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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/507/18297/PDidwellRNW1601.2.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/507/18297/ADidwellRNW160719-AV.2.mp3
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Title
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Didwell, Robert Norman William
R N W Didwell
Norman Didwell
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Didwell, RNW
Description
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5 items. Two oral history interviews with Leading Aircraftsman Robert Norman William Didwell (b. 1920, 637410 Royal Air Force) and three photographs . He joined the RAF in 1938 and after training as a rigger served on 99 Squadron equipped with Wellingtons at RAF Newmarket . Subsequently he served at RAF Boscombe Down before going overseas to the middle and far east with Transport Command.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Robert Norman William Didwell and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 19th of July 2012 and I’m in Leighton Buzzard with Robert Norman William Didwell, known as Young Did and we are going to talk about his experiences as a man on the ground keeping those valiant people flying. So what is your first recollection of life with the family, Norman?
RD: With the family?
CB: Yeah.
RD: Oh, we were a happy little family.
CB: Right.
RD: I had an older brother who was older than me. He was a regular soldier before the war.
CB: Right.
RD: And I had a happy childhood. I was well fed which a lot of them in the 1920s were not. I know a lot of people were starving but I was very lucky. My mother was a, started off as a kitchen maid in with Sir Henry and Lady Campbell-Bannerman who was the Prime Minister of England for the Liberal, the old Liberal party. They had a big castle at, just outside of Meigle and they had a big town house at 137 Cromwell Road. And next door to that building in Cromwell Road was 139 and who do you know lived there?
CB: Your dad?
RD: Lady Scott.
CB: Right.
RD: You know of Scott of the Antarctic but she married Sir Arthur Kennet who was a Liberal MP. So at the time of when Scott as you know, the great nationalist and a lieutenant commander in the Royal Navy, got the Distinguished Service Cross. He was about twelve when I was in my first three or four years growing up. So we go back a long way don’t we? And as I say I left school, got a job with the local grocers as errand boy and then I went in the Post Office as a telegram boy. Then I decided to join the Air Force [laughs] and then you’ve got it. I joined up at the end of ’38 and there you are.
CB: Ok. So where did you join the RAF?
RD: Where did I join?
CB: Yes
RD: Well, we used to, to join up you went to Kingsbury which was the Air Ministry. Then you went to either Uxbridge or Halton. If you were clever enough and you could join when you were fifteen at Halton as a boy apprentice and you did three years at Halton. Did you know that? Did you know?
CB: Yeah.
RD: Yeah. And most of the entries at Halton were very clever blokes. And some of them rose right up the top. If you go to Halton camp there’s photographs of those who started as boy entrants, boy apprentices and went right up the top of the ladder. Air rank.
CB: So the top six in any pass out went to Cranwell —
RD: Yeah.
CB: Right.
RD: ’32 and ’31 entry were two very good entries. They went, did both trades. Engine and air frame.
CB: Which one were you in?
RD: Hmmn?
CB: Which one were you in?
RD: I wasn’t. I never went to Halton.
CB: Where did you go?
RD: I did my training at Uxbridge. [unclear] training. You all did if you joined straight in at the age of eighteen or seventeen. Then you do a [slow] course. Now, the technical bit you do it at Henlow which was an old RAF station. It’s only down the road from here isn’t it? Henlow.
CB: Absolutely. Yeah.
RD: You get a few weeks at Henlow telling you the theory of flight. What an aircraft does etcetera etcetera and then from then on you go on. Then after I’d been, when the war broke out the second or the third day we moved from Mildenhall on the 2nd of August 1939 to Rowley Mile Heath and Rowley Mile Racecourse and took over the Rowley Mile Stadium where we all slept and eat and everything else and so we were in it from the start. Right. Now, we hadn’t been there three or four days and [Sticky Blue] said, ‘Any of you blokes have a driving licence?’ Well, fortunately, I had passed the driving test because my dad had an old twelve point horsepower Citroen. I’d passed in 1938 and got a driving licence and he said, I’d only been there a couple of days at Newmarket and he said, ‘Anybody here got a driving licence?’ So there was Dick Pike, who come from Leighton Buzzard and myself. He said, ‘Right.’ He said [laughs] ‘Flight Lieutenant Stanley is going over to Mildenhall. He’ll pick you up from the flight,’ he said, ‘And you’ve got to sign, do a test on a tractor.’ [laughs] Four tonne tractor.
[telephone ringtone]
[recording paused]
CB: Keen to join a squadron. So —
RD: Well —
CB: Just as a matter of —
RD: After I passed out —
CB: Yeah.
RD: You see.
CB: Flying marks for each.
RD: And you had a small course then of technical stuff but you were called a fitter’s mate.
CB: Ok.
RD: You [ran] the tools to the town and you did all the cleaning.
CB: Right.
RD: But you did learn what an aircraft was all about and how it flew and all the rest of it. So after that then for, from then, from May, from August 1939 ‘til February 1941 I was more or less a fitter’s mate and also in charge of all the petrol that came in to the Rowley Mile and one of the two drivers that drove the bowsers. And so it was interesting because I got to know all the crews. I got to know all the aircrew and everything. But you must remember this. From pre-war days, the outbreak of war ‘til February 1941 you know who the air gunners were don’t you?
CB: Army.
RD: Ground crew.
CB: Ground crew.
RD: Ground crew. You got extra sixpence a day if you passed a gunnery course. Wireless operators, yes they were automatically made, had to do the gunnery course but until they’d done that gunnery course which was to do a fortnight’s what they called summer training they didn’t get paid their sixpence a day extra for aircrew. Now, on the 14th of December 1939 it was a very frosty morning. At about 11 o’clock the sun came out and it was beautiful daylight and there came an order for nine aircraft to attack German shipping in the Schillig Roads of Heligoland. Well, they took off but when they got out over the coast and got over the North Sea the weather started deteriorating and they were down to six hundred feet when they got over the Schillig Roads. And then all hell broke loose. Fighters came up. Luftwaffe. There was two cruisers. I forget how many [unclear] there was a force of German about eight. So five aircraft were shot down over the Schillig Roads. Right. One of them was badly damaged. Anyway, the five that were shot down of the thirty airmen on board that were no known grave. Flight Lieutenant Hetherington, who was a New Zealander his aircraft was badly damaged and they didn’t see in the dark what the damage was and they lost a lot of fuel. But when he put his flaps down to come in on the circuit to land the starboard flap had been shot away. Bonk. That’s when you then got the posters in every Bomber Command station, “Check your flaps.” At least no less than two thousand feet so that to make sure there’s no damage to your flaps to land. So there was, and they’re all on there. I can name them now. I can remember them as well as if it was yesterday. Thirty of those men up there have got no known grave.
CB: This is the picture on the wall.
RD: Yeah.
CB: Of the squadron.
RD: Yeah.
CB: 99.
RD: Yeah.
CB: Right.
RD: Yeah.
CB: So what were they flying? They were all flying Wellingtons?
RD: The first Wellington squadron.
CB: Yeah.
RD: Flew them longer than any other Wellington squadron. Air Chief Marshall, Air Vice Marshall Baldwin who was [unclear] by my man himself long before Harris. Knew more about bombing than Harris did too. I can tell you that now and he was asked to take command of Bomber Command in the Far East and he said, ‘I’m taking 99 Squadron with me.’ They had already done, the first squadron to do a thousand sorties before they went to India and they did a thousand sorties in the Far East. And that’s what they ended up flying in the Far East was the B24. Consolidated bomber. On that picture up there. And that is signed. That big signature —
CB: That’s the Liberator.
RD: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
RD: That big signature is Lucien Ercolani’s signature. Do you know who he was? Lucien, Lucien Ercolani was Ercol furniture. And of course, that aerodrome, I forgot the name of the aerodrome near high Wycombe he learned to fly as a young fellow before he ever got called up. But they, him and his brother both volunteered for the Air Force when war broke out. and of course, he had already got about a hundred odd hours in aircraft flying so immediately he was banged on to twin engines and what have you. And he was awarded the DSO as a pilot officer. Yeah.
CB: What was he awarded that for?
RD: And he got two DSOs by the end of the war and the Distinguished Flying Cross. That was flying Wimpies.
CB: Right.
RD: Yeah. And he was a great old bloke was old Lucien. We were very friendly him and I. He was president of our 99 Squadron Association after [pause] after Titch Walker. The famous Air Chief Marshall Walker. Titch Walker. After he died he took over as president and when his daughter wanted him to go and live with her near, up in Lincolnshire and he said he’d looked at this house, this residential housing so I was sitting there playing Bridge all bloody day I’ll go into a residential home because his wife died and he had a very nice home in one of the villages there and so he went into a residential home at High Wycombe. And I used to go and see him and when we used to have the two meetings a year for 99 Squadron Association I always used to go over and pick him up and that.
CB: So in this time you’re an air frames man.
RD: Yeah.
CB: And how was —
RD: I became an air frame, air frame fitter.
CB: Fitter. Right.
RD: Yeah.
CB: So what did you do as an air frame fitter?
RD: You were responsible for all the whole of the air frame and the hydraulics. The flying controls, wheels, tyres, brakes.
CB: And in being responsible for it what were you doing?
RD: Just signed the 4700 when you’d done your daily routine check. You made sure there had been no damage from the night before and you’d done it a hundred percent plus because you had got mates flying in those aircraft. In my period of the first, as I say from 1939 to early ’41 they were your mates. You all slept in the same, until they made them sergeant. Sergeant air gunners and sergeant wireless operators because then the four engine jobs came in and where our boys just got their trade pay and sixpence on top for air gunners they had, these chaps came in for a twelve week gun course, made sergeant and got eight shillings a day. But some of them wished they hadn’t.
CB: Because? Why did they wish they hadn’t?
RD: Because I’ll tell you what. Some of them really were shattered by it when they used to see their mates going down in flames of a night.
CB: This is in the early part of the war.
RD: I put in for, I put in for gunnery so I had to take the aircrew medical but I’ve got a wonky left eye. It wasn’t, it wasn’t up to standard of what they wanted. Now, funny enough my brother was the same. He had a wonky left eye but he shot, he shot at Bisley for his regiment the Kings Own Rifle Corps.
CB: Right.
RD: We both shot from our left shoulder because the right eye was good.
CB: It was ok.
RD: Yeah.
CB: So going back to being air frame fitter you are checking all the —
RD: Yeah.
CB: Items.
RD: Yeah.
CB: And —
RD: You’re responsible for all of the air frame and the hydraulics etcetera etcetera.
CB: What rank are you there?
RD: Eh?
CB: What rank were you there?
RD: Well, I started off as an AC2.
CB: Yeah.
RD: Aircraftsman second class.
CB: Ok.
RD: Then I got promoted to AC1. And then eventually I got promoted to leading aircraftman which is equivalent to a corporal.
CB: Yeah.
RD: Then I went on another course when I came back from overseas —
CB: Yeah.
RD: To advance to Group 1. And so I was then on the top pay for that particular trade.
CB: So what rank were you there?
RD: I was, I passed out as AC1 on the fitter course at St Athans after the war and eventually I got promoted to what was more or less lance corporal. LAC. But I spent, we had [pause] I was at RAF Oakington.
CB: Yeah.
RD: In the early ‘40s. Well, late ‘40s, ’46, ’47 time and we had an attachment at Gatow near Berlin and as you know Berlin was, came under the Russians as you know. The whole lot. The whole zone. They had the whole city but the Americans had [Tegel]
CB: After the war you mean.
RD: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
RD: The Americans had Tempelhof. The French had Tegel. The Americans, no the Americans had Tempelhof, the French had Tegel, the Russians had the whole of Berlin and we British we had Gatow which was in Charlottenburg. So actually I had a very interesting twelve years. Spent time in the western desert.
CB: So this was —
RD: Spent time in Iraq. Time in Saudi Arabia.
CB: Fantastic.
RD: On the Persian Gulf.
CB: Let’s just get the sequence clearer then. So after your early time on the squadron which was the Air Force station was called Newmarket wasn’t it?
RD: Yeah.
CB: And then where did you go from there?
RD: I went on the course.
CB: Yeah. Which one?
RD: That was a course at Morecambe.
CB: Right.
RD: They’d got it a Air Force station up there.
CB: Yeah.
RD: It was for training flight riggers and engine fitters.
CB: Right.
RD: But it was a very brief course for us because we had already spent time as fitter’s mates. So we came back then and I got posted to funnily enough, amazing I got posted to experiments at [pause] oh dear, oh dear. It begins with a B doesn’t it?
Other: Boscombe Down.
RD: No. No. Down in [pause] you’ve got three. Three Air Force. They’re all in a line in in the West Country. It begins with a B. There’s a haven. There’s an Upavon. What’s the other one? Netheravon, Upavon.
CB: There are lots around there aren’t there so —
RD: Boscombe Down.
CB: Boscombe Down.
RD: I Went to Boscombe Down.
CB: Yeah.
RD: Yeah. And I was on a night fighter, experimental night fighter unit.
CB: Yeah.
RD: Which we had a Hurricane, a Spitfire and a early Mosquito.
CB: Right.
RD: And they were carrying out night fighting. All sorts of gadgets trying to muffle the exhaust flames you know.
CB: Oh, yeah.
RD: And different plans they tried and we had Squadron Leader Bragg and another flight lieutenant. I forget his name. And when there was air raids on Plymouth and Bristol and these places we used to have to turn out and off they went to see if they could shoot a few old Germans down. I believe Bragg did cop two. I believe he shot two. I don’t know what, I heard he got killed later in the war. Yeah.
CB: So the day fighters had a bit of a struggle in the night.
RD: Hmmn?
CB: The day fighters struggled in the night.
RD: Yeah.
CB: So the ones doing the shooting down were —
RD: They tried all sorts of gadgets with them.
CB: Right.
RD: Yeah. Yeah, but I wasn’t there long because we had a sticky night one night and it rained like hell and, I think it was a young flight lieutenant was coming in and we brought him in with our torches and he got in a patch there and it was stuck right up to the blooming axels on the undercarriage wheel. So we dig him out. So we dug him out and we missed our tea. What they called our supper really.
CB: Yeah.
RD: Actually. So we tried to get something cooked in the cookhouse. There was a sandwich and the station warrant officer walked in. Played hell with us. Played hell with us. ‘Look at the state of it.’ I said, ‘We’ve just dug out an aircraft out of the mud.’ We carried on alarming. It wasn’t long after I was posted overseas.
CB: So —
RD: I heard, I heard this bloody station warrant officer because most of them were ex-Brigade of Guards you know and a lot of them were Irish and they weren’t technical men. It was only later when the fitters became flight engineers when they finished their tour or two tours they became station warrant officers. That was a different set up altogether.
CB: So the original station warrant officer wasn’t necessarily an engineer was he?
RD: Oh no. Oh, they were [unclear]
CB: Yeah.
RD: Oh God, they were Guards.
CB: Yeah.
RD: Most of them were Irish and they didn’t like the English. Believe me. I tell you what. At one time you could shout out, ‘Paddy,’ and half the squadron turned around. Shout out, ‘Jock,’ the other half turned around.
CB: Not a lot of space for you.
RD: He’s going to sleep there [laughs] He’s so bored.
Other: No. I’m watching this.
CB: He’s watching. He’s watching a video.
RD: You’re not —
CB: No. [laughs] So —
Other: You’re featuring.
CB: When you finished at, well at Boscombe Down what were you doing there specifically?
RD: Well, looking after the air frame on a Hurricane.
CB: Right. To be sure that everything worked.
RD: Spit and the early Mosquito.
CB: Right.
RD: In fact, when we went, I went overseas and they turned Ferry Control, I went to Ferry Control and then it turned into Transport Command and it was when I was on attachment from Cairo, well from Transport Command, 216 Transport Command Group which headquarters was at Heliopolis just outside of Cairo. We used to go and do attachments all over. Landing strips all the way through to India. So you worked on practically every make of military aircraft there was including the Cairo to Karachi Flying Boat once a week.
CB: Oh right.
RD: When we was at Sharjah. Yeah, because that used to land in Sharjah Creek. Which was Dubai
CB: Yeah.
RD: Dubai. And then, it’s now Dubai it was a mud village when I was there. When we were there. Yeah. It was an interesting six years. It was an education the war actually.
CB: Yeah.
RD: It was an education. Yeah.
CB: So when you had finished at Boscombe Down when did you move and where did you go?
RD: I went, I went up to Padgate.
CB: Yeah.
RD: And the next thing I’m on the boat convoy out to the east.
CB: Yeah. And where did you go?
RD: Well, we left Liverpool.
CB: Yeah.
RD: Convoy. Went halfway around the Atlantic I think and landed up in Suez.
CB: Right.
[recording paused]
RD: Kilo-40.
CB: Right.
RD: No. Bilbeis. Bilbeis, I went. And that was on the Canal Zone.
CB: Yeah.
RD: And then I went up to the Western Desert to Kilo-40. And Kilo 40 then we were sent to, some of us, five of us went to Sharjah on the Persian Gulf. Then we went up to Habbaniya and we were there for a couple of months and then we went back up to the Far East.
CB: So when you were at Kilo-40 what, what aircraft were at that?
RD: The other, we had the Transport Command Conversion Unit.
CB: Right.
RD: We had a couple of Dakotas.
CB: Yeah.
RD: We had a couple of Liberators. We had a couple of Hudsons. Lockheed Hudsons. We had [pause] what was the other one we had? A Yankee. We had a Baltimore. Yeah. It was Conversion Unit from single engine people to twins and four engines.
CB: Right.
RD: Because this was before we landed in North Africa. Right.
CB: Yeah.
RD: So they were training these people.
CB: Before Operation Torch. Yeah.
RD: So as they converted to twin or four so that we could have a good bash at Mussolini and his lot from North Africa.
CB: So which aircraft were you dealing with or did you deal with —
RD: Every type. That’s the great thing about being in Ferry Control and Transport Command.
CB: Yeah.
RD: Every military aircraft that was built that went to the Far East came through the staging posts on that route.
CB: Yeah.
RD: So people who started off in Cornwall, at St Ives.
CB: Yeah.
RD: They, every build of typical military aircraft were be serviced by us blokes.
CB: Yeah.
RD: And they were, they sent them up. They used to be sent off at night when it was dark and the first stop on the staging posts was Gibraltar. Then that night they’d take off from there and dodge the old Luftwaffe to land anywhere they could near the western desert that we were still holding.
CB: Yeah.
RD: But then all the way right through Iraq. Right through Saudi Arabia, Karachi and then right into the Far East.
CB: So here you are in the desert. Were you, are you in a tent or what are you living in?
RD: We was in a tent.
CB: Ok. How many in the tent?
RD: Four in a tent.
CB: Ok.
RD: Sometimes six. And what we used to do they was what they called the UPI tents. You could just about stand up in them. What we used to do we used to put it, put it and then we used to dig a hole about three or four feet deep. Right. Put our kit bags and stuff up alongside so it don’t fall. So we could stand up in it practically.
CB: Yeah.
RD: Because when you were working on aircraft in the heat of the day and you can imagine what it was like when you got in the tent at night —
CB: Yeah.
RD: Or when you packed up your duties, finished work you hung your shirt on the old tentpole and it was solid with salt. We used to have to drink a pint of salt water every morning before breakfast and we used to have a pint at lunchtime and then late at night because the heat you lose all your salt. And then that of course turns. Can be very serious and some people who weren’t very strong they died of heat exhaustion you know.
CB: Did they?
RD: Oh God, yeah. There was quite a lot of troops and military died of heat exhaustion.
CB: What was the, was that because they weren’t covered up? Didn’t have enough water? Or what?
RD: Yeah. They just weren’t up to medically they weren’t fit enough to stand that kind of heat. I mean, I’m talking about you’ve got it here today, you’ve got thirty, haven’t you?
CB: Yeah.
RD: Can you imagine what it’s like at thirty eight degrees? And that’s what it was on the Persian Gulf. We could look from Sharjah village, we could look across and see the coastline of Iran.
CB: Right.
RD: It’s just twelve miles.
CB: Is it?
RD: And Dubai where we, we Sharjah was about ten miles from Dubai. We used to go and service the Flying Boats when they came in there. Especially the main one that used to run every day from, once a week from Cairo to Karachi. Right. So, you know, it was when you see Dubai today.
CB: Yeah.
RD: And the [unclear] family what they own.
CB: Yes.
RD: You want to see their place in Newmarket. Or just outside Newmarket. On the road into, on the whatsit road out of Newmarket. You want to see it. With the gold painted drapes and all their, yeah.
CB: Yeah.
RD: And by the way strict Muslims. You want to see them with the, yeah the models. Yes. Yes. You should. We’ve got a monument at Newmarket just outside the entrance to the members and owner’s entrance to Rowley Mile, right and you’d be surprised what the owners have got there. Little special places and that. What they call their [pause] what do you call it? Their, like a, it’s a big room with a bar and everything. You’d be surprised at the booze and the [unclear] family because one of the caretakers I knew when I was visiting. I always used to say if I was going to Newmarket I was going to look at our Memorial there at Newmarket and you’d be surprised the booze in there. And some of the young ladies of the town, you know. Oh yes. This business of Muslim you know. Yeah. Treacherous as hell. Have you had any —
CB: So —
RD: Have you had any news from Arabia that they’ve had these terrorists playing hell?
CB: Yeah.
RD: No.
CB: No.
RD: They haven’t. No. So who’s bloody well financing them through their arms then?
CB: Yeah.
RD: Got it?
CB: So you went from Sharjah to Karachi. Did you go on to Karachi?
RD: No. No. No.
CB: You didn’t. You stayed in —
RD: We, these, these places was you started off from, the aircraft used to fly from St Ives, Cornwall.
CB: Yeah.
RD: All types.
CB: Yeah.
RD: Going to the Far East.
CB: Yeah.
RD: And there were staging posts right the way through the route. I mean it wasn’t a day when you could take off a day and fly five thousand miles without stopping?
CB: They had regular stopping points.
RD: Yeah. I mean the Wellington only held four hundred, err seven hundred and fifty gallons of fuel.
CB: Right.
RD: Right. But that only gave them about nine hours flying at the most and they weren’t flying at five hundred miles an hour like these modern day jets. So they’d got to land somewhere to refuel. So that’s why they set up these staging posts.
CB: How long, how long were you out there? So you also went to —
RD: Altogether I was —
CB: Habbaniya .
RD: I was, I was over three years I was overseas.
CB: Ok.
RD: But you listen to this. Do you know if you served in India you did five years in India?
CB: Did you?
RD: Yeah. And shall I tell you something? You might not have known about this but do you know there was a mutiny in the RAF at the end of the war in India? No? A lot of people don’t.
CB: So what caused that?
RD: Wait a minute. Six of those leaders went to prison.
CB: Did they?
RD: Yes. They got eighteen months hard labour.
CB: What were they reacting to?
RD: Well, they’d been and done their five years. The war broke out but they didn’t bring them home. Not the ground crew.
CB: Right.
RD: And they had to do another five years ‘til it was all over. No. A lot of people don’t know about this do they?
CB: Right.
RD: No. That was all hushed up. No. As a friend of mine called [Ted Fowkes] who was ground crew with me and a I knew him for a few years we always seemed to end up at the same place. He said to me not long before he died, he said, ‘You know, Norm,’ he said, ‘The whole bloody lot of us in the military, officers, the lot we should have formed our own political party.’
CB: After the war.
RD: Yeah. He said, ‘And this country wouldn’t be in the state it is now.’
[redacted]
CB: Can I just take you back to the desert? So what was it like? You’re in a tent. What’s the temperature?
RD: All depends what part. If you’re in Egypt and Iraq.
CB: Yeah.
RD: Saudi Arabia was the worst. Sharjah was the worst.
CB: Right.
RD: Now, the landing strip at Sharjah is now the main road in Dubai.
CB: Right.
RD: Now, Lieutenant Colonel Hutchinson was a political officer from the Indian government where he’d served in the Indian Army but he was a Sandhurst trained man.
CB: Right.
RD: Fought in the Boer War. Was a DSO and a military medal and he used to come and have a chat with us when he used to visit Sharjah because he had to, you know pay them the, he used to come with his accountants and pay box —
CB: Yeah.
RD: From India because they paid were paid in rupees.
CB: Yeah.
RD: And he was sitting there one night on an empty four gallon [unclear] and chiefy, Flight Sergeant Benson said, ‘What’s going to happen now we’re again in North Africa?’ So he said, ‘Well, under here,’ he said, ‘Is a lot of wealth.’ He said, ‘And when the oil concession runs out in the early ‘50s they will take it over.’ He said, ‘And believe you me flight sergeant,’ he said, ‘They will make a fucking,’ that was the word, ‘A fucking hell of a life for the white people and the Christians.’ Now, that was his words. I can say because we looked aghast, you know.
CB: Yeah, I bet.
RD: When he said it.
CB: Can I just get an idea of what a standard day was like? So starting off when you’re in North Africa because of the heat what time did you get up and do your work?
RD: Well, you wanted to get up, you’d got to be up at 6 o’clock.
CB: Right.
RD: And it was reasonably cool then to get the engine started, to get the crew in but it was in the afternoon when the poor buggers were landing in the heat of the day they’d flown probably eighteen hundred miles, fifteen hundred miles between the two, the staging posts. They were, they were ringing wet. Ringing wet. They used to get out and we had water [unclear] . They used to, the Arabs were paid to bring water from wells. What they called these water [unclear]
CB: Yeah.
RD: They were a porous great big, a great big bowl on legs and it was porous so the cool breeze if you’d got a breeze kept the water cool.
CB: Right.
RD: At first you had to pump [laughs] then they’d pour it over themselves. And we used to get burned too with metal aircraft very often.
CB: On the plane?
RD: Yeah. When we were doing our interior. To fill up, to fill up the petrol.
CB: Yeah.
RD: Especially at Sharjah where we hadn’t got the facilities we only had the four hundred and fifty gallon bowsers we used to have old blankets. They issued old blankets so as when we were standing there on the main plane filling up it didn’t burn us through our feet. Especially on the metal aircraft
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
RD: So it was an education.
CB: I bet. So you you’d start at six. Then what time would you give up doing the work in the day?
RD: Well, by the time we got the aircraft off —
CB: Yeah.
RD: Tidied up everything, refuelled, we used to get Arab labour at Sharjah.
CB: Right.
RD: Four gallon petrol cans that had been brought down by a steam, a post from Basra. A Dutch ship it was actually, a tramp steamer. They used to bring the four gallon tank. That was unloaded into those, brought to the shore and then it was all donkey carried up to the base and we had sacks of these four gallon tanks of petrol, of aviation fuel and so it was, it was blooming hard work all the time. It was when you’d got the bowser pumping, you were standing on the main plane in the heat.
CB: Yeah. With a funnel.
RD: Yeah.
CB: With a funnel.
RD: With a funnel, yeah. With a chamois leather and a —
CB: So how much spillage would there be when you were trying to pour these?
RD: Quite a lot. Quite a lot. Quite a lot.
CB: Yeah.
RD: Yeah.
CB: It was hot.
RD: You’d got to be very careful when you were refuelling aircraft.
CB: Yeah.
RD: Very careful.
CB: Could you get spontaneous combustion from the surface of the plane? Off the petrol.
RD: Well, I’d never seen it happen and I never heard of it happening but my golly when one pranged it went up very quickly. I’ve seen some bad crashes. Seen some bad crashes.
CB: And these are the old cans.
RD: And when you get in, get in these wrecks.
CB: Yeah.
RD: See the state of the person who’s been killed or the one who is seriously injured.
CB: Right.
RD: You never forget it.
CB: No.
RD: You don’t.
CB: So did you, was this on the airfield or because you went out to crash recovery?
RD: Well, it, it happened very often on take-off or landing.
CB: Right.
RD: You see we had that night on December the 14th 1939, on the Thursday night when they were just coming in at about half past four or five o’clock time. It was dead. Really black. I mean it was December and I was filling up one of the bowsers as we’d been there about a month when they brought in a twenty thousand gallon tank. Put us in a proper supply because before that two of us were driving backwards and forwards getting filled up from Mildenhall dump. At Rowley Mile there was no such thing was there? So they had to put a twenty thousand gallon big tank above ground.
CB: Yeah.
RD: And it was camouflaged paint and I was filling up and it was just dark and they’d got their landing light, not their landing lights but their navigation lights were on and as they got down on the ground then there was no such thing as electric lights and that. A flare path was was nothing else but paraffin. What they called beehive.
CB: Yeah.
RD: Soaked in paraffin.
CB: Yeah.
RD: And there was an airman looked after two. Started off at one end for the first seventy five yards and it was a hundred yards, a hundred yards, a hundred yards. So you got seven blokes looking after the flare. That’s ground crew blokes and you got the team at the front and sometimes they used their landing lights because in the starboard wing of the Wimpy there were two lights that came down like car lights, you know. And it was very dangerous on the flare path because I’ll tell you for why. Sometimes if there was a cross wind you’d got to duck a bit quick or you’d get your head chopped off with the low flying aircraft I’ll tell 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 Robert Norman William Didwell. Two
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-07-19
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ADidwellRNW160719-AV, PDidwellRNW1601
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Pending review
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Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Format
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00:42:37 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Robert joined the RAF at the end of 1938 when he was 18. He flew with 99 Squadron, spending three and a half years overseas. Robert recalls how his older brother was a regular soldier before the war in the 1920s, and his mother was a kitchen maid. From August 1939 to February 1941, he acted as a first mate and oversaw all the fuel that came into his station and got to know all the air crew. He describes how on the 14th December 1939 there was an order for nine aircraft to attack German shipping across the North Sea. He states that they struggled with the weather and how five aircraft were shot down and one badly damaged, and 30 men lost their lives. He was a fitter airframe and in charge of the hydraulics, wheels, tyres and breaks through daily routine checks. He describes how he could not be an army medic due to his bad left eye not being up to standard. He eventually achieved the rank of lance corporal. After his early time on the squadron at RAF Newmarket, he went on an engineering course and was then posted at RAF Boscombe Down. He was also stationed overseas in Egypt and the Persian Gulf. He describes how many soldiers died of heat exhaustion while stationed there.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Suffolk
England--Wiltshire
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
North Africa
Egypt
Persian Gulf Region
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1938
1939
1940
1941
1939-12-14
Contributor
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William Evans
Julie Williams
99 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
ground personnel
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Newmarket
shot down
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/916/11160/PLambJ1702.2.jpg
85507b75ef454cf9a43249d5d0b3eefc
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/916/11160/ALambJ170725.2.mp3
9cf54521a95dc48ea8288c3d35289d9d
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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Lamb, James
J Lamb
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with James Lamb (b. 1921, 1373978 Royal Air Force).
He served as ground crew with 75 New Zealand Squadron and 11 Squadron in Burma where he worked on Hurricanes and Spitfires.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-25
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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Lamb, J
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
GT: Ok. We’re at Jim Lamb’s place in Edinburgh and I’m going to interview Jim so we’re just going to go through a few things and this is a precursor to the actual interview. So, Jim we’ve got microphones here and you can speak into that one and I this one and I’m going to set myself ongoing as well. But it just records it as we’re going. So this is not the actual interview Jim but I’m going to go through with you a couple of things. We chatted quite a bit yesterday about your, your time in the RAF. And a bit about your life and what you achieved. Now, can you please remember your service number?
JL: 978 was the last two.
GT: Yeah.
JL: That’s all.
GT: 978 was your last three.
JL: 978 1373978. That could have been it.
GT: 137.
JL: 1373978.
GT: 978.
JL: Funny I should remember a number like that without it meaning something.
GT: Ok. And you. Now just going to clarify a few things before I come into the interview and ask you a bit. You joined up as a aircraft technician.
JL: That’s all. Yes
GT: Yeah. Ok. And then later on you converted to be a pilot.
JL: No. I never said I was a pilot.
GT: You trained as a pilot or did you —
JL: No.
GT: No. No. Ok. So you went out to Burma as an aircraft technician.
JL: That’s it. Correct.
GT: Ok. So you worked on the Hurricanes etcetera.
JL: That’s it.
GT: That’s the story. Ok. That’s brilliant.
JL: On Wellingtons first. The Wimpy.
GT: Yeah.
JL: And on Hurricanes and Spitfires. That’s the three machines I worked on.
GT: Fabulous. Ok. And just to clarify was it 11 Squadron in Burma you —
JL: 11 Squadron.
GT: You were working on?
JL: 11 Squadron.
GT: Yeah. Good. Ok. What, what was your birth date? What was your birth date?
JL: 13th of November 1921.
GT: 13th of November. Right. And can you remember what medals you eventually got?
JL: Oh no. I got the usual. Victory, Defence, Burma.
GT: ‘39/45 Star.
JL: Star. And all that stuff.
GT: Ok.
JL: And —
GT: Did you ever apply for the Bomber Command clasp?
JL: I’ve got that as well. Yeah.
GT: You’ve got that on there as well.
JL: That’s about all I got.
GT: Ok.
JL: And the Defence and the Victory.
GT: But did you say those medals, you had them stolen or you’ve still, you’ve still got them.
JL: I don’t know where they are. I’ve no interest in them.
GT: Ok. But you did apply for them and you did get them initially.
JL: I’m not interested.
GT: No.
JL: I’ve forgot about it all.
GT: Ok.
JL: I’m not the least bit interested.
GT: Yeah.
JL: If you want to know the truth.
GT: Ok. Fair enough.
JL: I’ve got no —
GT: Fair enough OK. Well, Jim I’m going to talk about your, and ask you a bit about where you were born, where you grew up and then why and how you joined the RAF. Where you went in the RAF. Bearing in mind this is for the International Bomber Command Centre but they also would like to know what you did during your service and then what you did afterwards. So you and I chatted yesterday about what you did and you went to South Africa. So I’ll just ask you those questions. Yeah.
JL: Yeah.
GT: And then I’ll let you talk and tell us all about it. Is that ok with you?
JL: Well, quite frankly I don’t want to upset you but I’m really not interested. I want, I don’t want to recall back these things. My mind’s not, I just [pause] who would all this information go to?
GT: They, they have got documents here and we can go through those if you like and that’s, and that shows you that this will go to, goes to an archive that, that describes what each of one of you chaps did and went through and, and then there’s a photograph of you and there’s because ground crew, there’s not that many ground crew left and what they were trying to achieve is to —
JL: I see. I don’t want to upset you, or [pause] I just I’ve put it on the table I’m not interested.
GT: Yeah.
JL: I’ve done it. I’ve forgot about it. And that’s it.
GT: Ok. You told me a lot about it yesterday.
JL: That’s all. This is a conversation.
GT: Yeah.
JL: But to go and get it all written down. No. No.
GT: Ok. Fair enough. That’s quite your right. There’s no need to, to be, to be sorry about that and that’s fine. It’s —
JL: I’ve done it. I’ve done it. I was very happy with what I was doing and in the company I was in and I was very fortunate to be in it, I came through it and get home safe. And that’s, that’s story finished.
GT: Yeah. Fair enough.
JL: That’s, that’s it.
GT: It’s just, yeah chatting.
[pause]
JL: I’ve forgotten about it and [pause] that’s it. I don’t want any writing about it or nothing about it. I didn’t want it. I joined up for the war. I served the war as best as I could. I was lucky to get through it. And then I forgot it. That’s how I live.
GT: Yeah.
JL: I don’t go back on things.
GT: It’s nice to see you’ve got my 75 Squadron tie on.
JL: I always put that on.
GT: Yeah.
JL: I’ll never forget it.
GT: Yeah.
JL: I’ll never forget it but it’s, I often wear this when I go out. I had a wonderful, it’s terrible to say. There was a war and people got killed and maimed. But I enjoyed that period. Don’t ask me why. My sister can tell you I enjoyed it. I think when I joined up first —
GT: Hang on Jim. Hang on. Are you able to chat softer?
Other: Oh sorry.
GT: Yeah.
Other: We have to —
GT: Sorry. Carry on, Jim.
JL: When I joined up it was for three months. We’d all done that. And the war come along we had to accept the fact, and I lived the fact and I lived. I thought well I’m in it ‘til it’s finished or unless something and just about do what I have to and I wasn’t interested in much after that. I’d done the job I had to do and I was glad it was over and I got home safe. I never think back on it or talk about it. It’s part of your legacy. Sorry that thing that had to happen. And lasses and laddies never got back home. Some got back home blind, armless, legless. Nah.
GT: Because you and I, with the 75 Squadron Association have been pretty close over the last couple of years. But, but did you, did you know that there was an 11 Squadron Association as well?
JL: No.
GT: Yeah. I just found them on the internet this morning and of course they have their bit of history showing the Hurricane bomber 2Cs.
JL: Yeah.
GT: And then the Spitfires being out there. And did you know they ended up in Japan in 1946?
JL: Yeah. Yeah.
GT: But you’d come home by then, hadn’t you?
JL: Yeah.
GT: Yeah. Because my dad was on J Force.
JL: Ah.
GT: And he was in Japan with 14 Squadron, New Zealand Air Force as a Squadron carpenter.
JL: I think if I can remember right I came home on the 10th of March 1946. I think it was.
GT: So you were on a boat for quite a bit to get home, were you?
JL: Yeah. The Windsor I think I was on. HMS Windsor. I think it took about twelve days then.
GT: Yeah.
JL: To come home.
GT: Gee whizz. But you must have stayed in Burma sometime after the war finished though. You stayed on there for a while did you?
JL: I got, I was only, I joined up. I wasn’t called up.
GT: So you were a volunteer. A volunteer reserve.
JL: I had the, so you got, when the war finished being out in Burma we all, the other guys not just me we got forms to fill out. Did we want to stay on and finish off our, or do we want to go home. I said, ‘I want to go back. I don’t want to be a regular in the Air Force.’ So I got, like me, we got home. No, weekends or service afterwards. I left there and when I left Burma I left the Royal Air Force. I was out and I came home a civilian. I was demobbed in Burma.
GT: That’s odd. I would have thought they would have brought you home all the way and then demobbed you here.
JL: That’s right. No. I said, ‘I’m finished.’ ‘When would you finish?’ I said, ‘I’d finish now if I could.’ So he said, ‘Right. Well, your term is finished,’ he said, ‘When you get back home you’ve got no other association with the Royal Air Force.’ I said, ‘That’s quite correct.’
GT: Gosh. That’s huge.
JL: Then I went as well as I could.
GT: Yeah. Because you said you joined up straight from —
JL: The day the war started.
GT: When the war started.
JL: The war started at 10 o’clock one Sunday morning. The 3rd of September. I had joined up before the afternoon was out. My aunt said, ‘Where have you been?’ I said, ‘Joining up.’ She said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘It’s only going to last three months so everybody says. I want three months at the government’s expense.’ And I come home on the 10th of March 1946. A long three months eh? No. I suppose being young in the war. War is an adventure. It was an adventure for me. It’s not a stupid thing to say but it’s an unbelievable thing to say. I went through the war and never, never had any thought of not getting back home. When I left my mother said to me, our mother said to me, she says ‘Oh, you shouldn’t have to do that but don’t worry,’ she said, ‘You’ll come back home alright. And I worked through that years with that there. I was in things that I never thought I would be able to take but I would. Somebody was looking after me.
GT: Well, especially because you told me that when you joined up you went to 75 Squadron at Feltwell on Wellingtons. And then Mildenhall. And then Newmarket on Stirlings.
JL: Yeah.
GT: And then off to Burma. So, so you spent how much time would you have spent on 75? Three years. No? Two years perhaps. Because 75 Squadron was at Feltwell from April ’40 to August ’40. Then Mildenhall to January ’41. Back at Feltwell, Oakington and then Newmarket.
JL: That’s correct.
GT: June ’43.
JL: Imphal.
GT: So you worked on 75 Squadron.
JL: Yeah.
GT: Right through from 1940 to around about the end of ’42 or after. And that because they then went to Newmarket and is that about when you were chosen to go to Burma and left? Left there for there do you think? Would that be about it? I’m trying to get your history for the 75 Squadron history for you, you see.
JL: Wellington. There’s the Stirling there. Then the Lancaster.
GT: Yeah. See there.
JL: The old Wimpy was the best. Everybody will tell you that. You could knock the hell out of the thing but still the engines were running you go home [laughs] That’s strange eh? It was. But then again you’re one of a few hundred thousand young laddies who join up. You join up because you all think you’re in the movies sort of thing. I would never join up again. No. But we’d done it. We didn’t have to do it. At that time I volunteered to do it. Everybody said it was three months. It would be over. And this young gentleman then believed them [laughs] And I realised after a few years they told everybody the same thing to get you bloody in. But Helen can tell you everybody tried to make like some of the laddies that I used to meet and that, ‘I wish I hadn’t done this. I wish I was home.’ I said, ‘You’re making yourself ill for no reason whatsoever. You’ve done it and you’ll not get out until they let us out. To make yourself sick. You can tell everybody I shouldn’t have done it. It’s a ridiculous statement.’ When you say to the government people to join up that’s it. There’s no saying, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.’ But as I said to you and it’s a terrible thing to say. It sounds like a lie even but it’s not a lie. I enjoyed it. I don’t know how. It’s maybe other men it’s probably the same as I. I suppose it’s how your nature is in your head. You say, oh let’s, it’s like if I smash that chair. I can’t say I’m sorry and make the chair back again. It’s maybe a different way to look at life. And when I was in Burma, you know, ‘I wish I could go home.’ I said, ‘There’s no point in wishing and get yourself sick. You’ll not get home ‘til all being well they’ll send us home. To go around every day like that and moping. You’re only damaging this and making yourself ill. You make the best of it don’t you? When I was in Burma things were ups and down. But I just got as if I was working in here. You’ve got to train yourself. To make yourself ill for a reason that you can’t alter is being silly. You’ve done it. You can’t say, ‘Right. I’ll go home now. I’ve had enough.’ No. No. You get home when they send you home. There many a young man I used to say that to. I used to say enough you know you’ll no you’ve done this, you wish you had done that. I said, ‘I’ve done it because,’ I said, ‘I was one of many thousands that believed the war would last three months and I believed these people [laughs] That’s a bit, the big boss decided I had to. I got through it all right and got home so you’ve just got to forget all the ups and downs. There was many wonderful times. I met wonderful young lads. Friends. True friends. 75 Squadron was, it was a different. It was a different Squadron. It was [pause] the CO from the officers down, and the Group Captain Lucas. A gentleman. There was never any silly, there wasn’t a rank, there was Popeye Lucas used to come on a Sunday and have his lunch with the whole Squadron in to the dining room. And he went to the officer’s dining room. He went and had lunch on Sunday was with his men. It was a different Squadron. It was a different, it’s a pity some of the British Squadrons hadn’t learned from him because I went to another one and oh boy. No. It’s not that there’s got to be somebody commanding. But you’ve got to command to get respect. Not get hate, eh? And he’s got to know when he feels that he’s got your respect which you should give the whole thing runs smoothly. But if you going [unclear] No. I was. I enjoyed the war. That’s as I said that seems a stupid bloody statement but I couldn’t, well nobody got out anyway. Excuse me. And I used to tell the lads that used to say to me. Many. ‘I wish this was over. I wish I’d never come in. I wish I’d never done that.’ I said, ‘Stop the wishing. Start thinking and enjoy it. You come in to do it. You can’t get out. Make the best of it.’ Do the job you joined up to do and that’s it. But that’s how I felt in my younger days. And I always enjoyed it. Aye. I never got, I don’t know why I never got into trouble. Them things. Coming in at two in the morning instead of one minute to twelve and got away with it [laughs] Oh dear. I used to say that at one Squadron I left, Captain Lucas said, ‘Sorry Jim,’ he said, ‘You’re finished with it now.’ I said, ‘Oh yes.’ He said, ‘Well, you’ll be glad.’ I said, ‘Yes. We should all be glad that the war is over.’ And I said, ‘But I enjoyed it in a way.’ ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Well, the things I’ve done.’ He said, ‘So you didn’t mind being in.’ I said, ‘No. No. I’ve done what I wanted to do.’ If I wanted to come back at two in the morning I came back at two in the morning.’ And he said, ‘And you were never caught?’ I said, ‘No. I made certain arrangements that I wouldn’t get caught.’ [laughs] Before you do something wrong think about how to defend yourself if you think you’re going to get caught for doing it wrong. So it never, there was only once. The way I used to enter back in and I was in the front of the CO. He says, ‘Where have you managed to be out ‘til two. Getting back here at two. Are you drunk?’ I said, ‘I don’t drink.’ Which I didn’t. I said, ‘No. I said I met nice company,’ I said, ‘And this company took me home. I stayed in there and her dad had been wounded badly in the war in the Middle East and he had [pause] Yes. When I look back. And he had the —
GT: She’s going to take a photo of us.
JL: I’ve had a new camera. I’m not paying for a new one. No way. Oh dear.
GT: Try again. Try again. That’s it.
JL: Yes. Thumbs up. Happy to meet you all.
Other: Good. Good.
GT: Thanks.
JL: Yes. It was [pause] I would say that I talk on behalf of everybody [laughs] A Squadron that, there was never another Squadron in my heart. It could never have come to the level of 75 New Zealand Squadron. From the boss to the toilets attendant we were one. We went on leave. This is, you were sent for your leaves. Oh, in a second. Yes. Right. And you come back. Oh yeah wait a minute. Yes. Yes. You come back on the 12th. And you went away. Didn’t need that. 75 New Zealand. You went away when your tape were there and some days I’ve come back early. Like others. It was a wonderful Squadron. I’ve come back two days early. ‘Back already?’ They said?’ Oh, a bit of dancing and met [unclear] As I say, I go way back. I enjoyed my time at 75 New Zealand Squadron. It was, there was something different about it. Because Group Captain Lucas was only private Lucas. He was one, and we respected him. He’d come and sit down beside the guys if there was a football match on. If one of the Squadrons were playing a football he’d sit beside you and share cigarettes and have a smoke and talk. And we all respected him. I don’t think any, anybody took advantage of him. He was, he made everybody feel we were one. He had a gift. Group Captain Lucas. A man. Yes. You meet the ones you remember. But it was a lovely happy Squadron. It was. It’s a fact that you always remember. The lads in it. Yes. From the group captain down. The guys who were watching the football match and he would wander amongst them and stand and watch it himself, take his cigarette out and the guys near him, hand them a cigarette. Different. You would never have got the British guy doing that. They were officers. Sir, you know. Yes. I remember that. I once told an officer, I said, ‘Don’t you shout at me.’ I says, and another thing, ‘Don’t shout Lamb either when you want to speak.’ I said, ‘Have you ever read the book? The Service Manual. That’s the do’s and the don’ts,’ I said, ‘Have you ever read it?’ ‘I haven’t actually.’ I said, ‘I’ll read some of it to you. The most important part,’ I says, ‘Everybody’s got a rank. From private up to you, to the admiral to the super general is a rank. And if you want to call on me and speak to me never shout Lamb. Shout my rank,’ and he said.’ An officer is in the Air Force says, ‘Corporal Lamb,’ Corporal Lamb will come and see you. Don’t just shout Lamb because I’ll ignore you.’ I said, Because that’s, if you want to take it further put me on a charge and that’s what I’ll say in front of whoever makes the charge.’ I said, ‘We’re not dogs, you know,’ I said, ‘We’re human beings.’ It’s just that. Then I got on well with him. He said, ‘You speak your mind.’ I said, ‘I speak my mind if I think it’s the right thing to do.’ I said, ‘Otherwise,’ I says, ‘I keep quiet.’ I says, ‘But this Lamb business. I don’t him,’ I says, ‘I know Mr Lamb, Jim Lamb, Jimmy Lamb, James Lamb but I don’t know Lamb.’ [laughs] No. You’ve got, you know, you’re a young man you join up in a war. Be a man. If you see things that’s not appertaining how it should be. An officer should treat you, the Squadron or anybody you speak up. You don’t stand like a wee boy. No. I was once put on a charge once for speaking back and I said, ‘Who will take me in front of the charge?’ I said, ‘I’d like the group captain to do it.’ And they said, ‘Well, I don’t know.’ I said, ‘Well, I’m asking for it. I’m the one who’s going to get punished and I want the group captain to do it.’ And I did get, you see, ‘What was your problem?’ ‘Well,’ I says, ‘To start with what I was put on a charge for,’ I says, ‘I don’t think it was necessary,’ I says, ‘And at no point in talking of putting me on a charge I said the only person that can sit and understand it I said was the man that’s running this Squadron and that’s you. Get on with it.’ When I finished he sent for the guy who was going to put me on a charge and made him say he was sorry. I didn’t, I was afraid of nobody. If you know the truth in there and you can speak it you speak it. I was well known. No. You’re not, you didn’t join up as a private or able seaman or whatever you want to call it. You joined up as a man. Not to be treated like a dog. So if you’re getting wrong treated I put in for it. I spoke up to a few I tell you. I had to. And I explained it to them and they got into bloody trouble not me. The super general or admiral or whatever he might be and you’ve got men under you eh? They respect you. You’re the man in command and figure out things but you don’t treat us like bloody dogs. We’re men that’s got to serve you. Men. You treat us as men. But some didn’t. They thought they were something great. I was walking across the square one day. That’s the big parade ground. Not that you’ll know that without me telling you that and I heard a voice shouting, ‘Lamb. Lamb. Lamb.’ And I kept walking. So he ran around. He didn’t come on the square. This bloody stupid officer. He ran around and he’s waiting until I got to the other side. So he stood in front of me. I went to attention and I saluted him. He says, ‘Tell me.’ I said, ‘What do you want me for?’ He said, ‘I feel like putting you on a charge.’ I said, ‘What for?’ He says, ‘I shouted for you and I shouted for you in [unclear].’ I said, ‘You never shouted for me.’ He says, ‘I did.’ I said, ‘No. You didn’t, sir.’ I said, ‘My rank and my name or if we were friendly Jim Lamb but I’m not Lamb. I have got a name. I’m not a dog.’ [laughs] ‘Dismissed.’ See, I used to say that to many lads if they get upset about something or something is getting done to you, you speak up. You don’t go away or keep it to yourself or to the others, and that, and that, and that. No. You’re a man. Look at them. He’s the same as you. He only gets a better bloody salary. That’s what I told this one. No. I don’t know how some lads took it. There were some officers that were sent down from above and they were the mighty ones eh? They were stupid. I treated superior officers with respect but in here they were a man in uniform just like me. I didn’t have the mentality to raise to be the commanding officer. Well that’s I didn’t have the education. I was an ordinary school boy and in my young days the thought about a war and you get to think if there’s a war I want to do this and you learn more. A world at peace you grow up and you learn what you want to learn so you get into life and make money. You forget about having to go and do this to the guy next to you who has probably been a toilet attendant [laughs] No. There was no better to do. I never looked at an officer as something great. He was a man that had a bit more in here or he had a love for being higher in the Navy, higher ranked or Air Force or the Army. He wanted to get on in that in do something. I joined up to go in to the Royal Air Force. And that’s what I joined up to do and I was in it and I got paid for what I was doing. I had no ambition to be group captain or one of the lads. And I enjoyed my service. I enjoyed, it’s a terrible thing to say I even enjoyed out in Burma because you were, how we were brought up. Yes. As a family. You had to make yourself prepared. And I used to hear our late father talk about the 1914 war so how what they had to do in it which was a terrible war compared to the 1940 war. But we had to, you’ve got to learn that you’d joined something that you’d got to obey but I also learned if they want you to obey that they have to treat you properly. It’s not the first officer that I’ve kept walking past because he shouted just my last name. He said, ‘On a charge.’ I said, ‘That’s fair enough. In front of the CO.’ I think I had three that I can remember. He said, ‘You know what you’ve done?’ I said, ‘What did I do?’ He said, ‘You ignored this officer. He spoke to you and you didn’t.’ I said, ‘Yes. I’d do again in front of you if he’d done what he done to me.’ I said, ‘I’ve got a rank.’ He says, ‘I know. I can see.’ I says, ‘I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just telling you what I think.’ I said, ‘And I’m going to address him by it.’ I says, ‘And when out in civilian life.’ I said, ‘I’m either called Jim, James, Jimmy or Mr Lamb.’ So I said, ‘in the Air Force my name is Lamb. And when somebody shouts at me from a square that they want to speak to me, a higher rank right, I’ve also got and I want shouting on my rank before my name. He can call me Mr Lamb if he wants.’ ‘Dismissed.’ I wished I could have taped.
GT: So, now, just, just to get your name correct. Is it Jim Lamb and nothing in between? Jim. James.
JL: No. Just plain. Some options —
GT: James. Jim.
JL: Some people call me Jimmy.
GT: Yeah.
JL: And some people how could I say? Some of the dolly birds they call me James [laughs]
GT: So I can put you down as James. Then Jim Lamb.
JL: Yes.
GT: Is that good enough for the record?
JL: We just [pause] And even in Scotland here anybody christened John they’re never just shouted John. They’re Johnny. Johnny. It’s not just John. You’re Johnny. Just the way we are here. We’ve all got our different, you know. I was called many things [laughs] but you can’t write them. I can spell them [laughs]
GT: Yeah. And we’ve got your number service now was 137.
JL: 3 978.
GT: Brilliant. Ok. That’s confirmed there and you joined up as an aircraft technician.
JL: Yes.
GT: Was it AC1 or AC2.
JL: AC1.
GT: AC1.
JL: I can’t remember.
GT: Yeah.
JL: If it was AC1. I can’t, to be honest with you so —
GT: And when you left the RAF what rank were you or classification then? AC2
JL: The same as I went in.
GT: Ok. You didn’t get promoted then to corporal?
JL: No way. I should have been demobbed as an ex-convict. No. I didn’t want any. Not for me. I said no. I just wanted to be one of the lads.
GT: Yeah. You were on 75 Squadron when James Ward was there.
JL: That’s correct. I knew the man.
GT: You knew the man.
JL: I knew him. I had the honour of knowing him.
GT: Can you tell me a bit about him please?
JL: Well, he was one of the best pilots on the unit then. And as a, we were one. 75 Squadron was one. From Group Captain Lucas down to the toilet attendant we were one. We were one. He wasn’t that and you weren’t this and I wasn’t this or whatever. No. We were one. We got the honours. We were the top Bomber Command in Bomber Command. 75 Squadron. Did you know that? We were the top of Bomber Command because we were one and even if we had a big meet the thing on one of the top of the Royal Air Force goody guys came along and he was surprised at the difference. No difference in officers, men. How we were one. And somebody should have told them. You see the point is that the officers that were the best officers come from a wealthy family. They went to school. Their family background life was Navy, military, Air Force. They grew up as that. And when their sons grew up, right, they grew up much like we all grow up and when they went into the army or whatever it was as an officer they were just like part of us, and they treated you. It was the guys that were nothing and managed to become a first lieutenant or something. He thought he was great and he treated them like animals. I spoke up against them. He was something. You had to jump this and jump. Nah. I said, ‘We are all one,’ I said, ‘Never forget,’ I says, ‘When we go in to battle,’ I said, ‘A bullet has got no names on it, eh?’
GT: So, James Ward was, was a really good pilot.
JL: Oh yes.
GT: Do you remember the night that he managed to crawl out on the wing?
JL: Oh, I know all about that. Yes.
GT: Yeah. Can you tell what —
JL: Put the fire out. Yes. Coming back from a raid. Some of the ack ack hit one of the engines and they went on fire and he took his ‘chute, he went out and he put the flame out. A man like that deserves to get through it, eh. I remember that.
GT: Do you remember the crew? The people.
JL: Oh, I can’t remember all the names now. But I can’t even remember, I’d have to sit down hard and try and picture. It was a wonderful, l it was a wonderful Squadron eh, I think it was. Well, we were. They were the top bomber Squadron in Bomber Command. 75 New Zealand Squadron. We got the top honours. The wonderful, it’s a, it’s a terrible thing to say, it was enjoyable years. That’s why. It was just different.
GT: What was it like working on the Wellingtons? As you were an aircraft technician.
JL: Yes.
GT: What was it like working on the Wellington bombers and the engines and the air frames?
JL: It was —
GT: Did you —
JL: It was like working on a car. It was a wonderful aircraft. I’ll tell you something you can fly it to hell and back with that thing and if you hit [unclear] the body to hell. As long as one of the engines was going. One come back one time and the condition of it. It had no [unclear] on it and they had all been lucky. Some of them had got a bit wounded in that. They must have been shattered with it. Yeah. But they landed it. It was a wonderful aircraft the Wimpy. The Wellington. Done its job. I say then of course they started going on to the Lancaster and blah blah blah but —
GT: So, when you were working on the Wellington what did you do? Engines and the airframe and the wheels and the gun turrets and all that? What was your speciality?
JL: Airframe. Yeah. Kept on one and then at the school we’d go to, whatever and what the hell then. That come back. I got myself a book and I started writing it down. So I read a book about how this happened. The ailerons and the rudders and blah blah blah and how you fix them and that. So when I went in the classes and I listened. So I did my job I had to do and I’d done it as well as I could. And then I went from that out to Burma. And then Burma we were on the old Hurricanes just as they were getting finished. And the Hurricanes were put to one side and the Spit came out. Worked on them. 75 New Zealand Squadron was, 11 Squadron was in Burma. They still, ‘I wish I was home. I wish this.’ But I enjoyed it. You’ve got to try and fool yourself in that you’re enjoying it. Making yourself ill saying, ‘Oh, I wish I was there. I wish. No point in wishing in the world. I used to tell many young lads. They used to say to me, ‘You’re drunk.’ ‘You’re mad.’ No. It’s a adventure in life that was. Burma didn’t worry me. That was of course as I said to you before the main reason was our mother. She said, ‘Don’t you worry,’ she said, ‘You’ll come back alright.’ And I lived through that. Years of war. But that and here and here. I don’t think [pause] I can never remember being afraid or frightened. I ran out to get cover and all that naturally. But in one place in Burma I think I did the hundred yards in a second never mind anything else when we got heavily bombed one night. And of course don’t forget in Burma the planes, all the ammunition and the bombs and everything was all in one, and the lads. Your tent or wherever you had one. Eventually in Burma you ended up with the heavy monsoons. They were, I remember one hell of a night. Most of our aircraft was destroyed. I was lying on the ground through the night isn’t it? Boy I ran that night. I could have been the world’s outmost champion. No one could ever beat me. The flames were going up and bullets flying. You couldn’t see. You could hear. I’ll never forget that night. But you do it. I suppose the training. I don’t know what you’d call it. It wasn’t you were frightened. You ran to get to safety. And then I, I got thanked for that. I was running and there was a guy who had got some of the splinters lying and I looked at him and I was running on and I thought oh I can’t. I ran back and I got him. And I carried him out of the area that he could have got hurt with some of the shrapnel and that, you know. But I was going to leave him. I was quite happy to run by myself to get away. But I thought, no. I can’t. I can’t. So I went back. I managed to carry him as far as I could. And then when we got in to the shelter. It’s a long time ago. And he used to write to me. When the war finished he went to the states. He used to write. Norman. He stopped writing. You know, you keep writing the same things. But I’d done it. I wasn’t going to [laughs] That’s the truth. I thought too bad. I thought, no. I think every man would have done the same. You, you’re I’d not say, frightened is not the right word. You’re trying to get, make sure you’re getting away from it. I’m the one who broke all the records I’ll tell you, boy could I run, and I did run for sport. But that night I could have broke the world record. And I see that man there groaning and I thought no. I just couldn’t. It’s not bravery or nothing. It’s just how your heart is. I heard him. He was still. As I passed I heard him groaning so obviously he hadn’t been knocked out altogether. I got back and I picked him up and I carried him ‘til I had to lie down and have a rest. We laid down in safety. The bombing raid was over and we all got gathered together. It was a long time.
GT: So, that was with Spitfires in Burma.
JL: Burma.
GT: So, what, the Japanese were artillery or were they dropping bombs from aircraft?
JL: They were dropping bombs from aircraft. On the Squadron you know where they had the fighters as well. And but that night we all heard that I don’t know for sure, we all heard, there were some didn’t get so lucky. One of them was one that would have been getting it anyway if you see what I mean because he had given information to the Japanese. So the story came out. I don’t know. And he lit lights for them. They knew exactly where we were. All the aircraft. Oh what a night that was. I could have been a runner at the Olympics. I was a good runner when I was young anyway but that gave me some extra speed. But I went back and got this bloke. I just thought too bad. You’re hurt. We’re all different, eh?
GT: So, the after working in Bomber Command and then effectively the Far East Fighter Command.
JL: Yeah.
GT: Did you notice a difference between Bomber Command and a fighter command Squadrons? Was there a difference that you noticed?
JL: No. It was instead of say five or seven in Bomber Command in an aircraft come back you were there and back and you were all one. It was up there when they all got down safe they would become all one just the same and they didn’t just come back on their own. They waited ‘til he landed and he landed and he and there. And then we all went and thanks very much. But 75 New Zealand Squadron I could have signed on for twenty five years with it. It was if Popeye Lucas. That was the finest group captain I ever met. Group Captain Lucas.
GT: Do you know which particular aircraft he flew? Did he fly just one Wellington bomber?
JL: No. As far as I know in the war he had his own little aircraft.
GT: Did he have nose art? Because there was one particular Wellington bomber with a soda siphon that was shooting bombs. Do you remember that one? Because I think —
JL: I can’t remember.
GT: I think that one was Popeye’s.
JL: It was just, but on a Sunday mornings. Sunday morning, Sunday lunch he took the grace. He was one of us. I will say, well I wasn’t around any others but I must say he must have been the most respected CO in the whole world. Everybody liked Popeye, and they called him Popeye.
GT: Did the officers or the air crew mix much with the ground crew?
JL: Oh yes.
GT: At the time.
JL: You were at [pause] there was no sort of you were an officer or a flight sergeant or whatever it was but you could come along and say that I was your mechanic. One of the mechanics. Aircraftman, eh? You could be called up, ‘Do you want a drink?’ Into to the sergeant’s mess or the officer’s mess. Never, no one would have said anything. That was 75 New Zealand Squadron. We were one. Off parade we were men. Somebody should write a book about 75 New Zealand Squadron. I think that’s why it was happy. It was a happy Squadron. That I can tell you. And you’d often say, ‘I hope my leave’s up. My leave’s up isn’t it?’ I enjoyed it.
GT: Do you remember in the sergeant’s mess? The footprints on the roof? Because I think that was Popeye Lucas that did that.
JL: Aye.
GT: Do you do you remember seeing that at all?
JL: Yes. You know it’s just a pity I hadn’t taken more interest but I’ll tell you something. That was a Squadron that everybody loved. We were, we were one. We were you must well of course you’ll know. We were number one in Bomber Command. We were top because we were one Squadron, eh? The toilet attendant to the CO.
GT: How many aircraft did you manage to get up each night? Because you only had two flights of Wellingtons and that’s what? Twenty four aircraft?
JL: Yeah.
GT: So, how many would you be able to get up each night for a raid? The whole twenty four generally or just some?
JL: Oh, it’s many times. I went a few times over with them
GT: Did you?
JL: Most of us did. We thought well if you don’t come back we’re not going to get punished anyway.
GT: So you would sneak on to the aircraft for a raid or two.
JL: To go over. You don’t think nothing of it. We lost very few aircraft, 75 New Zealand Squadron. ‘I’m coming with you.’ Well, I mean. So you went with them you weren’t going to be punished anyway. You were punished for going.
GT: Do you remember which ones you went on?
JL: Oh, I don’t know. I’m trying to remember the guy’s name. I must sit down hard and try one night. He was like a film actor. One of these tough goings you know. Yes. I’m on, and his crew were, it was twin brothers, twins, front and rear gunner when I went with them.
GT: Monk? Was their surname Monk?
JL: I can’t remember.
GT: Or Dodd.
JL: I couldn’t tell you but I know one was a front gunner and the other was in the tail. But there was not a squadron, no wonder we were number one in Bomber Command there was no Squadron I think not being in the only one that had the happiness of that one.
GT: Did you in the aircraft trade mix with the armourers much? Was there much rivalry?
JL: No.
GT: Or did you work together?
JL: Never the Army came in.
GT: The armourers that bombed the aircraft up. Not the Army. The armourers. When the armourers came in you worked together.
JL: Oh yes.
GT: Yeah.
JL: I told you. I’ve told many people. I think there must be something wrong with me. I enjoyed it. It’s a, it’s a stupid thing to say in a way but I did and you came home on leave I used to say, ‘I’ll go back tomorrow.’ I was glad to get back. I would say if they can showed things you find that 75 New Zealand Squadron was top. It was a, we were a unit. We weren’t in a war. There was a happiness. Somebody will find the right words, but you never thought about the war in 75 New Zealand Squadron.
GT: Did the Germans attack Feltwell where you were at any time? Do your remember being under attack by the Luftwaffe?
JL: Oh, Britain generally was. We, I don’t think [pause] I can’t remember. I’ve a feeling that there was one night there was a bit of a shenanigan went on. And I think one aircraft got hit on the ground actually. If I sit down and think enough things come back. Yeah. That’s it finished. It’s never finished. But I’ll tell you something I could have signed on for twenty five years with 75 New Zealand Squadron.
GT: Wow.
JL: It wasn’t a Squadron. It was a, I don’t know. From the group captain, officers down to the ones that work in the toilets. We were one.
GT: So after the war did you keep in contact with any New Zealanders from the squad? From 75?
JL: It all disappears. Yes.
GT: Not Popeye Lucas even.
JL: I met one at a big function I was in, in London. One of the crews that I knew. Of all the things that happened it’s just when you start thinking and then you, that’s what I remember and then later on something else comes into here. But I would say that 75 New Zealand Squadron if I was writing a book I would say it was the most proficient and happiest Squadron in the whole of the Air Force. People come back from leave early. [laughs]
GT: Indeed. High praise.
JL: Me too. We got home and I said to my mother, ‘I think I’ll make my way back.’ Mad.
GT: Yeah.
JL: But that’s the happiness. If you ever write a book you write that down. 75 New Zealand Squadron was the most proficient and happy Squadron I think there must have been. We were. From the top to the bottom.
GT: So how come you ended up in Burma? You had to leave 75 Squadron for Burma. What happened there?
JL: No. No. Similarly out there, there was quite a lot of losses and they had to start getting so the new lads coming in getting trained they were taking ones that were trained and went over there. So I was told, ‘Your next move is Burma.’ I thought well fair enough. And I come home. Had my seven days and then I’m lying out there. Jumping the gun, not a lie. I didn’t know I was going to Burma. But I know I was going in a boat. That bit I did know. And I’ll give a good laugh. I was on the ocean and I’m like this at the rail and a wee laddie next to me crying eh. A laddie like myself. ‘What’s up with you?’ He said to me, ‘Where are we going? Where are we going? I said, ‘Oh we’re going to be alright,’ I said, ‘We’re going to the States to get [unclear].’ ‘Are we?’ he said, Yeah.’ I says aye a lot here, Air Force and Army and Navy were sent out to America to train them. Did you know that? I said, ‘We’re going to America.’ He said, ‘Is that right? We landed in Burma. He said, ‘I hope I’m not going to fly with you.’ [laughs] Were going to America.
GT: You got on. Gosh. So you went from bomber aircraft.
JL: Yeah.
GT: And radial engines to fighter aircraft with Merlins. And you have, did you have any training on the Merlin engines once you left Bomber Command or did you just get sent to Burma and there’s an engine.
JL: Done it there. Yeah.
GT: Was it? They gave you no training.
JL: Aye. But you’re, let’s put it this, I think, the way I put it. You’re young. It’s excitement and this is different you know and you think ok you’re all Errol Flynn’s eh[laughs] The lasses loved you eh?
GT: So did you actually serve in Burma or was it Ceylon where the squadron, 11 Squadron was based? Because they started out in Ceylon.
JL: 75 New Zealand Squadron.
GT: No. Sorry. Carry on.
JL: 75 Squadron was here.
GT: Yeah.
JL: And then I was posted from 75 New Zealand Squadron to 11 Squadron and I went there and I thought oh. Well, the weather was good. But you’ve got to, as I’ve said to many a young lad, ‘We can’t get out of it. You can’t alter it. Why alter this and this. Enjoy it, eh. There’s no way you can change it.’ But Helen said, I said to Helen, I’m ashamed to say this to people but I enjoyed it. It’s a, I don’t know well the thing is the war was on. You weren’t put into it. You volunteered to go in to it. So just get on with it. There’s no point in saying I’ve changed my mind. There’s no changing your mind. No. But there was a crowd of you. We were all the same and that’s where you get to make real friends, eh? Because maybe one day you’ll depend. I’m glad you’re there or I’m there. It’s a different comradeship. That’s how you, you depended on each other. And at any one time fortunately they used to, the snipers if they got around especially in Burma it’s either the head officer they tried to find because there were no rank anyway. But they had way of finding out who gave the command. That’s the one to try and kill. And the doctor. So there were a couple of times they managed to get the doctor managed, they managed to get the doctor but the orderlies, medical orderlies, they took over. They were just as anybody had enough knowledge to get you better. Burma was an adventure. Ah yes. And then shall we say typical but I’m quite glad it happened. I wouldn’t have been anywhere [laughs] I’d have been stuck in Scotland.
GT: Yeah.
JL: What an excuse. And unpaid travel. Holiday travel. But generally all these years in one sense it was [pause] your mum and dad at home or your sisters and brothers they all worried about you and that. You missed them. They all looked out for you but as far as I’m concerned I enjoyed myself. I made it enjoyment. I’m not talking about I wasn’t afraid about bullets or nothing like that hey. I’m not talking about bravery. I made up my mind to enjoy it the best I could. I wish I was here. I wish I was home. I wish I was getting home, you make yourself ill for nothing because there’s no way you could alter it. I’ve told many that. I thought [unclear] around making a big joke of it all and enjoying yourself. Yes. I should write a book, eh?
GT: Now, you said you were born 13 November 1921.
JL: Yeah.
GT: Yeah. And that was here in Edinburgh.
JL: Yes.
GT: And you had how many brothers?
JL: What was that?
GT: How many brothers did you have?
JL: Brothers?
GT: Ahum.
JL: One.
GT: One. And how many sisters?
JL: He was in the army. Sisters? Three.
GT: Three. And, and your father’s business was, was carpentry.
JL: Building trade.
GT: Building trade.
JL: A building business. Yes.
GT: Ok. And you joined when you were seventeen or eighteen? I think you said you joined about September 1939.
JL: 1939.
GT: Is that about right?
JL: That’s right.
GT: Ok. So you’d have been about seventeen. So you had your eighteenth birthday.
JL: Yes. Because everyone thought it was going to last three months.
GT: Months.
JL: So I hurried away and joined the same day.
GT: Where did you do your training? Your initial RAF training.
JL: Was it London? Where was it now?
GT: Halton.
JL: Imphal? No. That’s where I went to in Burma. Where the hell did I do my training?
GT: You must have learned how to march and iron your uniform somewhere.
JL: Not far from London anyway.
GT: Yeah. Not far from there.
JL: What was the name in London. A training area.
GT: Hendon. Northolt?
JL: There’s be some brothel over there [laughs] [unclear] anyway.
GT: So then they sent you up to Feltwell to be with 75 Squadron. And then if we look at the map here we’re just looking at 75 Squadron moved from Feltwell to Mildenhall.
JL: That’s right.
GT: To Feltwell, Oakington, and then by then Newmarket in November ’42.
JL: Newmarket. Yes.
GT: Yeah. And the Stirlings arrived about that same time. So you worked on Stirlings for a little while.
JL: Yeah.
GT: And then you probably, what? Were moved to Burma sometime end of 1942.
JL: That’s correct.
GT: That would be about right. Yeah. That’s just trying to get your records, record correct. And on 11 Squadron you worked on Hurricane 2Cs. Mark 2Cs I see on the record. Hurricanes.
JL: Well I said, the Wimpy. That’s all I can remember now.
GT: Ok.
JL: We called it the Wimpy as you know.
GT: Yeah. Sure. Yeah. And so —
JL: And then in Burma it was the Hurricanes first and then the Spitfire.
GT: Spitfire. Do you remember what mark of Spitfire you worked on there?
JL: Oh no. You’ve got me there.
GT: Ok. They were big and powerful though?
JL: I wasn’t that interested in them actually. To be honest with you.
GT: And, and after the, after you came back from the war you came back to Edinburgh about 1946.
JL: Must have. When did I come back? The war finished.
GT: September.
JL: ‘44
GT: ’45. August September ‘45
JL: The war finished.
GT: Yeah.
JL: I got home on, I think March ‘46.
GT: You swanned around somewhere, didn’t you?
JL: I was quite happy about that. Swanning around. Just come back.
GT: And you took over your dad’s business when you got back.
JL: Well, my dad was here. Yes.
GT: Yeah.
JL: Worked for my dad and dad left us and I carried on the business. And my brother was, he was interested in, my brother was a very good carpenter. He made eighteenth century chairs and all that. That was his job. My brother. He was very clever.
GT: And you didn’t have that skill either.
JL: Anyway, we grew up. A wonderful family. We were very lucky. We used to always say and I mean this we should always thank above. As I used to say our mother and father was made in heaven and then sent down to have us.
GT: Wow. And you —
JL: We wanted for nothing.
GT: No. You met and married a lovely lady.
JL: Yes. Yes. I was at a dance in Edinburgh and I was always, I’m talking about myself now but I can’t help it, a good ballroom dancer. My family, my dad’s sisters and that were all dancers so I was taught properly and I was a good dancer. And that’s how I met my wife. Somebody said to the lady I’d been dancing with, ‘You see him dancing there. He’s a good dancer. Go and ask him for a dance.’ That’s how I met my wife.
GT: And that was, what was your wife-to-be’s name?
JL: Elizabeth.
GT: Elizabeth.
JL: Or called whatever they call them now. Betty
GT: Betty
JL: Aye.
GT: Then how many children did you have from there?
JL: Only the two.
GT: You got married nineteen forty —
JL: ‘46
GT: 1946. That was quick. After coming back.
JL: I think it was 1946. I had known her before I come home for good. I forget now.
GT: It’s alright. And you had one son and one daughter.
JL: Yes. I called them samples. There were no other samples to get. So that was enough.
GT: I’ll make a note here. Samples. And what’s your son’s name?
JL: James.
GT: James again. Yeah. And your daughter’s name?
JL: Margaret.
GT: And Margaret. And where are they now?
JL: Here.
GT: Yeah. Here in Edinburgh. They live in Edinburgh.
JL: Yeah. Aye. There’s both of them here.
GT: So, what, now, you were telling me yesterday that you, you didn’t spend all your time in Edinburgh. Where else did you go to make a living?
JL: Where did I emigrate to now?
GT: How about South Africa?
JL: South Africa was it? That’s right. South Africa. I spent forty one years in South Africa. I had a big business there.
GT: And what was the business doing? What did you in South Africa?
JL: Firewalls, ceilings, partitioning, painting, decorating.
GT: And whereabouts in South Africa?
JL: Johannesburg. But I moved around and I worked in Durban and Cape Town and all over. I was, I went out there for a job. I was going down to watch the crowd. Scotland going down to Wembley to play England. Football. So we left the club at midnight here that I belong to in Edinburgh. We got the 12 o’clock train to London. I didn’t drink you see, so they, I can enjoy myself without that. And by the time I got the other guys from the help to get them on, in the train into seats and fall asleep. I’m sitting there looking at them all and I looked down at a paper somebody left. And I picked it up and I see jobs vacant. Contracts manager wanted in this big firm in London. And my dad had gone. I carried on the business here. But they were all working. My sisters were all working, had good jobs. I looked down and [unclear] so when I come home I said to my late wife, ‘There’s a big job going in London.’ She said, ‘You’re the one that’s got to to keep us. You’ve got to decide the best way you can do it. It’s up to you.’ So I applied for the job. I went down and had an interview. Come back. And I spent a couple of days in London before I came back. Seen a number of shows because I used to belong to the theatre so I knew people in the shows. So I got back up in Edinburgh and Betty said, she said, ‘You’d better get on that phone.’ I said, ‘What for?’ She said, ‘They’ve been phoning you. The job’s yours.’ I said, ‘It’s mine.’ And my son and daughter, ‘Oh, we’re going away. We’re going.’ I said, ‘Oh, wait a minute,’ I said, ‘I’ve got to go down. I’ve got to go down to London and have another interview, medical and what have you.’ So from that day within three weeks we were in, in South Africa. I had a home there and a pool and my Rolls Royce. I worked hard and built a big business in South Africa. I had forty men work for me. [pause] [unclear] So I had a good business here. And mum, my mum was alright in a nice home and my sisters looked after her and that so I get to South Africa. Had a lovely home there and a good life there. Very fortunate. It was good. I worked hard and I played hard. I mean, I think most nights we were always out for dinner. We, I worked hard to get it because I liked a better life and I wasn’t very, you know but you go after something you want and you work for it you get it. People think oh you’re lucky you got — I said, ‘I’m lucky I was given the health to do it. Nobody came along and said, ‘There you are. There’s a big business. There’s the money in the bank to run it and there’s this. You’ve got to use this.’ So I was very fortunate and had a lovely big home there. And then the time came it was decided to come back. My son wanted to come back here. My daughter is married and still over there and a lovely home, and we sold our home and come back here. Helen lost her husband. That’s her here. Yeah. But I had a home. Helen got us a home. My wife wasn’t actually with me. And then my son he got his own home. He’s [pause] excuse me. He’s got his own home. My daughter’s got, still back in South Africa with her family. They’re all grown up now though. They’re all grown up.
GT: So how many grandchildren and great grandchildren have you?
JL: How many have I got? [pause] let’s think. Two granddaughters I think and one grandchild. And a son naturally. That’s about the only ones I’ve heard of [laughs]
GT: The only ones you know of.
JL: Oh yes. [unclear] [laughs] They all run.
GT: The first time I met you James we ended up with dinner with you at your favourite restaurant here at Edinburgh and you really liked the fact that every night you could go for a meal. That was, that was pretty special as far as I’m concerned. That was that was really nice to have your company and you welcomed me. And as secretary of the 75 Squadron in New Zealand I go and visit as many of the veterans from World War Two as I can find and meet up with. So it’s always been a pleasure to sit in your company. And this is my third time in Edinburgh to see you in the last two years, so, three years. So it’s always been an honour to sit in your company and listen to your experiences, your life and what you went through for us many to help those boys who flew away and some that never came back. So I can understand your willingness to discuss and then sometimes it’s, it’s not easy is it? To talk of those times.
JL: Well. Very fortunate. That’s it.
GT: James, you don’t need to touch your forehead to say touch wood. The table.
JL: This is better wood. This is natural wood [laughs] that’s me.
GT: Yeah [laughs] That’s fine.
JL: A man’s brain made this.
GT: Of course.
JL: It wasn’t mine.
GT: Of course. Well, it’s also a pleasure to know that you were on the Squad, on 75 Squadron when James Ward was there too. So —
JL: Yeah.
GT: That was something. There’s no one else around now that was around in his time.
JL: We used to write and then the writing fell off.
GT: Yeah.
JL: Aye.
GT: Oh, you mean. Oh, is that Popeye?
JL: Yeah.
GT: Yeah. Because James Ward was killed late. Well, several months after he was awarded the Victoria Cross. So did you see any of that at the time when he was awarded the Victoria Cross? Did the squadron really feel that was a good time?
JL: I would be in Burma.
GT: I think that happened before you left but —
JL: I don’t remember that to be honest with you.
GT: Yeah. And because, because that happened whilst you were at Feltwell you see so you moved on to, to Newmarket before you went to went, went to Burma so —
JL: Yeah.
GT: That’s ok. So, so I’m getting the vibe that you really liked the Wellington bombers. You really liked 75 NZ Squadron RAF.
JL: That was the one. Number one. Never be anything else to me. It was a happy —
GT: Yeah.
JL: You wouldn’t think there was a war on.
GT: And I I’m looking down here at the list of things that we’ve, we’ve talked about and you’ve pretty much just told me your life history.
JL: What was that?
GT: You’ve told me your life history again and I’m in the company of greatness.
JL: Ah yes. You see, I’ve always been me. The situations you try and make the best of it and of course when I joined up everybody said the war was three months. So away on Sunday morning the 3rd of September 1939 I ran away to join up. And my late dad said to me, ‘Where are you going?’ I said, ‘I’m joining up.’ ‘Three months holiday at the government’s expense. Away you go.’ And when I eventually come back from Burma I think it was the 10th of March 1946. I come home. I got home and my dad said, ‘Have you enjoyed your three months holiday all right?’ I said, ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘it was great.’
GT: That was five years you were away from home. Five years. Not three months.
JL: Somebody told us. Everybody here thought it would be three months the silly bugger. [laughs] and the silly ones really don’t.
GT: So I gather you never went back to Asia.
JL: No. But I’ve no regrets. I enjoyed it. To say that if there was a war on I’m sorry for all the things that happened to everybody and different things but I enjoyed it. It just, when the war finished I was demobbed. I didn’t actually wait I was demobbed I thought, I had the option to stay on. I said no. Go home. I started working for my dad. My dad kept the business going. And then we lost my dad and I kept the business going then. And at one time I had forty nine working for me and I was doing very well. I was not doing, I did do very well, and I was getting tired and everything. I never stopped. Seven days a week. But I had to protect what I’d created. I was going down to London one day to a job. There was an old newspaper, well a day before newspaper, not old but I picked it out and was reading it. “Contracts manager wanted in Johannesburg. Anglo American.” So I come home. I said to my late wife I said, ‘Do you want to go to South Africa?’ She said, ‘We’ll go anywhere you want to go.’ She said, ‘You’re the one that feeds us. Keeps us well and happy and be able to do what we do. You’re the one. Not me.’ So I said, ‘I’ll look at the job anyway.’ So I phoned them up I said blah blah blah. Fine. So I was away this particular morning. I had quite a few contracts for here for the place called the [Scottish Special Housing?] I had forty men working for me. And I was away and when I come back from this job I was doing she says to me, she says, ‘If you answer the phone,’ she says, ‘You’ve got the job.’ And I says, ‘What?’ She says, ‘Yes. You’ve got the job. Are you going to take it?’ I said, ‘It’s up to you.’ So, my son and daughter, they’re jumping up, ‘We’re going to South Africa.’ I said, ‘Oh, wait a minute,’ I says, ‘Your mother.’ So, she says, ‘Don’t ask me.’ She says, ‘You’re the wage earner. You’re the one that’s got to keep us. You’ve got to decide whether we’d be worse off there or better off.’ I said ‘Well, I can’t tell you I will be worse, better off there. I can’t. I’ve got to go and I’ll try and be better off. You’ll have to accept that or we don’t go.’ So I went out to the job and working away there and I was looking around and I’m watching what’s lying there. On a plate eh? I was just quite happy to do later on, you know. They think it’s very good all those years ago going to South Africa. I said to Betty, ‘I’m going to start on my own.’ She said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘I’m going to start on my own.’ She said, ‘What for?’ I said, ‘I’ve been putting a wee bit away,’ I says ‘I’ve got enough, and I’ve been offered the work.’ ‘Up to you.’ So I resigned my job, got a little office and started. It was in a year and a half I had forty men working for me. I had my Rolls Royce and everything. I can show you photographs.
GT: You were a great businessman.
JL: Yes. I had my Rolls Royce.
GT: What’s, what’s Helen’s surname?
JL: Eh?
GT: What’s Helen’s surname?
JL: Paul.
GT: Paul. Helen Paul.
JL: Mrs Paul to her. Yeah.
GT: Helen Paul. Ok. So, we’re in the company of me Glen Turner from the 75 Squadron Association and I’m doing an interviews and meeting Bomber Command folk and you are Mr Jim, James Lamb.
JL: Yes.
GT: And also in the company of Jim’s daughter Helen Paul and Diana Harrington.
JL: You met my son didn’t you? You met my son one day in the street.
GT: So, sorry what was that, James?
JL: I said you met my son, James.
GT: Yes we did. I met him.
JL: In the street.
GT: Yeah. Two years ago. Yeah. I did. That’s right. Well I think we’ve talked enough. I think you have given —
JL: It’s just —
GT: Loads of information to help with my history and and honestly the Bomber Command Centre as well. Are you, you’re ok with that?
JL: Oh, yes. It was 75 Squadron, eh?
GT: I’ve got a form from 75 Squadron. Can I let, can I let you fill that out and I’ll get a blue pen. So you —
JL: I’ll get my glasses.
GT: Ok.
JL: I think my glasses are over there somewhere.
Other: His glasses.
GT: Glasses. Yeah. These ones.
JL: I don’t know where I saw them. Oh that’s come off often. Don’t worry.
GT: Same as mine.
[long pause]
GT: Have you got a blue pen, Jim?
JL: Eh?
GT: Have you got a blue pen?
JL: A pen.
GT: Yeah. Like that one.
JL: An ink pen.
GT: If not Helen will have one.
[pause]
GT: Try it on there. No. It’s empty.
JL: Helen will get you one.
GT: Ok.
[long pause]
JL: Helen will get you one just now.
[pause]
JL: That’s alright.
GT: Just locating a pen for James to write his detail down.
JL: That’s what I was going for. How did you guess?
[pause]
JL: My right, left knee gives me trouble.
GT: Is it? And —
JL: Well that’s nothing is it? The first — James.
GT: That’s, that’s your surname.
JL: Oh.
GT: Yeah. So that’s ok. Just write Lamb here that’s good. You don’t have to cross it out. I can —
JL: Right.
GT: Yeah. James.
JL: The J in.
GT: Yeah. Put James there.
JL: First name.
GT: First name up there. I’ll get you to sign. Just sign your name there.
JL: My name.
GT: Just a signature. Just a signature.
JL: James.
GT: Yeah. Ok. Two.
JL: I had a few names but I can’t write them out there.
JL: No [laughs] Ok. Sign that one there. Just your signature so that I get everyone just to sign something.
JL: Elizabeth. We called her Betty.
GT: Ok.
JL: Address. I’ll just put here.
GT: Yes. [redacted]
[long pause]
JL: The email address is the same as above.
GT: Yeah. Well, you’ve only got a phone number haven’t you?
JL: Eh?
GT: You’ve only got a phone number, James. So just put your mobile phone number. The one we’ve been ringing.
JL: I’ll give you the house phone.
GT: Ok. Yeah.
JL: Or I’ll give you my phone. Both.
GT: Well, we’ve been talking on your mobile haven’t we?
JL: [unclear]
GT: Yeah. Ok. Actually —
JL: I’ll get the house number from Helen.
GT: Ok.
JL: I can’t remember it properly.
GT: Alright. Fine. You don’t have an email so that’s fine. Date of birth. Ok. So your, your phone number [redacted].
[pause]
GT: Right. Your service number.
JL: That’s what I’m trying to remember. The first one. 1373978. I’m sure that was it.
GT: Yeah.
[pause]
GT: Right. Now also your trade was the job that you did in the Air Force, so your — that’s ok you can just put. Because that was what you did before. Can you put slash aircraft tech because you were an aircraft mechanic weren’t you?
JL: Rigger.
GT: Yeah. That’s good. You were a rigger. And where were you? So you were at Feltwell. This is your time on 75 Squadron. So you were at Feltwell. Just put Feltwell on that one.
JL: That’s the area.
GT: Served where? Feltwell.
JT: [unclear]
GT: No. Just put Feltwell.
JL: Just put Feltwell.
GT: Yeah. [pause] And Mildenhall. You were at Mildenhall, weren’t you? Mildenhall.
JL: Feltwell.
GT: Yeah. Feltwell and Mildenhall.
JL: In the UK.
GT: Yeah. Ok. And 1940. I think it was 1940 to 1942.
JL: When the war finished.
GT: No. This is just 75 Squadron.
JL: Yes.
GT: Yeah. Yeah. So just put 1940 there.
JL: 1940.
GT: Yeah. And then put 1942. It’s just rough. It’s just a rough idea. I don’t have to be exact.
JL: And then I went to Burma.
GT: Yes. That’s right but this was 75 Squadron not 11. And you were AC2.
JL: Yeah.
GT: Yeah. Aircraftsman.
JL: Aircraftsman. That’s all.
GT: Yeah. So put AC2.
JL: That’s what you were you called. What were you called? I’ll put aircraftsman.
GT: Put AC2. We know what that is.
[pause]
GT: Yeah. And AC2 there when you retired. When you left the RAF you were —
JL: AC.
GT: AC2. Ok. So none of those. None of those. And aircraft type. So put Wellington and Stirling.
JL: Stirling.
GT: Yeah. In this one here.
JL: I should put there they thank God they got rid of me.
GT: Special award James. Yeah. So that one there put Wellington and Stirling.
[pause]
JL: Will this get me a pension?
GT: I can only but try for you. There you can put 11 Squadron Burma. Hurricane. That’s, that’s your other, other RAF history. So put 11 Squadron.
JL: Put UK in and Burma.
GT: No. You just put here 11 Squadron.
JL: 11 Squadron.
GT: Yeah. And then you can put Burma.
JL: Burma.
GT: Yeah. And put next to it Hurricane. Yeah. Hurricane. Hurri and Spit. Put Hurri and Spit.
JL: In there.
GT: Yeah. Hurri and Spit. That’s the two aircraft you worked on. Yeah.
JL: How?
GT: Hurricane.
JL: Oh. Yeah. Oh.
GT: My accent.
JL: But also in here was the Wellington as well.
GT: Right. You put Wellington up here. Yeah. See. Wellington next to it.
JL: I’ve put that there.
GT: And one last thing is to sign for me just up here Jim. Just do a signature for me. Ok. Now this, this is to the Bomber Command Centre has asked me to make sure that I come and visit you Bomber Command guys.
JL: Yeah.
GT: And talk to you and see if you would mind your details going into their archives. So that’s your history.
JL: Yeah.
GT: Yeah. And I’ve got a photograph of us now so they would like a photograph of us from me talking with you.
JL: Yeah.
GT: But they need to know that you are ok with you and I doing this. So that just tells your name. I can fill all this in for you. But that’s, that’s a declaration of the interview. This says that. And this is you. This is —
JL: Yeah.
GT: It says you’ve consented to take part in the recording and assign the university the copyright. So in other words they they hold that agreement. “I agree that my name will be publicly associated with this interview but understand that all other personal details will be stored under strict confidential conditions.” Alright? They have very strict rules. “I grant permission for my photograph to be taken.” So that’s the photograph I’ve just taken. We’ve just taken of us. Is that ok? Yeah. “And I agree to my interview being available.” And people can hear your story. Is that alright with you?
JL: This is only for, this is not to be on the TV or —
GT: No. No TV.
JL: Radio or anything.
GT: No.
JL: It’s just personal to the Bomber Command.
GT: Yes. They just ask you. You sign that one there and I can write your name on that.
[pause]
GT: Ok. And now, now I think, I think this is a form about donating but I think this is about this archive. Now, I’m sure that you’re not, agreement to donate items. But you haven’t got any items that you want to donate.
JL: No. I haven’t got anything to associate with it.
GT: But now. If, if I can get you to sign that I will destroy this once I get down there because I’m not sure to know if the donation is about this piece here. Are you ok if you sign saying that you agree to this information being donated to the archives? Because you’re donating your history to the archives. Are you ok with that? And if this is not needed I will destroy this form because —
JL: No. I’m not going to sign that.
GT: Ok. Alright. That’s ok. Well, that’s brilliant Jim because that will go in my archives and they have got a little bit of a story about you. So I’ve got some notes. I’ve kept some notes. This is not for the newspaper or anything. This is just for the 75 Squadron because I’ve only got two Lambs on my history of 75 Squadron and you’re not one of those two so I’m now. Now I’ve got three.
JL: [unclear]
GT: No. But you’re part of the 75 Squadron history you see and Bomber Command history for that matter see.
JL: Oh right. Oh yeah.
GT: That’s why I’ve asked you to fill that out for me and now we’ve got your photographs. You’ve been wearing my tie for three or four years now.
JL: Oh yes.
GT: With the Wellington and the Stirling bomber on it.
JL: I just wore that just to show you that I have just got such respect for 75 New Zealand Squadron.
GT: Well I’ve come a long way to say hello so it is —
JL: I shall never forget it. I’m going to tell you something I’ve told people, Helen can tell you and.
GT: Hang on, I’ll get that for you.
JL: Leave that off for now. Sorry. Helen will tell you I tell a few people and they must go away saying there’s something wrong with him. I enjoyed the war with 75 New Zealand Squadron. Now it’s a terrible thing to say isn’t it?
GT: Emotions played a massive part in how you managed to survive your part of the war, James and if you managed to get through it in that manner it’s not terrible. It’s the way you’ve survived and you are ninety six next birthday aren’t you?
JL: It’s just that you say you enjoyed the war. It wasn’t the war. I forgot about the war as I went out. I had a great time. There must be something wrong with him here. But I used to say to some of the lads who’d say, ‘You never wished you were finished and you were home?’ I said, ‘I long for the day to get home but wishing. We won’t get back home ‘til it’s all over and by the grace of God we’ll get through it all and then get back home.’ But they were saying, ‘I wish this anyway.’ That’s not going to finish it. I said, ‘It takes the big wheels of history to say we’ll finish it there. Let’s finish it today.’ I said, ‘So to go around I wish we were this. I wish this. You’re only making yourself ill. You signed to come in to it. It’s a war and that’s different than peace time.’ Oh you join up and you say twenty five years and all of a sudden you say you’ve had enough of this you can get out because you can get out but it’ll cost you this. You can buy yourself out eh? We all do things. I was, I was an, for example in one way. I was in the war. Well, I would have been called up anyway. And I was always thankful I went to 75 New Zealand Squadron because I don’t think there was a happier Squadron in Bomber Command and that is the honest truth. Everybody was happy. I mean I had done it as well. Got home, got fed up being at home and come back two days off my leave. I wasn’t the only one eh? I had enough there. Better back here. Yeah. But we had wonderful officers. It was a, it was a happy Squadron. It was a [pause] Group Captain Lucas. He wasn’t the group captain. He was one of the boys. And then on Sunday he took the toast in the main dining room. Everybody was in the main dining room. He was at the table naturally himself and that and he took the toast on a Sunday and the grace. And British Air Force. You come and watch a football match the lads were playing sit beside just any crowd pick this up they said out came his cigarettes case. The cigarettes and smoking. He was a wonderful man eh? No matter what he asked us to do we would have done it. We would do it for him. Yeah. I’ll never forget Popeye Lucas. As COs went he was a man above men. He had his own, he had his way with him. And once we were out late I stayed out late. It was 2 o’clock when I got home. Of course I’m on a charge naturally. I mean I knew I would get booked. I was in front of him in the morning. He said, ‘You’re charged with being out.’ I said, Yes, sir. It’s perfectly right.’ He said, ‘You’re supposed to be in,’ he said, ‘By 11.59.’ You know. Not even twelve. It’s 11.59 you had to get in by. I said, ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘But I met people,’ I says, ‘And the lassie,’ I said, ‘I met took me home to see her parents and I sat and had supper and that,’ I says, ‘And the supper would be worth having that so I says I’ll probably get in confined to camp for seven or fourteen days and then I’ll get out, eh?’ I said, ‘Anyway, I’ve done wrong and I deserve to get the punishment. I’m not upset. I knew I was doing wrong.’ So he sat looking up at me. He says, ‘That’s the first time I’ve heard somebody say things like that to me when they’re going to get charged then.’ I said, ‘We all know if you do something wrong you get punished for it. Even at home when you’re a baby. You’re a boy at school. Teachers are going to slap,’ I said, ‘At home they’re going to spank you if you’ve done something.’ I said, ‘So it’s alright. I’ve done wrong and that.’ He said, ‘Dismissed. Get back to your — ’ He never charged for me. Never [laughs]
GT: That saved you a bob or two.
JL: Oh but, 75 New Zealand Squadron was above any other Squadron in the Royal Air Force. It was ran with love. You can write that in a book if you want. There was nobody when we were going on leave. And I included. It’s not the first going on leave and coming back two days earlier. I’m not the first one. It was a, well I wasn’t on, well I was on a training before I went to the Squadron but as far as happiness. Group Captain Lucas. He’d got, he was just one of the lads when he was watching a football match. If we were on parades or anything official things he had to do he was the boss. But normally than that he was one of the lads. Oh yes. I told the world about that when I came home. You know it’s just a pity officers there probably have been some like that I hope. When an officer said to me, ‘If you’re like that you lose their respect.’ I said, ‘You don’t lose their respect. It’s how you handle it.’ I said, ‘I was in a Squadron,’ I says, ‘That every man would have went to hell and back with this man.’ I said, ‘He was, we couldn’t do enough for him.’ He said, ‘You were never punished?’ I said, ‘Yes. I come back a few days over my extra leave. I said, ‘Instead of going away for ten days. I stayed away fourteen days.’ ‘Did he punish you?’ I said, ‘Yes, he punished me. That’s his job. He’s got to do his job.’ ‘You weren’t angry?’ I said, ‘What for? I knew I was doing wrong. It wasn’t a mistake.’ ‘Oh no,’ he says, ‘You don’t look at it that way. A good officer wouldn’t have.’ I says, ‘A bad officer would have let me off.’ I said, ‘An officer commanding has got to have respect from his men to do for him what he wants us to do. So if I came back he said ‘Alright, dismissed.’ I thought oh in that case I’ll go away again I’ll stay away two weeks the next time. Not correct [unclear] You’ve got to be in command. In command and keep in command and be obeyed but you’ve also got to be a friend. They look upon you as a friend first. I said that to many young lad that was, I says, ‘He’s got to be a friend. Then he’s got to give you orders and he’s got to look after you. That’s all. His decision is our lives.’
GT: That’s very astute of you being eighteen years old going on twenty three when you finally finished with the war. A very astute young man you must have been.
JL: Aye. I had no regrets joining up. I don’t know if I’d have been in any other Air Force or not but in 75 New Zealand Squadron it was like one massive holiday. Yeah. Yes.
GT: Well, I I think I’ve taken more than enough of your time up today there Jim. And —
JL: You thought of way back you keep on going don’t you?
GT: You’re a star all the stuff you’ve been telling me today.
JL: All the lasses. Put the uniform on. ‘You come from New Zealand?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘What do you do?’ ‘I don’t work.’ Eh? Oh I’ll tell you. ‘You don’t work?’ I said, ‘I don’t have to work. My father owns a big sheep estate and everything,’ oh [laughs] Millionaire Lamb is dancing tonight. I’ve danced with a millionaire.
GT: Yeah.
JL: Great times, eh?
GT: I’m pleased you had some great times.
JL: Yes. I was a good, I happened to be a good ballroom dancer. There was no problem with the lasses who wanted to dance you gave them a dance. What do you do? ‘What do you work at?’ ‘I don’t work. My father’s got a big business.’ Oh aye. I had the dreams. I had the dreams.
GT: Just going to get —
JL: I had the dreams.
GT: Take a couple of photographs there.
JL: I’ll stand up.
GT: No. You just sit there Jim. I’ll sit next to you around the side and Diana’s just going to take a couple of photographs.
JL: There we are.
GT: There we go.
JL: One country to another. A handshake.
GT: Alright. And I’ll let her take one more because I could have blinked.
JL: The camera’s not broken yet. That’s odd.
Other: Pretty good [unclear] pretty good. That’s a nice close up one.
JL: Is it?
Other: Yeah.
GT: Well, I’m yeah, you’ve got dinner coming soon have you? You’ve got your dinner coming.
JL: No. We wait a bit longer and then they send it over.
GT: Oh, that’s good.
JL: They ring us and ask if we want it now.
GT: We know that Helen is obviously a bit tired and she’s waiting for dinner is she?
JL: Where is she?
Other: She’s here.
JL: She’s there. You’ve got, no you go now. It’s alright. Yeah. So now I’m going to head south tomorrow.
GT: Yeah.
JL: So I’m going to try and get back to see you again next year.
GT: I hope so. Yes.
JL: What time is it anyway?
GT: Five to six in the evening. Five to six.
JL: Where does the time go?
GT: Well, we arrived at 3 o’clock. Was it 3 o’clock?
JL: It just runs.
GT: Yeah. Because that would be two hours. That’s two hours you and I have been talking.
JL: Yes. It’s —
GT: How are your fingers. Are they, because you were a builder in hammers and all that kind of stuff, yeah you haven’t got arthritis or anything? Gosh you’re lucky aren’t you? A man of your age.
JL: It’s all the dancing. The high jump. Dancing.
GT: When did you last finish dancing?
JL: Oh if I go to functions I go up. Mostly people I know I used to be you know it’s nice talking about yourself but I used to dance for Scotland in ballroom dancing. I was. But my family, my late father bless him his sisters were all dancers. So maybe what was in their genes came on to me. I liked ballroom dancing and at first you’re dancing where everybody goes and you dance with one lassie and another lassie and another lassie and the lassie that cane really dance . ‘Thank you. Thanks for a lovely dance.’ I said, ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘You too.’ And it gets around the dance halls and I said oh many times [unclear] come and say, ‘Can I dance with you tonight?’ But I liked ballroom dancing. I liked the theatre. I often wish I had been in the theatre. I was on the stage a few times. We often used to say I wished I had made that profession. I loved the theatre. I mixed with the theatre people and I knew them all. Yes. I’ve had, I could write a book.
GT: You didn’t.
JL: We’re all different if we could write. No. But [pause] I was. One of my dad’s sisters, my auntie Alice was a dancer. A highland dancer. She went to exhibitions and that and she taught me ballroom dancing so when I went dancing and you got a lassie that could dance you come back and then eventually Jimmy Lamb was known. So I went to a dance and everybody up there and up and dancing and I enjoyed ballroom dancing and I used to go every night. That’s one thing I enjoyed. But —
GT: So where did you do your ballroom dancing. Here in Edinburgh?
JL: Edinburgh.
GT: And that was how old were you doing that?
JL: I’d be in my, I ‘d say, maybe eighteen, nineteen. I also ballroom danced in South Africa and I went to the big, I was the district governor of Lionism in Johannesburg. You know, have you heard of Lionism? It’s like the Round Table. I happened to be elected district governor. When I went out I really liked showbusiness. Big dinners and that. So as I say I should have. I loved the theatre. I should have maybe, I don’t know. Anyway, I didn’t and I just put enjoyment into everything and they were the good days. But the dancing now is [pause] the dancing and the ballroom dancing fizzled out. That’s old fashioned now. But I loved ballroom dancing. And I happened to be not bad at it. I have no complaints. No complaints. Ballroom dancing. The Palace of Dance here nearly every night. Oh yes. But these days are gone for the young ones. They’re not interested in that now. No. They’re not. That’s no good. That’s too tame. When I see how some of the young ones are at night coming home from wherever they’ve been, I really feel sorry for them. They call in they get themselves, they go for a drink and then it’s, ‘It’s great if you’re drunk. It’s a great feeling being drunk,’ I’ve heard them saying. Stupid eh? I’ll take a glass of whisky. Yeah. Anybody. But that’s, that’s enough. To sit all night drinking beers and go to the toilet and come back and fill their bladder again that’s some system that isn’t it? Stupid system. None of our families did drink. Late Dad never touched a drink in his life and he said to me, ‘Although I don’t drink, Jim,’ he says, ‘You can go and have a drink. I’m not stopping you having a drink when you’re out with your friends.’ he says, ‘But I’ll tell you one thing. You don’t forget it. The first night you come here aggressively drunk,’ he says, ‘I’ll wait ‘til you sober up and everything, in the morning I’ll tell you to get out your clothes and leave.’ That was a fair enough warning wasn’t it? But I don’t see any pleasure going out to get drunk. Do you? If they’re all looking for you at a party or something, they’re all buying you drinks you don’t tell me you can’t stop because you know yourself when you’re getting a wee bit. I’ve never been drunk. I don’t intend to get drunk. I have a drink. Talking about that would you like a drink before you go?
GT: That would be very nice of you thank you. Let’s have one last whisky together.
JL: Right.
GT: Please.
JL: Never thought of asking you about that before.
GT: You’ve been busy.
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 James Lamb
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Glen Turner
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-25
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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ALambJ170725, PLambJ1702
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
Format
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02:19:09 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
James Lamb volunteered for the RAF on the first day of the Second World War. He trained as an aircraft technician and was posted to 75 New Zealand Squadron where he worked on Wellington bombers. He was then posted to 11 Squadron in Burma where he worked on Hurricanes and Spitfires.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Burma
Great Britain
South Africa
England--Norfolk
England--Suffolk
Scotland--Edinburgh
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1946
75 Squadron
entertainment
fitter airframe
ground crew
ground personnel
Hurricane
mechanics airframe
military discipline
military service conditions
RAF Feltwell
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Newmarket
Spitfire
Stirling
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/498/8388/PCoultonWA1608.1.jpg
15510534c70ff503e12c0b6afc5bca75
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/498/8388/ACoultonWA161020.2.mp3
cd9c3d503ae278ab9f2db39c0cf651f9
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
Coulton, William Arthur
William Coulton
W A Coulton
Arthur Coulton
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Coulton, WA
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. The collection concerns William Arthur Coulton (b. 1925, 3050209, Royal Air Force). He served as an engine mechanic at RAF Witchford and RAF North Luffenham before being posted overseas to Palestine. Collection includes an oral history interview, some artworks, a wedding photograph and a photograph album.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by William Arthur Coulton and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-20
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is 20th October 2016, and we are in Freemantle Court, near Stoke Mandeville, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire and we’re with William Arthur Coulton who’s going to tell us about his experiences in the RAF on the ground. So Arthur what are the earliest recollections that you got of life?
AC: The earliest – Twyford, at Twyford, the village of Twyford in south Derbyshire. Yes, I – the fourth, three or four – yes – south Derbyshire.
CB: That’s where you lived?
AC: That’s where we lived, we lived in the the holdall [?] of south Derbyshire Twyford had been put into two two houses. Yeah, two residence. Went to school, the village, the little village school, well a matchbox school I went back some years ago to see the place and I was surprised how small the school was. Yes. And we left, we left Twyford. My father worked, a farm worker and he got a job in Ash— Ashford or near Ashford. We went to live up there and he had the misfortune to get gored by a bull and he, he never worked the bulls for four years, and that that finished his farm working, and then he went to work in the foundry of all places. Yes, yes. [Background noise]
CB: And then where did you go from there?
AC: Where where did, where did the – we went to live at Holbrook in Derbyshire. Yes, ‘cause its two Holbrooks you know? One in Lincolnshire, and my parents stayed there for the rest of their lives. And actually I’ve got a young sister still lives in Holbrook and from there I joined the air force.
CB: When when did you leave school?
AC: 14.
CB: At 14?
AC: Yes.
CB: And what did you do then?
AC: When I left school? I went to work for Derby Co-op. Yes, I went as errand boy at Derby Co-op. and I stayed with Derby Co-op until I was 18, joined the air force. Yes.
CB: Why did you join the RAF and not one of the other services?
AC: To be quite honest, you want the honest there?
CB: Yeah.
AC: I didn’t want to be gun fodder. I didn’t want to join the army. I didn’t want to be in the front line. That’s me being honest about it.
CB: That’s good.
AC: Of course, I was in the ATC, so you automatically you got the preference to go in the air force and I enjoyed the air force. I trained as a flight mechanic. I –
CB: Where did you join up?
AC: In 1943.
CB: Where?
AC: At Birmingham. That’s where I went through the details, at Birmingham, and when I joined up from Birmingham we went to – oh, we went to Cardigan [?] and we got issued with our uniform at mob office yes. And then I got – where’d I go then? I got posted to me square bashing at Skegness. When they told me I was going to Skegness, I asked me Sergeant if I had me bucket and spade. He said, ‘You won’t have a chance to use it.’ [Chuckle].
CB: He said it a bit more bluntly than that though?
AC: Pardon?
CB: He said it a bit more bluntly than that.
AC: Yes. Yes yes. Yes he did.
CB: You horrible little man.
AC: Yeah I was a horrible little man.
[Shared laughter]
AC: Yes. I I — do you know Skegness?
CB: Yes.
AC: Imperial Hotel? I know that place very well. That was our mess hall and I know what the cellar was like. I got fatigues down there more than once. [Laughter]. Yes. I was a bad lad, I got caught you see. The policy is that do anything you like as long as you don’t get caught. That’s the —
CB: That’s a cardinal rule?
AC: Pardon?
CB: It’s a cardinal rule.
AC: Yes.
CB: Yes.
AC: Yes. I got caught several times.
CB: Right.
AC: Yeah, I was —
CB: So what did you learn there? When you weren’t misbehaving.
AC: What did I learn? I was trying to find out how I could get away with it. You know to find the loopholes. [Chuckle]. Oh dear. I didn’t do too, too bad. No.
CB: So what did the course, this is a training course, Initial Training Wing, this is the training wing —
AC: Square bashing.
CB: Yeah.
AC: You know, up and down, marching like a lot of silly hooligans. Yes, and what they call the Commando course running around in a woods there with barbed wire, yeah and that, and one of you had to lie on it while the others run over you. That wasn’t very comfortable – you had to take it in turns. Yeah. You lay on barbed wire. Not very nice
CB: No.
AC: Yeah.
CB: What was worse the barbed wire or peoples feet on your back?
AC: I would say people’s feet on ya. Yeah.
CB: Okay, so what else did you do?
AC: Yeah. They put —
CB: They —
AC: They put — and that was at Skegness that was, where we did the training. And then we was what you was going to be, you was sent to them them units. And first of all they sent me to Newcastle-on-Tyne of all places. And I was there on me own, with you know, I didn’t go anyone else. Then I went on my own to Weston Super Mare to Lockheed, you know that?
CB: I do know. But just quickly what did you do at Newcastle-on-Tyne? What was the purpose of that?
AC: Just — just waiting patiently.
CB: A holding unit?
AC: Yes.
CB: Okay.
AC: Yes. Then I went to Lockheed and I did me engineering course there.
CB: How long did that last?
AC Pardon?
CB: How long was the Lockheed course?
AC: Erh. Was it? Was it 16 weeks? I think it was. I’m not certain now and then we went to — was posted and I was posted to to Newmarket. And the engineer — the sergeant said to me, ‘Where you going?’ I said, ‘Romney Marsh [?], Newmarket.’ He said, ‘You’re going to a holiday camp.’ I said, ‘As good as that?’ And it showed me how good it was. [Laughter]. It was it was — You couldn’t beat beat Newmarket. It was lovely.
CB: That was on the racecourse then was it?
AC: On the racecourse, yes.
CB: So, what was so really special about it?
AC: Pardon?
CB: What was really special about it?
AC: Well, you could just say. Freedom. You know you was in the forces but you had a free life like. Yes. And our billet was a Nissan hut in Frank Buttress’[?] paddock, one of his paddocks. There was about 12 Nissan huts in there, and he didn’t mind you going round the stables, looking at the horses. I went round one day and a blinking horse — I — [unclear] all at was it nipped me. I I, well that’s the end of my life with horses. [Chuckle]. Yeah. But I liked Newmarket. That was a good station to be on. I was there 10 months and then they posted me to 115 Squadron at Witchford, Ely and I stayed there right to the end of the war. And I was on A and B aircraft as a flight mechanic.
CB: So you’re a flight mechanic, and A and B were the tasks that you did, so what were those?
AC: A and B was the two aircraft.
CB: Right.
AC: A and B and the number — what you call it — the code number was KO. That was the aircraft, KO. And we went to, when the war ended and I went to North Luffenham. Have you ever been there?
CB: I know, lived there.
AC: Pardon?
CB: I used to live there.
AC: Yes. I went to North Luffenham and I remustered into the MT [?] as a motor motor mechanic. And I stayed there for about four weeks, I think. And I was working on an American claptrap[?] vehicle. And a chap came along out of the distance and waving the papers and said, ‘You’re posted overseas.’ Well I said, ‘If that’s if that’s the case I’m packing up here now then going.’ And I went overseas. I went to Palestine and I was with 32 Squadron Fighter Squadron. Famous 32. Yes, and they had Spitfires but I was in the MT then and I worked in the vehicles, and we went into Jordan on exercises with the army and from there, went back there. Yeah I was demobbed. I got my demob come through while I was at there at Palestine. Was it? No. Sorry no. At North Luffenham that was where I got me notification of demob and I got demobbed. I went to work in the local garage.
CB: Where?
AC: Ely.
CB: In Ely?
AC: Cambridge.
CB: Right.
AC: Yes. And then I did five years in there.
CB: How did you come to do that in Ely when you were in from North Luffenham?
AC: What?
CB: Why did you choose Ely when you were stationed —
AC: I got married.
CB: — at North Luffenham?
AC: I got married. She come from Ely.
CB: Oh right. Sounds a pretty compelling reason.
AC: Yeah, I got a photograph of her there.
CB: Yeah, we’ll have a look.
JS: She’s lovely.
AC: Eh?
CB: We’ll look in a minute. Yeah.
AC: Yeah. I I was stationed at Witchford at Ely. You know the aerodrome. Witchford. That’s how I come to meet the wife and, of course, when I got demobbed, I went I lived in Ely, went to work at the local garage.
CB: Hmm.
AC: And I stayed there till one day a coal merchant who I knew quite well, he was only a bit older than me came in and asked me if I’d go and run a dairy business for him he’d bought. I mean all above all things from a mechanic to a dairy. I said, ‘Yeah I’ll go, Joe. I’ll have a go.’ And I stayed with the milk industry for 33 years and then I retired. Yes, I built up a good business. I amalgamated with another dairy. We we had a good business. We had nearly 6000 customers
CB: Hmm.
AC: We had quite a quite a business and, well, we had 14 men work for us.
CB: Hmm.
AC: Yes but I say we — that was hard work. It is hard working in the dairy trade. Yes.
CB: What’s the hardest thing about working in the dairy trade?
AC: Delivering the milk and satisfying the customers. Yeah you get a lot of dissatisfied people if you was a bit late. They never realised that they could have had extra milk and kept always had a bottle in hand. That’s what — there’s a lot of people like that. Yes.
CB: So you met your wife when you was at Witchford?
AC: I met her at Witchford.
CB: What was was she in the RAF?
AC: She was in the NAAFI.
CB: Oh was she, right.
AC: I was a canteen cowboy.
CB: What was her name?
AC: Hilda Elsie.
CB: Hilda and she was a canteen cowboy.
AC: That’s was that they called them you know. They called —
CB: Not cowgirl?
AC: If you was a NAAFI girl, you was a canteen cowboy. [Laughter] Yes.
CB: And was her tea any good?
AC: Pardon?
CB: Was her tea any good?
AC: Ehhhh. Not too bad. I did know one thing about it. I used to get egg and chips.
CB: Oh.
AC: The chaps used to say, ‘Where’d you get your egg from?’ I said, ‘Hilda brought for me.’ They said, ‘Will she get me one?’ They wouldn’t ask her. [Laughter] ‘Cause her parents got poultry.
CB: Oh.
AC: Yes. So I got egg and chips, I did.
CB: Interesting. So you settled down for the five years in Ely, but actually you continued in that area did you with the – with the milk?
AC: Yes. Oh Yes. Oh yes I continued in that area.
CB: Hm.
AC: But — and the dairy ran —we got progress — we got a bit of land and we build a dairy to — the purpose was to vehicles. And we had — eventually we had all electric vehicles. We had one electric vehicle that could 55 miles, around Cambridge doing 55 miles.
CB: Hm.
AC: Didn’t do —it was never more than 88 miles through the premises, but it got the capacity for 55 miles. Yeah.
CB: So what was the area that you were serving? It was Ely and the villages, was it?
AC: The villages, yes and Ely and surrounding villages. Yes.
CB: To what extent did you use your engineering skills —
AC: Kept the vehicles —
CB: — after the war.
AC: Kept the vehicles going.
CB: As well as running the business.
AC: Yes. Well I had a partners and I used to look after the vehicles. Yeah. I got a dab hand at the electric vehicles. Yes.
CB: Now, going back to the RAF when you went to your training at Locking [?], what did they do to train you from scratch to be an aero—engine mechanic?
AC: Yes. We we had in this big hanger, we had sections set off in bays and there was in our gang there was 15 of us. The the instructor, he was a sergeant who instructed us and he instructed us on engineering and I really really liked it there.
CB: So how many bays would they have in the hanger? Was there a different — did they do a different task in each bay?
AC: Of all the things what we had in the hanger, we had Blackburn Botha did you know about them?
CB: — Yeah. Blackburn Botha. Yeah.
AC: They got two of them. Yes. [unclear] Our job was to strip them and put them back again.
CB: Yeah.
AC: You strip the engine down. Rebuild it and put it back again.
CB: What were those engines? Were they radials? Or were they inline?
AC: Inline. Yes. Yes. Inline.
CB: And what other engines did they have as well.
AC: I I can’t think of what — a Sabre engine.
CB: A Napier Sabre?
AC: Yes. Yes. I can’t think what aircraft that was out of.
CB: That was off the Typhoon.
AC: Was it? I know it was a big engine.
CB: Yeah. 27 litres.
AC: Yeah.
CB: And did you have Merlins there or where was your introduction to the Merlin?
AC: Yeah there, but it was the early Merlin. The Merlin Mark I of all the things to teach us on. Yeah the really early — Christopher. Come from the Boar War I think. Yes.
CB: So, if you had — if there were these bays, you stayed in the bays did you, as a group of 15?
AC: Yes.
CB: And learned all the aspects of engine repair and maintenance. Is that right?
AC: Yes. Yes that’s right. We were instructed on it and you had diagrams and you drew diagrams, and — I can’t think how many was on there. But I but I really enjoyed it. I liked the job.
CB: It was a mixture of hands on and classwork was it?
AC: Yes.
CB: So, did you — you had a notebook that you kept?
AC: What?
CB: You had a notebook in which you progressed —
AC: Oh yes.
CB: — your training.
AC: Yes. I I, though I say it myself I think I was a good mechanic, but was I good? When I went into Civvy Street at the local garage at Ely. The first job the foreman said to me, ‘I want you to rebuild that engine there and put it in a car.’ And it was all in bits. And he’d re — it. So I rebuilt it. I’d never seen it before. It was all in tin boxes in bits. Yes. So I built it. I went [unclear], it went when I put it in the car. Yes.
CB: What was his reaction to that?
AC: Oh, he thought I was all right. Thought I was a good bloke.
CB: Yeah.
AC: Well, there’s there’s about 12 of us mechanics in the garage. Three of them were ex RAF men. Yeah so — we did all right.
CB: And in your training, you had this group with you, so the 15 in the bay, were they — did some of them move along with you or did everybody go to somewhere quite different?
AC: Yes. Two of them — went, when we finished, two of them went with me to Newmarket. One was named Chris Rudge [?] and I can’t think of the other ones name. But but this Chris Rudge [?] had a bad reputation. He — nobody liked him.
CB: No?
AC: Instead of calling you a ‘B’, he called you a ‘Got blood like Rudge.’ That’s what they used to say. Yes.
CB: Right.
AC:Yes.
CB: So he was the one who was disruptive, was he?
AC: Pardon?
CB: He was disruptive influence in the —
AC: Yes.
CB: — in the bay.
AC: Yeah, nobody liked him. No.
CB: And what was you classified as? You were cadets at that stage, what rank?
AC: No, we weren’t classed as cadets. I was a — I was a LAC. Yes I was LAC then and, of course, the flight mate can’t go any more than a LAC until he remusters [unclear]. That was my biggest mistake. I didn’t remuster. See If I had remustered —
CB: Why didn’t you remuster?
AC: I never thought I was — I was young and silly. See I I was 19 and I hadn’t got a clue what – I was young and silly. Yes. I regret it but never mind I learnt more when I went in the garage job. I had a good experience.
CB: What time of the year were you are Locking [?]
AC: Locking? [Pause] Yeah, autumn. Yes, ‘cause I went down Weston—Super—Mare. Had a girlfriend there and we walked round the Winter Gardens. Yeah, and it was autumn. Yes. That brought back memories that does. Cor she was half —
JS: [Laughter]
AC: Memories, eh?
CB: So she wasn’t in the Air Force?
AC: No, she was civvy girl. Civvy girl. Yeah.
CB: So, she showed you all the excitements of Weston-Super-Mare?
AC: Very. Definitely. Weston-Super-Mare there’s not much there.
CB: That you didn’t know about?
AC: Eh?
CB: That you didn’t know about?
AC: No [Laughter]
CB: Particularly, the places that were difficult to find you in?
AC: Yes.
CB: Down the pier?
AC: Pardon?
CB: Along the pier?
AC: How long was I there?
CB No, no the pier.
AC: Oh beer.
CB: Pier pier.
AC: Yes.
CB: And when you travelled, how did you get around from Locking [?] to Weston-Super-Mare? Did you walk, cycle or bus?
AC: [Mumble] From Locking [?] to Weston-Super-Mare it’s only two miles.
CB: Oh right.
AC: You walked. Yes. Yeah. Then you crept in — when you crept into camp you went through the hedge, the hawthorn hedge. That was — there was a gap and you crawled through it. You missed — you missed the guardroom then.
CB: Yeah.
AC: Naughty boys. [Chuckle]
CB: What was the accommodation when you were at Locking [?]?
AC: Pretty warm. Wooden purpose — built buildings. They had wood corridors from the rooms. You never went outside to get a wash, you went down these corridors to the ablutions. Showers. Was — as I say it was pretty warm building. Yeah. Locking, I understand the Fleet Arm have got it now.
CB: And when you went to Newmarket, what were you doing there? Was is it an extension of your training or what?
AC: No, I went there as a fully blown mechanic.
CB: Right. So what were you called then? Your title.
AC: [Mumble] I was LAC. Leading aircraftsman.
CB: But did you were an aircraft mechanic or were you a —
AC: Aircraft mechanic.
CB: And what aircraft were you on there? Was there a squadron that you were —
AC: Spitfires.
CB: Spitfires right.
AC: Lovely old Spitfire. We used — used to love to get in them and warm them up in the mornings. Oh that was the best bit about that. Squadron Leader West was the CO. There was only six Spitfires. Was only a little group of u, but we had a good time until he decided to post me and he posted me to Ely, Witchford —
CB: Yeah.
AC: — on Lancasters, and I always remember I went you went into see the CO and he said to me,: ‘What do you know about Merlins?’ That was it. And I said, ‘Well, I was on Spitfires.’ And he didn’t like that answer. He didn’t like it at all.
CB: ‘Cause he was a bomber man?
AC: Well, the Spitfire has got the same engine, ain’t it?
CB: Yeah.
AC: [Chuckle] He didn’t like it. So,I made an enemy with him first of all.
CB: How well did you adapt to the bomber activity?
AC: Ohh lovely. I had a good crew. I had a good — I was with a good mob. I was with a real good mob. We had a Sergeant [unclear] Wakeman [?] He was a real a real gentleman. He was he was a nice chap [unclear]. We called him [unclear] we didn’t call him Sergeant. So we know how how good he was. But, of course, the Air Force had a better relationship with everybody than they did in the army. Definitely. Yes.
CB: So were you on the flight line or were you in a hanger?
AC: I was on the dispersal ramp side.
CB: Right.
AC: Yeah. That was the best place to be to get the ‘flip-up’. Yes.
CB: So what what would get you the trip up in the aircraft? What what was the —
AC: Where’d we’d go in? Lancasters.
CB: No no. How did you manage to get the flights.
AC: Oh, we’d get one easy as pie.
CB: [Cough] For what reason?
AC: Just just as the crew said, as the pilot said, ‘Can I have trip up with ya?’ He’d say, ‘Get in.’ You weren’t supposed to but you get in.
CB: So why would he be flying at that moment?
AC: Pardon?
CB: Would he be flying for air test or cross country or what?
AC: Air test. Air test or — yeah, what’s it? Air gunners practice in the [unclear]. Yes. Oh, went up several times. Well well the — on dispersal when a Squadron Leader an Australian, Robbie, had — what ya got to do is say, ‘Robbie, can I come up?’ And he said, ‘Jump in.’ [Chuckle] You weren’t supposed to but we used to get in. He’d take one of ya. Two of ya. And then you — I got up to the front as a Flight Engineers seat to get a bit of practice. I thought it were quite nice. As I said, I enjoyed my life in the Air Force. I really enjoyed it.
CB: Yeah
AC: I wasn’t one of these that wanted to go home to mother. No. It it was nice. Yeah.
CB: What sort of routine did you have on the squadron?
AC: Maintenance.
CB: Yeah.
AC: Yeah just maintenance.
CB: But but what time would you get up? And were you on a shift or how did it work?
AC: Yeah it it – there was no such thing as shifts. You was all in a crowd. You know, you got —I think there was about seven of us in our mob. We had to look after two aircraft. Yeah, A and B. [unclear] What was that? And eh, what else was there? I was there I was there till the end of the war at Witchford and A carried a big bomb. You know the big 22000lb.
CB: The Grand Slam.
AC: Pardon?
CB: The Grand Slam.
AC: Yeah, the Grand Slam. That big ‘un. Yes. I carried that —
CB: So that was a modified Lancaster to make it fit?
AC: Oh yes, it it – the bomb bomb doors was differently. They lapped around the bomb.
CB: So who did the modification for that?
AC: [Unclear]
CB: You did it.
AC: No.
CB: On the airfield?
AC: No, I did it — the Air Force did it in the hanger [?]. And that was a pity, I never I never — I should have asked to have gone in the hanger to make it work. I would have learnt more. But, as I say, I was young and silly and having a good time at the dispersals.
CB: So on the dispersal, what were the tasks you had to do in a day?
AC: Main — maintenance on the engine. Yeah, giving a check over and that.
CB: So would you have a ladder for that or a gantry?
AC: A gantry. Yes, yes used to have a gantry. And, course you, you walked over, over the wings and that and you sat [unclear] screwing the tops in. Yeah, wasn’t weren’t supposed to — you were supposed to use the gantry.
CB: But but nobody fell off?
AC: [Chuckle] Well you know [mumble] when you change the engine at the dispersal. They used say ‘Put the fan on and then they’ll think we’re finished.’ That was the propeller.
CB: Yeah
AC: [Chuckle].Yeah.
CB: So, you could do an engine change at dispersal, could you?
AC: Yes, yes. We used to change them there.
CB: What would be the reason for changing an engine?
AC: If it got over heated. Yeah, ‘cause they got over heated and burned the aluminium. The heads, the rocker cover, the nuts be melted — be melted into the aluminium when it got hot.
CB: So what would cause the engine to overheat?
AC: Well, lack of coolant. Yeah.
CB: So, it would be damaged by flak or enemy attack in some way would it.
AC: Oh yes, if it was leaking. Yes.
CB: And what was the coolant on those engines?
AC: Drycol.
CB: Right.
AC: Yes. The bloke who used to be in the hanger working on the Glycol tank. He had to take him into the sick bay and pump him out because he was drinking the stuff. You know it tastes like pear drops.
CB: And it made him high?
AC: Pardon.
CB: And it didn’t do him any good?
AC: Didn’t do him any good. No. Didn’t do him no good, but it tasted nice you see. That was the reason.
CB: So on the flight line, you’re — the aircraft you’re prepare it for an operation.
AC: Yes.
CB: What was the procedure for handing it over to the crew? How did they know that it was working?
AC: Well, they’d be notified by phone that — yes. It was when they expected it. It always come up with the kit. Yeah, I mean I changed one day while they were waiting — waiting to take off, I changed the hydraulic pump on the inboard — the starboard inner while the other engines were running. Yeah, yeah I did [unclear].
CB: So had this engine been running earlier?
AC: Yes.
CB: So it was a bit hot was it?
AC: Oh, yes it was well hot. But as I say I liked my job. I enjoyed my life on it. I used to volunteer to do it.
CB: And what was the link between the ground crew and the aircrew?
AC: Very close. Very close. They was very, very close.
CB: And was there one crew member more than the others or any of the crew members?
AC: All the crewmembers were like — I was on A and B, and they was flown by an Australian Squadron Leader, Robbie. We called him Robbie, and he name was Robertson actually.
CB: Right.
AC: We called him Robbie. And he, he was all right with us. You see the ground staff and the aircrew they had — well a close—knit unit, didn’t they? They they relied on you. Yeah, they were very close to ya. There was no ifs or buts about it.
CB: So you talked about clearance for their aircraft mechanically before it flew, when it came back what sort of debriefing did you have with the crew?
AC: Oh, we didn’t have any debriefing with the crew. All they said was if anything was wrong and that was done and the NCO used to ask us what was on the Flight Engineer and then that’s what we got set into. Yes.
CB: Was the main link between the Flight Engineer and the chief, the crew chief or would it be the other member of the —
AC: The Flight Engineer and the ground staff, he NCO and the ground staff was always very close. Yes, they consulted one another.
CB: And how many times did the aircraft come back damaged?
AC: Oh, I couldn’t tell ya. There was a lot of holes in it at times.
CB: And how did you feel about that?
AC: How did I feel? [Emphasis] I had the job of patching ‘em. You see I was on engines but I helped to do the patching. Riveting of a patch. Oh yes, some aircraft got real patchy. Yeah.
CB: When you say real patchy were there a number of — what sort of damage did the aircraft have?
AC: Well it, it would be shrapnel. Shrapnel holes ‘cause they were jagged. We put — just put a panel of aluminium over them. Yes.
CB: And how did you secure the aluminium plate?
AC: Pardon?
CB: How did you secure the —
AC: Rivet them.
CB: Right.
AC: Yeah, pot rivet them. Yeah the old pot rivets. Yeah. That was that was a regular job that. Yeah.
CB: There was a case in 15 Squadron of a Lancaster coming back without the rear turret because it had been knocked off by a bomb falling from above. Did you see that?
AC: We had the — I dunno whether if you read about the rear gunner what bailed out, well he come from Witchford. He was at Witchford, he was on ‘C’ flight and he bailed out and he shouldn’t have lived. When they got back, they found they got no rear gunner. [Chuckle]. And he was a prisoner of war. [Chuckle]
CB: So what had happened to him then? Why did he get out and how did he do it?
AC: I think he heard the pilot prepare to — you know, to bail out and he only gone to bail out and he didn’t hesitate. He opened the door and went. [Chuckle].
CB: With or without a parachute?
AC: With a parachute, but I’ll you what you looked a little bit sick when you saw the aircraft flying above ya and going home wouldn’t ya? And you was going down into captivity. [Chuckle] Oh dear. It wasn’t very nice.
CB: What other good stories do you remember about being at Witchford and 15 Squadron.
AC: Oh yes. That was one of one of them that — rear gunner bailed out and he shouldn’t have done. We — I was on A and B and they’re good, they do a very good [unclear] and I said Robbie was a pilot on it. Australian. He later went to make a Wing Commander and he was in charge of the Squadron. Yeah Robbie. We called him Robbie, that was something about it weren’t he?
CB: Well you were an ‘Erk’.
AC: Pardon?
CB: You were an ‘Erk’ and he was a —
AC: We called him Robbie —
CB: He was a senior officer.
AC: Yeah. You called Robbie. He didn’t mind. Well that was that the spirit between the aircrew and the ground staff, wasn’t it?. [Background noise]
CB: Absolutely. So that you got A and B aircraft —
AC: Yes.
CB: — the two aircraft, what about the other pilot? What was he like?
AC: Oh well, we had different pilots. It was mostly a Scotsman who used to fly. He was all right, but we did have a South African and he got his South African Air Force uniform. Khaki, and he always flew with his hat over the top of his helmet. Yeah.
CB: [Laughter]
AC: Yeah, yeah he did. His name was Martin. He [unclear] was a Flight Lieutenant then. Flight Lieutenant Martin. Yeah. ‘Course we used to say he was dog biscuits, Martin Dog Biscuits, and we used to collar, collar the blokes when the NAAFI van used to come round. The officers were there and the aircrew used to collar them to pay for their tea. [Chuckle].
CB: How did you divide your time between the two aircraft?
AC: Well when we — if the aircraft had gone off you stayed in the the dispersal hut. You played cards. Gambled.
CB: No, but I mean that you had A and B aircraft, so how did you divide the work between them?
AC: Well you got to which either one it was. You went on, no matter which one. Flight Sergeant told you which aircraft you gotta do and you went on it. There was no difference. All, all I could say was B was a dirty aircraft . Oil leaks. You couldn’t stop the oil leaks. She used to leak oil all over the under cart. Yeah.
CB: So that was one of the inner engines?
AC: Engines yeah. Yeah. You naturally changed it.
CB: Right
AC: Yeah took the engine out. ‘Course the engines always went back to Rolls Royce at Derby.
CB: Oh did they?
AC: All the all the engines used to go back for maintenance. If you took one out that went to Rolls Royce. Yes.
CB: So one that you put in would always be new?
AC: Yes. Yes.
CB: And how long did it take to change an engine?
AC: About — I couldn’t truthfully say. Would I should imagine about four hours. Five hours.
CB: Taking one out and putting one in.
AC: Taking one out and putting all the connections in. Pipes and that. Yes.
CB: And was the engine raised by a lift? Or by a crane or how did it —
AC: We lifted them up by crane. We used to get, you know the, the coals —
CB: Coal cranes.
AC: We used to get him to come along and hook it up and hook it up and that’s how we did it. Just there’s only four bolts holding the engine in.
CB: Oh.
AC: That’s all that holds it in. So that the cradle, the engine’s on a cradle actually and they just pushed it in and put the four bolts in. Then you collected all the wires and hosepipes up, the pipes up. Yeah. Yes.
CB: Now in your quieter times and relaxation what did you do?
AC: Well, let’s say that I used to do a little bit of courting.
CB: Just one girl or more?
AC: Well, one or two but I ended up with one.
CB: Right.
AC: I married her.
CB: Fantastic.
AC: Yes. She a good girl to me. We was married for 52 years.
CB: Were you really?
AC: Yes. Yes she was good. She was the only child.
CB: And how many children did you have?
AC: One.
CB: Just David.
AC: Yes.
CB: Yes.
AC: I told them I’d lost the recipe. [Chuckle] [Shared laughter] Yeah. No, we only had the one.
CB: And they believed you?
AC: Pardon?
CB: And they believed you?
AC: Yeah. [Unclear]
CB: What would you say was the most memorable thing about your service in the Royal Air Force?
AC: Well comradeship was one of the best things, wasn’t it? There was something about during the war where you you was in a group of men and there was all youngsters like you. You know most of them was like all about 25 the oldest. That was a mess life, but it was a good life.
CB: And your accommodation at Locking was a pre—war shed, what did you get at Witchford.
AC: Nissan huts. Nissan huts.
CB: How many people in a Nissan hut?
AC: Twelve.
CB: And how was that heated?
AC: Heating was one of those combustion pot stoves in the middle. You know those cast iron things. You got nothing but fumes. I slept by the window at the end and I used to open the window but the lads didn’t like it, but if they come down and shut it, I used to get up and stop them.
CB: So, everybody suffered from the fumes.
AC: Oh yes, the stink of coke on the fire and the fumes was terrible.
CB: And even though you were all technicians you couldn’t stop the fumes?
AC: No, because they were all combustion stoves, you can’t stop it, can ya?
CB: What —
AC: Stinky things.
CB: What, what was it burning? Coke or coal.
AC: Coke. Yes. ‘Cause we’d run out of coke at one period and we managed to get some coke from the aerodrome from outside Bury St Edmunds. And I was in a gang of boys that went to shovel this coke onto the back of the truck to bring it back. Yeah. What a job.
CB: Did they did they notice that you’d nicked it?
AC: Pardon?
CB: Did they notice that you had nicked it?
AC: Yeah. Oh yes.
CB: [Laughter]
AC: Well we did nick it.
CB: How about the food? How did you feel about that?
AC: Well it just depends what camp you are on. Newmarket was a good, excellent. You couldn’t you couldn’t find fault in Newmarket, but Witchford was cruel. And I think the worse one — the worse one I think was Lockheed. It was — wasn’t anything special. They called themselves cooks but they weren’t anything special. No. Skegness. Oh yes, I forget Skegness. Now that was the worse. Skeggie was the worse food. We was at the Imperial Hotel that was our place and the food there was terrible. Absolutely terrible.
CB: And who were the people doing the cooking there?
AC: They had the people doing it.
CB: Civilians or RAF?
AC: RAF. It was all RAF. Yeah WAAFs cooking it. They’d have a couple of blokes probably and in charge was a Warrant Officer, and yeah that was terrible grub. And when we went to Witchford, we — I ordered — they supplied us, give us kippers for breakfast and they was off. They weren’t right. Everybody was throwing them away, and when the caterer – bloke came round, the officer came round and asked if there were any complaints. We said, ‘These kippers are rotten.’ He said he said, ‘They were in the mess. We complained about them in the officer’s mess.’ [Chuckle]. Oh, they were rotten things. I think the grub at Witchford was the worse one in the Air Force what I had. Yeah, definitely.
CB: So what was it that was so bad about it?
AC: It was the way it was cooked and presented. It was terrible. But the best place at Ouston, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne I was stationed up there. Now that was good. It was a trainer station that’s it and that was that was good there.
CB: So in today’s terms nutrition is very varied. There’s a huge choice. What did you actually have as a staple diet in the war as a ground tradesman?
AC: Well well, there was a potato, cabbage and you didn’t get peas that was a funny thing. See frozen peas came in after the war, didn’t they? So you didn’t get peas. We got cabbage, cauliflower, yes there was parsnips, carrots. I don’t eat parsnips. I think there are horrible things but —
CB: What about meat? What sort of meat did you get?
AC: Meat? I had beef. I reckon while I was in the Middle East we had camel. [Laughter] Yes. That’s what that was. That was stringy like. So, I reckon it was camel. Yeah. I brought back a lot of memories.
CB: Hm. That’s good.
AC: Pardon?
CB: And in your time off on the camp what did you do?
AC: On the camp? Time off?
CB: Yeah.
AC: Well well when you got your time off you didn’t stop off at the camp. You went out. You went out. I mean at Weston-Super-Mare at Lockheed there you’re supposed to book in at. Well we was bad lads you see. We came in late so we came through the hedge. [Chuckle]. Like real lads.
CB: But at Skegness because it was your initial training then you were more disciplined were you?
AC: Oh yes. Oh yes we had to off the street at 9 o’clock at night. Yes. I had the misfortune, I was eating fish and chips in the shop down there at Skeggie and these here two Military RAF police come by, saw me and it’d just gone 9 o’clock. He walked in, he said, ‘You’re not supposed to be out.’ They picked up my fish and chips, they took ‘em and told me to get back to the billet quick. [Chuckle] Rotten devils. I daren’t say nothing, dare I?
CB: It was a pity to waste them wasn’t it?
AC: Yeah, I daren’t say a dickie bird. Well, you see I was a raw recruit at Skeggie.
CB: Yes.
AC: Yes.
CB: So they kept you quite busy there?
AC: Oh yes, definitely. Oh yes. Yes. Marching up and down like a lot of hooligans and they took you on what they called an ‘Air Commando Course’. I could tell you, you had to go across these here three logs. Run across these three logs. Like — well like telegraph posts and they had barbed wire in the bottom of the water. So if you fell in it wouldn’t be very comfortable, would it? And you was with full pack and your rifle. I tell you what I didn’t like that. I run — when I got there I run over that. What they used to do, used to say, ‘Who’s the oldest in the mob?’ And I always remember there was a chap of 32. They sent him round, they said, ‘Right. Run round the [unclear] course.’ And they timed him and he told us we got to do it in that time. We — there was no slacking. If you if you didn’t do it in that time you’re sent round again. Yeah. So it wasn’t a holiday camp. Skegness wasn’t. No.
CB: Back onto the flight lines, so you’re working as an air mechanic, how did you link in with other people with skills like parachute packing, air traffic. Did you link in with people like that?
AC: We never come across the parachute packing and that. We never come across that. We we was more or less on the dispersal. I was just the crew there. You didn’t mix with any others. No. Well, you had —you was occupied. You was fully occupied. Then, of course, when the aircraft took off, you went out went out and got something to eat especially if it was night but you had a chitty and you walked into the messing hall, presented your chit and you got something. It was mostly egg and bacon. So we didn’t do too bad. It wasn’t too bad when it was night duty. It was quite good. Yeah.
CB: And when you did your initial training you had to do a lot of PT, how much exercise did they make you have on the airfields when you were serving there in the front line?
AC: We did get none. The only exercise you got your bike — your pushbike. You were given a pushbike and that was your exercise. Backward and forwards on the bike.
CB: So you got to dispersal on bikes.
AC: Yes. I had a Raleigh. My bike was. Yeah.
CB: How about NAAFI? How much did you use the NAAFI and what was it used for?
AC: The NAAFI? It was canteen, as I said I was a canteen cowboy. [Chuckle]
CB: Sometimes there was more attraction than others.
AC: Yeah, well I married her.
CB: Yeah
AC: I married the girl.
CB: Yeah, good move. So when did you marry?
AC: December the 1st 1945. Yes.
CB: And on that topic, before that you were de-mobbed, so what date were you de-mobbed?
AC: Well me de-mob leave went up to July, so I couldn’t tell ya exactly when I left the Air Force, but my de-mob leave ended in July.
CB: 45? [Loud background noise]
AC: Yes. And I got so fed with being at home I went to the local garage for a job and they set me on straight away. So I I was alright. Quite happy. Yeah.
CB: Right. We’ll stop there for a mo. Thank you very much.
AC: Okay, thank you.
JS: What’s that? [Background noise]
CB: Your wife was in the NAAFI but what about the other WAAFs? How much did airmen link with the WAAFs?
JS: Lots [Chuckle]
AC: Oh terrific. Terrific.
CB: Were there dances on the airfield?
AC: Yes yes. Well those at Newmarket there was a WAAF there ‘cause I hadn’t met the wife yet, and there was a WAAF there and she was a CO’s driver and she was, oh dear, she was a — and after I thought I’m gonna click here. So I so I got to know her well, but she was engaged. [Chuckle] She was engaged to a soldier. Yes.
CB: Soldier? Crikey.
AC: So I thought I was going to make hay but I didn’t. She was she was a nice girl. She came from Ilford.
CB: Oh
AC: That where she come from. Yes.
CB: So, these hangers were quite big and so you could get quite a good liaison behind the hanger in the evening could you?
AC: You could get three Lancs in there.
CB: Right [Laughing]
AC: If you if you — the bloke that drove the tractor knew how to manoeuvre them, you can get three Lancs in. That was quite good weren’t it?
CB: Yeah.
AC: To work on them.
CB: And then in time off, the you’d be behind the hanger.
AC: Yes. No, no I wasn’t one of them. I used to go down, I used to go down to Ely to go down the town. I used to go down with a lad named Maurice and we’d have a look around town and see if there were any girls there that we hadn’t met before. We was hunters. [Chuckle] It was a good laugh, wasn’t it?
CB: Yes, and so clearly, you had some good friendships there. To what extent did you keep in touch with old comrades after the war.
AC: Not, not so much. [Background noise] I had one chap, he came from Northampton I think he was one of the closest but at Ely I had — there there was a chap who’d been in the Air Force at Palestine. He lived at, he lived at Newmarket but he’d come to Ely. Yeah, come to look me up. Yeah, Freddie Claydon. Yes.
CB: So, what were the old times you were thinking about then? Being in Palestine? We haven’t talked about that, so —
AC: Palestine?
CB: What what was the routine there?
AC: Well, I was on the aircrafts. Would it? No. I was in the MT, didn’t I?
CB: Yes.
AC: I was in the MT and we had this here Warrant Officer Smudge Smith. He was — had a mobile office. And it was a metal thing and used to get terrifically hot inside. And Smudge, we used to call him. Warrant Officer. [Chuckle] I’ll tell ya, the Air Force had a good going with the, everybody else. We had an army boy. He he he was a batman to the army liaison officer with the squadron. He couldn’t understand how we got away with so much. He said: ‘I can’t get away like you do with the officers in the army.’ He said, ‘You RAF blokes, you’re not in the forces. You’re having the time of your life.’ We did. After I left square—bashing, I tell you what I never looked back. I didn’t write home to mother and say I wanted to come home. No.
CB: When you remustered what happened to your rank?
AC: Well, well, when I remustered, I was LAC. No, I stayed as a LAC ‘cause I couldn’t get any further until I took another course and I didn’t, that was me mistake. I should have taken took up [unclear] course. That was my mistake. That was the biggest mistake I made.
CB: In the desert in Palestine, were you in the desert or were you in a fairly well cultivated area?
AC: At a RAF station. At an aerodrome.
CB: Yes. Which was that?
AC: Pardon?
CB: Which one?
AC: I was at Ramat David, Ein Shemer, and Kalowinski [?] wasn’t it? Kalowinski. Yeah Ramat David, I rather like that. Ramat David. Yes.
CB: Was that because — why was that? What was special about that?
AC: Well we was on a bit of a hill and the Jews had got a nice vineyard and we used to raid it. We used to go get the grapes [chuckle] at night.
UNKNOWN FEMALE : Hello. Sorry.
CB: Hello. We’ll stop a mo.[Restart] So they’d got all these nice grapes but but the trees —
AC: The bushes.
CB: — the bushes, I mean to say.
AC: Yeah, well you just stand there and pull them off.
CB: So what did they do about that?
AC: Well, they didn’t do nothing ‘cause they couldn’t catch us, could they? We, we took them when they weren’t around. [Chuckle].
CB: What was the airfield, the bases was a well—established airfield, was it?
AC: Ramat David?
CB: Yes.
AC: That was, that was a, that was off the living quarters we weren’t on the living quarters were separate from the airfields. Well they had to be because the Jews used to go down and break glass bottles on the runways at night.
CB: Oh did they? Right.
AC: Right you see, you did your duties, I always got searchlight duty, and I had to maintain this searchlight and you’d whaff the searchlight round and you’d catch them. There they were breaking glass on the runways, yeah.
CB: So what, what —
AC: And we weren’t allowed to shoot them. We had to let them do it and in the morning we had to go and sweep it up. Yeah.
CB: And what was flying from that airfield?
AC: Spitfires and, err what was the American aircraft?
CB: Mustang?
AC: Mustang?
CB: Was it?
AC: Yeah Mustang. Yeah 208 208 Squadron had the Mustangs and 32 Squadron had the Spitfires. Yeah.
CB: So you were dealing with transport, what, what sort of schedule did you operate in a day because it was pretty hot in the middle of the day. So did you start in the —
AC: Yes the middle of the day. 12 o’clock you packed up. You packed up. Then you went back at 6 o’clock at night.
CB: So what time did you start in the morning?
AC: In the morning? 7 o’clock.
CB: And back at six till when?
AC: Yours — 7 o’clock till 12 o’clock but you had about — a break for a meal and then you went back at 6 o’clock at night till 8 o’clock. ‘Cause you didn’t do much — there weren’t much flying at night.
CB: So where — what could you do in you off duty times? Was it quite remote in this place?
AC: In Palestine the off duty time was very very sparse. We used to go down to Jerusalem and Nazareth. Yeah. Nazareth wasn’t too bad. Jerusalem was — Jerusalem was a holiday camp. The Jews used to pop you off when you went up the mountainside. Yeah.
CB: Just shoot you?
AC: Yeah pop at ya. Shoot ya. Shoot at ya. They had they had a crafty idea to go up to Jerusalem, on the bend of the road going up the hill mountain there, they built a pyramid of stones, so you go along the road and you’ve all a sudden you got this pyramid of stones in front of you. Then they they let go at ya. So it — Palestine wasn’t a comfortable place. No.
CB: How many people got hit?
AC: I couldn’t say. But I do — what was it? Was it six? Six airmen got shot at in Nazareth walking walking along the street by the alleyway a burst of gunfire, they got shot at. They got injured. Yeah.
CB: Did any get killed?
AC: No no.
CB: What about the —
AC: I was — pardon?
CB: Go on.
AC: I was there when the Jews blew up the front out of — the what was it called?
CB: The King David Hotel.
AC: King David Hotel. Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
AC: I was there then.
CB: Right.
AC: When they blew the front out.
CB: And what about the Arabs? Were they around or not it that area?
AC: Arabs? A funny thing was we got on well with them. We got well with the Arabs. I mean it was only later on that the Arabs turned because they didn’t get what they wanted. Well I couldn’t blame them. You see when the British forces moved out of Palestine like it was at our camp, Ramat David. The Jews was at the main gate when we was coming — gonna come out. They were waiting to go in and at the other side of the aerodrome there was the Arabs waiting to go on. So they had a fight. Well you know won, don’t ya?
CB: Hm.
AC: The Jews won.
CB: Yeah.
AC: The Arabs hadn’t got hadn’t got the ammunition and the guns like the Jews had. Yeah.
CB: So were you happy to leave or would you like to have stayed on in Palestine?
AC: I was really happy to leave. I was happy to leave. I didn’t think much of the place I can tell ya. No.
CB: Did you go on trips to other places in the area or did you stay in the camp?
AC: Oh yes.Yes, I was in the MT then, and we used to drive out to different places I was in I was near Damascus once, just on the outskirts of Damascus and we went all over the place, over the desert. One day we was off duty and the despatch rider said to be Geordie. He came from Newcastle, he said, ‘Arthur, I get— if I give you another motorbike,’ he said: ‘Shall we go out on the motorbike? In the afternoon, you see.’ So I said, ‘Yeah.’ So he got me an Indian motorbike? American Indian. Have you seen them?
CB: No.
AC: They’re like a Harley Davidson and he had the Harley Davidson, and we went in the desert and we had our revolvers and we were shooting at wild dogs until these wild dogs started to chase us. So we opened up and got out of the way. [Chuckle] It’s an exciting life in the Air Force.
CB: Clearly it was.
AC: I did enjoy it. I wouldn’t have missed it at all. I wouldn’t have missed it.
CB: Just going back to the wartime service at Witchford and Newmarket.
AC: Yes.
CB: Although you weren’t flying, officially, how many hours did you do in total?
AC: What flying?
CB: Hmm.
AC: I never took any recording — any record of it. If they were going up on air test, you say, ‘Can I come?’ and they said, ‘Jump in’ and you just jumped in. You didn’t get no parachute. So —
CB: Oh right.
AC: So you just jumped in. That was it.
CB: So where did you sit on take—off and landing?
AC: I I had the privilege of getting to the front of cockpit ‘cause I wanted to be a Flight Engineer. And I was always to the front with the pilot and the flight engineer all sat at the front there, on a canvas belt what the flight engineer sat on. Yeah.
CB: A number of people became aircrew because they had seen notices on boards in the army quarters and air force stations looking for — requesting people to apply for aircrew, did you never see one of those? What stopped you —
AC: Oh yes, I, I went originally for aircrew. I went originally for it and I passed me medical and I waited but never got called up for it.
CB: Oh. Oh right.
AC: They had too many didn’t they?
CB: They did [pause] ‘cause the losses didn’t continue as high as they thought they would.
AC: Pardon?
CB: The losses — aircrew losses.
AC: Yes.
CB: Diminished. So they didn’t have the demand quite that they had expected.
AC: There was no flying from Lockheed. No, Lockheed was a training camp.
CB: Yes, sure. Right, thank you very much indeed, Arthur.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with William Arthur Coulton
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-10-20
Format
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01:14:51 audio recording
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ACoultonWA161020
Conforms To
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Pending review
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
William Coulton was born in Derbyshire and worked as an errand boy for the Co-Op until he joined the Royal Air Force in 1943, aged 18. He trained as a flight mechanic and was posted to 115 Squadron at RAF Witchford where he worked on Lancasters. He was later posted to Palestine with 32 Squadron where he worked on Spitfires. He was demobbed in July 1945 and married his girlfriend Hilda Elsie who he had met serving in the Navy, Army and Air Force Institute. After the war he moved to North Luffenham and worked as a motor mechanic.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Gemma Clapton
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Israel
Middle East--Palestine
Israel--ʻEn Shemer
Israel--Ramat Daṿid
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Derbyshire
England--Rutland
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
115 Squadron
208 Squadron
32 Squadron
dispersal
fitter engine
flight mechanic
ground crew
ground personnel
Lancaster
love and romance
military living conditions
military service conditions
Navy, Army and Air Force Institute
RAF Newmarket
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Witchford
service vehicle
Spitfire
tractor
training
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force