyone leaves everything behind or did you bring most of it back?
PM: Well I don’t know what happened to them at Cawnpore [Kanpur] because they were still there when I left but there was a reunion at Cawnpore [Kanpur]. I was going on it but I got a new [motor?] and I couldn’t go and er the chaps said that the Indian air force wouldn’t let them anywhere near the salvage.
MJ: They wouldn’t let them anywhere near salvage. Well I’m surprised it’s still there.
PM: Yeah. They wouldn’t let them anywhere near salvage.
MM: But you used to go swimming didn’t you? You had a pool.
PM: Oh we’d go swimming. There was a swimming pool on the camp.
MM: A swimming pool and that. You enjoyed that.
MJ:: More than I can do.
MM: I can’t swim.
MJ: Yeah.
MM: So I mean there was some good times wasn’t there?
PM: Oh yes we had some good times.
MM: Good times. Friends. Lots of laughs.
PM: Off the camp mainly, the good times.
MM: Used to go down to one of the places nearby didn’t you? Villages, towns whatever you called it.
PM: Oh we used to go in, in to Cawnpore [Kanpur] itself.
MM: Yeah.
PM: The city
MJ: Well you say it’s a city. Was it sort of like -
MM: How big?
MJ: Was it a big place or –
PM: Oh it was a big place -
MJ: ‘Cause I mean -
PM: The city was. Yeah. The actual RAF camp was called, oh God - Chakeri.
MJ: Oh right. I thought -
PM: It was about four mile out of Cawnpore [Kanpur] but Cawnpore [Kanpur] was a city and we used to call the camp Cawnpore [Kanpur]. It was always Cawnpore [Kanpur].
MJ: Um maybe -
PM: Where were you stationed? Cawnpore [Kanpur].
MM: But you used to have meals didn’t you, in the city, when you went out?
PM: You what?
MM: You used to go for meals didn’t you? In the city went out -
PM: Oh could do. Yeah. Go in to the city. But we were only allowed in one part of the city. They um it was out of bounds to us.
MJ: It’s er so -
PM: It was, it was our military that put it out of bounds to us. They wouldn’t, wouldn’t let us in the -
So it wasn’t inflicted. It wasn’t, you weren’t put out of bounds by the city itself. It was the hierarchy of the military itself.
PM: Yeah. Yeah.
MJ: Saying you couldn’t go to certain parts.
PM: That’s it. Yeah.
MJ: Ah and did you, could you go out of uniform or did you have to be in uniform?
PM: We was, we were out of uniform most of the time. I mean when we used to go to work in a morning, 7 o’clock in the morning, you’d have a, a pair of shorts on, socks and shoes, bush hat and sunglasses and we used to go to work like that and at 1 o’clock when we, when we finished work we used to walk, we didn’t march back or anything. We used to walk back in groups, probably call at the swimming pool on the way back, used to go back and have lunch and then just loaf about.
MJ: Well I imagine it’s, it’s too hot to do anything else at that time. I mean -
PM: It was a funny old time.
MJ: Yeah I can agree with you there. You –
[Tape paused]
MM: Yeah.
PM: About the same height as I am now.
MM: Six foot.
PM: Weighed seven and a half stone.
MM: Rather slim.
PM: I got a demob suit and I kept my best blue. And I came home. The demob suit was slightly too big for me. ‘You’ll grow out of it’, that was that you see, which I did. Within, within a month my blue didn’t fit me. I didn’t care ‘cause I chucked it away and my demob suit was dead tight. I had to collect all the, all the family clothing coupons together and go and get measured for a suit, ‘Make it plenty big enough’ and I stopped growing then [laughs]. So I got one suit big and the other, other two too small.
MJ: So most people stopped growing and you took that many years to grow-
MM: His mother’s cooking that was. Put the weight on you. [laughs] Didn’t it?
PM: Yeah.
MM: Your mum’s cooking -
PM: Yeah.
MM: Yeah. Built you up again.
PM: My mother was in the first war.
MM: First World War.
PM: In the RAF. In Germany.
MJ: [That’s what?]
PM: Yeah. In the Royal Flying Corp.
MM: As it was then. Yeah.
MJ: So you inherited the job did you?
MM: Must have done.
PM: Yeah.
PM: When, when you were on about servicing, servicing aircraft we had to be there, we were in the hangars for 7 o’clock in the morning but if there were any aircraft either stuck outside or in the hangar that were going out you checked the tyre pressures before the sun got on them because you never know what the tire pressure would be after about an hour in the sun out there.
MM: And of course they couldn’t fly them till they’d got your little signature could they?
PM: Hmmn?
MM: You couldn’t fly them till they got your little signature.
PM: Oh no couldn’t. Well I was one of a team. I was the air frame rigger um on a Liberator four engines so there’d be four engine fitters, instruments, wires um guns and turrets all had to be checked and signed for before the pilot could have it.
MJ: How long did that take?
PM: Hmmn?
MJ: How long did that take?
PM: Well I mean if the aircraft was, was, was alright, if it had come out of the hangar after, after a major service it would be taken out on a test flight. One of each trade would go up with him if it was a bomber. Go up with him and you’d fly around and everything was alright. Come back. You’d check up again. Then before it flew again tomorrow it had to be serviced because between flights inspections on RAF aircraft if it, if an aircraft came, came up from London and landed on your airport there would be a between flights inspection before it could go again.
MJ: Oh I didn’t know that.
PM: Yeah.
MJ: How often did that happen?
PM: Hmmn?
MJ: Did that happen regularly?
PM: That was it. Between flights inspection. And being, being a rigger, that’s what I was, they were the last to sign the 700. The 700 was the aircraft manual and every, everybody that was concerned with anything on the aircraft had to sign and the rigger was the last one to sign because he was responsible for um the petrol cap being loose. Nothing, nothing to do with him normally. The um the blokes driving the petrol bowsers used to tighten them up but it was, it was his aircraft and he had to do something about it. So he used to tighten, tighten it up and any, any little panel that was loose he’d secure the panels and that before he signs and until he signed they couldn’t go anywhere.
MJ: Did you have a team of riggers or was it just you per plane?
PM: What?
MJ: Was it just you on one plane or did you have a few?
PM: Oh yes. Yeah. Yeah.
MJ: So -
PM: Didn’t, didn’t do a half a dozen planes. Just, just the one plane.
MJ: Yeah but did you work as a rigger on your own or did you have someone helping you?
PM: Was, was
MM: Was there more than one rigger on each plane?
PM: No. Only one rigger.
MM: Ahum.
PM: Yeah.
MJ: So that’s a lot of rivets.
MM: Ahum check them [laughs].
PM: Yeah well the aircraft, the framework of the aircraft and everything in general was alright. It was day to day um events um tyres and things like that. Brakes slipping. All those sort of things.
MJ: Do you think you had more trouble because it was hotter there than most would have?
PM: Of course being a rigger brakes were my job as well. [laughs]
MM: You said when you went to Halton it was a case of half of them for engines half of them for airframes wasn’t it?
PM: Yeah.
MM: So it just depends which side of the room you were on [laughs] you were telling me.
PM: [laughs] Yeah.
MM: You had some fun down there at Halton didn’t you?
PM: You what?
MM: Had some fun at Halton.
PM: Halton. Yeah. It was um water shortage. Halton camp is on a hill. The hill, the hill is that far and high that there’s two parade grounds on the hill.
MJ: Two?
PM: Two parade grounds on the hill. You go through the gates, you go up and, oh from here to the bridge there’s the bottom of the parade ground and it goes back into the hills and you carry, you carry on up the hill there and about, about another twenty, thirty foot up there’s another parade ground. It was a hell of a camp Halton was. It was a, um what’s it -
MM: Training?
PM: Oh God.
MM: Officer’s training do you say?
PM: No.
MM: No.
PM: Weren’t officers. They -
MM: Cadets.
PM: When you join, you join the RAF you -
MM: Cadets?
PM: You was a member. I was a member of the air force but I was only a sort of a temporary member but I, I, I didn’t sign on for ten years or owt like that but all the regulars they, they were right under the thumb. By hell they were.
MJ: So you think it was different for you. Was it ‘cause you -
PM: Yeah.
MJ: Because you were sort of part time if you like.
PM: Yeah.
MJ: For a better word.
PM: I liked Halton. It was a nice camp.
MM: Taught you how to shoot there didn’t there?
PM: Hmmn?
MM: Taught you how to shoot there didn’t they?
PM: Yeah.
MJ: This is um -
MM: One poor chap. Everybody dashed because -
PM: We had two, we had two Jewish lads -
MJ: Yeah.
PM: By God they were dim [laughs] and er they, they, they were on a, on a rigger’s course but everything, everything went wrong with them. On one day we had um rifle training so went up on the, up on the bus up the hill and there was um the targets. Perhaps six or seven targets.
MJ: Right.
PM: And a wall, a wall just below them and behind, behind the wall there was a trench so the blokes, blokes up there looking after, looking after the targets they were, they were safe and you had ten rounds and you just, you had your ten rounds and you got in front of one of, one of the targets and that and you’d been told how to fire them and everything. The corporal would shout, ‘Fire.’ And then down there on the range there used to be a flag on a pole come out and he used to stick on to the target where, where the bullet had gone through, if it had gone through. Well these two Jewish lads they couldn’t even hit the target never mind [laughs] and there was everybody else had to get off and let them pick their own target and everything. Our corporal was on the phone to them down there and, ‘Right. Fire. Take your time.’ Bang. Flag went like that. Bang. Next time it went [beuuuu]. Phone rang. Corporal said, ‘What’s the matter?’ He said, ‘He hit my mate.’ He’d, he’d hit his tin hat. Hit his tin hat. This bullet and had gone off his tin hat.
MJ: So he was safe though?
PM: Yeah.
MM: Most of them.
PM: And then we had hand grenades. There was, there was this wall. All sandbanks and that and over the other side of the wall about there, there was a, there was a hole and behind this wall there was another wall and everybody used to get behind that wall and the corporal used to bring one bloke around and show him, show him everything, make sure he, he was holding the grenade right, then he used to toss it over to go in the hole. Everybody else was doing alright and this one he dropped the grenade the other side just on the top and it rolled down so the corporal grabbed hold of this bloke, pushed him down and more or less sat on him. Bang. ‘That was close wasn’t it?’ the corporal said. And, and, we, we went up into the, up the hills. Sten guns. They were deadly you know. If you dropped a sten gun it’d bounce about all over the place till it emptied and [laughs] there was two corporals that had never, never met these two. ‘Watch them. We know what we’re doing.’ Corporals, ‘Alright.’ Showed them how to go on and everything. Give these two a sten gun each, got them to load them, ‘Don’t do anything. We’ll have you one at a time so you come with me.’ So he fired. Nowhere near the target or anything like that but he got shot of the, the ammo. The second one went, spun around, he says to the corporal, ‘It won’t fire’ pointing it at the corporal. [laughs] God. He said, ‘Stand still. Let go of the trigger. Put it down.’ If there hadn’t been anybody else around he would have clouted him around the side of the earhole with the sten. Anyway, they got rid of them. I don’t know where they went to but they were no good as, no good on engines or airframes or anything like that. They were completely useless, the pair of them.
MM: They were only young though you see weren’t they? Eighteen and a half.
PM: Yeah they’d only be just over eighteen.
MM: That’s what I mean. Today –
PM: Yeah.
MM: They’re at school aren’t they?
MJ: Yeah. So it’s surprising you’re here.
MM: Yeah.
PM: Yeah.
MM: Then he come back to Digby, Lincolnshire.
PM: Eh?
MM: You enjoyed Digby in Lincolnshire didn’t you?
PM: Yeah.
MM: No calamities there?
PM: No. Come back to Digby.
MM: You used to go in to Lincoln didn’t you?
PM: Yeah. Used to go in to Lincoln.
MM: On time off.
PM: It was a Canadian station. Everything underground.
MJ: Underground?
PM: Eh?
MM: Underground.
MJ: Everything underground?
PM: Everything was built underground. It was a radio and radar station. We didn’t, we didn’t know that when we were stationed there but, but they used to work underground.
MJ: That’s -
PM: At Digby. It was good station. It was a Canadian station.
MJ: Was that better than the RAF ones?
PM: Well, they were better supplied than what we were.
MM: Food was good [laughs] Yeah.
PM: Yeah a lot better supplied.
[Tape paused]
PM: We were all, all air frame fitters and one of the station aircraft, we got two Dakotas belonging to the station. One had gone to Lahore.
MJ: Right.
PM: From our place and um next morning they were refuelling it and the chap drove the petrol bowser with the dipstick sticking out and tore the underside of the wing. Well that was it you see. He didn’t just tear the surface of the wing he, he buckled the main spar. So we, we had several Dakotas there that would probably never fly again and using them as spares and got hold of, got hold of my mate we did and get a, get a mainplane from, from salvage. Give him, give him all the gen on this one aircraft, ‘Go and, go and check if it’s alright.’ So he come back he said, ‘Yeah it’s alright.’ He said ‘Right. The three of you,’ he says, ‘You Miller’ and what his name, ‘Go and fetch it off.’ And we took, we took the crane down with us and we got the, got the trestles and everything and the jacks underneath it’s wing and we disconnected the wing and took it away completely from the engines you see. You’ve got the two engines there and a centre section between them and the fuselage but beyond the engines that’s the outer so we got that and we got a Queen Mary. You know the Queen Mary’s, we used? The um -
MJ: Ahum?
PM: The long, the long low loaders. Very wide, ten foot wide, that the RAF used to drive around you’ve seen them there their low loaders haven’t you? They’re called the Queen Mary’s. They’re ten, ten foot wide and during the war if, if you had to take anything with, with a Queen Mary through, through a town you had a police escort and they’d take you the best way through the town because of, because of the width of the vehicle. And we loaded this, loaded this mainplane and all the gear we wanted and everything and we cleared off to Lahore. The three of us. It took us three days to get there. Close on four hundred mile.
MJ: What were the -
PM: Well the roads in India were just like the roads down to the villages here and we got there and this Warrant Officer [Pryor?] said, ‘Goodness I’m pleased to see you lot.’ He said, ‘Get on with it.’ So we took, took this mainplane off and they carted it off to salvage there and um they got all the gear there, got all the gear and everything but they wouldn’t let them touch it.
MJ: Why was that?
PM: So we, we had to do it you see. The plane belonged to us so we, we, we got the mainplane off and everything, put the other one up got it all, all bolted in. Everything. Control cables, electrics, everything and got hold of Taf Bevan, ‘Right. Fly it.’
MJ: How long did that take you?
PM: Hmmn?
MJ: How long did that take you?
PM: Well three days overall. ‘Fly it.’ He says, ‘Alright. Sign.’ So we signed for it and everything. The warrant officer, the err engineering officer at whatsit, he said, ‘You’ve done a very good job you blokes have.’ The CO was there as well. At Lahore. He was, he was there as well. He said, ‘It looks very, very nice,’ he says. He said, ‘I’ll get on to,’ Oh I don’t know the name of our CO. He said, ‘I’ll get on to him and tell him what a good job you’ve done.’ And we went up with Taf and he, he said, ‘Nothing wrong with this. It’s alright.’ Taf Bevan, he was a bloody Welshman. We never did find out his name. His first name. Never. And he was a warrant officer. He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t take a commission. He just wanted to stay non-commissioned.
MJ: Did he say why?
PM: Warrant officer.
MJ: Yeah. Did he say why he didn’t want to take a commission?
PM: He said, ‘I don’t want to be with that crowd stuck in the officer’s mess and that. Better off in the sergeant’s mess.’ He said, ‘I’m away next morning.’ We said, ‘You’re bloody well not without us mate’ and we transferred the um the Queen Mary to Lahore and climbed in the Dak with him and flew home. Thirty minutes. [laughs]
[Tape paused]
PM: Now can’t you? Between you?
MJ: I think so. You should be able to.
PM: You just, you know, well why not do that?
MJ: Did you -
PM: What about that? [Oh bought]
MJ: Yeah. People don’t think that so that’s why your lifestyle is different to todays because people don’t realise what you did. I mean so -
MM: Things have changed so much haven’t they? So much.
PM: I know we were on a test flight one day with Taf and um Taf used to let us take control for a while. He used to sit there but he knew what was happening and everything and one of the blokes he said, ‘Do you want it Taf?’ Taf says, ‘No.’ He says, ‘Just carry on.’ He got it lined up. It was about three mile out from the end of the runway. ‘Go on. You’re alright.’ He said, ‘Shall I land it?’ ‘No you bloody well won’t land it’ [laughs] He said, ‘I’d be the laughing stock of the bloody sergeant’s mess. Come out.’
MJ: Yeah.
PM: We used to, on a Dakota there’s a cockpit and there’s a cabin and it’s the full length of the aircraft near enough. You go in, you go in the double doors.
MJ: Right.
PM: And you go up to the, to another door and that that’s the control. There’s navigator, radio operator, two pilots and we used to, about three, four of us used to get up near the door and Taf would be sat there you know, nodding away there to himself and that. ‘Right. Now.’ And we’d run to the other end to the tail end [laughs]. ‘Come up here you lot.’
MM: He knew what you was doing?
PM: We, we’d run to the tail end.
MM: Yeah and made it, realised.
PM: [Climb?]
MM: Yeah.
MM: Realised what you were. You had a laugh at East Kirkby didn’t you?
PM: Yeah.
MM: They were doing a Dakota up at East Kirkby.
PM: Yeah. They were.
MM: You went out to, to have look and you said to the lads there, ‘Can I have a look inside it.’ I think you managed to get in it didn’t you?
PM: Yeah.
MM: And anyway you said to them.
PM: ‘Do you know anything about them?’ I said, ‘Yeah a little bit. I used to be on them in the air force way back.’ ‘Bloody hell. When?’ I said, ‘Oh I came out in ‘47.’ ‘God, I weren’t even bloody well born then.’
MM: Made you feel very, very old didn’t it duck [laughs] yeah.
PM: They were a lovely aircraft to work on. Dakota is. No trouble whatsoever.
MJ: Didn’t bite back.
PM: Hmmn?
MJ: Didn’t bite back.
MM: No. [laughs]
PM: They were no trouble at all. Used to fly around with the doors off.
MJ: Why?
PM: You see there’s, there was a passenger door and a cargo door on them.
MJ: Yeah.
PM: Take one or the other or both doors off. It didn’t half whistle and that inside the aircraft.
MM: Was there any reason to take the doors off though?
PM: No. No.
MM: No.
PM: You either take it off before you fly or when you land. You don’t take it off while you’re flying.
MM: No, presume not.
MJ: Was there any reason why you took them off when you flew? Or was it just because they were in the way?
PM: The doors come inwards. Not outwards.
MJ: So -
MM: What reasons did you take them off for?
PM: Eh?
MM: What reason did you take them off for?
PM: Well.
MM: Can you remember?
PM: No particular reason.
MM: Oh. Good job it wasn’t raining.
PM: During the war, on the Dakotas, along the top of the fuselage there was little windows about that size, along. So that when they were carrying troops they could open one of those windows and fire at any aircraft that was attacking them.
MM: Ahum.
PM: If they were carrying troops.
MJ: Really?
PM: Yeah. Yeah, I’m not kidding.
MM: Never heard of it.
MJ: I wouldn’t have thought of that one.
PM: I’m not kidding. Liberators, you know, you used to get in and out through the bomb, bomb bay. Get in and out through the bomb bay. The bomb doors, the bottom of the Lib is only about that far off the ground and the bomb doors go up like that and there’s a cat walk right through. The cat walk goes to, to the rear where there’s a mid-upper gunner and two, two [waist] gunners. One each side. And a rear gunner.
MJ: So you always had -
PM: And if, if you go forward up a couple of steps you get on to the flight deck where the crew, the air crew go. You, if they’re flying around and they opened the bomb doors there isn’t a bloody soul would dare go across that cat walk. From the back to the front or the front to the back. There’s not a soul would dare go. It’s, it’s perfectly safe, there’s no, no danger whatsoever and there’s plenty to hold on to. Hold on to all the bomb racks.
MJ: But no one would do it.
PM: Nobody would go in. No one would do it.
[Tape paused]
MJ: So what was this about Fred then?
PM: He, he used to go out first thing in a morning, he’d go to bed at night about nine, but first thing in the morning, probably 5 o’clock he’d cross to the cookhouse to get his porridge before they put sugar in it. Yeah. He wanted salt in his you see. Yeah. Well he was always messing about with, with animals and that and he went out one morning for a walk and there was a narrow path, trees at each side and that. He was approaching this corner when around the corner there come this panther. He says, ‘It stopped and I stopped, of course.’ He said, and its tail was going like that. He said, ‘And we stood there for about three quarters of an hour. Seemed like it.’ He said, ‘And I thought if that bloody thing comes at me there’s a tree just behind me. I can leap behind hopefully.’ He said, ‘I daren’t look around.’ He said, ‘I was weighing all this up’ he said and all of a sudden the panther put the foot down on the ground, spun around and shot off back the way it came,’ he said, ‘ And I shot off the way I came.’ He said, ‘We were about twenty five miles apart in ten minutes.’ He, he was, he was always doing something like that. Always messing about with, with animals. There was an empty cookhouse and he went and there was a wild cat in the bloody cookhouse. ‘I’ll have that.’ He went in there. This wildcat was flying around the walls. He said it was going that fast it was on the walls. He said, ‘I didn’t know what to do with it,’ he said, but the windows, the windows were all shut except one. He said it took a flying leap at that and crashed straight through the glass and everything and away it went. He said it went out, missed, missed the veranda and everything and landed out in the middle of the road. [laughs] He said, ‘I wasn’t frightened of it.’ [laughs]
MM: And who slept on a snake? One of you lads found a snake under his mattress.
PM: Yeah. Yeah. Rum lad that.
MM: Who was that? Who found a snake under his mattress?
PM: Oh er who was it? One of the other lads. Fred said, ‘I’ll get that out for you.’ He outed it. ‘Cause you see if you found a snake out there you had to find the other bugger. Nearly always travelled in pairs.
MJ: Do they?
PM: Ahum we had a, we had a snake in our billet one night. We got it and finished it off and we were looking around for its mate. Couldn’t find its mate anywhere so that was it. Wasn’t going under the mossie nets. Next morning this bloke got up and er there was this snake laid, laid in there. It had been crushed. He’d crushed it. You see the beds out there were wood. They were just a wooden frame and then there was like string across and then what they called a dhurry. It was like, just like an [asbestos] sheet the size of your bed. When you went anywhere you know on guard at night or something like that you took whatever you wanted in your dhurry. Got it all wrapped up in the dhurry. Then you had your mossie net and your mossie net was you had four, four bamboo canes that used to go inside the legs across the back of the bed like that and your mossie net went on the top and your mossie net was shaped, was shaped just like, just like a box. The box was down, the box was that way up and the things, the sides of the net came down you see and these, these four bamboo canes they went up behind, behind the leg and up the inside of the nets so it was all sprung out. That was how your mossie nets went. There were times when we’ve taken the mossie nets down and inverted them and then put the bed inside, inside it.
MM: But this snake that you was talking about.
PM: It was an open top.
MM: This snake you was talking about was underneath this here mattress thing wasn’t it?
PM: Underneath the dhurry.
MM: Yeah.
PM: Yeah.
MM: I didn’t realise he’d been sleeping on it all night.
PM: No. No.
MM: No. Oh horrible things.
PM: Well it was dead anyway. Fred says, ‘Poor little bugger. You’ve been laid on it all night.’
MJ: I’d like to thank Mr Miller on behalf of the International Bomber Command project on the 1st of January no oh June 2015 for his interview and, and for myself I’d like to thank him. My name’s Michael Jeffery and this is the end of the interview.
MM: My name is Mavis Miller, recording this for the International Bomber Command Centre on the 1st of June 2015. We live at Horncastle Road, Wragby, Lincolnshire. Yeah. I was at Minting, school at Minting, during the war. We lived about four miles from Bardney aerodrome so we saw a lot of the RAF lads and the WAAFs who used to come to the Sebastopol at Minting. My father also worked at the Bardney aerodrome so we were involved quite a bit. He always used to come home very distressed when, at times, the bombers would come back with the air force lad’s uniforms having to be burned because they were blood stained. Another small happening during the war was I was with my friends down Hungerham Lane about a half a mile from my home when we saw two of our fighters firing at this German fighter and it was brought down at Baumber, again only about three or four fields away from where we were. Unfortunately, no one got out the plane. We were told that it went up in flames. The farm workers couldn’t get anywhere near it but I was pleased to get home that night safe and sound. I think that’s about the end of my experiences.
MJ: On behalf of the International Bomber Command Historical Unit I’d like to thank Mrs Miller for her stories of when she was a child and on the June the 1st 2015 I’d like to end the interview.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Peter Miller
Creator
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Mick Jeffery
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-06-01
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AMillerP150601
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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01:02:55 audio recording
Description
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Peter was called up in November 1943 and after basic training was sent to RAF Halton to be trained as a flight mechanic. Whilst there he had several dangerous incidents during small arms training.
Initially posted to 527 Squadron, which was Canadian, at RAF Digby and then to 695 squadron at RAF Bircham Newton working on drogue towing aircraft.
Posted overseas, he arrived at RAF Chakeri near Kampur where he worked on servicing B-24 and C-47 aircraft for South East Asia Command. He recalls that as an airframe mechanic he had to sign the Form 700 certifying that all the other trades had carried out their servicing correctly.
The local town was largely off-limits and only certain parts were allowed to be visited. The weather was very hot and in the summer hill parties were sent to the hills to escape the heat. Peter spent his 21st birthday at Darjeeling. When hostilities ceased the spent its time dismantling and scrapping B-24s aircraft. Whilst India was partitioned, Peter's demobilisation was postponed in case of tensions between India and Pakistan.
After two and a half years he was sent home via Liverpool, where he saw his first jet, and was demobilised in July 1947.
Temporal Coverage
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1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1947-07
1943-11
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
India
India--Kānpur
India--Darjeeling
Pakistan
Contributor
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Terry Holmes
B-24
C-47
fitter airframe
flight mechanic
fuelling
ground crew
petrol bowser
RAF Bircham Newton
RAF Chakeri
RAF Digby
RAF Halton
service vehicle
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/560/8828/PStockerEE1601.2.jpg
dc2149cee1df664fefc275fb3f1a16c4
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/560/8828/AStockerEE161013.2.mp3
a6ef8f8aef1748927c2931c8116ebbf3
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Stocker, Ted
Edward Ernest Stocker DSO DFC
E E Stocker
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Stocker, EE
Description
An account of the resource
Three oral history interviews with Flight Lieutenant Ted Stocker DSO DFC (b. 1922, 573288 Royal Air Force). He flew 108 operations as a pilot and navigator with 7, 35, 102 and 582 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-23
2016-08-30
2016-10-13
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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DK: So, I’ll just introduce myself. Make sure this is working OK.
ES: OK?
DK: I, I — you’re sometimes beaten by the technology. So, it’s David Kavanagh inter— interviewing Flight Lieutenant Ted Stocker at his home on the 13th of October 2016. I’ll, I’ll just leave that there. If, if I keep looking down, I’m not being rude, I’m just making sure it’s, it’s going.
ES: Er, I’m one of the lucky ones I suppose. If you’ve seen how many trips I’ve done, you’ll know I’m a lucky one.
DK: No, I’ve seen the statistics and they’re terrifying. It’s — they’re covered in your book obviously. What I wanted to ask you was first of all, what were you doing immediately before the war?
ES: I was in the Air Force. I was an apprentice at RAF Halton. I joined the Air Force in 1938, January ‘38, and I — when the war started, they — it should have been a three year apprenticeship but when the war started, they cut it down. They [cough], I did two years and three months I think, so I was a bit short, but they, to make up for the shortcomings, we lost our Wednesday afternoon sports and Thursday afternoon, er, Friday afternoon, um, drill so they stopped the apprenticeship short and gave us accelerated apprenticeship, so I came out. Oh dear, I was still an apprentice — I was an apprentice when the war started because I heard Mr — I was on church parade. We were at church, um, on the 3rd of September and, um, the padre cut his sermon short to say that Chamberlain was talking on, on the BBC and we would go back early so we could actually get in the NAAFI to hear the Chamberlain broadcast. Remember, in those days there wasn’t — radios were expensive but they were all batteries and batteries cost more than you earned in a week, so that’s why we had to use the, the NAAFI to hear the broadcast. Anyway, we heard this broadcast and we’re now at war, which was very good, nice to know [cough] because — as I’d just heard that news, I walked out of the NAAFI to go back to get my irons to go to the cookhouse to get some food and, um, the war had been on for a good ten minutes, maybe a quarter of an hour, and there was a snotty little PTI corporal said, ‘You’re on a charge. You haven’t got your gas mask with you. Don’t you know there’s a war on? You’re supposed to be carrying your gas mask’. I hadn’t — there wasn’t a war on when I left the barrack room and that’s where I left my gas mask [slight laugh], so that was a good start to the war. Anyway, I carried on, er, 1940, in April, March or something, my, er, my apprenticeship was foreshortened and I was passed out as an aircraftman first class. When you’re an apprentice, you can pass out either as an AOC, which there was very few of them (I think in our entry there were two), and an AC1 which was the middle of the road and most of us did, and AC2 which was those who weren’t very bright. And there had — I had a very good posting really, I was posted to Boscombe Down. So, unlike most of the people, when they left their apprenticeship, they went to a squadron and whatever aircraft the squadron had that was the aircraft they worked on but, being lucky, and going to Boscombe I had all sorts of aeroplanes. We had the first prototype Stirling I, I worked on and we had all sorts of funny fighters we were getting. The RAF took over aircraft that the French had ordered but the Germans rather stopped the Americans delivering to them so we took over things like the Mohawk and things and, um, so I, I got into working as a fitter on all sorts of different aeroplanes and then I applied for — I went in to see the flight commander and said, ‘I’d like a pilot’s course’, and he said, ‘No, you can’t do a pilot’s course with AC1. You’ve got to be AOC before you can apply for a pilot’s course’. Anyway, I went back to work and did some — my trade test and became an AOC. I went back into the flight commander and said, ‘I’m an AOC now, can I have a pilot’s course?’ He said, ‘You’ve got to be an AOC for six months at least’. Unfortunately, five months later they made me a corporal, so now I can’t be a pilot because I’m too valuable but then the first of the four engine, as I say all those — I worked on the Stirling, the first of the four engine bombers, and, um, they came with an AMO. They wanted exceptional AOCs, corporals and sergeants and the fitters trades, fitter trades to become flight engineers because before the war, you didn’t have flight engineers because they didn’t have any four engine aircraft, apart from the Stirling, and so I thought — Stirling, Sunderland flying boat, and, um, so I thought well — I didn’t [slight laugh], I didn’t know about this AMO until the flight c—, um, the flight clerk came down — I was working on an aeroplane — with this bit of paper in his hand and said, ‘The flight commander thought you might like to read this’. It was the first, er, call for flight engineers and flight commander had his head in his hand on the right way. He thought that was the [unclear] tell about it so I went back with the flight commander, flight clerk to the flight commander and said, ‘I’d like to be a flight engineer’. Well, I got that, um, sort of got back to barracks, about — it must have been within forty-eight hours, they really were desperate, um, I was called back to the flight commander, given an hour warning, sent off to, off to — where was it in Scotland? Er, oh dear, just north of inverness, north-west from Inverness? I was off on a three week air gunner’s course. I didn’t want to be an air gunner, I wanted to be a flight engineer but, um, I did the three, this three week air gunner’s course, flying in some decrepit old airplanes, and I was then posted to 35 Squadron in Linton as a flight engineer on Halifaxes. I hadn’t done, apart from being a fitter and the three weeks’ air gunner course, I was now a flight engineer. Fortunately, at this, they got the crew but they hadn’t got the airplanes. Point of interest perhaps, my flight commander at that time was a guy called, er, Leonard Cheshire, Flight Lieutenant Leonard Cheshire was my flight commander and —
DK: What were your feelings about Cheshire as a man?
ES: Well as a man [unclear], didn’t have a great understanding of aeroplanes, little or no knowledge of engineering but, um, he had the knack of flying the aeroplane. He could fly it quite well.
DK: Did you, did you fly with him at all?
ES: Only, er, local flying from the thing.
DK: And he was a competent pilot, was he?
ES: He was a — he seemed competent but a little bit slap happy. He talked myself and several other flight engineers, who were new to the squadron, up in the Halifax on a very nasty day in Yorkshire. We sort of took off straight into a cloud and he plugged into the intercom and said, ‘Now I’m running the engines on hot air because of the — to stop them icing up. I’m now going to switch two of them off onto cold air’. Of course, within about three minutes, they’d iced up and the engines had stopped. ‘Now you see what happens when you don’t use hot air’. Yes, I know but we’re flying in cloud at about three thousand feet somewhere over the Yorkshire Moors, no real radio, or any thought. It was a bit stupid. Stating the obvious.
DK: Was he a slightly eccentric man then?
ES: No, not slightly.
DK: No. OK. Completely [laugh].
ES: He was an academic from an academic background. I think he didn’t have a very high regard for engineers or any engineer, and, er, Paddy O’Kane was his flight engineer. He was an Irishman who kept — must have let his temper well under control.
DK: Were you, were you quite pleased to get down then after that flight?
ES: Oh, I wasn’t that — it was interesting. I thought I was too young to be too worried, I just didn’t like it. It knew it wasn’t the right thing to be doing [slight laugh] and, er, I messed about on the squadron there. As I said we were very short of aeroplanes, plenty of crews, there about three flight engineers to every engine, every aeroplane. But I just went back, a lot of us went back to working on the flights as a fitter, ordinary fitter again. And, um, I went there I think Ap— March or April ‘40. It wasn’t until October that I got a crew with an aeroplane, joined a crew and started operating over Germany. I wasn’t very impressed when we did start. We were supposed to be bombing Essen at night, and we — in those days they had very little in the way of range. When they dropped the bombs, I wasn’t that impressed. I said, ‘How –?’ I looked out and I couldn’t see how the hell they knew where they were, and listening to the navigator talking to the pilot, I don’t think he had that much of an idea. It was a very hit and run, well hit and miss, mainly miss, flying in the first few months of the war or the first few months when I started flying. But I, er, what did I do? Oh yes, I know. Early on, with the flight commander, by saying, briefing us for our second trip, ‘We’re going to Nuremberg#. It was rather a long way to Nuremberg from Yorkshire, particularly when we were flying in the early Halifaxes, which did not have as many fuel tanks as the later ones and I, being a sort of awkward bloke, I knew what fuel load we’d got and I had a chat with the navigator, he was another sergeant so I could talk to him, got the air miles and the fuel load and I did some sums. We haven’t got enough money to — enough fuel to get there and back let alone have a reserve and anyway, still being young and cheeky, I said to the flight commander, ‘Sir, I don’t think we’ve got enough fuel for this trip’. To which he replied, ‘Nonsense lad. Group know what they’re doing’. Well, they didn’t. We came back and I was keeping the throttles closed as much as I could, getting the best air miles out of it. We actually could see the airfield and when we crashed, we were almost within walking distance of the airfield [slight laugh].
DK: You just literally ran out of fuel?
ES: Yeah. Well, we ran out on one — because we were low, I was running, um, each side’s engines on all the tanks in that wing and, um, two engines stopped on one side, so I went down the back and put a cross feed on, um, and so I ran four engines off an empty tank but —
DK: So was anybody hurt in the crash or —
ES: Er, no. When we were sort of getting organised I, I‘d dumped the escape hatches over myself, the pilot and myself, and I was actually on — the skipper had started to bail the crew out. There should have been only two of us left in the aeroplane at that stage but the engines finally ran out of fuel and stopped and, er, we went down, hit the ground on a rather nasty bump, bounced over one hedge and landed in the next field and —
DK: So, there was just the pilot, yourself and one other still on board?
ES: Should have been the pilot and myself but we hit the field, the ground and bounced as I said. I was amidships with the hatch open there, the skipper was in his seat but the hatch over his head was missing, so when things grew to a halt, and the engines started burning, um, we decided to leave so the skipper came up on the wing next to me. I’d got onto the wing, which was the back edge of the wing because the undercarriage was up of course (when you’ve got to crash you don’t have the wheels down) and slid off the wing. The cows in the field didn’t like the intrusion. The skipper and I were looking around to find a quick way through and while we were doing so, a voice from behind said, ‘Wait for me’. It was the, um, the air gunner. He should be the first out. Unfortunately, he’d forgotten to take his parachute down the back. He’d left the parachute amidships by the door and he was actually in the fuselage, walking up the fuselage, to get this parachute pack when we hit the ground. Anyway, he got out alright and, um, we were going, er, out of the field and eventually, er, two ambulances arrived. ‘Are you injured?’ ‘No’. ‘OK, go away. This is for injured’. The other ambulance, ‘You’re not dead? This is for bodies’. So, we were still left there by the aeroplane and eventually the CO came over in his little car. As I say, we were within sight of the airfield when we actually hit the ground and the CO had driven over in his Hillman, and he sort of had a few words with the skipper. He kept well away from me. I told him we was short of fuel and I was bloody right [laugh]. But, um, he must have borne that in mind because, having done four operations with 35, um, I’m called in and told I’m going to a new squadron, where they‘re just going to get Halifaxes to instruct the flight engineers and pilots on the Halifax. I’d done four operations and there I am, I’m an instructor on 102 Squadron and obviously the CO at that time was a squadron leader, um, he’d got the message I might know what I’m talking about and there I was, an instructor. Much later on in the war he was the fli— squadron commander of the Pathfinder Squadron, I was the engineer leader and when he wanted to fly, guess who he took as his flight engineer? But, um, anyway I went to this 102 Squadron, had two qualified flying instructors to teach the pilots and things, and I had to explain the workings of the Halifax and things to the pi— new pilots and check up on the en— blokes that were posted in as engineers. And so there I was, twenty years old, telling these people. I said, um, the flight, flight commander who was the flying instructor, like me was an apprentice from Halton, trouble is he was about six years before me [laugh]. However, he thought, he must have thought I was making a good job of it, telling these people, because he suddenly called me into his office. He said, ’What do you think about taking a commission?’ A twenty-year-old sergeant. ‘Ay?’ I said, ‘Well you, you did it. What do you think?’ And he said, ’I think you should’. So, I suddenly found myself twenty years old, commissioned and — being commissioned anyway. I wasn’t actually commissioned at that time. I was put in for it. Later, on the Pathfinders, were starting and they were asking for crews and they asked for volunteers from other squadrons. There was a, a couple of Canadians, a pilot and navigator flew together, and they thought it would be a good idea to go to Pathfinders. Their flight engineer lived locally to New York so he wasn’t keen at all so, er, Hank, the skipper that was, he came to me and said, ‘We want a flight engineer. What do you think?’ I said, ‘OK. Put me down. I’ll go with you’, so I was posted to Pathfinders on 35 Squadron and, um, I was still a sergeant. And suddenly one day, the adjutant called, er, sent for me and I go to the adjutant’s office. The adjutant was sort of absolutely horrified, ‘You’ve been commissioned’, so I was the first flight engineer, one of the first flight — batch of flight engineers to be commissioned. Mind you, I did have to go for an interview at the Air Ministry first. It was quite an interesting one because at — down at Pathfinders at Graveley, which has its own station down the road to get straight into London, about an hour, three quarters of an hour ride to London so I knew, um, when I was told about this interview at the Air Ministry, I was flying that night. So went, you know, did my trip, came back, changed, had a shower, changed into my best blue, down the station and on the train up to Air Ministry for this bloody interview. I didn’t really know what it was all about but, er, they want to see me they can see me. So, I staggered into this interview thing and lots of sen— brass there, mainly group captains or wing commanders but there wasn’t a pilot or anything amongst them. They were all engineers you see, and, um, they didn’t know really know that much about it, they’d got to interview me and that was it. I sort of staggered in and I went asleep in the waiting room outside and they woke me up to go in, and I was sort of wiping the sleeping dust from my eyes as I went in for the interview. And one of these officious men obviously, um, thought I was on, been on the booze up in London that night, ‘Where were you last night?’ I gave them the name of the target [laugh]. Oh dear, atmosphere changed [laugh]. They gave me the wrong answer to the right question and, um, after that the interview went quite well. I ended up them telling them more about what went on than they knew about. Well, so that’s OK, so I’m told I’m commissioned, I go down to London with a bit of — coupons and some money and buy myself a uniform as a pilot officer. I go back to the office, back to the squadron and I get called in again, ‘We haven’t got a, what is it? An establishment for pilot officer flight engineer, only a flight lieutenant. You’re an acting flight lieutenant’. So I went, in about a matter of weeks, I went from a scruffy sergeant to a blown-up flight lieutenant [laugh] and I’ve been all sorts of flight lieutenant ever since. That was pilot officer acting flight lieutenant, flying officer acting flight lieutenant, war [unclear] flight lieutenant, end of the war flying officer acting flight lieutenant, er, proper flight lieutenant. There you go. I’ve been promoted to flight lieutenant so bloody often that I don’t know — but, um, that’s how it goes.
DK: So, so once you’re in the Pathfinder Squadron then, what was your — what did you do there? What were the Pathfinders doing?
ES: Well, it’s, um, the first thing they said was if you go into Pathfinders instead of doing thirty operations and being rested, you’ll do sixty. That didn’t last long. They cut those down to forty-five and —
DK: How did you fell about that, having to do two tours?
ES: Not too worried. I was young and stupid. Anyway, um, having being made a flight lieutenant, I was in charge of all the flight engineers, and when my crew finished their forty-seven, forty-five, they were posted away and I stayed on as flight engineer leader, and then suddenly somebody, something clicked, ‘Oh he shouldn’t be here, he’s done it’. And, um, I did, I did a couple more afterwards with other crews that hadn’t got an engineer at the time. And, um, shows you how stupid I was, I thought I’ve never, never tried — I’d like to try a trip as, um, a gunner so I volunteered to go on a trip as a mid-upper gunner on a flight just for the heck of it and, er, they suddenly realised I shouldn’t be there and I got posted straight away to a Training — a Pathfinder Training Unit. I arrived there just as 7 Squadron had taken a beating. They’d lost a squadron commander, two flight commanders and all the leaders. They had a hell of a time and so they suddenly they needed some experienced people in the Squadron, so they came to NTU to get them and, er, so they gathered — drew a few of us together and posted us to 7 Squadron. The only thing is, I hadn’t been there very long so before I knew where I was, I was back on op— on an operational squadron, on 7 Squadron, but they’d got Lancasters and I didn’t know a bloody thing about the Lancaster. The Halifax — I’d been on propeller courses, engine courses, er, aircraft course, airplane courses, everything and they had the, the Linc— the Lincolns. The Lancaster, I didn’t know anything about really apart from they had four Merlins and they were much the same as the Merlins in the, er, Halifax except they were made in America and had a better, er, better, um, type of — better design cylinder block, didn’t get internal leaks, and, um, I thought, ‘Well I must find out something about this aeroplane’. And I was still sort of feeling my way trying to find some books and things and they suddenly said, ‘You’re on ops tonight. Oh, and you’re a bomb aimer as well’. Because on Pathfinders, on Lancs, they used their flight engineer as a bomb aimer. Well, I don’t know a thing about bomb aiming and so they gave me a quick run through on the ground on how to set the bomb sight up and they said, ‘You better try it. Have a go’. They put, they put eight practice bombs on one of the Lancs then go off to a bombing raid, do my first bombing, eight, eight training ship. Trouble is, I dropped one and then the thing didn’t turn out right, the rest wouldn’t drop, so I had dropped one practice bomb. I was a bomb aimer with one practice and I’m on ops. I dropped four — about 80,000 tons of bombs, bombs that night, just practising [laugh] and that’s how life goes on.
DK: So as, as a flight engineer then, what did you prefer the Halifax or the Lancaster, once you got to know the Lancaster?
ES: If I was going to crash, I’d rather do it in a Lanc, in a Halifax. If I was going to go to war and not get shot at, I’d go in a Lanc. The Lanc was a much less sturdy aeroplane and it had the most diabolical position to bail out from. The, the door is right in front of the tail plane. On the Halifax the escape hatch in the fuselage is on the bottom corner of the fuselage and you dive out there, and the tail plane is way over. The only thing you’ve got to worry about is hitting the tail wheel. But, um, so if I had to bail out, I’d rather bail out of a Halifax and, um, I think I’d rather crash in a Halifax. It’s a much sturdier aeroplane, much — old fashioned pre-war des— design. The Lanc was a, a lash-up, um, it would never, it would never have flown, been allowed before the war because, um, aeroplanes had to fit in a hundred foot hangar. Well, the Manchester, which was the forerunner of the Lanc would go in a Halifax, in a hundred foot hangar, but when they took the Eag— Rolls Royce Eagles out and put a Merlin there, and then a bit of wing with another Merlin, that put an extra bit of wing on and the thing wouldn’t go in the hangar. So, it would, it would never have been allowed pre-war. But it, it gave an extra form of — the later Hali 3, they did have extended wing tips, they extended the wing on the Hali 3s which was a good solid aeroplane. I would like to have seen a Hali 3 with four Merlins, um, I think it would probably have been as good as the Lanc, but it didn’t —because it was built like — I was going to say a brick shit house [laugh]. As it was very well built, it didn’t have the same bomb carrying cap— capabilities and it didn’t have a bomb door, a bomb bay. The Lanc had this enormous long bomb bay which the Americans, the Americans saw that bomb bay and said, ‘Good God’, and so, um, you could you could carry a eight thousand pounder in a Halifax, which was two fours joined together, but it wouldn’t take any of the big things and it was very narrow and it had these extra bomb, er, bomb bays in the inner wing too. It wasn’t as well designed as the Lanc was. The Lanc wasn’t designed that way. It was a bit like Topsy. That was the way it grew. Yeah, I tried them both.
DK: As a flight engineer though, and purely as your role as a flight engineer, you preferred the Lancaster?
ES: Well on the Halifax, you had a much better instrument panel, you could see what’s going on, but you had a very complex fuel system. You started out with four tanks on the Hali 1s, early Hali 1As, that soon went to —from four tanks to — it went up again, and I think we ended up with 7 or 8 tanks in each wing and all little bits where they squeezed a bit in, um, which gave a very complex fuel system. To keep the CG right you had to keep messing about. I say the nose tank, number 2, which was on the leading edge of the wing, er, you couldn’t use that for landing or take off because of the change, sudden changes of altitude. So, the Halifax, you had — needed an engineer or somebody who knew what they were doing to manage the fuel system. The Lancs, with four bloody great tanks, you didn’t. Basically, you didn’t need a flight engineer on a Halifax, it was just another pair of hands, another pair of eyes and somebody else to keep an eye on the gauges —
DK: On the Lancaster, on the Lancaster, you didn’t need a flight engineer?
ES: No, but you did need somebody in the right hand seat.
DK: Right. OK. Yeah.
ES: And the flight engineer was cheaper than a, a co-pilot, a pilot, that’s really what it was, they were a cheap pilot substitute in a way.
DK: On the Lancaster so you didn’t need, really need a flight engineer on the Lancaster?
ES: Not as an engineer. I’ll tell you, the fuel cogs were two little handles but they had very big tanks. The Lanc, the Lanc, the original design of the Lanc was based on the premise that you would have sealed wings and there’d be a filler cap in the wing and you filled the wing up. But that meant that — that was fine until they said all tanks have got to be self-sealing, and you can’t put self-sealing on the outside of the tanks and that’s why they ended up putting little tanks in. But um, it’s a matter of history there. The Lanc arrived just at the right time. The Halifax was before its time and was outdated as soon as it arrived really but it was better than a Stirling.
DK: Yes. Did you fly ever on the Stirling or —
ES: Yes, I had, down at Boscombe.
DK: Not operationally though?
ES: No.
DK: No, no. So can you say a little about what the Pathfinders actually did and their, their role that was different to —
ES: Oh, quite different, um, initially it was a matter of, er, developing the technique. Don Bennett developed the tech— developed the, or developed the technique, I say, initially on Pathfinders, it was a matter — we had people going at H – 4 and dropping flares like mad and then other people following on trying to find the target. Later on, it got much more sophisticated. You still had the supporters and the important people in the H – 4. Supporters were supplied by the squadrons from the new boys in Pathfinders, this was in the opening stages. The crew in Pathfinders, first thing flying as a supporter, going in as H – 4 and, um, then later on getting promoted to being a flare dropper, still going in early, er, usually several rows of flare droppers, H – 4 and H – 2, and then you had the king-pins dropping the target markers, er, target indicators, from — with the light of the flares of the others and then once the master had put, um, put his marker on the target the supporters came along to keep it going. Basically, that’s all there was to it really, but it got a bit more sophisticated.
DK: Did you actually meet Don Bennett at this time?
ES: Oh yes. I knew, I met him.
DK: What did you think of, of Don Bennett?
ES: I — he didn’t need any crew. He knew it all. No, I was a great admirer of Don Bennett.
DK: You actually flew with him, did you?
ES: Yes, I did some — the first time we had a Hali 3 deli— delivered to, um, Graveley as a possible aircraft for Pathfinder Group because at that, at that stage we had Hali 2s, Lancs, Wellingtons, er, all in different squadrons. And Don wanted — was trying to get all his aircraft —
DK: Standardised —
ES: Same aircraft right through the Group, um, but anyway a Hali 3 had been sent to Bos— to Graveley for him to have a try. Well, he’d flown the Hali 2s and 1s, he was an experienced Halifax pilot but there was this Hali 3 he had been sent to try, so just he and I got into the aeroplane, nobody else, and he tried to fly the Hali 3. Well compared to the Hali 1s and 2s with four Merlins, four Hercules were a whole different proposition and one of the flight engineers’ job is following the pilot, as he opens the throttle, keep your hands behind so as if he moves his hands, the throttles won’t go back. And unfortunately, we were on the end of the runway, two of us in the aeroplane, not big fuel, no great fuel load, and he’s sort of half way up and I was following, and suddenly we were airborne. Now that was quite a different experience. Anyway completely opened the throttles, I held them and locked them open or locked them and that was his first experience of the Hali 3 and mine [laugh] but only the two of us in there anyway.
DK: But presumably, he then made the decision not the Hali 3, but go for the Lancaster then, did he?
ES: He flew the Hali 3 and he flew the Lanc.
DK: And he decided on the Lancaster then.
ES: Yeah, he was also — there was some talk of a teed-up Wellington with a pressure cabin.
DK: Oh right.
ES: It was only — I don’t think we even had one with us, I knew it existed and I’d seen pictures of it. They actually put a pressure cabin inside, inside the Wellington. It was quite a high-altitude aeroplane. I think they used it for high altitude research afterwards. Yes, so Don knew what he was doing and wasn’t wor— never worried, it was fine with him. A man than can take a tuner off, the control locks on, flies around Hamburg and land the bloody thing with the stick stuck.
DK: That’s what he did? The control lock was still on?
ES: Yeah.
DK: And he flew to Hamburg and back?
ES: No, he flew, took off from Hamburg. He should have been going to Berlin but he turned round, went round the airfield, and got it back down on the ground again, took off the control locks and flew to berlin on the Berlin shuttle.
DK: On the Berlin airlift.
ES: Yeah.
DK: On the Berlin airlift, yeah.
ES: Yeah. Oh, he knew what he was doing.
DK: So how many operations did you actually fly altogether then?
ES: Hundred and eight. Forty-seven on Wellingtons, on Halifaxes and sixty-one on Lancs. I know they say it isn’t allowed, you shouldn’t last that long. I hadn’t read the statistics [laugh].
DK: Well, if you didn’t know the statistics.
ES: It only happened by chance really. I did my forty-seven on Halifaxes and I was sent to NTU. 7 Squadron had a chop and NTU were asked to supply replacements. I was there, I was one of the replacements. They wanted a replacement, you know, they’d lost a lot of their top end. They wanted experienced people and I — so I was off operations for a few weeks and I was back on the Lancs, um, once I’d got through the — with first with 7 and then, um, 582 was formed, one flight from 7 Squadron and one flight from 156. I went there and, um, I just soldiered on. I was sort of a decoration round the place, I think I was a bit of a show piece. You know, a funny thing, when I did my hundredth operation, I was keeping quiet, I wasn’t making any fuss about it. But I used to help, deal with the crew list for the CO, and there was a young lad coming through as a skipper. He was a bit of a nervous type, he was worried because he was going to do his thirteenth trip. I thought, what the hell, I put myself down as his flight engineer. He came back and, um, we landed back at base and he said, ‘Ah that’s good, I’ve made my — done my thirteenth’, I said, ‘Well done. I’ve done my hundredth’ [laugh].
DK: And that was the first he knew?
ES: That was the first he knew. Nobody had reached three figures before. We’d lost two people at ninety-eight. We never lost one at ninety-nine but we did lose two at ninety-eight.
DK: Was there any recognition for the hundredth operation at all from the squadron or —
ES: Not from the squadron but I think there’s mention, um, in my DSO. I went over my hundredth anyway but, um, that’s really all there was. I got my DSO, I think I was the only flight engineer I think that did.
DK: How do you feel now looking back on that period [unclear] operations?
ES: I was lucky. I don’t know. It was my job. I was in the Air Force for a job and it was part of the job, sort of.
DK: And now if we move to the post war period. I was reading that you went to South America?
ES: Oh, I did the South American trip with Harris, yes.
DK: What was, what was Harris like?
ES: Well, he knew who I was when we got there [laugh]. But it was quite a crazy thing, we didn’t see much of him really. He was the top brass and we were the, we were the tail end. Funny thing is, when we first flew over, we went down to Gambia, went across to Recife, just by the mouth of the Amazon and, um, we had — Harris himself and his, his PA had been in America with the RAF during the war and they had the correct drill for America. They had long — they were in khaki but they had long trousers. We were issued with khaki appropriate to, er, West Africa but we had shorts. Oh dear, when we landed in Brazil, what a kerfuffle, ‘[unclear] get those men back in the aeroplane out of sight’. Anyway, we were pu— pushed back in the aeroplane and, um, the top brass, me, Harris and his little entourage and they were marched off to a decent hotel, and somebody came out to us, ‘Put your trousers on’, and we were allowed to go and get a meal as well [laugh]. It was ridiculous. We didn’t know what was going on.
DK: So, it, so it was three Lancasters you took to Brazil then?
ES: Yeah.
DK: Yeah. And how did they perform going across the —
ES: Oh, no problems there. Um, the fuel was — you had to watch the fuel. We weren’t over dressed for it. We didn’t have long range tanks or anything which are available, were avail— or eventually became available for the Lancs, but there was no problem.
DK: So, what was the purpose of the visit then? Was it just an invite for Harris by the Brazilians?.
ES: Brazil was our allies. They had a division fighting in Italy and we were there. We —the division for me — because Brazil did not declare war on Japan, er, mainly because they had too large a Japanese population. The only thing that the Brazilians did about the Japanese is they all had to live at least a hundred kilometres from the coast. That was the Brazilian, um, result of Japan entering the war, um, and their Army only fought in Europe with the American 5th Army and they came back. We were there when they came back. We were flying over them as they went down the main street in Rio, we were over— overhead.
DK: Oh, I see, so it was a kind of com— celebration for the return of their army, in effect?
ES: Er, you mentioned the three Lancs. Well, when we turned round to come back, one of them had engine trouble. It wasn’t my aircraft but of the flight engineers, I was the only one that could change an engine or knew anything about it so I ended up staying behind waiting for the new engine. And the Brazilians were very good, they gave us a lot of coffee beans and they were tied up in the bomb bay and the aeroplane was flown by the 617 Squadron crew, and 617 Squadron took off from the airport at Brazil, at, er, Rio, which is six hours from the, er, air— from the promenade. Um, being 617 Squadron, they didn’t have bomb bays. They weren’t used to bomb, bomb doors so they took off with the bomb doors open (because you always park with the bomb doors open), so they took off with them open and some of us left behind saw them turn out over the harbour and watched our coffee beans descend into the harbour.
DK: Oh no.
ES: One, er, bag didn’t detach and when we got back instead of getting a whole bag of coffee beans which were of course rationed around, almost unavailable in England, we had a two-pound bag of them. But anyway, yeah.
DK: So, after that, is this when you then went for pilot training?
ES: Not immediately, no. I went — I did an engineering officers course, um, I was already, although I was a fitter and a qualified fitter, um, I went on to — down to St Athan, I think for four months, an accelerated engineering officer’s course, filling in the gaps between what I’d been through, what I knew as an apprentice, what I knew as a flight engineer, just filling in the gaps. I come out as a fully trained flight engineering officer which was quite useful in the end. But I went back to the Squadron and I was then on 20, on 24 Squadron, the VIP Squadron, flying Lancastrians, er, VIPs around the place. I managed to save the life of myself, Sir Robert Watson Watts and Ralph Cochrane all in one go. I — if they’d gone down and I’d been with them. We had Lancasters, Lancastrians sorry, but they had a belly tank to increase the range, because the Lanc couldn’t fly the Atlantic, so the Lancastrian couldn’t unless they put long range tanks in the bomb bay. Since it was a [unclear] thing, it wasn’t a proper — it wasn’t a well thought out plan. The filling was, um, on the side of the bomb bay with the — the flight engineer had an extension which you undid a hatch on the bomb bay, took the cap off the, er, tank, put this extension on and then you could fill the fuel up, fill the long range tank up. Good idea. Well, on going to America we were carrying two flight engineers, so I was filling the port wing and the other guy was filling the starboard wing, and I filled my wing and I look down and this bloke who was filing the bomb bay, belly tank seemed to be having a lot of trouble, seemed to be stopping and starting and whatever. So, I went down to see what, you know, the problem was. We were out in the Azores and I don’t speak Portuguese so I was chattering away, took the thing out. No wonder he was having trouble. What was he putting in the tank? Engine oil.
DK: Oh dear.
ES: I had a quick thought, er, I could see us, another one in the Bermuda Triangle. We’d have been somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle when I switched over to that tank. We wouldn’t have gone much further. Anyway, I got him out of the way, and I go the crew and anyone standing around. I got a pan out from the side of the airfield and pushed the thing back and got the wheel, the bit, the tail wheel and a bit more of the fuselage over the grass, got my tool box out [slight laugh], undid the, this false bomb door that we had, it was only two sheets of metal, opened that up. I could then get to the Pulsometer pump, which was used to transfer the, er, petrol as it should have been to the wing. But fortunately, it wasn’t switched on I don’t think. I quickly disconnected it actually in case anybody did switch it on and, um, took the Pulsometer pump off and, er, of course all the oil flowed out, straight onto the grass, er, put the thing back on again, got the fella with the petrol bowser and put a couple of hundred gallons in the tank. I’m not paying [laugh].
DK: It makes you wonder if that happened in the past if —
ES: Oh yes. I think that’s what happened with MacMillan in the Star Tiger. A very similar installation on the, on the Tudor. The Tudor had the tank in the same position.
DK: Because several went missing, didn’t they?
ES: Yeah, well if you put oil in the bloody thing. The Portuguese people, they come out with the tanker and you can’t see what’s in the tanker. But, um, anyway I did, er, swirled this thing out, pumped this fuel, fuel oil mixture out with the Pulsometer pump, got a bucket with, um, pure petrol in, stripped the Pulsometer pump out down to its essential bits, washed out the inside, swirled it round and, um, pumped some, put some more petrol in the tank, swirled it round and hoped for the best, put the Pulsometer pump on and we got to Washington DC on that fuel. Otherwise, there’d be no me, no Sir Robert Watson Watt, no Sir Ralph Cochrane or anybody but, um, that’s what flight engineers are for, aren’t they?
DK: Exactly. I guess they, they never knew. Never knew how close to disaster they came.
ES: No, they were too busy scoffing. We didn’t get a meal, the other engineers and I didn’t get anything to eat at all until the other — Washington, actually Indianapolis. We didn’t stop long in Washington, then we went on to Indianapolis. It’s all a story.
DK: So, it was then soon after that you took the pilot training then, was it?
ES: Yes, ‘47 or, ‘47 I think I took the pilot training.
DK: And ended up on the Neptunes?
ES: No, I ended up on Lancasters.
DK: Oh right. OK.
ES: At first. As soon as I took the pilots course, I thought, ‘What’s going to happen now?’ Well, I’d been on Transport Command, been on Bomber Command. Oh, put him on Coastal Command. And what do they give him to fly? A Lancaster. And, um, I was flight commander on 217 Squadron and I was off to the States [slight laugh].
DK: And so how did it feel now you were a pilot of a Lancaster, after so many operations as a flight engineer?
ES: It seemed quite natural, though I must admit, when I first went as a pilot for the conversion course, as a pilot up to Kinloss, I had the first instruction for pilot. I’ll teach him all about the Lanc. He can teach me all about the Lanc [laugh], He knew who I was and I knew who he was [laugh].
DK: He couldn’t teach you much then?
ES: Eh?
DK: He couldn’t teach you much?
ES: Well, he didn’t bother. I sat there and listened to it all. You got to show willing and, er, that’s how it went
DK: So, once you converted to the Neptunes then, what were they like?
ES: A dream, a dream. You could do anything with them. They had these spoilers in the wing. When you put the spoilers on, when you put thing on, it went vroom. Of course, when we first got the Neptunes, all the top people wanted to fly them so we had a, a group of MPs come up to Kinloss to see us and find out all about these new aeroplanes. We didn’t, they were not our aeroplanes, the Neptunes, the RAF never owned any Neptunes. They were only on loan waiting, because the Sund— the Shackletons were late on delivery and these were taken as, in a sort of stop gap until we got — Avro got their finger out, started producing Shackletons. I quite enjoyed flying the Neptune. Nicest aeroplane I’d ever flown.
DK: Did you get to fly the Shackleton then, eventually?
ES: No. It was just a heavy Lancaster. The Neptune was a whole different ball game, you could do things with that.
DK: Do you think the Nim— Shack— Neptune should have been used instead of the Shackleton then?
ES: It was — the Neptunes were loaned, loan to us until we could get enough Shackletons delivered. They were only on loan. They went back to the States and went on loan to somebody else no doubt. Other — the Aussies they picked up two Shackletons, two Neptunes at the same time. They weren’t bare backed robbers but they bought theirs.
DK: Do you think we should have bought the Neptune then?
ES: I think they were better. I think it would have been a better deal than the Shackleton ever was. To give you an example, er, Churchill was coming back from America on one of the Queens, and the idea was that the RAF should go out to the mid-Atlantic and beyond to welcome him, and this was the plan and I was sitting in the mess having breakfast and saw the Shackleton taking off to meet Winny. Then I finished my breakfast, went down to flight, did my briefing, got into the aeroplane, flew off and once we got the Queen on radar I, we homed in over the Queen and then I looked on the radar and, oh yes, there’s a Shackleton coming in. We’d guide him in to —
DK: Because they were so much slower.
ES: Slower? They didn’t — they only had one speed. You see, we used to transit at ten thousand feet which gives you a much better air speed, but they did everything at about two thousand, the Shackleton, which gives us about a hundred miles an hour advantage at ten thousand. And, um, so anyway we guided them and we had a fly round the Queen and, um, Churchill could see them and then it was time for them to go. So, they went off there. We watched them go and a little bit later, we flew off and I was back in the mess when the Shackletons landed [laugh]. That’s the difference you see. They were no faster on attack really. I was going to tell you, when we first got the Neptune, a group MPs came up to have a look at it. My squadron commander, he was a hard drinking man, so we, after they arrived so I left, er, I had a dinner with them, and spoke to them and that and left the squadron commander to take care of them. He was quite happy drinking all night. Oh, that car’s — the car’s just driven two houses up and stopped there. Never mind, it’s not in your way. But anyway, they had there thing in the mess and the next morning they were going for a flight. Well, one of the things the Neptune could do which the Shackleton never got round to doing, was rocket attacks, [unclear] sixteen rockets, sort of equivalent of two, um, salvos from a cruiser and for a rocket attack on an aircraft, ship or submarine, your flying indicators about twelve hundred feet, and you put the nose down to about seventy degrees, take aim, fire the rockets. They were very, very accurate too. I say, to practice we had old wrecks of cars out on the range. You expect to hit a car with a rocket. It’s not that big a target but you hit a car with a rocket, a ship will be a big problem because of course the salvos, that car doesn’t fire back at you, but, um, we’d got two 20 mm cannons and a nose sight and they can do some damage. Anyway, so I take these MPs up and they’d had a good night out the night before [laugh], and I was flying at a thousand feet and we’re going into attack, vroom, MPs on the ceiling [laugh] and we go in and attack, fire the rocket, horrible. You got to have fun, you got to have your fun somehow.
DK: Were the MPs impressed by that?
ES: I don’t know [laugh]. They were quite quiet when we came back [laugh].
DK: I can imagine.
ES: Not used to big aeroplanes. They liked fighters. But I had fun.
DK: So, when did you actually leave the RAF then? What year would that have been?
ES: Oh dear. Oh, I just managed to — it was Army, aft— after, um, flight commander at 617. I spent some time doing my stint as a ground eng— ground fitter, a ground officer. I was quite lucky. I got rather a cushy number for my two years. I was posted out to Germany as adjutant with an AOP Squadron with Austers, and, um, it was when I finished my, just finishing my two years out there when the Army MO called me in for the annual medical, and he said, ‘You’re too deaf to fly’, And that was it. Oh yes, a bloody Army bloke, a Pongo got me out. Actually, he didn’t get me out, he said, ‘You’re unfit to fly’. The Air Force said, ‘You can stay in in your current rank until you reach retirement age’. Well, I was thirty-five, I didn’t want to do another twenty bloody years doing bugger all, nothing interesting, so I elected to take an early retirement. Been drawing a pension ever since. I’ve been drawing my RAF pension, this is the first month of my sixty-first year of drawing a pension.
DK: Excellent. Well, I think on that note we’ll —
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Ted Stocker. Three
Creator
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David Kavanagh
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-10-13
Type
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Sound
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AStockerEE161013, PStockerEE1601
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Pending review
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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01:11:31 audio recording
Description
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Ted joined the air force in January 1938 as an apprentice at RAF Halton. This was accelerated because of the war, and he was posted to RAF Boscombe Down.
Although he wanted to be a pilot, Ted’s skills were needed as a flight engineer. He was posted to 35 Squadron at Linton-on-Ouse in 1940 where he encountered Flight Lieutenant Leonard Cheshire. Later that year, Ted found a crew and aircraft and started operations over Germany. After only four operations, he went to instruct pilots and flight engineers on Halifaxes at 102 Squadron.
Ted was posted to Pathfinders 35 Squadron and was the first flight engineer to be commissioned. After 47 operations, he volunteered and was sent for training as a mid-upper gunner to a Pathfinder Training Unit and 7 Squadron, who needed experienced people. He had to learn about Lancasters, which he compares in some detail to Halifaxes.
Ted outlines the work of the Pathfinders and how the system became more sophisticated. He encountered Donald Bennett and once flew with him, as well as flying with Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris to Brazil.
Ted flew 108 operations (47 on Halifaxes and 61 on Lancasters). He was awarded a Distinguished Service Order.
Ted did an engineering officers’ course at RAF St Athan, followed by 24 Squadron, a VIP transport squadron, flying Lancastrians.
After pilot training in 1947, Ted was flight commander on 217 squadron. He flew Neptunes, which he compares favourably to Shackletons. Ted was then posted to Germany for two years as adjutant with an Air Observation Post squadron and flew Austers. He left the RAF because of impaired hearing.
Temporal Coverage
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1938
1940
Contributor
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Sally Coulter
Vivienne Tincombe
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Germany
102 Squadron
35 Squadron
582 Squadron
7 Squadron
aircrew
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
crash
Distinguished Service Order
fitter engine
flight engineer
fuelling
ground crew
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Lancaster
Lancastrian
military service conditions
Pathfinders
promotion
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Halton
RAF Linton on Ouse
Shackleton
Stirling
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/560/8827/PStockerEE1601.2.jpg
dc2149cee1df664fefc275fb3f1a16c4
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/560/8827/AStockerE150726.2.mp3
7e15241140da7cda2f348cf1f0899645
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Stocker, Ted
Edward Ernest Stocker DSO DFC
E E Stocker
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Stocker, EE
Description
An account of the resource
Three oral history interviews with Flight Lieutenant Ted Stocker DSO DFC (b. 1922, 573288 Royal Air Force). He flew 108 operations as a pilot and navigator with 7, 35, 102 and 582 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-23
2016-08-30
2016-10-13
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AP: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Andrew Panton, the interviewee is Edward Stocker. The interview is taking place at Mr Stocker’s home in Clanfield, Hampshire on the 26th of July 2015.
ES: My name is Edward Ernest Stocker but I’d be glad it if you called me Ted Stocker. I was born in August 1922 and I joined the Air Force at the age of fifteen in January 1938. I became — I went to Halton, became one of the Trenchard brats, er, and from there on, I was in the Air Force and life took its natural course with the war on. I started out as a flight engineer on Halifaxes. The Halifax really did need a flight engineer because the aircraft was originally designed to bomb Germany from advance bases in France. The idea before — early on in operations we bomb — although you got our bombs in England then flew to France, refuelled so that we could reach Germany but, of course, when a little thing like Dunkirk arrived, it was no longer feasible, so they modified the aircraft, added extra fuel tanks. Eventually we had four fuel tanks in the Halifax. They kept adding, squeezing little tanks in all over the place and at the end of the time we had seven tanks on each side, and the management of those fuel tanks, to keep the centre of gravity where it belonged, and to ensure that we didn’t run out of fuel at an inappropriate moment, kept the flight engineer extremely busy. That was great, um, but that’s how the Halifax developed and that’s how the duties of the flight engineer developed, very much looking at fuel and obviously watching the engine instruments, looking for any unfortunate things. The Halifax had very early Merlins, Merlin engines, which was subject to internal, um, coolant leaks which, er, often resulted in having to switch the engine off. This again was a duty of the flight engineer to watch for this. When we changed over to the Lancasters only — I did forty-seven trips on Lanc— on Halifaxes — when we changed over to the Lancaster it was a whole different ball game. Now we had only, um, four main tanks, er, two in each wing and a little tank. Fuel management was simple and straightforward. The engines were Packard built Merlins which were not so — they had a, a revised design of the engine cylinder block which, um, reduced the chance of internal, um, coolital leaks so we didn’t have the trouble with engine overheating or having to shut the engine down. The Lancaster was a whole better ball game but, um, so much so that on the Lancaster really the, the flight engineer was not fully occupied, was partly acting as a cheap co-pilot. Remember it takes a lot of time and money to train a co-pilot. You can get a flight engineer for a much lower price. Put him in the right hand seat, he can act as co-pilot anyway and that’s really how the flight engineer’s role was developed.
AP: Right.
ES: But when you get on to the Lancasters, where there isn’t the problem for the engines that we had on the Halifax, the flight engineer was not as fully occupied, and Don Bennett, the chief of Pathfinders, Air Vice Marshall DCD Bennett, er, said that, um, he wanted two navigators on the nav table and the flight engineer he, he can soon learn to drop the bombs, and so, on Pathfinders, the flight engineer ended up very much as being both the flight engineer and co-pilot and bomb aimer, all wrapped into one, but there was duties spread through the flight. That made the flight engineer’s job much more interesting, dropping – aiming bombs particularly when you got onto flying with master bombers where you’re putting the markers down. It was a much more interesting job than it — as it had been originally on Lancasters.
AP: So can we talk a little bit about the actual Pathfinding Squadron and what they did?
ES: Pathfinders was developed, I was — I didn’t — I joined Pathfinders the month they started. I didn’t do the first Pathfinder raid but I did do the second Pathfinder raid and I stayed on Pathfinders until the end of the war and I saw the developments as they were — happened. As I say, one of the early ones was getting H2S radar so we had a decent radar picture. The Morton thing — the techniques developed, we ended up basically with, er, three basic types. There was visual mark— visual marking where everything was done by looking at the ground aided by the radar, of course, which was the, the straightforward one. Then, of course, we had the problem with cloud cover and they developed a radio which was led by radar, particularly when we got Oboe. When Oboe came in, so strange. Oboe markers can be put down from the UK very, very accurately, and, um, we — when outside radar range, we had to develop radar assisted bombing which was bombing through cloud, um, which worked to a point. But the worst — the trickiest one was when you had very high cloud, no chance of seeing the ground at all, and we — you, you see sky markers which were, um, flares which burst at a ver— very high altitude and gave a false aiming point. Obviously, if you’re aiming for something in the clouds, on top of the clouds, the bomb doesn’t know it and wants to go underneath and goes through the marker and carries on forward, so the sky markers, as they were called, were very tricky for the main force to use because they were aiming at something, and their bombs were going to hit something else. But, um, they were the three basic types. There were various variations on those three but basically, you’ve got the visual marking, you’ve got radar assisted marking and you had sky marking, they were the three basic types.
AP: Could you talk a little about H2S and Oboe, what they are?
ES: Oh, H2S was the — if you look at a picture of the Lanc, you’ll see a bowl, a bulge underneath that, um, concealed it. Made of material which is very — does not interfere with the radar, a fibreglass substance, and inside that is the scanner going round, painting a picture on the cathode ray tube of what it can see underneath. It’s a very crude form of television really, it shows the sea and the land as separate colours. It shows built up areas where you’ve got a lot of windows and things, windows and, um, roofs and the slo— sloping of the roofs deflects the radar, and that gives a different sort of picture. But that was the H2S which we — but we were very lucky. We were one of the first. The Pathfinders had H2S before it was in general use. The other one I mentioned was Oboe. Oboe is — was originally used for Mosquitos because it depends on line of sight from the UK and involves the development of the system that the Germans had used to bomb Coventry, where you had radio beams. It was the British development that was more accurate and involved the bombs actually being released automatically by the Oboe system. The, the pilot flew down one radio beam and when it crossed the other beam, er, the bombs were released automatically. It was extremely accurate, we’re talking sort of a hundred metres radius. It was very very good. But unfortunately, the range was limited by the line of sight but the Mosquito was — because it was able to fly higher than the Lancs ever could, could take the Oboe bombing further into the mainland of Germany, of France anyway. After D-Day, they put mobile Oboe stations on the continent and Oboe was able — the range was able to move forward. We did have Oboe in a Lanc on 582 Squadron, and I went on the first Lancaster Oboe raid with Group Captain Grant, who was squadron commander of 109 Squadron, the Oboe Squadron, and we did the first Oboe raid over France from the Lancaster. I must admit I did not enjoy it because having put Oboe into the thing, the pilot and the rad — Oboe operator had to have their own intercom system but nobody else could use it. So, about a few minutes from the target or something, six or seven minutes from target, the rest of the crew were off the — off intercom and, er, you just flew straight and level to the target, fighters coming in, AK-AK, so what? You couldn’t tell anybody [slight laugh]. That was the bit about Oboe I didn’t like on Lancasters but it worked. Fortunately, I did the first one to prove it that it could and after that I let somebody else have a go.
AP: Right, and this was just marking. You weren’t dropping any bombs at this stage?
ES: No, we were the dropping markers, the target indicators. The target indicators — I should have explained. The target indicators were a giant firework. You had a — the shell of a one thousand pound bomb. Inside it were little can—little canisters which were ignited when the bomb burst, and they put down coloured candles. They burst normally at about three thousand feet over the target so there was a cascade of coloured, er, candles falling from the bomb over, over the target area, hopefully over the target itself. This gave the main force an aiming point, something to aim at, a coloured cluster of fireworks. Well, if they were put down by Oboe, initially they were in one colour, um, to keep the marking going — because Oboe could only fly — operate one aircraft at a time over the target we were main — on Pathfinders came over with different colour markers and tried to aim at the original aiming point to keep the markers alive for the rest of the raid. Remember, some of the raids took twenty or thirty minutes. The Pathfinder’s job, when there was an Oboe raid, was to keep the initial marking going on the same aiming point.
AP: Was there a particular colours? Did they use particular colours?
ES: Oh yes. The primary — usually the main colour was red, the primary marker, so that the master bomber can say, ‘bomb the red Tis’. When we were backing up, we were usually backing up with green. Yellow was used for some things, because we also used markers on turning points on the raid on the way in. When you’re going into a target, you don’t go straight in because the Germans can see which way you’re aiming, you do a dog-leg or something. Well to mark a turning point, we used markers dropped by Pathfinders on the turning point. They were usually yellow or something, not, not reds, and that was basically the TIs, we called them TIs, target indicators, they were just giant fireworks but, er, they seemed to work and they were visible from a long way away.
AP: And while you’re doing this, you’ve got AK-AK and night fighters and all sorts of things.
ES: Well, they do, they do try and distract you a little [slight laugh]. The gunners are on, on the ball the whole time, swinging their turrets and watching for everything, providing the fighters are seen and are not too close before you see them. Then the thing you do is an escape manoeuvre. Corkscrew was the usual standard procedure. If you’ve got a fighter high on the port sight, you corkscrewed port down. If they were up on starboard side, you corkscrewed starboard down. If they were low down, you still did a corkscrew. The corkscrew is just — you are following the path of the corkscrew which keeps the gunner, the enemy, sharp, on a constant, er, deflection shot and, er, what you’re trying to do really is to spoil his deflection shot. The deflection is changing the whole time when you’re doing a corkscrew, hopefully that makes him miss. AK-AK, well it comes and goes. If it’s close, you can sometimes hear it rattling on the fuselage. The Halifax had — the propeller blade on the Halifax was made of a wooden material, it was laminated wood blades to the props, although the bases were all metal. We did get jumped by a fighter somewhere and, er, his cannon shells came through just a bit to the right and they actually hit the starboard inner prop, and they hit a blade and that blade broke. That of course, created a, a terrible out of balance. The thing was shaking like hell. No good looking at the instruments and I had an interesting exercise. Well, we’ve been hit. Obviously one engine was in trouble, we’re shaking like hell, my instrument panel was shaking like hell and there’s no good looking at the instruments, a waste of time. So I went up — I went to stand beside the pilot and I put the two propellers on the port side up and down to change the pitch, and it didn’t seem to affect the balance, so left those, and so I went to the right hand side and I changed the pitch on the two right hand engines, until I found the one that was changing the frequency of the vibrations, then I knew which button to press to stop the engine. But that’s the sort of thing you had to do, sort of think, think on the hoof, what do you do next?
AP: Yes. Did you lose any engines at all?
ES: On Halifaxes, you lost engines regularly. I think I almost came back on three engines more often than I came back on four on Halifaxes. I think on Lancs, I only remember losing an engine on a Lanc once, but the Halifax yes, because of this internal coolant leak, we did lose a lot of engines. Sometimes you didn’t really know whether it was a serious leak or not, um, because the added problem on the Halifax was the oil cooler was very large in relation to the amount of oil. It’s a circular oil cooler, if you can imagine like a drum, and the oil came in on the top on one side and the deflection of the oil was supposed to go round the bottom and out on the other side, which it did normally, unless it got, got a little bit cold and then the oil would go in on one side and the, the oil in the middle had got so cold it wasn’t flowing properly, so the oil went in on one side, on the outside and went round on the outside and came out again on the — still at the same temperature it went in at. That resulted in a thing called the oil cooler was coring, it was getting a hard core in the middle. If you did get that, and you did occasionally, if you recognised it, you shut that engine down a moment, which gave the time for the oil temperature in the oil coolant to stabilise and then you could — hope there wasn’t an oil leak, start the engine up again and if it ran OK, fine, you’re that done and happy again. Little things like that. The Halifax was the trickier aeroplane from the engineer’s point of view. You had to be on the ball. You asked about how many raids I did, well I did forty-seven on Halifaxes and then I — that is because on Pathfinders, er, you didn’t do a single raid you did a double raid of forty-five. Well, being me of course, I did a couple extra. But, um, my whole career really, basically, goes back to my second trip. The first trip I did was in a Halifax to Essen, which was a good starting point, you know, they don’t come much tougher and, um, that was OK, except I came back with the view that, ‘How the hell did he know we’d bombed Essen’. But that was because early on in the war, finding a target was a hell of a hit and miss affair. But anyway, for the next trip I was put on a raid to go to Nuremberg in a Halifax, which at that time, we’d only got five tanks, and I got together with the navigator and said, ‘How many air miles are we doing?’ Because when you start thinking about fuel consumption in an aeroplane, well the fuel consumption depends on which way you’re flying. If you’re going downwind, you go a lot further than you go upwind, so work on air miles and that’s the number of miles you go through the air. Anyway, the navigator gave me the air miles and I looked at the fuel load, and said, ‘It ain’t enough’. And so, being a cheeky eighteen or nineteen year old flight engineer, freshly promoted from corporal to sergeant, I went up to the squadron commander, the squadron leader in those days, and said, ‘Sir, I don’t think we’ve got enough fuel for this trip’. To which he replied, ‘Nonsense lad. Group know what they’re doing’. Silly lad, he’d believed anything. But anyway, we were a little short on fuel. In fact, we crashed nearer to base than anybody else in the squadron. We actually, er, ran out of fuel about three or four miles short of the airfield and came down in an untidy heap. I had given an ETA, estimated time of arrival, of no fuel and the navigator had given an ETA of when we should be at base. Well, the navigator had us at base about five, four or five minutes before I’d said we’d run out of fuel. It was a little matter of errors. I was right, we did run out of fuel when I said, but we hadn’t reached base. It was just down there ahead of us and, um, when they — I said we were going to run out two engines on one side stopped, one side had stopped developing any power, so I went down the back and put on a cross feed pipe, which put the empty tank that was running the two port engines to supply fuel to the two starboard engines, so that we had four engines running for a moment, and skipper in his wisdom said, ‘It’s time to get out of here’, and gave the order to bail out. It seemed sensible at the time, well it was sensible except the fact we were carrying a co-pilot, who was a captain from Whitleys, the other squadron on the station, and the Whitley is very poorly heated, so if you fly in a Whitley, you put all the full Irvin suit on, that, er, sheepskin lined leather suit, jacket and [emphasis] trousers, and he was a lad, a tall boy, quite a well-built lad, and so that the first thing that happened when the skipper said, ‘Bail out’, navigator lifts his table up, pulls the hatch out from underneath him, puts his parachute on and jumps, he’s gone. The wireless operator then thought that, underneath the skipper’s seat on the port side, and he was getting ready to go and this great big teddy bear of a man with this Irvin suit on, oh he didn’t jump out, probably couldn’t jump with all that clobber on and, er, he sat on the back of the hatch and put his feet out. That was alright. And then he tried to put his head out but it’s a very small hatch. From my position in the co-pilot’s seat, I could see his backside sat up in the air, but he wasn’t going anywhere. So I wondered, ‘What the hell we’d do?’ Len thought down there, he looked and he, he summed it up quite quickly. He pointed me to come back a bit, so I had to move back a bit, so that Len could get up on the top step and then they jumped, he jumped, and two bodies disappeared out of the escape hatch. Well because of the Battle of Britain, the pilots in Bomber Command sacrificed their pilot ‘chutes to put fighter command in the Battle of Britain, and the pilots in Bomber Command flew with an observer type ‘chute which is a harness with a separate pack for the harness, for the parachute itself, and there was stowage under the seat I was standing on, which contained the pilot’s parachute. The flight engineers job, when the two have gone out or three have gone out the nose, go under there and get the pilot’s parachute. Great, but I go — went down there. Oh dear, the elastic to hold the pilot’s parachute were not fastened and the pilot’s parachute must have been sucked out with the [unclear], it wasn’t there. So I go back up to the step, I’d got my parachute on by this time myself, I get back at the step and talked to the skipper, ‘Sorry your parachute’s gone’. By that time, all four engines stopped and, um, so we obviously were going down, so I jettisoned the escape hatch over the pilot’s head so that he could get out and then I went back amidships where there was a— another hatch in the roof with a ladder up to it for — and I, in fact, opened the hatch and was pushing it back when we hit the ground the first time, and I was flung forward against this, er, ladder and I found myself cuddling a ladder. We were in the air temporarily until we came down for a second time and, um, we slithered along a bit and came to rest. So, I’d got the ladder handy and gripping it, up onto the roof and there’s the skipper coming out. I was thinking we were the only two left. The rear gunner, he’s gone down the back, all he had to do was turn his turret round and jump. Oh no. Our rear gunner suffered from night blindness, which is not a great help for a rear gunner. He couldn’t find his harness, his parachute, anyway so he was still inside the fuselage looking for his parachute when we hit the ground. We didn’t know this of course so we got out. Skipper and I were on the wing and about to jump off and wondering about all these cows running and doing a war dance round the aeroplane, and a voice from behind us said, ‘Wait for me’. It’s our rear gunner. He never did find his parachute and so the three of us ran to the edge of, edge of this field, dodging all these terribly upset, terribly upset cows and got to the edge of the airfield. Got a little fire on each engine, [unclear] and stuff, nothing serious, so we stood there and then, um, as I said, we were very close to the airfield and, er, two ambulances turned up and then the CO turned up. He had a quick word with the skipper, he kept well away from me, and, er, I think after that he got the idea that maybe flight engineers do understand a bit about aeroplanes [slight laugh]. I’ll only say this, many years later, the squadron leader was our wing commander and CO of 35 Squadron, leader of the Pathfinders. I’m the flight engineer then, a flight lieutenant, and when the CO wanted to fly, [unclear] I was his flight engineer [laugh]. But, um, anyway we’d landed, we were in an untidy heap. Of course, this is — everything’s organised in the RAF. So, there was a crash, OK, two ambulances turned up so of course we were, we were not really within walking distance to the base, and so I go to one of these ambulances and, ‘Can you give us a lift back to the airfield’, ‘No, I’m bodies only’. Oh, go to the other one. ‘You’re not injured, are you?’ ‘No, I’m not injured’. Eventually they sent out a guard party to look after the wreck overnight and, um, one of those they got the driver out and he ran us back to the airfield. Interesting things, um, the three blokes that bailed out, two of them ended up on the same train. One had landed next to the railway, stopped a goods train, and sort of the driver said, ‘What do you want?’ ‘I bailed out’. ‘Oh, get in the guard’s van. We’re going into York’, sort of thing. He goes a little bit further on. There’s another bloke waiting with a parachute, waving, so he stopped and said, ‘Your mate’s in the guard’s van’ [laugh]. The other fella hadn’t got a lift with the train got — bloke with a car, and got back. Anyway, they all got back safely, the three got back safely. Anyway, that was my first endeavour. Rather gave me a reputation because the result of that, I think was that, um, when the Halifaxes were moved — we were on the first Halifax Squadron— when another squadron was going to get Halifaxes, they had to be trained on how to fly Halifaxes. The usual way was to take an experienced crew from one squadron, move them to a squadron with one Halifax and they were, er, trained with the new squadron. Well, good idea. So, they got — the squadron, 102 Squadron, was going to get Halifaxes, and so they sent a qualified crew, except I think, the CO wanted to see the back of me, I’d only done four trips. I was not an experienced — but I was the flight engineer on the experienced crew that went to 102 Squadron. There I was, I had done four trips, I was on this new squadron, teaching people how to — all about the Halifaxes, and that’s how my whole car— career started. Because I was there and I was the only experienced flight engineer, when the squa— new squadron commander was going to do his first trip on a Halifax, he wanted an experienced flight engineer so I went with him, didn’t I? And, er, when each flight commander wanted their first trip on the Halifax, who was the flight engineer? So — and then I went down, down the list until I probably flew with each pilot on their first trip and, er, I was an instructor, not what I intended to be. But anyway, I ended up with a total of fifteen trips and Pathfinders started. Well, the Canadian crew, they wanted go down — the Canadian, er, pilot and navigator wanted to go to Pathfinders, they wanted to volunteer for Pathfinders. Their flight engineer didn’t and the silly bloke had talked me into joining him so that’s how I left 102 Squadron and went to thir — back to 35, on Pathfinders this time, and that’s how I got into Pathfinders. As I men— said I’d done fifteen ops on 102 and 35 when this Canadian talked me into going to Pathfinders, so I arrived at Pathfinders with just fifteen trips under my belt. I stayed on the Halifaxes, on Pathfinders, until I finished my double — what is called a double mission. A mission is norm— for most of the main force was thirty trips and then Pathfinders, when you volunteered to join Pathfinders, you vol— volunteered to do a double mission. A double mission was forty-five trips. In fact, I did forty-seven on Halifaxes, and then I was screened and I went to the Navigation Training Unit of Pathfinders, and there’d been a bit of problem on 7 Squadron. They’d lost their CO and a couple of flight commanders and all sorts of the top brass. They came to the Navigation Training Unit and wanted a, er, bit of strength back in 7 Squadron and I was asked to volunteer. I’d been screened for a couple of weeks by then so I went back to, um, onto Pathfinders with 7 Squadron. The only thing was when I got to 7 Squa— well I knew before I went they were flying Lancasters. Well I’d flown in a Lancaster once and I’d read the book, so I joined 7 squadron with no formal training at all, having read the pilot’s notes, and I stayed on 7’s, um, Pathfinders, eventually did another sixty-one ops on, um, Lancasters, but giving me a grand total of a hundred and eight, which is ridiculous. Nobody should do that [slight laugh]. I don’t know how I did it. I know I changed — and I mentioned on 102, I flew with every Tom, Dick, and every flight commander’s CO. That gave me a number of different skippers. I then went back, went onto Pathfinders and I did, I think I did another thirty with this, er, Canadian crew I went with, and I did some odd ones and then the trouble started. They’d discovered 102 Squadron had put me up for a commission, because they didn’t commission flight engineers early on, because when I saw Wally Lashbrook, who was the instructor, there called me in and said, ‘What do you think about taking a flight — a commission’. I said, ‘Don’t be silly. They don’t commission flight engineers’. He said, ‘Well maybe they’re going to. Would you — can I put you forward?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, why not?’ Well, actually, I did ask him what he thought because I’m a Halton brat. I went to Halton when I was fifteen and the flight commander was Wally Lashbrook and he was a Halton brat, so on his advice I said, ‘Yes OK. Put me in for the commission’, which led to the situation. I was, I was down on Pathfinders, they didn’t know anything about commissioned flight engineers and I was called in to the adjutant, ‘What did you do for an interview at the Air Ministry. What’s that for?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. Wait and see’. Anyway, I was on ops one night, er, and I had — was due to go to Air Ministry the next morning. OK, so down at, um, Gravely, which is very close to London. It’s in Huntingdonshire and the railway station not far away. So anyway, I did the trip, came back, went in in the uniform, changed, um, into the barracks, changed into my best blue, had a wash and a shave, and caught the train to London. Which meant I then had to go in for this interview with Air Ministry. OK. Well, I’d been up all night remember, and they called me in and, um, one of those who, who looked at me said, ‘Where were you last night lad?’ So I gave him the name of the target. After that, the interview was awkward [laugh]. Anyway, so I got through that alright and I went back to the Squadron. Seven weeks later I’m — the adjutant called me in and he said, ‘I don’t know how this happened. You’ve been commissioned’. I said, ‘Yeah, I thought I might’. He said, ‘You’d better go and get a uniform’. So I went up to London to, er, one of the tailors, bought myself a uniform, go back. I’m a pilot officer now, yes, and they called me in again. ‘We’ve only got [unclear] for a flight lieutenant? You’ll have to be a flight lieutenant’, so I’d been a pilot officer for several days. Back to London, get some more stripes on my uniform [laugh], so I was rather quickly a flight lieutenant and then got a job and there was obviously a flight engineer needed, which again meant flying with all sorts of odd bods, which again meant I went over, way over the odds. I flew with people. I, I flew with Hank Malcom, the Canadian I mentioned, I did thirty trips with him. That was alright. Later on, I flew with a Welshman called Davies, came from Swansea, I did thirty trips with him. As I say I did all these thirty trips.
AP: What about Cheshire. Do you remember Cheshire much?
ES: Cheshire was my first flight commander on 35 Squadron. Didn’t like him very much, never did, but, um —
AP: And Lancasters, any particular missions that you remember, operations that stick out?
ES: Very difficult. I can’t remember where it was, one time over the Ruhr Valley. I didn’t enjoy life. We came — I think we’d been to Berlin, and on the way back we got a bit off course, er, as far as I can remember, we’d lost an engine or something over Berlin, probably this oil stuff, and I started it again but we got the — radio, distant reading radio compass was not, distant reading compass, sorry, er, was not reading very accurately and keeping on course had been difficult, and instead of coming, er, from Berlin, just round the corner of the Happy Valley, er, probably between Essen and Aachen, and cutting through that way, got a bit off course and found myself over the Ruhr. There wasn’t a raid on the Ruhr, just us odd bods coming back from Berlin, and they did rather catch us in their searchlights and flak for quite a long time. That was the one of the worst occasions with the enemy opposition, where it wasn’t so much that we were being shot at and were being illuminated by searchlights, we couldn’t get out of the damn thing for about twenty minutes, dashing around. I thought we’re never going to get out of that but anyway, er, Hank put the aeroplane in all sorts of manoeuvres and we got out of it. But that was one of the worst occasions, not when we were caught over the target but caught got off course on the way back. That always the danger, you expected to be shot at over the target but you tried to avoid it enroute there and back. We hadn’t on that occasion. It was one of the worst trips anyway as far as —
AP: Any raids in Northern France and Holland? Any raids there in Lancasters?
ES: Just before D-Day, we were doing all sorts of silly things. I had, I had the dis— disputed honour of actually acting as master bomber on one of the raids on a little, er, airfield in northern France. What’s the name of it? I can’t think of the name at the moment. I was flying with a Welshman on this occasion and they wanted — round about D-Day, there were all sorts of little raids, but they needed a master bomber on a very small airfield and they suddenly decided that this skipper’s Welsh accent would not do. So I was then, er, told to do the broadcast over the target, drop the bombs and sort of encourage people to come down and bomb the target, tell them what to bomb. The cloud, cloud base was low. We got down low, we could see the target, I got my markers on the target. Could I persuade anybody else to come down and do it? No, they were all bombing from way up, not doing very well anyway. We lost two aircrafts on that f — but I was actually — I think it was the only occasion when a flight engineer held the microphone and acted as master bomber and told them where to bomb. [unclear] have a change.
AP: All those operations that you flew, did — I’m guessing you must have seen other aircraft being shot down?
ES: Oh yeah of course we did.
AP: I mean, one of the things I’m trying to describe to people is what it was like when you were flying in all that stuff, what you saw, what people said, what they felt.
ES: It was very difficult early on, um, you got the odd one. Usually, they caught fire and went down in flames and some parachutes would come out. You hoped more did. Later on, when the — towards the end, the Germans had developed this — what did they call them? Musical chairs, which was the night fighters were equipped, er, with upward firing guns in the top of the fuselage at an angle and they did not use tracer. The idea was to fly on radar low down where you couldn’t be — where there was less chance of being seen by the top gunner or the rear gunner, come up below the aircraft, and when you were in the right position, climb fairly steeply and let the, er, cannons into the belly of the bomber. Very good idea. We’d had it years ago. When I was at Boscombe Down many years ago, we had a Boston which had been modified with, um, like bomb doors on the top of the fuselage and the bomb doors opened and there was four, er, machine guns pointing upwards, just like musical chairs, only there were only threes and we never developed it, but the Germans did. That was, that was one of the games the RAF definitely lost. My advantage, having before I started learning to fly as a flight engineer, I’d been an ordinary fitter who wanted to be a pilot and fortunately, in my postings, I was posted to Boscombe Down, which meant I saw far more different aircraft than most people when they came out of Halton and, um, I worked on many, including the first bloody, er, Stirling bomber, four engine. They had a position for a flight engineer. ‘It’s your aeroplane. You fly’. That’s how I learnt, you know, to start flying. I didn’t want to be a flight engineer, I’d been trying to be a pilot, but I was only an AC1, so I saw the flight commander and he said, ‘You’ve got to be an OAC to go on the pilot’s course’. So I did the trade test and I was a — I passed it. I was an OAC. Good. Go back to the flight commander, ‘I want a pilot’s course’. ‘You have to be an OAC for six months then you can come and see me again’. Five months later, ‘Oh hello Corporal Stocker. [unclear] You can’t be a pilot now. You’re too valuable. You’re a corporal fitter’. OK. I’m working in the hangar one day and the flight clerk comes out, and he’s got an AMO, he says, ‘The flight commander thinks you might like to look at this’. It was the first AMO asking — Air Ministry Order — asking for volunteers to fly as flight engineer. If you are a corporal or a sergeant in, in the group 1 trade, you can volunteer to be a flight engineer. I think the flight commander had a clue that I might be interested in that and so I went back with the flight clerk [laugh] and volunteered [laugh], and a few weeks later, I was on an air gunner’s course and that’s how I became a flight engineer. I don’t know how I did it. But anyway, the basic thing is I did chance my arm rather more than most and got away with it with a hundred and eight raids. How the hell I did it, I don’t know, but I’m lucky. But that’s how it happened. The first flight commander was Flight Lieutenant Cheshire. Oh dear. What can I add to that?
AP: Let’s, let’s jump to that, the island of Walcheren. Can you talk about that raid?
ES: Oh, one of the most interesting raids. The war was nearly over, there weren’t — there wasn’t a great deal of opposition anywhere and then they wanted to sink the Walcheren. The island of Walcheren was at the mouth of the Scheldt and was really guarding the entrance to northern Germany. They’d tried to get across — there’d been an unsuccessful attempt by the Army to do a landing on the, er, south coast of Walcheren Island. They lost a lot of soldiers and then they decided they might be better to — for a frontal attack, but they need to get the Hun out of the way, er, so we were — I was bomb aimer with the master bomber. The master bomber was Group Captain Peter Cribb. He was on thirty. He took over from Cheshire as flight commander of the 35 Squadron way back in 4 Group. Anyway he was the master bomber. I was his bomb aimer and we went over to Walcheren Island. Oboe had put down a marker on the sea shore and we put another marker beside it, and then we were getting, I think it was sixty aircraft every twenty minutes. I’m not sure about that number, it might have been less, and we directed them on to this markers right on the sea shore and we managed to breach the dy— the dyke and the sea water went through and started flooding the island of Walcheren. There was an AK-AK battery on the other side of the town from where we were, er, which fired the odd shots, but we had some thousand pound bombs, a couple, four or something, so between two raids, I did a sharp turn to port and I dropped my fourth one thousand pounder in the vicinity of the AK-AK battery, and had the good fortune to watch the brave gu— German gunners get on their bikes and, er, ride down the island in the middle of the raid. They left us to it. So really it wasn’t — there was no real opposition there. Anyway, we carried on with our — all these little raids and gradually made the, er, dyke leak and the island was flooding behind. The last raid, the last, um, batch of bombers we were getting were from 617 Squadron, they had their tallboys they [unclear] at that time. Well, we looked at the dyke and the sun and the sea was going in, and the skipper called them up and said, ‘Go home. We don’t need you’, which was for Pathfinders was a not idea because Pathfinders and 5 Group, which was Cochrane’s private air force, were not really the best of friends. Cochrane didn’t approve of Pathfinders and Don Bennett, who ran Pathfinders, didn’t really approve of Cochrane, because Cochrane had never actually been on a raid. Our AOC, Air Vice Marshall Donald Bennett, had [emphasis] been on a raid. He’d been shot down in Norway. He knew, he knew the score. That made the difference. He had a different outlook. But, um, actually yes, it was an interesting raid and when I was working in Holland after the war we did, I did go back there with my wife and we went and had a look and, yes, there’s a nice little puddle where we’d broken the dyke and there was a bit of sand round the edge and somebody had opened a café there, so we got somebody in business anyway. They set up a committee to evaluate the value of Bomber — what was happening with Bomber Command and they came to this awful conclusion that how a few bombs arrived within ten miles of the target. There was obviously a fault there and I having — this was the impression I had from my very first raid on Essen, that the accuracy with which they found the target was pathetic. And as a result of that, there was a great deal of conversation at the top end of Bomber Command and the Air Ministry what to do about it. Butcher Harris was not keen on the idea of a, an elite, um, a special force, special squadrons who were experienced and could lead the way. He said it was a sort of elitism. We don’t want elitism in Bomber Command. Certain people could see that this was the way to go, er, but Harris was overruled by C and C I suppose, I don’t know which one it was, and was told to look at the idea of an elite force, er, they eventually came up with the conclusion they’ll have with a special force. Initially they took — each group was asked to provide one squadron for this special force, so we ended up initially with Pathfinders with a hodgepodge of squadrons. There was one Whitley Squad–, no not one Whitley, one Wellington Squadron, there was a Stirling Squadron number 7, er, there was a Halifax Squadron 35, and they were put together as a, as an elite force. They had to find a CO. Don Bennett was in with — the main, main problem was navigation. Don Bennett was a well-known navigator; he was the only officer in the Air Force with a first class navigator certificate to start with. He’d already proved himself as navigator by flying the Maia Composite from Scotland to South Africa by himself. Just — all he had on board was a wireless operator. He was an experienced navigator. He’d started in — had already early on in the war started the transatlantic ferry. They used to fly — put Hudson bombers from America into boxes and put them on a ship to come Am— to England. Don Bennett was recruited really by BOAC to do, er, to do something about it and he started the transatlantic ferry by leading the first formation of bomb— Hudson bombers across the Atlantic to England and started the transatlantic ferry. He was then a civilian in the BOAC. He had been in the Air Force before the war so he started the Pathfinders and he put it together, because he had — he was the only AOC that they could find who had experience of flying bombers, who was an experienced navigator, who proved that he could navigate and, um, that’s how Pathfinders started, but it made a hell of a difference. We started first of all, trying to mark — how to mark the targets. All sorts of things were tried but Pathfinders gradually developed very, very rapidly, um, initially as this bunch of squadrons, then it became a Group and, er, ended up as quite a big air force of its own. At the end of the war, Pathfinders’ Group, number 8 Group, had over a hundred aircraft, it had a hundred Mosquitos for the late night strikers. It was an enormous empire but, um, it did the job. We found ways of finding the target, we found ways of marking the target, and we ended up in a situation where we could, if the weather — in reasonable conditions, we could hit any target anywhere. The development of the master bomber, which started with the Peenemünde raid, was a big step forward. It gave us some control, where the people, er, the other people who may be on their first or second trip and never seen enemy fire before a chance to be guided, and given some encouragement, what was going on, what to do. That was a big step forward. It was interesting to live thorough it all from, er, hit and miss and, er, precision bombing helped it.
Dublin Core
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Interview with Ted Stocker. One
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Andrew Panton
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2015-07-26
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Sound
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AStockerE150726, PStockerEE1601
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Pending review
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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01:02:00 audio recording
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Ted flew 108 operations (47 on Halifaxes and 61 on Lancasters), flying as part of 35 Squadron Pathfinders. He was awarded a Distinguished Service Order.
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Vivienne Tincombe
102 Squadron
35 Squadron
7 Squadron
8 Group
aircrew
bale out
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
crash
flight engineer
fuelling
H2S
Halifax
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Lancaster
Master Bomber
Oboe
Pathfinders
RAF Halton
target indicator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/286/8788/PKirbyH1511.2.jpg
f2f26de792cac70f6b6c69e353b3a563
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/286/8788/AKirbyH150710.1.mp3
415d0a343bc572167309ea13248509d0
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Title
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Kirby, Harold
Harold V A Kirby
H V A Kirby
Harold Kirby
H Kirby
Description
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Nine items. Two oral history interviews with Warrant Officer Harold Kirby (1923 - 2022, 1637087 Royal Air Force), his log book, photographs and documents. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 467, 97 and 156 Squadrons.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2015-07-10
2015-09-21
2016-06-11
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Kirby, H
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Warrant Officer Harold Kirby 1637087 was born in Kilbourne, Loncon in 1923, his job after leaving school was in the accounting department at London Electric Supplies. He initially tried to volunteer for the RAF but failed the medical, at that time. He was subsequently drafted in 1942. Skill training started with training as a Flight Mechanic, but during this was asked to volunteer to rain as a Flight Engineer. His first posting was as an Aircraft Fitter at No.460 Squadron, RAF Binbrook, although only for 6 months.
After Flight Engineer training at St Athan and then training on the Short Stirling and then the Lancaster with 1661 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Winthorpe, the first solo flight for the crew, the port landing gear would not lock, during the landing the gear collapsed, although there were no injuries.
First operational unit was No.467 Squadron at RAF Waddington a mainly Australian Squadron, the crew were here for July and August 1944, One operation 3/4th August 1944, to the V1 storage site at Trossy Saint Maximin had another bomber flying above their aircraft and dropping their bombs, one going through the wing, narrowly missing vital structures, this resulted in a gear up landing, due to hydraulic loss, but again there were no injuries resulting.
He was then posted along with the crew to No 97 Squadron, based at RAF Coningsby a pathfinder squadron, tasked to mark the targets for other aircraft,
In total two tours were completed before the end of the European war, after finishing as a Flight Engineer, Harold trained as a RADAR mechanic, before leaving the RAF.
Andy St.Denis
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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NM: So, this is a recording from Harold Kirby in Pinner, my name is Nigel Moore doing the interview, and this interview is taking place on July the 10th at Mr Kirby’s home in Pinner. So, Mr Kirby, thanks for doing this, and can you tell me something about your life growing up and life before the RAF?
HK: Yes, I’m, I was born in Kilburn, and my parents moved out to Kingsbury when I was eight years old, and I went to Kingsbury County School there. At the time we moved, 1931, it was all countrified there and we had to walk across fields to Burnt Oak to, for shopping, but soon got built up. So that was my early days, and then I got married after the war and lived in Kingsbury for a while until we moved out to Pinner in 1960, that’s right.
NM: So, what about your upbringing and childhood and pre-service life as a youth?
HK: I was not very outgoing at the time, but I had a special friend, Tony, who was more outgoing and he involved me in lots of activities, but I can’t say that I did very much exciting at those days, although we did used to cycle ‘round quite a lot, both of us. So, that was, up to the war, really. [Pause] and, certainly –
NM: Okay. How did you come to join the RAF?
HK: Ah, well, I, my two school friends and myself wanted to fly with the RAF, they were accepted but I was turned down on medical grounds, they became navigators and went off, and then I was called up in, ah, August 1942, and was first, after the initial square-bashing, went to, was posted to Halton, to train as a flight mechanic, one of the first inputs of conscripts to be trained at Halton, yeah. Well, after I’d passed out as a flight mechanic, I had sufficient marks to go straight on to do a fitter’s airframe course, also at Halton, and during the time there, I, we were asked if we would volunteer to become flight engineers, they were getting a bit short, which I did, passed the medical that time, and, but initially, I was posted as a fitter to 460 Squadron, which was at Binbrook, although initially, we and three others went to place called Brayton and found that the 460 Squadron had moved to Binbrook two weeks earlier [slight laugh] but eventually, we were taken there over, stayed there overnight and then taken to Binbrook, and I was there for a bit, six months, mainly repairing aircraft, until I got a call to go to the Saint Athan to train as a flight engineer. I, after I’d passed out from there, I was posted to heavy conversion unit at [pause] Winthorpe and I was, I crewed up with an otherwise all-Australian crew, and one thing that happened there was – this was on Stirlings – on the first pilot’s [pause] flight by himself without an instructor, we couldn’t get the wheels down, and it was my job to wind them down, which I did successfully, but the port undercarriage wouldn’t lock, so we were asked to fly to Woodbridge, you heard of it? It was placed where they had especially long, long runways and also facilities for dealing with crashed aircraft. Well, we duly got, would crashed, Woodbridge, crashed, ah, landed, but the port undercarriage gave way and we spun ‘round, no-one was hurt, and the instructor came down immediately and made my pilot fly back. Other than that, that, everything was okay, and we went to the Lancaster flying school, and eventually landed up at 467 Squadron, which was then at Wadd – Waddington. The, ah, yes, on the first operation, we were coming back, and the rear gunner suddenly shouted ‘Corkscrew!’, and the pilot immediately took action, dived, and a twin-engined aircraft overtook us and flew off in the distance, we didn’t see it again, but he initially, he shot at us, and a bullet went through the rear gunner’s turret and his clothing and cut off his heating supply and he was very aggrieved about that because it got a bit cold! [slight laugh] Anyway, we got back safely. Then, on the [pause] yes, the eleventh operation, it was a daylight one at Trossy Saint Maximin, the, it was a storage site for V1s, and we had done the bombing round and the mid upper shouted, ‘There’s a Lanc above us just opened his bomb doors!’ Before we could do anything, we heard two thumps, one was louder than the other, and a bomb went through the port wing, took away the undercarriage and the – shut off the engine, so I, well, I, I had to keep a look-out because the, I’m sure the wing was mov – waving more than it should do, anyway, we, with three engines, we got left behind. At one stage, this was over France, the rear gunner said ‘There’s two single-engined aircraft approaching from the starboard quarter,’ he said to the upper gunner, ‘I’ll take the first, you take the second,’ but seconds later, which seemed hours, he said, ‘It’s alright, they’re Spitfires,’ [slight laugh] and one of them escorted us back to the coast and we decided, or at least the pilot decided, to land at Wittering, which, at that time, had a grass runway, and we’d landed there and he got told off for making a big groove in their run – runway. So, but that was the, really, the main thing that happened there. Then, on the sixteenth operation, or after the sixteenth operation, we were posted to 97 Squadron, the Pathfinder Squadron. After the war, I had some correspondence from a pilot’s son, this was well after the war, and in it was a cutting from a newspaper which a pilot had a long [?] talk with a reporter, and he said then, whether it was true or not, that he actually volunteered to become Pathfinders because of the increase in pay, but I don’t know if that’s true or not, but all the crew joined him and we went on to the 97 Squadron, but nothing really much happened there, we were quite successful in getting back what with [?] the time, and in the end we managed forty-four operations altogether. [Pause] Well, after the war finished, we were sent on end-of-tour leave because we’d practically finished the second tour, and, but the rest of the crew were all recalled before I was, to go off back to Australia, so I never really had a chance to say a proper goodbye, but after that [unclear], they were, we were given opportunities to choose what we wanted to do; I chose a radar mechanic’s course because it was a nice long one and sounded interesting, that was at Yatesbury, and I eventually completed the course, was posted to West Ruislip, where I was put in an office and didn’t any, do any radar mechanicking! [laughs] And, but I was fortunate that I was able to live out, live at home, ‘cause my parents at Kingsbury, and commuted until I got my demob, which was six weeks or so later, I’m not sure of the actual date, and so, that is my war service.
NM: Okay, can I take you back to your days in Halton?
HK: Yes.
NM: Tell me a little bit about your days training as a fitter.
HK: Well, we were lost in [?], up the hill on one side of the main road, and every morning, we walked down, or marched down, to the, the workshops on the other side of the main road. That, that was about all, except that there was one amusing instance; because there, there were no youngsters there at the time, they had some drums which they thought could be used, and they asked for volunteers to train as, as drummers to help us down the march. It, they got instructions, that went off quite reasonably until the instructor thought, the, the bandmaster or whoever it was, thought we could practise by ourselves. Now, one of the chaps was actually a drummer in a small group, and he decided to invent a, a rhythm, which wasn’t the one that we were taught, and it went – oh, how did it go? Anyway, it was the first time that we did it, we, it was a conga rhythm [laughs], I think it’s the first and only time that a squad’s been conga’d down to the workshops! [laughs] But, apart from that, Halton was quite reasonably enjoyable.
NM: And was it while you were at Halton, or was it while you were at Binbrook on 460 Squadron, that you volunteered to become a flight engineer?
HK: It was while we were at Halton we were asked if we would volunteer, yes.
NM: So you first of all went off to Binbrook on 460 Squadron?
HK: Hmm?
NM: You first of all went to 460 Squadron?
HK: 460 Squadron, yeah.
NM: At Binbrook. Tell me a little bit about, about Binbrook.
HK: Well, then again, it was for, fortunately a, a peacetime station, so we were quite comfortably billeted. Well, that, that, of course, was an Australian squadron as well, so I, I did quite well in knowing the Australians. Each morning, went to the hangars and carried out any repairs and inspections that were necessary, quite enjoyed that, really. Yes, there was a sergeant there, Australian sergeant, apparently he was colour blind, and he, he was telling me that initially, he, he was asked to put camouflage on an aircraft, and when his instructor saw it, he said ‘If you could see that as I could see it, you’d have a fit!’ [Laughs] Yeah, but that, that, sorry, he was quite, quite a good chap [unclear], but –
NM: So, you went from Binbrook to Saint Athans to train -
HK: That’s right, yes.
NM: As a flight engineer.
HK: That’s right.
NM: Describe your training.
HK: I, actually, initially, there are few of us, instead of given instructions on a Lancaster, we were started to give us instructions on a York aircraft, but I think it was decided that that sort of job would be given to people who’d already been flying, so we then transferred and did the rest of the course on, on Lancasters. It was [pause] well, was quite enjoyable, I can’t say that there were any real troubles there. [Pause] I’m sorry, I –
NM: That’s fine, that’s okay.
HK: Unless there’s something specific, it’s difficult to remember.
NM: Right, okay, no, that’s absolutely fine, that’s fine. And you, how long did you spend in Saint Athan training, and what type of year was it, and time of year?
HK: It was in December, it would have been ’43, and we were there ‘til about May, I think, in ’44, and then we went to, as I said, to train, initially on Stirlings, before going onto Lancasters and then the squadron.
NM: So you crewed up at the OCU at Winthorpe, did you say?
HK: Yes.
NM: How did the crewing up process go? How did you end up with the crew that you ended up with?
HK: Well, it was just the usual way, and, in the RAF, from, we were in a large hall, and Bill Ryan, the, came up to me and said, would I like to join his crew? And he came, well, then, he introduced, introduced me to the rest, and we got on quite well.
NM: So you were the last to join the crew, were you?
HK: Yes.
NM: And were they an all-Australian crew?
HK: All-Australian, yeah.
NM: And you were the only Englishman there?
HK: That’s right, yes.
NM: So, why do you think he asked you? Why do you think he asked you?
HK: I have no idea! [laughs] Perhaps I was the last one, I don’t know, but we got on quite well, actually. I was the youngest, Bill Ryan was twenty-eight, I think. [Pause] The [pause] bomb aimer came from Queensland, he was about thirty-three, wireless operator was not much older than I was, I, I did have pictures of them [sound of leafing through pages].
NM: We can come onto that afterwards, if you want.
HK: Afterwards, yeah. [leafing sounds continue] Give some names.
NM: Let’s go through their names on the record and we can look at the photographs after the interview.
HK: Yeah, right.
NM: So, you go through the names.
HK: Hmm, yes.
NM: Talk, go through the names and describe the names.
HK: Yes, well, there was Bill Ryan, Les Sabine, the navigator, he came from New South Wales, as did Johnny Nichols, the wireless operator, and Jim McPhee was bomb aimer, Norm Johnstone, the mid upper gunner, and myself, and then there was Jim Newing, but we always called him Bert so we didn’t get mixed up with Jim McPhee, the bomb aimer, he was the rear gunner, he came from Perth in western Australia, and, although I lost touch with the crew after the war, some fifty years later, I and my wife went to Perth, and I looked up the telephone directory, there was H.W. Newing, which was his name, and the telephone, and I rang up on the off chance and said ‘Have you ever been to England?’ and he said ‘Yes, who’s speaking?’ I said ‘Harold Kirby’ and he immediately said ‘Oh, our flight engineer!’ [Slight laugh] And he was able to come to the hotel and we had quite a long chat, unfortunately, we had to go off the following day, but by then, I had his address and telephone number, and we went back to Perth all summer, few years later, and he came and took us to meet his wife and have lunch, and so, that, that was very nice. Unfortunately, he’s passed away.
NM: Okay, sad to hear that. So, you went to Lancaster flying school, you say, after you, your?
HK: Yes, at Syerston, that was.
NM: That was, okay, at Syerston. And how long were you there for?
HK: Oh, just a matter of a week or so, I think. I don’t, I can’t remember that.
NM: So, you then joined 467 Squadron at Waddington?
HK: That’s right.
NM: Tell me about squadron life in 467, what was that like?
HK: What was that like? I think I was glad I’d been to 460 Squadron and got used to a lot of the Australians, so it didn’t come as a bit of a shock, but [pause] apart from those two instances that I mentioned, I think we were quite fortunate, getting away unscathed.
NM: So, can you describe general operations, then, on 467 at Waddington?
HK: Well, I, the pilot and navigator, this before an operation, they had a, an initial briefing, and then after that, the rest of the crew joined them to have a general briefing. We were – then we all had to get ready for going off, we had a, a meal beforehand. Coming back, we were debriefed, and contrary to, contrary to what other, I’ve read about other squadrons, we never got rum or anything like that, we just got coffee, and then we went to bed and waited for the next operation. I do remember that, on one occasion, I slept for about eighteen hours non-stop, virtually, that was after two or three night operations on the trot.
NM: So, when you found you were being posted to Pathfinders at –
HK: Yes.
NM: - Coningsby, at 97 Squadron, what was your feeling?
HK: Really, nothing much, we, I didn’t know much about them, and I just wanted to keep with the rest of the crew, suppose.
NM: So, was – how did Coningsby and the Pathfinders differ from a main force station at Waddington and 467?
HK: I can’t say that it was terribly different, different. We were quite fortunate in, again, that, as Waddington was, and Binbrook beforehand and then Coningsby, they were all peacetime stations and we were very comfortably housed, not like some squadrons who had to cope with a lot of mud [slight laugh]! Oh, yes, at Coningsby, we had to be capable of taking over some of the other tasks, such as, I was asked to keep the aircraft on the straight and level for a while, presumably in case the pilot couldn’t hold it, which, that was what I did, although the rear gunner said it was more like a switchback than straight and level [slight laugh]! Then I had to learn the Morse code and do some gunnery practice, and also bomb aiming, so that, that was quite a change. In fact, towards the end of the war, the normal bomb aimer went and helped the navigator with the screens that they had then, and I did the bomb aiming, so it, that was a change. [Pause] Can’t say that there’s much more to add.
NM: So the extra training that you had, then, for, for flying training for straight and level flying and for gunnery and Morse code and bomb aiming, what, how did those extra training comes about?
HK: I remember the bomb, bomb aiming, there was a sort of a, a map that sort of moved on the floor and we were practising sort of with the bomb sights, and then also, in, there was a bombing range at Wainfleet in the Wash, I think I did a, a few goes at that, and then as far as gunnery, we dropped a flare in the water and I was in the nose turret and had a go and see if I could shoot that, and so [pause] I do remember once, I think this was at, at Waddington, for some reason, the brakes failed as we were taxiing ‘round, and the pilot was able to steer by controlling the engines. The normal practice when you start off is to keep the brakes on and push the throttle forward to get maximum speed, power, and then suddenly take the brakes off and shoot off. Well, this time, we had no time to do that, we got slowly to the take-off point and got the green lights and pushed the throttles forward and, fortunately [laughs], took off okay! And then, again, we thought we’d go back to Woodbridge, which we did, and I repaired the brakes and we got back to base. [Pause]
NM: What did you feel about the different roles that you were asked to play, then, between flight engineer and gunnery and bomb aiming?
HK: Well, I quite enjoyed it, the change, yes.
NM: So your crew, altogether, did forty-four operations?
HK: Yes.
NM: And you all stayed together for the whole time?
HK: No, all except the mid upper gunner and the wireless operator, they decided they wouldn’t go on to the second tour, and so we had spare chaps to do that, but I can’t really remember much about them.
NM: How did the crew feel about losing two stalwarts and getting two replacements?
HK: Well, don’t think we were terribly happy, but that was, you know, if they didn’t want to go on, well, that was it. I preferred to carry on rather than go to a training squadron because that could be a bit dicey sometimes.
NM: What would you say about life in Bomber Command overall?
HK: Overall, I had quite a good time, really. [Pause] No, I don’t think I would have chosen anything else, I was quite happy with what I was doing. Bit dicey at times, but that was it.
NM: Do you keep, keep in touch at all with, or – you’ve spoken about the rear gunner you’ve met in Australia, do you keep in touch with squadron associations, reunions?
HK: Oh, I, I kept up with the squadron association, and Path – not, yes, Pathfinder Association, while it was still in force, and then I belonged to the Aircrew Association, we had monthly meetings, and –
NM: Were they locally here?
HK: That was at, that’s at Hemel Hempstead, but there’s another ex-Pathfinder who flew in Mosquitos who lived in Hatch End, and we take it in turns to drive to Hemel, but we were quite fortunate, really, because a lot of the branches had to close because lack of members, but as it’s open to post-war fliers as well, we’ve got quite a few in, in our association, and they help to keep the thing going, in fact, I think all the, apart from one, are post-war fliers, or the, I’m trying to say, the people that control, the – sorry, I, I get mixed up with words sometimes [laughs]! Yeah, but anyway, we keep going.
NM: Okay, that’s fair [?]. How do you think Bomber Command has been treated since the war?
HK: Not very well; in fact, I think in the end, we were quite happy to get the memorial. [Pause] Lot of work has been done to get it organised.
NM: Okay, shall we call it a day there?
HK: Hmm?
NM: Shall we finish the interview there? Are you happy with that, or was there anything else you’d like to talk about with your time in Bomber Command?
HK: I think I’ve covered most things. [Pause] I was telling you about my two friends that joined up before I did, both got shot down, one unfortunately on the Nuremburg raid, and the other one, who was on Stirlings, got shot down over France but parachuted to safety and was looked after by the French until he was – the Americans came. But, so, I was quite fortunate, really.
NM: So, did you find out about your friend’s loss during the war, or was it after the, only after the war, did you find?
HK: It was during the war, yes, I kept in touch with my particular school friend’s mother or parents and heard when he’d got shot down; they didn’t know what had happened to him at the time, of course, yes. [Pause] So I did keep up with that school friend after he’d come back from – to England. One peculiar thing happened was, at the time before he got shot down, he, he’d sent me a picture of him and a bomb aimer, his bomb aimer, and I was showing this to my crew, and my bomb aimer said ‘I know that chap, we’ve been doing training together in Canada!’ But he stayed on to do some training others and so he, he didn’t come, get to this country until well after my school friend’s bomb aimer had come here, but both the bomb aimer and my friend were the only two that managed to get out of the aircraft when it was shot.
NM: And you finished up doing a radar mechanic’s course?
HK: Yes.
NM: After the war.
HK: Ah, yes.
NM: Tell me a little bit about that.
HK: Well, that was quite enjoyable, learning how the radar worked, and after the war, instead of going back – well, I did go back for a while to my original job, which was in an accounts department, in an accounts department in an electric supplier, I decided I wanted to do something a bit more technical, and the GEC at the time were advertising for people for their laboratories, and I went along and got a job in their patents department, and trained – well, I did evening classes, got BSc, then went on to do the patent agent’s exams and stayed there until I retired, retired in ’83 but went on and did five more years part-time, until they moved the whole place to Chelmsford, I decided that was enough [slight laugh].
NM: And you’ve been retired ever since?
HK: Hmm?
NM: You’ve been retired ever since?
HK: Yes.
NM: Okay, I think that’s probably a very good note to finish on.
HK: [Laughs] Yes!
[Recording beeps: interview paused and restarted]
NM: Just continuing the interview with Mr Kirby.
HK: Yes, there were a couple of instances which I remember now, not actually connected with the enemy, but we were due to fly to Munich to bomb something at Munich, and we had to, we were rooted over the Alps in moonlight, which was a beautiful sight to see, and then another occasion, we flew to one of the eastern countries, oh, I could tell you exactly where it is [sound of leafing through pages], and we had to fly over Sweden at the time, and, yes. No, I can’t [pause as HK continues leafing through pages] Ah, Politz. Yes, I had to fly over Sweden, which was quite exciting ‘cause it was all lit up, they did shoot, but we were told that not to worry, they weren’t going to shoot at us. [Laughs] But those are just two instances I happen to remember.
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 Harold Kirby. One
Creator
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Nigel Moore
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-10
Format
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00:42:44 audio recording
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AKirbyH150710, PKirbyH1511
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
Harold Kirby joined up the Royal Air Force encouraged by two friends, but ended up training as a flight mechanic at RAF Halton on medical grounds. Harold became them airframe fitter, volunteered as a flight engineer, passed the physical but was then posted as a fitter at RAF Binbrook for six months with 460 Squadron. He was then at RAF Saint Athan to train as a flight engineer, then to RAF Winthorpe Heavy Conversion Unit with an all-Australian aircrew. Harold recollects a crash landing at RAF Woodbridge, followed by attending Lancaster Finishing School at RAF Syerston. He was then posted to 467 Squadron at RAF Waddington. Discusses bombing operations over France V-1 weapons sites, a bomb falling through a wing, and crash landing at RAF Wittering. Harold was eventually posted to 97 Pathfinder Squadron at RAF Coningsby, owing to his array of skills and multiple qualifications. Discusses post war training as radar mechanic, employment at the General Electric Company and reunions with his Australian aircrew.
Spatial Coverage
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France
Germany
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Temporal Coverage
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1942
Language
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eng
460 Squadron
467 Squadron
8 Group
97 Squadron
aircrew
bomb struck
bombing
crash
crewing up
fitter airframe
flight engineer
flight mechanic
forced landing
ground crew
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
mechanics airframe
military ethos
military living conditions
military service conditions
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Binbrook
RAF Coningsby
RAF Halton
RAF St Athan
RAF Syerston
RAF Waddington
RAF Wainfleet
RAF Winthorpe
RAF Wittering
RAF Woodbridge
recruitment
Stirling
training
V-1
V-weapon
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/540/8780/AGilbertAC161013.2.mp3
d34798a44bdedb497b506541d0fc1232
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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Gilbert, Alexander Charles
A C Gilbert
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Gilbert, AC
Description
An account of the resource
21 items. An oral history interview with Squadron Leader Alexander Charles Gilbert DFC (b. 1921, 1336682, 186764 Royal Air Force) his log book, documents and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 9, 514 and 159 Squadrons. He was Awarded the Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur in 2020.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Alexander Gilbert and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-13
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 13th of October 2016 and we’re with Squadron Leader Alexander Gilbert DFC at Cheddington near Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire, and we’re going to talk about his career in the RAF, which was a long one. What do you remember in the earliest recollections then Alex?
AG: What do you mean? Going way, right back?
CB: Right from when you were really young.
AG: Ah, well, my father was a Hansom cab driver in London.
CB: Oh right.
AG: He joined the Army at the outbreak of World War One and served right through. And because he’d been a Hansom cab driver and knew all about horses they, he was assigned to what they called the Rough Riders, looking after horses, taking them across the Channel to France, and training horses and occasionally going down to Spain to purchase more horses and mules that were brought back for service in France. And at the end of the war, he was at this, this re-mount depot as it was called, at Swaythling in Southampton and he stayed there, and of course, he was married at the time. And from there, what could we say? I started school aged five, and I went to an elementary school and I left at fourteen, and then I was training or trying to become something in the art world, and I attended art school in Southampton. And then in November 1940, I volunteered to join the RAF and was called forward for service on the 7th of April 1941 and despatched to Uxbridge, where I spent three or four days being interviewed and processed, sworn in, all that sort of thing, and then assigned to a trade, and I was told I was to be trained as a Flight Mechanic Air Frames. From there, along with others, I proceeded to Blackpool where I carried out my recruit training on Blackpool sands, accommodated in one of the well-known Blackpool boarding houses. The training, as I remember it, lasted about four, four or five weeks. Recruit training and then we were moved to nearby Kirkham to, to carry out the trade training. The flight mechanics course lasted, as I remember, about eight, eight to ten weeks. At the end of the course, we had a final examination and the top third who passed out were retained to carry on to do a fitter’s course. I was in the top third so I stayed behind and completed the two courses, and at the end of it, I was a Group One Tradesman, Fitter 2A as they called them. I then had my, my first posting which was to what had been Exeter Airport, which was now a station that was occupied by a Spitfire squadron. I was only there about four weeks when the squadron was moved to an airfield near London. The air, the air, the ground crew were not required because the airfield that they’d gone to, already had ground crew, so we were dispersed and posted to various stations and I was posted to Calshot. Calshot was a very dreary place, it hadn’t changed, I don’t think, since World War One. The accommodation was pretty grim, I always remember the beds we had were iron plated, sort of, you know bedsteads. Very, very uncomfortable. The working hours, we worked, weekdays, every day, eight hours a day. We also worked weekends, Saturday mornings and Sunday mornings. We had the afternoons off at weekends, but because Calshot was rather isolated, there wasn’t anywhere to go anyway. So altogether it was a place that I, I really did not like at all. Anyway, apart from the work that we had to do, we also did guard duty at night along the Calshot foreshore, because there was the talk at the time about invasion and all this business, so we, we did these guard duties as well as our normal work. A very cold and uncomfortable place in winter time I can assure you, on the Calshot foreshore, very uncomfortable indeed. In early 1942, it was about March I suppose, a letter was pinned on the notice board. It said that the aircraft industry was expanding and there was a shortage of skilled tradesmen. RAF fitters were invited to volunteer for a short secondment to the aircraft industry. I thought to myself this is a way of getting away from Calshot so I volunteered. I didn’t really know what I was getting into actually. They told me I, yeah, I was to report to an office in Oxford, which I did. When I arrived there they said you will be working at the Cowley Motor Works. It was no longer a motor works of course, they were turning out parts for Lancaster aircraft, and they said, ‘You will work on permanent nightshift’. You start at 8 o’clock in the evening and you worked until 6 o’clock the next morning, with an hour’s break at night, and that was the routine. They gave me an address to go to where I would be accommodated. It was a house in the backstreets of Oxford that was owned by a young couple in their early thirties I suppose, and it was obvious from the start that they resented having a lodger, so there was no welcome at all. The woman took me up to what was to be my room, which had a bed, a table and a chair and that was it. It was a very depressing place altogether. I spent the night there, and the next morning, I had the same reception from this couple, not a friendly attitude at all, so I waited till they’d gone to work, packed my small bag and went back to the office I’d first reported to. The woman I saw, I explained to her about this place and I said, ‘I’m not going to stay there’, I said, ‘I am not going to stay in that place. Can you give me a new address? Another address to go to?’ So she said, ‘Yes, I’ll do that’. She said, ‘Here’s an address in Cowley’. I went there, a very nice street, the house very nice. Nice, nice couple, middle aged couple. The husband worked as a chef at the Randolph Hotel in Oxford. She showed me to my room, very pleasant and comfortable, so that’s where I was whilst I worked at Cowley. The next day I reported to the Cowley Works to start work. The chap I saw said, ‘You will be working with a team of four’, there was already four there, ‘You’ll be, you’ll be number five, working with this team producing spars for the fuselage of Lancaster aircraft’. The four chaps turned out all to be Welshmen, they all came from the same place. They all knew one another well and I was taken into the team and we all got on quite well. That was it for the next five months or so. Then in early September, I received a letter to say that I was to be recalled and to report to Scampton, RAF Scampton, which I duly did, and on arrival at Scampton, I was told I was posted to 49 Bomber Squadron to work on Lancaster aircraft. I worked, I was on, on 49 Squadron through the winter of ’42/43, then in early ’43, I suppose it was about March time, a further letter appeared on a noticeboard to say that more and more four engine bomber squadrons were being formed, and there was a requirement for flight engineers, so I volunteered. At the time, there was no flight engineer training course and they said you would receive your training at the Rolls Royce works at Derby, and you would do a two week course on the Merlin engine and that would be it, which I did. After that, I was promoted to the rank of sergeant, given my flight engineer brevet, and then moved to Morton Hall where I would be crewed up. I got to Morton Hall and found that there were crews already there. There was the pilot, navigator, bomb aimer, wireless operator and the two air gunners and now they wanted a flight engineer. The way we were crewed up was the other engineers and myself were put in to a hut and told to line up along one wall. The pilots then came in and lined themselves up on the opposite wall, and the procedure was that the pilot would look across at the engineers, look at one that he thought would, would be ok and ask him, and I was approached by a chap called Colin Payne who said to me, ‘How would you like to join my crew?’ And I said, ‘Yes please. I would’, because I liked the look of him, and then he took me outside to introduce me to the other crew members and that was it. We were then moved to Winthorpe to do our conversion course on the Lancaster, which we did, and from there, we had our first operational posting and we were posted to 9 Squadron at Bardney. While we were there, we did ten operations, including the three to Hamburg [pause]. At the time the squadrons, the Stirling squadrons in 3 Group were being converted to Lancasters, and new squadrons were starting to be formed. We were told that a new squadron was being formed at Foulsham, and was to be called 514 Squadron. It appears that they wanted two or three experienced crews to start the squadron off and then new crews would be added. So we duly reported to Foulsham where we did four operations with the newly formed 514 Squadron. The last of the four operations was to Berlin and when we were briefed, we were told that when we completed the operation, ‘You will not be returning to Foulsham. You will fly straight to Waterbeach’, which was to be the home of 514 Squadron, which was a rather odd thing to do because we had our belongings and all that sort of thing, and in, somebody wrote up afterwards what this was all about and there’s the letter there. Is that the one? The top one. “Get on your bike” or something, it says.
CB: “Posted via Berlin. Take [take] your bike”.
AG: That’s it. “Take your bike”, yeah. Yeah. I mean, this was the thing which you normally, they would never allow you to take anything.
CB: No.
AG: But we took all our stuff with us to Berlin and then to Waterbeach.
CB: Because you were moving airfield.
AG: That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so that was that. So we arrived at Waterbeach, whilst we were at Waterbeach, we did another ten operations. So, so far we’d done ten at Bardney, ten at Waterbeach and I had done, and the four at Foulsham, a total of twenty four. The crew actually had done twenty five, there was one operation that I couldn’t go on because I had developed a nasty quinsy in my throat, and I couldn’t fly for three or four days, so I did one less operation than the rest of the crew. However, when they’d done twenty five and I’d done twenty four, we were then told that you had completed your first tour. Now this was five short of the normal thirty operations. The reason for this, I don’t know, whether it was because of the fourteen operations we’d done with 514 Squadron, ten of them had been to Berlin. Ten. Whether it was because of that, I don’t know but they said, ‘You have completed your first tour’ [pause]. The crew were then dispersed, of course, and posted to various training units. I stayed with Colin and we were posted as instructors to Number 3 LFS at Feltwell [pause], where we were until the, towards the end of the year. Well, we were, this was 1944, Colin said to me, ‘How would you like to go back on operations?’ I said, ‘Well I don’t mind’, so he said, ‘We will be posted to 149 Squadron at Methwold’, he said, ‘And I’ll try and contact some of the old crew members and ask them to join us’. He managed to contact the wireless operator and the rear gunner, and they duly arrived to join us at Methwold. We then picked up a new navigator, a new bomb aimer and a new gunner to replace the Australian. The Australian, by the way, was given a choice, having completed a tour of operations, either to stay in England or to go home to Australia, and he elected to go home. Now, among the operations we did with 149, we did the Dresden operation. We went to Dresden and we also did two Manna operations, dropping food. In our case, we dropped food to people in Rotterdam and The Hague [pause], and that was shortly before the war ended. At the end of the war, we started to get demobbed. I had been offered a four year extension, I didn’t know what I was going to do, by the way. I was married by that time, and my wife Dorothy had been a WAAF MT driver at Waterbeach. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, and as I was offered this four year extension of service, I thought, I’ll take it and then make up my mind later about my future career or whatever. Anyway, I took the four year extension of service, stayed with the squadron until it was disbanded in January 1948, but during that time we did various exercises. We had a three, three, three or four day detachment to Trondheim in Norway, we did a trip to Juvincourt to bring back these chaps who’d been in the Army and been prisoners of war. We had an attachment to Gatow in Berlin, we did a tour of Germany by air, looking at some of the stations that we had bombed, some of the towns that we had bombed to see what it all looked like, and we had this trip to Pomigliano in Italy, and we had this two week detachment in the Canal Zone [pause]. And then, when the squadron was finally disbanded, there was no requirement, of course, for flight engineers, bomb aimers, air gunners or anything like that. The only aircrew they wanted to retain, were pilots and navigators, so I was transferred from the GD branch to the secretarial branch [pause]. I had two short, short postings, one to Watton and one to Bletchley Park which, at that time was the headquarters of Central Signals Area. You weren’t allowed in the house at that time, everything was all locked up and no one ever spoke about what, what was done at Bletchley during the war. No one ever said a word about it. One of the jobs I had to do whilst I was at Bletchley was opening the mail that came in, and one morning I opened the mail, opened this post gram, and found that I was posted to Hong Kong and I was posted to 367 Signals Unit, which was a Y station on Hong Kong Island. I travelled to Hong Kong by way of Singapore, on the troop ship Orbita, which took some five weeks to get to Singapore. I spent three of four days in Singapore and then boarded a Dakota aircraft to get to Hong Kong. We stopped on the way at Saigon to refuel and have something to eat, and the whole trip took eight and a half hours in this Dakota, and then arrived in Hong Kong. At the time, it was at the time that Chairman Mao was winning the war in China and people were flooding in to Hong Kong. Rich Chinese people who could afford anything, and any spare accommodation in Hong Kong was taken up by these people. So in our case, we were, I was occupied in the mess at Kai Tak, and it was a question of applying to get my wife to come and join me, which would take some time, and you just went on the married quarters waiting list, and again there were very few married quarters in Hong Kong, so you just had to wait a long time to get one. Anyway, my wife arrived in September with our newly born young girl, Janet, my daughter, and we were accommodated, like a lot of others, in one room in a hotel. Not, again, not very comfortable, waiting to be allocated a married quarter, but anyway, things in this hotel, it was hot, humid, again terribly uncomfortable, and every day I used to buy the China News, news, newspaper and see if there was any sort of accommodation being advertised. One day I bought the paper, and there was an advert in there which said there was an English family who worked in Hong Kong going home on leave, and their flat would be available. Offers were asked for, so I wrote, I sat down and wrote a letter which brought tears to the eyes of anyone who read it, and posted it off to this man called Alex MacLeod, who owned this flat. A couple of days later, he rang me up at the hotel and he said could I come over and have a chat with him and his wife, so Dorothy and I went across to the island, because our hotel was located in Kowloon on the mainland, and he took me up to the flat, introduced me to Joan, his wife, and after a short conversation they said, ‘We’re going to offer you the flat’. So we moved out of the hotel and into this flat, which we occupied for about two months whilst they were away in England. When they were due back, strangely enough, I rose to the top of the married quarters list and was offered a married quarter, so we moved in to the quarter and there we stayed until I completed my tour in Hong Kong in September 1953 [pause].
CB: We’ll just pause there for a mo.
AG: Do you want to go on there because we were now –?
CB: Yeah. Give you a –
[Recording paused]
CB: Ok.
AG: Right.
CB: So you’re in Hong Kong.
AG: In Hong Kong, completed nearly three years in Hong Kong, and when I came home, I was posted to 3513 FCU, Fighter Control Unit in Devonport as adjutant of the unit. We had an operational outstation at Hope Cove with a small staff at Hope Cove and [pause], I’m trying to get my thoughts right here. I completed a tour at 3513 and was then posted to 24 Group on the P staff. This was in Lincolnshire and –
CB: So what was P staff?
AG: P staff. P2 was Postings –
CB: Right.
AG: Postings of officers [pause]. I’d been there a short time and it was decided that the P staffs at Groups headquarters would be, would be closed down and they were no longer required, and so I was then posted to our headquarters, Technical Training Command at Brampton, again on the P staff [pause]. And whilst I was there my, I was then granted a permanent commission on the general list [pause]. From then I had various postings, I had two and a half years at SHAEF headquarters in Fontainebleau in France.
CB: What did you do there?
AG: I was the adjutant of the RAF support unit. Each of the nationalities at Fontainebleau, there were the British, the Americans, Canadians, French of course, they each had their own support staff and I was the adjutant of the RAF support staff [pause]. After that, my next posting was as recruiting officer at Brighton [pause], from there, I was posted to Headquarters Transport Command at Upavon, where I was the P1 staff officer responsible for courts martial boards of enquiry and all that sort of thing. I was there for only a few months when I was promoted to Squadron Leader and posted to the record office at Barnwood in Gloucester, where I was on the staff of the air commodore, the AOC [pause]. I did just over two years there and then I was posted to Aden on a twelve month unaccompanied tour of Aden. Whilst I was in Aden, they had a peculiar arrangement in Aden at the time. It was nearing the time when we were planning to get out of Aden anyway, to leave it and they had what they called continuity posts, which was a posting of two and a half years where you could be accompanied by your wife and family. A non-continuity post was a twelve month unaccompanied tour post which I, which I was in. Again, Aden, a dreadful place, we should have got out of Aden years ago but it wasn’t until 1967 that we finally left. I completed the twelve month unaccompanied tour, and on arrival back at the UK, was posted to Headquarters Strike Command at High Wycombe where I was on the aug staff [pause]. From there, I was posted to the Air Ministry on the staff of the director of manning. I did three and a half years at Adastral House in Holborn, which was part of the Air Ministry at the time. Nearing the end of my service, I had a final posting to Stanmore Park, where I was the deputy CO of Stanmore Park and that was my final posting, having then completed thirty five years in the service [pause]. Knowing that I was to be, leave the service in the October 1976, I had already started to formulate what I was going to do when I left the service, and I had applied for a job with the University of Buckingham, which I got. They had an offshoot of the University at Chalfont St Giles. By this time, of course, we’d bought this house in Cheddington, and the journey between here and Chalfont St Giles was twenty two miles. Anyway, which I had to do every day but I thought, well I’d got the job, and it seemed quite a good job looking after the admin side of the University of Buckingham at Chalfont. I had been interviewed for the job along with three others. They’d had a large number of applications to get this job, but anyway, there was three others and myself who were interviewed for this job. We spent a day at Chalfont, the morning we spent touring the place, and in the afternoon, the interviews were carried out, and the interview for each one of us lasted about three quarters of an hour or so, and we sat there then waiting to see who’d got the job, and at the end of the afternoon, the Vice Chancellor came in and said, ‘We’ve decided to give the job to Squadron Leader Gilbert’. So I thought, right. That was it. Now, this was before I had left the service. He said, ‘We will keep the job open for you until you leave the service in October’ [pause]. Shortly before I retired, I was in my office at, at Stanmore Park and I had a phone call from the Air Ministry, and they said, ‘We notice that you live near Halton’, they said, ‘Would you be interested in a retired officer job at Halton? The job would be for ten years after you leave the service and’, they said, ‘You’ll have to be interviewed of course, at Headquarters Air Cadets’. And I said, ‘Well, I’ll go there. I’m quite interested to find out what it’s all about’. So I, I went to Headquarters Air Cadets for this interview along, along with a number of others, and again at the end of the afternoon, the group captain, who was in charge of the interview board, came and said, ‘We’ve decided to offer the job to Squadron Leader Gilbert’. So I thought, right, I’ve got two jobs now. I’ve got the offer of a job at Halton and the job at Chalfont St Giles, and I thought, well to be very honest, Halton is quite close here, I would know all the routine of the service. I would still be in uniform as a squadron leader at Halton for ten years secure, secure employment, so I thought, well I will have to try, try and take this job. So I rang the Vice Chancellor at Chalfont and said, ‘Could I come down and see you?’ Which I did. I went down to him and explained what it was all about and I said, ‘To be quite honest, this job at Halton, I really know all about it. I know the routine of the service, it’s quite near my home and I feel that really, I ought to take this job’. He said, ‘I quite understand’, he said, ‘We will find somebody else’, and he said, ‘I wish you the best of luck’. So I started at Halton. I was the wing admin officer of Herts and Bucks Wing, Air Training Corps, and my job was taking care of all the ATC squadrons in Hertfordshire and in Bucks, and I completed that job for ten years. And that, I think, is the end of it.
CB: You decided to retire completely at age sixty five.
AG: At sixty five, I thought I have done enough. I have never been unemployed and I thought I’d, I’d done quite enough and that’s it.
CB: Very good. Let’s have a break.
[Recording paused]
CB: Geoff, thanks, sorry Alex. Thanks very much for all that stuff. What I want to do is run through some individual items. One of the things we touched on was Manna.
AG: Yeah.
CB: Now, this is quite important in a lot of ways, so could you just tell us how did you get involved in that and what, what happened and how did you feel?
AG: Well on the, towards the end of the war, we were told that the people in Holland were starving and a lot were dying. In fact, I was told eventually that twenty thousand Dutch people died of starvation, so we were told that we were to take part in what we was called Operation Manna. The word comes, you probably know –
CB: From heaven.
AG: The word comes from the bible, and when the Israelites and Moses were driven out of Egypt, they were starving and Moses prayed for them to get food, and it appears that a heavy dew descended on the land. This dew was sweet tasting and the Israelites were able to eat this stuff and so survive. And that is where, and Moses said, ‘This is Manna from heaven’, and that’s the way it came about. We did two food drops, one to Rotterdam, one to the Hague, flew to Holland with bomb bay laden with food and as we came in, in to the park at low level and dropped the food the people who’d gathered there all started shouting and cheering and all the rest of it. It was a sight that I will always remember, and it made us feel that we’d done something that was really worthwhile and that is the Manna story as far as I’m concerned.
CB: Then when you got back? So, you then got back and then what?
AG: Well got back and as I say, we did the two, two trips and then we just carried on with normal squadron duties.
CB: Right.
AG: But this happened, people don’t seem to realise that these drops took place while the war was still on. The Germans had agreed that they would not interfere with the Operation Manna.
CB: And what height and speed did you do this?
AG: We came in about five hundred feet, and the food was all in sacks on a wooden sort of arrangement. A pallet as they called it, a wooden pallet, and the food was all in sacks and the pallet was just dropped on to the park.
CB: A moving experience.
AG: Yeah. Very much so. Very much so. Never forget these people.
CB: No.
AG: Who were all so pleased to see us.
CB: And after the war did you ever go to Holland?
AG: No. No. No. Oh I went, when I was at Fontainebleau.
CB: Oh you did?
AG: I used to go, go up there occasionally. Oh yes. Yeah.
CB: Right.
AG: Yeah.
CB: Thank you.
[Recording paused]
CB: Now we’re just going on to your role as a flight engineer, because the flight engineer’s activities were actually quite busy. If we start with take-off, could you describe the take-off process and how the flight engineer gets involved in that, and what he does?
AG: Well at take-off, we go down the runway, the pilot takes the aircraft in to the air, and as he does so, the flight engineer gets the undercarriage up and adjusts the flaps, and that’s, that’s about it until you’re up. And er –
CB: But in fact, you take over the throttles at an early stage, so can you just describe that?
AG: And, and, yes, once you’re airborne at flying height, then you adjust the throttles to whatever speed, you know, the pilot wants, and the bombing height of course was between eighteen and twenty thousand feet each time. And that was it. Most of the trips took about four and a half to five hours, but of course, a trip like Dresden, we were airborne for eight and a half hours, and we went in across Germany but when we came out, we went north and flew over Denmark and came home, home that way.
CB: Right. So when you’re flying as an engineer, what do you do?
AG: Well, you’re doing really the log more than anything and anything else the pilots wants you to do, but normally, I mean, the whole crew would settle down really, and you were just airborne hoping you wouldn’t be attacked by a night fighter.
CB: Yeah. So when you fill in the log, what are you filling in and with what frequency?
AG: The frequency was about every half hour or so and you would put in what you thought was the fuel consumption at the time.
CB: So how –
AG: That sort of thing. Yes.
CB: How do you work out the transfer of fuel and what do you do?
AG: Yes. Well, you know that you’re on, say, a particular tank for a certain time and that it was time to transfer or refill that tank or whatever and you would do. It didn’t happen all that often of course, I forget now how many, how many petrol tanks there were on the Lancaster, I think it was two to three at each wing, something like that. I forget those details now, it’s too long ago and regrettably, all the booklets I had on the Lancaster I kept for many years, but with all my travels, eventually they were all discarded.
CB: I’ve got a pilot –
AG: Regrettably.
CB: I’ve got a –
AG: My daughter always swears at me, she says, ‘you should have kept all that stuff, Dad’.
CB: Yeah.
AG: You should have kept it all. Well I know that is true now but hindsight is all very well, isn’t it?
CB: Well perhaps it wasn’t so important then. I’ve got a –
AG: That’s right. Yeah.
CB: I’ve got a pilot’s notes, I’ll lend it to you.
AG: That’s right. Yeah. Well I had all the notes on the Lancaster, I could tell you all about it.
CB: Yeah.
AG: Yes. Yeah.
CB: Now, why are you moving fuel?
AG: Because of weight, weight really, to get an evenly balanced aircraft.
CB: So you –
AG: That’s the only, only reason I can recall.
CB: So you’re moving it from the outer tanks to the inner ones, are you?
AG: That’s right, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
CB: So we finish the sortie and you’re coming in to land. What does the, what’s the tasks, the role of the flight engineer?
AG: Well once we’re on the circuit and we were called in, then it was undercarriage down and just standing by the pilot, and that was it really, making any engine adjustment as we came in. That was all. Yeah.
CB: So back on the stage of taking off, at what point and how do you balance the engines? Synchronise the engines.
AG: Once you’d got to a certain height.
CB: Right.
AG: Once you’d got to a certain height, yeah. Yeah.
CB: And the purpose of that is?
AG: Well you stayed on that, on that engine arrangement whilst, you know, whilst you were in flight. You could have been on that for some time.
CB: But –
AG: Some time without any change. You weren’t constantly changing. I mean, let’s be honest about it, with these operations, a lot of the time, a lot of the crew were doing nothing. Nothing. I mean the bomb aimer, he was doing nothing down in the front. The ones who were working the hardest were the pilot and the navigator. The wireless operator wasn’t allowed to transmit whilst you were over Germany, and the two gunners were just sat there, hoping that the aircraft wouldn’t be attacked. So there were long periods of inactivity let’s say, on the part of a lot of the crew.
CB: So you did a complete tour and other sorties as well.
AG: Yeah.
CB: How reliable was the aircraft and what sort of snags did you come up against?
AG: The aircraft was very reliable because your ground crew were the same people. You had the same engine fitter, the same air frame chap and the same armourer who looked after your aircraft. So after an operation, normally, you would go down to the flight lines, and they would say, ‘We’ve checked everything over. Will you give it an air test?’ So just Colin and I would clamber aboard the aircraft, go up for about twenty minutes, make sure that everything was working all right and land, and that was the air test after they’d serviced the aircraft, and that used to happen practically every time. Yeah.
CB: Now going back to the beginning of your career, in volunteering to join the forces, there was basically an option between the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. What prompted you to make the decision you did?
AG: I just didn’t want to join the Army or the Navy, and I thought I want to join, join the Air Force and that was it.
CB: To what extent did the Air Forces activities in the early part of the war, inspire people of your age? So, Battle of Britain, that sort of thing?
AG: Oh well, yes. You see our home was in Southampton, and out of interest, while I was training on that flight mechanics course at Kirkham, I had a phone call from my sister who said, ‘Last night, our house was destroyed’. It was bombed. She said, ‘We’re all alright, Dad and Mum because we were in an air raid shelter nearby, a service shelter and so we’re all alright’. And when I was in, told my flight commander, he said, ‘So you’re family are ok, are they? Nobody’s injured. No?’ I said, ‘No’. He said, ‘Then we can’t spare you any time off to go home’, so that was that. But in Southampton, before I joined the Air Force of course, the Battle of Britain was going on. The first RAF fighter pilot to get the VC got it over Southampton.
CB: Nicholson.
AG: Nicholson. And he was the first one and I saw him come down.
CB: Did you really?
AG: And he landed near where I lived, yeah, and it was all that sort of thing that inspired one. Oh yes, you know, join the RAF. That’s, that’s, that’s the place to join.
CB: Exciting.
AG: Exciting. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, just across the water, the Itchen, was the Supermarine Works.
CB: In the Isle of Wight.
AG: Was the first place to build the Spitfire aircraft, because the Spitfire, when the trials took place before the war, took place at Eastleigh Airport near Southampton.
CB: Yeah.
AG: Yeah. So, and of course, the man who invented the Spitfire, RJ Mitchell, lived in Southampton at the time. In fact, there’s the plaque on the house now where he lived.
CB: What was the reaction of your parents to the destruction of their home?
AG: Ahh well, they, it was just one of the, I mean, this was happening all the time during the war and they rapidly found a place nearby. A house that they rented for the rest of the war.
CB: But they’d owned their own home before.
AG: No, it was a council house.
CB: Oh, was it? Right.
AG: It was a council, yes, it was a council house, and so that was that. So they rented this place whilst the war was on, and after the war, they rebuilt the council house where they’d lived and they went back to the same spot in a new house.
CB: Did they really?
AG: Yeah.
CB: And what about your sister’s reaction?
AG: [laughs] Well, well, you know it was all sorts of things. Strange things happening during the war and you just accepted it and, you see, you know in Southampton, I forget how many people were killed, between four and five hundred in air raids, and well this was what was going on. People, you know, in those days really didn’t complain as much as they complain today.
CB: Your sister is older than you or younger?
AG: Older.
CB: Older.
AG: Older. Yes.
CB: So did she have -?
AG: She, she, she, she, she was married and they lived in rooms in Southampton, because again, this question of accommodation, you know, wasn’t easy. Yes. And they lived in two rooms in Southampton.
CB: Was there a requirement by the government that people should give up space for people to live with them, because of the shortage of housing, or how did it work?
AG: I didn’t ever hear that was actually pressed all that much. No, no I didn’t, I didn’t. The only other thing I, I remember about the house being destroyed, was some of my belongings in it of course, and there was a compensation scheme and I got sixteen pounds compensation for the loss of my belongings in that.
CB: Right.
AG: When, when that happened.
CB: How did you feel about that?
AG: Sixteen. Well I thought, this isn’t much but in those days, again, sixteen pounds wasn’t bad.
CB: No.
AG: Wasn’t bad, no, so that was it.
CB: Changing now to when you joined the RAF and started your technical training.
AG: Yeah.
CB: How did that go? How was it set out, mapped out as a course and what did you do in the course?
AG: Well it, for each subject that you were taught, they had corporals as instructors, and you just attended this classroom and on a particular day or week they, you were, well they would talk about air frames or, or whatever. Yeah. I can’t, to be honest, I can’t remember a great deal about that.
CB: No.
AG: It was just that you attended class every day and that was it. Yes. Yeah.
CB: And then you went on to the more advanced operate, as a mechanics course.
AG: Yes. The –
CB: So how different was that?
AG: The fitter’s course was more advanced.
CB: Right.
AG: Yes, and again the detail, after seventy five years, I cannot remember.
CB: No.
AG: But we did this advanced fitter’s course and that lasted another six weeks or so, so altogether I was at Kirkham –
CB: Yeah.
AG: You know, for quite some time, doing the two courses.
CB: Yeah. Now when you were at Calshot then, on the board, a notice appeared saying they were looking for aircrew, what prompted you to –?
AG: No. At Calshot, they were looking for people to volunteer to work in the aircraft industry.
CB: Ah, that was the aircraft industry.
AG: That was the aircraft industry.
CB: Right. Ok.
AG: That’s right. Yes.
CB: So what prompted you to do that?
AG: Well I saw it as a way of getting out of Calshot.
CB: Yes.
AG: To be quite honest, I thought I’ll get away from this dreary place but I didn’t realise what I was getting in to, because the work in the aircraft industry was jolly hard. And long hours, long hours. I mean, 8 o’clock in the evening till 6 o’clock the next morning with an hour’s break in the middle of the night, and that was –
[phone ringing]
AG: Ah –
CB: Stop for a mo.
[Recording paused]
AG: Is that yours?
CB: No, it’s yours.
AG: That was, that was, that was as I said, I didn’t –
CB: This was at Cowley.
AG: I didn’t know what I‘d let myself in for.
CB: No.
AG: But if I’d, if I’d have known, I probably wouldn’t have volunteered.
CB: Yes.
AG: But however yeah, well it was because it was long hours.
CB: Yeah.
AG: And it was every night of the week except one. We had one night off at the end of the week.
CB: So, so what exactly were you making that was part of the Lancaster?
AG: These spars for the fuselage.
CB: Right.
AG: Yeah.
CB: So they’re effectively the circles of structure that hold the –
AG: That’s right.
CB: Skin together.
AG: Yeah. That hold the skin together. That’s it.
CB: Right.
AG: That was, yeah, yeah, along with these four Welshmen.
CB: But you got on well together so that was good.
AG: Oh we got along well together. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
CB: So then you mentioned that you were recalled by the RAF to go back to a, to the front line as it were.
AG: Yeah.
CB: And you went to 49 Squadron. What did you do?
AG: Well I went to Scampton first.
CB: Scampton. What did you do there?
AG: Which was the base station.
CB: Yeah.
AG: As they called it.
CB: Ok.
AG: Yeah.
CB: Scampton so –
AG: One of the satellites was 49 Bomber Squadron.
CB: Right.
AG: And that’s where I went and –
CB: Doing what?
AG: Working on Lancasters.
CB: Right. What sort of things were you doing on the Lancaster?
AG: Well anything that needed doing to the fuselage or whatever, yeah, anything.
CB: How did the ground crews on the front line squadrons react to damage to the aircraft from flak and so on?
AG: Well, again, people just got on with it, you know. If there was damage, you just repaired it and that was it. Yeah.
CB: How did, how did you put patches on?
AG: Oh well with, with rivets or whatever, but again, getting into the detail of all this now, Chris, I’m afraid I can’t –
CB: That’s ok.
AG: I can’t remember it all.
CB: It’s ok. It’s simply that on some planes that had fabric.
AG: Oh yes, yeah, but certainly –
CB: So that I’m drawing a –
AG: But certainly not the –
CB: Differentiation.
AG: Lancaster.
CB: No.
AG: No.
CB: No.
AG: No.
CB: Ok. So there you are, working on the ground as a rigger.
AG: As a fitter.
CB: Fitter –
AG: Fitter.
CB: I should say.
AG: Fitter. Fitter Group 1 tradesman. Yes.
CB: Group 1 tradesman, and at that point, another letter appears inviting you to –
AG: At that point, another letter appears calling for volunteers.
CB: Yeah.
AG: To become flight engineers.
CB: What attracted you to that prospect?
AG: Well, I thought, well that sounds alright. Yeah. Yeah. I’ll give that a go. So I volunteered and as I say, after a very short interview, they said, ‘Right. There is no training course at the moment, at the present time for flight engineers, but you will do a two week training course at the Rolls Royce Works at Derby’, and that’s where I went.
CB: And that’s where you did your engine training.
AG: And I did on the Merlin engine. Price. Predominantly they talked about the Merlin engine.
CB: Yeah.
AG: And the engine handling characteristics and all this sort of thing. Yeah. That was quite good there, Derby, I mean two weeks wasn’t a long time really. It wasn’t a long training course, was it?
CB: No.
AG: But at the end of it, they said, ‘You’re now a sergeant, here’s your brevet’, and that’s it and, ‘You will be assigned to a crew’.
CB: So this officer selects you at the Heavy Conversion Unit did he?
AG: At, at the squadron.
CB: Yeah.
AG: At the squadron.
CB: At the squadron.
AG: You were just, you had this short interview.
CB: Straight to the squadron.
AG: A very short interview.
CB: ‘Cause they didn’t have a –
AG: Yes.
CB: Heavy Conversion Unit then.
AG: No. No.
CB: No.
AG: A short interview.
CB: Right.
AG: Whilst you were on the squadron
CB: Yeah.
AG: And then they said, ‘Right. You’re, yeah, we’ll take you as a flight engineer, and you’ll do your training at Derby’.
CB: Yeah.
AG: And that was it.
CB: So you join the squadron, you get in the aircraft. Now how do you feel about your situation?
AG: Once we’d started operations you mean?
CB: Yes.
AG: Ah. I think if you speak to anyone who’s done operations during the war, the first operation, you weren’t worried at all about it because you didn’t know anything about it, and off you went and you quickly, you quickly found out what it was all about, and it was thereafter that you felt a bit twingy at times. Yes. But not on the first operation because you didn’t know anything about it, about operations but thereafter, well. And of course, the whole thing about operations was luck. It was nothing to do with skill or anything else, it was pure luck if you got through a tour of operations. On 514, we were the first crew to complete a tour of operations. The first one.
CB: Right. Thank you.
[Recording paused]
AG: We were very lucky as I say.
CB: So, on, on operations then, these can last anything up to eight hours.
AG: Yeah.
CB: You did a whole tour and more.
AG: Yeah.
CB: So how would you describe the sort, the operations you went on? Were they eventful or quiet or what were they?
AG: No. The, to start with, the operations on Hamburg if you remember, there were three operations over a period of four days and we did three of the, we did all three of the four.
CB: Right.
AG: And after the first one, then a couple of days later, or perhaps it was the next night we went out again, but according to the logbook, you can see by the logbook, when you were a hundred miles away, you saw the light in the air, and that was Hamburg burning, and then you got near and you did your sortie and you did it. And then, as I say, we did three to Hamburg, three, three trips to Hamburg. Certainly you remember that well enough and –
CB: What was the reaction of the crew to that?
AG: Well, you know, they [laughs], we just thought, well there you are. In fact, in the logbook too, there’s the piece of paper which is a “News of the World” report who interviewed us. In the logbook.
CB: Yes.
AG: In the back there.
CB: Yeah.
AG: Somewhere. And that was after one of the Berlin trips, and I said to them, I said to this reporter at the time, ‘After the war, I’d like to go to Berlin and tour around to see what it looks like’, and it’s in the newspaper report.
CB: Right. So was it just a curiosity or –?
AG: Curiosity.
CB: Yeah.
CB: Yes. Yeah.
CB: To know how it had worked.
AG: That’s right.
CB: This, this article says, “Blood red pall –
AG: Yeah.
CB: Over the heart of Nazi Germany”. Right.
AG: Yeah.
CB: Ok.
AG: Yeah.
CB: And did you get attacked on any occasions or how did that work?
AG: No. No. Never, never got attacked. Never. No.
CB: So the gunners were keeping an eye out.
AG: The gunner was keeping an eye out, yeah, poor old Twinny in the, in the, the rear gunner, he often used to get off the aircraft with frost on his moustache. He was the only one who had a moustache and he had the frost on the moustache. It must have been pretty, pretty grim for him.
CB: Yeah.
AG: Yeah. Especially when the flight was eight, eight, we, as I say, the longest flight was the Dresden one. That was eight and a half hours, but then there was the Nuremberg one which was quite a long flight, and the Munich one was a very long flight. So there were quite, quite a few long flights where poor old Twinny was freezing in the back.
CB: The Nurem –
AG: There was supposed to be some sort of heating but it’s quite often it wasn’t working. It didn’t work anyway. There you are.
CB: The Nuremberg one was clear weather and the loss rate was very high. What do you remember particularly about that?
AG: I remember that very, a great deal, the loss rate of aircraft was nearly a hundred. Nearly a hundred aircraft and so you’ll, you know, well there again, I thought, good God, you know. What are we doing, doing this? But there you are, but that was, that was the worst night of the war for the, for Bomber Command. Yeah.
CB: In what way did you feel –?
AG: Well because of the, the loss rate.
CB: Did you see bombers go down? Other bombers.
AG: At times, at times, at times you did, ‘cause over the target, you were sort of going in there about eighteen, eighteen to twenty thousand feet, but the German night fighters would fly above you and drop what they called candle flares, and these things slowly floated down and lit up the whole area.
CB: With a view to enabling them to see.
AG: With a view, with a view to them picking out the aircraft to attack.
CB: Right.
AG: And you were lucky that you weren’t attacked. Yeah. And again, the bombing run was the hair raising bit, because you came in and you had to go straight and level over the target so the bomb aimer could put his sights right and drop the bombs, but that again, was the hair raising bit, that bit where you had to go the same height for about three or four minutes.
CB: And then –
AG: Over the target.
CB: After the bomb release you still had to go straight and level.
AG: After the –
CB: To take the picture.
AG: Yeah. That’s right and then of course you got out as quickly as you could. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Always one way? Predictably always left or always right or what was it?
AG: Not always one way. Normally straight out and away, but I know the thought at the time was let’s get the hell out of here but again, you had to do your job.
CB: Yeah.
AG: And do that bombing run correctly.
CB: Yes. So you talked about Munich, what was partic, apart from the distance, what was particularly memorable about that.
AG: Again, I can’t, well, well no, I don’t. We just went to Munich, did the operation and that was it. Yeah.
CB: And then you mentioned Dresden. What’s memorable about Dresden?
AG: Dresden, I remember Dresden quite well because there was a lot of cloud over Dresden. A lot of cloud.
CB: At your height.
AG: At, at, at yes, well and below us, cloud below us. Yes, cloud below us. I do remember that quite, quite well, but again, we did the bombing run and of course, as you say, as you know with the bombing run, you were aiming your bombs at the Pathfinder markers.
CB: Yes.
AG: Yes. You know.
CB: Were they clearly visible?
AG: Yes. The red or the green markers and you were told at the briefing which ones to go for.
CB: Ah, right.
AG: To aim the bombs at.
CB: And on occasions did the, depending on where you were in the bombing stream, did the markers become obliterated by the fires and the smoke?
AG: Oh yes, yes, well they, yeah, that could happen quite easily. Yes, oh yes. The Pathfinders could drop the markers but then the fires would overcome them. Yes. That –
CB: And did they re-mark?
AG: No. Well, you heard of tales that they remarked, you know. You heard of Guy Gibson and how brave he was at doing this, and they used to hover around the target for some time but there you are. Yeah.
CB: So thinking of the war in total, what was the most memorable point in your perspective?
AG: Memorable points about the war. To start with getting away from Calshot was quite memorable I must say, working at the Cowley works was quite memorable. The Manna operation was, I suppose, one of the most memorable because to see the way that those people reacted when you dropped the food. I guess that was one of the most memorable.
CB: Their appreciation.
AG: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the way, the way they all responded when the thing hit the ground, you could tell. There was cheering and shouting and all waving their arms and all this business. Yeah.
CB: And –
AG: I remember that very well.
CB: Yes.
AG: Yeah.
CB: So when you got back from a sortie, there was always a de-brief. What was the de-brief after Manna flights?
AG: Well nothing very much, they just wanted to know whether the thing had gone, you know, because there wasn’t any hindrance as there would have been on an operation, a proper bombing operation. I mean, everything was there, quiet and you just came in to the park quietly and you did your drop. There was no interference from anybody. As I say the Germans had agreed that they would not interfere with Manna.
CB: And did you make the drop of the food at a reduced speed or the normal speed?
AG: No. At reduced speed, reduced speed. Yeah.
CB: To what?
AG: Yeah. Well I forget, but we reduced it so we were above stalling height, you know. To make the drop. If you were flying in too fast, you might, you might not drop it on the park, you might drop it on somebody’s house, so you reduced the speed coming in. Definitely, yes. Above stalling height.
CB: Good. Thank you.
[Recording paused]
AG: I forget where we’d been.
CB: Now one of the challenges in the bombing war was getting back to the airfield.
AG: That’s it.
CB: And the British weather with fog.
AG: Yeah.
CB: Was a pain.
AG: Yeah.
CB: So how did you deal with that?
AG: Yeah. Yeah. Well as I say, we were, we were, we were quite fortunate really but there was one time when we came back and there was this fog, and it was a question of, this fog was going to hang around for some time so FIDO came into operation each side of the runway, you know, these flames and things, so we landed that way. It only happened once.
CB: So it was a popular airfield that day.
AG: Yes [laughs]. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Because not many airfields had Fido, did they?
AG: No. No. No. No. FIDO.
CB: Right.
AG: Yeah.
[Recording paused]
CB: I forgot to ask you Alex, whether you had any links and what they were with the American Air Force or Army Air Force as it was.
AG: No.
CB: In those days.
AG: Nothing. Never. No.
CB: But their aircraft –
AG: No links whatsoever.
CB: No.
AG: No.
CB: But their aircraft, the Flying Fortress. What did you do there?
AG: What? Well he just took us up.
CB: So, so you went somewhere where you, what did you do? You flew somewhere.
AG: We flew to this base.
CB: Yeah.
AG: This American Flying Fortress base, met Colonel Jumper, the commanding officer and he, he gave us a flight in the Flying Fortress.
CB: So what was that like?
AG: Oh that, that was alright. Of course, he didn’t do anything drastic, we just went up and just flew, flew around for a while.
CB: Yes.
AG: Yeah. But we walked through, through the aircraft. Examined it, you know. Those, at the rear of the flying fortress each side, they had these machine guns, didn’t they?
CB: Yeah.
AG: Yes. Looked at all that and it was just a day out really.
CB: In terms of its sophistication and crew comfort compared with the RAF aircraft, what was that like?
AG: Oh I think that, I think we were slightly more comfortable than the flying fortress and the flying fortress crew, I forget how many there were, but I think –
CB: Eleven.
AG: There were about eight or nine of them.
CB: Yeah.
AG: Yeah. In this what was regarded, compared to a Lancaster, was a smallish aircraft.
CB: Yeah.
AG: Yeah but they had all these gunners on –
CB: Yeah.
AG: On the Fortress didn’t they?
CB: Yeah.
AG: Yeah.
CB: That’s why the bomb load wasn’t very big.
AG: That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As I say, there we are.
CB: Right.
AG: I’m trying to think of any other highlights.
CB: Well.
[Recording paused]
CB: That’s it.
AG: In about April 1945, the rear gunner and I were called in and we were told that we had also been awarded the DFC because of the number of operations. The ten trips to Berlin and all this business.
CB: Yeah.
AG: So that’s the way we got it. It was regrettable I thought, that the wireless operator didn’t get it for some reason. I don’t know why.
CB: No.
AG: But it was just the rear gunner and myself.
CB: So the pilot and the navigator already had –
AG: The pilot –
CB: The DFC.
AG: They already had it, yeah. At the end of the tour.
CB: Yeah.
AG: They had got the DFC.
CB: Right.
AG: The pilot and the navigator only. But in the April ’45, the rear gunner and myself also got it.
CB: Right. Ok. And bomb aimer, nothing either.
AG: The bomb aimer. Well, the bomb aimer, at the end of the first tour, as I say, was regarded as the old man of the tour.
CB: Yeah.
AG: He was aged thirty two. Once he went off to this training unit, having completed the tour, we never heard of him again.
CB: No.
AG: Stan Young, his name was.
CB: Right.
AG: Stan Young. The pilot was called Colin Payne.
CB: Yeah.
AG: The navigator was Ken Armstrong. Now that’s another strange story about Ken Armstrong. At the end of our first tour of operations, Ken went off to a training unit, but then I don’t know if you know this, they started training people to work on British Airways after the war, but they already started recruiting them whilst the war was still on. And he, he applied for this and was recruited to go on the staff of British Airways before the war ended, and after the war, he ended up at Hurn Airport near Bournemouth where he operated from with British Airways. Ken then rose up in British Airways, and British Airways eventually did away with navigators and just kept pilots and, strangely enough, flight engineers. They were the only two crew members. And Ken, they kept two navigators back at British Airways headquarters at Heathrow, and he became quite a star navigator with British Airways, and whenever there was a royal flight, even though they had all the navigation aids, they always took a navigator with them, and he went on a number of royal flights and he ended up with the MVO, Member of the Victorian Order. And he became quite well known in British, they all knew Ken Armstrong because he was one of the two navigators left in British Airways, because they didn’t want navigators anymore with all, with all the navigation aids on board. But he, he did become quite well known. Yes. I mean my wife’s husband, Clive, ‘Oh yes’, he said, ‘Ken Armstrong. We all knew Ken Armstrong’.
CB: Your daughter’s husband.
AG: Yes.
CB: Ok.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Alexander Charles Gilbert
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-10-13
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AGilbertAC161013
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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01:22:03 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Alexander Gilbert, DFC, joined the Royal Air Force in November 1940, and was called forward for service on the 7th April 1941, rising to the rank of Squadron Leader. Alex had a very long and varied career for the Royal Air Force.
Upon his call up, he was trained as a Flight Engineer Air Frames where he passed in the top third of his class. He became a Group One Tradesman, Fitter 2A. He was posted to Calshot and then spent time working at Cowley Motor Works, manufacturing spars for the fuselage of Lancasters before being recalled and sent to Scampton.
He served with 49 Bomber Squadron before taking a Flight Engineers course and working on Merlin engines at Rolls Royce Works in Derby.
Alex was transferred to 9 Squadron at Bardney where he completed 10 operations, including 3 to Hamburg, then helped form 514 Squadron where he flew on missions to Berlin, and completed 14 operations. He became an instructor at No. 31 LFS at Feltwell, before returning to Operations at 149 Squadron in Methwold.
149 Squadron were involved in the Dresden operation and did 2 trips in Operation Manna, dropping supplies to Rotterdam and The Hague.
Alex had various other postings and completed 35 years’ service in the Royal Air Force, retiring at the age of 65.
Contributor
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Vivienne Tincombe
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
149 Squadron
49 Squadron
514 Squadron
9 Squadron
aircrew
B-17
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
Cook’s tour
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
fitter airframe
flight engineer
ground crew
Lancaster
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF Bardney
RAF Calshot
RAF Feltwell
RAF Foulsham
RAF Halton
RAF Kirkham
RAF Methwold
RAF Morton Hall
RAF Scampton
RAF Waterbeach
RAF Winthorpe
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/472/8355/PBlandC1501.2.jpg
47607dc4beca689cae653908ef391be8
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/472/8355/ABlandC150817.2.mp3
7d011bdc0c7786974101ce4ef3b8516e
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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Bland, Charles
C Bland
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Bland, C
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Charles Bland (538762 Royal Air Force). He served as an engine fitter.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Charles Bland and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Charles Bland and this is my story of what, the Air Force I suppose. I started off in grammar school, Boston and then I did my school certificate and my school certificate results were sufficient that I was able to become, join the Air Force as an aircraft apprentice in February 1942. February 1942. It was the first time you’d left home and we all had to arrive at Marylebone Station and it was February the 18th, I think it was, February the 18th, and so I left Boston, got down to London and, and found on Marylebone Station a great number of boys, all the same age as me. Most of them the first time they’d ever left home and so I consequently got on this train and I happened to, it was a non-corridor train and you had the compartments and I got in the compartment and they were all Geordies. You sort of, I mean, I’d never met Geordies before or anything and the, the chap who -
[machine pause]
Yep ok, we got in the carriage and that was the first time I’d sort of been away, more or less, and mixed with a lot of other boys from different parts of the country. Eventually we got there and we got to Halton and we, the first time we’d ever been in a room, we got to a room and there was twenty two of us in the barrack room and all of us were exactly the same. Most of us had never left home before and the most, I got, my chap in the next bed to me was a Scotsman, a chap named Jock Blythe and, but anyway that’s how we, we eventually got in and then we, then they, we all had to go off and go in the mess and we all sort of got together and then, of course, became the thing of joining the Air Force and the first thing we had was a medical, and the medical I failed. I failed because in this, for some reason or other, the Air Force had decided that you had to have bite, what were known as biting points and I had one biting point short so therefore I was not fit to be in the Air Force and for some reason or other, I was discharged. So I never joined, so they sent me back to Wendover Station and there was another chap who finished up, an armourer and myself who had failed our medicals and we stood on the platform station and waited for the train. Both, well, dispirited I suppose, and the next thing was, the warrant officer who was known as Beefy Paley eventually came on and called out our names. What was his name? Damn, I can’t remember. Anyway, he became an armourer. So he said, Charles Bland, so we all went back, the two of us went back to Halton and for some miraculous reason they found us a biting point, so I was in the, I eventually got in the service. So I -
MJ: What was your favourite biting point?
CB: The biting. I have no idea. This biting point was how your teeth clamped together I think, I don’t know, I never did find out, but I was in the Air Force. I didn’t care much then. And so we, I came, went back and but then of course, because I’d dropped behind, I was at, my number is a hundred behind where I, where the chaps were originally, but anyway that all came, it all came about but so on February the 19th, February the 19th, I joined the Royal Air Force and got sworn in and got this number, 578762, but er, but you see where the people that I was with, I should have been 662 not 762 but anyway, I went back to visit the beginning. All the initial because there were several methods of getting in as an apprentice. There was service candidate in which was all based on the fact that you had a father or something in the Air Force. By examination which was then you went on, did the exam and various, how you finished up on the exam, or what was known as a direct entry. I was a direct entry because I had sufficient, I had [unclear], what they were called? Credit standards. I think credit standards in my school certificate in maths, physics and chemistry and that allowed me to go as a direct entry. I was a direct entry with others but all of us, a direct entry were in the beginning, direct entry and service candidate had the first choice and then the others who did the examination, depended on where you came in the examination, what you got, how you got treated, but anyway that was it. We all got uniforms and we all won and we all got our classes, all got our classes, but then you had to be, oh I remember this, in this, my barrack room where these, these, all these people joined in and you all had trades. Now, the trades all, you had the one, was the radio trades, ‘cause they went to Cranwell, they didn’t do at Halton but then the others that were all picked out. You all got selected, if you like to put it, what you were going to be. You’d put down on your exam, on your joining what you’d like to be but it didn’t, yeah, it didn’t necessarily mean you did, because, we, in this barrack room where we were, ‘cause we had all those, I wanted to be an engine fitter. Some wanted to be riggers, armourers and instrument makers. Those were the Halton trades and we, we came back and I always remember, oh God, I can’t even remember his name now. Damn, damn but anyway, anyway this we all went this way selected and we got selected and said, you know, I was going to be an engine fitter. That was all. Then there was Jock Blythe, he fancied airframes so he was, and he was alright, but then we had one chap come back and he come back to the barrack room after being selected, and he was in tears and we didn’t quite understand why he was crying, and we thought maybe something had happened, but he came back and said, you know, I mean we were boys and I mean, we’d only met each other but you know you’d think well, why, you know, some sympathy for why he was crying. And why he was crying was that they’d made him an air frame fitter, and he wanted to be an engine fitter, so that was why he was crying. I met him years afterwards and he always, he always used to say, you know he always used to, he was a crew chief same, crew chief with me [unclear] for years on, but it was this business that he cried when he was at Halton, went years on. Years on ‘cause he knew that he, he wanted a different trade. Oh that was something, yes, he cried because he was made an airframe fitter and not an engine fitter, and there we are, but then we did all the, we did all the training that was necessary. Well boys, when you get boys, boys together, all sixteen year olds and you see you, they, you sort of went, you, I think that you went there, you became a disciplined hooligan I suppose really. It was nothing. Because you all went there like choirboys but after you’d been with all this lot, you became as, you know, apprentices. I don’t know how you sort of became, I don’t know, you’ve got, because funny enough how, because you treated NCOs and everything as they were but you’d, I suppose you’d got a cheekiness and whatnot, I don’t know, but you survived. Well survived. I can’t say that but, but a chap, an ex-apprentice I met years and years later and he had been, he had been a Japanese prisoner of war, and for some reason he didn’t talk much about it, but he, his, he reckoned that his survival as a Japanese prisoner of war because he, he treated the Japanese the same way we treated NCOs and whatnot as apprentices, and he put his survival as a Japanese prisoner of war to the fact that he’d been apprentice, and that was his attitude towards authority. So that was it. But that was a digression from that. Anyway, I left Halton after I managed to get an AC1, oh, and I got thrown out of a class once through laughing, but then of course the, but then days as apprentice were something that, incidents, I’ll mention a couple of incidents. One which, because I mean you all swore, you did all sorts of things and the one was that I always remember we were doing, we had, of course, you had engineering drawing. We did all this business there and engineering drawing. Our instructor was, oh, very studious squadron leader I think. Obviously, he was just like a parson and of course, we all lot we had a, because you had, I mean as boys we buggered about, I mean it was, you know. It was one of the things and I always remember my, one of my colleagues, well I’ll say classmate [unclear], Rickards his name was, and he, he was on there and the he said, oh, and of course there that the thing was we always buggered about and of course, we were doing engineering drawing and his, his statement was, ‘Who’s the thieving sod who’s pinched my rubber?’ And this was part of everyone talked about, but the instructor was a bit like a parson he was, and he stopped the class and he said that, he said that it was getting beyond when one boy called another boy a thieving sod. Well, I mean that was of course, that all went and that, that was being an apprentice and then all sorts of things. You were hooligans really, because you did, you did, you know, filing and all the, all the rest of it. You learned how to file, you learned how to rivet, you learned how to do all sorts of things and the, another thing when you did welding or, welding was one and of course, we had, you always got somebody there who was, would get rather picked on. Picked on in a class and one who was a, who was trouble was a bloke named Bryce, he came from Devon and Trevor Boone was another, he was, Trevor Boone was a, he was a bit of a softie. He was rather, he had a tendency I suppose to be bullied a bit. Yeah, because Bryce was a bugger you see, he was, he, we’d do soldering abrasion, welding, welding and of course all doing, we’re doing, we’re doing that. Not arc welding, it was oxyacetylene and of course, then of course, a pair of pliers that you use and Bryce, of course, played his flame on Boone’s pliers, so that when poor old Boone picked his pliers up, he got his hands burned. Devilish things sort of like that. Oh, and then of course, you, ‘cause we had, there again, McDonald beds. Now, McDonald beds were solid iron beds but they had casters on because you had to, you had to make your bed up in the morning. You had this bed. One, the bottom half slid into the top half and your blankets had to be your biscuits which were the three biscuits. Mattresses, or whatever you like to call them, had to be stacked on one another. Your blankets had to be folded with, we had sheets, so the sheets had to be put between the blankets, and then one blanket wrapped around the whole lot that so it sort of made like a sandwich, if you like and it, that was it. Beds have to made up as laid down. That was the one of the comments that you had to do, yeah. But then we, when we managed and the time came then and of course, we had our drill and had to be marched up and down and of course, we had the pipes and the drums and we were all, and it was, it was you carried your books, you carried your overalls and you had these horrible ground sheets which were meant to be capes, and the trouble was when it rained, and you were marching and whatnot, your legs got soaking wet because the damned ground sheet came to your, it was only came just below your knees, you know, the edge of it, but there we are. What else did we do? We used to march back and forth and, oh aye, that was another thing. We had, because we had various engine, as engine fitters of course, we started off on basics, which was an old Gipsy engine, a four cylinder Gipsy engine we had and then of course, you, you moved off, but then of course, we were in, at Halton we were in, started off in what was known as the old workshops, and then they decided, because we had airmen and wartime fitters there, they decided that they’d move the apprentices to the new workshops which was, if anyone knows Halton, I don’t know if they’re all like that now, but the old workshops, the new workshops were newer buildings and across the other side of the road. I can’t remember our position now but anyway it was across the other side of the road and we all moved. There was er to, going down into the new workshops was a downhill run, if you like to put it, and of course, we happened to be when we, when they changed to the new workshops, we happened to be on the radial engines, which were mercury engines, Bristol Mercury’s, and we were on radials and then we had to move the whole class and our engines from the old workshops to the new workshops, and we had an instructor named Mr Petty. He was the instructor. And so as a class, we moved our engines, but the thing is, when you get a bunch of boys and all of us, they decided to move these engines and of course, these engines were in stands, on castors so we pushed them up to the top of the hill, but then there was a downhill run to the new workshops, so of course they decided then, of course, being boys and whatnot, we decided that the only way to get these down there was to run them down and stand on the stand so that it went down like a trolley. Well of course, this was all, this did very well until we came and there was a curb by the side and of course the next thing was, one of the engines of course, hit the curb and thank goodness there was a bank there. It went into the bank and tipped over but it was not completely over, but of course, it had hit this bank and of course, we came down. We had to heave this engine back on its trolleys and push it back into the workshops, and then of course the thing was, we all got there, and the comment, Mr Petty said that he could not understand why one of his engines had got soil amongst the cooling fins, but nobody enlightened him that it had fell, it had fallen over. But then you had, and I always remember, you know, all, you know, you remember these sorts of things. I remember we had another instructor was a Mr Palmer and Mr Palmer was quite a, he said, ‘If you’re using a hammer, use it’. Don’t, you know, don’t dilly dally with it. Use it. And there was a boy called Hind in our class and, Mr Palmer, I don’t know what happened there, whether it was a hard face or whatnot, but he hit something. The hammer head came off and it finished up in Hind’s stomach so it, it was quite funny really because all it was, was Mr Palmer just extricated this hammer head out of Hind’s stomach and carried on. Hind was a bit breathless but never mind. But there was the other thing we used to do oh, and that was again Butch Hind, was, we did magnetos of course, but then of course, using magnetos of course, you can charge, you know, the thing is, you get a spark and whatnot but they were doing magnetos, and it was found that Hind, by judicious of winding these hand starter magnetos up, that Hind could be charged up and I don’t know if it was, he wore rubber boots or, so he was, you had to gently sort of, Hind would hold the leads and get himself charged up and then someone would go up, put a finger near his ears and he’d get a crick across the ears, you know. It was, oh we did all sorts of things like this, I mean, it was ridiculous really. And we had, we had a lot of civvy instructors and we had one for basic was a Mr Tatum, and Tatum could do anything with a piece of metal that I know, but then you had, he used to be doing because you had to have your, some on the file and some on top. You had to hold the files correctly and if you weren’t holding the files correctly and you were doing something, you suddenly find you had a whack on the finger, because you weren’t correct and he used to come around and give you a whack on the finger. But it was, you know, I suppose, brutal really. I mean you wouldn’t have it now, ‘cause they was being mistreated or something. I don’t know but I mean, you just accepted it. You accepted it. Well he was, but I’m ok. There we are. Then of course, you had your various exams, and that was another one. Petty, another one. He got killed. He went aircrew and he became a pilot, he got killed in a Canberra. Colin Petty. And we had, during exams, there was various means of making bolts and one was what was known as a cold headed bolt, which had all these had different markings in, ‘cause this was all part of the thing of knowing what your markings of all these various equipment and steel and everything were, and one was, a bolt was known as a cold headed bolt and it was a bolt where the head had been pressed in cold. Not, not been turned. It was pressed and this had a ring around the top, but in the exam, it was, ‘How do you recognise a cold headed bolt?’ And of course, Petty didn’t know, and so Petty wrote, ‘Wears a balaclava helmet’. He got seven days for that, seven days jankers for that, for being frivolous on an examination paper. That was how, that’s how things were, you know, you got done for everything. You couldn’t smoke. Oh you got a smoking pass at eighteen, but you weren’t allowed to smoke everywhere and the toilets down in workshops of course. Toilets, yeah, and you could hear because you could have puffs, I mean, you could make a cigarette end last with a pin till the last puff. Oh dear, it was all sorts of things like that. As an apprentice, you did everything, always pushed to the limit, and it, and all your instructors. Oh, and there was another incident, I always remember that we had a named, chap named in our class, Dicky Burke, and Dicky Burke was, he was a oh, he was the same as anyone else, but one time we had a, we had er notes. A corporal, I can’t even remember his name, a corporal was giving, he was an instructor and of course he said we had to, I can’t remember what it was. Anyway, he said take, get your notebook and take these notes, and Dicky Burke said, ‘We’ve already got these notes’, and the corporal said, ‘It doesn’t matter, you’ll still do it’, you know. And under his breath, Dicky Burke said F you, and the corporal heard him and so he was wheeled up to the squadron leader, and in less than two hours, Dicky Burke was, was doing a stretch of twenty eight days in the guardroom, but he still had to come to, well he was doing a stretch but he, he, he was doing his spell in the guardroom but he still had to come to school. He still had to do his doings, so one of the corporal apprentices, a bloke named Ted Atkinson who was a friend of mine, had to go to the guardroom and march him down to school and then march him back up to the guardroom for his, his lunchtime and any off duty, so he did his twenty eight days on off duty, more or less, so he was one of these, one of these incidents that er, but he did the twenty eight days and was shovelling coal from one side to the other and all the rest of it, but as I say, they used to make you do anything. I don’t know, but that was Dicky Burke and his twenty eight days. I’m trying to remember humorous incidents of things and very, it was, of course we were apprentices anyway but then, of course, the other thing was they had Air Training Corps, ‘cause they were the civilian side. I mean, most of them were the same age as us but of course, we were apprentices as opposed to theirs was, well Air Training Corps wasn’t it? People that you join and they had the air training corps come and did a spell well in the camp near Halton, which of course upset those, a bit of an upset, and of course the apprentices raided them as normal, it was normal sort of business. Used to, oh dear oh dear. Apprentices. The other one was, all daft things really. And of course, you had not money, you used to get, we used to get paid a fortnight of three [unclear], nearly new two shilling pieces. That was our pay. Three, three every fortnight, which I mean you had, you could buy chips in the NAAFI and the old rock cakes and whatnot, but, but then of course, there was, generally you used to run out of money or something and they used to do odd, and there was one time, oh, what was his name? He was short of money, and then the thing was that we had, because there was twenty two of us in a room, twenty two of us including a corporal or a snag which was a LAA, a leading aircraft apprentice. He had one stripe on his arm and then you had a corporal apprentice, a corporal he had was probably in the bunk at the end of the room, was the corporal apprentice, but then of course, then they’d get someone short of money and one of the, one of the, one I remember is, I can’t remember his name now, never mind, short of money and then it said was halfpenny around the room. That would give him ten P. A halfpenny around the room and he’d run around the barrack block stark naked which was a, oh God that was brass and of course, he said he’d do it and that so everybody, but then of course, you had to, then had to, everybody, this was immediately transmitted all around the rooms that he was going to run around the block stark naked, and so that meant that everybody was, when he set off, everybody was at the barrack block windows, shouting and cheering him on as he went around. And that was another incident, anything to make money. And then there was, you had jankers, ‘cause that was another one. Your jankers, seven penneth for doing anything. No I managed to avoid that, I wasn’t caught smoking or missing church parade. Anything to scrounge. You get seven penneth and then, but then you were allowed, they decided that you, that the jankers would be separated from the other boys. For what reason I don’t know. And there was a Corporal Croft. He was a corporal in the DI we had and they put him in charge of, ‘cause we had the barrack blocks but then we had wooden huts, and they decided to put the, the jankers in the, or a wooden hut with this corporal in charge which was then, ‘cause he was Corporal Croft, and that was known as Croft’s Cottage, but I think, I think they abandoned that because you got all the ne’er-do-wells who wanted to pinch anything all at, do and that was not, they weren’t distributed cause they used to supposed to do jankers in the cookhouse and they were the ones that always got fed the best, ‘cause they always managed to purloin something. Food or something. It was, it was all part of the game. Part of the game. I mean the best of it was of course, some of the worst offenders became commissioned officers. That was the best of it wasn’t it? I mean years, years on. There was one there, Hammer Mallet, Tom Mallet. He was, he was one but he became a squadron leader engineer. Just shows you ,doesn’t it? How to become commissioned? Become jankers, you know. But then, that was the years. Went through that lot and of course came, I mean we were doing our drill with our rifles and bayonets and all the rest of it as well, and then came the day of passing out and then you had to do, but then you had your exams but then your exams depended on where you were doing, whether if you got, if you got called that you would do your oral exams and boarded, as they used to say, and you’d go for your board to these, you know, either senior NCOs or officers and you were questioned on your trade. I mean, as well as written exams, you had written exams as well which was, you know, like school and whatnot, but your boards were you were all against mostly to gain your trade. They asked you, you know, how you would identify some stainless steel or some question how would you do this or do the other, various things so, but then you, you’d do your board and then if you were you didn’t know how you were doing, you sort of go back again and then, and sit down and go back where you came from and then someone would say, ‘They want to speak to you again’. And you’d think, now that meant either one of two things. That A) you hadn’t got enough marks to pass out or B) you got sufficient marks that they were doing, that they were doing you that instead of AC2 pass out or AC1, you got an LAC. That, that was the thing but I mean, you had to know whether you’d done well enough or poorly or not because if they asked you back again and you’d done very poorly and you were only getting to re-boarded, you again to become an AC2 and I got, I had to go back again because I didn’t get an LAC. Anyway, I did, I finished up AC1, that was how I passed out. I passed out then from Halton, that was then and they said, right then, we are posted. Where were your choices to be posted? Well I come from Lincolnshire so I suppose you put Lincolnshire. I mean, ten to one you never got what you put down for. I put Lincolnshire and I finished up, posted to Kirton Lindsey. That was, and of course the thing was, in those days, and you used to get trains and you didn’t know where you were and blackouts, and you get on a train. There was several of us posted to Kirton Lindsey, I think about four, four of us posted to Kirton Lindsey, and of course, on these trains, you didn’t know where the hell you were going. You got a train, you had to get a train to so and so, and then of course, the only time you ever knew where you were, was if some porter called out, you know, the name of the platform or stop where it was, and we got out at Kirton Lindsey. There was four of us and some airmen as well, and so we got out there and some of the airmen were worldly, more worldly wise, get transport, and they eventually came, got transport and of course, it’s a blackout, you didn’t know where the hell you were. Got to, went to this, got to the station and eventually the guardroom and we were then sent to transit block. Transit block. And the transit room, you went in there and you, you were, I can’t even remember now whether you had, whether there was bedding in there or you had to go to the bedding store and get your blankets, I think. Anyway, doesn’t matter. Got there and eventually we got dished out to the general office, and then we were given wherever we were going, so it’s, you were sent down to the tech side and then they decided where you were going, ‘cause I mean, they were riggers or fitters. I finished up in R&I. R&I. We were doing majors on Spitfires there. Got R&I, some of them got others. And there was another place called Hibaldstow, which was a satellite of Kirton Lindsey. Two of them got sent to Hibaldstow. As I say I was sent to, to R&I. I don’t know, I think I was the only one out of our group who went to R&I, which is Repair and Inspection, which was the major. We were doing majors, majors on Spitfires but, so we used to have the flights when the flights board there, I mean, I mean, oh, and the other thing was, I must have mentioned this, the other thing they had now, so that we, we had, ‘cause we had WAAF fitters as wel,l and we had, I was put into, put into a gang with Corporal, Corporal Shear was in charge and I was put in this gang and of course, I was an, I was an AC1 apprentice fitter. Apprentice, ‘cause the others in the gang were all wartime blokes. One was a bank clerk, one had been, one was, one had been a waiter, I think, but they were a good lot anyway.
[pause for phone]
So we, now, we got to Kirton Lindsey now so that we got to the WAAF fitters, and I was put in a gang, and I can remember Corporal Shear was the corporal in charge, and all the others were wartime. Well one was a fitter, two mechanics I think, we were doing majors on Spitfires and Sadie was the WAAF, and Sadie was, I mean I was only, what, eighteen and whatnot, but I didn’t fancy her really, but I think she rather well she, I don’t think she fancied me. All she did was bugger me about really, ‘cause she would, if you were doing on the engine and whatnot on there and she was sitting on the main plane she’d, and you were doing something, she’d suddenly put her legs out and wrap them around you, you know. But she wasn’t really my type at all, so I didn’t really fancy her and she, the trouble with WAAFs. they either overtightened things or didn’t tighten things up enough. Couldn’t, plugs. they never put the plugs in tight enough and they’d bloody shear off a bloody two by eight or something like that. but anyway that was, that was the WAAFs. But incidents. Incidents, oh the other thing of course, they were Mark II Spitfires and they had Merlin 12s, and they had Coffman starters and cartridge so that you had a cartridge, and one of the things was the flight sergeants, ‘cause we had, oh all part and parcel, you had to, you had your sort of annual booze up and whatnot, and of course, then money had to be put in and the flight sergeant used to fine you for A) for being late if you were late for work or whatnot you’d, he’d fine you sixpence or something, which all went into the fund, and they used to do cartridge starters. I mean, you had to be starting a Merlin on, with a cartridge. You could do it with one cartridge or two but if you had more than two, he used to fine you sixpence a cartridge. So, so the thing was, you had to make sure it was primed and everything before you could, he’d be there, but he’d listen to you, and you would fire up on one and you’re all right. Fire up on two and if it didn’t fire you think, God there’s another sixpence gone you know. So that was the fine, I mean that was a fine for using too many cartridges, but that that was one of the things. Another incident here I always remember, we changed over from Mark II’s to Mark Vs and the Mark Vs were coming in, and this was during the summer of 1944. The warm weather. And we came, we were in, we were in R&I and of course, we were duty crew, if you like, and of course we were at, they were bringing in these Mark Vs and we were, all of us nice summer evening it was, sitting outside and we were all thinking of going down the boozer, and he said, ‘Righto we’ve got, we’ve got four, four spitfires coming in.’ And they were all sitting there in the sun, at the wall of the hangar and the first one came in and of course, then you were all sitting there. Who was going to see the first one in, and I said, ‘Oh bugger it, I’ll see the first one in’, and off I went in to see the first one in. Taxied in and, lo and behold, it was when, when the pilot of course, took her helmet off, it was an ATA pilot. A blonde. She had blonde hair, and who she was I don’t know, and of course, I saw this one in and of course immediately the others saw this girl taxiing this one in, they all rushed out to see the others in, but anyway I don’t know who she was, I’ve no idea. But I often think of the ATA pilots because, oh she was older than me but, and she had blonde hair and I often wonder, having seen ATA pilots, you know, years gone on and wondered who it was. But that was, we got Mark Vs then instead of, but then of course, the time came and then the incident I mentioned of the only time we got involved in Bomber Command In those days was, we had a Spitfire lab down at North Creake, which had Stirlings on and we had to do an engine change, and doing this engine change underneath the belly of a Stirling. That was quite interesting but then that was, then I’ve, then of course, my posting overseas came so then I went up to Blackpool and met all, a lot of the chaps who were at Halton with me. So that was, so we were at Blackpool there, getting kitted out. Marks and Spencers of Blackpool, well then because they had all the, which was Marks and Spencer, had all the kit in there so you, and when the tower, well anyway, that was September ‘44. We went, went to Gourock. Gourock and then we boarded this, I can’t remember even, can’t remember what my, my draft number was. Anyway, but anyway we were boarded on the Orion and the thing was, was this a battleship, no, it was a cattle ship, because there were five thousand, troops, troops in it. That was an incident. There was Army at the bottom, Air Force in the middle and the Navy at the top ‘cause they were the best. Anyway, so we, we went out on that, through the Suez ‘cause then, I think they’d cleared the Med of subs. We went to India via, via the Suez Canal and not around, around the end of South Africa. That was it, no incidents. We had some ex Australian prisoners of war on board and they were well fed, and they used to give us a bit of grub now and again, but and then eventually we got, got to India, but of course, the other thing of course, I’d better mention it that was the, the beginning of my marriage I suppose, ‘cause this friend of mine, who had had the, this corporal apprentice, had to go back to my brother in law who was, he was also at Halton but he was two entries after me, and my friend was a corporal apprentice, was in charge of his room and my brother in law, Bill, he, he gave my, he had a twin sister who became my wife, but he’s, this corporal apprentice started writing to Margaret, but then, I don’t know, it all petered out or something, and then of course, we came on, came on the boat going to India and of course, was one of the things, anyone got any girls to write to? And he gave me Margaret’s address and said, ‘Don’t tell her I gave it to you’. So I came out of the top of my head was a load of rubbish that I found her address floating on the deck of a bloody troop ship’ you know’ but anyway that was that. I wrote to her and of course that was, we got out to India and I was then posted from [unclear], I went to a place, I was posted down to Ceylon to a repair and salvage unit ,121 RS, oh R&SU I suppose. We just used to call it just RSU. So we went down by seven days on the rail, down to India, down all the way down in from Bombay, down all the way down India. Took us a week. Then to Ceylon and we eventually ended, finished up in a place called Vavuniya in Ceylon, and we formed, well I think we formed this R&SU there, We serviced Beaufighters. We had two Beaufighter squadrons and a Spitfire squadron. I can’t remember the Spitfires, but the Beaufighter squadrons were 22 and 217, and we did engine changes and then I got, I got detached to 22 Squadron because they were short of fitters, and I got detached there for a, for a spell. So, I was doing, working with 22 Squadron but then of course, everything changed and they decided that we were going on a, we got, we got sent, we got notification we had to pack up, what was it? Operation Marbrisca I think it was, and get everything, gear and of course it never came about and we then, we moved the whole lot, the unit moved up into India. And Marbris, that was an interesting thing because it was years, years later after I came back home and the I went to, went to school and there was a master at school who had also been out there, but he was in, in SEAF or SEAC operations and I mentioned about this, oh years about this Operation Marbrisc, and he told me what it was. It was in actual fact, they were going to take the island of Phuket. I mean we called it something else as you can imagine which is, I mean, is a holiday island now, and the idea was, they were going to build an airfield on Phuket and operate from there against the Japanese, but then he said that the casualty situation would be, was exorbitant and they cancelled it. So that was where we were going. This Marbrisc. Anyway, that was cancelled and we moved up into South India, basically to, I think it was preparation for the Malayan invasion, ‘cause we moved about. God, as an RSU, we sort of did anything. We did some servicing on Thunderbolts of all things. Then, then we sort of petered out and did nothing really. We sort of, all we did was, oh and then of course the next thing was, they said, oh we got issued with jungle green, so we all got issued with jungle green and we had, then we got to have equipment to do this invasion or whatnot, back up so we got a lot of new waggons and cranes and all sorts of things, all ready to do this repair and salvage, because we were supposed to, I think, we were supposed to service two Beaufighter squadrons and a Spitfire squadron. I don’t know whether they were the same ones that we had before but, but then of course, they dropped the atom bomb and that was, that was the end, that was the end of our sortie to Malaya, but, but then of course, the whole thing wound up. What was the next troubles? ‘Cause it became, the whole thing then, the war had ended and all the blokes that were in the war in Europe were getting demobbed, and people with the, on the unit with the same demob number were not being demobbed, because they were in the Far East, and then of course, we came, these problems what do they call them? What do they call them? Riots I suppose. I think they termed them as riots when they were bloody you know, I don’t know, you were nearly court martialled but anyway, but then of course that all, this came, the whole of India was like that but of course, we were regulars so we, we weren’t involved. They, we, we just didn’t get involved in all that, any of these struggles at all, but then of course, our lot folded up and we were posted to, and then they said, oh we’re going on occupation force Japan. {Unclear] and we went to a place in India called Tamberam, to get to move out but then they cancelled the whole lot so we were less than with all this gear and whatnot, in this Tamberam, and then they decided that we were going to be disbanded, we were. So all the equipment had to go back. All these new lorries and cranes and whatnot, so they were all moved and taken to a place called Visakhapatnam, I think it was. Viso we called it, and they took all this and there were hundreds and hundreds of vehicles. All just, all lease lend stuff. And that was, and they shifted us to a place called Redhills Lake, which had been a flying boat station, to disband. Well, and of course the thing was, and it had a lake there so we did a bit of swimming. That was for a while and apart from that, we did nothing, just sort out equipment, half of it got dumped in the lake and then the day came when I was posted. We were posted, we were distributed and I was posted to 353 Squadron at Palam, and that was Delhi, and that was right up north, and so the next thing was of course, to get the train from, was it Madras, I suppose. I think, I can’t remember where, so, to Delhi and oh, it was a troop train. It was marvellous, marvellous train because it had been a casualty train for, for carrying wounded, not a trooper and oh, it was most comfortable. Had a real good trip ‘cause against all the others we had a, ‘cause normally the trains in there you had same as the doings. You had the hard wooden benches and the ones that slap down on chains for sleeping on, but anyway that was, but anyway we got to Palam and that was 353 Squadron was a Dakota squadron, but then of course, they’d centralised servicing really so that it didn’t matter what squadron you were on, you were, you were put in workshops. I was in engine repair and in engine repair was you did anything really. A Pratt and Whitneys, it didn’t matter what came in and you said, because Palam was a, was a main, well it’s now Delhi airport isn’t it? I think, yeah, and Dakotas, but we used to get all the mail stuff come through. That was the Yorks. And we had also the, was it British Air? No, BOAC was it? BOAC in those days. And it had BOAC Yorks came because the airport was at, was at Palam. Well it was Delhi Airport, but part of Palam, but just around the peritrack and so I did, I did a spell with Dakotas and Yorks. I had engine changes on Yorks. We actually did minor a inspection on Lancasters that flew in. Oh, I did a couple of jobs on BOAC Yorks, but they had landing trouble and they had no fitters, and they used to get sort of co-opted on the engineer, BOAC engineers. They had no, no people at all, so I did a couple of jobs on BOAC Yorks while I was there and then of course, came a time that I didn’t get mid tour leave although I’d put my name down, I wasn’t lucky enough to get any. And then of course in April, oh, then of course the Partition was on. India was, and things were not, things were not very good then. You, you didn’t, if you wanted to go out you made sure that at least there was two or three of you together, ‘cause things, I don’t know why, they didn’t like us really. And then in April, I got a raise and I came home in April. I came home. I went out on the Orion and came back on the Chetril and then we arrived back. It was quite, they say about you know seeing England when you come back, it was, go on, anyway we landed at Southampton and we had to be shipped up to Burtonwood near, oh where is it near? Oh God, Burtonwood. Warrington isn’t it? I think it’s at Warrington. Anyway, when it comes to the point there, we got back to there and everybody was, of course all they wanted to do was get home, and they would have flown us and said this, that and the other, until everyone was chuntering and whatnot the bloke at Burtonwood said, ‘Right’, he said, ‘Get on the lorries and you can go to the bloody station’, you know, it’s up to you where, you know, you go. We’d got our warrants and I think there was, I think a train going south and a train going north and it cleared the station. Didn’t care, you really didn’t care where you went as long as you left there and on the way home. So, I sort of, I got from Warrington to Manchester, and Manchester and of course, while I’d been, while I’d been overseas, my parents had moved from Lincolnshire. They’d moved to Yorkshire, and so I didn’t know where I was going home so the er, got to, I got to Manchester and got to Leeds, and I thought what and I got my parent’s telephone number so I thought, oh I’d better, I’d better ring them and let them know, and so I phoned up and my mother answered and of course she said, ‘Oh your father’s in, in the Isle of Man at the moment’, ‘cause I said, ‘well can you, can you pick me up at the station?’ And so anyway the incidents, isn’t it? So, so I said, ‘Well I’ll go to Harrogate’. I had to go to Harrogate, from Leeds to Harrogate and the, get in the train and the, ‘cause I had two kit bags and your webbing and everything and you know you were sort of carrying these down, and of course I’d asked where the train, the -
[phone ringing]
Train was there and of course I’d got my kit bag on, and you know you’ve got a kit on, a kit bag on your arm, your webbing and a kit bag on the top, and of course there was an airman in a carriage doorway, and I says, I said, oh you know , ‘Open the door’, and I bend over and let the kit bag drop on the floor, and my father was on the, on the train and he picked it up, so and that’s how I met my dad. He came and then my sister, mother at the station. So, incidents, you know, that, ‘cause I came back and of course my father was on the train with the gear, and so my mother and sister at the station. The incident I’m trying to think of. Not that is, ‘cause I didn’t, oh dear, I didn’t stop by. OK now then, we’ve got to, we’ve got to Knaresborough, that was where my parents lived, so and the next thing I had to do, as I’d been writing to Margaret for, oh, since, when was it? 1945. I wanted to get down to Hereford, so I went down to, went down to, go down to Hereford but it’s quite strange really that I’d been writing to her there, but it was, I’d got down to, got down from Manchester, get down to Hereford and the, the last stop before Hereford is Shrewsbury, and I debated whether to get off the train. Why I don’t know but there we are, but anyway it all worked out. We met on Hereford station and that was, that was it, so the beginning of our relationship. Yeah. Anyway, then that all finished and the next thing was of course, we got posted and then, oh God, that was it. Posted, posted to Wheaton, Wheaton, what the hell was at Wheaton? I thought what on earth’s there? Blackpool, near Blackpool. So off I goes to, to Blackpool. Get back on the train, get off at Wheaton and what’s Wheaton? Trainings. Bloody training station, nothing to do with aeroplanes. Bloody drivers, fitters, blacksmiths, welders, everything bar anything to do with aeroplanes, and I thought, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ So, anyway, of course, I arrived on the station and this is in, and I thought, you know, and I went and they said, you’re going to, you’ll be on one wing, I think it was. MTMs, Motor Transport Mechanics. So what the hell am I doing here? And anyway of course, I went in to the general office, off I went, report to squadron leader so and so, so I went to him and immediately I went in there and of course, there was a few, there was an MT fitter and whatnot, and me. So, anyway, I immediately said, complained, ‘What am I doing here?’ you know, and MT and all the rest of it, and this officer, whoever he was, said I was posted as an instructor. I said, ‘I don’t know anything about MT at all’. And this, I remember this officer, who he was, he said, ‘You’re an ex apprentice, aren’t you?’ I said, ‘Yes sir’. ‘Well’, he says, ‘In that case’, he said, ‘You can do any bloody thing’. So that was that. That was me teaching motor mechanics, MT mechanics, and I knew nothing about bloody brakes or anything like that. Well, I think, anyway so I went down to this, where was it? Where I was supposed to be? The phase office, that was it, the phase, the phase office, and there was a sergeant MT fitter there, and I said, ‘Well I know bugger all about motor transport’. He said, ‘Well I’ll tell you what’, he said, ‘I’ll put’, he said, ‘you’ll be on’, I’ve forgotten what it was, but he said, ‘I’ll put you with, there’s a civilian instructor’, he says. ‘You can have a spell with him’, he said, ‘you’ll pick it up from there’. Oh God love us all. So, anyway, I was with this, oh I can’t remember his name, and he was an ancient civvy and so I was picking up brakes and steering, and I never knew there was a blinking theory on brakes and how line up and all this business at all, and of course I was doing this and that, was the, I was on the first week. There was a fortnightly course for this MT mechanics. A fortnight course so I was in there for a fortnight. I’d done one week and there was a fracas in there, and one of the corporal instructors had clobbered a, or hurled a coupling at one of the trainees, and he was then immediately taken off instructing, and the only person to take, put on, was me, and he was on the second week and I’d only done the first week, and the second week was completely, was ridiculous. But anyway, so I had to do it. Have you ever taught, taught people about something you know nothing about? Well, that was what it was with me, instructing people. I had to try to gain a, oh dear, it was ridiculous, but anyway. Then, of course, funnily enough, then they started to er, a phase on diesel engines. Well funnily enough I’d been very interested in diesels, even in India, and I had had my father send me books on diesels, high speed compression ignition engines and whatnot, and so therefore I knew quite a bit, and when they started this phase on diesels, I said well I, you know, I’d done diesels. Oh, they were quite, and shoved me on diesels straightaway, so that was, that was the way it went. I finished up doing diesels and did various other things and then of course I, I, I, I wanted to get away from Wheaton. I’d liked to get down south somewhere ‘cause I mean I was courting then, I mean, and it’s a long way from, from Wheaton, Blackpool down to Hereford, which I used to do on a blinking short weekend. It was bloody fast because I used to have to, I’d travel all night back and have, get my breakfast and kit bag and sort of virtually go straight to the classroom, you know, and get straight, but anyway, but then of course I, I got, I got a what was it a payform 36 posting, because for some reason, I don’t know how I managed it, but anyway down to Hereford. At Hereford. And I was still instructing but when I got down there, I found out there was nothing there, it was equipment assistant. Stores bashers. I thought what the hell am I doing here? But then of course, I got there and the next thing that I’d got there was another, in fact an apprentice, ex-apprentice was a bloke named Don Rigby, and he was posted there as an instructor. He was, he’d managed to get fitter one scores in his career and so the two of us there. What the hell were we doing here? But then of course, we went down to the general office who sent us to this. He said, ‘Yes, you’re definitely posted here’. I thought someone had made a mistake, you know, but then we went to, the pair of us went down to see this squadron leader, and I said, ‘Well what are we doing here?’ I mean. ‘Well you’ve got to tell them all about’, you know, ‘it’s yours to sort of give them an interest in the mechanical things of aeroplanes and engines’. And I thought what am I doing, and we had no syllabus, we had nothing, so we had to, between the pair of us, we sort of worked it out, but God what a, talk about a working week. I think we, our working week was about two or three hours, all week, working week was two or three hours, so we were there so I mean, but we got on ‘cause all the equipment, all the store bashers, instructors, were senior NCOs. We were the only corporals there in the doing but er, we got on very well with them because if they wanted to go off shopping, we’d take their class on, you know. It was, it was or if, you know, something they were getting short of time and they’d, they’d use our time and it was doing but anyway, that all went on and then that collapsed but then of course, at that period of time, I’d been courting. This was 1949 I get, I got married, we get married. So, I got married in 1949, got back off the honeymoon, to the bunk was a piece of paper slipped under the door and it says, ‘Go to the general office ‘cause you’re posted to MCOS’. MCOS. What the hell was that? MCOS. Never heard of it. Nobody doing and this was at Wythall, which is just outside Birmingham. So, Wythall. Wythall. I’d never heard of a Wythall. No airfield that I knew of at Wythall, but anyway MCOS. We’d no idea. So anyway gets to MC, gets to, my, my colleague who was the other corporal there, he got posted, he got posted to, he got his posting to Suez Canal, so he was, he was gone anyway and there was MCOS, so got down to Wythall and doing I found out that this was what was known as the Mobile Classroom Operating Section. So I was back on instructing only in a mobile classroom. I was, as I’d done diesels and they put me on wheels and tyres for starters because I’d been, I’d been steering and whatnot, but then that, that, I can’t remember but I think the instructor on diesels, he was posted and they knew I’d had, done diesels instructing experience and they put me on to the diesels.
So that was that, but that was out on the road for six weeks and back at Wythall for a fortnight, so we roamed the countryside teaching. You went to any station that wanted you and you’d instruct on whatever’s going there, but there’s that was the biggest lot of rogues. The drivers, mostly the drivers, ‘cause you had a driver and instructor with each wagon and the drivers, I think they were the biggest bunch of rogues I’ve ever come across. Pinch anything. And oh, and then the other thing of course we, we were at Wythall which was, had been a balloon base, but Austin’s had taken half of it over to store, you know, their manufactured equipment and whatnot. Gearboxes and whatever you could think of and of course, it was, this was all partitioned by wire netting from the mobile classrooms and of course, knowing the drivers and whatnot and the people that were in Austin’s store place and whatnot, people got, stuff got passed over the wire which as the drivers were traversing the country, you’d get to a transport café and you could sell anything so, you know, parts of cars got sold but then they got wise with it, because the police, Air Force police and whatnot, got wise to it and you got, they, they stopped the wagons at the guard room and got searched and so you couldn’t have any, any Austin components in there, but they used to be fiddling the thing. They used to, somebody, one bloke even moved a whole family because, I mean, the classrooms were big and so they use it as a pantechnic and one chap moved somebody there. I mean they used to, these corporals would do, do anything really. That, but of course the thing was, you see, once you got to the station where you were instructing course they had nothing to do. You were doing the instructing. So they sort of you know did anything really. It was quite. They were a bunch, a really, especially one -
[Pause]
Right. So having, Wythall finished these mobile classrooms and then I got posted to the Middle East. The canal zone so, and the canal zone, went on a, oh what was it, oh I can’t remember the boat, but that was another one, anyway we got to, got to Abihad and Abihad was 109 Maintenance Unit, and that was the repair of Merlin engines, and they were set up, sort of posted on, to start up a repair service on Hercules but that never came about, and I finished up on the overhaul of the propellers. That was, that was a standard sort of a job but it was er, the mid, then of course we had the problems, in fact when my wife came out, the problems of the riots and all the rest of it which that we were, we lived in Ismailia, we had a flat in Ismailia but then all the problems came and we got, if you got enough points, my wife, we got a hiring on the Canal Road, which is not far off the Great Bitter Lakes, you know, where the canal goes through and we, we got this hiring which was a bungalow, it was sort of quite a complex of bungalows. It was typical Egyptian, oh, and of course, I must have mentioned that our bungalow was the only one with a bath, all the rest had showers. We had a bath and this bath must have been built by the Egyptian who made the tombs and whatnot, ‘cause it was like a big concrete but we were the only one with a bath, but then we had no hot running water so the only way we had a, the only way you could have a bath, in fact the ladies, my wife’s friends and whatnot, well, service people that lived there, they had a bath, you could have a bath and by having two primer stoves and put the zinc bath on top of the two primer stoves, get the water heated up enough, tipped in to this massive bath and put some cold with it and then you could have a decent bath. But the ladies, all the wives, there were quite a number of us there and of course my wife would ask the ladies if they wanted to have a bath, so they come and we’d heat, well my wife organised it and they’d have a bath then. Anyway, that was so that was it, but at that point in time was, was the, my wife was pregnant with our first child, and the point was then, then there was this big expansion programme of, I suppose with the V bomber pilots and whatnot and they wanted fitters and riggers back, back home and I was premature re-patted, but then there was a major problem of my wife was pregnant and of course, she had to come back and they, they, it depended on if they couldn’t come back, I’d have to go out, but then it depended whether the aircrew on the aircraft would bring her back. Would they have her and that and it was a Hastings flight and they said yes. So my wife who was, oh was she near, I wonder if, ‘cause that was, oh she’d be at least eight months. She must have been eight months so it was really, you know, it was touch and go, but anyway she came. They decided to take her so we, she came back in this Hastings or we came back in this Hastings and of course, the bloody thing went u/s in Malta, so we all had to get off and of course, she was the only woman on board the aeroplane. The rest was all, all men. She was the only woman and of course, then, of course in those days, there was no family accommodation. There was only women’s and men and so my wife finished up in this nissen hut all by herself and me in the, with the, ‘cause I was a corporal, with the rest of the men and because I was doing and then I remember in a morning, some chap out there says, ‘Is there a Corporal Bland in the hut?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I am’. He said, ‘Your wife wants you’. I thought, Oh God, you know, we’re not going to have the happening in Malta, you know, but no well when I went out she said, ‘When are you getting up?’ So that was it but eventually we, they got the aeroplane serviceable and we came back, and then of course, they wanted to put us in transit, and my wife said no I’m not going in transit, I want to go home and I’d bought a camera out there and then I had trouble with the customs. I said, ‘You can keep the bloody camera’. But they didn’t like that much, but anyway, we finished up at, where was it? Swindon Station. God knows what. Coming back in the milk train ‘cause we were going back to South Wales to her home in Newport or [unclear] and so we had there. So we, we finished up on this, and oh, Swindon I’ll always remember that. She was wanting to lay down and I said, ‘Alright’. and then of course, it was a bit chilly or something. Was it? I don’t know, but I know a porter came in and lit a fire in this waiting room, ‘cause there was only the two of us, and so eventually we, she kipped down on me, but anyway we got the milk train, we got back to, got to Newport and got a taxi from there and of course, the thing, because she was pregnant, my wife wouldn’t, wouldn’t tell her parents that she was on her way home. So, so we arrived completely unannounced, caused consternation as you can well imagine, but anyway that was it. I got posted to Worksop and she had the baby in Pontypool, and I think she’d have been better off in a military hospital then she was in a national health. I didn’t, she didn’t get treated very well there at all, anyway, that’s by the by, so we got to Worksop and I was on Meteors. So, posted to Worksop. Worksop which was an old wartime airfield which had been renovated, and we got Meteors there. So of course, I was, I was then a corporal still and then I got, I passed my senior technician’s exams, so I was a corporal, but I wasn’t really due for my senior, ‘cause at the time, wasn’t due for my senior and then I got my third. My sergeant came through, so I was a sergeant senior tech qualified. So that was the way it went on for the time being. I hadn’t, the time was it, wasn’t to go for the chief so that was the way it was. So I was on Meteors there in R&I, in Meteors so that was, that was my spell there. Then that went on till was it 19, I think it went on until 1955, and then a friend of mine who was also at Worksop, and he was a great reader of AMOs and he said, he said there’s an AMO about this new V bombers and their looking for aircraft servicing chiefs. ‘Oh’, I said, ‘that’s a good idea’. ‘Oh’, but he says, ‘they’ve got to be aircraft fitters’. Well I‘m only an engine fitter, I wasn’t an aircraft fitter. He was an aircraft fitter. Anyway, he volunteered for it and because he was an aircraft fitter, he finished up with it. Anyway, he was waiting and then, then they changed it and he came to me. He said, ‘Ay’, he said, ‘They’ve done, they’ve done a change on the AMO’. He said, ‘They’re taking on airframe and engine fitters’. ‘Oh’, I said, ‘Right’. So I went straight into the office and volunteered, and saying that was in 1955 and, yes and that was at the beginning of ’55. Must have been because then I had to go and they said alright, and I got this and I had to go to Brampton for an interview for this aircraft servicing chief. So I went there for this interview and a panel of officers, wing commanders and educators and electrical officers and so I had to, you know. What the hell for I don’t know. They ask you all sorts of questions. So that was it. You didn’t know anything about it at all until, when was it? It would have been, when would this be? July, August something like that, and it came through and told me that I’d got to, now I’d got to, where did I have to go first. I had to go Wheaton first, to get, to go on an airframe course. So I went on this airframe course, which was quite a small one. I don’t think I learned much more than I knew in the first place, but anyway I went on this airframe course and then from then on, I sort of moved on to, we had to then, had to go down to Melksham to go on the instrument and electrical course, so having done that, we went to Melksham, and then they allocated you from Melksham. It depended on how well you did, what you, what aircraft you went on, ‘cause the Valiant was in progress ‘cause there were Valiant crew chiefs, had been trained and I can’t remember how many crew chiefs there was. Twenty of us on the course? Was it? I can’t remember now how many, but anyway, then it worked out the Victor came in and the Vulcan and, and the Valiant but some Vulcan crew chiefs had been trained before, but out of my course there was four Victors that went on the Victor. There was eight, eight, was it eight? Yeah, eight Vulcans and the rest were Valiants. So that’s how I was, and they did you, on the, you were allowed to volunteer which aircraft you want, went, went on but it depended on your position in the final exam which aircraft you got. Unfortunately, I came top so I was able, I had my pick of Vulcan, I didn’t want the Victor. All the others were interested in was the Victor, I wasn’t interested in the Victor at all so I went and got on the Vulcan. So then from Melksham, we went on to Avro’s. Was it Avro’s? No Avro’s weren’t first. Where did we go? Boulton Pauls power fliers I think. Boulton Paul. Was there Avro’s then? I don’t know. A V Roe’s. And then you had to, Bristols was the engines you had to do that so that was the end of, I mean, this was taking you up from, so that was, what are we saying? Was it May? May or June? I don’t know, ’55? So this was 1956 and we were all posted to Waddington, all of us, and all the crew chiefs, the Vulcan crew chiefs, were at Waddington. Half of us had nothing to do. In fact, what did we do, because I’d been in, here it is you see, you come back, you’ve been MT, so you’ve been working on MT and you’ve got an MT driving licence and whatnot, so I finished up driving a bloody lorry, making a car park. That just shows you. Crew chiefs. We were doing sweated labour if you like. And then the first Vulcan arrived in, was it June? July? Anyway, whatever it was and that was it and of course, the only one that was Geordie Colley, who was the number one, and so it did a while and then he had to go down to Boscombe Down on intensified flying trials. And then during this space of time, they’d allocated crew chiefs for the OCU. The first squadron which was 83, which became 44, and then the second squadron was 101, which was going to be at Coningsby and of course, we’d all been buggering about this long, so four of us, we decided we’d try to jack up the system a bit and we get posted to Coningsby. We were all ready for the Vulcan when it came, what a doing that do? Anyway, I got nominated by the engineering officer to go as number two to Geordie Colley, so I finished up going down to Boscombe Down on the intensified flying trials with this XA 895. That was the first Vulcan. The other one of course, the one that crashed, was Broadhurst was 897 and I was 89, with 895, so I went down there with Geordie Colley and then Geordie Colley’s wife had a baby, so I was left on number 1 with this bloody aeroplane that I knew, well I say you knew nothing about. You were one of the one’s that knew anything and everybody, before they did a bloody job, came and asked you was it right, and you had no bloody idea either so it was, and that was the way it went. So I did my spell at Boscombe Down, fell out with the engineering officer, and so he sent me back, which was very nice. So I came back to Coningsby. I get back to Coningsby. No aeroplanes at Coningsby so what, what do we do? You’ve got a crew chief here with no aeroplanes in the wrong airfield because they’d decided the Vulcan wasn’t going to Coningsby, it was going to Finningley, so we got four, four crew chiefs all trained up in the wrong place, wrong time, wrong everything, you know. So I went in to the squadron leader, Coningsby was on C&M I think at the time, ‘cause they were, they were, they got some Canberras there I think, but then I went in to see, ‘cause I went there, went in to see the engineering officer, was a squadron leader OCUEng, and so anyway ‘cause then he says, oh, do airframe and whatnot. ‘What have you done, Chief?’ I said, ‘Oh, just instructing MT’. ‘Just the man’, he says. ‘You’re in charge of MTSS’. So here am I, a fully trained Vulcan crew chief, in charge of MT servicing, so that was, that was it and I thought, well crikey I’m a, you know, I’ve got sergeants here, MT fitters. I’m not, you know, qualified but anyway it didn’t matter, and then there was another chief tech there doing, so anyway and then the flight sergeant came so I was able to hand over to him without any trouble at all. And they put me then, the MTO said, ‘Oh you’d better come on the MT operating section’’ and that was, I went on the MT operating section and that was when, I suppose, I achieved an ambition as a small boy. As a very small boy, all I wanted to do was drive a big lorry, and so anyway, ‘cause I had the MT operating section and whatnot, the MT, I had a 658 to cover me on everything and I managed to drive one of these damned great snow ploughs. So I thought I’d achieved a very ambition of long ago when I was a little boy, so that was it, but then, then of course things all changed and then the next thing that happened they, where was I? Was I still at Coningsby? Yeah. Or was I oh, no we got posted to, did we get posted to Finningley? Got posted to Finn, oh the, we managed to get ourselves, four of us, back to Finningley, and of course at Finningley, of course there were new quarters. No equipment barrack equipment in them. We were posted, so the barrack warden, you know, he said, ‘I can’t’, you know, ‘I haven’t got the men. I haven’t got transport’, I haven’t got do this, that and the other to furnish these quarters, which need doing, so what we did, I got the 658 and I could drive the truck, so we furnished the quarters. The four of us furnished our own quarters out of the stores and all the rest of it, so we furnished our quarters so we could move the families in. So that was, that was Finningley, and then of course all this was done, and then the next thing, they despatched me back to Waddington, ‘cause they, they were taking the Vulcan to America on a bombing competition. So they detached me back to Waddington so that I could go on this, the SAC bombing competition with these, with the Vulcans and because you weren’t allowed to, you were only allowed, you weren’t allowed to have two crew chiefs per aeroplane, the thing was you’d got to have, in your crew, you’d got to have a crew chief standby in case the original crew chief went sick, so I was, this was the best of it was, I was an engine fitter and basically an engine fitter, so I went as an airframe, an airframe mechanic. I went as an airframe mechanic to Florida on the bombing comp, so that was it, but then of course that all went. Came back home and then of course the second squadron, ‘cause the first squadron, the ones that were at Waddington had all got, been crew chiefs and got their aeroplanes, and my friend who got killed, Taf Everson, he got 908, XA908 but, and anyway they, they, he went and everyone got their aeroplane and because I’d been in America, course I was way down the list, so I eventually, eventually when was it? Would have been ’57, would it, then? Yeah, ’57 aye, yeah. Came up and I went to, I had to go to Woodford and I picked up XH475 that was, that was my aeroplane, so anyway I went up there and got that and became part of the squadron, you know. That was the crew chief. Didn’t matter what you were. And of course, got this aeroplane and took it all over the place. Got stuck all over the place. Lost an engine in Goose. Pump failure. So that was on. Got hydraulic failure, the hydraulic system in, where was that? Oh God. It was, oh dear. Where was that? And that was in America. I can’t remember. That was somewhere and then of course we got, come back and you did the ranges. Then they had the, what was it, oh I can’t remember. The exercises you had to go to. Butterworth. Was it profiteer? I don’t know what it was, I can’t remember now. So I took 475 there. I was flying, I was flying with the wing commander’s squadron. Flew out there and got out there flying and whatnot. I had a day off and of course they wanted to do something, and they, my aeroplane, I had a day off and I came, went back and found that some daft bugger had closed the bomb doors on the safety razor and broken one of the bomb door links. Oh God. And that was, I said, ‘That’s a brilliant one isn’t it?’ So, anyway, only had to be, how am I, there we were, how were we going to get back and there’s all the gear we got there and of course, you opened the bomb doors and we could open them and put all the stuff in and then you had to, we’d close the bomb doors. The only way then was we had, got local blacksmiths to make a turn buckle, and with turn buckle, so you could close the bomb doors and once you’d closed them, we wound them up so that you couldn’t open them. Anyway, took the fuses out and everything, so I had a bomb door, bomb bay full of US equipment, all my tyres had been burnt and worn, so I said to the wing commander, I said, I said, ‘I’ve got no I’ve got no gear in as I can use’. I said, ‘If we get left behind, we’re stuck’. He said, ‘We won’t get left behind’. But then of course, the next thing that happened was, I don’t know how, CRACK. My bomb aimer’s window was cracked. Oh dear. So I said to the wing commander, I said, ‘We’ve got a cracked bomb aimers window’. I said, I said, I said ‘I don’t know, we’ll have to fly back with it’. I said ‘I’ll do a pressurization and see’, you know, ‘if it’s alright’. He said ‘we’ll do the pressurisation on the way home’. That was it. So I flew home with a bomb bay full of rubbish, a bomb er, cracked bomb aimer’s window and came home that way. Landed and that was it. We managed without any trouble. I can’t remember, did we have any troubles? I normally get all sorts of troubles and that but, but I didn’t. I think we got back home without, and then of course, that was it. And then of course the next one was the CnC and whatnot, wanted to go on a lecture tour of America or something but he, he didn’t go in mine. He went on, I forget, was it 909? I think it was, with his own crew chief, Bill Neane I think, but then that got, flew via the Azores to Bermuda. Got to Bermuda and the inverter failed and his brakes, the brakes failed. The CnC wanted another aeroplane to go in so that was it. God knows what time of night I got knocked up in my night quarter, and they said, ‘Chief, we’re going, we’ve got to take, get an aeroplane to Bermuda. His inverter’s gone, brake units so we’ve got to take all the spares’. So there’s me, middle of the night with a pannier, getting bits and pieces and loading it all up, and then off we get to go to Bermuda via the Azores. The Azores. Always remember the, the, was he, is it Portuguese? I think he was, this officer looked as though he’d come out of what’s the name? I can’t think of the place. He had tassels on his uniform and all sorts of things, and did I want compression. I said, ‘Did I want compression?’ I couldn’t figure out what he was on about. Eventually I worked out that he, ‘did I want compressed air?’ Oh yeah, I wanted compressed air, yeah, so, but anyway that was left there without any trouble at all. Got to Bermuda and then of course met the crew chief and the crew of this 909. Landed there, got off the aeroplane and I got, got met by two Canadian Navy petty officers with a big bottle of whisky. ‘Come and have a drink mate’, you know. We’ve got, you know. I said, ‘I can’t drink and do’ and anyway my other crew chief there I said, ‘Alright we’ll have a drink’. So managed to have a couple of whiskies, but we got to change everything on these two aeroplanes because of all the gear from his aeroplane had to be transferred from mine to his and all the rest of it, so we did a pannier change and wheel change with the only support we had, ‘cause it should take four men to winch a pannier down off a Vulcan, was two crew chiefs and two drunken Canadian naval petty officers. So, but we managed and that, that was that. We had a bit of a problem. They had an electrical problem on start-up. It was robbed of, robbed a component off the aeroplane and that was my aeroplane cause I’d been, I’d changed, I’d made, well I’d thought I was going to go through with, with 476 but then, I don’t know whether the CnC wanted Bill Neane. I don’t know what it was but I finished up with this heap of rubbish in Bermuda instead of going onwards. And then, oh dear that, where did we get to? Yeah. Two drunken petty officers winching the pannier. It was amazing we got it down but anyway, we got it down. We got the gear changed over and everything, and Bill Neane wouldn’t drink anymore so as I was stopping, I was stuck. These two petty officers and whatnot decided we should finish this bottle of whisky. Oh God. What a thing isn’t it? So that was it. Then they changed over, then of course, they all got in. The bloody aeroplane went u/s again. That was the one I’d brought in so the CnC had to go, he had a date in America, the CN not the CnC was he? Not the CnC. Whatever he was. Whoever he was he had to go on by, by American transport and how humiliating really. So then of course, I had to rob, I robbed the aeroplane, robbed the u/s aeroplane to get this one serviceable. Then of course, had to get to America, and of course the CnC was acting as co-pilot, so of course there was one pilot missing, so the only way was the co-pilot that came up, came over with me, had to go on to America with this, with this, this other aeroplane. I don’t know how they finished up but anyway the co-pilot came back, but then, then of course the problem came, of course, I had this, left with this aeroplane in Bermuda with brakes troubles and inverter troubles. They’d sent an inverter, they’d sent an electrician out via BOAC to give me assistance on this electrical stuff, but then of course, he came out and I said, righto we’ll, we’ve changed the inverter. We’re alright. We’ll change, do the brake change. We can do the brake change and of course he was an electrician, and of course all he had to do to help me was to jack up and whatnot, and of course then, there was, then came a sorry tale. I got the jack underneath to, to change the brake units on this and I found that the bogie beam had a crack in it, a crack right along the end. Oh, at the end. I thought, what the devil do we, so anyway, all I got, I said to the captain, I said, ‘We’re in trouble here’. I said, ‘We’ve got a cracked bogie beam’. ‘Oh dear’, he said. So anyway, I’ve signals going back and forth, this cracked bogie beam. I said ‘well could drill a hole at the termination of the crack, but then the bogie beam takes all the stress of landing’. So I thought, oh well, but anyways I left it up to the UK air to decide, so they sent out a Doughty draughtsman, techno, oh, stress man or something, to see whether there was any possibility of doing this and he came out, and of course, no. Obviously he wouldn’t say it was even, if it probably was, because if it had cracked and the aircraft had crashed, it would have been him, so that was, that was it, so I was left there with this bloody aeroplane, with the rain pouring down, wind blowing, with this, with this aeroplane. Salt air was making things go a bit rusty but anyway they decided, well they had to change the bogie beam, the bogie beam. I don’t know [unclear]. The bogie beam carries the whole aeroplane of four wheels on one side, you know so, and the weight of the aeroplane so that had to be jacked up. The thing was, was all the equipment, was getting the equipment out to me in Bermuda and of course, the Air Force in those days, hadn’t got any bloody transport aeroplanes at all I don’t think, so they had, they had to hire, hire a DC6 to carry this. So I’d got four jacks, one hydraulic rig ‘cause retractions had to be done, so I had four jacks and a hydraulic rig, and of course they sent it out in this DC6, but fortunately they sent two, a chief tech out of their hydraulic bay and another rigger who was, he was, he was ex Halton boy, the same as me. So we had a chief tech, me a crew chief, a chief tech rigger, a sergeant rigger and a sergeant electrician and the aircrew, and these jacks all had to be built up ‘cause they couldn’t fly them in the aircraft whole so they were all in bits, so I had to build all these jacks up, fill them with hydraulic oil and do everything there to get these jacks up before we could jack the aeroplane up. And the other thing was a negotiation with the, the master sergeant of the hangar, ‘cause there was only one hangar on Bermuda and that was, had the doors welded open so that the wind could blow through it ‘cause otherwise it would have blown off and this, as I say, this master sergeant looked like Geronimo. I’m sure he was Indian anyway and we got on but he was not, he was a hard looking man and of course then he said, I said, well you know trying to negotiate use of this hangar for jacking up. He said, ‘Yes’. He said, ‘You can have the hangar but’, he said, ‘for twelve hours only and that’s all’. Twelve hours. I thought, bloody hell and all that, you know we’ve got to change and do hydraulic tests and everything on this, but anyway we managed it. And then a dry, to drive these axles out of the, of the bogie beam was, was the only way we could use - the Americans had solid chocs like sleepers and the way we drove these axles out of there was by one of these chocs and heaving it like a battering ram, but anyway we got the axles out. We got it all done anyway, and all the rest of it and retractions and the wind was blowing through the hangar, but we managed it. We did, we did it all. Much to, well we had to do it in the time, we hadn’t got much option and anyway, we got it out and on the, then of course all trouble started ‘cause then of course, I got water in the pitot system. That was ‘cause of all this terrible rain and the pitothead covers were bloody ridiculous so that was another job I had to do. Clean out, get all the water out of the pitot system. So that was it. ‘Righto’, he says. ‘That’s it. We’ve still got to do an air test’. So we got down to do, I forgot to mention that the only power, the only power source ‘cause the Vulcan bombers was a hundred and twelve volt DC and the only power source they’d got, ‘cause the Americans don’t use it, they use twenty eight volt but the, and only one we could do was borrow. They had a hundred and twelve volt for the, was it the Britannia on the, BOAC, BOAC side or British, yeah, British Airways side of Bermuda, so I had to borrow their diesel generator when they weren’t using it, so that was another thing. So I had to borrow this and then I had to tow it across the airfield to me. So anyway, that was, that was that was another thing, borrowing it and negotiating and all the rest of it. So we got that, got that done and eventually got it, got it started and, ‘Righto, we’re off’, you know and, oh that’s right. When I found that it goes boring off again and, that’s right and of course, they shut down and came back. I said, ‘What’s, what’s the trouble?’ ‘We’ve got no ASI’, no Air Speed Reading. This was when I found out that these pitothead covers were no good ‘cause I got water in the pitot system, so that all had to be drained, all that drained, done, everything else. ‘Have another go’. So we had another go, air test. Off they went and they flew around. I thought, ‘Oh we’re in business here’, they landed and I said, ‘Any?’ ‘Yes. Compass’. Oh dear God. Compass. I said, ‘What’s the matter?’ They said, ‘Our readings are wrong’, you know, somewhere along. I said well you know, so after much investigating, I thought, well it’s near impossible, the two pilot’s repeaters were duff. I thought it’s either that or the master indicator. The master. And I thought, if it’s the master, we’re in trouble ‘cause we’d got to do a compass sweep and all the rest of it for that. So anyway, back goes signals and the next thing comes out an instrument maker who happened to be an instrument maker off my entry of course, so I knew him personally. A chief tech. Instrument came back BOAC. I mean his, his, his excess weight baggage was off because he’d bought a compass, a master indicator, the blinkin’ whole bloody bag of shoots with him, and what state to do a compass sweep if he had to. Anyway, it turned out it was the two, as I thought it was, the two pilot’s repeaters were both u/s. Most unusual. So, anyway, that was, that was changed. I mean, mind you in this, [unclear] I know all this stuff had to be packed up and whatnot and landed on this DC6, to be flown back home and so that was another job. And where had we got to? Oh aye, the compass, that was it. Oh, that was it. Then the other things was, the thing that was before the compass, I can’t remember. Number 3 tank on the portside had developed a bloody leak and the Mark I tanks were not what I’d call brilliant. Anyway, the only way I could do it was, I thought, well I don’t know what I can do with this leak, and the Americans had some, had some peculiar sealant that they had, ‘cause they used a similar sort of thing that I used, and after much, as I say, I got to know this, my master sergeant quite well and I had a long chat with him, and I said, ‘Well have you got some stuff I can maybe cure this leak?’ ‘Cause I knew where it was. The tank where the pump housing and everything was, prone to split. The bolt holes tend to split so I, after much talk with this man I dropped the, I dropped the pump on number 3 tank and lathered this sealant in place, hoping it would do it because I mean, the tank change was beyond and so I had a go. It wasn’t, it wasn’t much good at all but then of course, we’d had the air test. We’d had everything done. We were all ready to go home, but with this tank and I said ‘well’, I said, ‘we’ve got the pilot who was’, Beavis, his name was. Who was he? He finished up a, was he master of the Royal Air Force or something? Mike Beavis, and I said to, and John Ward was the co-pilot, I said, ‘Well look. I can, I can put fuel it for you to go home’, because by this time, we were, we were, this was the only thing that was stopping us. I said, ‘To go home’, I said, ‘Look, we either if you can work it out with number 3 tank empty, we can make it’. I said, ‘Otherwise’, I said, ‘I’ll fill number 3 tank’, and this was number 3 tank port, I said, ‘And then you use all that fuel off that tank for everything to empty it’. And then I said, ‘What’s left we’ll just have to let it leak out’. And so John Ward did his calculations, that we could fly back with that number 3 tank empty, so I then sort of took all the fuses out, took the pump off it and everything. Well, the pump was there but I took the fuses out and everything so that the pump couldn’t overheat or anything, and that was, so we flew back from Bermuda to the Azores. So we land back to the Azores and so I said we were alright from the Azores back home with still number 3 tank empty, and then, of course, oh damn. The Azores, we started off on my pack that I’d got, with the battery pack that I’d got in the bomb, in the pannier, started up and was doing and then they said, Number 3 inverted, was the one that I’d changed, we’d changed in Bermuda. Number 3 inverter had gone down. I said, ‘Oh God’, you know, I said, I said, ‘Well we’re sunk’. I said, ‘I’ve no spare inverters that I can change’. I said we, we, I said, ‘Look. It’s, it’s number 3. We can go on’. Number 3 was the sort of standby. I said, ‘We can either’, to the captain, I said, ‘Look. We either wait here and I get an inverter to change it or we fly home on everything we’ve got with no spare’. So, after a bit of a discussion they said, ‘We’ll, we’ll, go home’. So we started up and flew home. Got, ‘cause we came from Finningley really. Course we landed at Waddington and of course, we had to there for customs clearance of all things. So we landed at Waddington and the wing commander was there to greet us, and my captain who was not the, not the first pilot, he was the navigator, ‘Oh’, he said, we could, he said ‘If you put a brake chute in, we could fly home couldn’t we?’ I said, ‘Look’, I said, ‘I’ll put you a brake chute in but’, I said, I said, ‘I’ll walk home’. I said, ‘That’s a bloody heap of rubbish this is’. A heap of rubbish. So anyway, the wing commander was there and so I said, ‘Well that’s it’. And, and that aeroplane at Waddington, took them a fortnight to get it serviced to fly it to Finningley. So that was, that was me. I came home after months in Bermuda and the wing commander said, ‘You’d better have a couple of days off’. But that was a bloody aeroplane. Bloody aeroplane. 909. XA909. It wasn’t mine, it was Fred Harrison’s. It wasn’t one I fetched, and then oh, after that, we went to, we went on a, to Butterworth. Went to Butterworth and then we, because this was when they shut my damned, did I tell you about that. I haven’t put that on there have I? No. I can’t remember, I’ve told that much. They shook my, they shook my aircraft [unclear], broken the bomb doors. I had to take 9, I had to take, the aircrew wanted to go, were minded to take an aircraft to Manila in the Philippines from Butterworth, and mine was u/s with the bomb doors, and the only one I could take was 909. The engineer said, ‘Do you mind taking 909?’ ‘Cause that was the one that was stuck in Bermuda, Bermuda with. I said, ‘I’ll take anything as long as its serviceable’, so, and that was the only, the only range I ever did where I had a serviceable aircraft from start to finish. I flew there no troubles. No troubles there and flew back and that was the only, only trip I ever did in a Vulcan where I didn’t have any problems.
MJ: On behalf of the International Bomber Command Archive I’d like to thank Warrant Officer Charles Bland at his home in Lincolnshire on the 17th of August 2015. Thank you for the recording.
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Title
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Interview with Charles Bland
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Mick Jeffery
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-08-17
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Sound
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ABlandC150817, PBlandC1501
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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eng
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Royal Air Force
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Vivienne Tincombe
Description
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Charles Bland joined the Royal Air Force in February 1942 and went to RAF Halton as an Aircraft Apprentice.
He tells of his training at Halton, and describes the different trades and his exams to become an Leading Aircraftsman 1st Class, where he was then transferred to a Repair and Inspection Unit (R&I) working on Spitfire engines.
Charles then went to India via the Suez Canal and then on to Ceylon to 121 Repair and Salvage Unit, looking after 2 squadrons of Beaufighters and 1 squadron of Spitfires, but he says that because he was an apprentice, he could turn his hand to anything.
He was posted to instruct at a Motor Transport Unit, and spent time learning about the maintenance of other equipment including diesel engines.
Charles was posted to 109 Maintenance Unit, repairing Merlin engines, however at this time the V Bombers were coming into service. He trained as a Crew Chief and after passing these exams he was assigned to the Avro Vulcan XA908, at RAF Waddington.
Charles related the stories of the work he did when the Vulcan had hydraulic failure at Goose Green, the bombing competition in Florida where the aircraft suffered broken bomb bay doors and a cracked bomb aimers window, and the trip home from Bermuda with no fuel in one tank and a broken bogie beam.
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Pending revision of OH transcription
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02:21:37 audio recording
Beaufighter
C-47
fitter airframe
fitter engine
ground crew
ground personnel
Meteor
military discipline
military service conditions
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Coningsby
RAF Finningley
RAF Halton
RAF Kirton in Lindsey
RAF Waddington
RAF Worksop
service vehicle
Spitfire
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/369/6115/AHicksDK151103.2.mp3
8f3b62f9200c69a23551ea40528cc813
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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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Hicks, Ken
Ken Hicks
D K Hicks
Description
An account of the resource
61 items. An oral history interview with Chief Technician David Kennedy Hicks (b. 1922, 0574954 Royal Air force), memories of the Battle of Britain, his Royal Air Force record, and photographs of his Halton entry, his time in Southern Rhodesia and 56 photographs, many of his time in Southern Africa. Ken Hicks joined the Royal Air Force in 1938 as a Halton apprentice. He served with 202 Squadron at RAF Hornchurch during the Battle of Britain as an aircraft rigger. Subsequently he served on training unit in Southern Rhodesia and then in Egypt, staying in the Royal Air Force after the war.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Ken Hicks and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-11-03
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Hicks, DK
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Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: Right. My name is Chris Brockbank and I’m here to talk with Ken Hicks on the 3rd of November 2015 about his experiences in World War Two but if you’d like to start please Ken with your earliest recollections and then just go through your life in sequence please.
KH: To start with, my father, a coal miner down in Wales and when I was fifteen he said to me, ‘Lad you’re not going down the pit. I want you to learn a trade. I want you to go to see the headmaster and join the royal aircraft as an aircraft apprentice.’ I went and saw the headmaster and he said, ‘There’s no one been up from this school. The curriculum doesn’t cover it.’ But my old man went down and thumped the table. And he said ok and he sent for the exam paper and I sat in his office in his chair and I had one hour and I answered all the questions and he came in and he said, ‘Put your pen down.’ So I had just I just worked out the last answer so I jotted that down and he went bananas. ‘When I say put the pen down put the pen down.’ So he put it in a big brown envelope and he said, ‘Lick that,’ and I licked it. And he got hold of me by the ear and said, ‘Come on. I want to see you post it.’ So I posted it. I passed. He had me up in front of the school, tapping my head saying, ‘There’s a clever boy. I want all you boys to try this examination now.’ So I learned a lot about humanity [laughs]. So off I went to RAF Halton as a civilian lad of sixteen. Never been out of the Welsh valley even alone Wales on a train up to London. We got, we got to London and all the apprentices were sort of gathering there on the last train to Wendover and we all straggled up to, up to the camp. Not marched. And I was very impressed. I would, became a member of B Squadron. Two Wing Aircraft Apprentice RAF Halton. There was over a thousand boys in our entry and it was quite an eye opener but I adapted very well. My education wasn’t all that clever so I wasn’t one of the brainy blokes. I never became a snag — a corporal apprentice, or a sergeant apprentice [laughs]. I was still an AA. I got a three year training course but the war broke out 1939 and they cut it down to two years. Cut out a lot of sport and concentrated on teaching us. We marched down to schools, we marched down to the workshops and we marched down to the airfield for the aircraft training. We were training on Hawker Harts and Demons drilling, rigging. Stripping them down. Building them up. And an old Hampden there as the bomber side of it. I passed out in June 1940 and posted to 222 Squadron which was based at Kirton Lindsey, Lincoln at the time. And I’d only been there a week and beginning to settle down when we moved down to Hornchurch which moved straight into the Battle of Britain which commenced then and with two Spitfire squadrons at Hornchurch — 222 and I think it’s 603 City of Glasgow Spitfire squadron. I worked with a LAC 1GC who called me a sprog and I soon picked up we were repairing bullet holes in Spitfires. Filing around. If they, if they weren’t too bad we put a fabric patch on them. Anything to keep the aeroplane flying. Or we had to rivet two small riveting patches. I fitted in well with the, with the airman. We worked until the aircraft was serviceable. Sometimes gone midnight. We lost thirty seven pilots in that three months on my squadron and I wasn’t, I didn’t realise what was happening up there in the sky above us. The Germans were bombing our airfields and the Dorniers were coming across at about six thousand feet and mounds of earth — bombs were dropping and they were trying to – the grass airfields and they were trying to obliterate the RAF camps altogether. Bombs on the airfield. We had civilians out there with shovels filling in the bomb holes. They were bombing our hangars. And I was in the bath one night, 10 o’clock, when a bomb landed right outside the building and blew all the glass from the door into the bath with me and plaster. I reached over for my towel and that was covered in bits of glass. So I turned the duckboard upside down and stood on that. It was pitch dark. Half the block had been knocked down so the next night they moved us over to a round nissen hut the other side of the airfield and we were all in bed and about 1 o’clock in the morning a landmine which had come down went off and blew the roof right off our head. This corrugated roof. And we were all shouting at each other in our beds. Everybody. ‘Everybody alright.’ So we said we were alright and nobody hurt so we went back to sleep looking up at the stars. So that was a good opening. [pause] Where were we?
CB: We’re going to have a break for a mo.
[Recording paused]
CB: Ok. So you’ve lost the roof.
KH: Yeah.
CB: And what happened next day?
KH: The next day I had to go with the corporal. Corporal airframe fitter. I was, I was an airframe fitter. A land rover down, one of our Spitfires had landed down in Kent. In Manston. So we had to go down there and repair it. On the way down through the Kentish fields all the fields that were unharvested at that time of the year and they were all burning. Flames going across the road as we were driving along. I don’t know if that was a ploy to destroy the harvest or what but anyway we got to this Manston. Manston was a place heavily bombed. Anything left, any bombs left, any bombs left going back to Germany they picked Manston out and dropped them there. So there was no one on the station except a skeleton staff but we had a billet and there was, there was an emergency cook laid on for meals and we got to the Spitfire which had bent a prop and a pitot head and the corporal fitter in charge he changed the prop and I had to help him. There was no one on the station so we helped ourselves in the empty yard and anywhere else for equipment and stuff. We worked in the middle of the airfield. There was also a lorry there full of civilian workers. They were shovelling and filling in the bomb holes trying to put the airfield back in to some sort of serviceability state and one of them was binoculars scouring the skies. He was lookout and when he blew the whistle they all dropped their shovels, jumped in the truck and tore off the airfield. So we soon twigged it and when they went off the airfield we went off as well [laughs]. We dropped our tools and went off as well. So we fixed this Spitfire and the pilot came down in an Anson, dropped him off and he took off and flew it back to Hornchurch and then we got home and that was my first introduction to the war as it were. What was happening? Stop.
CB: Ok.
[Recording paused]
CB: Ok Ken can we just talk about what was your role as a rigger? What did you actually do in your job?
KH: As an airframe fitter I’d done the basic training and trained on older type of aircraft but now I was on a Spitfire which I’d never seen before in my life and didn’t know. Hadn’t done any training on it but I was given, I was told to work with an LAC 1GC airframe fitter who knew the ropes and he had to sort of teach me. So any riveting he was riveting that side and I held the block on this side sort of thing. So we were doing patches on the skins and things like that. Change undercart. Change the wheels. Tyre bay. How to use, how to use the tyre levers to change those, get those tyres off. Things like that. They were all practical work which I’d never done before and everything we did I learned. I learned more all the time. We had to learn the hydraulic system, the pneumatic system, the electrical system, anti-freeze system and even spraying. We had to spray and paint the camouflage back on the aircraft. And another role came out. We had to paint the underneath of the Spitfires a duck egg, duck egg blue, a light duck egg blue. So there we were lying on the hangar floor with a twelve inch, two inch paint brush painting the underside of a Spitfire. And we had to do the whole squadron. We’d got a mat to lie on on the hard concrete floor. That took us about a week to do the squadron. I can’t remember other things which I did because it was a long time ago.
CB: What about the flying controls which were wire operated?
KH: Well they were alright but I I had to do some splicing and I got a wire out and made a measurement and got a new wire from stores and spliced in the buckle on both ends. That’s seven and a half tucks on the splicing and then, and then fit it, wire, pull it back through with the string and connect it up. Tension the turn buckle to get it all right. And then the aircraft used to go out then on air test. On one occasion I was working in a hangar and apparently a Spitfire had come over from dispersal. They disbursed the Spits instead of having them in one place and be a target for a bomb they disbursed the other side of the airfield all over the place. Well this one came over and stopped in between the hangars and the chaps coming back from lunch, dinnertime thought it was the next Spitfire to be done so they pushed it into the hangar but this one was armed and nobody knew about it. They came back from dinner and I was down just about opening my toolbox underneath the wing of this aircraft when an instrument basher had got into this aircraft he’d shoved in to check his instruments and he pressed the firing button for some reason and all of a sudden four machine guns blasting. Blasting the hangar wall with the armour piercing tracer bullets flying around all over the place. Quite a long burst. And I was crouching down behind my tool box and I thought [laughs] well it’s a bit dodgy this is. [laughs] Lots of things happened when we were working there. Every now and again we had to drop — drop our tools and run for the air raid shelter and get down there fast. I was down the air raid shelter one day and I was about the last one in I think ‘cause I was near the entrance and I heard an aircraft taxiing off so I l had a look out and there was a Hurricane had come in. It was taxiing around. There was nobody about. We were all down the air raid shelter. And the pilot was waving so I ran out, crossed and jumped on to the wing and it was, it was a Polish pilot and he wanted to know what airfield he’d landed on. He had a map on his knee which showed him more or less the east coast so I turned it over and I pointed out where we were. Hornchurch. Hornchurch. And he had a look around and I knew the Poles were over at, over the other side of London so I said to him, ‘Balloon barrage. Fly over the top.’ ‘Oh yah yah,’ he said, you know and off he went. I hope he got back alright. There were quite a few instances but when you’re young and you’re new to the game you learn pretty fast. You make mates but the Air Ministry post you as numbers and you just get a serviceable team going nicely and you’re posted overseas invariably. Never to, never to see each other again. So you don’t make friends too long in the air force. They come and go fast. Some are posted to the desert. Some are posted to Iceland to the snow. Some are posted up the Far East. I was on the boat. Went down to Uxbridge got my KD and [torpee?] Up to Liverpool. Got on a troop ship RMS Scythia. Hammocks. No bunks. Out in a fifty two boat convoy. Left the Clyde, staggered course, escorted by destroyers and one battleship. Out in to the North Atlantic. I heard depth charges going off. The destroyers were chasing the subs which were after the convoy. Apparently, we heard that they did get one. One of our troop ships. We came down towards the equator and on the day we crossed the equator I had my nineteenth birthday. Crossing the equator going down south on a staggered course. Then we headed west, west again to Freetown. Out into the Atlantic and down the South Atlantic to Cape Town. Mostly army bods on board. They were going around, they were going around up to the Suez Canal, Cairo and they were tackling Rommel in North Africa. But the twenty eight names of the RAF were shouted out. ‘Get your kit off the boat. Get on that train.’ The train set off up for a day and a half and we knew there wasn’t a river line going all the way to Cairo which we thought we were going there. And we came to Salisbury Rhodesia and I was posted to mount, RAF Mount Hampden. There were three stations around Salisbury. One was Tiger Moths, one was Harvards for training fighters and one was Oxfords training bombers and I was posted to Mount Hampden — Tiger Moths. We got there. We were advanced party. Twenty eight men in an advanced party. All trades. And we were setting up, setting it up it. Getting it prepared. The entry arrived on a train from the [wool?] station. Corrugated sink, roofs. Billets with mosquito net windows and doors. Storm ditches. And we soon settled down. Guards. Guard duty. I don’t know what we were guarding from. The natives weren’t, we could hear their jungle drums going all night when they’d had some Kafa beer down them from the village and that was about all. We had no problems from the outside but we still had to do guards. We were assembling aircraft out of packing cases. Tiger Moths. And we kept doing that until we got, we got about forty and they were doing circuits and bumps training pilots and one time there were four prangs on the airfield at the same time. One had landed heavy. Busted his undercart. Another one had landed, watching him, landed on top of another one and they both turned over like that. Upside down. And then another one crash landed and we had a big sign on the hangar wall, “You bend them, we mend them.” When we finished in the aircraft I had to go flying with the pilot on a test flight to test the aircraft before they handed over on to flying training. Loops and rolls and spins. So I used to put my parachute on and pull the straps tight and practice grabbing the, grabbing the rip cord to open the ‘chute. I always wanted to bale out. We were up there flying one day doing aerobatics and the aircraft, the engine cut so I thought, ah. So I shouted down the tube, ‘Can I bale out? ’ He said, ‘No. I can see a clearing in the jungle down there. So I thought oh. So we landed in this clearing. It was about four foot high grass stuff and we hit a termite hill which whipped the undercart off, dug our nose in and slammed us over on our back upside down. So I undid slowly on to the back of my neck, wriggled out and it didn’t catch fire. And that was at half past six in the morning. When the sun got up there it gets up to a hundred and ten, a hundred and twenty in the shade in the summertime. We had no food. No water. And the pilot said, ‘I can hear, I heard a lion roaring.’ Well there were lions around that area. I thought well we can’t leave the aircraft ‘cause they’ll never find us. So we were lumbered. We were stuck. Mid-day a Moth flew over, spotted us, waggled his wings and flew back and told them where we were. At about five o’clock a three tonner came through the jungle with Chiefy and a couple of bods and brought us food and water. Our Chiefy had a look at the aircraft. It had broken its back, it had broken its spruce bars and the wings had gone. This, that and the other. And I was watching him. He took his pipe out and he put his tobacco in. He struck a match and he took a couple of puffs and he went over and he threw the lit match down where the petrol was and up went the petrol and he said to the pilot, he said, ‘When you landed it burned didn’t it? ’ He said. He said it wasn’t worth taking back so (laughs] we went and left it. Yeah. Crumbs.
CB: Do you want a break?
KH: Yeah.
[Recording paused]
CB: So the plane was a write off and caught fire so you went back but this was the sort of aeroplane you were trained on.
KH: Yes. That was no problem. They used to use me a lot because I was trained on aircraft and I could rig, I could rig the Tiger Moth so that there was no — it wasn’t flying left wing low, right wing low and all this that and the other and I used to do the trimming. I used to do any control work on it and I used to go up on air tests and make sure with the pilots that it was perfectly serviceable to hand over to flying training. That was primarily my job.
CB: What rank were you at this stage?
KH: I started off AC1, AC2, LAC.
CB: Right.
KH: I was stuck out in Rhodesia. No promotion for three years. I was doing an essential job training. Training pilots. I trained them in Rhodesia, South Africa and Canada so they were out of the way of the war. And that meant no promotion otherwise everybody would be flight sergeant [laughs] on the station [laughs]. Well there was no promotion at all for three years. One. One. He was a chippy carpenter. He got corporal stripes. He was the only one on the station that got promoted in that three years. The rest of the war was going on. That was more important. They were fighting out in Burma, they were fighting out in the Middle East and they were fighting out everywhere. They were moving around and getting places and getting promoted. They were on squadrons, my trade and the corporal would get killed and they thought they’d make an LAC up. There was promotion going on but not down there where we were on the training so I was still an LAC when I got home after three years. Six, six months I was only home in the UK six months and then I was posted overseas again. Egypt. A boat across the channel, a train down to [Touronne?] living in tents in the flooded water in the heavy rain until, for three days, until we got on a troop ship. Took us across the Med. Called in at Malta and I got rid of stuff there. And we didn’t know where we were going of course and then we saw the lovely blue Mediterranean Sea turning brown and we couldn’t see any land but that was the, that was the river coming down from North Africa.
CB: So this is the Nile Delta.
KH: The Nile. And that was coming out in to the Mediterranean and running and it was still brown full days sailing out from, you know. We came Alexandra. Dropped a few people off there and then we got on a train up to Cairo and we were nodding off on the train, with my head on the woodwork at the side and I started scratching and it was bugs come out of the woodwork and was biting me. I was lumps coming up [laughs] so I thought that’s our entrance to Egypt, you know. And this was the thing which we had to do. First of all it was a PGC Almaza in tents and before we left to go out in the evening into Cairo we used to put everything in our kit bag and lock it on to the tent pole because we’d heard that thieves used to get into the camp and pinch airmen’s equipment. When we came back, the rows of tents, there was a tent missing. They’d come in with a lorry and they’d picked the whole tent up pegs and all and put it in a lorry and drove out and nobody said anything. But ours was alright. Then we were waiting for our postings and we were posted everywhere. Down to, down the coast of Africa, down further down in to Egypt. They were posted up to Palestine. They were posted everywhere from there. Distribution place. And I got, I got Almaza Flying Station itself on Dakotas. So I soon picked that up then. We all had to move out of Egypt then so we all moved out of the Canal Zone. Two hundred mile across the desert to the Canal Zone. There was a great bit of lake half way down. It was Deversoir. Kibrit. Kibrit. Deversoir and 107MU and I was posted to 107MU repairing aircraft. But it was good in one thing. There was nothing to do. We had three yacht clubs on the station on the canal and I joined 107MU Sailing Club. I had put my name down first in a queue and then I was called up after about three weeks to join a club. The first thing I had to was allocate myself to a skipper who used to take me out and teach me how to use a jib. When I’d logged eight hours on the jib I was then free to be picked up by any skipper to go out on the main sail and give it dual instruction. And I found that I had a natural ability which I didn’t know I had and I could sail it pretty good. I learned. We’d got the rule book and I passed. Passed the B Helmsman Certificate and I became — I could take a boat out myself so I could book a boat out and take someone out. So, and every – we stopped – we finished, we started work at a quarter to six in the morning and we finished at one because it got too hot after that. So it was straight down the sailing club and I spent a lot of hours on the lake.
[Phone ringing. Recording paused]
KH: I’ve never done that before. [pause] Yeah. So I genned up on my racing rules and I passed my Helmsman Certificate. I could take a boat out and race. I could race. Compete. And I found I had the natural ability and I was, at the end of the year I was coming in first. I had three. The monthly race I was coming in first.
[Phone ringing. Recording paused]
CB: So, we’ve just paused for the phone. We’ve been talking about after the war in Egypt.
KH: Yeah.
CB: But you came back for six months.
KH: Yeah.
CB: What did you do in that six month period because this was at the end of ‘44?
KH: During that six months I was posted on to a squadron of [pause] of Hunters I think it was and I found out I knew nothing about modern aircraft and I asked and I got, I was away on aircraft instructional courses some lasting a month to various stations. I did three courses altogether and briefed up working on aircraft with the hydraulic systems and pneumatic systems, de-icer systems and all types of operational retraction handling and getting used to modern aircraft.
CB: Were these fighters or bombers or both?
KH: Everything.
CB: Right. And where were you stationed?
KH: Bombers. Transport. I was stationed actually at [paused] at — I don’t —
CB: Well we’ll pick up with it later.
KH: I can’t remember it.
CB: But you were getting up to date on modern aircraft systems.
KH: Yeah. Yeah. I did. You realise that I’d been out in the desert I hadn’t worked on them. But that developed rapidly during the war while I was out there.
CB: So after you finished at 107MU.
KH: Yeah.
CB: What did you do then? So you did sailing in the part time but after you left the MU in Egypt —
KH: Yeah.
CB: Where did you go?
KH: Well let’s see. I was posted to RAF [pause] as an instructor at Cosford. That’s right. RAF Cosford. As an instructor instructing air frames, hydraulic systems on the aircraft. From there the Berlin Airlift started and we were we were taken off to do a three month detachment on to the Berlin airlift so I was out of my first Berlin Airlift and straight into Berlin. Shift work. The aircraft. The Russians had surrounded Berlin and so we had to fly everything in. Food, coal, everything. So one aircraft landing every three minutes right around the clock. Avro Yorks, Hastings. Hastings were carrying fuel. But mainly Dakotas. American Dakotas flying right around the clock in shift work and we had the German labour to offload the aircraft and we had to – I was involved in seeing the aircraft in. Marshalling them, stopping them, putting the chocks there and getting them all in line and when they were emptied the pilot came back from having a cup of tea, got all back in the aircraft and started them up. I had a torch. That’s all. Start one, two, three, four engines or whatever what they were and the same all off. Right around the clock. If there was anything wrong we had to tackle it. We had to check, check the tyres, oil leaks, if there was a cut in the tyre we’d put it serviceable to fly back to base if we thought they wouldn’t make it. We didn’t want them stuck in Berlin. It was tough going and it was January. Snow. Three or four of inches of snow. We kept on flying and I was going from one aircraft to the other in the snow and there was a big pile of snow there. And I give it a kick. I thought, ‘What?’ And there was a dead man underneath it. It was a German labourer unloading the aircraft. He’d walked through a prop which was running under the wing and he didn’t see the prop and chopped him and covered with him snow as it taxied away. It was that bad but we kept it going. It was shift work and we were, we were shattered. The food we were having from the cookhouse was what we were flying in. Dehydrated. Everything was dehydrated potatoes dehydrated. Pomme. Dehydrated peas. Dehydrated powdered stuff and we weren’t getting good food at all. For Christmas Day we had one whole orange each. That was a treat. That was the toughest part I’ve ever been in I think. That Berlin Airlift. And the station commander wasn’t satisfied when he walked around our billets because we were doing shift work. We were piling out of bed and getting to work six o’clock in the morning. Leave our, leave our bed made down and that wasn’t good enough. All beds had to be made up. This that and the other. And everybody was put on a charge and we were all given a reprimand. A block punishment. [laughs] But I used to get time off. I was chatting up, my mate and I chatting up a couple of deutsche bints as we called them. [laughs] Yeah. It was alright. Anyway, we were back, back at Bassingbourn which was our base then. On Avro Yorks. Working on Yorks and they put me, when I got back to Bassingbourn, the warrant officer in charge says, ‘You’re a married man. I want you to go to the R&D section,’ receive and despatch section in charge of ten WAAFs. ‘I want a married man to look after them.’ So I went over to the edge of a hangar there was a section and they were sort of changing the white covers over the back of the seats in the aircraft and the airmen I had were doing the fitting of the seats. Taking them out and stacking them on a tractor and a trailer and we used to, an aircraft, a York used to come in, different rolls. Some had a roller. Some had lashing chains. Some had power seats. Some had VIP seats and all these had to be handled. And strip the aircraft and hand it over for it to do the servicing. Into maintenance and then fit them all back in afterwards so it was quite a busy operation and variation and they were all airmen and WAAFs and I was a corporal put in charge of them [laughs] and the first day I knocked off at 5 o’clock. They all left the section and I locked the hangar. Locked the section up which was a steel door. I was going to lock it and one of the WAAFs had come back, had got hold of me and pinned me against a wall. Grabbed a handful. So I thought, Jones, her name was. Bloody thing. So I talked her out of that one. I thought I’ve got to handle these buggers myself now [laughs]. So it was quite a struggle too because some of the airmen were a bit bolshie. They were, they all had demob numbers. They all wanted to get out, get out of the mob. That happened to start with down when I was down in Egypt. I had a, I had a team, servicing team. I was in charge of two aircraft servicing teams and every now and again a demob number would come up and I’d lose a man, lose another man, and lose a man – no replacements. Getting less and less and we had I was training two natives. Two Egyptian natives to do some of the work. Some of the rigging and fitting work. Just the donkey work stuff. And I thought well this is no good. We had fifteen Dakotas there servicing on the line. And then, and Chiefy says, ‘You’ll have to take that Dakota there he said, get in it, get somebody to start it up, pull the trolley acc away and taxi it yourself out into the desert as far as you can. Switch your engines off, get out and shut the door and walk back here.’ And that’s what I had to do. All these Dakotas. The war had finished. The Yanks didn’t want the Dakotas back. Nobody wanted them so took them out in the desert and left them there. And the third day I was going out, I taxied out and there was another one of them starting up so I went over. There was a truck there. It was Israelis there from Israel. They come down starting up to tax, taxiing to the runway and flying them back to Israel. [laughs]. So all I was doing was helping the bloody Israelis out [laughs] nicking all our Dakotas. Well they were supposed to be but they were perfectly alright. We were working all that time to get them serviceable. Cor flipping heck. But I soon adapted to that.
CB: So that was in your desert time. We were just having a reflection there. So back to Bassingbourn.
KH: Bassingbourn.
CB: Were you losing people to demob there as well?
KH: Yes. All the time.
CB: We’re on National Service now of course.
KH: Yeah.
CB: Because we’re on 1948.
KH: Yeah. Yeah it was. It got difficult then. What did I do? I went on courses. Bassingbourn. [pause] Cosford as instructor. Yeah. Married. Yeah Bassingbourn. Airlift.
CB: So Bassingbourn had Yorks.
KH: Yeah.
CB: And then did you keep on that aircraft or did you go to something quite different somewhere else?
KH: Oh no. I’m trying to think what happened then.
CB: We’ll take a —
KH: Oh yeah
CB: Sorry.
KH: I got quite fed up then and I was – what was it? I was at Abingdon. No. I was in digs in Reading. I was married. Digs in reading. I was on a motorbike back and forth to Abingdon. Working RAF Abingdon on Yorks and I was passing Benson and I was chatting to in bloke in Wallingford, a RAF chap from Benson. He said there’s a Queen’s Flight, Benson, King’s Flight at Benson then and he says, ‘Why don’t you come to Benson, you know, instead of going back and forth to Reading all the time.’ Reading to Abingdon. So I went to the orderly room and I I asked if I could be posted and I filled in a form and then I was posted to a Kings Flight. Well I was sent over there for interview. I arrived at a guardroom and I was escorted down to the hangar and up to the warrant officer in charge and I was interviewed and then he took me through to the flight lieutenant who happened to be in my entry. Thirty eighth entry at Halton. He was one of the brainy ones. He got, he got a technical commission and so he says, he says, ‘Right,’ you know, ‘We’ll have you.’ So I was posted to the Kings Flight. I applied for married quarters and I got it. 11 Spitfire Square and and everything was fine. Then it was the Queen’s Flight. The Queen’s Flight [pause]. Two children born there. Halton Hospital. Yeah. I enjoyed my stay there. I did so well when I left and yeah, I got the Royal Victoria Medal presented to me when I left. I was in Germany and I was sent, I was sent down to Bonn where a group captain was dishing out medals and I was presented with the RVM for being on the Queen’s Flight. For the good work I’d done there. I was working on Swift, Swift aircraft. There was only two squadrons of Swifts made. 2 Squadron down on Aden. I was on 79 Squadron and Chief Tech Airframe and nobody knew anything about these bloody aeroplanes. And I reckon I did some good work on them. The warrant officer relied on me for everything. Any snag that came up he used to come and ask me. There was one Swift sitting there. They couldn’t keep it in a hangar because it was running fuel all the time out of a pipe out of the back. Filled the drip trays so they kept it outside. They kept it out over a drain. The next thing the farmer down the road said his cows were getting ill. It was the fuel was going into the brook and drinking the oily, oily water so he asked me to do something about it. So I’ve got, I never seen Swift before in my life and I got, I went and got the one and only book on it and I took it home that night and read it. It was gone midnight when I finished reading that. And I studied all the circuits and this that and the other to where that fuel could come from. So then I went over and I undid a couple of panels and I got to the bottom of the tank, main front tank behind the pilot of this Swift and there was three pipes there and I traced them in the book and one was going up to a recuperator tank which was inside the main tank. It was pressurised from the engine. There was a rubber sock in the middle of that little tank. Pressure from the engine so that when you went into a G turn you was still getting full pressure from the engine on to his fuel to keep the fuel pressure up for his engine and that was the rubber sock in the middle of the front tank and that that pipe was the only one, I thought well there must be a pinhole in that rubber sock that’s getting through to the outside of that, but the air side of it and then coming out the drain at the back. And I told, I told the warrant officer this and he said, ‘Righto,’ and he took me onto another job then and he put a sergeant and a few riggers to work the tank out and put it on test to make sure what I said was true and it was. It was leaking. I’d pinpointed it alright. Then I was posted wasn’t I? Where was it? What do you call them? I can’t remember.
CB: So you were in Germany.
KH: In Germany.
CB: Where was that? Bruggen?
KH: Gutersloh.
CB: Oh Gutersloh. Right.
KH: Gutersloh [pause] Bassingbourn. Bassingbourn.
CB: Tell you what. We’ll have a break.
KH: Yeah.
[Recording paused]
CB: Ok Ken. So after Gutersloh where did you go? You came back to Benson did you?
KH: Came back to Benson and the flights, flight commander said, ‘All the technical jobs are occupied but I want somebody to sort out a pain in my neck,’ he says, ‘Which is the roll equipment. I want to put you in charge of roll equipment and I want you to sort it out.’ I didn’t know what roll equipment was and I got down there and I had three sergeants. They were store bashers in the office and I had been an LAC I had a few corporals and a lot of men out in the hangar and they had twenty five Avro Yorks on the station that they could drop the ramp down the back and they could fit it out with roller seats or any anything [barrow?] and all that equipment, the roll equipment is stacked up in the back hangar at Benson and it, and it had to be sorted out. So I I had them all, all in the hangar there together in a group and I told them what's got to be done. So first of all we got some, some of the roller equipment which is racks with roller, roller balls on them. You could put things on so you could move, move everything around on them easily and assembled racks in the hangar to store these things and you’ve got to go through a servicing and then a servicing bay. US that side, serviceable that side and get a gang on servicing that lot and when they finished put them back on the serviceable rack and there were racks for holding all the chains for lashing down. All the straps, all the buckles and rings you could screw into the floor. There was all the seating. There was all the para seating. There was, there was all kinds of rolls. Centre poles you could put down from the floor to ceiling and fit seats in. All that sort of thing which was quite complicated really and these aircraft was going down the route and there was trouble down in [Muharraq?] and I was told by the wing commander to go down the route to [Muharraq?] and sort it out. The roll equipment there. And I walked in to roll equipment there and the flight sergeant in charge there and he’d put there from somewhere else. He didn’t know a thing about it and he was overloaded with the stuff. It was building up and he didn’t know what to do with it. It was the AQMs were slinging stuff off. They were getting a job sheet to carry so much and drop it off to there and this that and the other and no one was taking into account what was in the aircraft and what wasn’t and if there was room or not and it was chaos and the stuff was piling up down the end of the route. And so I went back and I told the wing commander and he said well make out, make out, he made out sent a directive down the route that any aircraft coming back with room has got to put roll equipment on it to bring it back to roll equipment Benson. So they brought it all back slowly so we got it all back and we could work it, work better then. Sorted that one out. What happened from there? From Benson.
CB: What year are we talking about now? 1954.
KH: Oh crumbs yeah.
CB: ’54.
KH: Yeah.
[pause]
CB: Ok. We’ll stop there for a bit.
KH: Yeah. Stop.
[Recording paused]
CB: So Ken, you’re posted to Hornchurch which is on Spitfire’s and they’re much more sophisticated than you’d been trained at Halton.
KH: Yeah.
CB: So how did they get you, ‘cause it’s the height of the Battle of Britain. How did they get you in on the act as it were?
KH: Yes well as an airman. Aircraft fitter. Airframe fitter. Trained but with lack of experience I was told to work with a LAC 1GC airframe fitter which – and we went through all his normal work and I was his mate as it were and I picked up a lot about the Spitfire. I was always questioning. I was always trying to get hold of air publication books so that I could, but I couldn’t get hold of any to learn more about the aircraft. The aircraft was developing in such a pace that new things were happening to the Spitfire all the time. They were improving this, improving that, improving the other and I wasn’t in a position to go in the flight sergeants office and have a look at the, have a look at all the APs and things like that. In any case that wasn’t my main interest at all. It was just getting the overtime worked. Usually working until you got the aircraft serviceable even if you were working until the midnight. It’s got to be ready first thing in the morning. If not and you do a shift work on it until it is ready. Most of the air frame work was you could, you could do it within a couple of hours. Undercart checks, this that and the other I could do in a couple of hours and carry on with the next aircraft but as an AC you could be taken off that job and put on another job even if you were halfway through it to work with somebody else but you don’t make the decisions. They do and they tell you what to do and it was that state of affairs but the more I did of that the more experience I got and the more experience you got the more responsibility they gave you to do. If you got three men and one of them has some experience and the other two are not its experienced bloke that gets the job and he’s the chap they rely on. So I found out, you find out the hard way. Sometimes you’re given the dirty jobs all the time and other times you’re not. You’re given the good jobs. So it depends who the next rank above you is and what he decides. So you’re bobbing around your corporals and your sergeants. Your sergeants were up top. They were miles away.
CB: You mentioned having to check documents. The APs are air force publications aren’t they?
KH: Yes. Yeah.
CB: When an aeroplane lands what has to be done to it before it can fly again? There are some basic procedures are there?
KH: Yeah. The pilot, pilot signs the aircraft in and he puts his signature down and puts down anything he finds wrong with it and he puts it down. That goes down in to the technical section and they put a man on to rectify that fault. So the pilot’s signature’s always there and before he takes the aircraft up he has to do the last signature that it is serviceable is down and then he signs over the top before he takes over and flies the aeroplane. He’s not allowed to take it up unless he signs the 700 first ‘cause that is the bible.
CB: In the heat of the battle they didn’t have time to do that so what happened then?
KH: Oh they did. They did.
CB: Oh they did.
KH: Yeah. Chiefy used to stick the 700 and a pen in his hand and he used to sign that and run. He didn’t know what he’d signed. [laughs]
CB: Amazing. So you’re working long hours. You get to finish the task. Where are you living on the airfield?
KH: Well before I was married I was in a block with the airmen.
CB: Right.
KH: And it was a station then at Benson here. As an airman, before I got married, and was quartered we used to march down from the block, across the main road, down to the hangars and march back again in those days. But they packed that in because it got too difficult in the end.
CB: Because the war was on.
KH: Yeah. This that and the other. Yeah. They got rid of that lot.
CB: And in the, so in a barrack block there are a number of rooms on several floors. How many people in a room?
KH: There’s a ten, ten. Twenty in a room.
CB: Yeah.
KH: And a snag in a bunk.
CB: Yeah. That’s the corporal.
KH: Six, six rooms and there’s a, there’s a static order. Everybody takes a turn in doing certain jobs. Domestic jobs that’s got to be done.
CB: What would they be?
KH: Bumpering the floor. Everyone had got his own space to do. In the old days you used to make your kit up into blankets. They had biscuits. Three biscuits stacked and then the blankets and sheets folded and the last sheet folded right around the top. Put on the top there and they had to leave that before they went, left to go to work like that. But they eased off on that situation later on.
CB: So bumpering the floor meant polishing the floor with a big bumper.
KH: Yeah.
CB: What other jobs were there you had to do?
KH: Well the, when it was your turn, what was it? Now everybody had his own window to clean. His own floor space. Bed. Locker.
CB: And the communal areas.
KH: The room orderly. There were certain things he had to do.
CB: Who was the room orderly?
KH: Everybody took it in turns.
CB: For a week or a day?
KH: No. A week.
CB: Right.
KH: There was a drying room down the back and a wash. A shower room. The toilets.
CB: How did they get cleaned?
KH: They were, they were all on a roster. So they were all done, all covered. The corporal in the bunk was usually the man who run it so it was run very smooth.
CB: Yeah.
KH: You was directly in contact with him.
CB: So in each room there’s a corporal and twenty men.
KH: Yeah.
CB: And now about eating. What was the procedure for that?
KH: Oh well. You just – what was it? [pause] You just wander over to the cookhouse with your mug and irons and no problem. Yeah. Certain times there was times when we had to work overtime on this that and the other and go back to the cookhouse and it still, it still, you’d still get fed and all that. There was no problem. IF you were orderly corporal or a orderly sergeant. An orderly sergeant in the guardroom. He’s got his job laid down down down. He’s got to make sure the NAAFI’s shut at 9 o’clock and he’s got to make sure that this and the other is done. He’s got to go around. It’s all automatic and back to the guardroom. I went to the guardroom the other day and there was two sailors there running it [laughs].
CB: A bit different now.
KH: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. So what were the mealtimes?
KH: Oh normal. Half past seven ‘til eight. Work at half past eight. Nine hours. Or 8 o’clock. Depends what what you’re doing. Some earlier than others. The pen pushers well they were static but the fitters and riggers they have to adapt their work time to suit the job. If there was early start aircraft in the morning they had to be there. They were knocking off early and it was all covered that way.
CB: How often did you sleep next to the aircraft?
KH: Never. No. Never got to that stage.
CB: Not even in the Battle of Britain.
KH: No. Well I don’t know what they did our in the flights but they were, we were the fitters in the hangar.
CB: Right.
KH: Working on the aircraft. There were airframe mechanics, engine mechanics out on the flights dealing with them first hand and they had a different system to cover all eventualities.
KH: And the armourers.
CB: And the same with all. All trades the same. Yeah. The armaments sections. Yeah. Instrument section. This that and the other and they all had their ICs and they were the chaps looking after them. It worked very well.
KH: Yeah. Ok. Stopping there for a mo.
[Recording paused]
JLE: [First days?] I’d find quite interesting to know about.
CB: Apprenticeship days. Right.
KH: Apprenticeship days. Well. You were in a billet. Twenty men and a corporal or the senior man in the bunk. Six rooms to a, six rooms to a block. You’re forming, when I first joined, you’re forming outside with your mug and irons in your hand. Marched to breakfast 8 o’clock. Quarter to eight. Something like that. After breakfast came back and you squared your bed up, rolls your overalls, put them under your arm, fall in outside and you marched on to the square. A Squadron, B Squadron, C Squadron. The man in charge. The band would start up and you’d all march behind the band out the guard room and down the hill. And some would go to workshops, some would go down to the airfield and some would go to the school. About twelve — march back. Dinner. Down again. Marched down again and you’re probably a different, different place the next time and you’d go down the airfield in the morning. You were probably in schools in the afternoon. The schools cover all the theories. Worked everything out there. You’d do practical jobs. You’d dismantle it and assemble it again and various components on the aircraft. Engine fitters would be running the engines and the airframe fitters would be doing this that and the other and instruments were all covered. It was training. We would manage to get a few extra aircraft. I started off with a, with a Hampden bomber and a Hawker Demon and we had all kinds of jobs on that. We had to go over and do fabric work. You know to strip a fabric wing and build it up and repair inside. The type of wood used, the glue used and there are pins and rivets. The balance of the aircraft had to be rigged properly with a, with a straight edge, straight edge and get a bubble right in the middle, on whatever you set it at. Wing incidents. Dihedral tail. The fin slightly offset perhaps. The hinges – no play in the hinges. No play in the aileron hinges. No slack in the controls. Even had to polish the glass in the windows. Make sure everything works properly. Sliding hoods. The tyres of course had to be checked. They’d be taken off. Brakes checked to see that they worked properly. Assembled on again, undercart jacked it up, undercarriage actions. Check the hydraulic pressures. When everything’s been signed up you sign up and the NCO would sign over the lot and that’s it. The aircraft’s serviceable and nothing was allowed out until the last signature was there and it wasn’t even flying unless the pilot signs it as well. So it’s all covered. If anything goes wrong pinpoint who did it, who did what and when and who checked it. So it was a double check. Treble check. The safety of the aircraft must come first.
CB: Ok.
[Recording paused]
KH: There wasn’t much.
CB: Wait. We’re just talking about what Ken and his colleagues did in their time off.
KH: Well we took part in sport. I myself played rugby and so I used to go with the rugby team. I also did, what was it? Had to go for long walks. There was walking gangs. There was PTI down on the, down on the airfield. The PTI instructor would have us all out, arms wide, touch your fingertips all along in a line — two lines, three lines, four lines and as he did the manoeuvre and everybody followed him. Jumping up and down, arms waving, legs doing this, that and the other. Running on the spot and all this sort of thing you know and then always march. March back and, invariably with the band. The band were a pain in the ass. They used to go down in the drying room there practicing and it was din and you’re trying to gen up on a book and there was the bloody noise of these blokes trying to play these instruments. Banging their bloody drums. [laughs]
CB: Nightmare.
KH: But you had to live with it, you know. You learned to live with it. Practicing the bagpipes. They used to go up in the woods with the pipes. That was a good thing.
CB: At Wendover.
KH: In fine weather. Up in Wendover. Yeah. Heard them wailing away out there. They’re terrible things when you can’t play. If you play it properly it sounds good but pipes are terrible when they can’t play.
CB: So when you are then on a squadron we are on the front line effectively. What, how did the time off come and what did you?
KH: Well I was young in those days on the squadron. During the Battle of Britain it was, I can’t remember what I did. I just can’t. Because it was all work. I didn’t have much time off. I never went on holiday that summer. Some blokes used to go because they had a death in the family or something. I felt sorry for them but we took no leave. I couldn’t. I didn’t take any leave to go all the way down to Wales. Took a day and a half to get home some times and down again with the old puffer trains and this that and the other so I never bothered. Just go with the lads down to the village, to a pub and have a game of darts and this that and the other. Whenever possible if there was an organisation or sport I used to put my name down to play rugby and I did very well at that. Although I was small I was scrum half. Put the ball in. Talking about rugby I got in the desert in Egypt and the scrum down and the sand was blowing up the dust and you had the ball to shove in to the scrum and you could hardly see the hole to put the ball in. And the dust would cake around your mouth and you were covered in it and it were — [laughs]. Then again in Berlin I played rugby in the Olympic Stadium, Hitler’s Olympic stadium and snow was on the deck there. On the grass. And we played in three inches of snow. We played rugby there. So there’s a contrast for you. Desert and snow. But mainly it’s a grotty old station camp, station field which had probably got a slope in it and probably a low end where there was a load of mud and a dry end up the top but you adapt yourself to all these conditions and sometimes to your advantage.
CB: Good. Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Ken Hicks
Identifier
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AHicksDK151103
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-11-03
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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01:21:54 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Description
An account of the resource
Ken Hicks grew up in Wales and joined the Royal Air Force as an Apprentice Mechanic at RAF Halton. He worked on Spitfires during the Battle of Britain. He was later posted to Rhodesia and survived a crash in the bush. After the war, He took part in the Berlin Airlift and found a civilian worker who had died and been buried under the snow.
Spatial Coverage
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Africa
Egypt
Germany
Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Kent
Germany--Berlin
Temporal Coverage
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1939
1940
1948
Contributor
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Julie Williams
222 Squadron
C-47
fitter airframe
ground crew
ground personnel
RAF Abingdon
RAF Bassingbourn
RAF Benson
RAF Halton
RAF Hornchurch
RAF Manston
Spitfire
Tiger Moth
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/363/6086/AJossDA151007.2.mp3
e6f59399c580ffcb25c07f1869f9492e
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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Joss, Douglas
Doug Joss
D A Joss
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Squadron Leader Douglas Alexander Joss (632261, 56113 Royal Air Force), and two wartime photographs of him and his crew. Douglas Joss completed 32 operations as a rear gunner on 626 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Andrew Joss and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
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2015-10-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Joss, DA
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: We’re rolling now. My name is Chris Brockbank and we are in Wendover speaking with Squadron Leader Douglas Joss, and the witnesses today are Brenda Ponton and Janet Ford and we're talking about the background experiences and the wartime experiences of Squadron Leader Joss. So over to you Douglas.
DJ: Oh, where do you want me to start?
CB: So if you start, please, with your earliest days in the family.
DJ: In the family?
CB: Yep.
DJ: I was born in Aberdeen, the eldest of five, and I was born in Aberdeen and then my father at the time, who had been in the First World War, he and his brother came back. He wanted to be a vet but his parents couldn't afford to send him further. The brother, the older one, got the money and he went to Aberdeen University and became a very well-known doctor in Nottingham. Dad wanted to be a vet and he couldn't anyway, but they said you can go out to East Africa as an assistant with the vet's out there doing research on sleeping sickness in cattle [coughs]. I think it's quite amusing that when I was born, he and my mother [coughs] decided what I was, should be called. Charlie after one of her twin brothers. When somebody you know, these people said he got killed in the First World War and somebody told her if you name him after somebody who's dead, your son will be dead within a year and she was daft enough to believe that so she changed my name to Douglas. We turned up eventually to join my father in Uganda and Kampala and he, she called me Douglas, and he said, ‘what's this Douglas business’, so she told him that. He said, ‘bloody madness. We said we’d call him Charlie and I'll call him Charlie’, so for twelve months he called me Charlie and she called me Douglas so you can see why I'm a bit of a mixed-up kid. Oh dear [coughs], anyway, while we were out there my sister Dora was born In Kampala. My son last year, year before, went out with my other son. Two sons went on a tour of Uganda, I said call in to Saint James's Church in Kampala and you’ll find out that I was baptised there by the Reverend Pitz, Pitz, you can never forget a name like that [coughs], I beg your pardon, sorry which he did and they did and they made him very welcome and said to him — well that's by the way. When we came back, he couldn't get back into the veterinary business at all and then he went in for post office and became what they call an SC and T In those times, sorting clerk and telegraphist and we went to Angal, which is not far north and he was postmaster. It's a tiny little post office and I recall visiting him there because I was fascinated how he would sit and receive telegrams with a Morse key which he’d learnt during the war in the Army, you know they'd took the old Morse out and you remember telegrams used to come out on a strip of paper, which they stuck on a telegram when it went out. So that's why we went there and we stayed there until he was offered a better job in Coventry and we moved to Coventry, and he was there. I met one or two lads who were in the Air Force, well [unclear] it might slip off a bit, I was in the Scouts while I was there, there’s a bit that comes up later on that. I remember the two lads, they were in the RAF and they came on leave, I became interested so I said to the family I think I'll go and join the Air Force and seeing mum was having a struggle to pay our fares and everything, we moved from our house at twenty-one shillings a week to a council house at fourteen shillings a week because we were hard up. I can't believe it, I can remember her crying because she hadn’t got tuppence to go to the Women's Institute and get cup of tea. However, err — where was I. I'll just remember there, it's there I decided to go in the Air Force anyway and she didn't want me to go in. Then the war was loomed. Jimmy Wales was my, if you like, Patrol Leader in the Scouts and I — mum didn't want me to go in the Air Force. Anyway this business of war looming in thirty-eight, I says well if I don't go there you know what will happen, I'll go and be called up in the Army and that will be worse. So she signed up to let me go. My father was uninterested, he says you please yourself and that's what I did and I went in Air Force in the [coughs], in the end of thirty-eight [coughs], October thirty-eight. I was tested then but because they were having trouble filling or building all the training schools which were expanding so rapidly at that time, I was sent home and they said we’ll call you back again, so go home. After I'd been tested and I actually went in, in the January of thirty-nine. You can get my number off that 632261, which I remember well. And I was sent from there down to Pembroke Dock just – I was sent as HCH, aircraft hands, labourers if you like. I'll interrupt you there, that's the first place I got a chance to fly in a Short Sunderland. Can I get you off your seat? Come here. My brother found a poster somewhere and he bought it for me. Now look in the right-hand corner. Can you see that poster was painted from the spot I was photographed in 1939? The beginning of thirty-nine and you can tell he stood — the photographer must have been, the painter must have been standing where I stood there from, absolutely [unclear] so that's it. So that's literally the first aircraft I flew in, the Sunderland.
CB: Right. Very interesting. Yes.
DJ: By that time it had been decided I should be a flight rigger. I don’t think there was any choice. I think I was told I would be a flight rigger, chippy, as it had an element of woodwork in it which fascinates me, I wasn't, I guess, I loved it. I became a chippy rigger and went from there to do basic training at Henlow, and then from Henlow down to — what’s the name of it? Weston-super-Mare, Locking, from Locking, down to Locking where I did my twelve months training as a rigger and passed out as a glorious LAC Leading Aircraftman. Whilst I was there I had a bosom pal, Ernie Morton, with whom I remained in close contact till last year. He died last year, didn't he?
BP: A few years ago.
DJ: Ernie.
BP: A few years ago.
DJ: Was it two years ago?
BP: A few years ago.
DJ: We remained close all that time and we were bits of lads, we were a bit naughty and we heard that on King’s Birthday they have a parade and then a day off, and we said we'll try and get out of parade, you know. We hated them but they had big boxes there and the two of us got into this great big box [coughs] to keep away from this parade and after, I don't know how long, everything was so quiet we got out. We were fools, they’d all been given the day off and they'd gone and we stayed in this, this bloody box for hours to get out of this. My memory of Ernie all these days. Anyway from there, when I first passed out as LAC, I was posted to Upavon which is the Central Flying School. Now Central Flying School, I went in as a rigger. You, you, I don't know what you did in the Air Force
CB: I flew.
DJ: Well, well you weren't an airman fitter or rigger then?
CB: No, No.
DJ: No. Well in those days we were given an aircraft, that was your aircraft and you serviced it to give it all its flying. I was allocated to a very famous bird called George Stainforth, the last Schneider trophy pilot who won the Schneider trophy for us and he had the last Fairey Battle, not bigger [unclear], not Fairmount. What's it called? Oh dear. He had the last — left in the Air Force. It will come to me in a minute. Anyway it was his he didn't like anybody flying it. It was a biplane, fighter biplane.
CB: A Gladiator was is it? Was it a Gladiator?
DJ: No, no it was very sharp and almost a forerunner of the Spitfire, if you like.
CB: Hawker Fury?
DJ: I've got a picture.
CB: Well we can pick it up in a minute.
DJ: Doesn’t matter it will come and he was — two things about him. Upavon had its own golf course, it still has I think, or it’s an Army unit. He made me act as his caddy when I was due days off, which hacked me off no end and he also, when he was away (it's a Fury, the Hawker Fury, his aircraft), he would say to me, ‘Joss, put that out of service, I don't want anybody else flying out, make it unserviceable so if anybody else had it, you could in all honesty, say it's unserviceable’. So I made it unserviceable, I’d take something out or I’d do something anything I used to do to make it unserviceable until he came back and there. Another chap came along at the time to get his wings back, a bloke named Bader, Douglas Bader, he came back there to be trained back up to get his wings back because you know he'd lost his wings when he'd lost his legs, and he came back there and I — he was being taught first of all in a Tutor a Hawker a, a –
CB: Avro Tutor?
DJ: Avro Tutor.
CB: Yeah.
DJ: He went in a Tutor and I helped him in and out of the aircraft. I have a memory of him, bearing in mind he was a Flight Lieutenant that day and I was still the LAC, a lady came up in a red sports car, about this high it is, and she said ‘do you know Douglas Bader’ and I said ‘yes ma'am’, she said ‘I'm his mum, can you tell me where I can find him?’ So I found him and introduced him, didn't introduce him and I says ‘come on, your Mum's waiting to see you over there’, which was lovely. And she — one thing that was ridiculous to me at the time was, isn't it lovely two of Douglas’s friends, and as for an LAC and a Flight Lieutenant being friends was just hairy fairy stuff, I laughed. Now if I might go right back to Halton they got Douglas down and told him a, an open day here and I reminded him of this case. I said ‘your mother came up to me’ I said, ‘she had a red MG that was half painted, it was being repainted, it was red and half grey and an MG’, and he said ‘I can't remember that’. I said ‘well she came’, he said ‘I know she came to drop it’. I said ‘I flew with you there’, you know, because if you did a major inspection, you flew with that aircraft if you could just to make sure you've done the job properly and he couldn't remember this at all. Anyway he was very kind. When he went back to the station [unclear], another Battle of Britain pilot a [unclear] at Halton, he came to see me one day and said he'd had a letter from Douglas thanking me for looking after him with his time here and it says if you see Joss you can tell him. I have now checked my log book and he was dead right, we did have a car which was half painted, ‘cause my mother was alive in those days, well his mother and I said ‘well yes she came along with a half painted car’. A fond memory. Well I thought that was touching. I’ve got a cutting of a newspaper cutting of Douglas Bader and I having a chat which was rather nice. Anyway, going right back to Upavon, a notice came up said volunteers required to go abroad in a not too pleasant surroundings. Now this was where my friend Ernie and I split up. I said ‘come on Ernie, let's go to that’, I talked him into everything except that. He wouldn't go, he’d met a girl, fool that he was [laughs], you see [coughs], and he preferred to stay with the girl rather than the excitement of going abroad [coughs]. I was told ‘we're not telling you where you're going but you've got to go up to London Hospital, in London with a bunch of other boys, to have special inoculations against yellow fever’ and I didn't know where that was. Anyway we went to London and we came back and went on a troop ship eventually in [pause], just south of Glasgow, whatever it was. Anyway it was a troop ship we got on and half way out we found out we were all going to the Gold Coast, to a place called Takoradi and what Takoradi was doing there was aircraft. The Maryland Kitty Hawk, Mohawks were coming in pieces and we were then, we were assembling them there. And it was known as the white man's grave in those days. All the expats that lived out there, all had spine pads you wore on your shirt, a big padded cloth which went shoulder to shoulder and down your back so your spine didn't get hurt. Needless to say, the RAF took no notice whatsoever and we worked in shirt sleeves all the time for they could get away with it, and the locals were very hacked off with this as it reduced their income because they got paid for that job. So I was there for a bit and once we hadn’t been there all that long and I got malaria three, four times while I was there. Which wasn't very nice. Again a request came up for volunteers to go up country so, like an idiot, ‘yes please I'd love to go’, and I went there and I went via Nigeria Lagos, to a place called Maiduguri in northern Nigeria and funnily enough it was a place called Jos, which is, which is where, where the locals lived. All the expats would go there because it was higher and it was better climate. But I was there and I went for — there for up to Maiduguri. We were in mud huts. I've got photographs of them here somewhere [coughs] which wasn't very nice, the water was fetched from the river of Lake Chad and boiled. All the water used for cooking, for washing, for everything else was from there and we were invited to the Lake Chad Polo sports club. They do Polo, they do most sports but there was all the expats and Europeans over there and there were two people and I heard two people talking and they said the name Joss, you see, and I said ‘yes’, and the chap turned around and he said ‘yes what?’ I said ‘you mentioned Joss, that's my name’, he said ‘no, I was talking about the town Jos where we go for a break’, he said ‘where do you come from?’ So I told him as much as I’ve told you and he said ‘any other relatives named Joss?’ I said ‘yes, my uncle's a doctor’, he says, ‘I shared a billet with him in Edinburgh would you believe’. He said he's quite honoured really and we became very friendly with him, he was the local civilian white Doctor and he used to [coughs], used to treat all the, the — his favourite story of the West African Winter Force, before the WAFs, before the RAF WAFs they were called, the WAFs, West African Winter Force, he used to have job finding his shoes to see them, because the smallest they would take were tens, they were big but he said ‘they're brutal’. I said ‘what do you mean they're brutal?’ he said ‘well one of them got me to circumcise him and next day he came back and he asked me to put stitches back on him’, you know because he was out with his girlfriend performing, tore his stitches and could he put them back in again. I thought that seemed a silly past time to me [laughs] [coughs] so that was there. And while I was in fortinamy, I went from there to French Patrol Africa, fortinamy on Lake Chad, and while I was there de Gaulle visited us. I got another rollicking there because he came in there called a [unclear] Flying wing. I've got a photograph of it there. There was only three of them ever made. They were given to de Gaulle. One was his private plane. Whatever happened to the other two I don't know. His pilot was a civilian, it was Jim Mollison, Amy Johnson's husband and he flew him about all over the world and over the country. After his visit I had a French Captain say ‘you come here English, English come here, you're very rude, very naughty’ he said, ‘they’re playing the National Anthem and you're walking around taking no notice’. I said ‘I was taking photographs’, which I was. ‘I'm sorry I didn't recognise it’. ‘Didn't recognise our national anthem? Well, that's disgraceful’ he said and the other thing he said ‘that flag of yours is higher than ours, get it down’. We’d got an old pole and put up our RAF Ensign [laughs] [coughs] so we had a Sergeant and a Corporal, Ginger Bunsen and Willie Downie which was four of us. He said ‘well you better fetch it down’, so he fetched it down this homemade flag pole and I fetched our flag down about four inches. I wasn't going to do anymore I thought it was enough but he got a bit stroppy with me about that and made me fetch it down another foot [laughs], so I was there and I got malaria again. Then he had a very, to me, unusual treatment. I had beforehand was being, was — quinine and all sorts but he said ‘no, lie on your stomach’, which I did and on my back he had little oval bottles which he heated and he placed on my back. He says ‘that will take all the fever away’, and I thought he was, he was a Martinique and I thought the man’s a bloody witch doctor. I don't know what he did but it worked beautifully and I mentioned it to doctors since and said that we’ve heard of this but never known anybody, and I says ‘well I had my malaria taken out of me by little bottles which are heated up and put it on’. My back was covered in bruises after they all came off. Anyway, I was in the village one day and we were on the edge of the British, of the Foreign Legion village and I saw a young lad, an Arab lad, come running out and a Legionnaire running after him and kicked him from behind and knocked him flat and started to kick him. I didn't know what he was doing, but I picked up a bit of wood and I hit this Legionnaire on the back of the head and said ‘stop doing that to that boy, he's only a boy’, and what he says, he says ‘I caught him stealing something’ and I said ‘I don't care’. The next thing is I'm picked up by the Legion and put in their billet with some Italian prisoners. Now this was interesting though, because if you wanted to go to the loo, you all had to go or none. If you're all bursting they’d say right outside and march and you’d march to the loo and you stood there and you performed if you did and you were taken back. Anyway, the French Captain at the time was Mercenaire, Captain Mercenaire, he said ‘I don't think you’d better stay here in the in fortinamy’ and he sent me back to Maiduguri and they sent up an Army Captain who took me back to Maiduguri. ‘What the devil did you do?’ I said ‘I only knocked this bloke out with a bit of wood really’ and he thought that was worthwhile.
CB: [laughing]
DJ: They took me back to Maiduguri and I stayed there and the doctor there, (isn't it funny how you remember these things talking), was South African, a Doctor Tatz, T A T Z, and he said ‘well I'm not letting you back on the airfield, you can become my assistant. I'll find you jobs to do in the, in the sick quarters’, which was a sort of a mud Hospital. South African [unclear] which I did until I had a – what do they call it? A rigor, you know, a relapse of the malaria, of the malaria. He said ‘well you're not much use to us out here, you'd better go home’. So I went home and they flew us down to, to Lagos and we got on a French troop ship that brought me back to the UK. And there when I came back my first visit, to would you believe, Lincoln, where I was in Newark. I was posted to Newark, Ossington which is just outside Newark and I was there but I kept getting relapses and they sent me to Cranwell to hospital there for a long time until I was — got rid of it and they came in one day and said ‘we need some volunteers and you people have had malaria’. And I was in a ward with others and they said they're some expert to [pause] examine me, tests going on, on some tests that I was told you’re having these relapses. I’ve got — a moment [unclear], I forget there was, two eights, three eights, twenty-four of us put in this ward and they said ‘any of you willing to go on these examinations’, yes said I and they said ‘we will draw for it, one of you will have a liquid one, one of you will have pills, the other one will have a jab in the bum’. You can guess, of course, which one I got.
CB: [laughing]
DJ: A jab in the bum and that's that but it worked. After that I didn't get a relapse, well I did some years later but a very mild one. It worked and they said and I [unclear] here used to be the centre of tropical medicine for the RAF and they told them about that and they took notes that you're taken and they said we've heard about those tests can you, can you tell us, can and I said yes, and they said can you remember the doctor, but I couldn't but I remember the day and they took notes of this and I've never had any since at all no relapses. Anyway, where are we now?
CB: What year are we in now and month?
DJ: Oh, now I'm at Ossington, Ossington which is B42. Whilst I was there we had — oh, I applied to be a flight engineer and I got back on from a general office saying no your application is turned down, they got so many applicants for flight engineers, every fitter and rigger wants to be a flight engineer and so you've had it. Anyway, you may remember they had an Inspector General, well used to have in the RAF, and he came on inspection that day and I'd been on nights and I was the standing by the bed and he came along the billets and talked to everybody and was very friendly, and he came down our billet and the old station officer said ‘attention!’ And we had to stand there out of bed and we’d been on nights and we were made to get up out of bed, and I was standing there in my pyjama trousers only. Anyway, he came and he was quite amused and said ‘I'm sorry you shouldn't do that. Anybody got any complaints’. [unclear] well what’s your trouble and the old Station Master was glaring at me, I said ‘well, I applied to be a flight officer and I've been turned down, I want to be air crew’, and he turned to his ADC, take this man's name, who turned to the station master and said take this man's name and I thought well that's the end of that. Two weeks later the tannoy went. I was a corporal then. Corporal Joss report to Station Commander immediately, don't stop to take your overalls off. So I went over and he said ‘you're a cheeky bugger Joss, aren't you? You stopping the Inspector General’, he was only an Air Vice Marshal, I said ‘well he asked’ and he said ‘well he's replied, and he says if you're prepared to take a gunner, you can go’. Which section? [unclear] Oh well I said ‘I can go Wednesday, tomorrow’, he said ‘don't be ridiculous, I'll let you know when you go’. He said you've got to go for selection first of all. So it was only about a week later I went down to — what’s that place near the Zoo in London?
CB: Lords, Lords.
DJ: No it was all blocks of flats. It was near there, anyway they were big blocks of flats just outside London Zoo because we were was [unclear] London Zoo when the selection went on and who turned up there, going right back now to my scouting friend, you'll see his name on there. Wales [coughs], and by this time I've done three years service you see, so I was an old hand, I'd got a GC, you know the one stripe you have for three years behaviour. Well he didn't want to go so I said stick with me, I'll look after you, I'll see you through, we’ll stick together on this.So we went through the things and he said we'll both [unclear] and I went up to the people, the class taking notes of sending and posting or whatever, and I said this chap [unclear], he's got to come with me, his parents asked that I look after him. And they said I've heard some tales but they said alright. So — where was the first place we went? Bridlington. Now I've got a very happy memory of Bridlington. They billeted us in — they emptied the council houses in the town and put us all in the houses, but I don't know where the whole Village went. And then one day we were parading all over the place, down near the Harbour and they said right, back here tonight at, I think they said eight o'clock, at the harbour. So we went back at eight o'clock to the harbour and we were all given a flying suit, just looked like an overall, and a life jacket and the other thing is, we were given a thing which was like a whistle, he said fasten your whistle onto [unclear] you must have seen it [unclear] on the collar, he said ‘what you are going to do in the dark. You are going to jump in the harbour in the dark and you will find a dinghy upside-down. You've got to find it, put it the right way up and as soon as you blow your whistle so they all come together, soon as you fill it with seven people, you can come in and have some supper’. And that's what we did. I remember pitch black, freezing flipping cold and we had a man named — I remember him [pause], Mogford was his name, no it wasn't, it was whatever it will come to me — Shadmaniham. He said ‘I can't swim I'm not going in there’. They said if you don't go in there, you're off the course and you're finished and we all liked him. He was a — I remember, he was a Sheffield steel worker or had been. Anyway we're all lined up, eleven o'clock, it was pitch black and we saw them throw this dingy and move it right out to the middle of the harbour in the dark. There wasn't a light anywhere and, and this man Shadmaniham says ‘well I'm not going in’ so one or two of us nodded like this you see. We just grabbed him and ran with him and jumped and took him with us. He was screaming like mad and he jumped in with us. Anyway we kept hold of him. Jimmy Wales was still with me then, we grabbed him and we started blowing our whistles and he wouldn’t move, you know swam or floated whatever you like until we got near the whistle. And we eventually found the dinghy, got in to it and we managed to turn it upright and dragged this lad in, and he said ‘I would never have done that if you hadn't done that’ but he says ‘I didn't want to lose my place, I didn't want to be thrown out’. So that's my one and only fairly memory of Bridlington. I hated it, it was terrifying, it really was awful. I don't know how many people they did that to but we did that. Anyway from there [pause] Andreas on the Isle of Man, where we did [unclear] re- training. Now then [long pause] my log book. Can I, can I read it out of my logbook because I'm very proud of this. If I can find it. Where is it? Where's the front page?
CB: This is one of the first entries in your log book.
DJ: Yeah. It says here, D Joss, air gunner. With affect from the 21st June forty-three. Squadron Leader Tooth signed it. Qualified air gunner and this is the bit I like, over the page. Theory - above average. Practical - outstanding and I like that, and the reason I got that is, I used to go four or five in the back of an Anson at the time and you had to climb into a turret on the back of the Anson and [unclear] flew with a dinghy trailing way behind and you shot at that. The rounds in the gun were dipped different colours so they’d know who had red or green or blue and they know who had hit the drone. Two of the other lads were terrified they wouldn't, they didn’t get out they didn't want to go in the turret, they didn’t, so I said let me go in there I'll do yours, I'll do yours, you see as a result, of course, I got no end of drogue colours. My, their colours and mine were in there and I got the credit for it. Anyway, above average theory. Outstanding - practical. Results - average. Recommended for commission at a later date after first experience and that was signed by Squadron Leader Tooth, OC Training Wing, Number One Air Gunnery Squad. So that's my proud possession. Exercises [pause] I shot two hundred rounds there and two hundred rounds there and so on. So there, that's that.
CB: That's really good. Do you want to have a break for a bit?
DJ: [Unclear]. The other four of us. My grandparents and her brother said ‘we’ll send two of them up to us in Aberdeen and they can stay with us until you get posted’. So I went and stayed with the grandparents and my sister went with my mother's brother. [Unclear] we were only going to go for a short time until she felt better but both of us stayed, lived up there for a further eighteen months. Really until we were summoned back.
CB: This is when the youngest was born?
DJ: Yeah.
CB: Right
DJ: And when mum had got over all that lot, she said she wanted us back and back we went. And we left Aberdeen and went back there. But I, I've been back once, only once since [unclear] the and memories came flooding back. Yes I have a brother, who is going to stay with us next week, he was also born in Aberdeen. Anyway where had I got to?
CB: Just, just briefly there, you moved, the family moved south and went to Coventry.
DJ: Yes.
CB: So we’re now from the narrative you've reached so far, got to 1942.
DJ: Two.
CB: But what was the experience of the family of being in Coventry during the bombing?
DJ: Ahh. This thing says we moved in the November and I was on a troop ship on the way to West Africa, and on the radio we heard this and I knew nothing about. I didn't hear from them and anyway, when I went at Takoradi [unclear] just, I was getting quite desperate I want to see the padre. One always visited the padre [unclear] and I told him about this and I said can't you do anything for me and he said he’d I’ll do what I can. He apparently had got permission to signal the police in Coventry to find out what had happened to family.
CB: This is Operation Moonlight Sonata so 17th, 18th November forty, yeah. OK.
DJ: And he did and they were very good. They said, police Coventry said to [unclear] the family were alright and well. They were all well and alright. I got a letter eventually from my mother and men used to [unclear] phone the [unclear] and what amazes me they got the pleasure when it used to take three weeks or three months sometimes to get the mail. There's only one amusing bit that I know of at the time. They could hear, where we lived in Radford in the corner of Coventry, they could all hear the bombing going on further in the town and Mum apparently, when she went to have a look to see what was happening, see if there's any flames and she opened the door and a bomb went off not far away. Blew the door and her in the kitchen and she laid on her back with the door handle in her hand. The rest of family thought this was hilarious and they all burst out laughing she says ‘there's me lying there, in pain and didn't know what happened and the kids are all standing there around laughing and I'm still holding the door handle in my hand’ [laughs].
CB: [laughs] what an extraordinary thing.
DJ: So for the rest of the time the letters, I got they referred about the tin can they had in the garden and they baked on for some months before they got power back on in the house. She did that. Dad was, he did, I don't know what he did during the war there, he did something. I think he was a, a warden for the Post Office, he used to go on the roof in the Post Office and do things there, an air raid warden.
CB: Umm.
DJ: That's the only thing, his contribution there. I tried to persuade him to go and join the Army. Now we weren't very friendly, I don't know why, he didn't bother, he didn't like us kids, he, he had nothing to do with us. He never came to school, he never came to anything. We weren't unfriendly but he was never, never friendly. Took no part in us. And I said well you were in the Army experience with the First World War, why don't you go and see if you want to go in the Post Office at Nottingham. Why I said that, his brother was a doctor in Nottingham, had been. He got an MC in the First World War and a Barterat in the second, would you believe. However, I said the Army Post Office is in Nottingham, you can go and stay with Uncle Joss as he was called or something, they'll give you a job in the post office but he wouldn't. He said no he’s staying at home and that was it as far as I was concerned. That was his contribution to the war, it was nothing at all.
CB: Ok, thank you very much. So now picking up on where we were before, you’re at, in the Isle of Man.
DJ: Oh yes.
CB: And you’ve — so we’re talking about 1943.
DJ: Yes.
CB: And the practical outstanding recommended for a commission later.
DJ: Yeah.
CB: So at that stage, what happened next?
DJ: Well, I was the most senior, if you like, cadet or recruit at the time in the thing because I’d done a bit of service in. So when our course had finished they said you're all going back to Loughborough, which I was pleased about because we did our college at Loughborough. You're going to Loughborough to join an aircrew, a bomber crew. It was quite amusing ‘cause the old ferry port of — and there were some RAF police on the side shouting ‘can we have the Senior NCO for this lot’, you see, and we said ‘where is the Senior NCO for this lot’, and all our lot are standing there looking round until one of them reminded me - you're the senior. Oh God I said the first time I've been given a Senior NCO job, you see, so I had to get them off and march them there and we were put on coaches, some of us and we were posted, moved to Loughborough. Now I don't know what the system was to become crewed down there in those Bomber Command days. Do you know what they — well I'll tell you anyway.
CB: They put you in a hanger.
DJ: Well.
CB: To crew up.
DJ: Well what it was, it was a big place anyway and there was enough to make seven, you know there's so many gunners. Two of each and there’s navigators and bomb aimers and flight engineers and pilots. Now I didn't drink, never drank and when we went there, I’m with Jimmy and I, I said stick with me Jimmy we’ll get on the same crew and they, they got us all together and they said now we're going to leave you and we’ll assemble tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock or whatever, and if you haven't formed yourself into a crew of seven or six because we picked up [unclear] late, then we will form you. So we didn't want to be [unclear] Jimmy and I looked round, we didn't know what to do. He didn't drink either and he was very proud of the fact that he was a Kings Scout. He was always on about this being a Kings Scout was Jimmy. We used to get him to do all sorts of jobs because he did that [coughs] and we saw a bloke sitting in the corner, quiet, ‘cause all the others did the obvious thing and said let's go down the pub and sort ourselves out, you see. Jimmy and I didn't want to go and we saw these chap sitting quietly in the corner and we said why do you [unclear] and he said ‘well I don't drink, I don't like bother’. ‘Well’, I said, ‘well Jimmy and I don't drink, shall we join up’, and that's how we got Len the Navigator and we looked around and there was other people about, and we said any of you teetotallers who don't like pub life and we picked up the bomb aimer and that was [unclear], and there was some flight lieutenants there, pilots so, oh no they were pilots, just commissioned or NCO pilots a lot of them. You know, most of them were sergeants in the early days and we said, look at him, he's a flight lieutenant, he must have experience, so we went to him and said ‘have you got a crew’, and he said no, so we said ‘well look, we've got a crew here, there’s him, there’s him, there’s him and him, we’ve got them all, would you like to be our pilot?’ Yes he says, alright I'll be that, which was a mistake.
CB: This was Wood, Chippy Wood this was, was it?
DJ: No this wasn’t.
CB: Oh it wasn't, oh right.
DJ: No this wasn’t Chippy no, this was a pilot whose name I can't remember. It's in here, it doesn't matter
CB: Yes, ok.
DJ: We got him and they said right you as a crew are going to Castle Donington to do some twin engine to enable you to practice, you see on Wellingtons. So we all turned up there and they told us we were going to do service and bombs first of all, you see, which was fair enough. We all did service and bombs, except that our pilot could have — whatever it was we don't know. He took off three times and he landed straight ahead three times in ploughed fields or in the grass. He went helling off like a mortal fire bell, as you know.
CB: I was coming to that, ok, go on.
DJ: They took him off and there so there was us crew as referred to as a headless crew and then they said, well you go to your training in your own various department, gunners, navigators or what, but we didn't, we used to go into Derby and to dances and all the rest, you see, much more fun. Anyway the old [unclear], whatever this chaps name, I must find it, if I can find it, in here.
CB: So he was shipped away?
DJ: Would you believe it, a flight lieutenant, he was made OC Station Bicycle.
CB: Oh right.
DJ: And I couldn't get over that.
CB: Right, nice one [laughs]
DJ: I just couldn't believe it.
CB: Interesting connotation, station bicycles.
DJ: I can't find his flipping name.
CB: Some of them were even metal.
DJ: It doesn't matter. Sleight, s, l, e, i, g, h, t and we all — the tannoy went and the crews were to assemble in OC Flying Wing, Wing Commander. So we all trooped back in there and marched in and stood there, and he said ‘right crew, we've got you a new pilot. There he is’, and there's a chap sitting in the corner. He unfolded himself and he was six foot five. He'd lost his crew, he was the only survivor from a crew that had bailed out somewhere and he was the only one surviving.
CB: Gosh.
DJ: And the first thing that happened he said to us, I thought this was hilarious he, he says ‘come on what will we do, I tell you what let's go down the pub so we get to know each other’ and I said ‘you're going to be upset about this, you’ve just inherited the only all teetotal crew in the RAF’. ‘God Almighty’, he said, he said ‘I'm going to have you stuffed and put in the Imperial War Museum after the war’. He said they can't be, I said yes that's what you've got. Anyway we came good. Chippy and I fixed up particularly and we became very, very good personal friends as well — he was a terrific pilot, he was lovely. Anyway, by the time we did a few ops. I don't have it in there. At, from Castle Donington we were posted to [long pause], I can't remember but this is where I was put on a Halifax.
CB: Yes, this is the HCU now.
DJ: Yes, the HCU. Yes, Heavy Converse Unit, yes [long pause], Wellington, Wellington, Wellington, Wellington. I can't find it [long pause], Wellington, Wellington, Wellington, the Wellington, Wellington HE [pause] and we had instructor pilots. We had different pilots there, one was an Officer Pilot Palmer and one who was [unclear] and one who was a Woodland and one was a Palmer [pause], but we only did five hours on that, on thingme there. There was one interesting incident there.
CB: Are we on Halifaxes now?
DJ: No it was —
CB: Are we on Wellingtons or Halifaxes?
DJ: Halifaxes.
CB: Right, ok
DJ: Three. Where we met, I did three ops in the Halifaxes, I can't see why I haven't written it in here. I suppose it was in my log book, I don't know. Anyway there was an incident there which I thought was interesting, nobody else did, but I did. We were doing service and bombs and we used the Halifax at nights, at night cross country and come back but they told us, the gunners, keep your guns loaded because the Germans have been coming and if they saw lights, go on in a — you maybe know all of this, they would attack aircraft landing. The German fighters would get you so we had to go round and if you're going to land and old Chippy would say are you loaded Doug, and I would say yes I am and loaded up my guns just in case. What happened then is we went in for a very nice landing, the tail goes down with a bit of a bump, my guns, which I hadn't switched security on went - brrrr, brrr - right across the Officer's Mess.
CB: [laughs]
DJ: When we came off the aircraft and back in, he said your crews wanted by the station commander. He said ‘how the hell did that happen?’ I had to put my hand up and I said ‘well I forgot to put on my safety catch when we landed’. He said ‘at least you had the sense to land them loaded’. That's all he said. He says ‘well bugger off, use your loaf in the future’ but that's it. And I said, was it Honington? Is it Honington? There's a place up I think it was Honington. Anyway, I was shown the bullet holes later on, on the side of the Officers Mess. It was just one burst that went, you know, I quickly switched off. So there's a memory. Anyway I thought, I hate this aircraft because you know, we were right down and to get past that big column at the back of the thing into the turret was [unclear], I thought if I have to get out of this it will take me hours. Anyway we were sent for and were told we were going to a place called Wickenby. That's 12 Squadron. They've taken A Flight off 12 Squadron and made it into 626 Squadron and you're going to join 626 Squadron at Wickenby. And I've been in touch with them ever since.
CB: So the Halifax was 12 Squadron?
DJ: No the Halifax —
CB: No, the HCU was the Halifax
DJ: Yes, HCU, and the 12 Squadron was all Lancs.
CB: Yeah, ok. Do you want to stop for a bit?
DJ: It so happens that the only apprentice which got a VC was at 12 Squadron and they’ve got a memorial service to him — 3rd of November?
BP: Yes.
DJ: Yes, 3rd of November this year they're doing that. He was the only bloke that got a VC. He was an apprentice there, but anyway we were there so we started. Now then it's all — you’ve got it all here written down for you in that thing I've given you.
CB: Ok.
DJ: Every operation is in there and we were the first crew to go for three months. Complete a tour in three months, while the others were being [unclear]. The first crew to come back in three months, you know, only with a minor injury or [unclear] and you were hit by flak occasionally but if you look in that you can get every op in that one. So there.
BP: You did an extra, you did an extra one.
CB: Just to, just to recap. So you were on Halifax, you did only three ops on that.
DJ: Yes, and then we were transferred to, to Wickenby.
CB: Yes, to Halifax.
DJ: To help form 626 Squadron.
CB: Yes, yes Lancaster. Ok. Good.
DJ: We did a — it's all there, I won’t go through —
CB: Where, where —
DJ: But they're all in there.
CB: Yes.
DJ: And when we came home, we were hit by flak sometime, quite a peppering we got and the — it burst in the perspex cover of the bomb aimers nose bit.
CB: Yep.
DJ: And old Dom was there and he said ‘no skipper, I've been hit, my face is covered in blood’ and skipper said ‘well come on back up here, we’ll look at you on the bench’ and he said ‘no I'll stay here’. I thought, here we go, here’s a medal going and left him. Anyway, he says when we were coming back, he radioed in, injury aboard, medical standing by and it really is funny, well it was at the time. When they came and the ladder that went in to came out at the front, he’d got a bit of perspex stuck in his oxygen mask in the end of his nose. No wonder he was covered in blood, it was going in there, about as big as a pencil [laughs], we thought all this was absolutely hilarious [laughs]. Anyway, the medics took him off and they said, ‘well bit of shock here, we better put you in bed you know, to see that you're alright’. Anyway, he was alright. He came back to us two days, well three ops later. Towards the end of the tour, because we’d finish the tour, the station commander came down. He used to meet those that had done their tour and he said congratulations, you know, all you can go off now on two weeks leave except you [unclear], you missed a couple of ops, you've got to do a couple or two to pack up. Chippy didn't even hesitate, he said, no he's not, we’ll do another tour because we're not letting him fly with another strange crew. He just felt infinity and we were all such good friends and we knew each other so well, so we did the extra to make a total of thirty-two and make him finish his tour and that was alright [long pause].
CB: Amazing.
DJ: So, and that's me in the Bomber Command.
CB: When you, when he wasn't around, who was the stand in air bomber?
DJ: Oh I couldn't tell you.
CB: No but was it one person who — both times or a different, sorry, the same person both times or how did they select them?
DJ: Where, which bit?
CB: When, when your man was wounded.
DJ: Oh we were just told that there was a spare bomb aimer, you know, come and join our crew. I couldn't tell you his name now. Well I don't think it's even in my log book, I'm pretty sure it's not. We were just given a gash one and he would have been a gash one, you see, for somebody else had he done another tour. Ok [pause]
CB: Ok. So that's fine, thank you. So you did thirty-two ops. What happened after that?
DJ: Oh, well I volunteered for [pause], what do they call, a song about — Dambusters for the, what do they call those that [pause].
BP: Don’t know. Pathfinders?.
DJ: No, no, which lay the markers. What do they call that?
CB: The —
DJ: Always used to lay markers.
CB: The markers, the markers.
DJ: The markers.
CB: Well they were, they were the Pathfinders.
BP: Pathfinders.
DJ: Pathfinders.
CB: Yes.
DJ: Well I volunteered for the Pathfinders.
CB: Right.
DJ: And they said no. I said well alright can I go overseas, they said yes [laughs]. So the next thing is, after a bit of time, I’m on a troop ship on the way to India. I got about three weeks leave I think, and then I — Gourock was it, is it Gourock, yes I was in Gourock, and I sailed from there, again not knowing where I was going at the time until we were well on the way, and then they said we were going to India, first to Bombay and that happened. Went to Bombay. Went ashore. I chummed with a bloke named — for a pilot officer to chum up with a wing commander was just not very friendly, but I chummed up with a dentist who was, who'd been to India and was an old hand and knew it all, and we got on very well. So we went to India and then we went ashore at Bombay, under the gateway to India, opposite that beautiful hotel that got attacked. The Taj, it was named after the famous Taj, it was the Taj hotel. And there, from there I was sent to Delhi which was then the Far East Air Force Headquarters, and they said ‘well we've got no use for you here, we’ll send you down to a place called Chittagong’, which was in Assam. And I said what am I to do there and they said [unclear] and we were hoping we might be able to release or get some prisoners released, in which case you'd be responsible for sorting them out and touring them home. So we went to Chittagong and I got a real rollicking there, because amongst other things I did, was issue a certificate for the amount of alcohol to each unit. Five to airman and NCOs and a bottle, you could have whiskey or scotch, went to officers. Terrible that in the middle of the war, wasn't it, and I, somehow I forget one of the blokes [unclear] he was a group captain, he wrote me a snotty letter because he’d been late in getting this chit to get the stuff from the Indian we had there, not a NAAFI, it was a sort of, I don't know they weren't called NAAFI, I forget what they're called now, but it was, it used to issue the sort of stuff that NAAFIs issued, and I got this stinking letter from this group captain that said he was delayed and nobody had their drink, and don't you realise we’re at the frontier, and all the rest of it. So I was just a flying officer then, I wrote back a stupid letter to him saying that I'm very sorry I couldn't get the Japanese to coincide their retreat with your thirstiness. About sixteen years ago, I phoned him up from [unclear], who was Air Officer Banham who was the OEC. What do they call it? In the air — Middle East Air Force. No it wasn't, it was called — it was, whatever it was.
CB: Far East Air Force.
DJ: They used north just off — what’s the capital? Rangoon. He was, he was a very good AOCH. He sent me for there. He says now come and I’d stand to attention for him. He said, I can see him standing there, he says ‘you don't look like an idiot to me, Joss’ and I said ‘what makes you say that sir?’ He says ‘you write bloody rude letters to [unclear], not even in the third party, you write it in the English party, you don't do service mail like that’ and he says ‘will you go back up to Chittagong, we've got a job for you in a bit’. So I went back up to Chittagong and the next thing is new we’re assembling up all the air, Middle East Air Force. that bit of it anyway, HQ 22 Group or 24 Group. We were going to assemble, going down to Bangalore.
CB: This is all in Burma?
DJ: No, this is —
CB: No the earlier bit?
DJ: No going down to India. He said ‘we're sending, the whole units moving down there. The train had come in, a special train loaded with all our stuff. We're going to fly the others down or they're going to go down eventually. You, Joss, for being an idiot, are going to be in charge of that train down to Bangalore’ and I said ‘who will I have with me’. He said ‘you've got six Indians’, or what do they call them, followers. ‘ You've got six followers’. And I said ‘what about rations and food?’ He said ‘use your initiative boy, you've got six followers, tell them you need to be fed and they’ll sort you out’, and I thought, god this is awful. Would you believe it? It took me over six days to go from Chittagong to Bangalore, we were right down the outside of India. It was a one trick track and if there's trains coming up, we'd park, we parked sometimes overnight, sometimes just for a couple of hours, sometimes for five or six hours and the old [unclear] would come along, ‘hello Sar, we stop here and make you cha?’ ‘Yes’ I says ‘please make me cha’. I said ‘I want some food, any chance?’ They said no money. I said ‘I've got some money’, I give him some, he said ‘I buy chicken, I buy eggs’, and that was my journey and it was fascinating, absolutely. I was the only European, if you like, on the train all the way round to Chittagong to, to, to — what did I say it was?
BP: Bangalore, Bangalore.
DJ: Bangalore, yes. What was the place called outside? Yelahanka, and we were all in Yelahanka, and he said, told us what we're going to do, we’re moving back up to Bombay now, to assemble for re-entry in to Malay in Singapore. And you're joining the Army in Bangalore for landing in Singapore. So l thought lovely [unclear] stuff, you see. So we got — oh, while we were there, they announced that the war in Europe, VE, where you know — the war, peace was there. It went hilarious. We were very stupid really. We had decided, everybody wanted a paddy and we went into Bangalore and we got a little [pause] bola. Oh, what do they call them? You know the two-wheeled carts you pull it, the two wheeled cart. The cha bola? Oh no cha is a tea. Well whatever it was. He was the bloke that used to tow these things and we said to him ‘how many rupees you get if you work all day?’ ‘Oh Sar [unclear] five, six rupees’. So we had a whip round and we took the money and put it in his hand and said no more work today. We will take you home and we put him in the cart. No, no, no, I can't do that. We put him in and made him show us the way home. We towed him to his home and we were told afterwards that we did him a grave disservice. He’d lost face [unclear] towing him, you know and about five Europeans towing a thingme right through the Indian quarter in the back of the [laughs], so we were surprised why he wasn't very grateful. Anyway, from there back up to Bombay. Troop ships again. On our way and we were, we were in the Indian Ocean. We stopped at, what is, what is the place in the South? Sri Lanka, but we weren't allowed ashore, but we carried on sailing and the announcement made then that Japan had packed in and we carried on, and we went to the, the, the pass between Malaya and, and a bit of land, I forget what it is. Anyway, we moved off a place, the stip, Malacca. We moved off the stip and we had ropes on the side of the ship to get down you see, and I might have a photograph of it, and a sailor says to me as I was going down the ship, he says ‘mate’, he says ‘if you had any sense in you, why don't you load that gun of yours’. I’d got a pistol in here but I hadn’t loaded it. He says ‘you're going ashore, you don't know what's going to happen to you there, you want to load that’. Oh yes I thought, I’d better, which I didn’t. But we went into LST, Landing Ship Tanks and we went ashore, not a — no opposition whatsoever and this, a chap I'd got pally with too always seemed [unclear] we decided to walk into Kuala Lumpur as best we could. So we said, they said find your own transport and so we went there and two Japanese came along in a little van sort of thing, which we told to come out and surrender and they came out no bother. And we took the key off them and pinched this car, you see. We went into Kuala Lumpur and this chap and I. I remember he was a Glasgow policeman, he was a big strong chap. He says ‘come on let's get out the way, we don't want to get involved in this’. So we stood and watched the rest of the troops march into Kuala Lumpur, you know, we stood by the side of them. It was, it was fascinating and there again the same air commodore that I met at Bangalore, Paddy Banham , The Air Commodore, the Earl of Banham was known as Paddy Banham. He sent for me. He says ‘Joss, you can use your intelligence, I've got a little job for you’, and I said ‘oh yes, sir’. He says ‘have you got any transport?’ I said ‘yes sir, I've got a very nice thing’. ‘Oh good’ he said. We did — this lad says shall we hand it in now? I said ‘no, no, no if we do hand it in the senior officers will take it off us’. We’ve unclipped our gold bands, which we’d kept. He says ‘if you go down to Singapore, and there's a conference call there by the Army to reallocate accommodation for the Navy, the Air Force and us. Now what you’re to do, you’ll find the instructions down there, you’ll find some [unclear]’ and he produced a list of who or what we needed accommodation for. His own, something and various other officers and the various units. Six health units and he says you're not to take up any new units from the Japanese. It’s only the units only previously [unclear], you know, used by the Japanese. So I thought — so I went down there. I, this lad, who's quite a [unclear] we looked in, we were told, we knew where the Japs had come out of. And you've heard of Raffles Hotel, well next to that used to be Raffles Institute, which is a block of flats overlooking Padang, so we went in there and they were very nice flats, so we said that's ours, his and mine. Paddy then came down and, oh yes, there’s an interesting thing, I was sent for by an Army colonel and he says, I was a flight lieutenant by now, I'd really got on, he says where's the RAF representative on this allocation and accommodation? I said I'm it. He sent a signal up to Paddy Banham saying, you know, we've only got this. I think I was a flight attendant or a flying officer, or whatever I was there. He said, he says we haven't got any proper representative and Paddy said, I don't know what the Army and Navy do, but flying officers here are perfectly capable of sorting out accommodation for their officers. Which the army didn't like that. I did.
CB: [laughs]
DJ: But it didn’t matter we were sent in there. Anyway, Paddy Banham came down about three days, four days later and he says ‘right, could you arrange to meet at the Raffles Hotel’. He says ‘now you're taking me to the accommodation reserved for me’, and we’d found him a rather nice place. And the bugger he says, ‘no before we go there, can you take us to where you're going because we know what’ll happen’. So we said ‘yes sir’. So we took him in this place and he said ‘and I'll have that, I'll have that, you can move that to mine’. He took all the prime bits of furniture and statues and all things that the Japs had collected, removed into his flat. He said ‘right you can keep it now’ Joss’. So I was there. Now then if, I go right back to the beginning, when I joined the Air Force, originally I joined for six years. My six years came up round about that time and I got a message. You are entitled, now the war is over, to be demobilised as you’ve performed your six years and you'll be shipped home, you see, so there's that. I thought — oh, and the job I had there was sending Prisoners of War and families, wives at Siam Road. Very few people have heard of Siam Road which was a women's prison where they kept them interred. I was to sort — I sorted them all that and put them on ships home or flew them where there was aircraft possible, so that was my job while I was there, which I quite enjoyed. Lots of, few people knew about Siam Road but the women had a rough time because it was very difficult. Some of the women started fighting with each other ‘cause of extra rations allegedly. Some of them were given favours, some Japanese in exchange for food which they would give them because they had their kids, and they slept on raffia floors and their child beside them. These huts had about forty or forty-five women and kids all inside Siam Road. Anyway, we got them on troop ships and sent those home. Then the signal come, I was to move and go home on the next suitable troop ship, which I did. Came home, went to Padgate, was signed off, given a civvy suit and, and I think some money, I don't know how much. Went home on two months demob leave. I’d been home forty-eight hours and a telegram came. Please get in touch with me and a number to ring. We’d like you to stay in the Air Force. Would you like to cancel demobilization, if so, you’re to report to a place, you’ll know about, Silverstone. Now, you are to join a squadron leader, god, I can’t remember his name, and close the station down. So here again, I have affected history because I went there with this bloke, he lived in Towcester. He was a farmer and he’d been sent there for his demob but to close this down, you see. He used to go home every night, he’d phone me every morning as a station hand, do you need me? No. Alright I’ll ring you tomorrow. So I was left to close the station down which was just getting trucks, taking stuff and all these instructions came in about where it was all to go and the rest of it was funny. Now going away to my sister and my middle sister was very pally with a girl called Ken Richardson who was a Senior Engineer for Raymond Mays, a [unclear] war. Have you heard the name Raymond Mays, a racing driver before the war? He was his engineer and he was on the, the testing and research for Jag, and Lou sent me a note saying can you get me on the telephone, which I did. She says he’s looking out for an Air Ford, a disused Air Ford to do track runs, round and round the track. So she says can he come to you? I said well I don’t know, I’ll check with Air Ministry, which I did, and they said yes, providing they’ll take out one hundred thousand pounds third party insurance, which I did, they did. The rest is history. They’ve stayed there ever since, so there you are. I opened up Silverstone. Yes I did. Really, I was on old telly. Was it my fiftieth Birthday?
BP: I can’t remember now.
DJ: They came and interviewed me here. And they says, can you show us [unclear] looking at photographs. I said I’m not doing any of that sort of cliché, I said, everybody wants to look at photographs, I haven’t got any, but there you are. I closed Silverstone and that was it. And then I went to [pause] Bridgehill, I was based there, I went to Bridgnorth to close that. RAF Bridgnorth was where all recruits came through at the time. You know of it? And I closed that. And then from there I was posted to [pause] Acklington was it? Acklington, Northumberland. Was it Acklington? Yes it was, close to Acklington. They rebuilt that, I stayed there and I had the only really unhappy days there. I had a CO who was a real bully, a rank bully. He made my life purgatory [coughs], the kind — I was there SAO, Senior Admin Officer. The, I was squadron leader by this time and he. Oh I’m sorry. Oh hold on, I’ve jumped, I’ve jumped because —
CB: From Silverstone?
DJ: Before that. Oh, I was sent back to Upavon. The one place where I’d been as an airman, as command drafting officer with the peace staff, dealing with a post in every rank below officer, and then they said, well we’ll move to the intake shelter recruits. You’re to go to Cardington, you know, the lone hangers.
CB: Yep.
DJ: And I was there, I forget, about six months and then we got a signal coming through, your posted. Upavon, back to Upavon where I’d been as an NAC. I said lovely ‘cause I knew it. You’ll go back there as command [unclear] officer. The night before a phone call said ‘we forgot to tell you, you’re promoted to squadron leader. Get your rank put properly on your dress and report properly dressed to the AOC there CNC’, so that’s when I got squadron leader. Anyway, that was lovely, I enjoyed that. I had a good time RAF [unclear] when I was back up to Acklington now and I had this CO. The kind of silly things he did. If I was duty officer for the day, he’d ring me up and says the horses from a field are loose on the airfield. Get rid of them. I said ‘yes sir’. So I did what any squadron leader would do and rung the orderly sergeant. I said ‘there’re some horses on the airfield, get rid of them’. He said ‘yes sir’ he said, ‘I’ll get the orderly corporal to do that’ which I through was perfectly right and proper.
CB: Yep.
DJ: And anyway, this damned Dennis Sutton his name was, he was called Zebedee by all the troops, Zebedee, he said the next day ‘did you get the horses off the airfield Joss?’ I said ‘yes sir’. He says ‘no’ he says, ‘you didn’t hear me. I said did YOU get the horses off the airfield’. I said ‘no, I told the sergeant, who I believe told the corporal’. He said ‘I told YOU to do it’, and that’s the way he behaved with me. He, he disliked me as much as I disliked him, we didn’t get on. So I then put in an application to get posted. Wing commander admin was Tanner, wing commander, he came to my office and said ‘can you withdraw this?’ I said ‘no, I want to get away from here as soon as possible’. He says ‘well, he says the station officer has had to move, the station medical officer has asked for a move and now you’ve asked for a moved’. I says ‘what about you?’ He says ‘never mind me, will you withdraw it?’ I says ‘no’. Anyway, I had a phone call from Air Ministry. Oh, going back a bit before I closed Padgate, I’d had all the recruits came into Padgate so I had three hundred troops at anytime there, anyway, when the phone call went and said this application of yours to get moved, how soon can you be ready? I says in about two hours, I said ‘where am I going?’ And they said ‘well we thought we’d send you to, to Halton’. ‘Oh’ I said, ‘you couldn’t do better if you’d given me the choice of the Air Force, I’d go back to Halton apprentices’. It would just suit me down to the ground. I like the area and I like working with the youngsters, so I said alright. They said ‘we’ll give you ten days’. I said ‘you can give me 10 minutes. I can be on my way’ and I stayed here until — I don’t know how long I’d been here, nearly four years, and then my son here was saying one day, he says ‘I suppose you will be on the move again sometime, you’ve been here sometime’. I said ‘yes I will’, and it dawned on me. I’d never, all my moves, I’d never consulted my family but anyway, I just excepted I’d come home and say were going to here were going to there and I said [coughs], ‘do you not want to move?’ He says no I’d like to stay here. My wife said the same and my younger son said ‘well if you’re asking me, I’d like to stay here too’. So, I was chatting with somebody that I was thinking of coming out and these lovely coincidence. I had a pal here who was a training officer at Handley Page Aircraft Company. He came round one day, he says you’re talking about leaving, I said yes. He says the training officer, the welfare office, training officer at Handley Page has died, they’re looking for another one and they’re looking for an ex-Air Force chap, you’re just the man says he. He knew me and I said I am so he put me in touch with their [pause] whatever he was, director of personnel, who, would you believe it, was an ex Halton apprentice and he says would you like to go for an interview. I says ‘can I be very rude to you and say would you like to come over here and look round your old alma mater and have lunch in the MESS and that’. I did. He did, he came over and it was lucky, everywhere I went people couldn’t have been nicer to me and very polite, and he said, ‘by god, you get on well, just the lad for the job’. He said ‘how soon can you get out?’ I said ‘I don’t know’ and I waited. I put in my application to get out. They made me wait three months. I came out, stayed here until [coughs] sixty-nine, and then I thought it’s time I came out and be bone idle and there you are. That’s your lot.
CB: Fantastic.
BP: Lovely.
DJ: Sorry.
CB: Right let’s have a break. Thank you.
DJ: I had a nice refreshing cup of tea with a [bleep] bloke named Bob Martin who used to be my boss and he was —
CB: This, this is interrupting a moment. This is when you were posted to Spitalgate?
DJ: Yes.
CB: And the Dutch people?
DJ: Yes the Dutch people there. My boss was Bob Martin who was responsible for flying aspects and I was responsible for the admin of these Dutch recruits, which was lovely. I was there and when they passed out Prince Bernard came across to inspect them and give them their wings and the rest of it. Now Bob and I had been very kind to these Dutch boys, we used to take them into Nottingham for parties and took them home and did all sorts, and Prince Bernard he said to me he said, ‘the lads have been saying you’ve been so kind and very good, I’m going to send you an honorary George the order of the honorary of something or other. It came. The bloody station commander kept one and the, I think his equivalent officer kept the other, we never got it at all, they kept it. It’s a pity, I fancied that ‘cause the thing went round your neck.
CB: What an extraordinary thing.
DJ: The station commander, it’s interesting. I told you I was teetotal, I didn’t have any, the Mess had — what was it a we just mentioned it — at Grantham.
CB: Oh Spitalgate.
DJ: Yes Spitalgate.
CB: Yes.
DJ: Yes, pre war officers didn’t stand in a bar, you gave all your drinks to stewards. Were you pre war?
CB: No, no.
DJ: No, you gave a steward your drink and —
CB: You were served it at the table.
DJ: But they, they — what you call it? They split off the mess main lounge and put a bar one side and a lounge the other, which was fine. Now the lads I was there with were good fun, they really was, and bearing in mind, I wasn’t very old. We decided we’d have a cycle race in the lounge one day, so they moved the settees and the chairs, piled them all up in the middle and we all got the cycles, went round. I hit this wall, went through it, I got off the bike to meet the station commander standing against the bar, and I said ‘good evening sir’. ‘Evening Joss’. He shook his head like this. Anyway, you may remember, they used to fill in a confidential report regularly and in the column, thirteen sixty-nine it was called, and besides when he put in mine, drinks regularly but drinks unwisely, and he says, you can’t put that about Joss, he said he doesn’t drink at all he is teetotal. He says rubbish. He says ‘I’ve seen him as pissed as a fart. He rode through a wall, took his hat off to me and said hello and walked out again as though nothing had happened’. Anyway, that was alright. He sent for me for a bit, he said you’ve been posted again. I shouldn’t have missed this important bit because it’s really important. He says you’re going to Germany to PA to Air Vice Marshall Spackman. That was a lovely job, oh I did enjoy it. He was, he was a bachelor. He was big, about six foot four and he was a joy to work for, AVM Spackman, CBS, Charles Basil Slater and I was his PA and he lived alone in a house just up on the hill, you know. A German had been thrown out and he was there and I, everywhere I went, I went with him. What he didn’t know and I knew now because I’m about five foot six and he was about six foot three, well everywhere we were known, everybody else referred to here’s mutton Geoff coming along, you see, we were and I was there — my little office I had was between his air vice marshal and the CNC was [pause], it will come to me, I can’t remember. His CNC was in a room that side. These had been bedrooms in a hotel at Buckeberg, [unclear] rather, and every time the two of us would meet each other, they’d go through my office, you see, and I was leaping up and down and they both said ‘don’t keep jumping up and down Joss, when we come through, if we want to speak to you we’ll tell you’. Anyway the CNC came through and stood in front of me one day and he says I’ll be, I’m posting you Joss. ‘Oh’, I said, ‘I don’t want to go and leave the air marshal here’. I says ‘I do enjoy it here and I don’t want to be posted thank you. Can’t you stop it?’ and he says and he called Spackers, ‘Spackers, come in here’, he says ‘I can’t get your PA to leave you. He’s crying his eyes out here because you’re moving him’. Of course, Spackers came in and said to him ‘now your being unkind sir, tell him what you’re going to do with him’. He says ‘I want you to be NCO at Scharfoldendorf which is Leave Centre in the Harz Mountains’. I says ‘goodbye sir’. I’d just refused to go and I said goodbye. Now I was there just over a year and Korea started, and they wanted gunnery leaders to go onto Sunderlands and out to Korea, and I was to be posted home, which really hacked me off. Anyway, the post had come through and I couldn’t do anything about it but I can show you something if you can lift this across. When I left the Germans there, I had got on so well with them they, they commandant of whatever the Germans call these camps they had, he’d been very good to them and the, the people —
CB: What the prisoner of war camp?
DJ: He didn’t want him tried at all.
CB: Right.
DJ: This colonel. Anyway he was a good — he made this at my station as a farewell present. That’s Scharfoldendorf [laughs]
CB: Amazing.
DJ: It really is lovely. He knew he had me in tears.
CB: Amazing model complete with swimming pool.
DJ: Yes, yeah. That was the [unclear]
BP: Oh, I say.
DJ: It was a sort of Officers Mess.
BP: Wow.
DJ: And that was my house in this corner, I didn’t even know. No, no that’s the Mess, the red roof’s the Mess. That was my house but I didn’t live in it, I preferred to live in the Mess with the blokes, it was just paradise. In, in the winter you could skate down the hill, we had skating into [unclear] and then [unclear]. It was a gliding school as well and the gliders were launched, you will like this, if you didn’t know of it, they launched them with elastic bands. They would get three either side, six elastic bands and it was a very steep drop and they would run pulling this elastic band and shoot the gliders off the end. We put up barriers to stop them falling over. And then as they were, what upset me there was I was posted home. I had arranged for my brother to come here [coughs] and when I got home, I met another old air gunner that I knew and he said ‘oh you lucky devil, I would love to go there’. By that time I was married, and my wife had had our first. He said ‘I’d love to do that job you know’. I said ‘well I didn’t want to go if I could help it’, so we put in a joint application to swap. I got to stay there and he went to thingme, so he went there and I stayed there, so that was it. What the devil did I do after that? Oh yes, went to Aden [laughs], sorry about this.
BP: [laughs]
CB: It’s alright.
DJ: I forgot about it. Went to Aden, did a good two years in Aden and came back [pause] to Bridgnorth to close it. That was a bit before Bridgestone. So that’s it, I’m sorry I missed that bit. Good job you’re sitting there [pause].
CB: Well we’ll have a break now. Thank you.
DJ: I, I —
CB: Hang on.
DJ: I got a —
CB: So we’re now back at, when you were in Germany and the Berlin airlift.
DJ: I was at the hospital, RAF hospital [coughs] and this little redhead was there and I was, I shared, four of us in a bay, two soldiers and two airmen, and we made a hell of a lot of noise apparently with our radios and that, and the matron said to her go and stop them making that noise or I’ll be in trouble. She came in and said ‘you stop it’, I said ‘if you marry me, I’ll stop making the noise and I’ll stop there’. She died after we’d been married fifty-two years.
CB: Really.
DJ: Yes.
CB: Fantastic.
DJ: Every time she was on duty she’d come there or I’d go and fetch her and there we are, so that was that business. What else have I forgot?
BP: The Berlin airlifts.
DJ: Oh yes. Well that was during the Berlin airlifts, yes. That was, you know we went down to the airlift. I don’t know which one he wanted.
CB: So Spackman was something to do with the Berlin airlift?
DJ: He, he was the senior air staff officer. SASO, Senior Air Staff Officer, in fact, he was acting CNC for a while. Oh yes, there is one interesting bit on that. He couldn’t and he was pally with an American called, he was very popular name down the American staff, oh he was well known. Anyway it didn’t matter. They couldn’t decide whether the first airlifts should be fighter escorted or not because the Russians, and he debated with him and anyway we were there. Anyway he said ‘we’ve got to make our mind up’. He said ‘get me onto the Prime Minister’. So we had a call to the Prime Minister, who was Clem Attlee at the time, and oh yes I’ll tell you about him in a bit. He used to get through to his secretary and he would switch on a recorder and so would I, and I would say the airbus was at the scene and wants to speak to the pilot, and they had a [unclear plane noise in the background] and [unclear] in fact. You as a man on the door must make a decision. Whatever decision you make I promise to back you. Are you recording it? He says yes sir I am. He says alright. I will leave it to you. Let me know. So they rang off and he rang off, this was about, oh, two in the afternoon. He says ‘I don’t want to be disturbed or spoken to’ he says ‘I don’t want to be disturbed’ he says put me through to General [long pause] oh dear, well known American General. Anyway, whatever it was put through to him and they nattered away. I said ‘do you want this recording’, he said ‘yes I do’, so we did and then I had to listen on all the time and they decided no escort, no fighter escort. He says alright. And he came into the office with me and he says put me through to the Prime Minister again, and so I put him through to the Prime Minister again and his, his secretary or whoever it was says, are we recording, and I says yes, we’re recording, I said, do you want to go through there as it was lonely, he says I’m going through and then I’d hear him say message to Mr Prime Minister and I suspect them on to you and I would put them through. And he says ‘we’ve decided sir, no fighter escort’. ‘Very good’ says the Prime Minister, Clem Attlee, ‘I’m glad. That’s a decision I was hoping you would make’. But when I thought of it afterwards, there’s a bloke he could of incited war his rate of pay as an air vice marshal at the time was three thousand a year. Can you believe it? An air vice marshal, a bloke, the future, the country was on his hands. So that was it and that was old Spackers. He and my only collusion with the Prime Minister. He came out later on to visit, he says ‘I’ll come out and visit you’ said the Prime Minister. By this time I was up at [unclear] and old Spackers rang me and he says ‘I’m bringing the Prime Minister, he’s coming out Joss. He says can you lay on a reasonable lunch’, I says ‘yes sir’. He says ‘I’m bringing the Prime Minister, he’s coming out and spending a day, a look round [unclear] and he and I want to chat informally’. So that’s fine. He did — that week, the lass that become my wife was just visiting me at the time, she used to have to get a lift back to her, her thing which was near the same place in Buckeberg and so I said to old Spackers ‘look’ I said, ‘I’ve got a nursing sister here, got to get back tonight. When he’s taking Clem back to Buckeberg to fly home, could you give her a lift back’. He says ‘yes, she can sit in the front with the driver’. Anyway later on, old the Spackers said to me, ‘that nurse, that lovely nurse, are you going to marry he?’ I says ‘quite likely sir’. He says ‘well I would, she spent the whole bloody journey telling me how lucky I was to have you as one of my commanding officers’ [laughs].
BP: [laughs]
CB: [laughs]
DJ: It sounded fairly typical so fancy me forgetting that. There you are.
CB: Thank you. Let’s, let’s have a break now.
DJ: Yes please.
CB: Because you could do with a lemonade of some kind.
DJ: Yes.
CB: Let me start [pause]. So we’re restarting with Douglas talking about the operational experiences after HCU where the squadron was on Halifaxes, and then changed to Lancaster’s and so could you just tell us your experience as in operations, please, including the nice bits and the not so good?
DJ: Well, it’s very different. There were some bits that were less worrying. It would be much easier if I look at this as we chat.
CB: OK.
DJ: Because I remember, I can remember some instances which were, you know, when we were hit by flak and another one you see there’s one op that I remember which after D-Day.
CB: Yeah.
DJ: We did north of Caen and we were bombing when the Germans were still north of Caen on the Tuesday, and we were told to bomb Caen but to miss the church. It had a big red cross on the top, it is being used as a hospital. So as we bombed north where the Germans were, you know, nearer the sea, and they said — now beside me there’s another Lancaster and I knew the squadron because you all had squadron numbers, and it hit by flak and its engine went on fire. Within seconds we saw two jump out, paratroopers. Now the sad thing is, they jumped a bit early because if you’re on German lines, you got taken prisoner, but the pillar, the, the, their pilot was an ace really, you, you could see this hell of a mess, this thing was burning, it got worse and worse and he banked it round, going over the sea and the others all bailed out then. We counted them out so we know they all went out, dropping in the sea. My skipper, he went down as low as he could and he said to the wireless op, signal that there’s all these aircrew in the sea, signal the position, exactly to the wireless op. And the wireless op says to Len, what Len, what position, what position and there, anyway we didn’t bother because we saw the Navy about four or five small aircraft come and pick these up and would you believe they were back on the squadron alright the next day, anyway which was lovely. But their pilot, I think, did a superb job because eventually it, it just burst into flames and went into the sea and he got an immediate DMC when he got back. He did. But that was, that was really quite exciting. It was worrying really.
CB: Did you see any scarecrows?
DJ: Oh yes. Well, the flaming balls they used to shoot up and they’d look like an aircraft had exploded. might be seeing exploded aircraft so you weren’t sure which was which.
CB: Did you, did you know what the scarecrow really was?
DJ: Well, well we were told it was a, a sort of offensive bomb which exploded in the air.
CB: Right, but, but what was the reality?
DJ: Well, we just used to feel sorry for them. Really you didn’t —
CB: OK.
DJ: You didn’t have any sort of — you’d say Christ, and we were — I remember a bomb going down and we said look there’s one going down, come on, get out. It was a shout for them to come on get out of —
CB: Yeah.
DJ: The skipper said ‘never bloody mind them, you look round to see what’s coming to us. Ignore them’.
CB: Yeah.
DJ: You can’t do anything for them.
CB: Yeah, yeah. What, what I meant is did you, the, the official line was that these explosions were from a particular type of German munition. Were you aware of what the reality was and how they were hit?
DJ: We were told.
CB: And what was that?
DJ: Because we couldn’t recognise, well we were told this is what they were called. Were they exploding dustbins or something they called it.
CB: Oh I see right. So the, the reason for the question is because this was a way of concealing to air crew.
DJ: Yeah.
CB: The fact that the German night fighters had upward firing cannon.
DJ: Yeah.
CB: Which shot the plane down from underneath and I just wondered if you were aware of that?
DJ: No.
CB: Right.
DJ: No, no at least if I was I can’t remember.
CB: Yeah.
DJ: Yeah.
CB: And that was called Schrage Musik.
DJ: Was it?
BP: You, you had the incident where it was very cold. Without the electricity, you didn’t have the electricity. Douglas?
DJ: Sorry.
BP: You had your incident —
DJ: Oh well, this is, we’d been, you know mine laying, was dropping mines outside —
CB: Yeah. Gardening.
DJ: Outside the port, gardening.
CB: Yeah.
DJ: The other side of Denmark, you know.
CB: Yes.
DJ: The sea there. On the way back there was a hell of a storm. It was quite bad and the skipper he says ‘I’ll try and get over this’, and he climbed and climbed and said, ‘I can’t get over it so I’ll go down’. As he went down, we were struck by lightning. He said ‘Christ I can’t see, I can’t see. It’s blinded me. Come on’. He called to Jim and Don, ‘hold this prop for me, hold the stick for me, hold the stick for me I can’t see’. And my — four turrets, there’s a stream of flames. What are they called? Whatever lightning calls it. There’s a name for this I gather.
CB: Right.
DJ: And they were just circles of flames and I thought, God, it’s going to set us on fire too. But he couldn’t see, and Don and Mac were, were together flying the plane, that’s the bomb aimer and the flight engineer, they were flying the plane together. They were talking, I was listening to all this which wasn’t very nice at all.
CB: Oh.
DJ: Anyway, and the skipper then says, ‘its coming back, its coming back, I can see a bit, it’s coming back’ and eventually he said ‘yes it’s cleared’, now which was about I suppose ten minutes, quarter of an hour and he says ‘I still can’t get over this thing’ and he says ‘we’ll go under it’. So we went down and he crossed the North Sea at about two hundred feet, which is frightening in itself. He went down and down to get under it and he says ‘well I can’t go down any further, are you holding on’, holding on and climbed back up and as it was, you know the, the storm cleared a bit and he got up to a reasonable height and got us back, but I don’t know if it’s in my log book that a pilot was blinded.
CB: So what about other experiences that were slightly or considerably disturbing? What was the most disturbing situation?
DJ: Well it was — you know, it’s memories.
CB: When was your Le Havre operation?
DJ: September the — I’ll tell you here, because that’s in here [long pause], the 21st of [unclear] bombs brought back, low cloud, in danger of hitting our own troops so the trip was disallowed.
CB: Right.
DJ: We’d been there and were shot at but we weren’t allowed to do it. Then the very next day we went to [unclear] troops and armoured concentration. The last commission that day. So that was handy, that was nice.
CB: What date was that?
DJ: That was the 26th of September forty-four.
CB: When you were commissioned?
DJ: Yeah.
CB: OK.
DJ: And —
CB: So could you just tell me —
DJ: It was 17th Le Havre, it was the 6th of September, 17th Le Havre. To accentuate the surrender of German Garrison, which I found out later was [unclear], there was no German Garrison in Le Havre.
CB: At all?
DJ: No.
CB: Right
DJ: They were out, this as I say, there was this big, very almost mountains behind it, hills all the way round Le Havre.
CB: Yeah.
DJ: They were all up there.
CB: Not in the town?
DJ: They told us they were laughing like a drain at us busy bombing the centre and killing off the froggies.
CB: Yeah. So they didn’t get hit at all?
DJ: Well —
CB: The Germans?
DJ: No not much because we weren’t aiming at them, we were aiming, you know, right in the centre. Even though our aim was good, it was just it shouldn’t have been there.
CB: Did, did you have Pathfinder that day?
DJ: I couldn’t tell you.
CB: Oh.
DJ: It doesn’t mention here so it would mention in there if they were, it would tell you.
CB: Yeah. OK
DJ: In that thing it tells you how many Pathfinders accompanied us.
CB: Yeah. OK. What other experiences were memorable in your —
DJ: It’s difficult to say. Yes, Dijon, I can’t remember the date, we got one engine hit, put it out of commission and the skipper decided we’d come back, we wouldn’t come back straight up, north of France. He turned out towards the Wash to the Bay of Biscay and we went out there and he went as low as he could, and we were going quite low, about four or five hundred feet, something like that and a very brave pilot, a JU88 came up behind us, even lower, and I blasted him and I know I hit him but I never saw him go down, but I thought he had bags of guts to come under there but he disappeared. There but that was —
CB: This is day time is it or night?
DJ: And the next. Sorry?
CB: Is this night time or day time?
DJ: Night time.
CB: Right.
DJ: And so we went out over the North Sea and came in on the Channel and we were sort of over Southampton or somewhere like that, and the next thing, I don’t know why I wasn’t paying attention but, I suddenly looked and there right behind us was a Beaufighter. He’d seen a Lanc come in there and he’d got in behind us and I hadn’t seen him coming. It was disgraceful, but I didn’t tell, I didn’t own up to this until later on, but this Beaufighter was there. He realised it was us and ‘cause, you know, we’d, we had the different colours of the day you could shoot, and then he veered off and left us. But we got back, but we come back on three engines all the way.
CB: How many times did you engage fighters?
DJ: Oh god knows, again I’ll have to look. So let’s say about ten or twelve.
CB: Right.
DJ: But some of them just came and didn’t stay, you know, like I remember when we went to — we were going to the Rhine somewhere and I saw a Messerschmitt come round behind me and I just, I saw him there, he was going to bank in to come round and I blasted him when he went up. I did about four hundred rounds something like that, and when he saw that he cleared off. And then another one. And we saw, but we didn’t realise at the time but, Jimmy and I both thought it was a Jet. It came on and it started blasting in our stream, you know the four hundred, sometimes in the stream, four hundred loads, sometimes —
CB: Yeah.
DJ: You’ll see in that how many each op had. And he started blasting, you could see him blasting and they had a point five cannon at our stupid 303s, which was the worst thing ever they gave us, and he just came through blasting and then cleared off, but we didn’t see him get any Lancs at all.
CB: Right.
DJ: But sometimes you were in the middle of four hundred loads, it could be a bit frightening, you know there was the odd occasion when Jimmy would shout, you know, cooks report, cooks report because a bomber tumbling down from a Lanc, you know. Some of the naughty ones would fly too high and their bombs would come down between our main plane and tier one, two or three times I remember that happening.
CB: So explain, could you explain what you mean by that, I mean why were they bombing from too high?
DJ: Because they, the, the story was they wanted to get away from the flak and leave us to get the flak.
CB: Oh, I see.
DJ: It was a bit naughty to let the lower aircraft have the flak and they would get up above us, but it was one of those things we were told about.
CB: Yeah. So they released their bombs, not on the target, is that right?
DJ: No, mostly on the target.
CB: It was? Right.
DJ: But too high.
CB: Yeah.
DJ: Above other Lancs.
CB: Yeah, yeah.
DJ: I mean it was mentioned about, on many briefings it would be mentioned.
CB: Yeah.
DJ: You know, just remember who you’re flying above.
CB: Yeah.
DJ: Do take care.
CB: Right. So what other times do you think you hit other, hit fighters? On what other occasions?
DJ: I don’t, I don’t, I, I can’t remember. There’s two, the two Messerschmitt. There was Jimmy [unclear] from the BFM.
CB: Yeah.
DJ: I’m not positive on them because I don’t know. This was, these are not very accurate, you just bung in what you think at the time. It’s a reminder.
CB: You’re just looking at the log book at the moment.
DJ: Yes.
CB: Yeah.
DJ: I got a few there. Incidentally you know the French Governor decided to give the —
BP: The Légion d'Honneur
DJ: Légion d'Honneur, it was an honour to people that were on the thing. Then they sent one to Len and they sent me a note saying I’d be getting one but I don’t know when it was coming but I haven’t had it.
CB: Right.
DJ: That was some time ago.
CB: So that’s a French Embassy job isn’t it? Are you following that up by any chance?
DJ: It was on my fifth op. Yes. Dijon.
BP: We tried but —
DJ: Come back with query fighters but no damage.
CB: What date was that?
DJ: That was on the 5th of July.
CB: Right. Forty-four?
DJ: And then going on to the 18th of July at Caen. Hit by flak. Starboard fuel tank holed, which was frightening because we were worried that that was on fire.
CB: Yeah.
DJ: And then next week, 20th July, Martin Lars at [unclear], we had two combats. Number one was [unclear] 210. Number two I couldn’t identify what his name was.
CB: Just in general terms, how did you feel about going on these bombing raids?
DJ: Well I never doubted I’d get back alright. I used to get, my mouth used to get a bit dry, as a bloke said that’s when you discover that blood was brown, you know you get a bit [unclear]
CB: This is right. Yes.
DJ: You get a bit excited.
CB: Your underwear changed. Yes. How did the crew in general feel about these operations?
DJ: Well I don’t think we discussed, you know, unless there was an incident we did.
CB: Yeah. Well I think we’ve covered an awful lot and thank you very much for all the time.
DJ: The other bit that might be in your log. On my twelfth op to [unclear]. We were fully escorted by USA Thunderbolts and Mustangs.
CB: Oh. That made you feel better.
DJ: Yes, oh to see any fighters on your side. Yeah.
BP: I think the fact that they concluded all their ops means something.
CB: Thirty-two of them.
BP: I mean were they lucky. I mean, what, how, you know —
CB: I’m going to stop it now.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Douglas Joss
Identifier
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AJossDA151007
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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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.
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01:47:00 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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France
Great Britain
India
Singapore
England--Lincolnshire
India--Bangalore
India--Yelahanka
Temporal Coverage
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1944
1945
Description
An account of the resource
Douglas was born in Aberdeen, the eldest of 5 children. He signed up for the Royal Air Force in October 1938 and trained as a Flight Rigger, becoming a Leading Aircraftsman after training.
During his time as a Leading Aircraftsman, he tells of working with George Stainforth, the last Schneider Trophy Pilot for Britain, and his experiences of meeting Douglas Bader whilst he was training to get his Royal Air Force wings back.
Douglas spent time in the Gold Coast, assembling aircraft such as Maryland Kitty Hawks before moving further inland to Nigeria and tells of his run-in with the Foreign Legion, before contracting Malaria and being sent home.
After recovering from Malaria, Douglas then trained as a Flight Engineer before being posted to the Heavy Conversion Unit on Handley Page Halifaxes, and then on to Avro Lancasters with 12 Squadron.
After his time in 12 Squadron, Douglas volunteered for the Pathfinder Force but was sent overseas to India and Singapore instead where he was involved in the sending home of wives and families from Siam Road, who were interred by the Japanese.
Douglas completed 32 operations, doing 2 extra operations to allow his bomb aimer to completed his tour of duty and he left the Royal Air Force with the rank of Squadron Leader.
Contributor
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Vivienne Tincombe
626 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
fitter airframe
ground crew
Halifax
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
RAF Bridlington
RAF Castle Donington
RAF Halton
RAF Honington
RAF Padgate
RAF Silverstone
RAF Upavon
RAF Wickenby
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/306/3463/AMooreR160727.1.mp3
6916342becb8f2ec899823178f5b9e73
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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Moore, Raymond
R Moore
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Raymond Moore (1609170 and 179383 Royal Air Force).
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-27
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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Moore, R
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
IL: Ian Locker. I’m interviewing Ray Moore at his home in Sowerby, Thirsk. Right, so Ray, um, tell us a little bit about your early life.
RM: Early life — where, where from?
IL: From you, you, you were born in Sussex?
RM: Yes.
IL: Tell us a little bit about your family and how, how you came to join the RAF.
RM: Well, I’ll only repeat what I said.
IL: Absolutely.
RM: Exactly what — again, I wasn’t thrilled by the war. I remember it very distinctly because my father and two brothers — my two brothers were in the — they called it the —
Sarah: Home Guard? No?
RM: Well, my father got — had been recalled for the covers [?] in other words, he’d done about fourteen years’ service in India and then he went to, he was posted to Gallipoli. He was wounded in 1915 and came back to England and he was in hospital, hospital in Esher, in Esher. That’s in Surrey and that’s where he me my mother but that was just at the beginning. And then he went in the Territorials. They joined in 1938 so they were the first up and the last picture, the last thing I remember of them, I was — they were all at home this particular day, and the last thing I remember I went into the dining room and they were all stood with their arms around one other. It was very moving, was that. And, um, then — so that passed and you didn’t — there was no reality to it even then. And then on the Sunday morning at 11 o’clock on — when Chamberlain said — it still didn’t ring a bell. I still wasn’t — it, it didn’t mean anything. I remember that Sunday morning and hearing Chamberlain and my mother was sat weeping, as they did in them days I suppose, I don’t know, but she was, I remember she was, she was crying and I thought, ‘Well, it’s a war.’ You know and, and honestly at that age, and I was fifteen, at that age you didn’t, you didn’t say, ‘Oh, there’s a war.’ It’s Hitler. It’s Germany. It’s Nazi Germany and I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe that we were at war but my father and brothers had already gone but it didn’t ring a bell until about, let’s see that’s 1940. I’m trying to think of the dates. In 1941 there were three of them gone and in 1941 my, er, brother that was older than me — no. A sister that was older than me, Joan, she decided to join the WAAFS. Because at some period of time, you know, women had to sign on as well and she was eligible. She was about twenty-two, twenty-three and so she was the next one to go and to me it was, ‘Ta-ta Joan.’ You know, that was — and then life set again. You started to — some of the things that happened. Because we never had a daily paper because I think the Daily Herald was on the go in those days and so, um, and being a mixed family of, of politics — my father was a conservative and my brothers when they came out, two of them had turned and flying the red flag. That was hilarious was that after the war. But — and so, er, and then it went on and then a brother went and I sort of looked round and instead of eleven of us sat down at that, in that, you know — and it was a fairly big dining room Sarah, wasn’t it? And the dining table, instead of there on a Sunday it was suddenly, suddenly empty and that was when it struck me that something was wrong and that was the time when I really thought about joining up but the age was eighteen and I was damn sure I wasn’t going in the Army or the Navy and I, I’d made up my mind. But as I say there was something by the Government that if you had — you know, there were a lot of big families but if you had so many in that were in the Services you, you were exempt and I should have been exempt. And that rattled my mother more than anything and so that was, you know, I joined up like and that’s when it started. All of it started. I have to admit I was leaving home and the Army didn’t appeal to me in as much as that I’d lost brothers and sisters and my father were all in the services. Because we had a good family life.
Sarah: None of them were killed.
RM: Never lost one of them, no.
IL: Remarkable isn’t it. So had you left school?
RM: Oh, I’d left school.
IL: So did you leave school at fifteen or —
RM: Fourteen.
IL: Right. So, so were you working on the family farm? Or —
RM: No, no, no. I did that, er, I did —
Sarah: What was your first job?
RM: First job, riding a bicycle, pushing — I worked for a butcher, just delivering, just an ordinary menial job. And that was the first, yeah, that was the first year and going to work then nine to five. [cough] I’m trying to think how old I was as well. And about a year or it might have been —
IL: I’m going to move that a little bit nearer to you.
RM: Sorry.
IL: No, it’s OK. [unclear]
RM: It might have been, um, [unclear] I think with there being, when the war was on, 1939, and there was, er, Joan was at home and Frank and so there were those at home so really I hadn’t much care, no idea. I was a good scholar as well. I was a good scholar, even if I say myself.
Sarah: And that’s where your engineering background —
RM: It was. It was really because, um, when I was in, when I joined up, and I was mixing with engines and airframes and things it seemed to — it was something that I wanted to do, wasn’t it? And to come top of the class at the end of thirty-six weeks I thought it was pretty good going. Anyway, er, fifteen and I got to know one or two. I, in that respect I was a bit of a loner, in respect of mixing and things like that and not bothering to look for the future, and I say I couldn’t have cared less and my father was in the Army so he couldn’t boot my backside and tell me to get a job. There, was there and then I went to a Jim Feasts [?]. I even remember his name and they were a greengrocers and all I was doing there was delivering green groceries, groceries and whatever you’re talking about. No, it was greengrocery wasn’t it? That was Jim Feast and that was awful but I suppose I was mixing with different people and Worthing’s a very snobbish place, you know.
IL: I’ve been.
RM: Pardon?
IL: I’ve been.
RM: Oh, you know Worthing.
IL: Not well.
RM: I finished there. I shouldn’t be — and then I worked for Jim Feast until, well, I think he told me to beggar off and, um, they were menial things, weren’t they? And then across The Broadway there was, they called them Fletchers [sound of aircraft]. Now that can go down. They called them Fletchers, the butcher, and so I was riding around then. And I became very friendly with a chap and he was the same as I was. We were the same age and doing the same jobs, riding around and delivering errands, and he said to me one day, he said — and it was time to come up when we were coming up to seventeen and then around that area and he said, ‘By the way.’ He said, ‘I’m going to join, I’m going to join the Navy.’ He said, ‘What do you think?’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t join the Navy if you paid me.’ I said, I said, ‘I don’t want to go.’ He said, ‘Oh, I’m going to join the Navy.’ And just up here they call it Teville Road. He said, ‘Up here are the Naval Cadets.’ But it’s ridiculous isn’t it? Because when he said Naval Cadets I thought to myself, ‘What do you do?’ He said, ‘Well, we learn the Morse code and with your arms and hands.’ And I thought — ‘And march and do things like that.’ And bearing in mind there was also a junior Air Cadets but I didn’t even think about the Air Cadets because — and then he was telling me, he said, ‘Why don’t you come up?’ I said, ‘I don’t want to join the Navy.’ He said, ‘Oh, come on.’ He said, ‘It will just be a bit of fun.’ So, I said, ‘Oh, right.’ So, I went up this particular time and went into this hall and I saw these, er, do you know what I mean? There was all these things to learn the Morse code, with di, di, di, da, dat. And I looked at them and I thought — because a friend of mine had joined the air crew and he’d gone as a wireless op and I thought, ‘That’s not a bad thing. There’s a place here I can learn the Morse code and be one in front.’ So, he said — anyway, I thought it would be interesting, sat down and they had about six in a line. I sat down and I got interested, listening to it, and I thought, ‘This will do.’ But this mate of mine, he kept saying, ‘Join.’ He wanted me to join the Naval Cadets and I didn’t want to join and that was when really that I made up my mind. That was about the time that I’d gone down to the recruiting office to join the, to join the Air Force and that was really at the beginning where I made up my mind that I wanted to be air crew and that, that was the last job I think, driving around. They called him Fletcher, that butcher, and that’s, that’s all I did but I think if my dad had been home he would have pushed me because, as I say, I was fairly good, I was fairly good at school. I was. I can wrap anything up, you know, and it seems a shame really. You know, I don’t I mean that I was wasted or anything like that but I know that had I’d gone on I would have gone on to Worthing High School but nothing appealed to me. There was a war on and honestly, that’s the honest truth, there was nothing appealed to me. Nothing at all appealed to me in — accept when it came for the service time to join the Services. That’s all it was.
IL: OK. So when you joined you were seventeen but there was problems because you had to have your mother’s permission I understand.
RM: That’s right.
IL: So, what happened?
RM: What happened?
IL: Yeah. What happened?
RM: Well, I did tell you.
Sarah: But you’re being recorded now dad.
RM: Oh, I see. Oh, well. Well, we didn’t fall out of course not. You can look at that. That’s my family. Oh well, we had a few words of course but nothing, there was nothing dramatic. There was nothing dramatic about it because my mother was a loving woman wasn’t she? I mean, it was her family, her life, but to — but I don’t think even to this day, looking back, that she ever thought that, um, it would come to me signing up. I don’t think she ever thought that I would join up until I left and I got on the train from West Worthing to Victoria. I mean, to be out of, to get out, to go out of Worthing was when I played football. I used to play schoolboy international, um, yeah, I played schoolboy international. We lost —
Sarah: Where did you do your final?
RM: West Ham. No, we didn’t play. We got knocked out, Sarah. West Ham beat us in the semis at — where? What’s the name of their ground?
IL: Upton Park.
RM: Yes. That’s it and it was an absolute sensation because to play schoolboy international was actually a very good thing because when you ran on the pitch and there was six thousand boys there and we ran on the pitch at Upton Park and these boys — you get six thousand boys, six thousand boys there and I can understand — it was absolutely wonderful. Anyway I was thirteen at the time. But going on to where, talking about my mother, it was, it was very disturbing but on, not from my point of view because I knew what I was going to do. It was something. It was something. There was a blooming war on but the papers and you could hear them give the news out. It, it didn’t strike me as being anything. All I wanted to do then was be in the Air Force and to fly. That was my only ambition was to fly and I failed the first time. What did they call it? I failed. I put in for a pilot and I failed as a pilot. I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t just good enough. That was all there was to it. I know that looking back. I think if I’d genned up on it a bit more and waited maybe a couple of months.
Sarah: How did they sort out who was going to be a flight engineer and who was going to be a wireless operator?
RM: By what I had to do. By what you had to do. And you talk about square pegs and round holes, Sarah, and that was what you had to do. I went up to, ah, North London. It’s where they, where the Lord’s Cricket Ground is, somewhere up there, and you go before the — oh, I forgot to tell you that. That’s what happened when I was called up, before I was called up rather, that’s what happened, and you sit down. You go into this classroom and that as well, I had a medical, of course. I mustn’t miss that out, of course you did, and you sat down and it was sort of noughts and crosses, you know. I can’t remember a lot, but you sat down and with a — now I’ve got to just try and think. Anyway I failed as a pilot and so the next best thing —
IL: But at this time you were still only seventeen? This was —
RM: Pardon?
IL: This was between signing up and being called up you had this, like, kind of selection.
RM: That’s right, exactly. I’d forgotten, yeah, of course I did. And as far as I think now I was just put down as air crew. I can’t seem to think that I was classified then because as an air gunner — I knew I wasn’t going to be an air gunner because the air gunners were in and out. They had a six month course. They were up in — they had a very short course, did an air gunner, a rear gunner and a mid-upper gunner. They had a very short — you know, it was awful really. They just learned how to shoot and they put them in, put them in a bomber. And honestly, it was as simple as that.
IL: You also, you also had this thing with your mother, um, she had to sign something, I understand?
RM: Oh yes, yes. She did, oh yeah. Well, I got this paper from — I went down to the recruiting office — and I thought — there again, I knew nothing about it. And I thought you could just sign on the line and they took you but when they came to the ages bit, um, it struck me as not being right, but you, you could not get into the Services. You could get in [emphasis] into the Services, before you were eighteen, but not flying. You could not get into air crew unless you signed up. That’s what it was with me anyway. And to get her to — she just said, ‘You’re not going.’ And that was it. And in practice she’d made her mind up that I wasn’t going to join the aircrew. But my mother then at that time I don’t really think that she knew what air crew was. Honestly I do. I believe that. She didn’t know what air crew was in that respect.
IL: So, how did you get round your mum not signing?
RM: Um, oh, oh well, I waited for a bit, oh yeah, when she wouldn’t sign it. I mean, she was my mother and what could I do? I can’t, even in those days, I mean, well, in those days you had to do what your mother and father said, as far as I was concerned anyway, and she was, um, she was up in arms. I knew she held it — she sort of realised that I’d made my mind up. That’s, that’s what it was all about. And I wanted to, I wanted to join and I she — I can’t tell you what the paper was. It was a sheet of paper with — that you had to sign and I, I forged her signature. Yeah, I did. I practiced writing Clare Moore and, um, I don’t think to this day that she knew what I’d done except when my papers came. I mean, I don’t think she was aware that, I don’t think she was aware because I didn’t turn round to her and say I’d done it. I wouldn’t have done that. Well, I wouldn’t Sarah. And, er, as I say I took it back to that, down Chapel Road, that recruiting office there and just handed it in and, ‘We’ll let you know.’ Sort of thing.
IL: So, what happened when you eventually got called up and had to leave?
RM: And had to leave?
IL: Had, had to leave home. What did your mum do?
RM: Oh, well, that — well, my sister Dorothy, we were good friends, as brother and sister, and she still does to this day. She thinks I’m marvellous. You know, that sort of, her brother, and, um, well, I packed a little suitcase and all I packed in was probably a razor and whatever, you know, things you need, I suppose. I know at that time my mother was very reluctant to pack anything in. You didn’t need anything. You just had, I just had this little case and I guess she packed in soap, a flannel and things like that. That’s all there was, you know. Said, ‘Cheerio.’ And she said, ‘You can beggar off home.’ I remember that. And then when I got to the bottom of the road I looked back. Waving. And I got on a train and went to Victoria, Victoria across to — no, the RTO met us at, um, at Victoria Station. You went into the, what they called, the RTO, that’s the Railroad Transport Offices, the RTO, and I went in there and told them, like, and they took us by coach then to Cardington. And from Cardington — was there two days. That was awful really at Cardington because there were thou— there seemed hundreds, hundreds of airmen milling around in civvies, you know, and it was a funny carry on and it really surprised me, in as much as, over the Tannoy (they had a Tannoy) and it was like a homing thing and it called out on, on the microphone, ‘Is there a,’ and I’ll never forget this, ‘Is there a Raymond Moore here?’ And amongst all the hubbub, you know, I didn’t take a lot of notice and I hadn’t met anybody but I heard it again and again and I thought, ‘That’s me.’ Anyway, er, I found out where it was coming from and what it was — I can’t explain to you how they found out — but what it was somebody more knowledgeable than me and up to date and what it was you could go to and find, there was a list of some sort you, you could go and find and look down this list, like, anybody from Worthing? With their names on it and my name was on it and what — and they called in — oh, I can’t think of it. No good, can’t think, and what happened was, he called in. He was calling, ‘Raymond Moore.’ And I found him and found him and of course he came up and he said, ‘Oh, good. Thank God. There’s somebody here from Worthing.’ And he was a horror. I never liked him because, well, because it weren’t so much — I’d met him through the football and he came from a school called Sussex Road and I came from St Andrews and so there was a bit of competition of the boys from St Andrews and the boys from Sussex Road and I never liked him. And he said, oh, he said, ‘Oh, what school?’ I said, ‘I was at St Andrews.’ And, you know, St Andrews was a bit of a snobbish school. Well, it was a bit of a snobbish school, it was honestly. St Andrews it was. We thought we were a cut above Sussex Road and it was true and, um, but I didn’t want to be with him somehow and I sort of edged away from him and I never met him again. He was posted somewhere else you see. I was posted to Skegness to do — I was there about eight weeks — square bashing and that was good. There again, it was something new wasn’t it, you know? Marching up and down. I even remember the corporal’s name, Corporal Passant, P A S S A N T, Corporal Passant. And we were billeted in houses on the seafront. It was marvellous, weren’t it? Home from home. And he was a very nice corporal, marched us up and down then and I then — we was just thrilled. We didn’t — there was no rifle drill or anything like that. We just had to learn. Well, I knew how to march but he was a professional and he taught us how to march properly. I’ll tell you this instance. I don’t know whether it matters, whether it goes on there or not, but it’s an incident and it struck me because, being brought up Church of England and fairly religious, church parade on a Sunday morning. There was a great big, seemed to me dozens of us, and each one was a platoon with thirty two men in and so this corporal then, as it come down the line, and you had to stand to attention but he’d call out then, ‘Fall out all Roman, fall out all Roman Catholics and Jews and other denominations.’ [slight laugh] Honestly, that’s the gospel truth, as true as I sit here. So I’m stood there and I thought — and of course, all those that were Roman Catholics and Jews and other denominations (what the other denomination was would be Methodist I suppose or something like that) and I’m stood there like and one or two — I saw one or two — falling out and I thought, ‘What’s goes on here?’ I thought there was only one religion, or two at the most. That would be Roman Catholics and Church of England.’ And that’s the honest truth. That’s how, that’s how I was educated, although that the school I went to, St Andrews, they called it a higher — there’s a name for it.
Sarah: Church School? Or a —
RM: Yes, they called it — and it was high church. It was between Roman Catholic and Jews [?]. It was in between but that didn’t make any difference to religion but you know what puzzled me? Every Sunday morning that corporal used to say — and it was a common thing and it caught on. Suddenly all the Church of England suddenly became Roman Catholics or Jews, whatever. It was a peculiar carry on and that is the truth.
Sarah: So they could fall out.
IL: Yes. So, they didn’t have to go to church parade?
RM: Yeah and they just wandered off and that, that is true that, and from — of course when I finished at square bashing I was sent to Cosford and that was eighteen months’ course on engines and that was hard. That was really hard. That was a hard course because when you’re — it’s like, taking maths. If you take maths at school it’s hard if you don’t concentrate and, taking the course on Merlin engines and Hercules engines, it struck me as being — seeing a massive engine there — and you had to learn the theory of it. I knew nothing. I didn’t even know what it looked like and to be thrown into something like that it was hard and I had to work hard if I wanted to — I did. I worked very hard, very, very hard.
IL: So, was that classroom and practical based?
RM: Yes, it was. It’s true. The practice, I was absolutely useless. Even now, right throughout my married life, and I was married for sixty-six years, and I’m telling you, I couldn’t knock a nail in without hitting my thumb. Now, it’s a standing joke in the family. Sarah knows. Don’t you Sarah?
Sarah: My mum was very good at decorating.
RM: The girls decorated and the lads. I could never ever learn anything in the house. It didn’t matter. Now, I don’t, I think it wasn’t, I think I lacked the knowledge of even knocking a nail in. I could never and of course my wife was the opposite. She was marvellous, you know. She had to be.
IL: I have a similar arrangement. [slight laugh]
Sarah: Very capable, was my mum.
RM: Yes, she was. And then from Cosford, I did eighteen weeks there and was posted to Halton, which was, it was the — from going from a lower form of AC1, AC2, LAC you went up then a bit higher because at Halton you had to finish off what you did at Cosford, you know, you know what I mean? It was a bit higher class if you got through and Halton’s in Buckinghamshire and Halton was the sound, it was the grounding for the regular Air Force. RAF Halton it was and that was nice there. We got marched about to a band there. They had their own band. Marched up for our dinners, from classrooms, marched back down again. It was quite good actually.
IL: How long were you there for?
RM: How long? So that was eighteen weeks, so four and a half months. How long was I? Oh, sixteen weeks.
IL: Right.
RM: Sixteen weeks at Halton, yeah, and that was another grind. It was, because, as I say it was a bit, it was harder.
IL: And did you get any leisure time in these places?
RM: No. It was just — well, only if you put in — well, just as an example was, we were billeted in huts and the — it was quite good really. It kept you on your toes. I was never lazy in doing them things but there was about — how many would there be? About fourteen beds in the hut and every Friday night it was bull [?] night and you had to dust your, all around your bed, and I seemed to get a lot of fluff round my bed [slight laugh] you know and then you had to polish the floor and that [emphasis] was the main thing. And you had to polish the floor because you got marks and the sergeant, the flight sergeant, would come round and he’d come round and look and if your, if your hut was good you got a mark of, I don’t know how they worked it, nine out of ten or something, and so after a couple of months your hut — and you worked hard and polished and all the bull you put in to it, and if you came top of the class you could put in for a weekend pass but they weren’t daft were they? You imagine thirty-six hours. Forty-eight hours from Friday until 23.00 hours on the Sunday night and they called that forty-eight hours. In the meantime — and you had to pay your own fare. So, I was living in Worthing and to get to Wolverhampton you had to do an awful lot. It was awfully quick because when my dad used to come home on leave and my mother would say, in a letter, she’d say your father will be coming on leave on such and such a day and he was billeted not far away up at Balcombe Tunnel [?] and, um, he was — so, I got information then so the idea was then if our hut was up on the list and a lot of them, bearing in mind, they lived farther away than that and so you couldn’t afford it. You couldn’t afford it. Your, your pay, you got three shillings a day or something like that, and so if you wanted to go on a weekend you had to save up to get your train fare. And so I would then write a letter and it was a dodge with me because when I wrote a letter to, to which you just had to write a note, ‘Dear Sir.’ Your commanding officer, ‘Dear Sir, I may request, can I request a pass because my father is coming home?’ It was a, it was a squid [?] wasn’t it? And put it in and to put a letter into the orderly room, ‘Dear Sir.’ I, I used to have it off pat saying that I was, um, how did I put it? Dear, Sir, Dear Sir. Oh, it was, it was a mushy letter and I always used to put in as my father is coming home on leave, and that was it, and because if you had a relative like that, you know what I mean? And so, any, any leave that I got that was the letter that I used to put in to the commanding officer, ‘Dear Sir, please may I put forward an application for a forty-eight hour pass to see my father who’s home on leave.’ And I used to put he’s a sergeant major in the eighth battalion of the Royal Fusiliers or something and I it went off pat, of course you did, and I got a forty-eight hour pass and it was the only time I screwed them [laugh] well, I did, you know. It was that little bit that — it was good was that.
IL: It’s not bad to get some time off.
RM: And then — but after I finished a Halton, that course there, I went down to St Athan and that was my final course and of course that was, that was a hard one there because for six weeks or eight weeks you had to write down the theory. It got down to the theory part of flying, the theory of flight, your engine power, and you didn’t even know what you were going to fly actually in them days. And there was another interesting thing that is worth putting down that I, I came top, or we’ll say I came nearly top. I know I was, I know, but at that time of course I was going to be a flight engineer and that was all there was to it. I was going to fly and that meant to finish it off I was going to be good and I intended, that was what I intended. Anyway, we were waiting, I’d got my tapes and braiding [?] that was good sewed it on and it came through then, we were in the billets one night and a corporal it was, the corporal came round and he said, he read four names out and my name was among them and where, where I was at St Athan, um, he said, he read four names out and he said, ‘Now then.’ He said, ‘This is optional.’ Have you ever heard of a Sunderland Flying Boat? No? Have you?
IL: I have, yes.
RM: Well, you know, well — and four of us were picked out then and this was a bit of excitement and they took us down to the, er, Solent on the Southampton waters to give us a trip in a Sunderland Flying Boat to see whether we liked it or not. And, oh boy that, you know, and to fly for the first time. But they were massive. To me they were massive. To be inside one of these things and they carried a crew of thirteen, you know. And, anyway they ferried us out to this Sunderland and, um, we climbed aboard and all the time, you know, I was very nearly messing myself because of the size of it and going up the ladder to get inside it and it was sort of going — it was a lovely gentle — on the Solent, you know, and I thought, ‘There’s something wrong. I don’t know what I’m doing here.’ And I could have refused. It was just something that being in the first four that it was a little present for those that were doing it and, er, I admit, I must admit I didn’t want to go then. And anyway we get inside and it was massive. I’ll never forget it. I mean, where they cooked they had a stove and everything and where they cooked it was as wide as this was. It was massive inside it. I was lost. I remember sitting there. We didn’t have a harness. They didn’t give us a harness. I was just sitting there and I was looking round. And they started the engines up. They were Hercules, no, no, Pegasus, they were Pegasus 16s and, er, then they started up and we were rolling forward and, do you know? I’m not kidding you, bump, bump, bump, and, and I couldn’t see out. All I could see, like, the pilot was up here but the, the feeling of going on, on the water in this blooming great flying boat. And, er anyway there were four of us there and none of us were very — I think all of us looking a bit green. Anyway, we took off and we just circled Southampton and Portsmouth, down there, and we come into land. Well, coming into land was the same as taking off virtually that was but, of course, if you got used to it like everything else — and we landed, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump. Anyway when we went, they took us back to, um, we got back to St Athan and well, straight away, like, and we had to sort of say in front of those that were in charge of us down there, they had to say then, ‘Did you like it?’ And I said, I remember saying like, I said, ‘Is that what we’ve got to fly on?’ I said, ‘I don’t want to fly.’ Because honestly the take-off and landing on a Sunderland, honestly you could not understand, and when you look at Southampton, you know, when you look at the, look at the water. It all looks lovely and calm, you know, and you think — but by Jove I’ll tell you it did frighten me. Anyway, we got back and then we got back we were posted and posted then up to Yorkshire. That’s the first I saw of it. Posted to Eastmoor and there we landed at York and we got a truck there and there was thirteen of us. Thirteen flight engineers. And that was the hard bit. Do you know, out of those thirteen there was only about four of us finished. That was, that was hard.
IL: So, did you get to know those people?
RM: Well, when we went to the squadron we — well, Eastmoor was where they put all the crews in a hangar and there was a pilot, and he’d have his navigator, and the pilot would walk round and if you liked, er, like, if, if you liked a fella or you saw him and he saw [unclear] the pilot would go up to them and he’d say, ‘Have you got a crew?’ And this is gospel truth. They were — and some of the Canadians of course they knew one another from school, coming from Canada and things, so they weren’t so bad and I — and of course, when I was, went there it was awful. Well, those billets up there, the blankets were wet. We broke a table up to light the fire. It, it was about midnight when we got there from York and we spilt up and there was about six of us into this hut. It was awful. There, there was no fire. The blankets were wet. Anyway, um, it was awful to move in there. Well, in the daytime, as I say, we went into this big hangar where we were crewed up. And I remember I was sat there and I thought, ‘Nobody wants me.’ And it’s true. I was sat on a table. I was just sat there swinging my legs like. I was looking round, and I thought, I was hoping somebody would come up to me and say, ‘Have you got a crew?’ Or something. Anyway, I sat there and I saw them keep disappearing and I felt very lonely and I thought ‘Nobody wants me.’ Anyway, this, this pilot officer comes up to me and he tapped me on the shoulder and he said, ‘Have you got a crew?’ And I thought — I could have embraced him. I said, ‘No, I haven’t.’ He said, ‘Would you like to join my crew?’ I said, ‘Yes, I would.’ Well, he said, ‘I’m Pilot Officer Bryson.’ And he said, ‘Come with me and I’ll introduce you.’ And he introduced me. And I was the last one in the crew and he said, ‘This is Peter Lewinsky, navigator, Alex Trench was the bomb aimer (he was the Yank that did that book), Peter Lewinsky, er, Alex Trench was the bomb aimer, er, Reg Galloway was the wireless operator. Mid-upper gunner was Ralph Revlin [?] and the rear gunner was Harold Bowles.’ And that was how I was introduced to them.
IL: And so were they all, were they all, were they all British or —
RM: No, they were Canadian.
IL: They were all Canadian? Were you the only non-Canadian?
RM: Yes.
IL: Right.
RM: Yeah, they, they sort of — well, I was the youngest in the crew. The rest were twenty-one. The navigator was twenty-five and the wireless op was twenty-five. They were two of the eldest. The rest of them were twenty-one and I was just nineteen but they, they were marvellous really. They very nearly fostered me, you know. It was true. It was. Well, it was marvellous really accept I wasn’t their friend. When we were coming back they all smoked and so, when we were coming back and when I —
Sarah: Do you mean when you were setting out, when you were doing a, a return flight when you dropped bombs? When you say when you were coming back —
RM: Oh, we were coming back from — yeah, well that’s another story. They — what is was I was in charge of the oxygen and I didn’t smoke at the time (I did on occasion) and the skipper didn’t smoke but all the rest of them, it was like being in a factory. When we were flying, when we were — funnily enough they used to shout out. The rear gunner used to shout out and we’d be at eleven thousand feet and I used to take — and so I’d turn the oxygen off at ten thousand feet, you see, but I was in charge. But we’d be coming down, coming back, that was the worst bit because those that smoked needed a fag. That’s all there was so all they needed was a cig and so, we’d be at eleven thousand feet and then it started, the rear gunner, ‘Ray, Ray. How about turning the oxygen off.’ And we’d be at eleven thousand feet and it was the law but a flying law that you didn’t turn the oxygen off until you were down to ten thousand feet. That was the oxygen height, about twelve thousand feet, ten thousand feet, and so I used to turn to the skipper and I used to tap him because he would hear on, you see, and I used to tap him on the shoulder and he just used to sit there and he used to do just this and so I never answered them because, well, it was silly and then you would hear another one and the wireless operator, he was real — he was like a father, and he used to say, a bit subtler, ’Ray.’ [sound of aircraft] You know, and we’d be down then, coming down then, ‘Ray, Raymond, Raymond.’ And more sympathetic, ‘Turn the oxygen off Ray, Raymond. Turn the oxygen off.’ And so I used, used to turn to the skipper and I used tap him on the shoulder, and he was a bugger was old Bryson, the skipper. He was really stuck to it. At ten thousand feet turn the oxygen off, like, and they can — and it was like a furnace in there, you know, the cigarette smoke. They all smoked.
Sarah: Did they not swear at you occasionally?
RM: Oh, oh yeah. Yeah, it come to being not being pleasant, you know, ‘Turn that — turn that oxygen off. Turn.’ And, er, yeah, it was good fun.
IL: So, once you were crewed up you went to Linton?
RM: Yes.
IL: OK. So was this — so what was Linton?
RM: Linton was the — there were two squadrons at Linton: 408 and 426. That’s about it. There was sixteen to a squadron there so there was about thirty, thirty-two, thirty-two bombers all to take off and land.
Sarah: And you used to stay at Beningbrough didn’t you?
RM: Ah, well we were, we were billeted. We weren’t billeted at Linton. We were billeted at Beningham.
Sarah: Beningham.
IL: Oh, Beningham Hall. Very posh.
RM: Ah, well —
Sarah: We went there a couple of years ago didn’t we? Had a re-visit.
RM: Yes. Sarah took me there. There it is, look. That was when we were — yeah, there were six of us there. That was when we were old. 1987.
Sarah: It was a reunion.
RM: And it was a reunion, yes. They came all the way from Canada. 1987 that was. Oh yeah, they came over two or three times didn’t they, Sarah?
IL: So, when you, so you when you moved, when you first went to — so what, what year was it and what, when did you first start operations?
RM: Linton, we were at Linton in the November ‘43. I did my first trip on — to Berlin. That was a Berlin and I did my first trip to Berlin with Flight Lieutenant Brice. I flew spare. One of the — his engineer — on the 28th of January. That was my first trip to Berlin. That was one of the most unpleasant I had because they all the crew were new, weren’t they? And his engineer, he’d gone, you know, LMF. You know what I’m saying?
IL: Yep.
RM: And his engineer was Australian and poor chap he’d gone. He’d done seven trips and he just, he just packed it in, like, and so me, being clever, I had more flying hours in than any other flight engineer, being clever and the CO, Squadron — no, er, Jacobs at that time, said, Wing Commander Jacobs and said (you didn’t have a choice), ‘You’re flying tonight with Flight Lieutenant Brice.’ And that was my first trip.
IL: So, between November and January what were you actually — was this sort of — you were training as a crew?
RM: Yes. Oh, yes. We did a lot of flying. Well, we only flew if weather was on. I mean, between November and December that year, um, we didn’t do a lot of flying. It wasn’t until after Christmas, into January, that we concentrated on flying. Flying — I don’t mean operational because well, we weren’t, just weren’t on the list to operate and then that was January the 28th. That was my first Berlin with a new crew. That was not very pleasant because I was new to the crew. Mind, he give me a good recommendation. He told my skipper that I was a very good flight engineer and that, that meant a lot to me, er, and so, and then a couple of days later, couple of nights later, all the crew went. That was their — it was my second but their first. It was the 30th of January and we all flew as a crew. That was our first and that was another Berlin, another biggie, the big city, and from then on, you know, every other night, whenever they decided to fly us operationally, you know.
IL: So, so how many, how many operations? Was it a tour of thirty or —
RM: Thirty-one. I did thirty one because I put in that — I should have been screened at thirty but the rest of the crew had to do an extra one so I flew, I, I said I would fly the last one. That was to Cannes I think it was. That was —
IL: Did you have any, um, did you have any, um, interesting experiences or narrow escapes when you were over Germany on, on operations?
RM: Did we ever?
IL: Did you have any, um, narrow escapes? Did you have any, anything you’d like to tell us?
RM: Oh, I’d have to look in there because when you — like the first op I did with Flight Lieutenant Brice. We were both strangers to one another but every movement in that cockpit he relied on me. I’m not bragging. Every movement that that pilot had to do to that plane he had to do it through me, operationally, whatever it was. I don’t mean flying. To do appertaining to the air force, aircraft but flying, when we were flying, and you’re cruising along and you have to be prepared, especially when you fly, you get over the coast and you’re flying to France, flying over France. And the first Berlin that we did, I could never understand it because when you went into briefing there was a map that big, and then the CO used to come in, and there was a curtain and he used to pull the curtain, and you knew by the tone of the crew — there’d be all the crews in the briefing room — and you could hear them, ‘Oh, God. Another, another big city.’ You know. And of course, I was still a sprog wasn’t I? Going in with the crew, this new crew, and so when the curtain was drawn back all you heard was the moans, you know, ‘Oh, God. The big city.’ And I was sat there. I remember sitting there with the crew that I was with and they’d had seven operations between them so I was just a sprog but and so — but I knew my job. That’s what I was going to say. I knew my job as a flight engineer. I knew that I knew my job. That’s what I’m trying to say. I did know so that when we were, when we first started up and things like that I knew how to start everything up, I knew what tanks to be on before take-off, I knew what flaps to put down, the undercarriage and everything like that before we took off and, and so all he did was fly. But don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean that with any belittling sense because they were, they were magnificent machines and they needed good men to fly. That’s what I’m saying and they did and that’s how the crew, that’s how, that’s how you, that’s where the camaraderie came from, no doubt about that. And so when we, we taxied round the perimeter and then we were ready for take-off and you had to do pre-flight preparations before he opened the throttle and the take-off the same. He never said a word, didn’t the pilot, because I did everything for him in that respect accept he flew it. He was, he was the man. He flew it and he was a blooming good pilot as well.
Sarah: Were you excited on your first trip?
RM: Pardon?
Sarah: Were you excited on your first trip?
RM: Yes, I was [cough]. Well, there’s not much you can do, you know. We took off and at a thousand feet the pilot would say to the navigator, ‘Can you give me a course?’ That was just first course out and the first course — and what puzzled me was, what I was going to say was, what puzzled me was, looking at the map, I thought, ‘That’s funny. We’re going to Germany. We should be going to Germany.’ And Berlin is, Berlin was down there and I thought, ‘That’s funny. We’re going up here.’ And we flew over Norway and Den— and, and Sweden. That was how we went, up there, went up there like that and across there, and I thought, ‘What the hell are we flying up there? Why can’t we fly straight to Berlin and back again.’ But you’d blooming soon find out why they did it because you avoided all these little — I can show them to you on there, like, um, Bremen, one or two hot spots just, just inside there, all the big German ports there, and they were hot. They could shoot you down like a, you know, if — so the idea was to take us across to Norway and Sweden and you went, we went across like that and we turned, we took a turn to starboard. So, I suppose we’d be flying east, 2.40 or something like that, and then come down to Berlin, come down like that, and bomb Berlin and then another. All the routes are in there, you know, going to and from the target, and — but that first trip, the first excitement I got really that was excitement because you were looking out for fighters weren’t you and things like that. You were, and the fire over Berlin that fascinated you, there’s no doubt about it. You couldn’t, you weren’t supposed to look, you see. All the aircrew, once you got used to it you weren’t, you weren’t, you weren’t forced to, you couldn’t help, you saw this massive area that was alight and you couldn’t — in my blister (there was a blister in the Lanc) and I used to — I was looking down like that and my skipper give me a punch on the shoulder. He said, ‘You don’t really want to be looking down there.’ He said, ‘You ought to be looking up there for fighters.’ And just, just, the fire in the front of us, it could have been — I could never estimate up there how near we were and all of a sudden there was a massive explosion and a Lancaster or Halifax I think, I don’t know what it was, had been blown up in front of us. Now that brought me to realise that I was we were in the middle of the war, you know what I mean? There was nothing on the way and all of a sudden before the target this, this aircraft blew up and I knew, I realised then, you know, that that was war and we lost thirty-five aircraft that night. And so we lost four on the way so when you got back to briefing, um, that was the hardest part, when you got back to briefing. I’m not saying so much on that trip. And then there was a big board up and it said ‘late’ er, whoever it was, name Frank or any, any one of them down there, ‘late’, ‘arrival’, ‘depart’, ‘arrival’ and, and the time to put down and if you knew who your mate, we’d call him, was flying with you you looked for his pilot. His pilot’s name would be on the board, missing, and so you’d wait. If, if one of them, they called him Rodman [?] and he was — Harry Gilbert was his flight engineer and he should never have been flying because this is what happens and when he used, he used to come up to me because we were good friends. And I’d been through a course with him and I’m not saying I wasn’t frightened, it was ridiculous, but when I met him and he come in and his skipper was Flight Lieutenant Rodman and he used to come up to me and he used to say, ‘How are you Ray?’ And he’d light a fag and he was like this and I thought to myself — and he did, he got the chop, after he done about ten, but he was like this and, ‘How are you Ray?’ You know, ‘You alright?’ And I said, ‘For Christ’s sake Harry, give up.’ And I, I used to do, ‘For Christ’s sake.’ I said, ‘I did have a rough trip but I’m here and so are you.’ And it was the only way you could talk to Harry. He should never have flown, never have flown. Every time he come back and he used to make for me in the briefing room and, I mean it wasn’t as I was brave or anything, but I knew him and he was like this. He come from — he was a Lancashire lad, old Harry Gilbert but he was like this, lighting a fag.
IL: So what’s your definition of a rough trip?
RM: A rough trip?
IL: Yeah. A rough trip. What would have happened on a rough trip?
RM: Right. It was called “The Tale of Strong Winds”. I can go right through that with you because it was the worst trip I ever, it was [emphasis] the worst trip that was. I can talk to you right from there until we came back. Berlin, it was the last one, 24th of March 1944, and the take-off time would be in there. It might have been 4 o’clock in the afternoon. [sound of aircraft] Yeah, it would have been about 4 o’clock. It was March so, yeah, so we go to briefing [sound of aircraft] and, as I say, look at the map and hear the groans, big city again, and it’s a long way. It was an eight hour trip there and back and that’s a long time.
Sarah: Eight hours there?
RM: No, eight hours. Oh, no Sarah. There and back. And we took off, and Met, Met hadn’t said anything about anything. It was just an ordinary. We took off and on that route up there, we went over, going over the North Sea, and it was fine but we had a tail wind going over the North Sea and we did nothing. At that time of the year you did often get what they call a, a southern wind. It was like a south wind and the, the way we were taking off on that runway, we had nearly a tail wind. It was north and south runway as we called it and we took off. It was all fine. Settled down. What I noticed was we were going over Norway and Sweden again but that meant to say it was fairly — and we had a nice tail wind and our ground speed was about hundred and fifty which was pretty fast when you’re on climbing power and it was pretty fast was that and I thought, ‘That’s funny.’ And the skipper said to me, he said, ‘Jesus. We’ve got a tail wind.’ Well, the wireless operator had what they called an aerial and you let out an aerial and it gave us the wind. [background noise] It was like a wind sock and it told you the wind and he, he come back and he said, ‘That’s funny.’ He said, ‘The wind was about fifty or sixty.’ Which was a bit above average. When we got up to the top and turned to Norway, turned over to Norway — I mean, they were all, all these clever fellas in the crew, were talking about winds. You know, I wasn’t a bit interested to be honest. All I was only interested in was the aircraft we were flying [loud background noise] and so, you know, the winds increased, the wireless operator called, ‘The winds increased up to eighty.’ And, oh Jeez, you know, I heard them go round, the pilot, it was [emphasis] fast at eighty miles an hour and as we turned round and, and come down to Berlin I heard the navigator shout in that funny language, ‘Jesus Christ.’ The winds had blown on a what they called a reciprocal so that when we’d reached there and all of a sudden — you can see them on the maps — and the wind had blown literally where we were right up in the north there and turned down to Berlin and the wind had blown us, so instead of — and we had a tail wind. We had a tail wind to take-off and a tail wind going down to the target, Berlin. Our, our ground speed was something like three hundred and odd miles an hour. That was what our ground speed was and that, believe you me — and we had that tail wind up our backside — and what had happened was it blew us past Berlin, about fifty miles. We’d no control. And winds, as I heard some of them bragging about winds being a hundred and fifty miles an hour, and I, I think ours was, we recorded about a hundred and twenty-five, hundred and thirty and it blew us straight past Berlin. So, you can imagine, nearly all the bomber force being blown past Berlin and we had to turn round then, in the face of all these aircraft coming down, and we had to turn round then to go back and bomb Berlin. In other words, it, it sounds ridiculous, but that’s what happened and so when we turned round — and we lost seventy-five that night — and so when we turned round and, and air ground speed had dropped down to forty. That’s how heavy the wind was and it was horrendous really, because when you come to think, you turned round and you had a head wind and it was like standing still, and the pilot kept saying to me — now as an engineer I did know that much, that we were flying [ringing sound] we were flying at engine speeds of climbing speeds and, and flying into a wind, so I knew then — and our maximum power, we could only put maximum power on at about twenty-eight fifty revs plus eight and a quarter pounds of boost so we could only put that power on. I knew that and he kept saying to me, ‘We want more power.’ And it’s a wonder he didn’t strike me and I wouldn’t do it because at that power you could only do it for five minutes otherwise you’d have burnt, you’d have burnt — you know what I’m saying and it was elementary that. But — and air ground speed had been reduced to about forty miles an hour but that wasn’t the point doing that job. Can you imagine half the bomber force coming up and half of it coming down? I mean the aircraft, you could see them. You didn’t know what to do. It was horrendous, it really was, and you just stood there, and poor old Brice, the skipper, he just had to fly straight and level unless you saw something coming towards you. To turn round — well, we would have been blown down and so, and us flying back up and we bombed Berlin. Right, we bombed Berlin and glad to get away and we turned — the navigator gave us a course and it would be, well, I’ll make a figure. I think it was about 090, which was west, flying west, and was fine. We turned round and came back. Now, briefing, they said keep away from Roscos, Roscop —
Sarah: Rostock.
RM: Rostock, Rostock and Bremen, which were — we knew you had to miss them on the way out so you had to miss them on the way down. But with all the excitement that had gone on, and it wasn’t the navigator’s fault because all the wind up there, and we got a bit blown a bit off course. But we were cruising along nicely and all of a sudden bang! And they had then, they were clever you know, were Jerry, they knew we were bombing and they had their defences [clears throat] and it was, what they called a ‘blue searchlight’, and it was a master searchlight, and it hit us like that and what had happened was we had drifted to Rostock and Bremen and that nasty bit of an area down in that quarter there, and that searchlight, he cooked us and he hit us, and it was a blue, it was a blue, and within five minutes, maybe less than that, and there was about twenty searchlights coned us like that. Now, it, it was one of those experiences where you couldn’t see, you couldn’t see nothing, you just had to — he was there and all of a sudden he, he started to what we called ‘corkscrew’ and he shoved it, shoved the nose down, of course as he did it, he didn’t tell anybody he was doing it. He was the pilot and he stuck the nose down and, of course, gravity and as he stuck the nose down like that we went down about five thousand feet in a flash and he stuck the nose down. He screwed it round and stuck the nose down. I went straight up. I went straight up and the, and the bombardier, like, in front he was laid down. He was laid on his back and he was laid down and the language because he wondered what was up because he was in mid-air and that was the first time and navigator was cursing. He was on, he had one of those wheelie seats, he could move around in that little bit of space and, of course, he had his knees underneath the, his desk and his papers, er, as I say, as I went up and all of his nav papers and bits of his machinery was, was flying up in the air. The wireless operator was the only one of us who had any sense. Of course, poor rear gun— gunners, you know, were really thrown about because you can imagine what it was like to be thrown about like that and not knowing where you were and, and the audio was over the intercom, bad language and what was happening? And where are we? And that went on. I mean, for a pilot, and we, we both weighed the same. He weighed nine and a half stone and so did I so you imagine he was skinny, he wasn’t very big. Did you ever meet him Sarah?
Sarah: No. I didn’t.
RM: He wasn’t very big. He was about nine stone and he was five seven and a half in height so there was nothing and that was a big aircraft to throw about, something like twenty-two tonnes, even though it was tear [?] weight and, and anyway that was on the way down. On the way back that was when you felt G. Come back up from five thousand feet, pulling up, and he shouted out to me and I was all scattered brained and he shouted out to me, ‘Ray, Ray, Ray. Give us a hand.’ And so I went and got hold of the stick with him and we were like this and put me feet against that to pull. There was two of us pulling, pulled it out, but that wasn’t it. The searchlights were still on us. They would not let go and we were like that and then down the other side. I bet we were like that. He was flying up and down and trying to get loose from them, lose, lose them, and they were there. But they were there, that master searchlight, and it was an awful experience. It was a dreadful, dreadful experience and, anyway, just in the distance our, our rear gunner called out — they’d, what they done was, as we’d been flying and corkscrewing all over they copped onto another Lancaster and you could see it in the distance, this Lancaster. But they, they’d turned, they’d got hold of him. We just managed to get out of that because what happened after that was fighters. As soon as they, as soon as they — what used to happen was they would suddenly stop and so you were in complete darkness and that’s when the fighter boys used to come in. I think it says there we were attacked by fighters and anyway that wasn’t the end of the story. We were just levelled out and, and he grabbed hold of me, did the pilot, and he got hold of my intercom and he pulled out my intercom and he plugged my intercom into his intercom and he said, and he, he stood up and he said, you know, ‘Get into my seat.’ And, er, he sort of half dragged me, plugged it in. Well, as I passed him, as we were passing the seats, I saw him and he looked, even in the light that there was there, the sweat was literally pouring out of him. I never realised and never thinking like what he’d done and he’d been doing this for about twenty minutes, and that’s a lot in a Lancaster, going up and down and trying to — and, and so there I am, I’m sat in the cockpit. Well, bloody Lancaster, halfway across Germany and I’m sat there and the navigator said, ‘Alter course.’ And I just leaned forward and set the compass [cough] the old — and just set it and just set a bit of rudder, that was all, just to turn it on to whatever it was (I’ve forgotten) and flew it and not a sound, nobody spoke, nobody said anything and poor old Brice, he’d literally had it. And there I am, all quiet there, flying along there. Nothing to flying an aircraft, you know, it’s like driving a car up the M1. You just have to just sit there and hope that there’s no fighters and then it occurred to me I thought, ‘Christ what happens if, if we get attacked? What am I going to do? How am I going to corkscrew out of this?’ And Brice was just stood at the side of me and he kept patting me on the shoulder [slight laugh] and I thought, ‘There’s no good patting me on the shoulder if anything happens brother.’ Anyway, we was flying along. We must have been flying for about half an hour and nothing happened and that is — you, you couldn’t believe really, honestly, after all those experiences that I should be allowed to fly and I flew halfway across Germany. We weren’t far off the French coast and that’s how far I — I didn’t fly the thing. It just flew on its own. All I did was steering it. That’s the honest truth but nobody spoke and the only thing that upset me was nobody else in the crew knew what had happened, that I flew that aircraft. I thought he would have mentioned it, that when we sat down at briefing, ‘My flight engineer did this.’ And he never said, he never told none of those crew and from that day to this that I flew that aircraft back except when we were— well, they didn’t know and when we were coming up you know and the navigator, I think it was the navigator at that time, he tapped me on the shoulder and I got out. But I’d flown but that was the worst experience, one of the worst, and we hadn’t see anything really but —
IL: And that was your last —
RM: No, no.
IL: Sorry, I thought you said it was your last, sorry.
RM: No, no, no, no, no, that was Berlin. That was 24th of March and they called that the “Night of the Winds”. We lost seventy-five that night.
IL: My goodness.
Sarah: On, on a little lighter note do I, do I remember something about bomb doors not opening?
RM: No, I can’t — not bomb doors.
Sarah: No?
RM: No. Oh, we were attacked by night fighters, we got hit by flak, attacked by night fighters. That was the things that happened.
Sarah: Did you not have to come back once because you couldn’t drop some bombs? On a lighter note.
RM: Oh, right. This trip was Dortmund. Dortmund – Emms Canal they called it.
Sarah: There. We got it there.
RM: Dortmund, Dortmund Emms Canal. Right, and that was another, that was a hot spot, Dortmund but, um, experience, yes. We got into B-Baker and I started, I started the engines up, routine, er, before we left, before we left — what do you call it? Well, before we left where they were parked, like, we got in. The idea was to start the engines up, rev them up a bit, and I started the, the starboard engine up, one of them, and I just checked them, what they called a mag drop because, er, luckily it had two mag and what you had to do was run them up to a fifteen hundred and switch one of these mag drops. If you got a mag drop over three or four hundred revs there’s something wrong, you got a — anyway, I was testing them and called, I said to the skipper, I said, ‘It’s not right.’ I said, ‘This starboard inner. There’s too big a mag drop.’ And he said, ‘Oh.’ I said, ‘I’ll open it up again.’ Anyway, I reckoned to open it up to clear anything and give it a good boost, like, and, and no, it didn’t work. So, we stopped the engines, called up control, starboard inner US. Fine, we thought. Every— everybody in the crew thought we’re going to have a night off. Come over from control, um, ‘Bryson, Flight Lieutenant, Flying Officer Bryson there’ll be transport. They’re going to take, they’ll take you to C-Charlie.’ Oh, so we’ll have to go after all. Transport comes along. And imagine having to getting in and out of a Lancaster, across the old spar there and it was hard work. You’d have to take off all your, your, um, parachute like and your harness and things like that. So the transport comes, broom, broom, across to C-Charlie and it was cold and it didn’t feel like your aircraft and straight away there’s a bit of, ‘Who did this aircraft belong to?’ ‘Oh. It belongs to —.’ ‘Oh Christ, its cold.’ And you heard them moaning like and as to what each department they got into, they’d say, ‘Oh, it’s a dirty place.’ You know, the gunners were saying. And anyway we get in, starts the engines up, everything’s fine and navigator — and this is navigation equipment I’m going to tell you and it was called GEE and H2S. Anyway, he’s fiddling about and there’s Bryson and I up front giving it some boost to clear the oil and do all this sort of thing before take-off. We hadn’t left dispersal and navigator calls up, ‘Jesus Christ,’ he says. He said, ‘The GEE’s not working and H2S.’ So we sat there waiting. ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Oh.’ We knew then we were going to have a night off. That was the second aircraft. Not on your Nelly. So, they send somebody over and well, to repair anything like that — they were fantastic machines, you know, you’re able to navigate a lot easier, let’s put it that way, with these machines, like, they were operating. Called up control. We thought for sure we were going to have a night off, um, ‘Flying Officer Bryson within C-Charlie. We’re sending out transport that’s going take you to Z-Zebra.’ So, you can imagine us, like, us and that belonged to Flight Lieutenant Franklin. So, transport comes along. What date was that Sarah? Dortmund?
Sarah: Dortmund? 22nd of Feb ’44.
RM: Feb? February?
Sarah: Oh, It says at the side, ‘abort, ice’.
RM: Right, so, we then had to be carted, miserable, returned to miserable then, the crew, ‘Jesus. What the — what are we doing? We should be in York by now.’ Gets into Z-Zebra, same procedure, and we knew the skipper of this aircraft. He wasn’t flying that night. Get into it. This is the third time and tempers were really flaring because, because they were all taking off. Didn’t wait for us, and so they were all taking off, and so I was following to see if we could get in and Bryson, my skipper, and me we never had a wrong word. I did everything he said. All he had to do was fly. And I mean, that’s the way we were. You had to work like that. And anyway, everything was fine and we starts off, and by that time we had to get a move on. It was half an hour since the rest of them had gone and that was bad. That was bad. That was really bad because you wanted to be with the main group, you see. You get over Germany and there’s one of you, you’ve had it. You’ve had it. There’s no doubt about that. [sound of aircraft] Anyway, we took off and we had to get a move on. There was a front, what they called a ‘front’, moving over the North Sea and I was giving him all the power that we could and we weren’t climbing, we were climbing about a hundred and sixty, I suppose, hundred and seventy or something, and the old Hercules engines there, they powered us up there. We were climbing and this front. We got a, what was it? A QDM or QFE saying this front was in and we had to climb above it because it was, excuse me, we was up at ten thousand feet and we had to climb above it. It was forty miles into the North Sea and he knew, did the skipper that I wasn’t going to push it anymore, because there’s always something at the other end of it, in my opinion. That’s how I worked it out. If we’d had pushed it we would have gone up to maximum power and it wouldn’t have done the engines any good. And we were trying to climb and all of a sudden I looked out and there was ice on the main plane like this and you could hear it, the props, straining again the plane, you know, and I looked out and I thought, ‘Oh dear.’ I really thought that we’d had it because we were struggling to move and I, I think our air speed, our air speed [emphasis] had been reduced to hundred and thirty, hundred and forty, and stalling was about ninety, ninety-five, something like that, and — but we plodded on and he called up did Bryson and he said, ‘Well, what are we going to do fellas? Are we going to turn back or are we going to press on, press on regardless?’ And all of a sudden as he said that the old Lanc give, gave a lurch because the ice on the, on the main plane, I’m not kidding, it was about six inches. It was that thick and we could never — we were struggling and all of a sudden it gave a lurch and he had the common sense did Bryson (well, he was a good pilot) and he, he all of a sudden, he stuffed the nose down and give it some starboard twists and we were going straight down. And all, then all of a sudden, as we got down a bit normal, like we were going down, and our air speed is about three hundred and fifty I think going down, but we were at ten thousand feet, eleven thousand feet, and, as I say, stuck the nose down and we just had to hope and all of a sudden as we hit warmer air, warm, warmer air, it flew off and it was a marvellous sight to see, because it flew off the plane did the ice and rubbish, you know, and also you couldn’t see because all the windows had, had, er, snowed-up. We couldn’t see out, couldn’t see where we going, and — but fortunately I had a little bit of knowledge and I remembered that in all those — never had to experience it — and there was a little what they called an alca— what did it contain? That fluid that we used to, they put in engines to stop them — coolant.
IL: Anti-freeze?
RM: Pardon?
IL: Anti-freeze.
RM: Anti-freeze.
IL: Ethylene glycol.
RM: And I was fiddling down as we were going down and I was fiddling down, around. It was down near his bloody rudder, and I remember I said, ‘Get your leg out of the way.’ Because it wasn’t a pump like that and what had happened was if you released the spring it pumped as it came up, not as you went down, and all of a sudden it cleared. The windows went just like that and it cleared but it didn’t make any difference. We were going down and then it started and then of course the weight. We had — it will tell you in there how much, how many bombs we, what we had and we’d have about fourteen thousand pounds of bombs on going straight down. I think we had a cookie that night. It will tell you there somewhere Sarah. Dortmund. Look down the left hand side.
Sarah: Yeah. I’ve got Dortmund there.
RM: And look across. No.
Sarah: I’m not sure. You know where to look. I don’t, dad.
RM: Well, here look. Where’s Dortmund?
Sarah: There.
RM: Right.
Sarah: There.
RM: Right, here look. What number is it? Seventeen.
Sarah: Yeah. Oh, there. Sorry, I’m with you.
RM: Eleven one hundred pounders and five five hundreds. And that’s a lot of bombs.
IL: A big load, yeah.
RM: That’s a lot of bombs. We could carry fifteen one thousand pounders, eight thousand pounders, twelve, twenty-two. Anyway, he says, as we were going down, he called out to the — he said to the bomb aimer, he said, ‘I’m opening the bomb doors.’ Talking to the bomb aimer, he said, ‘Trench. Drop the, drop the bombs.’ Now, protocol. You weren’t allowed to drop your bombs less than forty miles out to sea in the North Sea. Now that was law [emphasis]. That was what they told you to do and you had to be forty miles. Well, can you imagine? We’re out in the North Sea and I remember he called up and he said to the navigator, ‘Where are we nav?’ Or something like that and the navigator says, ‘How the bloody hell do I know if we’re forty miles out to sea.’ Because we’d gone through all this procedure and he called out to the bomb aimer, ‘Trench, I’m opening the bomb doors.’ And when he — well, that’s what I must have said to you Sarah about the bomb doors and he, he selected the bomb doors to be opened and they, with all the frost and they jammed and we were still going down you see and, and he kept pumping up and he said to me, ‘What do I do Ray?’ I said, ‘I haven’t a clue. I have nothing to do with the bomb doors.’ And he’s here, this side like, and all of a sudden they opened and we were going down and that was a nasty [emphasis] experience because you didn’t know what was going to happen. You were hoping then, and a wing and a prayer, and all of a sudden the bomb doors opened. You felt them jar because of the drag and all of a sudden we slowed down a bit, down to — I don’t know and old Trench called out, ‘Bombs gone.’ And we dropped all those [slight laugh] dropped all those bombs into the North Sea and that was a great relief. And so, back to base. When we got back to base, instead of taking us back to briefing, there was no debriefing, and instead the CO told us that he had to see the CO did the skipper so we drove round in this, er, in the wagon. We were inside the wagon and he stopped outside flight control, where the skipper was, where the CO was, and you wouldn’t believe it but our skipper got a rocket because we, we’d, um —
Sarah: You returned safely but you’d not done —
IL: Jettisoned.
Sarah: You’d not done your job.
RM: What did we call it? You wrote it out.
IL: Aborted.
Sarah: Aborted.
RM: Aborted, yes, and we’d aborted, and he got a right rocket did our skipper. He should have done this. He should have done that. And we couldn’t fly. You were literally came to a standstill. I mean, I was up there with him and it was impossible. You know, I really thought we’d had it. When I looked out and saw I really did. I thought — and you know he give it up as a bad job because you, he couldn’t do anything. There was no control. We were just flying forward, like, as slow as we could possibly could and fancy, and so out of spite, and if you look in there, out of spite the following night they sent us to Stuttgart and that, that was another eight hours and we always said he’d taken it out on us, the skipper, because we’d gone, we’d aborted, and that was an awful experience. There’d be, there’d be another one. There were lots of things that happened. I dare say, apart from three or four, you know, do you want me to go on talking? Because I could tell you of an experience, it wouldn’t take long, but of an experience more spiritual.
IL: Please.
RM: It’s interesting but it’s something, this, I’d done twenty-eight trips and that was coming to the end of it, this tour, and I’d done twenty-eight, and we were all a happy crew except this particular morning. I was always the first up in Beningbrough Hall. I was always the first up. There was only one wash basin, out of all those men there, wasn’t there Sarah? There was, well, there may have been more like but there was one on our floor and I was always first up. I was one of those who was embarrassed because I only shaved about twice a week [laugh] I did and so I was always first there and washed and this particular morning, and this is true, this particular morning I woke up and I laid there and it was always half past seven and I laid there and laid there and old Bowles, the rear gunner, he always followed me and he came over and he’d been to the ablutions, ablutions and he come and stood by the bed and he said, ‘Come on Ray.’ He said, ‘What’s up?’ And I looked up at him and said, ‘Oh, I’m alright.’ He said, ‘Well, what’s up?’ I said, ‘Nothing.’ And he said, ‘Oh.’ In between times, the while crew was billeted in this one room (they’d lock us in) Beningbrough Hall. And he said, ‘What’s up?’ Anyway, by the time I’d I just closed my eyes and all I wanted to do was — I can’t tell you what it was like. It was awful. I felt awful and I thought, ‘This is it. We’re going to get the chop.’ That’s all that went through my mind. It was — I was so desperate. I thought, ‘We’re, we’re going, we’re going to get the chop.’ And it was 8 o’clock when I got up and I thought — and these buses used to come, you see, and take us to Linton for breakfast to the sergeants’ mess and they came at regular intervals and I remember and I thought, ‘Oh, I feel awful.’ I felt dreadful and I knew that night if we were flying at some time we were going to get the chop. I had that feeling and it was an awful feeling. Anyway they’d all gone and I caught a bus, caught the bus and ended up — and, er, but I couldn’t, I still couldn’t do anything. I didn’t even go to breakfast and I went down to the hangar where the engineers were and I couldn’t, I didn’t seem to want to do anything. All I wanted to do — and I thought, ‘Shall I tell the crew?’ This is true, Ian, it’s true what I’m telling you. I didn’t know whether to tell the crew that not to fly that night. I hadn’t — I wanted to tell them that this was going to be our last trip. That was the feeling I had in me and, oh it must have been getting on, and I thought, ‘I’ll have to get something to eat.’ And I went down to the mess and I had my breakfast and then, from then, I had a walk. I walked, I started to walk to flights and on the way down we passed their chapel (we had a chapel at Linton) and we were going — I’ve got to stop [pause] I had a job. I’ll stop.
Sarah: You want to stop?
RM: Well, it’s a story, so I’ll have to carry on and tell you what happened. I’ll have to carry on.
IL: It’s up to you. I don’t want to make you —
RM: No, no, no. It’s alright. I’ll get over it.
IL: I don’t want to upset you.
RM: No, I’ll get over it. I promise you. I went into church and I said the Lord’s Prayer. It came out and I thought I’d feel better. That’s what I’d done it for, hadn’t I? And I thought I’d feel better and I went back to the, the crewing room, and it was all better then. It did seem better but at the back of my mind there was still this thing and, anyway, the skipper came round and he said, ‘We’re flying tonight.’ And he said, ‘I’ll pick you up Ray.’ As he did every time. He said, ‘I’ll pick you up Ray.’ And he came round with the jeep and, of course, that was what we did every morn— every morning before a flight and we went out to the aircraft and it seemed alright. You know, you run it, I did the checks, you went round and checked everything, and run the engines up, and it was in the back of my mind and it seemed to — it was there and I still I couldn’t tell you why but it was there and, um, anyway — but I still wanted to tell the crew that it was going to be our last one. I had it. Anyway, er, and we got out to flights and we get into the aircraft, and pilot always went first and I followed him, and I was going up the ladder and our old Bowles, he bumped me up the backside going up the ladder. He said, ‘Come on Ray.’ And as I got to the steps my knees gave way and they were trembling, they was literally shaking, and I thought, ‘I’m mad. Why don’t I tell them I’m not going?’ And I thought that, that was there on the twenty-ninth, Sarah. Look on twenty-nine. You’ll see. It was a duff target. I don’t think we lost any of them.
Sarah: Was it Criel?
RM: That’s it. Criel. And, er, he bumped me up the backside. He said, ‘Come on Ray. What’s up?’ And with that I thought, ‘That’s it. Got to go. Got to go now. I’m inside and it’s everything.’ And as, as we were walking up, even the last minute, I was touching things, the old dinghy, the dinghy handle, and I looking round and I knew I’d done it before in the morning and, anyway, we gets off like but all the time I couldn’t — it was there whatever I did, you know. I set the petrol pumps and turned on the right tanks to be on and I had to do something to be — and I remember getting my log, my log, my log card and sort of wanting to do something. Anyway, we took off and everything but I was waiting all the time. I was waiting, waiting for something to happen and anyway we flew out. It was Criel and it was, it was nothing. So we flew out there and I don’t, I don’t think — we didn’t see a fighter, there was hardly any ak-ak fire, I don’t think there was hardly — there was nothing. We turned round and come back and do you know all the time we were coming back I had it in my mind, landing, when we were landing I was waiting [pause] waiting. We landed. Nothing happened and it were really interesting, looking back, it was the best trip I’ve ever been on. I wouldn’t have got back and I thought that I’d been, and what I’m trying to say is had I not been to church, do you understand that?
IL: I do.
RM: Had I not been to church or what would have happened? Was the good Lord on, on our side? But, believe it or not, I would sooner have gone on a trip and been shot at than gone through that experience again. You can’t understand. I couldn’t describe to anybody really and that was on my 29th trip and that was — and I never mentioned it to anybody but I do remember coming out of briefing, um, old, our Bowles, the rear gunner, he put his hand on my shoulder and he said, ‘We done it Ray.’ I don’t think — I think it was about the thirtieth wasn’t it Sarah, Criel?
Sarah: It was your twenty-ninth.
RM: That, that’s what I say, it was the twenty-ninth.
Sarah: How did you feel for your thirtieth then?
RM: Pardon?
Sarah: How did you feel going for your thirtieth?
RM: Nothing.
Sarah: No?
RM: It had gone Sarah. No, no. I was happy as Larry. No, that didn’t even occur to me. All, all of it suddenly when old Bowles came out of the briefing and old Bowles he put his arm on my shoulder and said, ‘You know Ray we done it.’ But what he meant was we were so near to completing and, I mean, one trip there and it says losses and we didn’t lose an aircraft. I mean, it was probably an easy target but that, but that particular time it was awful. It was awful. I had this feeling. But the other thing, of course, you had to have faith. You had to have faith in the rest of your crew and they were a wonderful crew, they really were, and you had to have faith in what they did and, and it was being selfish, thinking of myself, thinking it was me I was worried about and not thinking about them, except I wanted to tell them, and didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to go. And that was awful. I would have been LMF. No I wouldn’t. They wouldn’t chance me going. They would screen me. But it was awful you know, I can’t — so I say, I’d rather go to Berlin any time than go through that experience again. It was dreadful and, I mean, you can think what you like about it.
Sarah: How old were you then?
RM: Twenty, nineteen, nineteen.
Sarah: Nineteen. Wow.
RM: Yeah, I was nineteen Sarah, yeah.
Sarah: I think you had every right to have a wobble in your knees. [slight laugh]
IL: Absolutely. So, you finished your, you finished your thirty, thirty-one in your case, and then you — did you keep in touch with your crew after that?
RM: No. That was another thing, um, because something happened when I was at Lindholme. Here, I’ll tell you who I flew — I flew with Pat Moore, you know, the astronomer.
IL: Oh, right.
RM: Yeah. I was billeted with him.
IL: And where was that?
RM: At Lindholme.
IL: Right.
RM: I’ll have to tell you this. This is, this is the brighter side. I was posted to Lindholme. This was from Transport Command.
IL: Right.
RM: And, er, this is a little bit in between. Patrick Moore, tell ‘em, Patrick Moore posted to, er, Lindholme and we formed — what it was I was at it again. We formed a squadron, 716 Squadron, and we were to fly to Manila to bomb Japan. I never heard such rubbish, rubbish. That was what it was but of course Ray Moore put his name down in the orderly room, oh, I’ll volunteer. Yes, I’ll volunteer. Where’s Milan? Where’s —
Sarah: Manila.
RM: Manila. I didn’t even know where it was. My geography wasn’t that bad but I didn’t know where Manila was. It’s true. So we get posted there and the—
Sarah: A bit south of Worthing?
RM: Pardon?
Sarah: A bit south of Worthing.
RM: yeah. So the jeep drops me off and there was houses at Lindholme and all the pilot officers and flying officers were upstairs and all the flight lieutenants were downstairs. That was snobbery wasn’t it? Honestly, truthfully. That’s how it was. Anyway, I get my kit bag and walking up the stairs, and they were big houses, and the front room, there was two of us in the front room upstairs and two in the back room. Anyway, ‘The one on the left is yours.’ Right, and the door was part open, and I walked in, and there was this chap sat on his bed, and I walked in and I turned round and I said, ‘Oh, hello.’ I was feeling good I suppose and I said, ‘Oh, hello.’ And he, he stood up and he said, um, ‘Flying Officer Patrick Moore.’ And I looked at him and said, ‘Flying Officer Raymond Moore.’ And do you know and he had a quizzical look, you know, his eyebrows.
IL: He was famous for those.
RM: Pardon?
IL: He was famous for those.
RM: Yes, that’s it? Well, he gave me this look and he said, and he thought I was pulling, pulling his leg. I know that when I looked at him and I said, ‘Oh, hello.’ Especially when I said, ‘Flying Officer Raymond Moore.’ And I went and slung my kit bag on my bed. And he stood up and he said, ‘Are you from, areyou Irish?’ I said, ‘No I’m not.’ I thought, ‘I’ve got a queer one here.’ You know. I said, ‘No. My parents came from Norwich, Norfolk.’ ‘Oh. Oh, righto.’ And we came very good friends and we visited him down at the Farthings down at —
Sarah: Billericay.
RM: Pardon?
Sarah: Was it Billericay?
RM: No, no. Down on the south coast, um, down on the south coast, Sarah. That lovely big house. Oh yeah, we visited him and he was, he was quite an eccentric, you know, but —
IL: He did have a bit of a reputation.
RM: He did and, um, he did, but we got on fine, famous, we did really. We went and visited him and he was always angry at me because when he started to talk about astronomy — and all I knew was there was a lot of stars up there, and there was the sun and the moon, and I wasn’t a bit interested. He taught me how to use the, um, what did they call it? Sextant. He taught me how to use that on the road that was, at Lindholme. Hehe showed me how to — and afterwards he was absolutely disgusted because after he’d shown me how to use it and I wasn’t a bit interested and he said to me after he, he’d worked out his shot he called it, after he worked out the shot, I was about a hundred miles off target, and he didn’t like it one bit. And that’s a letter, look, he wrote to me after we’d got, after I’d — I wasn’t really a bit interested in. We had family and family life, that’s all, that’s all I wanted was family life so anything in between. And we finished, we retired at sixty, June 28th it was, and he says, ‘Great to hear from you.’ Now, this is all those years after, this was 1987, but, um, we used to play, Bet and myself and another girl called Joan Walters (she was our bridesmaid) and we used to play a foursome at badminton, and he was a keen sportsman, and we got on well together, and I could have kicked his backside because we were stood outside Flying Control after the war was over and he said to me, well we were talking, and he said — but I still had a year’s service to do and after I finished flying — I packed in flying. I did that for moral reasons. That was another thing. I said, ‘I don’t know I’m going to do.’ He said, ‘I’ll tell you what you should do Raymond.’ He said, ‘Why don’t you go in Flying Control?’ He said, ‘It would suit you down to the ground.’ I said, ‘Flying Control?’ I said, ‘No. I don’t want to be [clears throat] associated with aircraft Pat.’ He said, ‘Well what about as— what about —.’ What do they call weather, you know?
IL: Metrologist.
RM: Metrology. He said, ‘Why don’t you take up metrology?’ I said, ‘I never thought much about it.’ I said, ‘No.’ And I took admin and I became an adjutant, for Christ’s sake, after all that. Worst thing I ever did. They were what I call — I’ll repeat it on there — I called them, ‘Hooray Henrys.’ Because that’s what they were, ground crew, what I considered they were. It was an armaments depot and I’ve never had such twelve miserable months in all my life in the service, with all the fact that I’d been aircrew, I was a — they treated me like dirt. They never even thought — and I’m not — it’s the honest truth. I know where they put me, right at the bottom of the list, and I could have fought them. I know I could in the mess, in the officers’ mess. I could have had many a row with them when they talked about air crew and how they — they snubbed me. I was the only member of the air crew there, you see, and I was the assistant adjutant and I couldn’t have cared less. I lost a lot of interest but, er, but I always said that old Pat Moore, although he was trying to do — and I should have done what he did. I should have gone in Flying Control or, er, he says, ‘It’s great to hear from you.’ You can read it.
IL: I’d love to.
RM: Yes. He did. Yes.
IL: Just, just because I’m conscious of that we actually and I don’t want to tire you out but I would like to hear what, what you were telling me earlier about when you went to Dalton and you had sort of an interesting time leaving Dalton. [slight laugh]
RM: Oh that. Oh yeah. Well, I mean, first and foremost, what I must tell you is, when I was sent there as an instructor, I mean, I remember there with old Scot. He finished a tour. Squadron Leader was his skipper, Hailes [?] I think it was, and but we were, we were like buddy buddies you know all the time we were flying and, you know, what are they called? Those two comedians. They’ve both died. The other one —
Sarah: Morecambe and Wise.
RM: No, the other, one was fat and the other a little chubby fella. They died.
Sarah: Oh Oliver Hardy and —
RM: No, no.
Sarah: No?
RM: No. It’s goodnight to him and it’s goodnight to him.
IL: Oh, the two Ronnies.
RM: Two Ronnies.
IL: Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbet.
RM: Well, Ronnie, the shortest one and he looked, he was his twin brother and he was, he was, um, well, Scottie to me. I called him Scottie, but he was very short and when he wore his cap, when he wore his cap he was only about five foot six and he was, he didn’t look right, you know, somehow. He was thin and didn’t look right and [clears throat] we both got posted to Dalton as instructors. Well, you know, it was a joke, I mean for me to be an instructor and when I went into this hut it was about twenty-eight foot long it was. I remember it distinctly and there were two engines in there and they’d been cut in half and all the component parts had been painted different colours. And anyway when I looked in through the door old scot, old scot, he took the air frames and I took the engines. So he was in another part of the building. But we were sent there to be in charge. They’d been opened up as a depot, you know, for training purposes to teach pilots. The airframe and engine of a Lancaster, that was what it was and we’d both been sent there to be in charge to open it up as a training centre, you know, and I’ll never forget I walked inside the door there and I saw this Lanc there, and this Lanc, you can imagine the size of it. It’s a massive thing like this, and all of its components, like red — I can’t tell you, the different colours they painted it, and all you had to do really, apart from the instructing part, which was a major part, you know, what happened to this and what happened to that but I was good. I knew every part of the engine, er, originally but when it came to standing up there and there was a blackboard at the back there and I thought, ‘This is not for me. This is not for me.’ And I hadn’t a clue and what it meant was that I was saying this, that and the other, blackboard, a bit of this, a bit of that. There were six of them, six pilots. Anyway, I got to know them and I told them exactly I was useless as an instructor. I was useless because — and I couldn’t really have cared less. I’d finished flying. I’d done my bit. Anyway Scottie got on fine. He was a crawler, like. He wanted to be in charge and I couldn’t have cared less. He could have run it for me. They could have promoted him. They did do but — and so that’s how it was and so what happened was there was a bit of friction between us. He wanted to, he wanted to be in charge and if he’d have said to me, you know, if he’d have shook his fists and said to me, ‘I’m going to be in charge.’ I would have said to him, ‘Help yourself.’ Anyway, it started off with me instructing, um, and I wasn’t very good. I wasn’t very good at conveying anything. I knew everything that was there, every part of the engine and what it did but when it came to what I — the theory and what happened — so, of a morning, this was my idea, found out that this little café in Topcliffe, you see, which is — you know where Topcliffe is?
IL: I do.
RM: Right, and up one of the sideways there, where it says no entry coming down, and on the right hand side there in them days there was a little old bicycle shop. And they were a lovely couple. They were elderly and we got to know of it and we all had bikes. Everybody had a bike there and every morning I got to find out and just across, as you went through the gates, just across there, there was a NAAFI wagon, er, for a wad and a cup of tea as they called it, a wad and a cup of tea, and it was just across there and all you had to do was walk across there and it used to be there half past nine every morning but I thought, ‘A cup of tea and a wad.’ It was alright but it didn’t seem — it wasn’t up my street. I was a bit more adventurous. We found out this little café in Topcliffe, you see, so the idea was — there was just four of us (there was a couple of them who didn’t go) — and the idea was to get through the gate and I knew them couple on the gate, those red caps, you know, and they in them days — I wasn’t an official man. I was one of them and so I got to know these. There were two of them and [clears throat] go through the gate, pedal to Topcliffe. True, they used to have it very nearly ready for us, a lovely cup or mug of sweet tea and gobble your old spam sandwich. They were beautiful those spam because that spam used to come from America and it was the best spam I’ve ever tasted. So, anyway, then bike back again and Scottie didn’t like this. It wasn’t to his liking because I should have been instructing, you see, and when it struck 10 o’clock I should have been back there. Well, we only, we had half an hour to get there and half an hour back again. It didn’t seem far to me but we used to be late going or late coming back. It never used to bother me. This particular morning, gets the old bike ready, going out, and all of a sudden Scottie appears and he stood in front of this bike. He, he’s just stood in front of me with, with my bike in and grabbed me and, ‘Morning Scott. Morning Scottie, how are you?’ He said, ‘Mr Moore, Mr Moore.’ He said, ‘I’m forbidding you to go.’ He was only a pilot officer same as me but he was trying to throw rank, and he said, ‘Mr Moore.’ He said, ‘I forbid you to go.’ I looked and said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘I forbid you to go.’ He knew that we were going you see. He said, ‘It isn’t right.’ He said, ‘You’re not. It’s not right.’ He said, ‘You shouldn’t be going out.’ All this stuff and I said, ‘Get out of the way Scottie.’ He said, ‘I forbid you to go.’ So, and all I did was, I had the handle bars, and I was like this with the handle bars, I said, ‘Get out of the way.’ And he was stood there and what happened was he, he sort of, the bike wheel as it was, and he sort of stumbled on his back-side. I wasn’t even bothered. I just said, ‘Come on fellers. We’ll go back to Topcliffe.’ And I get back. I still, well, that’s how it was. Went back in to the instructing part of it and all of a sudden over the Tannoy, ‘Will Flying officer, would pilot officer Moore report to the orderly office at 12 o’clock.’ I thought, ‘What the hell do they want me for?’ And anyway I didn’t bother. I went on like. At 12 o’clock I wandered over to the orderly room just up the road inside the camp and I went in and there were two, two MPs there, red caps ‘Hello.’ I thought what’s up. Anyway, they stood to one side and, er, I never thought any more about it. I went inside and in fact the squadron leader, I knew him, not as a friend but I knew him as, you know, sort of, not so much this but, um, squadron leader and in the mess and anyway when I went inside like he had a stern looking face on and he had all my folders in front of him with all, all my bumph. ‘Now then.’ He said, ‘You’re in real trouble.’ I said, ‘Why? What have I done?’ He said, ‘You struck a fellow officer.’ I said, ‘I didn’t strike anybody.’ He said, ‘Oh, yes you did.’ He said, ‘You were seen by two members of the military police.’ I said, ‘I didn’t strike him.’ I said, ‘I pushed him.’ I said, ‘I pushed him.’ I said, ‘That’s all I did and said ‘Get out of the way.’’ He said, ‘What? What was it all about?’ [cough] ‘What was it all about?’ I said. ‘You must know, Sir, that bicycles were disappearing of a morning and biking up to Topcliffe.’ I said — he said, ‘Well, you must have known you were in the wrong. You were breaking out of camp.’ I thought, ‘Oh dear.’ And I thought what? The first thing that went through my mind was, what would my dad say if I’m, um, if I’m —
Sarah: Discharged.
RM: Discharged. Well, what it meant was I wouldn’t be discharged. They would have stripped me —
Sarah: Well, yeah.
RM: And put me on — anyway he said, ‘What did you think you were doing?’ He said, ‘Look at your record.’ I said, ‘Honestly.’ I said. He said, ‘I believe you.’ You see on record he said you did strike a fellow officer I said, ‘Sire, there’s no, there’s nothing?’ He said, ‘I’m sorry.’ So, I said, ‘What’s the score?’ He said like, ‘I wanted him to go down to see the MO.’ And I thought, you know, ‘What have I done? What have I done?’ All I did was a friendly get out of the way, you know. If I’d — I couldn’t have hit him. He was about two inches shorter. He was only a little chap and a breath of wind like me, he was — and anyway, he said, ‘I want you to go down to the MO.’ And a very friendly chap, a Flight Lewie [?] and I went down to see him and he said, ‘I’ve just had a phone call from the squadron leader CO.’ And he said, he said, ‘What it is, you’re being posted to Brackla.’ I said, ‘Brackla.’ He said, ‘It’s a joke.’ He said, ‘It’s, they call it the ‘demented air crew’ of Brackla.’ And he said, ‘That is where you’re going.’ He said, ‘I’m going to put you on venal barbital.’ And he said, ‘You have to take these. Here’s a packet.’ And I don’t know if it was in a bottle or what it was and he said, ‘I want you to take one of these in the morning.’ And I thought — I couldn’t believe it. I might have been a bit screwy if you know what I mean, finishing ops. I’m not saying I wasn’t — I’m not saying I was perfect or anything like that. I, I was a bit erratic. I do remember that. I remember getting drunk at the Jim Crack in York, you know, and that was after we’d I finished flying, and where I went — years ago Sarah.
Sarah: Betty’s?
RM: It was something Arms.
Sarah: Oh, I don’t know.
RM: And I remember getting drunk there like but —
Sarah: I know you used to go to Betty’s when —
RM: Oh, Betty’s Bar in York. Oh, well. Betty’s dive. Oh, yeah. A few times back —
Sarah: My, how things have changed.
IL: Yeah.
RM: Where what?
IL: I said ‘My. How things have changed.’ It’s not Betty’s dive any more is it?
RM: Oh, no.
Sarah: No. You pay twenty pounds for afternoon tea.
IL: It’s very up market, Betty’s.
RM: When you went downstairs there you couldn’t see above the smoke. But, um, yes.
Sarah: That’s where you scratched your name.
RM: [cough] The — oh, down inside there. If ever you go inside you want to go downstairs and as you just look round the corner there’s mirrors there and all of — my name’s on there.
IL: Oh, I’ll look.
RM: Scratched, scratched with a diamond ring and there there’s book there with all the names that’s on the glass, on the mirrors.
IL: Oh right.
RM: Yeah. And if you want to and actually if you wanted to see it and you, you’re met at the top of the stairs where they queue for their tea and cakes. If you met up the top of the stairs and you met any one of those girls they would take you down there and they — and you say, ‘Excuse me. I don’t want anything to eat. I just want to look at the glass and the mirrors.’ There’s hundreds of them down there and then there’s a little book. There used to be a little book. Yeah, my name’s on there. The whole crew’s on there, yeah.
IL: Fantastic. So —
RM: Anyway, going back to Brackla, demented air crew, and he said — and it, and was a joke but I thought, ‘Oh to hell with it. I’ve finished flying. They can do what they like with me.’ And it didn’t bother me. It honestly didn’t bother me. I didn’t say — I wasn’t belligerent or anything and I accepted it and he said — our billet’s were further down — he said, ‘Be outside your billet.’ And, yeah, in the morning he said — now I could have gone — there was a station at Dalton and he said — this jeep. That was the beauty of it, wasn’t it? ‘This jeep and it will take you to York, like, and from York you change for Edinburgh, Edinburgh to Inverness, Inverness.’ And look at that, look what I did then. I stayed at that big hotel at Inverness. It’s a beautiful hotel, you know, attached to the station and that’s where I spent the night there. It was marvellous and after the war [cough] there was a cheap trip going up to inverness by train and I took my wife there. And I said to Bet, I said, I said, er, ‘We’ll go to Inverness.’ It was a two day or three day trip to Inverness and it was a cheap one or whatever. [background noise] And — oh, it’s her phone and I think she’ll get fed up with it — and I said, ‘We’ll go back up there Bet and it’ll be an experience. We’ll go up all the way up by train and we’ll stay at this hotel.’ Anyway, fair enough, we get up there, carrying our suitcase, I went up to the desk all — I was feeling on top of the world to treat my wife, to go back to recovery, to this spot. [cough] I went up to the desk and I said, ‘I’d like to book a double room for two, three nights.’ Whatever, and she said, ‘Oh right.’ And I said, ‘How much is it?’ She said, ‘It’s a hundred pound a night.’ This was in 1960, 1975. [clears throat] I’d retired but it was one of those retirement things, wasn’t it? You know, to treat my wife and I said, ‘How much?’ She said, ‘A hundred pound a night.’ I said, ‘I was here in 1944.’ I thought I was going to flannel her, you know, try to get a bit out of it, like, try to get it a bit cheaper, and I said, ‘Excuse me.’ I said, ‘Is there? Haven’t you got any?’ I said, ‘I’ve seen brochures. My wife—.’ She said, ‘It’s a hundred pounds a night.’ I can’t mimic, and she said, she says, ‘It’s a hundred pounds a night.’ I said, ‘So, a hundred pound a night.’ So, I said, ‘From Monday to Wednesday.’ She said, ‘It’s a hundred pound a night.’ I said, ‘Forget it.’ I didn’t know what I was saying because we’d, we’d gone up there by train. It was a cheap train ride up there. So we went outside the hotel and, of course, in them days, like, [unclear] there was always a policeman — did you know that? — at a railway station, nine times out of ten. Are you alright Sarah?
Sarah: Yes. I’m fine dad. Yeah.
RM: Have you got to go?
Sarah: No. It’s alright. Don’t worry.
So went outside and there’s this policeman there. He says, ‘Are you alright?’ Nice and friendly. He says, ‘Are you alright?’ I said, ‘No.’ I explained to him what happened. ‘We’ve come up here.’ He said, ‘Oh, [unclear].’ I said, ‘We can’t afford it.’ I guess we could have if we’d pushed it, don’t you?
Sarah: I think you could have, father.
RM: And, er, anyway I went outside and your mum was outside and I said, ‘It’s a hundred.’ She said, ‘We aren’t staying here.’ So, this policeman, he said, ‘Oh, don’t worry.’ And there was a taxi rank outside and this he said, like, ‘Fred, here.’ So this chap come over and he said, ‘I’ve two wanderers here.’ He said, ‘Can you find them digs for the night?’ ‘Oh, aye.’ He said, ‘Get in the car.’ He drove, we went straight round to this, this lady, bed and breakfast. We went in and it was marvellous. Three night’s bed and breakfast. I, I don’t know how much it was but it was marvellous and we had a lovely three days up there and I didn’t have to spend a hundred pound a night. It was a colossal amount. But it is a beautiful hotel, it is honestly, it is a beautiful hotel.
IL: I don’t know if it’s still there actually.
RM: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I know somebody that — yes it is. And so that was it. That was the hotel I was posted to and I thought it’s be nice to go back. And the following morning there was a jeep. What the devil did they call it that place? It was Brackla. Anyway he knew where to go. It was an RAF jeep and we drove across country and it’s all, all cross country, you know, from Inverness to the other side. I wish I could remember the name. It, it’s fairly popular but, um, that was on the coast and then gets sent to this demented aircrew. It was a joke. I wasn’t, I was no more demented — I might have been, I might have been scratching the door, as I say, I might have been [unclear].
Sarah: Who wouldn’t have been?
RM: I might have been — I was under a psychiatrist when I come out. Pardon?
Sarah: Who wouldn’t have been after that?
RM: What?
Sarah: Scratching the door. I said, ‘Who wouldn’t have been?’
RM: Oh, yes Sarah. Yeah, I realise that.
IL: And all the time and you were there for six months and just sort of —
RM: Oh no, no, no. After I’d seen what was going on and I saw the sergeants’ mess —
IL: Oh, I see. Sorry. I was getting a bit confused, sorry.
Sarah: [unclear] six months.
RM: I tend to go from one thing to another. No, no. I should have gone there for six months. It was a rest camp for demented aircrew. It was very popular. Nobody thought anything about it.
IL: How long were you there for?
RM: No more than two months.
IL: A couple for months.
RM: It might have been — do you what Sarah?
Sarah: You asked to leave didn’t you?
RM: Oh yeah, yeah. I saw the, as I say, I laid in bed and watched the sergeant’s mess burn, watched it burn. Well, I couldn’t understand. I laid in bed and saw these flames and I took no notice until the following day. They burnt it down to the ground. It was burnt to the ground. They were wooden you see.
IL: And all the time you were there you were taking the venal barbital, so did you have to have medical clearance to leave or did you —
RM: Now you’re asking me a question. I would say [clears throat] don’t forget when I went — when you got posted to another station I would say that my medical records would have followed me. That’s what I, I — I shall be honest, I cannot put it to mind. I don’t think, I think I stopped taking them when I got to Ireland. I think I thought what do I — I’m sure I did, I don’t want to take these things any more. I didn’t feel like taking them. That was, that was probably what I thought, you know, but I couldn’t help thinking about them. It was —
IL: Because it would have been an interesting, you know, as a doctor, um, you would think you wouldn’t want people flying who were taking them. But if there was no, if there was no, you know, medical, you know — I think people thought they weren’t particularly — I think people thought they were fairly innocuous drugs in those days, barbiturates.
RM: No. When I came out and we came back to you, we came back to Yo—, we came back to York, came back to Thirsk, came back to live at my mother in laws. Now then —
Sarah: Were you married to my mum then?
RM: Where?
Sarah: When you were in Scotland?
RM: Yeah. Oh no, not during the war.
Sarah: I didn’t think so.
RM: Oh, no, no, no.
Sarah: Then you went to Ireland.
RM: I went to Ireland on Transport Command via — oh gosh, I hated it.
Sarah: But then what, where did you go from Ireland?
RM: I went back on Bomber Command. I told him — well, I won’t tell you about that. That was really truly self-inflicted. Something happened. I went without leave. I buggered off with old Darkie Thorne, my very dear friend, and we went down to Belfast and stayed at the — it wasn’t very — this friend of mine, he got shot down and he walked back, and I met him in Ireland. We were like brothers. We were, and he was a beggar, and he come back and I remember him. And he saw me and we ran to one another. Oh, he said, ‘We’ll have a good time.’ And of course, it was Darkie Thorne and me and it was on the squadron. He said, ‘Look at this.’ And in those days, of course, you got paid in cash and he’d been a prisoner. He had been a prisoner of war and he’d been shot down but he’d was rescued by a French family and he, what we called, walked back. He’d got the caterpillar and it was what we called — he’d walked back. And we met him in Northern Ireland and he said [laugh], and, ‘Look.’ He said, ‘We’re going to spend this.’ I mean he’d been gone about six months and when come back like he’d been to get paid and they didn’t have a bank. You took your money as you were paid and he said, ‘Look. We’re going to have some fun. We’re going to have some fun with this in Belfast.’ And we were, it was about ten miles from Belfast, isn’t it? That international airport?
Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. It will be.
RM: Yeah, and, er, I thought, ‘Well, I daren’t get into any more trouble.’ I’d been de-commissioned once. I’d lost six months seniority with, you know, getting into a bit of trouble like and I said, I thought, ‘I’d better slow down here.’ Anyway, we were snowbound over there. It snowed from — I was over there in the October I suppose and it snowed and snowed and snowed. We didn’t do a lot of flying and so we were grounded. And when you were grounded you were at school. You went to school. And, anyway, it was one of those times when you got — you couldn’t get bored on the squadron but being there with all this snow and this time he come at me and said, ‘Do you fancy a trip down to Dublin?’ And I said, ‘We can’t Darkie. We can’t. We’ll be interned.’ And, he said, ‘I’ll fix it all up.’ He was a wide boy. He was a Cockney [laugh] and his mum and dad and his sister had been killed in an air raid in London so he was one of those. He, he didn’t just hate the Germans, he detested them. He would have shot every one of them if he could have done and that was his attitude. But he was, he was a Cockney, he says, ‘Would you like to go down to Dublin?’ I said, ‘We can’t Darkie.’ I said, ‘We can’t. We’ll be interned.’ He said, ‘Leave it with me.’ He said, ‘I’ve been looking around.’ He said, ‘There’s a second hand shop in Belfast and we’ll get some civvy suits and we’ll have a rag round and I’ll get, I’ll get two passports.’ And he was going on and I said, ‘Forget it.’ I said, ‘I haven’t got a very good name Darkie.’ And he said, ‘Well you’re alright. You’ve got a commission.’ And poor old Darkie hadn’t even got his flight sergeant. He was still a sergeant he said, ‘Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ll fix it up.’ And I wasn’t really keen to go to Dublin because the Irish are a different people and there was a lot of, as you know as I do, the IRA were still floating around at that time. [clears throat] Anyway, time went by [clears throat] he said, ‘I’ve got your suit.’ I said, ‘You’re joking.’ He said, ‘No. I’ve got your suit.’ He says, ‘A nice brown suit.’ [laugh] He said, ‘I’ve got your suit.’ He said, ‘A nice brown suit.’ I said, ‘What about passports?’ ‘I got them.’ He said, ‘Yes. There’s a place in Belfast where I’ve gone.’ I said, ‘You must be joking.’ ‘No.’ He said, ‘Money and I’ve plenty of it.’ And he has I’m not kidding you. He had a roll. And he said, ‘You don’t pay for a thing so don’t question it.’ [unclear] and the snow in them days, it seemed to stay. We seemed to get snow over there from October right through to February and we did. Very rarely we take off and so you seemed to be in the same spot. Anyway, went to Belfast, got on a train, about halfway down — I don’t know how far we were — and the gendarmes got on, whatever you called them, checked out passports. Have you been to Dublin, Sarah?
Sarah: I have.
RM: Have you? You know the big bridge there then and, and the hotel Ma— it has a Canadian name, Ma—
IL: Montreal?
RM: [unclear] So we go, go and stays at this hotel, books in at this hotel. Well, for four days I can hardly remember, honestly, and I’m not a, I was never an alcoholic, but we drank Guinness chasers. That was Guinness and whisky. And we were drunk from — the only thing we thought about was an evening meal and that’s the honest true. We’d have breakfast. Anyway, it comes to about four days and I says, ‘We’ll have to be back.’ The weather seemed to be lifting and I said, ‘We’ll have to be back Darkie.’ ‘No, no, no, no.’ He said, ‘We’re all right.’ And I gave in and said, ‘Just one more night then.’ He said, ‘Yeah. It will be alright. Went back to camp, walks into the camp, first thing, ‘Flying Officer Moore report to the orderly room. I thought, ‘Oh Jesus.’ I said, ‘This is it, Darkie.’ He said, ‘Oh, tell them to — off.’ But I was commissioned and I respected that commission. Don’t get me wrong, I did, I respected it and, anyway, I went down to the orderly room. I thought they were going to put me in irons, honestly. Went before the CO. There again, the old documents come out and he says, ‘I don’t understand it. I’ve been looking at your documents.’ And he said, ‘How do you feel?’ And I thought ‘Christ. I’m not going back to — no way am I ever going back to — no way am I going back to that camp.’ I said, ‘I feel fine.’ And he said, ‘What are you doing?’ And what had happened was, my crew had crewed up and flown to Karachi with Transport Command and he said, ‘Well, your crew went without you. We had to find another flight engineer, didn’t we?’ And I said, ‘Oh.’ You know, I expected it. No good saying I didn’t and he said, ‘I don’t really know.’ He said, ‘But you see we don’t want fellas like you in Transport Command.’ He said, ‘We don’t want officers like you in Transport Command.’ And all of a sudden I thought, ‘Bugger yer.’ And I turned round to him and I said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you something. I don’t want to be in Transport Command.’ And he stood back and I said, ‘I don’t want to be in Transport Command.’ And he got hold of my papers and hit the desk and he said, ‘What do you want to do?’ I said, ‘I want to go back to Bomber Command.’ He said, ‘Idiot.’ I said, ‘I want to go back.’ I said, ‘That’s where the camaraderie is.’ And he said, ‘Right.’ He said, ‘Be outside your billet at eight.’ Again, you know, he said, ‘Be outside your billet.’ And he said, ‘There’ll be a jeep to take you to Belfast.’ He said, ‘You’ll get on a train.’ He said, ‘You’ll get on a train.’ He said, ‘You’re posted to Lindholme.’ So that’s when I got back to Lindholme to Bomber Command.
IL: So, did you fly any more operations from Lindholme?
RM: Not from Lindholme. We were non-operational. Well, we weren’t non-operational because we were flying and we — they flew the backsides off us. I told your mum. She was always playing hell because my wife was a WAAF on the same station and I was courting her, you know, and fortunately I caught her, didn’t it? And what happened was the — as I say I put my name down, 617, 67, 76 Squadron and that was where I went back. And I said to him, I said, ‘I don’t want to be with Transport Command.’ And he stood back, you know, one of those stiff upper lip chaps and he said, ‘Be outside your billet at 8 or 9 o’clock.’ And said, ‘They’ll take you to Belfast Station and you’re posted to Lindholme. Idiot.’ And I just walked out. I didn’t even turn round and salute him. I thought, ‘Beggar yer.’ But it was another experience wasn’t it, you know?
IL: Oh, absolutely.
RM: Yeah, it was. Another court martial. Dear, oh dear, but —
IL: Were you actually court martialled for that?
RM: Pardon?
IL: Were you court martialled for that?
RM: Oh, no, no, no.
IL: No?
RM: Oh, no, no, no. That’s was how, really and truthfully, I’ll be honest with you, I know I got away with it because I’d done thirty-one trips. I was a hero and they knew it. I’d done my bit, hadn’t I? That was it in a nutshell, I can tell you that now. That was why when he turned to me and, you know, he said that, and I knew he meant it, but at that time I thought, ‘Why should I lick his backside and pretend?’ It was no good pretending. I hated Transport Command. I hated it while I was there and for him to turn round to me and tell me he didn’t want my type. He didn’t want my type in Transport Command and I was as good as any of them. In fact, I was better than them because I’d come from Bomber Command.
IL: Absolutely, absolutely. I’m going to switch this off now, Ray.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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AMooreR160727
Title
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Interview with Raymond Moore
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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02:49:26 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Ian Locker
Date
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2016-07-27
Description
An account of the resource
Raymond Moore flew 31 operations as a flight engineer with 408 Squadron. He describes initial training at Skegness and then further training at Cosford, Halton and St Athan. He describes the crewing-up procedure at Eastmoor and describes the accommodation at various RAF stations including Linton, where he was billeted at Beningbrough Hall, and at Lindholme. He also gives vivid accounts of difficult trips, including high winds on a Berlin operation on the 24th of March 1944 and being coned by searchlights in the Rostock and Bremen areas and being thrown about as the pilot did a corkscrew manoeuvre.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Rostock
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Contributor
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Christine Kavanagh
Temporal Coverage
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1943
1944
408 Squadron
426 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
crewing up
faith
fear
flight engineer
lack of moral fibre
military ethos
military living conditions
military service conditions
RAF Brackla
RAF Cosford
RAF East Moor
RAF Halton
RAF Lindholme
RAF Linton on Ouse
RAF St Athan
recruitment
searchlight
sport
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/125/2480/PBaggJG1602.1.jpg
fc588435640eb081dc7c9ea25e2e7a3f
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/125/2480/ABaggJG160902.1.mp3
66e2a38c2f9d559f89ab20b610d08c80
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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Bagg, John
John Bagg
J G Bagg
Description
An account of the resource
12 items. An oral history interview with Leading Aircraftsman John Garrett Bagg (b.1920, 1475631 Royal Air Force) and 11 photographs. John Bagg trained as an instrument mechanic before re-mustering as photographer. He served at RAF Finningley, RAF Bircotes, RAF Whitchurch and RAF Sleap.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Bagg and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-09-02
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Access Rights
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Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AM. This is Anne Moody and it is Friday the 2nd of September 2016 and today I am with John Bagg in Royston which is in Barnsley and I have also got with us Gary who may chip in now and again. I want to ask John, you told me you were born in 1920, where ?
JB. In this house, I have lived here all my life.
AM. Crickey, ninety five years.
JB. My Grandfather took it on then, my Mother took it over and then I took it over and I want to be carried out from here.
AM. You are not moving anywhere else?
JB. Only to my back Garden, it keeps me occupied.
AM. So did you have any Brothers or Sisters?
JB. Two Brothers both were in the Services, one was in the Army and the other was a Ferry Pilot, he transported Liberator Bombers from manufactures in Canada all over the World. Down South Australian to Caucasus Islands, that was his job.
AM. What did your Parents do John, what did your Dad do?
JB. Not very much because the jobs were scarce,and my Father eventually, because he was a Shell worker and when the owner stopped he was out of work. He managed to get a job at the Colliery, a poor job on the screens which wasn’t very nice.
AM. On the screens, what does that mean ?
JB. He was screening the coal in the dust and everything. It affected his chest so he had to go off work and I was at Normanton Grammar School in those days and I left at sixteen and managed to get a job at the [unreadable]
AM. That is unusual because quite a lot left at fourteen didn’t they?
JB. Not at the Grammar School, and the [unreadable] and I stayed there till I got my call up.
AM. So what did you do, what was your job?
JB. Just general clerical work, anything, poor jobs in those days.
AM. So you got your call up, at eighteen?
JB. At twenty, twentieth birthday you were expected to register and you registered each month after that, you had no option.
AM. So what did that mean?
JB. You could volunteer before that if you wished.
AM. So when you got your call up, what was that like?
JB. I had to go to Barnsley for an interview to try and assess you for what they put you into sort of thing, and I didn’t want to go in the Army and the chappy asked me questions, “what’s your interests?” and I was always interested in like I used to make my own crystal sets, radios and with headphones, and he asked me all this and he said ok. Then I got the word that I would be in the Royal Air Force as an instrument repairer which suited me fine and I thought what a great opportunity this is because there was nothing, nothing around here really, not the good jobs, nothing like that, and that was my call up in May nineteen.
AM. May nineteen forty.
Gary. Forty One.
JB. Forty One to go to Melcham, got a train from Ralston to Sheffield where I say two or three lads all going to the same places, you know there were masses of people travelling in those days being called up.
AM. How far had you been before that though?
JB. Not very far at all, been to Scarborough day trip, I remember paddling in the sea. Been not very far at all and been to Leeds, I’ve been to Leeds and Sheffield.
AM. So you got the train to Sheffield and you saw the other lads.
JB. Went up to two lads, where you going and they were going to Melcham same as me, and you know I have kept in contact with those two lads until they both died, one died just recently and one a few years ago, they are both [Unreadable] Barnsley lads.
AM. OK so we are going to start this recording we had a minor mishap, the batteries went flat but we will just carry on the story from where John got to. We have just got off the train, changed at Bristol and we have just got off the train at Melcham with hoards and hoards of other people who have been called up.
JB. The Military Police, so they shepherded us into buses and things into the Camp into a massive hanger and it was all portioned off, bedspaces, I was given a bed space. First thing was take your clothes off, not first thing, sorry. Get measured for your uniform, you went to the counter, there was a chap there he just said, “tunic, size off” and so on, he never measured you the sizes, you got all your kit, he did ask you size of big boots. Then you went and changed, the first thing then you parcelled your own civvy clothes up and sent them back home, you were in then.
AM. What did you get in the way of uniform then, what did you get ?
JB. Two tunics, two pair of trousers, pants, vests, socks and they were all course in those days, and the boots because most people had never worn boots, mainly shoes, but you had to get used to the boots.
AM. So what do you mean ankle boot do you mean?So just above the ankle.
JB. More or less like and I think they left you alone until the next morning.
AM. So you said it was a hanger with all the bed spaces, how many beds ?
JB. God knows, massive.
AM. And no privacy or anything, what was that like.
JB. I think the next day or two they did sort it out with a hut to live in.
AM. So what was it like sleeping in a massive dormitory like that then?
JB. I can’t describe it really going from home to that, you got talking and laughing and things like that.
AM. And it’s all men of course,there is no women there.
JB. And of course in the next day or two you were assigned to a hut and then there were medicals and God knows what.
AM. I don’t know if I dare ask you to describe the medical, go on describe it for me.
JB. Line up and pants down [unreadable].
AM. What does that mean ?
JB. Well looking at everybody, I didn’t see them turf anybody out. I suppose it was for disease and had to do. The inoculation I don’t know how many of those.
AM. And you are just all in a line waiting for you jabs.
JB. The bigger men seemed to pass out more than the others a lot of men passed out at the thought of inoculations you would be surprised.
AM. Why would that be, because they weren’t used to that sort of thing because now as kids you just get used to that sort of thing, don’t you. They literally passed out?
JB. Yes, eventually you got settled in and there is a Corporal at the end of each hut in a little private thing, there is a tannoy which in the morning said wakey wakey and by God if you weren’t out of bed in five minutes the Corporal would be out and he would tip the bed over.
AM. How many men to a hut?
JB. Not too many about fifteen or sixteen at a guess.
AM. What in an open space?
JB. I got one somewhere in here.
AM. We will have a look at it in a bit.
JB. Outside and Parade then, it was about seven in the morning, PE basically then off to the cookhouse for you breakfast. There was a mad stampede, everybody, I was always the last,I couldn’t run as fast as them others for you breakfast.
AM. What did you get for breakfast?
JB. The usual, sausage, beans,bacon.
AM. Well you say the usual, but had rationing started by then, I can’t, I’m not sure?
JB. There was eh, I don’t think we had cereal or anything like that, I can’t really remember now.
AM. But you definitely remember sausage and bacon?
JB. At one place I regularly had kippers and nobody liked kippers but I loved kippers. When the asked any extras, anybody want any extra, I was always there, I love my kippers [laugh].We then started on the drills and the marching and got down on the square you know.
AM. So at this point it is just learning to be a serviceman, rather than any specific thing. How many were there at the….
JB. We were farmed out then we didn’t get a hut, into bell tents outside and it was a scorching month during that year, scorcher. We did all the exercising and everything outside it was marvellous, they got us marching up and down the square.
AM. Did you enjoy it then, because you described it as marvellous so?
JB. There was a lot of Camaraderie between you.
AM. And you still were a very young man?
JB. There were older people mixed in all in that intake, mm, and marching and marching and marching up and down the square. You got assault courses you know bayonet charging you made fun of it in a way,you know charging up and down, shouting, and bayoneting these sacks. If ever you got to do it, I don’t know how you would do it. You know.
AM. In real life when blood comes out.
JB. And the assault courses, I was one of the smallest there but I kept up with them. Then eventually [pause] where am I ? Eventually after all this training there was no vacancy for a course at the moment, so they farmed you out all over the place to wait for your call up. I was going to show you this, the first place I went to, was unbelievable [rustle of paper] to Norfolk, place called Pulham in Norfolk, that was then but the hanger was.
AM. John is showing me a picture of a Zeppelin and a massive hanger in Pulham?
JB.Pulham in Norfolk.
AM. So that’s where you were sent so what did you do there then?
JB. General duties, it was a massive scrap yard, sort of thing apart from one industry that was there was filling small bombs, packing them all in big boxes and take them to the station for distribution. They had a massive danger area with a little railway all round it and masses of boxes for these bombs to pack in, fill and empty and so on.
AM. Was it dangerous, did they have any accidents?
JB. No not that I know of, you couldn’t go in without handing in your cigarettes and things like that. You got a little train round to where you went to. Not much work to do there, there were only about fifty people there I think, fifty probably and it was just a fill in.Then, massive you couldn’t believe the size of that Hanger.
AM. So what happened then at the end of that then?
JB. You got your call up for your Instrument Repairers Course, its back to Melcham then, its all right [unreadable] all the time and then we went on the course for the cameras’, for the instruments.
AM. For the Instruments. How long was the course.
JB. Three months, it wasn’t much use to me because at the end of the course they asked for volunteers for a special camera course. On cameras’ and things like that, so I’ve always been interested so I put my hand up. I never did inspections on instruments I was always on cameras after that.a
AM. Did you learn anything about instruments or did you already know it from?
JB. I passed the Trade Test, everything but I never actually did the work.
AM. So what sparked the interest in cameras’ as I gather there wouldn’t be a lot around at that time?
JB. I worked with these massive cameras’ you know, massive cameras’
AM. Give me an idea of what size?
JB.Stood about nigh high.
AM.So we are talking about a foot high.
JB.With different lenses.
Gary. These are the ones that fitted in aeroplanes.
JB. Some were for daylight and some for night work and they had special shutters and they were all radio, electrically controlled from controllers and things like that, control [unreadable] six volt.
AM. So did you have to do another course to learn how to use that?
JB. Oh yes, that was at Halton that, which was the college.In the Winter.
AM.Near Andover.
JB. I really liked that, the cameras’ and controls and things and after that, that was near Christmas and they couldn’t find us a station at the time. So they said go home and we’ll call you when your unit is home for Christmas and we said ok. In other days when talking to people the used to say, get posted to Finningley, get to Finningley, they have chicken every Christmas. When my posting came it was to Finningley, I couldn’t believe it.
AM. Did this come through the post?
JB. Yes, report to Finningley on such and such a date. It was true chicken for every dinner for Christmas, every dinner, a marvellous place that. I didn’t remain there long because they were opening a satellite, a smaller Station at Bircotes near Bawtry and I got sent there. It was just a pile of mud when we got there, not much to do at the moment, at the time of course it wasn’t equipped or anything.
AM. Just before we go to Bawtry tell me about Finningley, what did you actually do, what did you do there?
JB On Cameras’ introduced to the Photographic Section, you were attached to the Photographic Section not to the Instrument Section, and they showed me round a mock up of all the controls working. They were all flexible drives, motor driven and everything and how to work it and instruction books and things like that.
AM. So what was your job on them, what were you doing?
JB. Servicing the cameras’ There were some cameras’ like gun cameras’ which were fitted in the machine gun turrets, you got one camera and three or four machine guns synchronised on operations with the firing of the guns.With all film, little small film going through.
GARY.Were you actually taking them out of the aircraft or were you fitting them.
JB. No we were fitting them.
GARY.Fitting them into the aircraft.
JB. Same with the big cameras’ they weren’t left in the aircraft.
GARY. So what aircraft did you start working on?
JB. At Finningley they were Hampdens, they used to call them flying coffins, [laugh] I don’t know if I should say it they were horrible aircraft and then we soon turned over to Wellingtons.
GARY. Then was it Stirlings’ after that?
JB. No I never went on Stirlings’ no, later on at one stage they did get a Stirling to try but the system couldn’t take it they were massive things these Stirlings. I’ve got one photograph in there, Stirling.
AM. Yeah we’ll come to that. So you were literally fitting them in, fitting the cameras’ in, taking them out. Who took the film out? What happened to the film?
JB. Massive, films about that wide.
AM. So we are talking about six inches something like that.
JB. Some of them are taken, I want to show you.
AM. Yeah we will have a look of those in a minute.
JB. That was the size of them, that was the film size.
AM. Right so it was about six inches.
JB. There were hundreds of exposures you know they were massive.
AM. So we are back on again, we have just been talking to Johns’ Wife and we have switched the recorder on. So John has just been telling us about the working on the aircraft and the cameras’ so tell me a bit more about that then.This is still at Finningley?
JB. Yes I didn’t remain there long. I was sent to Bircotes.
AM. Tell me about that then?
JB. They was just starting up, we had to wait for aircraft being allocated to us first of. Then it got working then em, It was my first really working, fitting the cameras’ I had only been under instruction mainly at Finningley and then we had to go out together, the vehicle took us for transport. You might have six or seven lined up that day, six or seven sets, controllers and everything, might have electric motors. Suppose I had to service everything and controls and electric motor to do. It was our job to fit them in the aircraft all ready, all ready for off, Bomb Aimer had them.
AM. Yes because there was the one that automatically went off when the bombs were dropped.
JB. Yes and there are different cameras’ I say, some were for night flying, taking photographs at night, synchronising those big bomb
GARY.Were there a timer when the bombs were released, a time for starting to take photographs?
JB. They had to judge the height and speed and all this on this timer, you see.
AM. So did you set the timer?
JB. No the Bomb Aimer set the timer.
AM. The Bomb Aimer set the timer.
JB. The heights and things and it were on the shutters, so many seconds before the flash was expected to explode. Then it went, I think the flash operated it to close it. What we did when we was on training where I was, all mine was on training not Operations, they had infra red lights on certain buildings, there was one on the Menai Bridge and some in Churches and they were sent out at night to sort of Bomb this place and if they bombed it they got the infra red signal back.
AM. So not literally Bomb it [Unreadable through interruptions]
JB. They were bombing it and the flash would go off, they should get this infra red light on the thing itself you see to show that they hit it. Of course many of them didn’t.
AM. Who taught them to use the camera, who taught the Bomb Aimer to use the camera?
JB. I suppose I was in their training their briefing. It was funny, one place I was on if you were on like, picket duty might be about six month, eight month you were watching around for fires, something like that. You would get a book, some of the Aircrew might get an early call if they were flying off at seven o’ clock, and you’d get a book with the names on, hut so and so bed number so and so and you would go into this hut and find this, you can imagine me go up to this bloke and say are you Sergeant so and so, sign this [laugh]. It used to be comical, sign this, he would be signing to say that you called him.
AM. So it wasn’t your fault if he didn’t turn up.
JB. It must have been Operations when they went away and some of them didn’t come back, on Operations.
AM. Did you get to know the Aircrew then?
JB. Not really no, because they were changing very rapidly. They went to our place and then they would go somewhere else for different training.
AM. I am interested in the cameras’ who, what, who manufactured the cameras’ what make were they?
JB. I don’t know, I don’t know.
AM. So not like a massive company like Kodak or anything like that?
JB. No No. I haven’t any photos of them at all.
AM.So you’d go to the aircraft and fit it, the Bomb Aimer, you would make sure there was a film in it and all the rest of it.
JB. Then when they came back
AM.[interruption] that was going to be the next question, off they went then when they came back what did you do then?
JB. Well you had to take the things off, for the film, the things the film was in and they went to the photographic department for processing.
AM. So you took the film off and you took it up to the…
JB. We worked in the photographic department, it was where I worked sort of thing. I had nothing to do with that side of it but I was in with it. I use to go in watching and the massive films that used to come out you know, massive and the machines to process them.
GARY. How long did you stay there for John, you know you left Finningley?
JB. Left Finningley, went to Bircotes.
GARY. How long were you at Bircotes for?
JB. Not very long at all, oh ah, probably about twelve months and then I got a call sending to Whitchurch in Shropshire, which eh that hadn’t been opened up very long. They were all new places I managed, they were setting up you see. I eh I really loved it there in Shropshire.
GARY. And that was an Operational Training Unit?
JB. They were all Operational Training Units.
AM. You said you really loved it what, what was it you really?
JB. The people that you worked with they were marvellous, some, I know one chap he was a very wealthy chap at least he told us he was and he used to play with one of the big bands in London. Harry Roy of something you remember in those days [little stutters] His Father was a Colonel or something as well, a real mixture.
AM. What did you do on your days off?
JB. Eventually I took my bike with me.
AM. Push bike or Motor bike.
JB. Push bike, I took it with me wherever I would go and I used to go out on my days off, round Shropshire, nearly every road in Shropshire.Went up into Cheshire and all over the place. I never lounged about on my days off. I hadn’t been there long when they was, is that Sleap? They was opening a Satellite at Sleap and I was posted there to start it up.
AM. Sleap is SLEAP Sleap Airfield.
JB. Sleap.
GARY. Was you there when the aircraft hit the Control Tower?
JB. No, no. but I was there when there was a Squadron of American Flying Fortresses, they couldn’t land where they were going so they were coming to Sleap to land in an emergency and bye you never seen them land like it. I mean I was, it was one off, one down, clear the runway before another one could land, whoosh one after the other like lightning, not a space between them.
GARY. But they would have been returning from Operations.
JB. Yeah.
AM. Did you get to go on one?
JB. No, oh no there were Guards round straight away, Guards round straight away. They was off next morning, you couldn’t see anything but it was unbelievable the way they landed.
AM. Its stuck in your mind.
AM. Going back to the Cameras then you said that worked on Hamden’s and you worked on Wellingtons did you stick with Wellingtons.
JB. Yes mostly Wellingtons, I don’t know if it was Sleap or [unreadable] where they didn’t get a Stirling, I think the ground wasn’t solid. They were so big the Stirling, massive, there is a photograph there somewhere and me stood under it.
GARY. We are looking at a small photograph of a large Stirling with one man underneath.
JB. No that’s not it.
GARY. It says on the back, Stirling, Heavy Bomber, me standing in front of the wheel.
JB. It must be me then. [laugh] massive. One thing about the Wellington.
GARY. Just getting a photo of a Wellington.
JB. To get in there was an entrance there and you can see there was a little ladder there. Most of them where I was never landed at all.
AM. And the entrance is just underneath the fuselage ?
JB. Yes just there, there was a trap door that flew up and you had to get in, you had to get hold and pull yourself up.
AM. What with the camera.
JB. No put the cameras in first and get, I never saw a ladder all the time I was there and I wasn’t very big but I managed like everybody else eventually pulled myself into it. That’s where I got me muscles from.
AM. [Laugh] So where next after Sleap?
JB. Ah well I was at Sleap when the War finished actually, then it was a case of they were trying to close it down quite quickly I think. There were a lot of them and they sent me to Oakington near Cambridge and I had to confess I never done a Daily Inspection on instruments in my life and they wouldn’t believe it, I hadn’t honestly. All my work was on cameras and I was the only person on the Station that could really that had had the course on it as to what it does and that. Normally used to get instructions for modifications I had nobody to ask because nobody knew about them but I had to be taught by myself then, but I really enjoyed my life and [unreadable] know particularly [laugh].
AM. How long were you there before you were demobbed they.
JB. Laterally I used to run the little Cinema, they had a little Cinema a little 16mm projector and a screen in the dining room at the end of the dining room. Used to get new films, you know proper films the would show to or three nights a week. I used to run that with two other people there were three of us used to run that.
GARY. So when was you demobbed John, when was you demobbed?
JB. I was demobbed, oh going back to, I went to Oakington eh [garbled] Not long after that they sent for me in the Orderly Romm and they said your posted. I said thank the Lord for that. From there up to Kinloss, I thought who the,Kinloss. The war was over as well you know. I think they was trying to, didn’t know where to send you and I went from Oakington to London and a ticket to Kings Cross, a long journey.
AM. So what did you do in Kinloss?
JB. Nothing much they didn’t want me at Kinloss because they had finished and they sent me to their sort of Satellite which was Brackley and what it was they were taking all the aircraft, surplus and storing them there. There were hundreds of them.
AM. That’s spelt BRACKLA. So literally aircraft, old Bombers.
JB. It was a sort of Graveyard put it that way. As they came in from bringing the troops home from various areas, when they landed they brought the aircraft there just for storage. We just took sort of things, valuable things out of them and shoved them all in the corner.
AM. What sort of aircraft were they?
JB. All types of Aircrew.
GARY. A Graveyard of Aircraft.
AM. I am just looking at something John has just given me. Including a hundred Halifax Bombers some straight from the factory, and we have got a picture of them.
JB. It was just a Graveyard for destruction, no we just parked them up and that was it. Spent our time playing football, got nothing to do.
AM. You didn’t even have to take the cameras out of them.
JB. No,no they had already been taken out I suppose.
AM. So how many of you were there, how many of you playing football and not very much?
JB. There weren’t very many at all, I think it was just a place to fill in.
AM. How long were you there for?
JB. About eight or nine months and I’d taken my bike with me which I rode every Sunday. I cycled all round Loch Ness and all of the Mountains. I had a marvellous time there, you could do what you wanted.
AM. Who was in charge?
JB. And I was there when my Father died actually and they sent for me in the Morning and told me and a Warrant home just like that. Come back when you want sort of thing. I think they were glad to get a few people out of the way, you know [pause] and there we are.
AM. So what eventually happened were you just demobbed and that was it.
JB. Yes went to Padgate for demob, pick your suit, trilby hat if you wanted one.
AM. Where was the suit from, was it Burtons, Montague Burtons?
JB. No they were there, you picked one out there. Masses of them.
AM. So what did you eventually get, a suit, a trilby?
JB. Shoes, everything I don’t know about shirts, I can’t remember that.
AM. And that was it.
JB. That was it, came home to a months leave and then you started a job and your job was guaranteed back at work. Or a job, if they couldn’t find your own job they were guaranteed to find you a job.
AM. And was your job open for you.
JB.Yeah, Yeah.
AM. So you went back there.
JB.Up to Monkton, up to Colliery.
AM. How long did you work there for, did you carry on with that or ..?
JB. Well I got moved to the Headquarters in Grimethorpe in Colliery eventually I left the Coal Board and went back to the Coal [unreadable] where I started as a lad.
AM. Tell me about your photography though, having learned how cameras work?
JB. We started a photographic business me and my wife taking weddings and things.
AM. Where did you meet your wife, when did you meet your wife?
JB. In Barnsley.
AM. After the War?
JB. After the War, the Cummin Ballroom in Barnsley.
AM. What year would that be?
JB. We got married in nineteen fifty three about two years before that about nineteen fifty.
AM. So well after the war then. So tell me about this photographic business then?
JB. It was just mouth to mouth sort of thing, photography was very scarce in those days, films and things like that and people couldn’t buy them, buy films.
AM. What sort of camera were you using. Was it still Box Brownies?
JB. No a reflex camera, you focussed [pause] and that’s mainly it.
AM. It’s interesting though, we have some fascinating photos hear and if John will allow me I will scan some of them because they will absolutely go with the story. Well that was great thank you.
JB. A place I was on, I can’t remember where it was, they used to go on leaflet raids to France and these were some of the leaflets they used to take to drop.
AM. When you say they used to go on, the plane..
JB. No the training.
AM. The Trainees.
JB. Bit tatty I’m afraid are these.
AM. So John has some of the original newspapers that were dropped, little newspapers, going to let me have a look. “review de la press libre”
JB. I don’t know what it is
AM. This ones dated the 29th of November 1942, fantastic. Gosh, so how did you get your mitts on these?
JB. They were at our place and I just had a few took a few.
AM. Brilliant, I am no sure if I can scan these, I might have to photo them instead but they are wonderful.
JB. That’s in German by the looks of it and when we were getting towards the end of the training and sent them on a leaflet raid.
AM. Yes that would have been one of the first pre Operations.
JB. They only went over France [unreadable] we were told they could look through and they could tell how the buildings were like in stereo. They could tell if there was a deep hole or things like that on things they had passed over.
AM. Just looking at some of these photos, so what’s that one then?
JB. Well that’s, that was a, that’s a corner of the cameras.
AM. So we have four lads who worked there on a motor bike and side car but with one of the cameras that John is talking about.
JB. We had a little van mainly, got my first driving license there.
AM. That’s the Graveyard.
JB. That’s the Graveyard and that’s me sat on the step there.
AM. Of a NAAFI Van with a cup of tea.
JB. I think it was the Salvation Army actually.
GARY. John can you remember how much you got paid?
JB. On training it was seven and a half pence a day.
GARY. I have seen one where you got two shillings a day which is ten pence.
JB. Yeah.
GARY. Can you remember up to the end of the War when you were a fully qualified Leading Aircraftsman?
JB. It was a lot better, I can’t remember now though.
GARY. It’s just curious.
AM. Is that you.
JB. Yes that’s in my workshop and those are the controllers for the cameras.
AM. And this is you working on…
JB. On something or another, I had the place all to myself, nobody bothered me.
AM. And there was literally only one of you on each Training Unit.
JB. Yes
AM. We’ve got you playing bowls here in Shropshire. What we also got from John are a number of photos of Cologne of Calne, bombed to smithereens basically and these would have been the photos from the cameras….. Gosh.
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 Bagg
Identifier
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ABaggJG160902
Creator
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Annie Moody
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-09-02
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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00:46:49 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Conforms To
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Pending review
Description
An account of the resource
John Bagg worked as a clerk before joining the Royal Air Force at the age of twenty. He was trained as an Instrument Mechanic before remustering and completing a specialist camera course. He went on to serve on several training stations. After the war he returned to his old job, but then went into business with his wife as a photographer.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Shropshire
England--Yorkshire
Contributor
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Hugh Donnelly
demobilisation
ground crew
ground personnel
Hampden
RAF Bawtry
RAF Brackla
RAF Finningley
RAF Halton
RAF Sleap
RAF Tilstock
Stirling
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/144/2209/AOConnellDA160809.2.mp3
7b47ee9f459cf922016141194f66e9a4
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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O'Connell, Desmond
D A O'Connell
Des O'Connell
Description
An account of the resource
32 items. The collection relates to Flying Officer Desmond Anthony O’Connell (b. 1919, 754811 199137). He was badly burned when his 502 Squadron Whitley crashed in Northern Ireland and he became a patient of Archibald McIndoe and a member of the Guinea Pig club. The collection contains an oral history interview, two telegrams, four religious cards and Royal Canadian Air Force photographs taken at a formal the inaugural Guinea Pig Club dinner. Guests at the dinner include Charles Portal, Archibald McIndoe, Harold Whittingham, Alec Coryton and Albert Ross Tilley. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Desmond O'Connell and catalogued by IBCC staff.
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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.
Date
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2016-08-09
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
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 9th of August 2016. I’m in Sunbury on Thames with Desmond O’Connell and he flew in Whitleys and we’re going to hear the story of his experiences in life and the RAF. Desmond what do you remember in the earliest days?
DO: I was born in 1919. One of eight children. My father had been in the First World War, in the infantry and he came home with a very, very strict outlook on life and he brought us up there in the East End. We weren’t very poor. We were poor, we were poor. We lived like you see on television these days when they try to depict the East End in the early days. I say I was one of eight children. Two of them died to leave six of us and we were all brought up. My father, coming from the army was very, very, very, very conscious of strict, of strictness and that is why he, he wore a thick leather belt which he used on us reason, on the boys, which we thought unjustly but rightly or wrongly it, it brought us up thinking what a fine job my father did bringing me up like this. I’ll bring up my children the same ways. So I was overly strict but fortunately the boys are still sticking around with us. But when I started school at St Francis Catholic School in Stratford where I was born and there and there until I was eleven and then I got a scholarship to the local secondary school. My two brothers had also been at St Francis School and both won scholarships and went, my eldest brother went to the West Ham Secondary School. My next brother went to St Bonaventures at Forest Gate Grammar School and my, although we were Catholics, my father, I know, felt very, he really put education before Catholicism and my eldest brother that had gone to the West Ham Secondary School passed all the exams, even the final exams, two years early. He was so clever. I went to the same school and they found that brains didn’t necessarily run in the family so I didn’t quite accomplish what he did. But, after, after that I left school. I went to work in London, in the City and I was on fifteen shillings and two pence a week out of which I paid a little bit towards my upkeep and my train fares and pastimes. Then after a while I left there. It was the, it was an Australian, Australian agents for stuff to, merchandise to be sent to Australia and after that I went to, I got a wee bit ambitious and I went to the Teachers Provident Society at Hamilton House near King’s Cross and that was for two pounds a week which was quite a lift for, financially but it allowed me to, to expand, expand a bit more. To go on to join the tennis club and then I played cricket for the West Ham Secondary School Old Boys and I played soccer for St Francis Old Boys. So all in all I spent quite an active youth. My elder, my next brother up who went to the grammar school at St Bonaventures eventually came home one day and said he was joining the RAF VR which I’d never heard of but he, but I saw him in uniform and immediately the uniform was attractive and I joined the VR in 1939 and I was called up on the 1st, the 1st of December. I’ve got the telegram here. I was called up on the 1st of December and we went to Cambridge and went and we did a, I was at St John’s College, Cambridge and the other colleges were taken over for accommodation for doing the rudiments of service life, square bashing and learning RAF law and all and after that I went to Marshall’s Flying School at Cambridge to train as a pilot on Tiger Moths. My brother had also joined the VR, was also there but much more advanced of course having gone solo earlier and I was going quite well there and I was up for going solo on Tiger Moths and we were called up one Monday morning, which I remember well. We were all called on parade and the CO said, ‘I’ve,’ ‘I’ve had orders from Air Ministry. We’ve got too many training as pilots so we’ve got to cut down and go into other, other air crew jobs. ‘So,’ he said, ‘A’s to N’s will continue with their training as pilots and O’s and otherwise, well Z’ds will either, as you’re volunteer reserves either get out of the service and be called up or you can revert.’ My brother, who had gone solo got out and within a very short time he was a lieutenant in the navy and I was training as an observer. I trained. I went down to the, I forget what they call it now. The school at, at Hastings for doing square bashing. It was quite, there we used to do the square bashing on the sands at St Leonards on Sea and the sergeant, ‘I want to hear your footsteps.’ He didn’t, not realise, having been one of his, one of his favourite expressions he didn’t realise that we were on sand but after a while I was taken off to train as an observer and I went to Yatesbury to the Bristol Flying School at Yatesbury next to the RAF Wireless School and there we flew on Ansons doing navigation. We did navigation. An observer was pushed. He did navigation, bomb aiming, gunnery, meteorology and another subject which were quite difficult. Quite difficult to absorb because they, all of them were very, all of them were very deep subjects and eventually I passed. That’s the navigation side of it of the, of the training as an observer and we went then, we were posted up to Dumfries and we went under canvas at, I think, I think it was called Tinwald Downs. Something Downs. We went under canvas there while we did our bombing. Bombing instruction. And it was, it was a most enjoyable time under canvas there and eating out and the weather was quite nice but there we did our bomb aiming training at Annan on the coast there. We were flying Fairey Battles. Well we were a passenger in Fairey Battles while we were training for bomb aiming and also we were trained on, on Harrows. Handley Page Harrows, a big old aircraft for gunnery where we had the front turret had 303s painted blue and the front turret had 303s painted red and they had an aircraft go towing a drogue and we fired at that. When he, when we came down the drogue was taken off and the number of holes, colours was counted. Not allowing for one day, I mustn’t say whether it happened more than once, that the same colour 303s were used at the front and the back turret but they still got the, still got the result that there was so many blues and so many reds. When, when we qualified from there I and somebody else was sent to Belfast, to east, to Aldergrove to 502 squadron on Whitley 5s which, which I believe had been, had been withdrawn before but they were brought back. They were withdrawn as Whitley 3s had radial engine and they were brought back as Whitley 5s on Rolls Royce and we flew to Belfast, we flew to Aldergrove and there we did, we did tours flying to the Atlantic [coughs] excuse me. Flying to the Atlantic escorting convoys across. We had on these aircraft, what was then new, the ASV that was Air Sea V, I don’t, it was, it was radar for spotting any, any metal object in the water so really it was looking for , looking for submarine U-boats, looking for U-boat conning towers and we were on that doing eight hours, eight hours and right at the very beginning we took homing pigeons and to do eight hours flying and these darned pigeons cooing at you for eight hours it nearly sent you bonkers but eventually they were withdrawn but we did some, some very good, I’m going to pat myself on the back now, we didn’t, we didn’t do astro navigation. We had to keep, we had to keep RT silence, wireless silence so all in all it was dead navigation. Dead reckoning navigation and, as I say, patting myself on the back we always picked up our objects and we always got home without any trouble each time and I always, the more I think about it the more, the more proud I am really that say without all these modern aids we did achieve that. Then it was decided after a while that we would open up a new airfield at Limavady, which is just to the north, in Northern Ireland. It was an unprepared airfield. There was no runways. It was all mud. It really was mud. And we had, there was no accommodation. We lived in an old, a big old house with no amenities at all. We lived, lived on cold water for washing and everything and then one day on, on this, on this day after we’d flown from Limavady for a few times there was another Sergeant O’Connell. He was from, from Roscrea, in Southern Ireland. He and I were in the Alexandra Hotel at, at Limavady having a few drinks before we were going to Derry as neither of us had been there and while we were there Bill O’Connell’s two wireless operators came in and said, ‘We’re flying tonight.’ So I said, ‘Oh’ and Bill had had a few so I took him back to the airfield. It was all very new there so the, when sergeant, when I, ‘Who are you?’ ‘I’m Sergeant O’Connell.’ I took Bill’s briefing for him and I I plotted his courses, his course and I was quite proud really but whilst I was there the CO, or one of the senior officers said, ‘You’re, you’re flying tonight.’ So, so if so we are. Now we’re on a Whitley 5. We’re after the Bismarck. The German Bismarck. Heavy, heavy warship was just outside our range and causing havoc amongst the, amongst the convoys so our aircraft we had was given extra fuel tanks, extra bombs, extra depth charges and off we, we were due to take off at 3 o’clock ish in the morning and duly took off but all those extra bombs, extra fuel and everything was too much for the aircraft and it didn’t make the high ground a couple of, three miles away from the airfield and hit. The, the pilot, first pilot and the wireless operator, second wireless operator got out the front. Now, the second pilot Chris Carmichael you see and me and the wireless operator Stan Dawney and the rear gunner, I’ve forgotten his name, nice chap, were going to get out of the back of the aircraft and I was crawling down to the escape through that door and the extra fuel tanks were strapped, fractured and covered me with petrol which again wasn’t bad because just before then we’d been issued with flying jackets and leather flying boots. I was crawling out and it fractured, these tanks fractured, covered me with petrol which was still not bad. We got out and unfortunately the grass was alight and consequently I was set alight and fortunately, as I say our flying jackets and flying boots saved my, my, saved me quite a bit but the rest of me from the waist downwards to the back of the shins suffered badly and I got out and my, the, my wireless operator Stan Dawney put me out as much as he could but there was so much petrol on board that it was quite a difficult job and we were there and somebody, one of us said, ‘Careful of the bombs,’ and we ran, including me, we ran to the brow of the [cough] excuse me, the brow of the hill and just got over the top when the whole lot blew up and you heard about it for miles away. So much so that the, we were, we were all, all registered as killed in action but we’d all got away with it and we started walking down there, down the hill and unfortunately it had been a hill for peat. Where they dug about six foot trenches to get it and of course it was not visible so there was a second to get Chris Carmichael, Stan Dawney, the rear gunner and myself walked and we kept falling down these pits, these trenches but eventually we came to a farmhouse. I think it was McGuiness. We came to this farmhouse and we knocked at the door and the explosion must have warned them that something had gone wrong because they opened the door quite readily and these three, the other three said, ‘We’ve got a bloke here who wants a bit of help. Can we put him in your cowshed,’ which was, it was attached to the house, to the, so says ‘Yes.’ So they put me in there with sacks and sticks. Sacks and things like that and the three of them went off to try and find some help and after a while I was there by myself. The cow, or cows came over and started sniffing so I opted out. I got back to the front door of the farmhouse, knocked on it and they opened the door and I said, ‘Can I come in? The cows are getting too, too friendly.’ But it was then about five o’clockish in the morning and the sun was rising behind me. They opened the door. It was a very catholic area and there was a big picture of Jesus Christ facing me on the wall in the, and as I say the sun was behind me. I thought, whatever they said I’ve arrived. It was worth it. But they took me in and they sat down. A big peat fire. They sat down, sat me down beside it and although my face and hands were quite severely hurt they put a cigarette, they put, gave a cigarette, they held it to my lips, helped me smoke it and they were very, very, McGuiness but what was, I thought my gloves were, there were strips hanging off my hands and I thought it was my gloves but I knew I hadn’t put my gloves on because when you get in the aircraft by the time you’ve put your maps out and done this you can’t do it with gloves you have to do it with bare hands. I didn’t have them but I saw the skin of my hands was hanging, hanging loose but eventually they, somebody got, and got through to the airfield, to Limavady and they sent transport out there and I think it was Flight Lieutenant Storer I think came out, picked me up and took me to Roe Valley Hospital which was a little hospital, mainly, mainly for maternity, and put, put me in there and I was in there for quite some time. My mother and father were sent for and they came over. The, our, not being critical or being nasty but our medical officer was a big Irishman who was a bit fond, bit fond of the bottle and he, he said, in my hearing, I didn’t, I don’t remember losing consciousness, I may have done. But he said to my mother in my hearing, ‘You can either have him buried here with medical, with er marshall, a marshall funeral or we can send his body home. With the CO, with the MO was a little fresh, fresh medical officer. He was a flying officer but he had just joined the medical service and I’m sure he was a foreigner, non-British and he said to my mother, ‘If you don’t do something he’s going to die.’ And my mother kicked up a, kicked up a stink and I was flown back to England to, but whilst I was in there, in hospital there, the chaps had, there was nothing else to do up there on this and they used to come in to the hospital, really for something to do and I remember them saying, ‘The Bismarck had been sunk. The Bismarck’s been sunk.’ And apparently the navy had, which I haven’t checked but I think it must be right, but I was flown back to this country in a hospital aircraft. I’m pretty sure it was an Oxford with a, with a doctor Aitchison. I’m sure it was Dr Aitchison was my bod and we were coming back, flying back to Halton, the RAF hospital at Halton, and about the Midlands the pilot had been warned that there was enemy, there was enemy activity in the area and I was being escorted by two fighters and when we landed at Halton they did a victory roll over the airfield and disappeared. When they got me off the aircraft on the, they got me to the hospital someone took the, uncovered my, my, my details and said, ‘Oh he’s only a bloody sergeant.’ So that, that was my greeting to Halton Hospital. But while I was there I was treated very much so. But I think he was, I think it was a Squadron Leader George Morley, again I wouldn’t mind that being checked but he did some very, very, some very essential first aid, first aid to burns treatment and it was, it was through him that my hands got away with a lot, they could have easily been bandaged as clumps but it was he, George Morley I’m sure but one day Archibald McIndoe appeared and, at Halton Hospital and he took all of our, all the burns patients back to East Grinstead much, much to the annoyance of George Morley. And there, the Halton Hospital was very good but even the nurses, although they were good nurses, they were still disciplined. Disciplined. RAF discipline. And you weren’t, you almost had to lie to attention when the CO came around on his weekly, on his weekly inspection. He seemed to be more interested in whether there was dust on the window sill. I think the sights, I think the patients there were he wasn’t used to it, he just wasn’t used to it. He just wasn’t used to it and he seemed to think well I I can’t do it and George Morley can and he didn’t, he didn’t really inspect us. But any rate, at Halton, at East Grinstead we were put in to Ward Three and we, it was a great leveller. A great leveller, Ward Three. There were quite a few Battle of Britain pilots in there and there was, there was no, nobody was rank conscious there. We all, they looked at, the commissioned people looked at us wondering and we looked at them wondering but the way Archibald McIndoe treated us all it soon, it soon cancelled out any, any rank consciousness and I think that made, made it a lot for, for the success but I had about, all in all I had about twenty nine operations. And there, I always remember there was a flying, flying officer, I think it was a Flying Officer Burton. He did a pinch graft on me. That’s where they took a little piece of skin from the unburnt part of my legs and planted them on the backs of my thighs which had been badly burned. A pinch graft. But that was his first operation and I believe he went on, well I mentioned his name since they, and people said he became quite a big name in plastic surgery. But as I say I had twenty five, twenty six, twenty nine operations and, but the big, the thing about it is Archibald McIndoe did not like, did not like authority poking its nose in and he was very much, he was very much for the saying, making you not feel conscious, self-conscious and he railed, ranted at people of East Grinstead to treat them normally which they did do. Then after a while they, when they were getting fairly active we went out to industry to mix, to mix with other people. I went to Kelvin Bottomley and Bairds who were instrument makers down at Basingstoke for three months. Then I went to, then you go back to hospital then for three months and then another three months I went to Carter, I don’t know, at Wembley and we did that just to get us acclimatised to meeting and we did work too. Acclimatised to meeting people and getting, getting, stopping from being self-conscious. But of course at these places people rather looked upon you as heroes kind of thing and it made you feel not, because they did it, it made you not conscious of what you looked like to them and from there on I came out. I went back to my old job as, well I do know, a big thing Archibald McIndoe did, while I was in East Grinstead, while I was in East Grinstead hospital the chaps came down from, as it was a, came down from ministry, air ministry to try and convince, I don’t know whether it was convince, whether we should go out under a pension or stay in. They tried to encourage some people to go out so they didn’t have to pay. One always thinks nasty thoughts about but it was as if they were wanting you to go out to save money but Archibald McIndoe heard about it and stopped it there and then. How could he carry on his, his healing if people weren’t there, back doing their old jobs and from there on I I was, I had an airfield as an airfield controller where I used to be in a caravan at the end of the runway telling aircraft, signalling aircraft a green light whether it was alright for them to take off or land or a red light if it was caution. Not, not to. And there, in, I don’t know now but there again this airfield, airfield I was at was Ossington, Ossington in Nottinghamshire was taken over for British Overseas Airways to train their pilots on their aircraft and it had been an OTU before that and it was going too well until the boss of British Overseas Airways started to be a bit, a bit bossy and, kind of thing, you know. He was a civilian and we were all air crew, air force and after a while we started answering him back and there was always a feud, a feud going on. And then once, one Friday or Saturday he went away as an airline pilot and came back on Monday as a squadron leader which changed, which changed things a lot. We always seemed to fall out with him and I got a wee bit fed up and I went to the orderly room and in charge of the orderly room was a Flight Sergeant Williamson. He had been in the RAF, or rightly had been in the Royal Flying Corps in the Great War and I said to him, ‘Willy, get me a posting please.’ And he said, ‘I can’t.’ He said, ‘The only way you’ll get away is to apply for a commission,’ So I applied for a commission and somehow I got it and I went to various places and I finished up at Cosford but I got this commission and I went to various places overseas. I was at Blackbushe Airport and I went overseas to El Adem and I was on my way to the Far East and I got, we got to Cairo and while we were there the atomic bomb was dropped so my posting to the Far East was scrubbed and I was posted up to, to Italy and I was at Poppiano, just by Vesuvius and Pompeii there and while I was there my padre took me up to Rome and we had a, he was a Czechoslovakian, Australian Czechoslovakian and he was going back to Australia and he still had a friend up in Rome I think, who later became Cardinal Knox who went to Perth in Australia and they got us , they got us an audience with the pope there. And another funny thing is we were out in Cairo. We had one night. We thought that we were going to be posted. One of us went down to Wadi al Far, one went to Malta and I was going to Italy.
Other: Do you want a refill or anything? More tea or coffee.
CB: I was –
Other: Yes? No? Sure.
CB: Yes please.
DO: I was going to Italy and we had a wee bit of a silly night on the junior officer’s club on on the Nile. One chap who I shouldn’t have said it but he did get on my nerves. He was always talk. Talk. Talk. Full of. He went out of Wadi Hal Far, one of them went to, the accounting officer went to Malta and I went to El Adem on my way back to, on my way to Poppiano and when I was demobbed I was flown back to Cosford to be, and I was, it was a bit foggy in the morning and when I woke up there was the, the fellow who I’d been drinking with on the, in the officer’s club, the fellow who annoyed me. I heard his voice and of course he had been demobbed at the same time. He came back and I even, I later joined the ministry of aircraft, Ministry of Civil Aviation as a controller and I went to various airfields. I went to Glasgow, Shetland, Wick, Inverness and then I came back down south and that’s where I flew. Roughly what happened.
CB: In what year did you retire then Desmond?
DO: ‘47.
CB: 1947. From the ministry.
DO: No.
CB: Or demob was ‘47.
DO: From the air force.
CB: Yeah.
DO: To the ministry.
CB: Ok. We’ll stop there a mo. Thank you.
[machine pause]
DO: They’d heard, everybody’s was blown, the aircraft was blown up.
CB: When you were pranged they thought it -
DO: Yeah. They thought -
CB: Yeah.
DO: As always your kit was rifled.
CB: Oh.
DO: By your colleagues.
CB: Oh right.
DO: And -
CB: Because they thought you were all, all dead.
DO: But everything was so disorganised there. I’ve got the thing, I’ve got somewhere, I wrote to the RAF, RAF records and they wrote that back and they gave me the obvious when I joined but then they said after that there’s nothing. Everything just terribly disorganised. In fact Limavady was a disaster. It really was.
CB: Did you keep in touch later with the other members of your crew?
DO: No. I attempted to. Stan Dawney the first wireless operator, he tried to, he tried to pat me out and he burned, he singed his hands but he was a nice chap. My rear gunner. I don’t know. I’ve forgotten his name. I’ve got his photograph somewhere. But my pilot, my first pilot was a very much an [stress] officer in the auxiliary air force. And he was very very rich. His father was a big potato man. And I’ve got, in fact he wrote, he had his -
Other: Is that the man that sent an account of your accident and you thought hmmn that’s a funny viewpoint? Dad.
CB: Ay?
Other: Is that the man that sent you an account of the accident that was in some journal and you thought, hmmn [laughs]. I don’t know where it is. I don’t know where it is.
CB: We’re just pausing for a mo.
[machine pause]
CB: The pilot was Pilot Officer John Dickson of 502 squadron. There’s a, an article here.
DO: He was a -
CB: On a wing and a prayer.
Other: Oh if it’s -
DO: The thing about his, he never came to briefing and -
VT: Handy.
DO: He always, he always turned up, he always turned up in, his WAAF always drove him in a low car, drove him up to the aircraft when we, just before we took off. And -
CB: He was relying on the second pilot for the briefing was he?
DO: Chris Carmichael. Nice fella. I can’t think where it is now but his, his biography was written by somebody in Belfast and he sent me a copy of it and asked me to, asked me to write my autobiography and he -
CB: Oh yes.
DO: But that is the stories are -
CB: Other?
[pause]
CB: I’m just stopping again.
[machine pause]
DO: My squadron.
CB: Oh you haven’t been in contact with any of the squadron.
DO: We didn’t know each other. We didn’t have a sergeant’s mess so the only ones, the only things to do in Limavady was go to the Alexandra Hotel or go to, they had one cinema and the pictures used to change every, every Wednesday there and that’s all there was to do.
CB: ‘Cause it was in the middle of nowhere.
DO: No. Nothing to do. Terrible. Terrible.
CB: So did you try to do things as a crew?
DO: No. No. No.
CB: Why was that do you think?
DO: Well it seemed to, certainly we wouldn’t have done anything with the commissioned type but we were all, I don’t know but they would say there was absolutely nothing to do. It was a little village. A little village.
Other: Who was Mr Redhead?
DO: Ay?
Other: Who was Mr Redhead?
DO: He was the, he was the second wireless operator.
Other: You kept in contact with him for a bit though.
DO: No. He kept in contact with me.
Other: Oh you enjoyed hearing from him I’m sure.
[pause]
CB: We’re just stopping again because you deserve a slurp of your coffee.
[machine paused]
CB: So we’re restarting now and I’m asking Desmond about what happened. So the aircraft’s down, the grass is on fire, the ground is on fire.
DO: Yeah.
CB: How did you feel then?
DO: Well you felt a bit numb really. All you wanted to do, you wanted to get to safety, to help but I don’t think, I don’t think I thought anything, anything dramatic or - [pause]. I don’t know. All I wanted to do was to get somewhere to get er, because it was, it was very cold so all my, were all frozen so I didn’t, I don’t think I once ever felt sorry for myself. I don’t think -
CB: So this was, when was this exactly? What date?
DO: What? The crash?
CB: Yeah. February ‘42. Because it was very cold.
DO: Yeah. I should know it shouldn’t I?
CB: Yeah. Ok. We’ll come back to that. What were the extent of your burns?
DO: Well. Just before, we, we were issued with these American flying jackets. They were leather from there to there.
CB: From the waist right up.
DO: Yeah. And leather flying boots which were from there to there. Other than that I was burnt. Burnt. But in fact I was very lucky actually that if I hadn’t had those I would have, I think they helped me. Even when I went, as far as I was concerned, well I know as a fact that I walked. I walked down the side of this hill to the farmhouse and they didn’t carry me, they didn’t lift me. I walked. As I said there were peat, peat trenches dug. We kept falling down those and going ha ha kind of thing but I think the shock was, was, numbed any feeling at all.
CB: At what stage did you begin to feel the pain?
DO: I don’t know because once, once I was bandaged you didn’t feel the pain I’m sure. I’m sure.
CB: But you were bandaged. When? -
DO: Well, as soon as I got to the hospital I just -
CB: So that was quite a while.
DO: It was three to four hours I should think but the, I still think I had a lot to thank the weather for. That it -
[pause]
CB: So your hands, arms and your head were badly burned.
DO: Yeah.
CB: Where was the worst burn and pain?
DO: Oh the hand, the worst of the lot on, on operations is when they bandage your hands. They put tight bandages on to force the join, force the, I mean all these are, all these are force. Are all -
CB: All the joints.
DO: Yeah, and they, I mean once it starts moving it’s broken the seal so they put these very, very, very, and your fingers swell a bit too.
CB: Is this gauze that they are -
DO: Yes.
CB: Do they use gauze to, to bind the hand?
DO: Sorry?
CB: What sort of material. Is it gauze or - ?
DO: What do they call those -
CB: Elastic bandages.
DO: Yes.
CB: Right.
DO: And they put them on.
CB: Surgical dressings.
DO: Yeah. No. That was the, that any part and on the legs too where they put on and it was yeah having to be careful for a fortnight to three weeks. I had, I had three chins but there again it’s one of those things. Once you have food you start moving the, and I mean I was warned that give up eating for three weeks.
CB: What were they feeding you with? Soup?
DO: Yeah. Yeah. You didn’t like that because it made you feel an invalid. It was the same with the ears and these ears are plastic surgery. They become part, there was skin put on and there was bandaged behind and a very, very tight bandage put. The thing about it is this was early on plastic surgery and they were finding out what not to do later. No. We were, we were very early on in, in Archibald McIndoe’s success quite frankly because he was, I’m sure he was making lots of, inverted commas, lots of mistakes which he remedied later.
CB: Yes. The date was the 27th of April 1941. I was a year too late. So -
DO: That’s when I pranged.
CB: Yes. So that means it was the really early days of -
DO: Yeah.
CB: His activities.
DO: Oh very. Plastic surgery. Very early.
CB: And how did you feed yourself or did they feed you to begin with?
DO: No. Again I don’t know if it was done purposely but all our nurses were very, very attractive and you wanted to show them, show off to them how tough you were. We don’t need your help. It was very, I was [?] you know one who, so I was [she?] spooned soup with a toothpick you know. Some wonderful characters. Wonderful characters.
CB: So you were in a ward. How many people in the ward?
DO: There was, when we started Ward Three at East Grinstead. There was there and there was a dozen beds there on that ward but that ward was knocked down and, because it was all the sergeants were getting in there, all the, and overseas pilots and McIndoe didn’t like it, he had the ward, and he purposely, he purposely made sure that, ‘cause he was, he was a bit of, I don’t know if he ever had any trouble with other people but he was very conscious about mixing. Mixing. And he was very successful. Very successful.
CB: And so how about in your recuperation because your legs are burned as well as your hands and your face? How did you manage to get yourself comfortable?
DO: That was one of the actually, actually I think it was possibly that I did myself quite a bit of no good but it was only if I asked that person for assistance they’d think I’m a cissy. I can’t do it. So you’d want to show how tough you were and no, a lot of it quite frankly, quite frankly the patients there at East Grinstead did a lot for themselves psychologically and physically by not giving in. Did not give in.
CB: And how did they entertain you? Because some people like you couldn’t move for a bit.
DO: We had, we had various people used to come down on the Sundays but there were two, there were two cinemas in East Grinstead and they both changed their films on Wednesday so you had four films a week, kind of thing. And the one hindsight, the one bad thing was if you went to a pub for a drink you’d never have to buy it yourself which was a bad thing because it it tempted you to drink more and the big thing in the RAF hospitals, in service hospitals they used to have a blue uniform. Well, I don’t know if it’s a uniform but blue trousers and a blue, blue jacket. A white shirt. And if you were, if you were not a bit brains or something a red tie then you was in and of course no publican was allowed to serve anybody in a blue uniform. Now, McIndoe found this out and he kept all of us in uniform. He kept one blue suit for punishment and it was only one bloke, old Jonah, great fella. He was, he had to wear it for a while but that’s -
CB: What had he done to deserve that?
DO: I don’t know. He could have done anything. He was, he was bonkers. Great fella. Great fella.
CB: So you’ve got all these people with different experiences. To what extent did you share your experiences?
DO: Nobody.
CB: That’s what I thought.
DO: Nobody talked about what happened.
CB: Right.
DO: Nobody. Because you were always afraid that they’d outdone you.
CB: Sure.
DO: So you could let yourself down rather.
CB: Yeah. So what was the main topic of conversation if there was one?
DO: There really wasn’t one. Usually talked about funny incidents and Archibald McIndoe, I presume it was him got, got work for us to do in the, I mean there was a mix. Little handy jobs that you used to do to keep you. One thing was to keep the fingers going and the other thing for to keep your brain, brain ticking over but actually we were, we were very lucky because it was quite easy for, quite easy for not thinking at all.
CB: The danger I suppose was, was it, that the mind and was not exercised?
DO: Well just stagnate.
CB: Yeah.
DO: You got up. You had, you had meals given to you. You had people to come in, nurses to fuss over you and it was very tempting just to lie back and let them do everything.
CB: And as part of the activities did you have singsongs and somebody on the piano or what happened?
DO: No. There was, there was a piano in Ward Three for a while and Archibald McIndoe used to come and play it but that was all that -
CB: And what about beer on the ward?
DO: It was said and I don’t, I did not notice it, I did not experience it that they had beer on the ward. Now, I didn’t see but I can imagine for one occasion but it’s always that that was remembered.
CB: Yes.
DO: I can’t believe it but –
CB: They didn’t want you rolling out of bed.
DO: No. No. No. It wasn’t much. I used to have lunch and then half a dozen of you used to walk down to the cinema and you’d come back just in, just in time for tea, you see. It was a shocking life. In hindsight it was a shocking life.
CB: The, the cinema was on the camp was it or was it in -
DO: No. No. There was two. The Whitehall theatre and where, we had, we had our, we had our original, where we had our, our foundation of the Guinea Pig Club dinner there at the Whitehall Cinema and the radio centre. So there were two cinemas, two shows a week, different films. So just went. We, we had one pilot learning German and the young lady, a very, very attractive lady sat on a bed and crossed her legs and, and she had quite a class going. I remember the haben sie? Est is gut. Est is se gut but she, she gave us, she was running quite a popular, very popular class so suddenly she gave up and oh dear we got an old hausfrau came in and took her place and the class disintegrated.
CB: I wonder what signal that was?
DO: Terrible.
CB: What did you have to do to qualify to go out to the pub?
DO: Nothing at all but you didn’t, you didn’t risk being gated. No. Because the thing about is if you went down to the pub everybody wanted to buy you a drink and after a while it used to be embarrassing actually to refuse it.
CB: Did you have an escort with you?
DO: No.
CB: No.
DO: No.
CB: So what was the reaction of the local population?
DO: The, as I say McIndoe somehow, I don’t know, he did it, he got it broadcast in this little town, do not stare, and people were very, no, people in East Grinstead helped an awful lot because they didn’t, they didn’t cringe or anything at all like that.
CB: You said you had twenty nine operations.
DO: Yeah.
CB: How did that work as a sequence?
DO: I think, I think, I think that time available was it. If, if he had an hour to spare, ‘Who wants, who wants that slot?’ And if you were, he’d look at what’s got to be done in an hour and he said, ‘Right. I’ll take him down and do his hands and do his,’ I think, I think it was a lot like that.
CB: So we’re talking about ‘41 is when the crash took place. When did you eventually leave hospital?
DO: [pause] It was three and a bit years.
CB: So it’s nearly the end of the war.
DO: When did I crash?
CB: ’41.
[pause]
CB: April ’41.
DO: I suppose early ‘43 I presume because I came out of the service in ‘46. Was it? And, and I don’t know. I wouldn’t hazard a guess.
CB: Well let’s say it was ‘43. What did you do in the rest of the war in the RAF?
DO: Well I was on airfield control where you were at the caravan at the end of the runway and you had a red light and a green light and if you saw a, you gave, if an aircraft was waiting to take off, if it was all clear out there you gave them a green light. If there was an aircraft coming in you gave a green light. If something suddenly happened, a lorry, you’d give them a red light and that was your job and at the airfield at Ossington they were doing, it was an OTU, Operational Training Unit prior to going on operations you were fairly well up all night doing, doing it.
CB: And what vehicle are you in because it’s a mobile unit?
DO: Yeah.
CB: You’re at the end of the runway.
DO: A caravan.
CB: Right.
DO: A caravan.
CB: Which is black and white boxes.
DO: Black and white squares.
CB: Yeah. Squares. Yeah.
DO: And you used to have a meal brought out to you in a, in a hay box at night.
CB: So a lot of the time you were a sergeant. Did you go to flight sergeant before you were commissioned?
DO: Yeah. I was, I was a flight sergeant.
CB: And what prompted the commissioning?
DO: Well, as I say it was British Overseas Airways. Their fellow in charge was a, we suddenly realised he wasn’t in the service so we could say [?]. So when he was given a temporary squadron leader it was then we started, instead I went to Flight Sergeant Williamson and said, ‘Get me a posting,’ and all he could do he said, and it showed you how hard up they were. ‘All you can do is apply for a commission,’ so I applied and got it.
CB: And what training did you get to become an officer?
DO: You had the Officers’ Training School. It was mainly physical. A little bit learning about RAF law but not really much. It was really conditioning you to be in charge of men. As you’ve never, you’ve always been in charge, you’ve always been in charge of and cut out any slovenly habits you’ve got and things like that.
CB: Can I just go back to the operations? How did you feel about this sequence because there’s an awful lot of them so where, of operations, twenty nine. Were you looking forward to them? In dread of it? Or what were you feeling?
DO: Oh no. No. No. No. Not at all. I don’t think I ever, was ever apprehensive about what was done. I don’t think so. Maybe. You always thought, you always thought what they had to do was for you. It was for your betterment.
CB: Ok. Finally changing the subject. When did you meet your wife and where.
DO: She’s my second wife. My first wife I was at Glasgow, I was at Inverness. I was in charge of Inverness airport and she, my first wife worked in teleprinters [?] and up there she was from Elgin which was thirty miles up the road. She was a catholic. I was a catholic. We met going to mass and we got married there and we had five children. And she died of cancer.
CB: Oh.
DO: Then I got around, I finished up at London airport and my present wife was was an air, an air traffic assistant there and we had nothing to do so we got married. We had two children. Well we, we’ve been very unlucky. Two of our girls were killed in accidents.
CB: Dreadful. What was your first wife’s name?
DO: Renee. Renee Patterson. A great Scottish dancer.
CB: Oh. And your current wife. What was her -
DO: She was Winifred.
CB: Last name.
DO: Freaks. F R E A K E S.
CB: Ok. Right. Thank you very much indeed.
[machine pause]
CB: That was really interesting. So your accident -
DO: Did I tell you about the accident? We were after the [pause] Bismarck. We were after the Bismarck.
CB: Yes. You did. How much flying had you done at that point?
DO: It must have been over a hundred hours. I was, I was, I was very conceited about that flying because I flew with no aids, you had to keep WT silence and I wasn’t astro navigation conscious and -
CB: Did you use a sextant?
DO: No. As I say we didn’t, hadn’t, no, you used to take, used to use a bomb sight and take your drift on air waves, on wave tops. I thought I was very good and -
CB: Before the accident did you engage any German submarines or surface ships?
DO: Well, in fact the Germans had a great big old aircraft also out on patrol.
CB: The Condor.
DO: I don’t. But if you, if you saw one there was a race. He, if you saw you there was a race to get in to the clouds so you didn’t see each other.
CB: Oh right.
DO: I think it was the Condor.
CB: Yeah. The Focke Wulf Condor.
DO: Yeah.
CB: But you didn’t do any attacks on surface vessels or submarines then?
DO: On suspect. Yeah. You didn’t, wasn’t conscious of anything.
CB: Who was running the air to surface radar? On the aircraft? On the Whitley?
DO: It was installed in the aircraft but there was an awful lot of guesswork in it.
CB: Yes. But who operated the system?
DO: It was installed in the aircraft. It, I think the system was installed as a box.
CB: But somebody was operating the system and looking at the screen.
DO: Oh we were.
CB: You were or the wireless operator.
DO: Well anybody but somebody was.
CB: Right. Ok. Anything else?
VT: No. That’s fine.
[machine paused]
DO: Not long, not long after I crashed.
VT: Yeah.
DO: As I say the fellas had nothing to do. They came to the hospital and told us that the Bismarck had been sunk.
VT: Yeah.
DO: But the navy were after it anyway.
VT: Yeah. And you know the story of that do you?
DO: No.
VT: Oh right.
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Interview with Desmond O'Connell
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AOConnellDA160809
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Pending review
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Desmond O’Connell was born in London in 1919. He followed in his brother’s footsteps by joining the Royal Air Force Voluntary Reserve in 1939. He went to Cambridge to commence pilot training but half the contingent were transferred to become Observers. He was posted to 502 squadron to Aldergrove and then to Limavady in Northern Ireland. One night the squadron were detailed to attack the Bismarck and were loaded with extra petrol tanks, bombs and depth charges. However the plane could not take the extra weight and crashed three miles from base. On making his way out of the plane, one of the extra fuel tanks ruptured and Desmond was dowsed with petrol. When Desmond did make the escape, the plane was on fire and he suffered catastrophic burns. When he was in hospital, his parents were called for by the doctor, who asked his mother where she would like him to be buried. She wouldn’t accept this and Desmond was transferred by hospital plane to RAF Halton Hospital. His plane was escorted by two fighters who did a victory roll over the airfield as his plane landed. Desmond then began years of recuperation and endured twenty nine operations as a member of Archibald McIndoe’s Guinea Pig Club.
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Chris Brockbank
Date
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2016-08-09
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Julie Williams
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01:37:21 audio recording
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eng
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Sound
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Royal Air Force
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Great Britain
Northern Ireland--Londonderry (County)
England--Sussex
Great Britain
aircrew
animal
crash
entertainment
ground personnel
Guinea Pig Club
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
medical officer
navigator
RAF Halton
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/106/1564/PBriggsDW1701.1.jpg
0ddb6a37aec4aa568c806c57545b57bd
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/106/1564/ABriggsDW170327.1.mp3
154ae8a60c9fc85e03bb0d4e30404e55
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Title
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Briggs, Donald
Donald W Briggs
D W Briggs
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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.
Date
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2017-03-27
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Briggs, DW
Description
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21 items. The collection consists of one oral history interview with flight engineer Donald Ward Briggs (1924 - 2018), his logbook, memoirs and 16 wartime and post war photographs. He completed 62 operations with 156 Squadron Pathfinders flying from RAF Upwood. Post war, Donald Briggs retrained as a pilot flying Meteors and Canberras. He eventually joined the V-Force on Valiants and was the co-pilot for the third British hydrogen bomb test at Malden Island in 1957.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Donald Briggs and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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PJ: My name is Pete Jones. I’m interviewing Flight Lieutenant Donald Briggs DFC. Other people attending are Sandra Jones, Pete Jones and Ann Kershaw. It is Monday the 27th of March 2017 and we are in Mr Briggs’ home in Freeland, Oxfordshire. Thank you Donald for agreeing to be interviewed for the IBCC. Donald, now tell me about your early years before you joined up Bomber Command.
DB: Right. Thank you Peter. Well, I was brought up in a small village called Lealholm which was about ten miles from Whitby on the north east coast and my parents ran the village post office and general stores and I, I used to help out while I was a teenager and that sort of thing and then I went to, I went to Whitby County School, a good grammar school and I did five years there but I decided that having seen some advertising literature for the air force and apprenticeships at RAF Halton, and so I applied and then I sat the entrance exam and got through all right, and this was as things were building up towards World War Two. And so the Royal Air Force were recruiting ground servicing personnel in pretty large numbers. At this time I was a fifteen year old and so I saw my chance to learn all about aircraft and what, how you put them together and so on and so I applied for the examination as I said. And I joined at Halton on two days after the war was declared. And that was on the 5th of September 1939. And so there is little doubt that the harsh discipline at Halton coupled with excellent theoretical lessons in schools, and the schools were known as Kermode Hall after the well-known Kermode, the aerodynamicist and he used to teach there actually, and many hours filing pieces of metal in workshops. And it turned boys into men and later in the course we worked in teams stripping down and re-assembling many types of aero engines and at the end of the training which was reduced a bit because of being wartime, and there was a great demand for fitters out in the units, in the fighting units. So my first posting was at RAF Finningley which is about ten miles from Doncaster. And I worked there on the engines of Wellington bombers and Hampden bombers and the Rolls Royce Vulture engines in the Avro Manchester and they, they gave a lot of trouble and er, which meant there were several engine changes that I assisted in. And the next posting was to RAF Upper Heyford where I was promoted to corporal at the age of eighteen. Now there I worked on the Wellington Mark 3 with more powerful Hercules engines and after carrying out rectification on an aircraft if an air test was necessary I usually asked if I could accompany the pilot. Which I did on several occasions and after approximately two and a half years I decided that more excitement was needed so I volunteered for air crew. The president of the selection board said that I had passed all the tests to become a pilot, but the waiting list for pilots was pretty lengthy and also there was a little demand, this was mid-1943 and the commanding officer of the board interviewing, the selection board er he, he said, ‘Now look you’re already a technician, a fitter 2E,’ he said, ‘And what we need is flight engineers,’ and so he said, ‘You want to, you’ll be on operations within six months. You do want to fight don’t you?’ And of course I had to say, ‘Yes. Of course I do,’ and that’s how I became a flight engineer, by passing the course at Royal Air Force St Athan in Wales. Now, during this crewing up procedure when I finished my training I was sent to Lindholme near Doncaster. I was fortunate in meeting the captain of the crew that I was to fly with. He was Flying Officer Bill Neal with his crew and they had already completed a tour of operations on Wellingtons. Now Bill explained that they had been selected to join the Pathfinder force and what our duties would entail. Our first step was to convert on to the Halifax Mark 1 because these were ex beaten up old war, operational aircraft that had seen better days, and so we had to train on them and during our training sorties, Bill Neal gave me a potted flying lesson so that the very, very first aircraft I flew was the Halifax. And that flew alright and I got the hang of how to fly straight and level and do gentle turns and so on, but we completed the course of thirty hours and went on to convert on to the Lancaster at RAF Hemswell, north of Lincoln. Or nearer to Gainsborough actually. I did the night conversion on to the Lancaster on my twentieth birthday, would you believe? And after attending a short course to learn the Pathfinder procedures we joined number 156 squadron Pathfinders at RAF Upwood near Peterborough. And as a new crew we had two weeks of training to complete during which time I took on the additional role of bomb aimer. I was taught how to run up on the, set the bomb sight up to start with and, and then how to run up and give corrections to the pilot, running up to the dropping point, aiming point. And we dropped practice bombs at a nearby bombing range which I seemed to get the hang of quite, quite well. And also during this time Bill Neal vacated his seat. There were no dual control Lancasters on squadrons you see, just a single set of controls in the left hand seat for the captain, but he allowed me to fly this superb aircraft, the Lancaster. And on completion of this training we were declared operational and on the 11th of June 1944, we saw that our crew was on the battle order. All a bit, a bit terrifying for a new chap like myself. The target was vast marshalling yards at Tours in the south of France. The Germans were routing most of their reinforcements through here to the Normandy battlefront. Now, on this particular trip we had a couple of night fighter sightings and attacks and Bill Neal being a terrific pilot he corkscrewed and got rid of them. The whole secret was if you had a rear gunner with such good night vision and if he saw the night fighter before he saw you, then you stood a fairly decent chance of getting away without, without disaster. Well, firstly I volunteered for aircrew and I was fully committed now. There was no turning back. Anybody that did turn back were, were called lack of moral fibre and they were, they were given the most terrible mucky jobs that you could ever imagine. And so, but anyway I stuck with it and destiny would decide whether or not I survived. And secondly I was fortunate in joining a very experienced crew and they all made me a welcome addition to the crew. They had not flown previously with a flight engineer because the Wellington didn’t need one and so on. I should explain that in Pathfinder crews the reason the flight engineers took on the extra duty of visual bomb aimer was that the primary bomb aimer operated the H2S radar, and a lot of our targets relied on this for identification and running up and so on. Now 156 Squadron were primarily a blind marker squadron which meant that if no target indicator flares were seen by the master bomber, he would call for blind markers to be dropped and they were reds which is where we came in. And they would be seen cascading and so on, and give an initial aiming point for the main force of bombers running in. The master bomber would then know that the markers were dropped blind and the target had not been visually identified. But on the very first operation we were about to fly we were part of the illuminating force, and we carried twelve rather large hooded parachute flares. And you drop all twelve together and that was like turning the target into a daylight. The visually illuminated target so they were able to, to identify the aiming point, the master bomber. We had a master bomber and his deputy and he had a dicey job. He used to go right down to about four thousand feet and circle around and a very dangerous job. Some of them didn’t make it and were shot down. And on the first ten operations mostly dropping flares, and on — I was mentioning earlier about the run in to the Tours marshalling yards we had two night fighter attacks and we thought actually that — we heard later that these were night fighter pilots that were training down in France so they weren’t sort of fully, fully operational like their counterparts in, up in Germany and Holland and so on. And so it was a great feeling to be safely on the ground back at our Upwood base and I often used to say to my colleagues, my — well between us we’ve said we climbed up that ladder of the Lancaster at the back end where you board the aircraft, not knowing whether we’d ever be in the position to come back, climb down it again on to terra firma so — but happily I did that sixty-two times. Gratefully rather, I survived those to, climb down that ladder again. And I, our crew was sent on Allied support for the ground forces on the Normandy battlefront and we dropped sticks of one thousand pounders, fourteen bombs in a rapid stick of bombs from only four thousand feet. And the aircraft shook very badly with the blast as you’d expect at that height, and we could see the blast rings coming up from other people’s bombs as well. And we also attacked the V1 launch sights in the Pas-de-Calais area. And the, we formation, six Lancasters formatted on a Mosquito aircraft which was equipped with this very accurate blind bombing system called Oboe. They, they used that for, some of the Pathfinder squadrons used it for marking targets as well. So that when his bomb doors opened we opened ours and when we saw the bombs leave his bomb bay we hit our bomb release button and, as you can imagine that was a lot of bombs going down, usually finishing up in rendering the buzz bombs site unusable. And that must have saved a lot of lives in the, around London. And my first German target was Hamburg, and that was our thirteenth op. And it was quite a, quite a dicey town. Very heavily defended of course as always was Hamburg, being a major port and ship building and that. But we came through the barrage unscathed. My skipper always used to say, ‘What you see in the sky is what’s been, the flak bursts and they’re not going to do us any harm. It’s the ones you can’t see that er.’ But anyway, night fighters were of course were in the area, and we saw several bombers going down in flames, and erm, it was a sickening sight and we, er, sort of sympathised with our colleagues and comrades. They would meet their end in a fireball from bombs and fuel when they hit the ground. It was a sickening sight but we made a note of its position and we got on with our own job. And there wasn’t much else you could do. [pause] Bill Neal, my skipper, always said to me, ‘Don,’ he said, ‘when we’ve finished our tour of operations,’ not if but when, he said, ‘I’m going to put you up for commissioning and,’ he said, ‘Then you can join the rest of us in the officer’s mess.’ So I said, ‘Oh well that’s good. Pleased to hear that,’ and sure enough that’s what happened. After I’d done forty operations and about the end of my first tour and I had an interview with Air Vice Marshall, Don Bennett up at Pathfinder headquarters and he was satisfied and so I became Pilot Officer Don Briggs. And erm, so the — I carried on with Bill because he was awarded the DFC because he’d already, that completed two tours of operations having done one before I met him. So what one more tour and of course usually, certainly a skipper got the DFC. And, but I’ll just tell you during a daylight operation to a target called Kleve in October ’44, we had a flak burst right on the port wing tip. And it, we thought it was really the end, you know, because it was that close. And it damaged the aileron quite badly on the port side, but we still had, skipper had control of the aircraft well and with his amazing piloting skill brought us back to a safe landing back at Upwood. But there was substantial damage, the aileron was, was in a terrible mess. And I pressed on in to my second tour with Bill apart from one operation with another crew as their flight engineer had completed his tour of operations. And one of which was with the squadron commander, one of these battlefront operations, and I had the gunnery leader, the squadron leader was — I was on the bomb sight at the front, and he was in the front turret with his legs, and one of his legs was in plaster. He’d, he’d broken a leg or done something, and in plaster, and this was rubbing on my ear as I was trying to aim bombs and he was swivelling around the front turret which normally wasn’t manned at all. And so that was about it. I’m happy to say that despite several very close shaves, I came through sixty two operations unscathed. Lady Luck was certainly on my side. Bill Neal pressed on with another flight engineer and notched up just short of a hundred ops and he was awarded the DSO and he’d already got the DFC. And the French awarded him the Croix de Guerre, and I’m eternally grateful to Bill for getting me through the most dangerous period of my life. He made sure that my operational record was recognised resulting in the award of the DFC in July 1945. I’ve got a few statistics here which are, to save boring everybody, the number of French targets that we did was twenty-four but German targets exceeded that. Thirty-eight we did to German targets. Forty-one of those were night operations and we did twenty-one daylight operations some of which were daylight ops on Ruhr targets in the hell’s, what do they call it? Hell’s valley or something? Happy valley. That was it. And forty-one of those operations we had our own Lancaster which was GT J-Johnny. And so we flew that and of course that meant our own ground crew and we got to know them pretty well. Of those ops we did three raids on oil refineries, because the Germans were desperately short of fuel towards the end of the war and you can’t run a war machine without fuel. And the V1 sights we did, five of those attacks I was telling you about and five on the battlefront and, and then four on marshalling yards. Ruhr targets. Yes ten. We did ten of those and four in daylight, and my last thirty operations were all German targets. Now, it was a massive relief as you can imagine to have survived all those ops and great to be able to enjoy end of second tour leave with my parents and four younger brothers. I’m the eldest of five. So that ended my wartime contribution to the, to the war effort and I, after the war I was selected for Transport Command and flew on Yorks as a flight engineer going out to India and the Far East. And did that for a couple of years and then was posted to the Empire Test Pilot School at Farnborough and I got some valuable experience there. Only the very, very best of pilots were selected and of course we had exchange officers from America, from the United States Air Force and also the US navy. They sent a representative to the, representative to the empire test pilots course. And a lot of those test pilots that I flew with under training they became, you know, top test pilots for the different companies. And so a very interesting three years out, flying Lincolns and things mostly. And after that I was posted to Manby in Lincolnshire where I met an ex-Pathfinder wing commander and he advised me if I wanted to take pilot training, re-train as a pilot, I should write him a letter which I did. And he must have found it fairly satisfactory ‘cause he, he had me to London, to Hornchurch for a selection board and I passed everything there, all the aptitude tests and so on. And very soon in the summer of ’51, late summer, I started training as a pilot at RAF Ternhill in Shropshire and that was — I enjoyed every minute, every minute of that. It was wonderful. And so er, I passed out from there, graduated and awarded those prestigious pilot’s wings that, all RAF pilots remember being presented with their wings. And so I’ll lead on later to describe my, what, what the, what my path through the peacetime air force was. Right. Now. In the August of 1951, I was allowed to start my conversion to retrain as a pilot. And so I promptly, having got furnished accommodation for Edith and we had two children then and, in Louth, and I used to travel across to Ternhill in Shropshire. So the first two weeks of the course naturally was ground school and exams and all the rest of it. And then we started flying, and the aircraft then for training was the Percival Prentice which was a lumbering old thing, but you could do, you could do sort of basic aerobatics with it and so I went solo on that. My instructor sent me off on my own after about four or five hours. Something like that. And then I did sixty hours on the jet, Percival Provost and then I went on to Harvards and that was a wonderful machine to fly. A very big powerful five hundred and fifty horsepower engine in front of you and not easy to see when you’re flowing out for landing. The engine gets in the way, you’ve got to sort of look over the side a little bit. Anyway, I loved flying the Harvard and completed the course and did my final handling test and so on and graduated for my pilot’s wings presented by some air vice marshall and so I’ve still got the photograph. I trained with a lot of chaps that were engineering officers and they were sort of doing a seconded tour in the general duties flying branch just before going back on to engineering. And so from there it was a question of advanced training over at Oakington in Cambridgeshire, and the Meteor was the standard trainer for jet conversion. I had a French instructor of the French Armee de L’air, and George Golee [?]sent me on my first solo in a Meteor Mark 7 and that was enjoyable and went very well. And the, then working my way through the course — the one thing that I didn’t enjoy too much was at night climbing above thirty thousand feet unpressurised and I had a pretty bad attack of the bends. And ask anybody what the, what that’s like and all your joints, it’s the nitrogen that comes out in the joints of your, everywhere knees, ankles the whole lot, so you can only spend a few minutes above thirty. However, and down we came, and the one thing about the Meteor was when you’d been up high everything used to mist up on the inside so you’re sort of rubbing frantically to be able to see out for the landing. However, that was ok and I passed my final handling test with the wing commander, chief instructor and he seemed quite pleased with my performance and he, on landing, after landing offered me the chance of going straight back to Central Flying School to become a flying instructor. Like what we would call in the service creamed off. Creamed off CFS. Now I politely declined and said I was flattered and so on, but I would like to proceed to a Canberra squadron. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Yes, that’s fine just I was giving you the chance, you know.’ So that’s what I did, and I proceeded to Bassingbourn to convert on to Canberras, and in those days there was no dual controlled Canberra. You just had to ride alongside someone on the, what we used to call the rumble seat, and er, see what he did and make a note of the speeds and everything, and then on the second trip he would climb out and look up through the hatch and raise his thumb and say are you happy, and all the rest of it and off I went. Well I think somebody else had control, namely the almighty I think had control of that Canberra on take-off. They er, it was so steep, but anyway. I enjoyed my first, first solo and certainly strange having to fly an aircraft where you’d never handled the controls previously, anyway. And so from there I was posted right up to Lincolnshire to, to join 10 Squadron. We were just forming the first Canberra squadron at Scampton. And we, straightaway I was made a flight commander and in charge of all the servicing and so on, on the eight Canberras. And so we, we got on pretty well and the Canberra’s a wonderful aircraft to fly. Quite light on the controls and plenty of power there and so on. And we did lots of exercises, and I always remember on my first early night flying we were, couldn’t land back at Scampton because of bad weather and we were diverted down in to Cornwall to then St Eval which is just near, just north of Newquay. And the trouble with St Eval is that the runway is up high on the cliffs and you come, you come right in on the approach and this was at night and remember, and I hadn’t flown at night for quite some time and coming in over these cliffs and the runway itself had a great big hump in the middle so you could only see half of it when you touched down. And then happily the final half of the runway came into view as you went over the hump. But I got away with it alright, and so and then of course we spent the night and went back to Scampton the following day. My, my time at Scampton involved quite a lot of diversions. There was once we were diverted up to Kinloss in Scotland. And the Canberra had a fairly good performance for, for the time in the air, endurance as we called it. And so during that time on Canberras my boss was, he was an ex-flight commander over at Binbrook on Canberras, and he was promoted and took over 10 Squadron. And Punch Howard [?] was a great Mosquito night fighter ace and he used to go over these German night fighter airfields and fire off the colours of the day and join in the circuit and shoot down two or three night fighters by doing so. And for this he got the DFC and the DFC and bar as well. And so he set up a formation display team and he gave me a check for my formation flying, and he was happy so I joined his team. And we used to give displays up and down the country and there was one in particular when the National Air Races were on at Coventry airport. And so we gave this display and they gave us a good write up in the flight magazine and also a very congratulatory letter from the president of the Royal Aero Club, which I’ve still got a copy. And so that was, that was my forte if you like on 10 Squadron and from there I, we were actually moved over to East Anglia to, to 3 Group at Honington, RAF Honington near Bury St Edmunds actually. And so I spent about three or four months there before they suddenly came up with a posting and I was to be one of the first pilots to join the new V bomber force on Valiants. The, the courses were starting at RAF Gaydon near Leamington Spa, and so I joined as a co-pilot for Squadron Leader Arthur Steele, who later became air commodore. And so we were posted initially to 138 Squadron at Wittering and Edith was — we actually couldn’t get married quarters, they hadn’t built, they hadn’t finished building them so we lived in an old country hall called Rushington Hall. And so the, it was a wonderful old place, and we had one wing of the place to ourselves and it had a lounge half the size of a hangar. And the boys used to ride around on their tricycles up and down the corridors in this thing, this place. But it was, it was good and then by the time we’d spent three or four months there we were given a married quarter at Wittering and we, there we stayed in that for a good five or six years. Then 138 Squadron was the first squadron to form on Valiants of course but then they were forming a new squadron, 49, 49 Squadron to do the Grapple operation. That was the H bomb trials in the pacific from Christmas Island and our crew, Arthur Steele that is, and myself and the rest of the crew, were selected and in the April, sorry in the March of 1957 we all flew out to Christmas Island via Canada. Goose Bay first and then Edmonton, Alberta and then down to San Francisco where we spent a couple of days, and were able to do some sightseeing and exploring in the good old San Francisco. And then the big leg from there to Honolulu was against headwinds normally and we could work out that providing that the headwinds weren’t greater than sixty knots we were ok. We had enough fuel to get there and a little bit to spare. But and as it happened on the day the winds were lighter than that so we were fine. So it was, Arthur Steele was a good skipper. He used to share the landings with me and if it was my turn come hell or high water I would do it and the one at Honolulu was at Hickam air force base and you come right in over Pearl Harbour on the final approach. So that was, I couldn’t look for very, very long I’m afraid, just a quick glance. And so we had a lovely time and it happened to fall on St Patrick’s Day when we were in and of course there was a big, the Americans celebrate that pretty well and we had, they entertained us very well in the officer’s club. And a couple of days later we flew down the thousand mile leg to the south of Christmas Island. Now, the runway had been built by the army, The Royal Engineers and they’d made a good job of it. It was quite a, not a tremendously long runway, but it was long enough just over two thousand yards. And that’s where we prepared for our H bomb drop. So we saw the first one, Squadron Commander Ken Hubbard he dropped the first and Dave Roberts the flight commander he dropped number two and it was our turn for number three. So we’d all prepared and done the drills and so on, the dropping drills. Now, I want to emphasise that we didn’t drop these H bombs and they went into the sea. They burst at eight thousand feet. So there was no, no fallout like some of the previous tests had done by well, say the Americans perhaps or the Japanese they, well, no the Japanese didn’t have it in those days. However, the, there was no fallout and the, but we took ours, it was on June the 19th ‘57 and the yield wasn’t quite as much as the scientists wanted but it was good enough and they were, the British government were then able to specify, say, Britain now can become the, have the facility of nuclear deterrent. The nuclear fallout, nuclear bomb. And so there was to be a fourth, but that was cancelled and we all came the reverse route and flew home. And flew back to Wittering and so that was, that was Operation Grapple. And so we, we settled down and then I, after that, shortly, short time after that I became a captain on the Valiant and posted back to 138 Squadron. [pause] After completing my tour as a Valiant captain which I enjoyed very much, I used to get trips out to Nairobi and did Salisbury which is now called Harare, I think. And er, Germany. I did several trips there with the Valiant and my co-pilot was an ex-fighter pilot, been stationed in Germany so he was able to show us how to get on there in our leisure time. We then, I was posted to Gaydon, as I said and became a ground school instructor on the Victor mark two. Wonderful aircraft, well built and it had all the then high tech, what was high tech in those days, you wouldn’t call it that now. And I used to teach that, and for doing that they allowed me to do first of all the pressured breathing course, because the Victor two would go up to fifty-two, fifty- three thousand feet and if you had an explosive decompression there you were, you were automatically on pressure breathing to get down to forty thousand as quick as possible. So having completed that which, which, which was a bit rigorous, I was able to do the flight simulator on the Victor two and then fly with the OCU instructors. OCU being Operational Conversion Unit which was at Cottesmore. So I, I enjoyed about six flights from either the captain’s seat or the co-pilot’s seat and enjoyed very much flying the Victor and streaming the great big parachute on landing. And you’d swear that somebody had clamped the brakes hard on when you streamed that, fantastic thing and I was later to come across it of course on the Vulcan. So that was the Victor two. Now, from there I was decided to do the central flying school course at Little Rissington. Near Bourton on the Water that was and so I did the course and qualified and became a flying instructor and was posted to Syerston, which was a flying training school near Newark in Nottinghamshire. And there I, I was checked out by the standards people, and allowed to instruct on the aircraft. And my first bunch of students, there was one of them who was particularly good material and tremendous potential and I could tell the way he was flying I only had to show him something once and he had it off pat, absolutely as good as I could show him. And that gentleman was called Brian Hoskins and he later, in later years joined the Red Arrows. He was a member of the team to start with when they were flying the Gnat and then he became leader, and converted them from the Gnat on to the Hawk which they use now of course. And so he led the Red Arrows for, for a couple of years so I’m rather proud of the fact that I helped train him and taught him his first aerobatics and formation flying, which was pretty essential for being in the Red Arrows as you can imagine. So, anyway I enjoyed my tour and I was promised to have a double tour on instructing on the Jet Provost, and I was just enjoying every minute. However, that was not to be. Because I, because I had previous V bomber experience they posted me up to Finningley, where I was to do the Vulcan course. The Vulcan Mark two and so once, once I was trained and finished the course as a Vulcan captain and I went to, you say, call it solo if you like but strangely enough I had an American colonel for my co-pilot on my first trip in a Vulcan. And first trip as captain anyway and he he’d done a tour in Vietnam had this chap, so a very accomplished pilot. And so after that I had to do a short spell of a year or so in the flight simulator, because having an instructor rating of course you need to establish familiarity and the checklist and emergencies in the flight simulator before they actually did the flying. However, they said, ‘Well don’t get too downhearted about it,’ he said, ‘When you’ve done this short spell in the simulator we’ll groom you for stardom Donald and you’ll be given the flying instructor course on Vulcans.’ And that’s how I became a Vulcan flying instructor initially, and they cut, I had to cut my teeth on some young co-pilots who were converting from the right hand seat to the left hand seat just for, they were from squadrons of course. And it meant that they were fairly flexible and they could, providing their captain could, could fly from the right hand seat they would, they would do that. And so and then I went on to take a whole crew, a full crew. And I trained some fairly senior officers, the odd wing commander that was taking over a squadron or a station, a group captain who would be taking over a Vulcan station and so give them the course and and I had some, I had some nasty experiences at night particularly with training, training co-pilots. And they failed to recognise that in a Vulcan once you allowed the speed to fall the Vulcan was, became a high drag machine and it dropped out of the sky very quickly. And so of course being instructors we could recognise this fairly quickly to take control and save the situation as it were. And I had to do this on more than one occasion. At night particularly. Sorry. [recording paused] After completing my tour on the Vulcan OCU as an instructor, I was given my own crew. And we were posted out to Cyprus on to Number nine squadron and I was to become the squadron QFI and then carry out normal duties of a squadron crew as well. So that was wonderful. Edith and I flew out on a VC10 from Brize Norton and the rest of my crew found their way out there somehow. And one of my crew, his wife played the piano, and I’ll just tell you this. You can have a good laugh. She, they managed to even to fly this piano out to Cyprus on some transport aircraft, a Belfast or something. And so anyway, we settled down and we had a very nice hiring in Limassol itself and that was until a married quarter came up and, which it did. After about three months we moved up on to the base into a very nice married quarter and there I continued my, my tour on the squadron and it was very enjoyable. We were able to — if we weren’t flying in the morning we were free to go at about one o’clock and after lunch we were on the beach taking in the sunshine and the nice, in the lagoons swimming. Swimming by the rocks and so on, in the crystal clear water. It was lovely really. It was like a paid holiday. And so that’s how I finished my air force service. I came out in 1973 and I was given a nice send off in the, in the officers mess, dining in night. And so we, Edith and I we’d bought a Volvo car and I was hoping to get it in duty free, but to get a car in from overseas duty free you’d got to have it over a year and I’d only had this Volvo about six months so I knew I was going to have to pay duty on it. However, we drove home. Got the ferry to Athens and then we drove, various little ferries from a place on the mainland to Corfu. And we spent three nice days in Corfu and then on to Brindisi and we drove up the east coast of Italy to, past Venice and up to almost before you cross the St Bernard’s, St Bernard’s pass. There was no tunnels in those days. And that’s how we got home for a series of ferries and arriving home and we still had our place in Doncaster and we sort of tried to settle down as civilians, which was rather strange because when you become a civilian after thirty-five years of air force service you, you feel you’ve lacked that sort of cushion, that cocoon. You’re cocooned in a, in a sort of safe situation in the services and you’ve got to, you’re out in to the big, big world out there to try and make a living. Well I started off by trying to sell insurance from door to door and I got blown out of many a place and without selling anything. And so that turned out to be a dead loss and we tried looking around for a post office and we found one in York. We actually had bought a property now, a new bungalow in York which was very nice. And we ran this post office for, oh I guess about three or four months, and we were going to buy it from the present owner and he must have fallen foul of the head post master of York because he said that, ‘If you sell that,’ he said, ‘I’ll close it down.’ And so we couldn’t, we couldn’t have that and I settled into an insurance office job which wasn’t very exciting. Now, some member of the family was doing a course at Kidlington Airport near Oxford and he said, ‘Donald, why don’t you get yourself down there and get a commercial licence and they want you as a flying instructor,’ and I did just that. It took me about three months and I finished up as a commercial flying instructor on the Oxford Air Training School. And there I did fourteen years and trained many pilots for the commercial airlines, British Airways included, Aer Lingus, British Midland, Singapore Airlines and many others. And it was very enjoyable and rewarding. The, the ones I didn’t have much joy with were the Algerians. They were a bit of a peculiar lot but, however I retired then after fourteen years and I still went on flying at RAF Halton, where my service life started of course in 1939. So I joined the Microlight Flying Club and they immediately enrolled me as their chief flying instructor so I did a bit more instructing on microlights, and not the weight shift, I wouldn’t fly those. These microlights were proper stick and rudder aircraft and so on. And so I was happy with that, and it just so happened I trained a couple of air marshals. They came through and wanted checking out on microlights so, so I flew with them and a very nice situation. And I went on flying those until I was eighty four and then I thought well I’ve just about had enough. I think I’ll. I’ll give it up now, the flying, and so I haven’t flown since and we are now in 2017. So, so, [laughs] right. However I’ve had a very, very enjoyable flying career and I’ve got a lot, a lot to be thankful for. So that’s the end of my little broadcast. Thank you.
SJ: So did you have any, in all the times you were flying, did you have any lucky mascots or superstitions.
DB: Oh well no, not really. I tend, you tend to sort of get into a habit so that you know if you do something — I can’t give you a quote somehow I can’t sort of think of much that, that would, would do it. But I think you know you make preparations. It doesn’t matter what sort of flight you do you’ve got to prepare for it and otherwise you know if you just go leaping off without checking anything. Now, you see some of the material I could give the people who are coming after this. I’ve got one that the BBC did on me. They came out to Halton and checked. I mean I don’t want to waste time now showing it to you. I could, it only runs for about three minutes anyway but it was on BBC South Today and Geraldine Peers have you, do you remember her?
SJ: Yeah. Know her.
DB: She started, she introduced it and there was Jeremy Stern did the interview.
PJ: You’re quite a celebrity then Donald.
DB: Oh yeah. Well, I was at the time.
PJ: Yeah.
DB: I don’t think many people would remember it but the, and then they edited it and Frank Sinatra, “Come Fly With Me,” you know, it sounds, it sounds quite good and you see me take off in the latest microlight. It was a lovely craft called the Sky Ranger.
PJ: Yeah.
DB: And I mean we, my brother Malcolm helped to build it. He did all the instrument layout of that. You’ve flown in that with me haven’t you?
AK: Yes.
DB: No, you flew in -
AK: I flew with my head down.
DB: I’ve forgotten. That was the Thruster we flew in.
AK: Oh right.
DB: I don’t think you ever flew in that Sky Ranger. No.
AK: And never again.
DB: Oh I taught you. I gave you a potted flying lesson Ann.
AK: Yes. For free.
DB: Yeah. All for free. So -
PJ: When you were in the Pathfinders.
DB: Right.
PJ: To get in to the Pathfinders were you told that you were going in the Pathfinders? Were you transferred or did you volunteer because I’m not sure?
DB: No. The way it worked, Peter is that I, like a bunch of other guys that had passed out from St Athan as flight engineers we all had to obviously go on to bombers or transport. Some of them even went on to Sunderland Flying Boats and Coastal Command and so on. However, I, we all went on parade and there was the crews, crews that were going to do the course were six people. There was the pilot, navigator and bomb aimer, the wireless operator and two gunners. Six people. All we were shirt of, short of was a flight engineer. So Bill Neal strode up and down, and I don’t know what it was but he just caught my attention and I sort of nodded and he said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Tell me about yourself.’ So I said, he said, ‘Have you done any flying?’ I said, ‘Well yeah a few with air tests, you know, flying in Wellingtons and that sort of thing on air tests but not, not all that many hours,’ but so, and he said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘You’re probably just the chap we’re looking for. Do you want to come and fly with us?’ So I said, ‘Well, yeah. Thank you,’ and he said, ‘We’ve all done a tour of ops so experienced crew and he, ‘cause he’d been instructing down at Harwell. There was an OCU at Harwell and Hampstead Norris was their satellite and so on. Bill Neal this was. So anyway and he said, ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘We’re not going to the main force.’ That would have been 1 Group or 3 Group. He said, ‘We’re going to Pathfinders.’ 8 Group and he said, so I said, ‘I don’t know. I’m not the wiser,’ I said, ‘Tell me about it,’ ‘Well,’ he said, and then he went on to describe, you know we, we will be doing this that and the other and helping to mark, find the targets. Good navigator and we did have a good navigator and find targets first and then mark them or help the master bomber to mark them. But when that first crew had done a tour they all left and we got, not all of them, sorry, the two gunners left and the navigator, that’s the first, what we would call the plotter, not the H2S operator, George Hodges, he stayed with us. Johnny Carrod, the radio, the wireless operator, he stayed, and so we had to find two gunners and a new navigator. Now, the gunners we were lucky, because there was a guy called Eric Chamberlain and he had hawk eyes. He could see in the dark this guy. He could honestly. His night vision was amazing. He could, he would see the night fighter before the night fighter saw us. And then, but the Canadian, the navigator was a Canadian flight sergeant and he was thrown in at the deep end. He had no operational experience at all and the first, he got us lost on the first trip! And I had to get them out, Bill Neal thrust a map in my hands and I said, I said, ‘I’m not,’ it was at night I said, ‘I’m not ruddy good at map reading,’ [laughs] But it so happened that we were running up on the, what they called the Frisian islands, the Dutch islands and there was one in particular that I recognised that was the shape on the map. And I was able to give him a pinpoint on that and actually the target was up in Northern Denmark. Well it was German occupied of course as you know but, and that’s how he, but he improved and he wasn’t bad, you know later on. His name was Archer, and I can never remember his first name but he was a young Canadian. Yeah.
PJ: Did you stay in touch with the crew after the war? Any of your crew members?
DB: Just, just Bill Neal I’m afraid. Johnny Carrod died fairly young and his house was burgled and he lost his DFC. That was stolen. And you know you can buy the odd whatever it is like theatre replica or something.
PJ: Yeah.
DB: But -
PJ: No.
DB: It’s not the same as the original. I was going to get mine to show you.
PJ: Yeah.
DB: And [coughs] excuse me. But George Hodges, he, he, er, I spoke to him on the phone but I never actually saw him because he never attended our reunions did George so, and that was it really. I lost touch with all of them really.
PJ: Did you -
DB: Except Bill Neal.
PJ: Yeah.
DB: Bill Neal and I met at the Hendon museum. At the RAF Museum at Hendon and we had a full day touring around. Pictures taken near that Lancaster which says, “No enemy aircraft -
PJ: Yeah. Yeah.
DB: Shall penetrate German airspace.”
PJ: Yeah.
DB: Old Goering you see.
PJ: Yeah.
DB: And we had our pictures taken with that.
PJ: Yeah.
DB: And all the hundred odd bombs on the side, you know, painted on.
PJ: Is it, is it a fallacy you all, that the whole crew stuck together and when you went out you all went together to the pub? Is that - ?
DB: More or less oh -
PJ: A fallacy? Because -
DB: Somewhere I’ve got a picture of my first car which was a little Austin seven tourer and I bought that from a Canadian who was finished his ops and was off back to Canada. And I bought that car for thirty-five quid and it was a tiny little two seater really but people used to sort of get, we had the whole crew on that [laughs]. Can you imagine the springs [laughs].
PJ: Brilliant.
DB: And to start it all you had was just a blade. You could start it with a screwdriver.
PJ: Yeah.
DB: And I had the keys in my pocket and I parked outside the pub and when I went outside it was gone. Somebody had stolen it and they’d obviously had a blade of some sort, a knife maybe and just turned the thing and started the engine and away and they stole it. But it was found abandoned up near the airfield, near Upwood main gates or somewhere. Rotten devils.
SJ: You said that the red markers were blind markers. They had green markers as well.
DB: Oh yes.
SJ: What were green markers for?
DB: Yeah. The green markers were what we called backers up and we dropped some of those but you dropped them on mixed reds and greens. Mixed reds and greens were dropped by the master bomber and the primary visual marker. And they actually had identified the target visually by this time but TIs didn’t last forever. They needed backing up you see and so we, we were able to back them up by dropping just the greens on their own. Now 156 were basically a blind marker squadron so if that master bomber had got to the target but he wasn’t happy with the actual identifying the aiming point, he would call for blind marking. And this is where George Hodges on his H2S would drop the reds, red TIs. But when I was down the front on the bomb sight if mixed reds and greens were going down then I would go click, click, click, click and deselect the markers and just drop HE. We became really like main force and I would just, just drop the bombs on, on the markers that were already, but that was, that was what the three things and they called this a Parramatta. Bennett had his own various names for the -
PJ: Yeah.
DB: And the, we even had sky markers. Where the, if the, if the target was obscured by a thin layer of cloud or something like that they used to drop what they called sky marker flares. They would go off more or less the same or just a couple of thousand feet below the height of the bomber stream but there was one thing about an air, an air, a sky marker and that is if that’s the target and let’s say this is the blind marker, you had to bomb on an exact heading because if you didn’t, if you came in on a heading like that, and you dropped there you would, you might have this in your sights but the bombs would fall over that side, over there. So you had to be, you had to run in on an actual precise heading when you bombed on sky markers. And that was another thing that, but we only had to drop them a couple of times that I can remember. George Hodges having to drop sky markers. But they had, I know that Bennett, he went around his office and he said something about, he was asking various people what they would call a certain attack you see. I think the Parramatta one that he decided was by a New Zealander. It sounded a little bit New Zealandish that. And there was another one. What was the other one? That — he asked this young WAAF clerk, and she gave him a name and that’s what he called, what was it? That was the overall sort of marking plan. I can’t remember the name. It’s so long ago now but yeah that’s that was what Bennett did. And he used to come around and visit you know after, not every, but he used to get around a lot of the bomber stations and he came to Upwood to the debriefing, he was there for debriefing. And he always used to ask you, you know, ‘Who dropped the bombs?’ And, ‘Did you see the target?’ And did you do this, that and the other? And I used to try and give him the best idea that, that I could. He was always quite approachable you know. Bennett. And then another night he’d be down at Graveley, you see, debriefing them from 35 Squadron and all these other path — Oakington was a Pathfinder station you see. Little Staughton, that was another one, and as I say I’ve got a list of them upstairs. Can you think of anything else?
SJ: No I think you’ve covered it.
DB: Have I?
PJ: Yeah.
DB: Well I hope I haven’t bored you stiff and just before you go come and look at this big picture I was telling you about and you’re welcome to come out.
PJ: Anyway, Donald.
DB: Sorry.
PJ: On behalf of the IBCC -
DB: Yes.
PJ: I’d like to thank you for allowing us to interview you. Thank you.
DB: Alright. Right. Right. Ok. Did you want, have you recorded that?
PJ: Yes.
DB: Oh.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Donald Briggs
Description
An account of the resource
Donald Briggs was born in Lealholm near Whitby in Yorkshire. After school, he became an apprentice with the Royal Air Force. He trained at RAF Halton in 1939 and became an engine fitter working on Wellingtons and Manchesters. He volunteered for air crew in 1943, qualified as a flight engineer and completed 62 operations with 156 Squadron Pathfinders at RAF Upwood. After the war he retrained as a pilot and took part in the H bomb tests at Christmas Island. Later he became a flying instructor and trained aircrew to fly Vulcans. After he retired from the Royal Air Force he became a commercial flying instructor. He continued to instruct and fly microlights until he was eighty-four years of age.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Pete Jones
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:08:42 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ABriggsDW170327
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-27
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
France
Germany
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Lincolnshire
Christmas Island
United States
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
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.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1943
1944
1945
1957-06-19
156 Squadron
8 Group
aircrew
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bombing
Distinguished Flying Cross
fear
fitter engine
flight engineer
ground crew
ground personnel
H2S
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Harvard
Lancaster
Lincoln
Manchester
Master Bomber
Meteor
Mosquito
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Pathfinders
pilot
promotion
RAF Halton
RAF Upwood
target indicator
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
York