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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/609/8878/PMcNamaraL1502.2.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/609/8878/AMcNamara150722.1.mp3
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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
McNamara, Len
L McNamara
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
McNamara, L
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with Len McNamara (1924 - 2020, 1814123, 185344 Royal Air Force) and a photograph. He flew operations as an air gunner with 10 and 75 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-22
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AM: Ok,so, this interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Annie Moody, and the interviewee is Len McNamara. And the interview is taking place at Len McNamara's home, in Southport, on the twenty second of July two thousand and fifteen. So Len, if you would just tell me a little bit about your childhood, background, and then how you came to join the RAF.
LM: I was born in Bristol in nineteen twenty four. My father was a chef, or cook as they called them in those days, and he worked at Fishponds, Bristol Mental Hospital, which is at Fishponds, on a very huge estate there, and my mother was a mental nurse. I was the eldest of three boys, I had a normal Elementary School education, went to night school, and when I was, left school at fourteen I was an apprentice plumber. Joined, as most lads I was associated with, joined the Air Training Corps, which had a very strong following in Bristol, and after going through, suffering, seeing the bombing of my home town, Bristol, I decided, if I could, I would like to join the Air Force, and be a member of the bomber squadrons. In December nineteen forty three I volunteered for air crew, and I went down to Euston House in London on a three day selection board, and was selected for air crew, and was told I would be called up later. Um, in March nineteen forty three, on the twenty first, the day I was exactly eighteen and a half years old, I reported to Lords Cricket Ground ACR-
AM: (interrupting) Nineteen forty four.
LM: Nineteen forty three.
AM: Forty three or forty four?
LM: Forty three.
AM: Ok.
LM: Um, after spending about three weeks in London, Earls Court Road, being kitted out and doing elementary field programmes, I went up to Bridlington to Air Gunners ITW. The course up there lasted approximately six weeks, and from there I went down to (pause) um, Elementary Gunnery School which was at Bridgenorth. Actually, did nothing at all there, cos they were just setting it all up and it was just hangers. From there I went to number one ATS at Pembrey, in Wales, did my gunnery course, and we were flying on, doing the gunnery on Blenheims, with Lysanders towing the drogues.
AM: So you, you were shooting at drogues.
LM: Yes, shooting at drogues. I passed out and was presented with merit honours in August of forty three, and from there I went to 10 OTU at Abingdon. At Abingdon it was crewed up, the skipper being Pete Catterswife, who was a Canyan, navigator was a-, from Taunton, and the wireless operator air gunner was an Australian, Bob Wright, and I can't think of anybody else who was crew at that time.
AM: How did you get together? Who approached who?
LM: We just all went into just a big room, and all I remember is being introduced to the crew. I don't know whether it was the navigator, or what, because (unclear), and he was West country, from Taunton. It could have been that. Anyhow, we crewed up there, that's right, navigator (pause), oh, and the bomb aimer, who was an ex Glasgow policeman, Bob McLuer. And I think we spent about two to three weeks at Abingdon, flying on Whitleys, and once the crew, skipper was solo on the Whitleys, we then went out to the satellite airfield at Stanton air, air, Stanton Harcourt. On completion of the OTU we then went up to Marston Moor, and did our conversion on to Halifax. Then they were flying Haliax ll's, which weren't all that clever, but nevertheless, the Halifax was a very well built aircraft, and more crew comfort than some of the others. On completion of the course at Marston Moor, we then went to Driffield on an escape and evasion course. I think it was about two weeks there, doing all sorts of things, getting over barbed wire, crawling through ditches, you name it, and we finished up with an escape and evasion exercise where we were dropped off in pairs on the North Yorkshire Moors, and then had to find our way back to Driffield. One, two of the Australians had a good experience, they got as far as (pause) oh, seaside town. Scarborough.
AM: Scarborough.
LM: And they found an army vehicle which was unattended, and drove back in that. I think the outcome was that it was some army Major's transport. Anyhow, they did that. And we, some of us got to Norton. We jumped on the train there, and when it got, not to Driffield station, to one of the minor stations before, we got out the wrong side and back in to Driffield without being stopped or caught. Um, after doing this escape and evasion, we were posted to the Shiny Ten Squadron in January nineteen forty four at Melbourne, just outside York. There were several crews went there, and we did two mine laying operations from Melbourne. On one of them the aircraft was shot up a bit by ack-ack, but the only comment was 'several holes in the aircraft, no member of crew hurt' (chuckles). From there, one five eight at Lissett were converting to the Halifax lll's, and also they'd lost one flight, C Flight, which went to Leconfield to form another squadron. So there were four of us, new crews of us at Shiny Ten who were then posted to Lissett. And we went there, and were on B Flight. Lissett was a very happy station. Everybody was very sociable, and a good atmosphere all round. While there I was having sinus problems, so I went up to the hospital at North Allerton, and had to go and have a minor sinus operation. As a result of that I was limited to flying below ten thousand feet. At that time I, with my own crew, had completed seven ops, and because of my sinus problems I was grounded from flying on operations, so they had a spare gunner in my place. On one of those trips to Tournai on (unclear) they got shot down. Three of the crew bailed out, the navigator and the flight engineer became prisoners of war. The rear gunner who had taken my place as a spare, he bailed out, but his chute failed to open, and he was found in a lady's, in France, in a lady's back garden, and his chute pack with him unopened. So it was quite a shock for the lady concerned. I have visited where the crew crashed, and also where everybody was found. I went with my son, er two of my sons and a grandson, and we found the local mayor was very cooperative, and showed us everything they could. The crew, the other ones who didn't survive, are buried in a small plot by the War Graves Commission in Meharicourt, and I have made a few visits there. There are quite a few members of 158 buried there, also the famous air gunner VC, Jan Mynarwski is buried there. From then I spent the rest of my time at Lissett as a spare gunner. Fortunately I was in the position of, I did fly with some crews for quite a period. One was Ted Strange. His air gunner, rear gunner had appendicitis, so I flew with them on their last seven ops, and they were a very fine crew, and I got on very well. I then was crewed up with Sam Weller, B Flight commander. Trips with him were few and far between, but I did, I then was crewed up with another Australian crew, and I did their last six ops with them. I did a couple of odd spare trips, and, but very quiet time really. I did fly with one crew, Canadian crew, which I wasn't happy with, and when I got back I said to the (unclear) that I didn't wish to fly with them any more because there was too much talking, and not enough attention paid to the job in hand. He assured me I wouldn't fly with them any more, and I didn't, and tragically, they did lose their lives on an operation not long after. In the October of, correction, in September of forty four I was then crewed up with a Canadian crew, and I flew with them for my last trips, my remaining trips of (unclear). I did, I think it was five or six with them, and then one day we came back form a daylight raid on Cologne, on thirtieth October, that was, and the Wing Commander, Wing Commander Dobson, came out to meet me, and said, 'congratulations, you've finished your tour now, and your commission is through'. The crew only had about three more ops to do to finish their tour, and I said, 'oh, I'll stay with you if you want', and the Wing Commander said, 'you've had enough, done enough. You've had nine months continuous operational flying, you've done your share, you're going to have a rest'.
AM: So that was that.
LM: From then I was posted to Langar, just outside Nottingham, as an instructor. Wasn't enjoying that very much , and a call went out for two second tour gunners, and Tony Dunster was an ex 4 Group gunner like myself, on Halifax's, we were posted, he volunteered, and we went down to Wolfarts Lodge to crew up, and we crewed up, the crew we crewed up with, the skipper was on his second tour, he was a New Zealander, and the rest of the crew, the wireless operator, the bomb aimer and the navigator, and flight engineer, had all been together on their first tour, flying Stirlings, as had the captain. And, I must admit, none of us were very enthusiastic about the Lancaster. Those of us on Halifax's said that the Lanc was a Woolworth's effort, and the Halifax was the Marks and Spencers, In all honesty, the Halifax was more favourable to the crews. It was easier to get around in, and easier to get out of in an emergency. Neither the Stirling boys, nor Tony and I liked the Lancasters at all. One incident we had with the Lancaster, was we were down at, way down in, er, Germany, I can't remember the target at the moment, this conversation, but it was way down, oh, Magdeberg, it was, and we were just doing the run in on the target, and we had an engine go up in flames. Nothing to do with any enemy action, it's just we had a glycol leak which caused a fire in the engine, and the engine couldn't be, it wouldn't feather, so we went all the way back to base with an engine, a prop just windmilling, and got back an hour after everybody else.
AM: Safely, though.
LM: Safely. One of the best jobs we ever did was the Manna Operations to Holland, dropping food. We loaded our crews ourselves, they had like a hammock in the bomb bay, and we loaded everything there, then we went over and dropped the food. And that was the most, the best thing we ever did.
AM: How many drops did you do on Operation Manna?
LM: Two.
AM: You did two.
LM: Yes
AM: How low were you flying?
LM: Oh, practically ground level. It was amazing because (pause)
AM: Could you actually see the people?
LM: Oh yes. As you were flying over there were people in their boats, and that, waving like mad to you, and some of them waving that enthusiastically they could tip over, but it was really fantastic to see it, and doing it.
AM: As a contrast to what you were doing before.
LM: Oh yes. Before, I mean before it was a question of destruction, but this question was saving lives. So, and (pause)
AM: Going back to the destruction, if you like, what, what, what did it actually feel like for you, there in the, as a, you were a rear gunner?
LM: Yeah, rear gunner. Well, actually it's amazing because being the rear gunner you never saw what you were going in to, you only saw it as you were coming out of it. And I was one of the gunners, there was loads of us, we never looked for trouble. Some, you had some people were gung-ho, drawing attention to themselves, but I was always taught, and others did, never draw attention to yourself. Just sit there quietly watching, and keeping your eyes open.
AM: Did you actually ever use the gun?
LM: Never.
AM: Never?
LM: No. I seen them, but you, just you sit there quietly, keeping an eye on what-
AM: But you could have done if you'd had to.
LM: Oh yeah.
AM: And what was it like in the suit, when you were all plugged in? Were you always warm, because it was really cold, wasn't it?
LM: Yes, but I really enjoyed it in the rear turret. You were in a world of your own there, you were your own companion. The only thing, it did get very cold, but then we had electric suits, and something we could never understand, ICW at Bridlington, you had to strip a Browning down, blindfolded. It's all laughable when you think of it, because in the turret it was minus forty, if you'd touched any metal you'd have frostbite, so why did we have to do all that?
AM: But you could, if you had to? With gloves on.
LM: Yes, if you had to. (laughs) But that was er-
AM: What, what do you think about the bombing now? You know, in retrospect.
LM: Well, it's more accurate, isn't it. I mean, you've got all the aids.
AM: No, sorry. I mean about when, when you were actually doing the bombing, dropping the bombs , what, what do you think about that now, in thinking about-
LM: I, I've still no regrets about it at all. Having lived and seen my own city destroyed, with no problems at all. And all I can say, it's like people are on about it all, what all the fuss and bother's about. There has been a book written since then, which I have. Written, I forget the name of the author, but he had, once the Communists had gone from Eastern Germany, and all the records came out, there was a lot going on there, all the equipment for submarines being manufactured there, it was a big staging post for the Eastern Front. There was loads of military there, and we were quite justified. I don't know what, all this outcry afterwards. It's easy to be wise after the event.
AM: And you got the DFC?
LM: Yeah, yeah.
AM: For the number of tours.
LM: Gary has got a letter that shows-
AM: Has he?
LM: Yeah. But there were, I mean, I had, I know I flew with numerous crews, but with the exception of the odd one or two, I was fortunate, I flew with very good, well experienced crews, and some of them had had an horrendous time. In fact, er, can we have just a (unclear).
AM: Yes, of course. (rustling noises)
LM: When Douggie Bancroft, Flying Officer Bancroft, who I did quite a few, they, they got badly shot up, and they landed at Hurn Airport, in, er, outside Bournemouth, and nobody ever understood how they managed to get the aircraft back there. In fact the instrument panel is in Canberra, in a museum in Australia, from that aircraft, and obviously the crew that survived, er two of the crew, they never found, never found their bodies. They reckon they must have fallen through the hole in the aircraft where it was badly burnt. And they all got immediate awards, DFMs and DFCs. They thoroughly deserved it. But they were a fantastic crew that I had the privilege to fly with for the remainder, the rest of their tour.
AM: Yes. So, I'm looking at all the different ones. So you had a Kenyan pilot, Canadian pilots, Australian pilots, New Zealand pilots, English pilot. You went through the lot.
LM: Yes, yes. I was lucky.
AM: Any difference? What were the differences of the nationalities? Other than the obvious ones about language.
LM: Yeah, there isn't no difference at all. They were all first class captains. Very happy crews, and, you can't explain the comradeship with your crew. You were closer than you were with your own brothers. I suppose the reason, you depended on each other for your lives. We had a good social life together, and that's it.
AM: Did you get down to Bridlington, from Lissett?
LM: Yeah, yeah. I've walked back from there many a time.
AM: You've walked? From Bridlington to Lissett?
LM: (laughs)
AM: How far's that?
LM: About eight miles. Eight, ten miles. Yep. Come back many a night in the crew bus, not on the seat, but on the floor (laughs).
AM: You enjoyed it, then?
LM: Oh yes. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
AM: And then, as, after that, you ended up with 75 squadron?
LM: Yeah.
AM: And then, I'm just looking at a sheet of paper here than Len has given me with all his pilots on. So, 75 New Zealand squadron, you were there 'til the end of the European war.
LM: Yes. Yes.
AM: So what was it like at the end, then? What was your last tour? Were they Operation Manna? Er, not tour, sorry, your last operation.
LM: I don't know.
AM: Because the Operation Manna ones would have been, May forty four?
LM: They were May time, weren't they. Because the war finished, I think it was in May. It was May, wasn't it?
AM: Yeah.
LM: I know because everything went mad on seven five squadron at Mepal, but (pause) that was fantastic, because when we come back off leave from seventy five New Zealand, all of us crew, we all used to come back, meet up in London, before coming back to Mepal, and have a night in London. But we used to go to Mepal village. Lovely, all the Kiwis getting to do their war dance in the bar. It was great.
AM: So what was it like at the end, then? What, how did it, for you, how did it end?
LM: It was just like a, really a bit of a let down. I thought we weren't treated very good. I know the New Zealanders were going to go out on, I forget what they call it, they were going to go out to India, and that. They went to Scampton, all the Kiwis, and all the English people, we were shipped up to Snaith, in Yorkshire, just to be selected to ground jobs, and I finished up at Ringway, on the parachute school, to initially, to be instructor. But I thought, 'no thank you'.
AM: No? You hadn't enjoyed it the first time round.
LM: So that was that.
AM: So what did you do.
LM: I can't, I'm trying to think, 'what did I do?' (Pause) Oh, yeah. I finished up, from there I went out to India, that's right, went out to Karachi, and we did nothing. Christmas, it was. Christmas of forty four, that's right. Arrived in Karachi, and there's four of us in a tent there, and we were just doing nothing. We used to go in to Kara-, it was Mauripur Airport. We used to go in to Karachi, and there was a club there, and that. We used to go in gharrys as they called them, the horse drawn taxi there, and we were told not to say anything as they went through some areas, let the driver sort I out, and that was that. But-
AM: How long were you there for? Was that forty four or forty five?
LM: That was forty four.
AM: Forty four. So that was before the Operation Manna, then?
LM: No, it was after everything.
AM: Oh, ok.
LM: Let's see. (pause) The war finished, I finished my tour and ops in October forty four, no, this was forty five, of course it was.
AM: So it was forty five.
LM: Forty five.
AM: I'm just trying to get my chronology right.
LM: No, forty five, it was. We went out to there, and then from there we went across to Ceylon, and then we went up to Kandy.
AM: What were you actually doing?
LM: Nothing!
AM: Oh, right.
LM: We were just shipped out the way. And we finished up at Kandy with a few more bomber, ex Bomber Command people, and then they decided to give us a three months Officers admin course. (chuckles) And then at the end of that we were shipped out to Singapore, we went on the Cape Town Castle, it was. Yeah. From Ceylon to Singapore, and I finished up on the embarkation unit there, working. But my sinus problems came out again, and I went in the hospital there. And the hospital was at Changi, which used to be, as I understand it, was a mental hospital, and of course all the Japanese were in (unclear) all around the beds, cleaning and that. And then I was sent home from there, repatriated.
AM: How did you get home?
LM: They flew me home.
AM: On what?
LM: A York. Flew me home, in stages, you know staging all the way through. Landed at Lyneham. Where did I go after that? Oh, then, (pause) that's right when I got back (pause), I missed that out, yeah, we went through Compton Bassett, and we did a code and cypher course, and we were all told when we went there, irrespective of what happens, you will pass the course, and we weren't, we were allowed to go to the Officer's Mess to collect our mail, and we had to pay the Officer's Mess bill, but all they did, they curtained part of the airman's dining hall off, and gave us that as a lounge with a field telephone to the Officer's Mess if you wanted any drinks. Obviously we never bothered, we always used to go into the local (unclear) and that. I'd forgotten about that, it'd all gone.
AM: I'm dragging it all back out.
LM: Yeah, I forgot all about that. 'Cos we, we went there before we went out to Ceylon, er, out to Karachi, and that.
AM: To go to Ceylon, and Karachi, and Singapore, to do nothing, just-. How many of you?
LM: Oh, there must have been hundreds of us. We were treated like dirt, at the end of the war, irrespective of your rank. We were just shipped out there out the road, out the way. The Navy got rid of all their surplus air crew. The RAF hung on to all of us.
AM: Why do you think they did?
LM: I don't know. I mean, I, because I'm a number, a (unclear) a number, I wasn't demobbed until forty seven. May forty seven.
AM: Could you have been, if you'd have wanted to go earlier?
LM: No. We weren't given the choice. We were all just shipped out, well we all thought personally we were just pushed out the way. They didn't know what to do with us.
AM: Was that RAF in general, or just Bomber Command?
LM: Well, I don't know, it was RAF, to do with RAF, not Bomber Command.
AM: They were still paying you?
LM: Oh yeah, yeah, but it was disgusting. That's right, I forgot about that. Yeah, that's right, I went-
AM: Seems a long way to go to do nothing.
LM: Well, it was, I mean, finished up at, in fact, the Officers Mess, embarkation Officer's Mess was out, Karikal House it was, and it was out by number ten dock gate, and in a beautiful big house and grounds. And a Japanese Admiral died there earlier, he's buried in the grounds of this big Karikal House, beautiful, and huge grounds. But, er, but, it's like the food we had there, it was all dehydrated stuff. And chicken, we used to see them coming in crates.
AM: And then they had to sort of wet it to cook it?
LM: Oh yeah. But, it was horrible.
AM: So what happened when you were eventually demobbed?
LM: I went, I was, we went up, I forget where it was, it was up Lancashire way somewhere, and just went up. A nights stop there. And just give the uniform in, and the suit, and that was it. It's a big laugh, because, because of the weather back here, there was a shortage of vegetables, and that, no potatoes, and all that jazz, but, I can't even remember the name of the camp where we were, when we were demobbed. Somewhere in the Lancashire area, I don't know where it was.
AM: What did you do afterwards, Len?
LM: I went back to finish my apprenticeship. I went back to finish my apprenticeship in plumbing. What happened, you went back and finished it, and you got full tradesman's rate, but the firm was compensated by the government for that. Got my indentures, and that was that. And then, I got fed up. I wished I hadn't of come out. The reason I come out was we were going to get married, and my wife wasn't keen on the service life, as she thought. So, I come out, and I thought, 'I'm fed up with this, I want to go back in'. So I went and they said, 'oh, you'll have to come back in as an airman, because your commission’s gone'. And I thought alright, I'll come back in the air traffic control branch.
AM: So this was after you'd finished your plumbing apprenticeship.
LM: Oh, yes. I was working as a tradesman.
AM: So you worked as a plumber?
LM: Yes, but I was getting fed up with it, and I was missing service life, and I wanted to get back into it. And the pity of it is, once I got back in, with the travel you did, and that, my wife thoroughly enjoyed it.
AM: Where did you meet your wife?
LM: Oh, I met, during the war we were at Bristol, we went out to Bath in the building business, working on bomb damage repairs, and we were doing work, just at the bottom of the road (unclear), and we were working on it, and that's how I come to meet her. She was fifteen and I was seventeen then.
AM: So that was before the RAF, even? You met her before you joined?
LM: Oh, yeah, oh yeah.
AM: And when did you get married? What year did you get married?
LM: Got married in forty seven, June forty seven. We were engaged, and that was that. Well, after I come out, I come out in May forty seven, and we got married in the June.
AM: When you went back in, then, so you did your plumbing, and then you went back in to the RAF, what did you do? What sort of things did you do?
LM: Air traffic control.
AM: You were in air traffic control.
LM: Yeah, air traffic control, straight on. And it was fantastic. Everybody was so kind to me. Don't matter what rank, station commanders, it was just what ribbons I had, and I was better treated then than we were at the end of the war, at Compton Bassett, and places like that. Because they were all wingless wonders there.
AM: So how long were you in air traffic control for? (pause) Ish.
LM: Oh, from fifty three to seventy one.
AM: Oh, right through.
LM: Yeah, I enjoyed it. Lovely. Yes, I trained on GC, ground control approach as a director, what they call a director, on that, and then became a local controller.
AM: Which airport were you based at?
LM: I was at, down at (pause) down at (pause), oh I can't think, it's where all the helicopters are down south, Chinooks and all that, I'll soon tell you.
AM: It's gone.
LM: Odiham! I was just going to pick the tankard up, because when I left there they presented me with a tankard. I was at Odiham, and, oh, that's right, because while we were at Odiham we had a mobile x-ray that come round, and they found Renee had TB. So she went into a sanatorium that way, and they transferred her to one outside Bath. Of course, we had young children, and mother, not, two of my sister in laws lived in Bath, one had the two girls, we had two girls then, and then there was two boys, and mother had the two boys in Bath. So I was then posted to, I'd been at Chivenor, that's right, I'd gone from Chivenor up to Colerne outside Bath, so that's it, they moved me to Colerne on compassionate grounds, because my children were in Bath, and they did that. And then from Colerne, when everything was, my wife was back and that, went up to Dishforth. Dishforth, Dishforth out to Germany, Wildenrath in Germany. So that was that. That's where I, and then I come home from Wildenrath in Germany, and, where did I go? Trying to think. (long pause). Oh God, no, I can't remember where I was when I came home.
AM: Oh well, it doesn't matter. What was it like being back in Germany?
LM: It was lovely. I was at Wildenrath, and the Dutch people we used to go on a roam on, and the German people were alright. In fact, on Wildenrath they had what they called GSO, German Service, and oh they were using what they had, huts and that, as married quarters. It was great. I enjoyed it. I can't think where I was. Oh, of course I was, I was down at Halton when I finished. Yeah, that's right, I went to Halton. I was the sole, all they had a Halton was a grass airfield, and Chipmonks for air experience for the cadets, you know, the apprentices, and I was the sole controller there. It was lovely. Had a fantastic time there.
AM: Brilliant. Well, thank you very much. That was really interesting.
LM: Sorry I couldn't remember names going through.
AM: Oh, don't you worry about that.
LM: But they're all down there, and Gary's got a copy of the recommendation for the DFC.
AM: Thanks, Len. I'll make sure we take a copy of that, then.
LM: Oh, I think I've got another spare copy.
AM: We'll find one. Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Len McNamara
Creator
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Annie Moody
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-22
Format
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00:40:20 audio recording
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AMcNamara150722
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.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Royal New Zealand Air Force
Royal Canadian Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
Len McNamara was born in Bristol in 1924. An apprentice plumber, he joined the Air Training Corps and volunteered for aircrew. Discusses his initial training at various stations, the gunnery course he passed with merit and honours, an escape and evasion course he attended, and crewing up with Pete Catterswife, a Kenyan. He flew Whitleys and then then converting to Halifaxes. Len was posted to 10 Squadron at RAF Melbourne. He discusses mine laying and bombing operations, aircraft damage, social and service life at RAF Lisset, military ethos and the award of the Distinguished Flying Cross. After sinus problems, he was a reserve gunner going on operations with various aircrews. Len was posted to RAf Langar as an instructor, but volunteered as second tour gunners and was posted to RAF Woolfox Lodge to crew up with a New Zealand pilot on Lancasters. Discusses engine problems, Kenyan, Canadian Australian, New Zealand and English pilots, talks about Operation Manna and discusses 75 New Zealand Squadron. At the end of the war he finished up at RAF Ringway as parachute instructor.
Len was then posted to various locations abroad, did a code and cipher course and was demobilised. He went back to his plumbing apprenticeship, got married, settled in Bath but wanted to get back to service life. He started back as an airman and went into the air traffic control branch serving at different stations in Great Britain and Germany until he retired in 1971. Len was into post war meetings and memorial visits.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Germany
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Yorkshire
England--Cheshire
England--Rutland
Sri Lanka
Singapore
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
10 OTU
10 Squadron
75 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
crewing up
demobilisation
Distinguished Flying Cross
escaping
evading
final resting place
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
military ethos
military living conditions
military service conditions
mine laying
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
pilot
RAF Abingdon
RAF Langar
RAF Lissett
RAF Melbourne
RAF Ringway
RAF Woolfox Lodge
recruitment
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/16/6136/AAtkinsonA150623.2.mp3
194d2829b0981bb39f112129e533bbe5
Dublin Core
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Title
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Atkinson, Arthur
Arthur Atkinson
A Atkinson
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Arthur Atkinson (1922 - 2020, 1042303 Royal Air Force) his log book, service material and two photographs. Arthur Atkinson trained as a wireless operator and spent eighteen months at RAF Ringway before being flying 34 operations with 61 Squadron from RAF Coningsby and RAF Skellingthorpe.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Arthur Atkinson and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-06-23
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Atkinson, A
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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MC: Ok so If you tell us about when and where you were born, and then go on from there.
AA: Yeah, I was born in Lancaster in Lancashire in 1922, went to a normal school, elementary school then I won a scholarship to the local Grammar school but , we didn’t have a lot of money so I wasn’t able to take up the scholarship so I carried on schooling at the elementary as long as I could and then when I left school, the Headmaster, I was head boy in the school by the time I left, and the headmaster got me a job at the local accountant, which was fine but in those days five shillings didn’t go a long way. So, in no time at all I had to leave there and got a job with the local coop behind the counter which I hated, I hated it from the first day and I decided then and there as soon as I was old enough I would join the RAF. That was my ambition I’d had one flight in an Avro 504 the open cockpit type with a local chap that came and that set me off I volunteered for the Royal Air Force as wireless operator, I always wanted to be a wireless operator and got my number at pad Gate I was accepted I got my number but unfortunately, they sent me home for deferred service which didn’t suit me at all. I was home for about six months and at the end of six months I was so fed up I wrote a letter to the Air ministry, saying “have you forgotten me?” and a week later my papers came. Then I reported to Blackpool to the initial training wing and wireless school, did my wireless training over Woolworth’s in Blackpool and then down to Compton Bassett to finish off with and when I qualified as a wireless operator I was posted to Ringway airport Manchester which then was RAF Ringway doing ground wireless operating duties there for about eighteen months until I was put under draft to go overseas as a ground wireless operator. Well a friend of mine on the same draft said “this isn’t good enough”, we were both waiting for aircrew training by then, so I went on embarkation leave, he went to see the CO and said “look you know this isn’t playing the game” so the CO agreed with him, and when I came back from leave embarkation leave found I’d been taken off the draft, and in a short while I was posted down to Yatesbury on a refresher course then went through the usual mill of flying training at Yatesbury.
MC: What sort of aircraft were you flying in?
AA: Proctor’s, little Proctor’s, Dominie, to start with then little Proctor’s then I did an EFU at Boddington near to Ha’penny Green then gunnery course down at Stormy Down in Wales. Then I finally qualified at the Operational training unit at Market Harborough and was crewed up by self-selection, I saw a pilot walking along and I liked the look of him and asked him if he wanted a wireless operator and did, he had a Bomb aimer, asked me if I knew any gunners which I did, and eventually we crewed up. Went through the training and finally posted to Coningsby 61 squadron.
MC: Who was your skipper and crew then?
AA: Bob Acott, Basil. M. Acott but we called him Bob. The only thing was that we hadn’t had leave for ages and they said you can’t go on leave until you’ve done at least one operation with the squadron but unfortunately before we went on Ops we had to a couple of cross countries and unfortunately our navigator suffered from airsickness and every time we took off he was ill so this delayed us somewhat and we were not very happy about it anyway eventually they swapped him for another navigator Dickie Ward he was a good lad, and we were put on the list to go to Stuttgart our first op. This was a disaster completely from start to finish. We took off, we hadn’t been flying long and it was fairly obvious our DR compass wasn’t working properly, anyway we pressed on and it was our first trip it was a press on type anyway after hours and hours it seemed to me we didn’t find Stuttgart we found a glowing under a cloud, a red glow in some clouds and thought this must be it so we unloaded the bombs there which was, whether it was Stuttgart or not I don’t know any way we tried to, we left the bombing area tried to fly back to the UK still wondering all over the place with this DR compass which wasn’t working properly we hadn’t flown long before bomb aimer checked the bombays and found a thousand pound bomb had been hung up so we opened the doors and we let that go I don’t know who got it but we were over Germany so it didn’t really matter a lot, we carried on flying wandering all over Europe I should think and after ages and ages the rear gunner said he thought he saw the coastline underneath, well that’s great so approximate course to England we kept flying and flying and nothing happened and a bit later on he spoke up and said “I’m sorry skipper, I was wrong the first time I can clearly see the coast below now” so then the skipper said, “well that’s alright but I don’t think we’ve got enough fuel to get across the Channel now” so he said “I’ll tell you what…” he got on to all of the crew and he said “we've got to make a decision, you can either bail out, in which case you would be prisoners of war, or we can try cross, get across the channel and if necessary we will have to ditch, what do you want to do?” universal decision we'll try and get across the channel so off we went over ten tenths cloud we flew on and we flew on but nothing was happening then suddenly through a break in the clouds we saw a beacon flashing now I couldn’t establish where it was, and all this time I’d been trying to get my radio set to work to find out where we were unfortunately every time I wound out my trailing aerial it was shorting out and I couldn’t get any power on the transmitter and very little on the receiver. So anyway we got to this beacon and the skipper flew round and round it and said “we’ve got another decision to make” the first decision wasn’t a good one but anyway we had found this beacon and we flew round it and he said “the only thing is, if it’s a land marker you can bail out but if it’s a sea marker you’ll drown, on the other hand if I decide to ditch the aircraft thinking it’s a sea marker, and it’s a land marker there’s going to be one hell of a bang” so anyway flying around this beacon trying to make our minds up suddenly an airfield lit up beneath us and there it was full runways, perimeter the lot marvellous we’ll land there so we went round to land wheels down, wheels wouldn’t come down, bomb aimer tried the flaps, the flaps wouldn’t work so we overshot. We came round again and this time we blew the wheels down with a compressed air tank that was behind my head in the wireless compartment and they fortunately came down and locked and with the flight engineer pumping like mad on the flaps he managed to hit the ground and roll along Well I went to the back of the aircraft open the door and I saw a chap on a bicycle with a blue torch and I said “aye mate where’s this then?” and he said “Westonzoyland “, I thought what the hell we have landed in Holland it sounded Dutch to me “Westonzoyland!” I said, “where’s that?”, he said “Somerset”. So, there we were got some sort of transport went to the Flying control tower saw the chap that had put the lights on and he said, “the first time you went and you didn’t land, I put my hand out to switch off the lights off again but I thought I’d give them one more chance”. It’s a good job he did, so we thanked, we ran to and thanked the beacon crew because I had been firing red, red greens the pilot had been saying ‘hello darkie this is spot null tear calling darkie’. Flashing the nose light SOS doing all sorts while we circle this beacon, when we went to the flying control we saw a Warrant officer in charge of the signal flight who’d been to the mess for a couple of mugs of tea for him and the WAAF that was working on the radio set, as he came through the door with the two mugs of tea, there was the WAAF under the bench unconscious; the same thing had happened about a fortnight before and an aircraft had called up in distress and then they hadn’t been able to contact it, gone across the Bristol channel crashed into the Welsh mountains , now she thought she was listening to a ghost when she heard us so she passed out under the bench so she was a lot of help. But anyway, it all worked out very nicely, but we had to stay down there for three days while they flew ground crews down from Coningsby to fix the aircraft everything was wrong with it, took them three days to fix it then we went back to Coningsby and then we went on leave. Now in some ways Harry our navigator, this sick navigator saved our lives because while we were on leave they did the Nuremberg raid and the Berlin raid and lost 95 aircraft as you know, so that was very fortunate. After that we carried on and did another thirty three ops, I think it was and then we finally finished our tour of ops, I was posted down to 17 OTU Silverstone as an instructor and stayed there until I was de-mobbed in 1946.
MC: So, you did thirty four ops, more than normal?
AA: Yes, but that was because some bright spark decided that French targets it’s easier than German targets so you had to do three French targets to count as one operation. That’s why it’s got the thirty three, thirty four.
MC: So, you did a few daylight raids?
AA: Yeah, we did about three daylight raids I think but I didn’t believe this business about being easier, because one night my crew, were stood down and the wireless operator in S-sugar was sick so I was told to fly with them. Pilot officer Hallet In S-Sugar so we took off, well after the briefing I was quite pleased in a way that I’d been put with this crew, because it was ten minutes over France flying bomb sites but this was a doddle so off we went got to this flying bomb site just across the channel no flack just lots and lots of searchlights and fighters circling round the outside waiting for us and as we went into bomb they were attacking us three at a time, I have never corkscrewed so hard in my life as I did with Hallet. But anyway, before we had taken off on the ops I was talking to a couple of chaps and the crew wasn’t with me, I was talking to two wireless operators , well three actually Kemish, Donahue, Sutton there was four of us talking and when I came back from the ten minutes over France, Kemish and Donoghue were no longer there, I think there was twenty two aircraft lost on that ten minutes and two were from our squadron and both of them wireless operators, I was chatting to them before we took off, so that was that anyway apart from the normal flying after that there wasn’t a great lot to talk about . I remember one occasion when I was working on the set, suddenly there was a brilliant white flash and I wondered what the hell it was it was like daylight in the cockpit I jumped up on the step stuck my head out the astrodome just in time to see a wing sailing past with two engines on it, and the propellers going round. An aircraft had blown up just in front of us, and the skipper pulling back on the stick trying to miss it so we didn’t hit the damn thing, anyway apart from that I think the rest of their trips were fairly quiet .
MC: So, were most of these daytime raids were following the invasion?
AA: That’s right, yeah, I can show you if you like?
MC: So, this is your logbook?
AA: Yeah.
MC: Its very neat!
AA: Yeah, there’s not a lot in it, I think about eight German targets, and the rest were French but as I said they weren’t as easy as they said they were and eventually of course they rescinded that.
MC: So most of them were fairly uneventful, apart from the ones you told me about?
AA: That's right. Yeah.
MC: So, following the operations you did where did you go then …. what did you do then following when you finished your ops?
AA: Well as I said I went down to 17 OTU at Silverstone and was there until I was demobbed in 46.
MC: Yeah, so your first flight obviously was err….
AA: Traumatic!
MC: Traumatic to say the least even though you didn’t meet any enemy action, during your other operations did you come across any other…you must have come across flack?
AA: Well we saw the flack, it didn’t bother me much it was quite interesting in daylight black puffs it looked very harmless you know it didn’t look dangerous at all. That was my air force career yeah.
MC: So, what happened, so then you did, you did your 19 RFS?
AA: After the war I joined the RAF volunteer reserve because I still couldn’t get the RAF feeling that I liked, I loved being in the RAF to be honest so I joined the RAFVR and used to go down at weekends first to Liverpool, at Liverpool and then we were over at Oulton Park the other side of Birkenhead then finished up at Woodvale, Southport flying at weekends then back to work as a civilian on Monday morning, a fortnights camping every year and that was great until it finally packed up in about 1952 I think round about then. So, then I joined Blackpool Gliding club and got a glider pilots licence just to keep flying and then when that packed up the next flying I did was on the back of my son’s microlight. We bought a microlight aircraft between us, he got the pilot’s licence and I just sat in the back flying around Coningsby, again. When the squadron moved across from Coningsby back from Skellingthorpe we were detailed to fly the aircraft but lot of stuff came by road when we landed we were given a dispersal for the aircraft I left my flying boots at the back near the Elsan and when we had lunch and came back to the aircraft my boots had gone so somebody helped himself, I went to the stores to see if I could get a spare pair and he said “What! I can’t let you have any more flying boots what if you don’t come back from an op I will be one pair of boots short”, which I didn’t like the attitude there so I wouldn’t buy them, he said I could get them on the 664b and I could pay for them, so I thought I’m not damn well paying for them. Just as well id done because when I was demobbed I had to pay for them, six guineas I think.
MC: So, you were demobbed in when? When were you demobbed?
AA: In ‘46’ Whitsontide ?
MC: What did you do after the war then?
AA: I went back to my old job for just six months, oh I’ve got a procession of jobs now and then I went to for work for the Associate of British cinemas as an assistant cinema manager, well a trainee to start with I stuck that for a couple of years and then I left there and went, I was married by then with a son and digs were hard to find so when the area manager came to see me , well first of all I was at Barrow in Furness as assistant cinema manager then I was transferred back to my home town of Lancaster then he came in one day and said “we are transferring you to the Regal Rochdale” and I thought well no you’re not, finding digs was difficult, I packed the job in and went to work for the Shell Oil company down at the Heysham Refinery in the materials office and unfortunately after a while there was a clash of personalities between me and the materials superintendent so I left there, got a job managing a shop in Morecambe seaside town selling pottery, glass wear and fancy goods, and looking out the window I saw all these salesmen coming past in their cars and I thought that looks like a good life much more interesting than this. So, when a chap came in selling me paper, wrapping paper and paper bags and things, or trying to I mentioned to him, and he said, “well come and work for me”, so I did and I stuck that for a couple of years. But I soon found out that being a salesman on the road wasn’t as good as it looked it was hard, hard work you’d have a good week one week and you couldn’t go wrong, the week after you couldn’t sell a thing, no it wasn’t good at all. So, I scanned the local paper and saw a job advertised at the North-west electricity board in the offices so I applied and got the job; in fact, I got two jobs at the same time. One was a job at the what was it…. the aircraft factory Lostock near Bolton I’ve forgotten the name of the aircraft now, well anyway that was one job and I also got the North-west electricity job as well. One would have meant changing home again so I stopped in Lancaster and took the electricity board job and I worked there for eight years until I got bored. I worked first of all on the cash desk as a cashier and then debt collecting and doing all sorts of things. Then I moved into the offices because it looked more in my line in the records office but I then found that I only had three day’s work on a five-day week, so for two days I was scratching around with looking for something to do and I soon got bored with that. So I applied again to the civil service and to NAAFI I saw an advert for NAAFI so the civil service said I could be taken on as a temporary employee it would take some time to become permanent but the NAAFI sent me a railway warrant to come down and see them which I did and of course because I’d worked initially in the Coop as a grocer I knew a little bit about it and then I’d managed the shop in Morecambe as a shop manager they offered me a job as a NAAFI shop manager and I asked could I go to Germany and they said yes we can send you to Germany but your wife will have to stay behind because we can’t accommodate her, I said in that case it’s no good to me, so the chap who was interviewing me said, “well would you be interested in going further afield, in which case your wife could join you ?” I said, “well yes I would” my ears pricked up then and he mentioned North Africa so I thought yes that will do for me, so I signed on there and then went back home, gave my notice in to the electricity board and on the appointed date went down to London, London Airport first day with the NAAFI London Airport flying out to North Africa. So, they sent me fortunately to Casto Benito known as RAF Idris. There was a little family shop there on an RAF station which suited me down to the ground I became an honorary member of the Sergeants mess, and I was in my element there was Air Force all around me but I didn’t have to take any orders because I was civilian and that was fine I was there three year, I had a three year contract I came back to the UK in 1964 , sent me on leave and I stayed on leave and the weeks went by and the months went by and I was still on leave but my salary was being paid into the bank so I wasn’t too concerned . Anyway, suddenly one Friday about four months after I’d being home I got a telegram ‘come down and see us’. So, I went down to see them and apparently two of the officials had been going to lunch and one of them had said “by the way what are you doing with Atkinson?” he said, “well he’s abroad isn’t he?”, “no” he said, “he’s at home on leave.” So that sparked the telegram, when I got down they said would I like to go back to Tripoli again this time to take over the main shop in Tripoli centre which dealt with the Embassy, all the Army, RAF units, any ships coming into Tripoli harbour I dealt with them, so I took the job on and I found it was losing £30 a day was this shop I took over, I didn’t like this so I put measures in to put this right, and in no time at all we were making a profit and this was noted at NAAFI headquarters. So, then it was decided that we would pull out of Tripoli altogether close down, the troops were coming home there were to be no units left in North Africa. So I had to close the shop down and reduce all the stock, close it down came back to the UK went to the headquarters in Peel Court in London for an interview and they said we would like you to attend a board which I did, I didn’t know it at the time but it was a commissioning board for what they called ‘Officials of the Corporation’ because when you became an official you had to be commissioned in the Army as well , on the Army reserve so I thought any how that would do me so I was successfully interviewed particularly with my record of making this shop profitable and they sent me for eighteen months training up and down the country various places, I went down to Plymouth for the ships I went to Scotland for bomb exercise I was all over the place learning about NAAFI official duties and eventually I was qualified and was sent to Anglesey. So, I was on Anglesey for eighteen months and then I got a notification they wanted me to Germany to Bielefeld so I was posted across to Bielefeld for three years.
MC: So, did you have a rank then?
AA: Well the thing is I had a road accident on Anglesey, I stopped my car to post a letter walked across the road and came back and saw a heavy lorry coming towards me so I leaned into the back of my car out of its way and put my foot out and it ran over my foot. Anyway, so when the paper came through with my army commission as a Second Lieutenant in the RASC or logistics core as they call it now, I had to send them back, I said I’m sorry but in view of my injury traversing rough terrain is no good to me because I knew that they sent the district managers on exercise with the Army with the acting rank of Captain in Logistics core, I thought well I can’t wander around hopping about like this to see over NAAFI contingent so as I say I sent the paper back and said I’m sorry that’s it so I didn’t get my commission but I was an honorary Second Lieutenant and when I went to Germany I was given Officers quarters and attended officers Messes and that sort of thing but officially I was a civilian. I did three years in Bielefeld, came back to England posted to Lincolnshire cause my wife came from Boston so this was fine, I spent three years here and then was posted again to Germany to Osnabruck for another three years that was fine I enjoyed that, holidays on the continent down to Italy and all over the place and then came back here again and then in 1982 there was a restructuring programme and all district managers of aged sixty or approaching sixty were dispensed with, but it was a pretty good deal they said that…..I was called down to London most surprised to learn that my service was no longer be required after a certain date when I was sixty in September but that I would get a pension from NAAFI based on the assumption that I reached sixty five which was fair enough so I was retired early at sixty and that was it, and I’ve lived in Lincoln ever since .
MC: I’d just like to go back to your earlier days when you did Air Gunnery training at first didn’t you?
AA: Yes.
MC: Did you, you got your…. so, it was your first brevet?
AA: Yeah that was at Stormy Down.
MC: And you got the Air gunnery brevet.
AA: I did.
MC: And what rank did you get there?
AA: Sergeant.
MC: So, you were Sergeant yeah.
AA: Yeah
MC: So, when you did your Wireless operating training, your brevet changed did it?
AA: Err it was still…. I can’t remember when it changed to be sure, but I know it was changed to an S , Signals but air gunner initially.
MC; That’s brilliant Arthur thank you very much for that. This interview was conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre and the interviewer was Mike Connock and the interviewee was Mr Arthur Atkinson the interview took place at Mr Atkinson’s home in Lincoln on the 23rd June 2015.
AA: Syerston for afternoon tea in Hanson’s and then back to work on a Monday morning.
MC: And this was where?
AA: This was in the volunteer reserve from RAF Woodvale, flying Anson’s. It was great. When I was recalled for my aircraft retraining from RAF Ringway, Manchester I went down at ACRC; Aircrew recruiting centre in London for various things one of them of course was a medical and when we had the medical we found that I had a weak left eye so they said “we will have to get you a pair of special goggles with a lens in the left eye”, fair enough, but unfortunately when my Squad was posted on, the goggle hadn’t come back and I had to wait for them so I was kept back one week when I should have been with my original squad. Then my original squad went on and were posted to India on flying boats.
MC: Oh right.
AA: And because I was kept back a week on a different squad, I finished up on Bomber Command, but if I hadn’t finished up on Bomber Command and being posted to Coningsby I wouldn’t have met my wife. [laughs].
MC: Yes, that’s right.
AA: Because one of the first places I went too was the Gliderdrome in Boston dancing. and met her there, and once we’d met we were together for sixty-three years.
MC: Goodness me.
AA: She died in 2007.
MC: So where did you…you obviously went to Coningsby and from Coningsby you moved on to Skellingthorpe?
AA: Skellingthorpe yeah.
MC: That’s where you did the major part of your tour?
AA: I did all my tour at Skellingthorpe yeah.
MC: All your tour at Skellingthorpe yes!
AA: Yes, all the incidents of interest that I can remember on the ground were at Skellingthorpe, apart from losing my flying boots. We had a mid-upper gunner. He was a Canadian and he used to ride around on a bicycle and he finished up, he got bicycles for the whole crew and we all rode around on bicycles, where he got them from we don’t know but he painted his apple green and I was flying, I was riding down to flights one morning with him got to the MP post and the MP pulled him over and asked him where he got his bike from, apple green, he finished up being court martialled but he said he’d been in a pub in Lincoln, he missed the bus back to camp and somebody offered him a bike so he thought better than walking so he said “I bought the bike and cycled back then I found out next morning it was a service bike but I’d paid good money for it so I painted it apple green” and he stuck to it and got away with it. We all in best blues at the court martial ready to give evidence to say what a good bloke he was, including Bob Acott but they only called Bob and the navigator in and he got away with a severe reprimand but they took him off flying while he was under court martial in case he got killed, they could court martial him if he got killed [laughs] but he was a good lad.
MC: So, the skipper and who, who got the awards you say?
AA: Pilot Bob Acott got the DFC, and Trevor Ward, Ken wrote a book about he got the DFC.
MC: Oh yeah, yeah
AA: Oh dear, we told Ken about the episodes when we one a flew across country to Scotland and our flight engineer Bob, Bill Rudd said to Bob, we were at 20,000 feet on across country one of these two cross countries that were before we went on ops, and Bill Rudd said to Bob “Bob, if you get injured when we’re flying over Germany, you know you’re damaged in any way, who’s going to bring the aircraft back?”. Bob said, “well I haven’t given it a lot of thought really.” He said, ‘Well I think I should!’ He was like that Bill was, so Bob said, “all right fair enough, you can if you like.” He said, “in that case I should have a go at flying it, shouldn’t I?” So, Bob Acott policeman steady said, “you’ve got a good point there.” So, the two of them changed seats at 20,000 feet, then the aircraft stalled it just fell out the sky with the flight engineer in the pilot seat, you know the only left-hand control in a Lanc. Oh god, I clipped my chute on, whether this is what finished the navigator I don’t know, he clipped his chute on, I said “which way are we going out”. I said, “well we can’t go out the front because these two silly buggers are trying to change seats again” [laughs]. Of course, in the back of your mind there’s always that instruction ‘you do not leave the aircraft without the Pilots instruction’ but I thought he’s in no position to instruct anyway, every time they got it in a level keel pushing the stick forward, you know, it stalled again and it kept coming down and we were coming down like a falling leaf. Anyway, they finally changed seats then the flight engineer was running up and down the aircraft finding what had gone wrong, when we found out what had gone wrong it was the trimming tabs on the elevator he’d kicked them as they were changing seats again in, up so that…. Oh dear. And Bill Rudd the same flight engineer he had a chop WAAF, he waved to this WAAF every time he took off, then one time he was waving to her, and waving to her stretching his head round to wave to her and his intercom plug came out as we were tearing down the runway, to take off, so when Bob Acott said ‘full power’, nothing happened Bill wasn’t on intercom we had a full bomb load so I heard him say’ full power’ and eventually he took his, he had to leave belting…we just staggered off Doddington Road end. Bill Rudd, another time on importance we were diverted to Ford, or Tranmere as the sea approached the runway instead of putting full flap down, he took flap off and I could swear the props hit the sea, oh that was our flying. This chap was posted to our crew at Winthorpe and we very soon realised a little bit, not very good we said to Bob, we should get rid of him Bob, this chaps not, well somebody’s got to take it. But he’d been thrown out from the previous crew he’d being in, they’d wised him up and got rid of him. Bob Acott wouldn’t
MC: So, you were always having to compensate for him?
AA: He should have got a medal, the Iron Cross, First Class, he did his dam to kill us [laughs] but we even survived Bill Rudd, I hope that’s not on tape.
MC: It is, [laughs]
AA: Oh dear, a bit of a lad. I saw him later on in the war, I’d been down to Boston with the wife because she came from Boston and I was in Lancaster, I’d driven down in the car and on the way back we were diverted through Harrogate that’s where he lived and I thought he was so keen a medal, was Bill he wanted to climb in the wing and put the engine fire out with a fire extinguisher and stuff like that. Anyway, I suddenly saw a big board and it said, ‘W. Rudd Demolition Contractor’ and I thought this is too much of a coincidence, so I took the address and followed it round and there he was in the garden digging his garden with a …talking to a chap at the same time, I said “Hello Bill, how’s it going? “He, looked at me, he didn’t know, he hadn’t a clue who I was till I provided him what had happened, oh dear that was the only time I saw him. But Dougie May our bomb aimer, I suddenly decided Dougie and me got on very well so I suddenly decided I’d like to see him again if I could so I got the telephone directory out and looked through all the names in Birmingham, he lived in Birmingham and the first one I tried it was his wife answered I said “I’m looking for a chap called Douglas May that served in Bomber Command during the war”, she said “yes, my husband did”, I said “well just go and ask if he remembers Acott’s shower” so that’s exactly what she said, and he was back on the phone in two seconds, went down to see him and I had him and his wife staying here in this house when the memorial was opened we went and I’ve got a video of us marching, the first march we ever did when the memorial was opened, but unfortunately he’s died since.
MC: Did you get to see any of the other crew, the skipper and that did you meet up?
AA: No I didn’t unfortunately no, because we all went to different, I was posted to Silverstone, I know Bob Acott went down to Swinderby, Dougie went somewhere in London I don’t know where the hell he went and of course Trevor Bowyer left us after twenty ops because it was his second tour, and I don’t know what happened to the mid-upper, Al Bryant after his court martial because he didn’t fly with us again.
MC: Oh, didn’t he?
AA: No. presumably went back to Canada, but Dougie was the only one that I met.
MC: So where was the skipper from?
AA: The skipper was from London, he was on the Metropolitan Police. Anyway, I never offered you a cup of tea.
MC: Oh no, you are alright thank you. Thanks lovely thank you Arthur.
AA: So that’s all right then!
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Arthur Atkinson
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IBCC Digital Archive
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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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AAtkinsonA150623
Creator
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Mike Connock
Date
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2015-06-23
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00:40:54 audio recording
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eng
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Sound
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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Pending review
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Carmel Dammes
Description
An account of the resource
Arthur Atkinson was born in Lancaster, and worked in the local Co-Op until he joined the Royal Air Force. He trained as a wireless operator and served at RAF Ringway before being posted to RAF Coningsby and later RAF Skellingthorpe with 61 Squadron. His first operation to Stuttgart was a disaster when the compass failed to work and they landed at RAF Westonzoyland. Over all he completed three daylight and 31 night time operations. He met his wife while in Lincolnshire. After he was de-mobbed he continued to travel with the Royal Air Force as a civilian managing Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes. He also continued his love of flying, joining various flying schools and eventually buying a microlight with his son and flying around Coningsby again. Arthur settled in Lincoln after retiring.
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
Wales
England--Lincolnshire
England--Somerset
Germany--Stuttgart
Wales--Bridgend
61 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
crewing up
Dominie
Navy, Army and Air Force Institute
Proctor
RAF Compton Bassett
RAF Coningsby
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Ringway
RAF Silverstone
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Stormy Down
RAF Weston Zoyland
RAF Yatesbury
training
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/148/1576/AHaighG150902.1.mp3
4279994cd0836781eab4bc56fe8c1e90
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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Haigh, George
G Haigh
Description
An account of the resource
12 items. The collections covers the career of Sergeant George Haigh (1915 - 2019) in the Royal Air Force. It consists of 11 group photographs including two official ones taken at the School of Physical Training in March 1942 and September 1944, and one oral history interview. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by George Haigh and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
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2015-09-02
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Pending transcription
Identifier
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Haig, G
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: I’m here today, my name is Chris Brockbank and I’m here today with George Haigh accompanied by his daughter Rosemary Herrine and also his grandson Josh and we’re going to talk about his life on the ground in the RAF because he trained people many of whom worked on the ground but many worked in the air, flew in the air and we’re in Middleton Cheney and it Is the 2nd of September 2015. So George could you start please by telling me how you started as a youth, a bit about your family and then what you’ve done in your life, please.
GH: Yeah. Well I was born in Reddish in what is now Greater Manchester and I was there, I lived there until I was about eight years old and then from there my father got a job in Stockport and I went to Stockport and lived in Stockport for quite a number of years. Went to school there, a church school and, and then at fourteen had to get out and do, do some work as you had to do in those days and at fourteen I went to a dyeing and bleaching firm and then lived in, in Stockport at a, at a Working Men’s Club and, from eight years old until I was twenty, twenty three and during that time I went into professional football and signed for Stockport County which I did for three seasons prior to the war and then when war broke out all contracts were cancelled for professional footballers so I was back on the streets. The football wages in those days was ten pound a week and two pound for a draw, two pound for a win rather and a pound for a draw and that was your lot as far as, as far as that was concerned and then the first thing I thought of, being physically fit at that period I decided to join the air force and join up as a physical training instructor. Get into physical training instructing. What now?
CB: Ok. We can stop there for a mo.
[Recording paused]
CB: Right. We’re restarting now and just recapping on those early days. So what happened to the family when you were young?
GH: Well, at, at thirteen I, my mother died and the, the Working Men’s Club had to have a steward and a stewardess so when I, when I was growing up I found myself doing all the work when my mother died that she used to do in the club so I was, I was more or less the stewardess until I was about twenty to twenty two. Something like that. So even when I was a professional footballer I was still working in the, in the club. So that was what was happening early on, you know.
CB: Right. Ok.
GH: Yeah.
CB: So after your father retired then you had to move out of the club.
GH: Yeah. Well, when, when I moved out of the club and went to move in with my in-laws, future in-laws and then I got married and managed to get a house, a rented house and then came the time when I was due to go in the forces and I went –
[Phone ringing. Recording paused]
CB: We can go on now. It’s disrupting isn’t it? Do you want to wait a mo?
GH: Yeah. Wait a minute. Yeah.
[Recording paused]
GH: He went out and went into the police force.
CB: That was [Stanley?]. Yeah.
GH: Yeah and he was still in the reserve so that when war broke out they whipped him in to the Grenadiers again.
CB: Oh right.
GH: And he was, yeah, he had a, he was quite intelligent and they whipped him into India and he became a captain in the Indian army and was training Sikhs and Ghurkhas for the remainder of the war
CB: Oh right.
GH: And then they wanted him to stay to, to look after the police in India.
CB: Yeah.
GH: And he asked, he asked me actually what he should do kind of style you know. I said, there was so much trouble going on in India at the time that I told him, I said, ‘Get out.’
CB: Yeah.
GH: ‘And get back in the police.’
CB: Yeah.
GH: And that’s what he did.
CB: Yeah. So when you joined the RAF what happened? So you joined at Warrington. What, could you just take us through –
GH: That’s right.
CB: The process of what happened.
GH: At Warrington and then I went to –
CB: Bridgnorth.
GH: Bridgnorth. Yes. And then from Bridgenorth I was posted to this place in London for, on a PT course. The PT courses was all done at this headquarters of the RAF training in London. As I say I can’t remember the name of the place but we was, we was there during the actual, the actual bombing of London and we, we was training during the day and at night it was down in the shelters and that made it very difficult but I I joined up with a, with a football international, Scottish International, Jock Dodds, and we, we went through the training situation you know. But there was a centre staircase in the barracks there and there were the barrack rooms on either side of this, the staircase and we got a bed right at the very end of this barrack room, halfway up the building. And when we went in the air raid shelter Jock said to me, he said, ‘We’re not having any more of this. I can’t stand it.’ Getting no sleep at all and yet doing the PT course during the day so he said, ‘You stay with me when the, when the thing goes off, if there’s a raid on,’ so he said, ‘We’ll get under the bed.’ So the orderly sergeant that come up the steps would look in the barrack room and see all the beds were empty and just leave it at that. So we never went in the, in the shelters from then on so but it was, it was very difficult to have these air raids over London you know, all the time, you know while we were doing our training. So, and there was, there was only one bomb dropped on the, on the camp and that was a, a landmine. They were dropping land mines at that time and they dropped it on the, on the WAAF course in the, within the camp, you know but being as it was at the time, you know that we weren’t allowed to speak even to one another about what was happening around us you know. So what happened, whether any WAAFs were killed because of that I don’t know. But er –
CB: The landmine came down by parachute and then when it exploded there was a big blast. What was the –
GH: And that was –
CB: Devastation. How bad was the devastation?
GH: Well it was just the WAAF depot.
CB: Oh just that.
GH: We never saw anything.
CB: Oh right.
GH: It was a big camp.
CB: Yeah.
GH: A great big camp
CB: Right.
GH: So it must be well known. I can’t, I don’t know why I can’t remember the name of the place.
CB: Well we’ll pick it up later George.
GH: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
GH: Yeah.
CB: Ok.
GH: That’s fine.
CB: So how long were you there?
GH: I don’t know whether it was four or five weeks. I can’t remember. But the, the training went on there and I remember we went, we had to pair, the pair of us had to go in, in to a trench on the perimeter of the camp and obviously there was other pairs all around the camp during that period and we, it was like four hours on and two hours off or something like that and the two hours off we were right at the side of the, of the PT gymnasium and the, our barracks was right at the other end of the camp so we decided to go into the gymnasium and and sleep there rather than go to the other end of the camp and I remember it, I don’t know, that was when the land mine was dropped but we was on top of the training mats and we, we took all our gear off and helmet and everything and went, went to sleep there and when this bomb dropped the pair of us jumped up and put our helmets on and then fell back, back to sleep again [laughs]. The next day, ‘Why did we do that?’ You know? Absolutely ridiculous but that’s that was one of the incidents during the, during that period in the physical training and then Jock Dobbs was posted to Blackpool and played for Blackpool for the remainder of the war and I was posted to Morecambe. And then the first game I had with Morecambe was a friendly game against Blackpool. So Jock Dodds were playing at centre half, centre forward for Blackpool and I was playing at centre half for Morecambe so we were up against each other like, you know. It was, it was, that was great fun. It was great fun.
CB: So you were sent from London to Morecambe.
GH: Sent from London to Morecambe. Yes.
CB: And what was your job there?
GH: Well when I got to Morecambe I didn’t realised that we’d got to do the foot training and the rifle training and do everything. All the training that had to be done and I hadn’t had the training for any of this but eventually I read up about everything, you know and eventually got into it and did the job for two and a half years. So it was quite, quite an experience really.
CB: What sort of people were coming in as recruits at that time?
GH: Well they were very mixed. Very mixed. And being in Morecambe they were in, in billets like hotels and boarding houses and that sort of thing. That’s where they were billeted.
CB: Yeah.
GH: And they had a billeting officer. A warrant officer. Warrant Officer Smith. Yeah. And they used to come in on the train. A train load of them you know and he used to split them up into, into thirties and send them off with their instructor and, and, and give them the information as to where they were going to be billeted within Morecambe and sometimes you got, they were able to get into a hotel or a boarding house that was big enough to take the whole thirty. Other than that they used to split them up into, into different billets but you had to have a system of parading outside these billets every morning at a certain time and, and then to take them off to, to the syllabus that was going on. The only thing was as far as PT was concerned I had an hour PT every day to the recruits but other than that it was for other purposes you know. Foot drill first and then later on it got to rifle drill and then to being able to deal with, with your gun. Being able to strip it down and put it back together and all that business and we went, they did five weeks training before they were sent off, posted to wherever they were supposed to be going. And then when the, it was a five weeks course and then later the, it went down to, when they needed more men it went down to four weeks and it finished up three weeks. We’d got to fit the whole training of three weeks, of five weeks training into three weeks and that was a terrible time but it only went on for a couple of courses, you know. A couple of three weeks and then it went back to four and then back to five again and then eventually back to when they don’t want any more.
CB: But how well did the recruits handle the shorter course at three weeks?
GH: Oh it was, it was very difficult for them you know because the, the timing you know. I mean, say you hadn’t got time to do anything. You’d no time to go and have a cup of coffee and a, a coffee and a bun kind of style you know which we was able to do in the five week system you know. We had to just keep working all the time. It was very difficult. Difficult for the instructor. Very difficult for the recruit.
CB: Yeah.
GH: And there was one, I remember the first lot of recruits that came in. I’ve got a picture of them now and they, they’d run out of forage caps [laughs]. They had no forage caps so they had to put their scarf inside out on, on the head you know and that was how they was being trained. The first lot, you know. But that was only one incident that that happened during the, during the training.
CB: And how was everybody fed? Did they have big mess halls?
GH: No. No. They were fed. The people where they were staying fed them. They had the, they had their breakfast in the morning and, and the meal, meal at night and I think they, they were allowed to go in a café or something like that and buy the, the lunch. It was a real, real mixed, mixed effort but it, it worked quite well really.
CB: So your specialty really was physical education.
GH: That’s right. Yeah.
CB: How, physical training, how well did they stand up to that?
GH: Well it was, some of them were, it was very hard. Occasionally you’d have a crew of thirty men to train and they were very difficult but then again you’d get occasional cases where you’d get one that was in the squad that belonged to a military family and you was able to pick, pick one out and make them the senior man kind of style for the, for the squad. That made it a lot easier but generally speaking you know you’ve got to, you’ve got to work very hard in the early stages and you could tell, the recruits, in the early stages, they hated your guts. They hated the instructor you know but towards the end they used to be coming up to you and thanking, thanking me you know for, for what I’d done for them you know. So, yes, it was a very, very good system really.
CB: So what was it that made the PT so difficult for them?
GH: Well, I don’t think they’d had, they’d, some of them hadn’t had any training at all. They were just raw as far as physical training was concerned. Biggest majority of them was absolutely raw.
CB: Yeah. So they were, they’d come straight from school to you.
GH: Well some –
CB: Well not necessarily.
GH: Some of them had come straight from school you know.
CB: Yeah.
GH: But a lot of them had come from working and working families.
CB: Yeah.
GH: You know.
CB: Because the school leaving age in those day was fourteen.
GH: Fourteen. That’s right.
CB: So they’d, most of them would have had jobs unless they’d gone to further education. Is that right?
GH: That’s right. They’d have, they’d have a job for a short while and then and then they’d be whipped into the, into the forces you know.
CB: Yeah. So when they’d finished with you did they know what they were going to do as a trade in the RAF?
GH: They knew what they were going in to and they knew that when the training had finished that that’s where they’d go. They’d go to different camps around the country doing different things to –
CB: Right.
GH: Mechanics. Mechanics were –
CB: How many were air crew that you trained?
GH: Oh I can’t remember.
CB: But there were people who became, were becoming –
GH: There were, there were quite a number that became aircrew you know.
CB: Yeah.
GH: And I look, look back at some of the photographs that I’ve got of the recruits you know and wonder where, where, where they got to you know and –
CB: Yeah.
GH: And whether they survived really because I reckoned a lot of them went as rear gunners and that sort of thing you know.
CB: And did the air crew people stand out in the training any more from the others?
GH: No. No. They were all more or less the same and they all mucked in really you know and, and most of them you know especially towards the end of the training they were very much together in, in the thirty, thirty men kind of style. They were a team and helped each other you know.
CB: Yeah.
GH: They were very very good.
CB: Yeah. So you did that for how long?
GH: Well for the two and a half a years I was at Morecambe. Or the two years I was at Morecambe and then the half year that I was there was when they’d had enough RAF recruits and they went to change over to the WAAF and they asked me to go over to stay with the WAAF you know and train the WAAF and I wasn’t liking it at all. I I fought against it quite a lot but there were two other professional footballers at Morecambe with me who, who had moved over to the WAAF depot and it was then them that decided me to, to have a go at it you know and then I found out when I started training then that they were far easier to train than the men were.
CB: Why was that?
GH: I don’t know.
CB: What was, what was it that made it difficult for you to start training them?
GH: Well they trained.
CB: In the first place.
GH: They weren’t, they weren’t fit for one thing. They’d had no, the biggest majority of them never had any physical training.
CB: Not even at school.
GH: And, and then the, I found that the WAAF, when I was training the WAAF, they were, they were more supple than the men were and that made it far easier to train them and I got on well with the, with the WAAF after a time when I got, got over the shock.
CB: What was your wife’s reaction to that?
GH: No. She wasn’t very happy I can tell you although she did, she did come and we lived out for quite a while in Morecambe. My wife got herself a job with some insurance people who had moved out of London in to, in to Morecambe and she was working as a secretary there for quite a while.
CB: And what was the syllabus for the WAAFs? Was it the same as for the ground, the men?
GH: Very similar. Very similar yeah.
CB: Even with the rifles?
GH: Actually, no rifle. No. It was just the, and we didn’t bother with the foot drill. They had their own instructors. The WAAF, the WAAF had their own PT instructors but they needed a man when the, was training in bulk. They hadn’t got the voice to do the training in bulk so they always, they always called on the RAF PTI to do the training in bulk.
CB: So when, here you as a PTI as a specialty.
GH: Yeah.
CB: What were, was the process you went through in training them? What exercises effectively did they do?
GH: Well there was only the exercises. I don’t, I don’t realise really what they were really you know it was just a matter of running on the spot, arm movements, body movements and that sort of thing.
CB: Circuit training? Did you do circuit training with them? So you go around the gym doing different tasks.
GH: That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. The, the, they had quite a, quite a system and they had a series of games and they topped up the score of each team in each section. It was quite a difficult system, you know.
CB: And did you use wall bars and dumbbells?
GH: That’s right. Yeah.
CB: Press ups.
GH: Dumbbells. Yeah.
CB: All those things.
GH: Wall bars, dumbbells, the horse.
CB: Oh yeah. So jumping the horse.
GH: Jumping the horse.
CB: Yeah.
GH: And that sort of thing within the gym you know. Morecambe we took over a cinema actually to, as a gymnasium. The Alhambra Cinema. [laughs] Took all the seats out and we used it as a gymnasium.
CB: Yeah. So in the winter what was the temperature like?
GH: Terrible. Terrible. At Morecambe especially you know. It was, it was very bleak there you know and there was one, one or two incidents you know when the sea was so rough and coming over on to the Promenade that we couldn’t do any training. You look along the Promenade at Morecambe during the training and you wouldn’t see anything but blue uniforms, you know. Training somewhere or other. Marching. It was, it looked to an outsider a complete mess but it was very very well controlled. Very well.
CB: So after they’d finished their five week course what did they get for PT? Did they get some kind of certificate to show –?
GH: No. No. No. No. They just, they’d been trained and that was that. Just sent off to the next stage of their training. They went, they went on to the, on to the station and on to the train and was taken wherever they were needed to go.
CB: So you trained men mainly but six months were women. The WAAFs.
GH: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Where did you go from Morecambe?
GH: To Wilmslow.
CB: And what did you do there?
GH: RAF Wilmslow. I was training recruits, WAAF recruits, in the same way that I’d been training them at Morecambe.
CB: Right. So that was -
GH: Just, just for mass purposes you know.
CB: Yeah.
GH: They had their own NCO’s you know to deal with them as a squad at a time you know.
CB: Did you also do drill when they were all together?
GH: When they were all together we did drill.
CB: Yeah.
GH: Passing out, passing out parades and that sort of thing.
CB: Right.
GH: Yeah.
CB: So how long were you at Wilmslow?
GH: I was at Wilmslow about two and a half years there.
CB: Ok. And –
GH: And we were right at the side of Ringway at the time and Ringway was one of the main parachute instructor where the parachute, the army was, was being trained there and they had RAF instructors there then at that time.
CB: So when did you get into training parachutists?
GH: Well it was only a short period when, while I was at Wilmslow. I had the opportunity to go across to Ringway and do this training.
CB: So you did the parachute instructor’s course did you?
GH: That’s right. Yeah.
CB: And then what?
GH: Well I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t continue with it you know. I went back to the WAAF depot and –
CB: Right.
GH: Training the WAAF.
CB: Yes. Any incidents in the parachute training that are –?
GH: Yeah. There was, there was one incident there where Molotov was, came over from Russia to see what, what was happening with the, with the parachutists, you know, to take back to Russia. To find out, you know, to deal with the parachute training in Russia. I remember Molotov being there and it was a, the wind was far too fast for, for real flying for the training so there was a half a dozen instructors went up and the, I remember that the pilots weren’t, weren’t going to take them up. They said it’s you know, the wind’s too, too strong for it and anyway the CO said Molotov was there and this had got to be done. But I remember what, what happened to Bert Wooding, I think, was the first one out and they were extending at Ringway, expanding the runway and he was, he was the first one out. We didn’t do the drops at Ringway. We did them at Tatton Park but because Molotov was there it all had got to be done at, at Ringway. So I remember Bert Wooding was the first one out with the drop and he landed on the edge of this where they were building the runway and he broke both his ankles. And then there was another one. There was a warrant officer. An Irish, an Irish guy. I forget his name now but he broke his back during that fall. So it was, it was a dangerous thing to have happened, you know.
CB: Yeah.
GH: Just because Molotov was there.
CB: Yeah.
GH: That was the only incident I remember.
CB: So for the parachute training some of it was from flying aeroplanes. Some of it was from balloons was it?
GH: Yes. You went, you did the training in the gym first, you know. Jumping off the horses and that sort of thing, you know and then you went on, eventually went up on the balloon you know and did the jumps from the balloon. And then, and then they went, and the early ones was in the old Whitley.
CB: Bomber.
GH: Bomber with the hole, hole in the bottom and that’s how they did the jumps first and then of course they get the, managed to get the Dakotas then you know and that was entirely different situation you know.
CB: So in the aircraft they had a static line that was attached –
GH: That’s right.
CB: To a rail.
GH: Used to just stick the ring on the rail you know and they’d all be in a line ready you know and the RAF instructor, you know was at the entrance, and, and the, when it came to the actual jump at Tatton Park they used to get them moving you know. And I remember one of them said to me, you know, that he, he’d had one that chickened out you know and he had to send him to the back of the plane you know to take his ring off and take him to the back of the plane while, while he finished the jump, you know.
CB: And then clipped him on again.
GH: And then clipped him on and pushed him out [laughs]. Yeah. It was very interesting for some of them you know.
CB: What experience or knowledge did you have ‘cause this is early in training so it’s less likely, people with LMF which was the people who were a bit worried about what was going on. Lacking moral fibre.
GH: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Did you experience any of that?
GH: No. No.
CB: See any I mean?
GH: No. The only, the only bad do that I had of that was at Wilmslow. At Morecambe rather when they were in the gas chambers training them with the gas masks training and he, there was one in during my instance there and he came running out on to the main road and was off down the main road. I was a sergeant at the time and I got the corporal to go and fetch him back you know but he had claustrophobia of course. Couldn’t stand the, it was only like a hut, probably about as big as this room and you packed probably about a whole thirty into this, you know and put the masks on and got the smell of the stuff you know and, and then take the masks off and then and then bring in another, another thirty kind of style, you know. But there was only that one incident that I ever knew, you know that –
CB: Ok. Just clarifying that. So they start off with the mask on.
GH: Yeah.
CB: With oxygen.
GH: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Then the mask is taken off.
GH: That’s right. To get –
CB: But there’s smoke –
GH: That was to get –
CB: In the shed.
GH: Yeah.
CB: Ok. And it’s just smoke is it?
GH: Yeah. That’s right. It’s when, when it, the whole thing had settled like you know. There was no danger, no danger to them at all.
CB: No.
GH: But they just, they just got the smell of it before –
CB: Yeah.
GH: Before it was –
CB: Yeah. And how long did they have to have the mask off?
GH: Oh I can’t remember.
CB: Before they put it on again.
GH: I can’t remember [laughs].
CB: Right. Ok.
GH: I can’t remember.
GH: Good.
CB: They had, they had an instructor within the hut, you know.
GH: Yes.
CB: We weren’t. We just took them there and pushed them in the hut kind of style and told them what was going to happen you know and there was an instructor inside there you know to, to deal with all that business.
GH: And throughout the war did everybody carry a gas mask?
CB: Yes. They always had to have their gas mask with them.
GH: Yeah. Ok. We’ll pause there for a mo.
CB: Yeah.
[Recording paused]
GH: The welterweight champion of the world.
CB: So if you could just, I gather that you -
GH: He was the one who –
CB: Met some important people.
GH: That was coming in.
CB: Yeah. Ok. And Peter Kane.
GH: Jack. Jack London.
CB: These are boxers.
GH: Jack London, the heavyweight champion.
CB: Yeah.
GH: And quite a number more but I can’t remember the name of them but -
CB: Ok.
GH: As I say I’d got to get, I managed to get one to get against, against Peter Kane and that was Teddy O’Neill, Scottish bantamweight champion. I got, I got him to fight –
CB: This was a boxing match.
GH: Peter Kane.
CB: Yes.
GH: Yeah and he eventually beat him too. It was only like a three, three round effort like of course to have.
CB: Right.
GH: You know.
CB: These are people from another camp you’re talking about.
GH: From another camp yeah.
CB: Yeah. So there was competition between the camps.
GH: And the top brass for instance were in the front seats around the ring you know and, and I remember Teddy O’Neill knocked Peter Kane out in, in the second round and he finished up in the CO’s lap. [laughs] Oh dear me. Yeah. All good fun.
CB: So the CO was a bit surprised.
GH: He was a bit surprised. Yeah. [laughs]
CB: Yeah. And what about other famous people? In the, when you were doing square bashing.
GH: No. I don’t.
CB: Churchill’s daughter.
GH: Churchill’s daughter. That was the only one that I remember but I often, I often wonder you see whether, I’ve got recruit’s photographs of nearly all the squads that I trained in that, in that box you know and I I will look at them from time to time and think, you know, what happened to him? You know. What happened to him? You know.
CB: Did you ever follow up with anybody?
GH: No. No I didn’t. No.
CB: Right. So you’ve idea what happened to them?
GH: I’ve no idea what happened to any of them but –
CB: Ok. We’ll stop there again.
GH: Yes.
[recording paused]
GH: And I it turned out that there was a goal keeper playing for the prisoner of war. It turned out to be Bert Trautmann and he turned out to be the goal keeper for Manchester City after the war and he played for Manchester City for more or less all his life, you know. All his footballing life.
CB: This was the prisoner of war camp. Where was that?
GH: That was outside Wilmslow somewhere. I don’t know. Altrincham or somewhere very close. I can’t remember exactly where but it was in that area and as I say, you know the, the mostly there was the wardens were playing but, but they had one or two of the prisoners that were any good like, you know would play in the team and Bert Trautmann was one of them. I always remember him very well.
CB: Right.
GH: Because I met him later in the football, in the football when he was at Manchester City and we had chat about it, you know when he, while he was there, a prisoner of war.
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
GH: Yeah.
CB: Good. Thank you.
[Recording paused]
CB: So we’re talking about Jack Brymer.
GH: He was at Morecambe actually.
CB: Jack Brymer was.
GH: Jack Brymer was. Yeah.
CB: And what was he?
GH: He was a clarionetist with the London Philharmonic or something like that, I think. And yeah, he –
CB: He was on one of your courses.
GH: No. He was, he was stationed in Morecambe with me, you know and I I started the Morecambe and Heysham Rhythm Club and we used to meet in the, on Central Pier every Sunday morning and there was always a lot of musicians coming into Morecambe playing and they always used to come there and Jack Brymer was one of the leaders of, for me anyway, you know of running things in the Morecambe and Heysham Rhythm Club. I don’t know whether it’s still going or not. [laughs]
CB: So how did they keep or you keep the recruits entertained outside training hours?
GH: Well that was one thing you know but there was always somebody doing something or other you know. You know. Running, running a dance, dance something like that you know. A ball, running a ball or something you know and yeah there was always something going on at Morecambe you know because there was, I think there was two or three theatres there.
CB: Yeah.
GH: Where these entertainers used to come to entertain the troops.
CB: But at Altrincham that was all WAAFs and it wasn’t a seaside place. So –
GH: No. No. That was –
CB: What did they do for entertainment there?
GH: No idea really. I left, I didn’t interfere with, with the WAAF after, after training. My wife was living out as well you know.
CB: Right.
GH: I had my own things to deal with you know.
CB: I was thinking -
GH: In the evenings.
CB: I was thinking of some band or orchestra or whatever.
CB: Yeah. Well –
GB: You talked about to entertain them.
GH: There was, there was one that was stationed at Wilmslow for a time and that was a couple of RAF who played the piano. They both played the same piano. I can’t remember who the name was though but they were very well known and they were playing all over the country really, were those two.
CB: Right. Thank you. We’ll stop for a mo.
[Recording paused]
GH: Morecambe and Wilmslow. When we went on courses and one course we went on to was at Cosford and one of the things that we trained there, or learned to train was the dinghies for aircraft. The fighter, the fighter dinghy, the small one and the large Q-Type big one for the aircrews and we had to learn how, how to deal with them for the, those pilots and crew and the worst one was the Q-Type. The big one.
CB: That took seven.
GH: Yeah. And that was automatically inflamed when they were ditched but quite often it was upside down and we had to train, train the crews to, how to right these dinghies. They’d a loop right in the centre underneath and the, the rope that ran around the outside. You used to get your hand in that rope and the loop and you used to bring it upright and get it to a certain level and then you used to have to twist it and throw it.
CB: Yeah. I remember doing that.
GH: Do you?
CB: Yeah.
GH: Well that’s how we were trained to train the aircrews you know whenever we came across the situation you know. Yeah. I remember that well.
CB: We’re now stopping for coffee.
GH: Right.
[recording paused]
CB: And tea.
GH: Yeah. There was -
JH: Do you take milk and sugar yeah.
CB: Just one.
GH: They used to train you how to get them out of the water and how to be able to push them under and then lift them out to get them back into the dinghies and we were doing this in the swimming pool at Cosford and there was one of the officers there in, in, full, full dress. He was going out somewhere and he thought he’d have a bit of a laugh with me like, you know. Get me to the side like, you know and dip me under and keep me under longer that he should have done kind of style, you know. Laughing all the time with the instructors as well like, you know. The instructor’s didn’t like it of course ‘cause I was an instructor of course and I came, came out you know and I, I was so bloody blazing mad like you know that I skimmed the water you know right at him on the side of the pool and in full regalia like, he was absolutely soaked from that. The, the officer couldn’t do anything about it. He’d asked for it and got it kind of style so anyway he had to go back to the billet and change. He was going to meet the CO or something. [laughs] Oh yes that’s one of the funny incidents that happened. When they’d finished the training and we –
CB: In Morecambe?
GH: In Morecambe yeah and we got the squad there to take them to the station to, to away, to take them away to where ever they were going to go and whatever courses they were going to go on and there was one, one lad there. He was a bit, he was an only, an only boy and he was, he was a money man I think you know, of the, of the family.
[Telephone ringtone in background]
GH: You carry on. He was the, the mother came with him to the, to the training and she used to be there at the side like, you know with a fur coat on like you know and seeing how her boy, boy, her only boy was doing kind of style and this, this went on for five weeks like, you know and I couldn’t do very much about it you know. She was staying in a hotel in Morecambe looking after and seeing that her boy was alright and fortunately the lads took to him and looked after him kind of style you know and he, he was and he got, he was a damned sight fitter when I’d finished with him of course and when they were marching away and along the Promenade towards the station I noticed that he’d got something on, on his pack. They were in full pack like, you know. Ready, ready to go away and there was a chamber pot on his, on his gear. I said, ‘What the bloody hell have you got there?’ He said, ‘The landlady charged me for it because it was cracked.’ And he said, ‘I wasn’t going to leave it there and get somebody else caught with this trick like, you know, of having to pay for the chamber pot.’ I said, ‘Well bloody well get it rid of it quick.’ He said, ‘What do I do?’ I said, ‘Get over to the sea,’ where the sea was in there. I said, ‘Sling it over the top and into the sea.’ I said, ‘Get back in to, in to line quick.’ I always remember that.
CB: The significance, I think that’s interesting because the significance of that is that we didn’t have the accommodation that you know nowadays.
GH: No. No. That’s right. Yeah.
CB: So what was the accommodation like? How was it set out?
GH: Well the, it was, it was quite good. Most of it was good but occasionally you found a landlady like, you know that was looking after them who was a bit wrong you know but we used to get in touch with Warrant Officer Smith and he used to deal with it. He used to say, ‘Well you either mend your ways, you know or we’ll take you off the list and you don’t get any more recruits.’
CB: So under each bed there was a chamber pot.
GH: There was a chamber pot. Yeah. [laughs] And that, that was in the local billets you know that –
CB: In the hotels.
GH: The landlady -
CB: Yeah.
GH: In the hotels and that –
CB: Yeah.
GH: Sort of thing.
GH: So in the morning people went and emptied their chamber pots.
CB: Yeah.
GH: And washed them out.
CB: That’s right. Yeah. But this, this was cracked you see and the, and this landlady had charged him for it you know so he said, ‘I’m, I’m taking it with me,’ he said, ‘I’m not, nobody else is going to be caught with this.’ Oh aye, I got, I made him chuck the chamber pot over the wall into the sea [laughs].
RH: Killed a few whales.
CB: In Reddish.
GH: When I lived in Reddish, I lived there ‘till I was eight years old and there was no electricity. It was all gas. There was a little gas mantle and we had to be very careful because they were very fragile you know to get them to work and when I was eight years old we went to this club in Stockport and it was electric lights all over the place and of course at eight years old like I was switching them off all over the place. Yeah. [laughs] Having a real good time with them but and also it had been a well-known house. It was a four, four storey property and it would, it were owned by a well-known doctor, surgeon and he had two daughters, I remember and they had, at the side of the fireplaces there was like a lever that went down into the servant’s quarters like, you know, and when they wanted the servants they just rang this damned bell thing you know. It was all hooked up to that you know.
CB: Yeah. Mod cons of the day.
GH: And the, and the electricity, you know that was, that was something else. At eight years old I thought oh dear me.
CB: So in Reddish -
GH: No gas lights to bother about like. Switch the light on and off.
CB: Yeah. In Reddish what were the heating arrangements?
GH: The heating. Nil. Absolutely nil.
CB: Open fires.
GH: You had a fire, an open fire. Yeah. That was the only heating you had.
CB: And the toilet and washing?
GH: Well the toilet was outside in the, in the shed outside.
CB: Was it a flush toilet or a thunder box?
GH: No. It was a thunder box. [laughs] And er –
CB: Which meant that a horse and cart came around regularly and –
GH: That’s right. Yeah.
CB: And then they –
GH: Dealt with it. You know.
CB: Then the thing was tipped in -
GH: Yeah.
CB: To the cart and put back again.
GH: That’s right. And I remember the doctors for instance you know. I remember my mother paying a penny a week. Hospital fund as she called it. A penny a week you paid. But we had, we had a family doctor that used to come around and deal with things and I suppose he got paid with this penny a week thing you know.
CB: Yeah. Well the NHS didn’t start until 1948.
GH: No, that’s right. Yeah. This was from 1915 to when I was eight. It would be thirteen, 1913 when I left Reddish.
[Recording paused]
CB: Just tell us a bit about “walls have ears” George.
GH: Well you weren’t, you weren’t allowed to talk about anything appertaining to the, to the war. Like where I was you know, in London. These bombs that dropped on the camp where I was. We weren’t allowed to talk about it at all so I never found out what happened to these people that were bombed on the camp. I know it wasn’t me that was bombed but it was on the WAAF depot but there must have been some casualties within that WAAF camp you know to, to have happened to them. Fatal happenings.
CB: Yeah.
GH: And you just, you just weren’t allowed to talk about these things.
CB: Yeah.
GH: And that stuck a lot after the war and that’s why the serviceman didn’t talk to their children or their wife about what happened because that’s how they’d been brought up. Just keep your mouth shut. Walls have ears. [laughs]
CB: Now bearing in mind that aircrew went on operations, normally thirty and then did something else did you get any people who were effectively being rested coming to help out on your training?
GH: No. No. No. I never came across anybody but I remember taking, the recruits sometimes had to be taken in batches to wherever they were going and I remember I had to take about twelve recruits and that meant that a sergeant had to go with them as well as a corporal and we went to a, a big air force place on the east coast of Scotland. Can you think of anywhere there?
CB: Montrose there was one.
GH: No. No.
CB: No.
GH: No. It wasn’t there. And there was a single track railway there and I remember we got –
CB: Leuchars. Leuchars was it?
GH: No.
CB: Ok.
GH: It’s still going. The air force -
CB: Oh Kinloss.
GH: Kinloss.
CB: Yeah.
GH: That’s the one. And they had a single line railway there and we’re off the train and we handed them over to one of these guys with a truck like to take them to the camp and I managed to get him to sign the docket that I had for, for these recruits. Otherwise I would have to wait for the next day to catch a train back. It was a train due to go back and unless we got rid of these recruits to this driver and get him to sign, sign the docket for them you know I’d have to stay the night. And what they used to do when you were taking recruits like that it was when your leave was starting so it was part of your leave that, you know, as far as I was concerned.
CB: Yeah.
GH: So I thought no I’m getting rid of this lot, so anyway I got, I got him to sign the docket for them you know. He said, ‘I’ll get, I’ll get, I’ll get in trouble when I get back,’ he said. In my mind I said, ‘I’ve got to get back to, back home.’ I said, ‘I’m on leave now.’
CB: What rank was he?
GH: He was an LAC.
CB: Right. And that was quite a long journey then.
GH: LAC driver.
CB: Yeah. Leading Air Craft man.
GH: Oh yeah. It was, it was a long way that you know and -
CB: What provisions –
GH: And I’d got to get back to Stockport.
CB: Yeah.
GH: To start my leave.
CB: Yeah. So what provisions did they give you on the, like, the recruits for that journey?
GH: Did you say it was Lossiemouth?
CB: No. Well it could be Lossiemouth. Yeah.
GH: Lossiemouth.
CB: Ok. Well it’s close.
GH: Lossiemouth. It was. Yeah.
CB: Is not far from Kinloss.
GH: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
GH: Lossiemouth.
CB: Right.
GH: That was where we were.
CB: Yeah.
GH: They’re still active aren’t they?
CB: They are. Yeah.
GH: Yeah.
CB: So what provisions were they given for the journey because it was a long trip?
GH: Well, they had, they had a pack, a food pack made up for them you know but on the camp you know.
CB: Yeah.
GH: And you always –
CB: What would that be?
GH: You always got something enroute you know at a station. You know, where they could get a cup of tea and a bun.
CB: Because you had to change trains.
GH: You changed trains yeah. Yeah.
CB: How long did that journey take, roughly?
GH: I don’t know. About I think it was about six hours or something like that I think.
CB: And when they got to Lossiemouth what were they going to do? Was that where they were to be stationed?
GH: That’s where they were going to be stationed but what they was going to be doing there I just don’t know. I don’t know what the individual was going to do. Whether they were going to be pilots or gunners or whatever I don’t know. Flight mechanics or whatever.
CB: Because at that point -
GH: I don’t know.
CB: They wouldn’t have any trade would they?
GH: No. No. No.
CB: Right.
GH: No they would be just fit [laughs]. As best I could get them anyway.
CB: Amazing. And they were all be good at football after you were doing it.
GH: Oh yeah football was, yeah, I loved that. You see Morecambe had a, we had a team of professional footballers from somewhere or other. Arthur Chester, the goal keeper, he came from Queen’s Palace. He played for Queen’s Palace and QPR and Bill [Byrom?] he played for Blackburn. Arthur Lancaster He was another goalkeeper. He played for Huddersfield. Oh we had, goalkeepers we were alright. We had three, three professional goalkeepers. [laughs]
CB: Completely blocked the goal.
GH: That’s right. Yeah. But we were only, only playing one of course but yes we, and we won quite a lot of trophies during that period with Morecambe, you know. Yeah.
CB: So just going then to Wilmslow. When you finished there was that because of the end of the war or you were posted somewhere different.
GH: No. I was, I left the air force in, it would be ‘45 I think.
CB: What time of the year?
GH: I can’t remember.
CB: And where did you go from there?
GH: I went to Lancaster. I, that was when I had to get myself a job. Being about twenty nine, thirty at the time. I had to get myself a trade. Lancaster City came and wanted to sign me for their team and I said, ‘Well I’ll sign for you if you get, give me a trade,’ so that’s when I went in to engineering and I finished up in engineering all my life.
CB: What type of engineering?
GH: Well it was a craft really. It was metal spinning. We used to spin parts for aircraft and all that sort of thing, you know. Spin, spin on a lathe, you know, Used to give you a block of wood and, and a drawing for what, what you were going to shape it to and then you’d put it on, on the lathe, get it drilled and on the lathe, turn it to the shape that was necessary and then spin it. Spin metal on to that to give you a shape and that’s, that’s what I did for the rest of my life but when I finished when I was sixty five they were starting, they were starting to finish with the spinning and they were doing nearly everything by press. By pressing. They increased the method of dealing with these things. They used to make a press and they used to press it. Everything was pressed and did away with the metal spinning then so I got out at the right time you know when I retired.
CB: So you went to Lancaster City.
GH: That’s right.
CB: And you played with them for how long?
GH: I played for them just for one season and then there was another team of, that came to me you know to play for them and I became an FA coach. I went on an FA coaching course and I became a coach and I became a coach and manager of this team, non-league team. In the same league as what Lancaster City was. So –
CB: Which one was that?
GH: I was with them for three years.
RH: Rossendale
GH: Rossendale. Rossendale United.
[paused
GH: And they –
CB: And you –
GH: Had quite a good team but I got out of it for one reason and that was because money was beginning to talk in the game and I was getting players that I knew to come to play for Rossendale and the directors said, ‘Oh we can’t afford him. Too much. He needs too much money,’ and I wasn’t able to get the players that I needed at the time because they hadn’t got sufficient money so that was that.
CB: So how long did you actually continue as a coach and manager?
GH: About three years. That was, I think I was thirty three -
CB: Because you were juggling -
GH: By that time.
CB: Two things weren’t you? You were -
GH: Oh yeah.
CB: Juggling the sport.
GH: That’s right.
CB: And the trade.
GH: That’s right. And I found that I could, I could make a living, a better living by playing part time football and and working as an engineer so that I got two wages coming in then you know and that, that was well worthwhile then because the amount of money that was being, you see Rochdale when I was playing for them at the end of the, the war they wanted me to play for them but they, they offered me absolute rubbish as a wage you know and that’s where I realised that I’d got to do something about this after, after playing finished.
CB: When did the children come along? During the war?
GH: No. After the war. My son, my son was born just at the end when I, when I finished in the air force. He was born right at the end.
RH: ‘47/48 I think.
GH: Was it?
RH: Yeah. And I’m –
GH: 1947/48 yeah.
RH: I was ’54.
GH: Yeah
GH: 1954.
GH: Yeah.
RH: Tell them about when you were at the conflict you were telling me the other day about when you were playing for Lancaster and doing your metal spinning at the same time and you had an accident.
GH: Yeah. Oh that’s right. Yeah. The, it was a bit, the engineering was a bit on the dangerous side you know. The metal spinning. You get cuts very very easily you know and there was one, it was, we were working Saturday mornings then and I cut the end of my finger off and I went across this room towards the nurses place, you know, at the other end of this room. I was halfway across and I fainted and that’s the only time I’ve ever fainted in my life and I’d lost so much blood that it must have affected me you know. I was only out for a minute or so like you know and then they, they managed to get me up and take me to the hospital in, in Lancaster to get it seen to and we were playing in a Cup tie that day and I said, ‘Well I can’t, can’t play today.’ ‘Oh we can’t do without you. It’s a Cup tie. You’ll have to. You’ll have to play today.’ And we was, we had to go to a team called Bacup in Lancashire to, to play this Cup tie and and they’d strapped it all up you know and bandaged and everything and I played this Cup tie. I had to go off before half time because the ball had hit this. I tried to keep it out of the way and it all started to bleed again so I was covered in blood and the trainer, trainer took me off like, you know and bandaged it all up again you know. The second half I was pushed out again. [laughs]
CB: Never looked back then.
GH: That was my experience.
RH: I mean the –
[Recording paused]
CB: So we’re just going to get a question from grandson Josh
GH: Yeah.
CB: And see what the reaction is. So Josh what’s the question?
JH: So I want to know if you resent the war at all?
GH: No. I don’t, don’t resent it at all. I think what was, what was done had to be done and I hate to think what would have happened if we didn’t win the war. What would have happened then?
JH: But asides from, you know, the war happened, yeah and you had, you did your bit and that’s very honourable the, the politics involved in it. I mean does that, does that make you angry or –
GH: Well the politics –
JH: I mean just the very, the fact of war and the nature of it.
GH: I never went in to politics at all, you know. I just did what I thought was right and and I thought that the war was right. It needed, it needed to be done and that’s what we did and did it successfully.
CB: What do you say was the general public attitude?
GH: The general public attitude didn’t, the, I don’t think they liked the war. I mean to say you get the Londoners who had been in these raids on London all through the war you can’t expect them to say, ‘Well I enjoyed it.’ They, they, they wouldn’t enjoy it. No way. But I think that it was something that had to be done and the forces, whatever they were, navy, army, air force they’ve all done their job and done a good job and the people today should be very thankful for what happened.
CB: Any more? Ok. Thank you. So we’re now winding up at five to one and many thanks to George, to Josh and to Rosemary. We are in Middleton Cheney having been talking with George Haigh.
[Recording paused]
GH: It was two –
CB: Arriving in Morecambe. Yeah.
GH: Two, two physical training instructors like that posted to Morecambe. There was two of us and I was given the travel warrant so I was in charge kind of style and we went through Stockport. The train pulled up at Stockport on its way to Manchester and then on to Morecambe and I I said to this bloke with me, I said, ‘I’ve got the warrant.’ I said, ‘I’m, I’m going home to see my wife.’ So I got off the train there and went and saw and saw my wife. Got back to the station at midnight kind of style you know and we were going off to Morecambe. We eventually arrived in Morecambe at midnight and they didn’t expect us at that time of course and the, one of the police, SP, he, he took me into the headquarters and it was a hotel that they’d taken over in Morecambe and they’d got cells in the basement for any wrong doers and they said, ‘The only thing we can give you is one of these cells.’ I said, ‘Well how do, how do you go on about when you have an air raid like?’ You know. Because coming from London like you know we thought everybody had the air raids. They said, ‘We never have an air raid here at Morecambe. Never.’ Anyway, we got, got to bed in this, in this, in one of the cells and they were going to billet us next morning and the air raid warning went and it was the only time that Morecambe ever had an air raid warning and I went outside and it were like the illuminations. Everybody put their lights on, you know [laughs]. Morecambe was flooded with lights and we found out like, you know, that this, this plane had obviously got lost and was in its way to [Barrow] and -
CB: Across Morecambe Bay.
GH: Across Morecambe Bay.
CB: Right.
GH: And that was the only raid that Morecambe ever had in their, in their life. [laughs]
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 George Haig
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AHaighG150902
Format
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01:20:27 audio recording
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Description
An account of the resource
George Haigh was already a keen footballer when he volunteered for the Royal Air Force and became a physical training instructor. He was posted to RAF Morecambe where he provided basic training to new recruits. He discusses the mixed level of fitness amongst the recruits and how a five week course was sometimes shortened. He also undertook parachute training. After the war, he continued with his love of football while also working in engineering.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Conforms To
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Pending review
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Cheshire
England--Lancashire
Date
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2015-09-02
Contributor
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Julie Williams
ground personnel
physical training
RAF Morecambe
RAF Ringway
RAF Wilmslow
sanitation
sport
training