1
25
158
-
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/53/612/PBoldyDA15010026.1.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/53/612/PBoldyDA15010061.1.jpg
8d5467658ed21fe7abb98b4014a7f260
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
Boldy, David
Dave Boldy
D A Boldy
Description
An account of the resource
334 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant David Adrian Boldy (1918 – 1942, 923995 Royal Air Force) and consists of his school reports, letters from school and photographs of family and locations in India, letters from training and service, and photographs from his social life and time training. It also includes newspaper cuttings and letters about him being missing in action. David Boldy was born and attended school in India and studied law at Kings College London. He volunteered for the Royal Air Force and trained as an air gunner in South Africa. He flew operations in Manchesters and Lancasters with 207 Squadron from RAF Bottesford. His aircraft failed to return from an operation to Gdańsk 11 July 1942. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by David Boldy and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.<br /><br />Additional information on David Boldy is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/102182/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Boldy, DA
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
David Boldy and two women
Description
An account of the resource
David Boldy dressed in desert uniform standing between two women. The one on the left is sitting on a stone wall. Caption on the reverse '9 8 41'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-08-09
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-08-09
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two b/w photographs
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Civilian
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Boldy, David. Folder PBoldyDA1501
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBoldyDA15010025, PBoldyDA15010026, PBoldyDA15010061
aircrew
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/272/1098/PBubbGJ16010020.2.jpg
9eb4027fce32a69f305f367832f20f1d
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/272/1098/PBubbGJ16010021.2.jpg
5e7aca14f5e671472c576dbe9c55c0a4
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/272/1098/PBubbGJ16010022.2.jpg
38e5862992547a13e144e2f9ee5a8c36
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/272/1098/PBubbGJ16010023.2.jpg
06e6ffd6f7d9cdc7c6c1450e59d9974d
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/272/1098/PBubbGJ16010019.2.jpg
03fae9feef8720de6e5235ad1e5e31b3
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
Bubb, George. Album
Description
An account of the resource
32 items. The album contains photographs, propaganda, service material, memorabilia and research concerning George Bubb's service with 44 Squadron at RAF Spilsby.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Bubb, GJ
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
32 Airmen
Description
An account of the resource
Two copies of a postcard showing 32 airmen in three rows dressed in tunic uniform with side caps. Front row kneeling and rear two rows standing. On the reverse 'Western, August 1941, Squad 9'. Between the two postcards caption 'Grandpa: second row (third from the left)'. To the left label '44 and 9 Squadron, Western Super Mare, August 1941'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two b/w photographs mounted on a scrapbook page
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBubbGJ16010019, PBubbGJ16010020, PBubbGJ16010021, PBubbGJ16010022, PBubbGJ16010023
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-08
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Weston-super-Mare
England--Somerset
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-08
RAF Weston-super-Mare
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/156/2015/PCushwayAW16080002.2.jpg
8d06eda69217cfd3f3d1f6c7b805a6cc
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
Cushway, Arthur
A W Cushway
Description
An account of the resource
55 items. This collection concerns Sergeant Arthur William Cushway (1913 - 1942, 1285306 Royal Air Force). Arthur Cushway was a wireless operator / air gunner and was killed when his Stirling from RAF Waterbeach failed to return from an operation to Hamburg. The collection contains a photograph album, his service record and 52 photographs. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Rosemary Lester and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.<br /><br />Additional information on Arthur Cushway is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/206596/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-04
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cushway, AW
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
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
Seven men loading coal
Description
An account of the resource
A group of seven men loading coal into the back of a lorry.
Additional information about this item has been kindly provided by the donor.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-08
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCushwayAW16080002
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Iceland
Iceland--Reykjavík
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-08
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Cushway, Arthur. Folder PCushwayAW1608
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/156/2016/PCushwayAW16080003.2.jpg
f15d2478b785fc5b4f5470692c40ebef
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
Cushway, Arthur
A W Cushway
Description
An account of the resource
55 items. This collection concerns Sergeant Arthur William Cushway (1913 - 1942, 1285306 Royal Air Force). Arthur Cushway was a wireless operator / air gunner and was killed when his Stirling from RAF Waterbeach failed to return from an operation to Hamburg. The collection contains a photograph album, his service record and 52 photographs. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Rosemary Lester and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.<br /><br />Additional information on Arthur Cushway is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/206596/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-04
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cushway, AW
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
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
Six men loading coal
Description
An account of the resource
Six men beside a large mound of coal are loading coal into the back of a lorry. Behind them can be seen ship's masts.
Additional information about this item has been kindly provided by the donor.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-08
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCushwayAW16080003
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Iceland
Iceland--Reykjavík
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-08
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Cushway, Arthur. Folder PCushwayAW1608
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/161/2030/PCushwayAW16010007.2.jpg
fdf59bdd88d6f0195671897c399431c4
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
Cushway, Arthur. Album
Arthur Cushway's photograph album
Description
An account of the resource
28 items. A photograph album with multiple pages. It contains pictures taken during Arthur Cushway's aircrew training in Great Britain and in Canada. Subjects include airmen and aircraft and sightseeing in Great Britain and North America, including Niagara Falls, Ontario, New York and Reykjavik in Iceland.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Rosemary Lester and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-04
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCushwayAW1601
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
Iceland
Description
An account of the resource
Three photographs taken from a scrapbook. The first is six men loading coal into a lorry at Reykjavik. Behind are ship's masts. Captioned 'Coal heaving, Rejkvik August 1941.' The second is a hill covered in fog, captioned 'Coastal Fog. Hetgafels Aug. 1941'. The third is of two airmen and two US Marines talking in a street. One marine is leaning against a jeep. Captioned 'Swopping ideas with Uncle Sam's Marines Rejkavik Aug. 1941.'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-08
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three b/w photographs on an album page
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCushwayAW16010007
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Training Command
United States Army
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Iceland
Iceland--Reykjavík
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-08
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/367/5779/PCavalierRG17010006.1.jpg
60a64c436eeee7e3cd0bbfc9e11b4e18
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
Cavalier, Reginald George. Album one
Description
An account of the resource
57 items. Photograph album showing pictures taken during Reginald George Cavalier's service as a squadron photographer. It includes material from his photographic course training in 1940, and service with 76 Squadron at RAF Middleton St George, and with 88 Squadron and 226 Squadron with 2 Group and 2nd Tactical Air Force at RAF West Raynham. The album also includes target photographs, images of Christmas parties, visits by VIPs including Eisenhower and the King, as well as captured German ordnance and aircraft in France, the Netherlands and Germany.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cavalier, RG
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
Halifax Mk 1 in flight
Description
An account of the resource
12 air-to-air photographs of a Halifax. Captioned:
'Bomber Command 4 Group.
Halifax A/C 76 Sqd. Sqd/L. Bickford.
R.A.F. Middleton St. George, Yorks.
August 6th 1941'
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-08-06
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
12 b/w photographs on an album page
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCavalierRG17010006
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-08-06
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
4 Group
76 Squadron
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
RAF Middleton St George
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/367/5782/PCavalierRG17010009.2.jpg
ed46ef7f03f228c75551a142afae6e21
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
Cavalier, Reginald George. Album one
Description
An account of the resource
57 items. Photograph album showing pictures taken during Reginald George Cavalier's service as a squadron photographer. It includes material from his photographic course training in 1940, and service with 76 Squadron at RAF Middleton St George, and with 88 Squadron and 226 Squadron with 2 Group and 2nd Tactical Air Force at RAF West Raynham. The album also includes target photographs, images of Christmas parties, visits by VIPs including Eisenhower and the King, as well as captured German ordnance and aircraft in France, the Netherlands and Germany.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cavalier, RG
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
Berlin and Brest
Halifax in flight
Description
An account of the resource
Photograph 1 shows a railway running left to right through an urban area. Captioned '1. J.D.S. 382.X.12782.76.N/T.7/8 -8-41 F.8. ➝'.
Photograph 2 shows a mostly rural area, much obscured by anti-aircraft fire and light flare. Captioned 'T.K.A. 073 Z 76 N/T 2/3 .8.41 F8 ➝'.
This photograph also captioned 'Night raid on Berlin Germany, Halifax A/C. 76 Sqd. Bomber Command, 4 Group. R.A.F. Middleton St. George, Yorks. 2/3 Aug 1941.'
Photograph 3 is of the port of Brest.
Photograph 4 is a vertical air-to-air photograph of a Halifax flying over a coastline. It is captioned 'A. 23 A(A) 76 30.12.41 F/8'. Captioned '18. Dec 1941.'
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-08-02
1941-08-03
1941-08-07
1941-08-08
1941-12-30
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four b/w photographs on an album page
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCavalierRG17010009
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Berlin
France
France--Brest
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-08
1941-08-02
1941-08-03
1941-08-07
1941-08-08
1941-12-30
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
4 Group
76 Squadron
aerial photograph
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
Halifax
RAF Middleton St George
target photograph
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/367/5867/PCavalierRG17010034.2.jpg
ec71ca8048f6675f72226db5cdea410d
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
Cavalier, Reginald George. Album one
Description
An account of the resource
57 items. Photograph album showing pictures taken during Reginald George Cavalier's service as a squadron photographer. It includes material from his photographic course training in 1940, and service with 76 Squadron at RAF Middleton St George, and with 88 Squadron and 226 Squadron with 2 Group and 2nd Tactical Air Force at RAF West Raynham. The album also includes target photographs, images of Christmas parties, visits by VIPs including Eisenhower and the King, as well as captured German ordnance and aircraft in France, the Netherlands and Germany.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cavalier, RG
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
Whitleys at Middleton St George 1941
Description
An account of the resource
Page caption: 'Middleton St George 1941'
Photograph 1 is of eight airmen under the nose of a Whitley. Captioned 'Pilot Sgt B. Jones with his Ground Crew, Whitley. A/C.'
Photograph 2 is of a sergeant pilot wearing a flying helmet and pointing to the underside of an aircraft. It is is signed 'To Reg, with every best wish Bernard Jones 'Aussie' 29/7/41'.
Photographs 3, 4 and 5 are of a crashed Whitley, largely intact with bent propeller blades. Captioned 'Sgt Jones crashed Whitley A/C on the Yorkshire Moors returning from a night bombing rad on Germany. Aug.1941.'
Photograph 6 is a cartoon of a boomerang with Hitler hanging underneath. Captioned: 'The 'Mascot' on Sgt Jones Whitley A/C painted by Me, July 1941.'
Photographs 7 and 8 are of five airmen in front of a Whitley 'T'. Captioned 'Pilot Sgt B. Jones (Aussie) with his Air Crew, Whitley A/C.'
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-07
1941-08
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Seven b/w photographs and one cartoon on an album page
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Artwork
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCavalierRG17010034
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Durham (County)
England--North York Moors
England--Yorkshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-07
1941-08
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
aircrew
crash
forced landing
ground crew
ground personnel
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
nose art
pilot
RAF Middleton St George
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/371/6122/SCavalierRG1264567v10006-0001.2.jpg
246f08f9d155cc41693646040acc9083
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/371/6122/SCavalierRG1264567v10006-0002.2.jpg
ed555adebf664ae187646afbd186fdfa
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
Cavalier, Reginald George. Album two
Description
An account of the resource
35 items. The album contains service material, Christmas cards, and propaganda leaflets in German, French and English.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-10
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cavalier, RG
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
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
Wo Bleibt die "Vollendung"?
Description
An account of the resource
RAF Propaganda Newspaper ("Luftpost") aimed at the German-speaking population. Page 1: Shows a Luftwaffe document scheduling hospitals as the primary targets of bombing attacks. Page 2. Article asking where the final victory that Hitler promised his people has got to.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-08-26
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two sides of a printed sheet
Language
A language of the resource
deu
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Artwork
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SCavalierRG1264567v10006-0001, SCavalierRG1264567v10006-0002
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-08
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription. Other languages than English
propaganda
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/372/6578/ELampreyPGuntonW410806.2.pdf
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Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Lamprey, Peter
Description
An account of the resource
122 items. The collection contains letters from Flight Sergeant Peter Lamprey (1384535 Royal Air Force) to 'Uncle Bill' W Gunton and his former colleagues at Waterlow Printers, Park Royal, London. The letters cover all his stages of training and operations at Royal Air Force Ludford Magna. A wireless operator / air gunner, he was killed, aged 36, on 14 January 1944 during an operation on Braunschweig when 101 Squadron Lancaster LM367 was attacked by a night fighter and crashed at Lautenthal. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Dereck Titchen and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.<br /><br /> A photograph of Peter and his final resting place appears in the Arthur Standivan collection <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/35884">here.</a><br /><br />Additional information onPeter Lamprey is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/113449/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-02-24
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lamprey, P
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Wilts [Wiltshire]
12.30 PM
6 Aug 41
[postage stamp]
Mr W Gunton.
Machine Room.
Waterlow and Sons. Ltd.
Twyford Rd
Park Royal.
London. N.W.10
[Page break]
[RAF Crest]
[page break]
1384535. A.C.2 Lamprey
3 Wing. B. Sqdn. Hut Z31
RAF. Camp Yatesbury
Nr Calne. Wilts
[inserted] 2nd [/inserted]
[Underlined) Holiday Monday [/underlined]
Dear Bill and fellow workers.
Pausing for a moment in this joyous round of pleasure I take up the pen and send you my heartiest regards. That is if you are still able to read. I was only wondering if you had forgotten how to do both things. They are still delivering letters, postcards etc. on this camp. But not to me. Seems like your life of ease and plenty makes for forgetfulness of the sufferings of the youth of the country.
We have run up against the rarest of all phenomena, a human sergeant. We have succeeded in winning plenty of cash off him at solo and Allah be praised, he is a glutton for punishment and comes back for more. Our P.T under him is one round of do it if you like. I shall be glad
[page break]
when my light duty is finished so that I can cut myself a slice of the lovely grub he dishes up. Just my luck to get hurt when a break like this pancakes on the parade ground. The rest of our stay here should compensate for the blood spilt upon the various parade grounds we have ploughed up with our elfin feet.
The end of this period is definitely in sight, five more weeks and we should be packing our kits for another move. This should either be gunnery – I – oM [Isle of Man] or Scotland or W.O on a ground post for winter. I hope it is the former. They buried four boys out of the squad three weeks ahead of us on Friday. Roll on death. No wonder they tell you the slow march if the most essential part of foot-drill. We were on the parade, rifle duty party for the week and from the way the ambulance beat it for the hills this morning some-one else is on a 07.00 hrs parade on Friday again, he won’t be carrying a rifle.
They wheeled a bunch of Aussies into camp,
[inserted] 2. [/inserted]
[page break]
150 of them, over the weekend. At present they are nice and quiet, nice boys in fact, but I think the way things are moving the excitement will break out round about Friday when they, the big shots, give a get together dance in our NAAFI From what some of the Canadians and some of the Jocks are saying it should be a dance worth going to with a pair of knuckle-dusters This little chicken will not be there, I shall just content myself with cheering from the sidelines {sic]. If all goes as anticipated I should imagine they will rebuild the NAAFI and have a return when the next lot move in.
We are really bedded down in this camp now. When we do leave I can see some tears being shed. Tears of joy. They bullshit you from dawn to dark and when you are nicely settled in bed, sound a blasted alarm and turn out all rifle huts, just for practice. They worked that one Friday night, a b------ fine start for the week-end. But this week-end I shall get my nut [head] over the fence and leg it for home, pass
[inserted] 3 [/inserted]
[page break]
or no pass. My rib is pretty fair and the strapping comes off Wednesday and with a little judicious lying, hard as it may be, I shall collect a 2q5 and 36 hrs for myself. If I have to walk back this time I’m afraid I shall give up liking this job. I don’t mind the N.C. Os [sic] f----- me about but when civvies in cars start it, its [sic] about time they fought this war themselves.
Things still go on the same quiet way and only the wet weather has interfered with our evening entertainment. We have given up drinking NAAFI beer, Mr Hunt please note, as it was not doing us any good. Put too much water in your system. Y.M.C.A tea is our beverage now, its [sic] got a kick like an anti-tank rifle and scours your guts like a steel wool pull-through. Two cups of it and WAAFI would rather do anything than drink another, so we go and do it. It’s a great life if I’ve only got strength enough, to live long enough.
WAAFI is here for a long teleprinter [sic] course, she might not go so very far in the class but she goes further than most outside.
[inserted] 4 [/inserted]
[page break]
If J.M or C.S. hurry up and get in this racket there might be a few bits left but the way the boys are belting around it won’t be very big bits. They have rationed us to 20 fags per week for airman, 15 for WAAFs so I am preaching hard about the evil of girls smoking but as I mentioned in a previous letter she’s half dumb and her conversation always starts with “gimme”.
They say this place was a concentration camp in the last war, I don’t know why they stick the word “last” in. They regard all of us air-crew as half-wits. They make us show a pass to get in the blasted place and let you walk out without bothering. If you come in late they demand your pass, look at it and knock you off. If you haven’t one they tell you to get in the best way you can and leave you alone. I think they are right.
Well I can’t keep rambling on as duty beckons with her imperious finger. Don’t write if you have all got broken arms. If I have forgotten
[inserted] 5 [/inserted]
[page break]
Anything its only your handwriting. Keep your heads up and with luck some low flying pilot will knock ‘em off.
Remember me to everybody and I hope the “old girl” is back at work. Look after yourselves these dangerous days and put your trust in the boys in the RAF. You poor saps.
Give my regards to the Guv’nor [sic] and Co. Bert Smith and Fred Cooper. Be seeing you.
[underlined] Pete [/underlined]
P.S Is Rusty still alive?
P.
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
Letter from Peter Lamprey to W Gunton
Description
An account of the resource
Peter Lamprey notes that he has only five weeks to go and then he should be off on his gunnery course or a wireless operator on the ground. He mentions some casualties and that a large number of Australian had arrived at the camp which might lead to trouble with Canadians and Scots at a dance at the Navy, Army and Air Force Institute on Saturday. He concludes with some general comments on life in the Royal Air Force.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Peter Lamprey
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-08-06
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Envelope and six page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ELampreyPGuntonW410806
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Wiltshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-08-06
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
military living conditions
military service conditions
Navy, Army and Air Force Institute
RAF Yatesbury
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/377/6709/LDawsonSR142531v1.1.pdf
6abbc58e3bc5bd55a8c78eafc9746dec
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/.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LDawsonSR142531v1
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book for Stephen Dawson, covering the period from 11 June 1939 to 30 March 1942. Detailing his flying training, operations and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Southampton, RAF Hastings, RAF Hatfield, RAF Little Rissington, RAF St Athan, RAF Cottesmore, RAF Finningly, RAF Lindholme, RAF Swinderby, RAF Upwood and RAF Swanton Morley. Aircraft flown were, Cadet, Tiger Moth, Anson, Hampden and Oxford. He flew a total of 31 night operations with 50 Squadron. Targets were, Dusseldorf, Hannover, Bordeaux, Brest, Berlin, Keil, Lorient, La Rochelle, Copenhagen, Duisberg, Soest, Cologne, Bremen, Hamburg, Karlsruhe, Magdeburg and Frankfurt.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Denmark
France
Germany
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Denmark--Copenhagen
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Gloucestershire
England--Hampshire
England--Hertfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Rutland
England--Sussex
England--Yorkshire
France--Brest
France--La Rochelle
France--Lorient
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Soest
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
France--Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine)
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1940
1941
1942
1941-02-04
1941-02-10
1941-02-11
1941-02-15
1941-02-21
1941-03-12
1941-03-13
1941-03-14
1941-03-15
1941-03-18
1941-03-20
1941-03-21
1941-03-23
1941-03-24
1941-04-08
1941-04-09
1941-04-10
1941-04-11
1941-04-13
1941-04-14
1941-04-15
1941-04-16
1941-04-20
1941-04-21
1941-04-24
1941-04-25
1941-06-02
1941-06-03
1941-06-11
1941-06-12
1941-06-13
1941-06-14
1941-06-15
1941-06-21
1941-06-22
1941-06-24
1941-06-25
1941-06-27
1941-06-28
1941-06-29
1941-06-30
1941-07-04
1941-07-05
1941-07-16
1941-07-17
1941-07-20
1941-07-21
1941-08-05
1941-08-06
1941-08-08
1941-08-09
1941-08-12
1941-08-13
1941-08-29
1941-08-30
1941-09-02
1941-09-03
Title
A name given to the resource
Stephen Dawson's pilot's flying log book. One
14 OTU
25 OTU
50 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing
Flying Training School
Hampden
Initial Training Wing
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Finningley
RAF Hatfield
RAF Lindholme
RAF Little Rissington
RAF St Athan
RAF Swanton Morley
RAF Swinderby
RAF Upwood
Tiger Moth
training
-
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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
Raettig, Dennis
Dennis William Raettig
Dennis W Raettig
D W Raettig
D Raettig
Description
An account of the resource
72 items. The collection concerns the wartime service of Leading Aircraftman Dennis William Raettig (b. 1920, 1136657 Royal Air Force). Joining the Royal Air Force reserve in 1941 he trained as a flight mechanic (Engines) before being posted to 104 Squadron (Wellingtons) at RAF Driffield. This squadron number was later changed to 158 Squadron flying Halifax at RAF East Moor, followed by moves to RAF Rufford and Lisset. The collection consists of a memoir, correspondence with family and acquaintances, family history, service and personal documentation, lucky charms,personal items, cap, boots, squadron tie, research on bombing in Hull as well as photographs of air and ground crew and aircraft. It also includes an oral history interview with Joan Raettig (Dennis Raettig's wife).
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Sue Burn and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-23
2016-07-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Raettig, DW
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
104/158 Squadron Bomber Command
[photograph of a Wellington]
I started my Air Force life as a Flt./Mechanic (Engines) at Squires Gate, Blackpool, in January 1941. Everyone remembers their service number – in my case 1136657 – and their first months in the forces. The endless marching around, inspections and going for your ‘jabs’ – mine took place in a church hall [italics] ‘Suffer Little Children” [/italics] was written above the stage. Not having been inoculated before, I didn’t really know what to expect, but at the front of the queue grown men were fainting even before they got to the doctor! A punch in the middle of the back by the orderlies seemed to be the cure – it certainly cured me!
It is possible that I am the longest serving member of 158 Squadron, posted to B Flight, 104 Squadron, 4 Group Bomber Command, at Driffield, in the 2nd week of August, 1941. Driffield aerodrome was built in the early 30’s, with the usual living quarters and 4 hangers – there were no runways, just a large grass field, the standard for an airfield in those pre-war days. The aerodrome had previously been bombed - a barrack block and a hanger had been badly [inserted] damaged [/inserted], it was rumoured that several personnel had perished.
104 Squadron was composed of 2 Flights of Vickers Wellington Mk. 2 bombers, powered by Rolls Royce Merlin X engines. The airframe was of geodetic construction, covered by a fabric which was stitched on with a very strong twine. It was designed by Barnes Wallis, who a few years earlier, had been involved with the airship R100 which was built at near-by Howden. The aircraft were mainly disbursed around the airfield, but some were parked in a field across a road which skirted the ‘drome. There was also a Blind Approach Training Flight, with 2 Whitley [inserted] bombers [/inserted], a Fairey Battle used for target towing for air-to-air firing; and most unexpectedly – an Autogiro – definitely not a helicopter! (used for weather observations over the North Sea) I serviced it on 2 or 3 occasions; and finally 4 Westland Lysanders, which were attached to a nearby army unit.
It was during October of that year (1941) that we were confined to camp. A number of aircrew and groundcrew were given 48 hours leave and the rest of us told that we had to prepare the aircraft for a special mission. We were later told that they were all going to Malta and spares would also be loaded on the ‘planes. As soon as I heard of the destination I volunteered to go (due to an accident, my parents were stranded on the island – and later Egypt) I was told that if any of the groundcrew failed to return from leave I would be considered. As it turned out one person failed to return on time and I was actually on the ‘plane when he turned up. [deleted] It was to be an [/deleted]
Aircraft and crews were soon replaced but it was around this time that U Uncle ([deleted] the [/deleted] [inserted] a [/inserted] dual controlled training aircraft) crash landed. This was my time to take over servicing the ‘plane and as new aircrews arrived they all took their turn on the ‘circuits and bumps’ training. However, a few days later I was reading D.R.O’s (remember Daily Routine Orders?) One paragraph read (roughly) that anybody who could successfully design a means of hiding the exhausts on the Merlin engine would receive an award of £200 (the stubs glowed red hot and were thought to be an easy target for enemy fighters). I thought no more about it until someone came from our office and told me that U would be the aircraft to test any of the designs and that I had to move my ‘plane to the parking area across the road from the main airfield and to take reasonable precautions in case of fire. That afternoon I got the tractor to tow U across the road to the parking area
Page 1
[page break]
[deleted] Across the road] [/deleted] and [deleted] I [/deleted] surrounded it with as many fire extinguishers as I could get hold of. The following day the first test arrived in the shape of a cowling to be fitted on the starboard engine, on the inboard [inserted] side [/inserted] so that I could see it all the time I was testing. After fitting the cowling to the engine, I started up the engine and waited for the oil pressure g[inserted]u[/inserted]age to ‘break’, but it was obvious from the way exhaust gases came out that it was a failure. Over a period of several days more were tested until one passed the ground test, so I asked for an aircrew to fly the aircraft. When the crew came out and I explained what the test was they refused to fly it – well any sane person would, wouldn’t they? However, we came to a compromise by agreeing that just the pilot and I would fly as low as possible within the confines of the airfield – which we did – it was a case of ‘Down quick’. On the third occasion of a test flight the airframe mechanic asked if he could go up as he wanted to do a check. I told him no it was too dangerous, however he said it was fairly important for him to check the wing in flight, so the three of us went on the test. Very quickly it was a case of ‘down, down’ both from me and the airframe mech.. Apart from the exhaust burning the cowling, the starboard wing had ‘ballooned’ due to the cord stitching the fabric had worn away. It was all down to the skill of the pilot, he quickly feathered the prop., somehow managing to control the landing despite having a damaged wing, and landed safely. However, all our troubles were not quite over – having had to cut the starboard engine the hydraulic pump no longer worked the flaps or the brakes. So the Pilot’s problem was how to stop the aircraft from crashing into two 500 gal. petrol bowsers on the perimeter track just in front of the hanger. Fortunately, it stopped about 20 yards away. That was the end of U Uncle – the next day it was loaded onto a ‘Queen Mary’ lorry back to the Vickers factory. The problem of the glow from the exhaust system took a little longer – a few days later we received some cans of a specially thick red paint developed by I.C.I., with instructions to paint it thickly on to the exhaust stubs, which was duly applied. When the engines were run the heat turned the red paint black – problem solved.
… and now we are 158 Squadron
As autumn turned to winter it became obvious that without runways, the aircraft would be in difficulties with take-off and landing. At one stage we helped to lay a steel wire ‘runway’, which was duly tested but considered unworkable, so it had been decided some of the aircraft would operate from R.A.F. Pocklington, at the foot of the Yorkshire Wolds.
Due to the lack of living quarters, some of the ground crew were based at nearby R.A.F. Melbourne (which was in the early stages of being built) and bussed to and from Pocklington every day. The bus used to drop us at the end of a short lane to our billet, where a farmer had conveniently (for us) built a potato pie to protect his crop from being frosted. There were about 15 of us and as each one passed the pie they helped them selves to a potato, then on to the cookhouse for tea. One of the gang would talk to the cook, while one of us grabbed a packet of margarine, which we soon found on a shelf at the other end of the counter. Later in the evening in front of a red-hot stove we baked and ate our baked potatoes – never have they tasted better! However, as they [sic] saying goes, all good things must come to an end, as an officer arrived one evening and ‘tore a strip off us’
It was during mid February at Pocklington that we were informed that we were now 158 Squadron and the recognition letters on the sides of the aircraft changed from EP to NP, so as we prepared for operations the airframe mechanic did the necessary alterations to the lettering. That evening the aircraft flew with the new insignia and more importantly, all returned safely from that first operation of the new squadron. 2 or 3 other raids were carried out from Pocklington with the loss of 1 aircraft.
The new squadron then returned to our own base at Driffield, and for the next 3 months was engaged in many raids on enemy targets in which many brave men lost their lives. Some however, were captured and for the rest of the war interned in P.O.W. camps. During early May, we were informed that the squadron was to move to another station and be equipped with Halifax Mk 2 Bombers. In due course we moved to different stations to learn more about these ‘planes.
About 20 of us went to RAF Leeming. The first question any sensible airman should ask on arriving at a new station is “What’s the grub like?” – the answer here at Leeming was mind blowing – pictures of a pre-war summer day, mother bringing a cool green salad to the table in the back garden and as a special treat a slice of [italics] pork-pie [/italics] – here the dream ended. Pork Pies (about 3” diam.) were available for breakfast, dinner, tea and supper at this station. You soon got your fill of them – it was a few years before I tasted another! On the whole our stay was like a holi-
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day as we had no responsibilities and the weather was fine enough for some of us to swim in a small river at the edge of the ‘drome – including my friend Doug. Waddie, who not having any swimming trunks decided to hide behind some bushes and wrap his loins (ahem!) in 2 large handkerchiefs, jumped into the fast running river and immediately lost his dignity much to the amusement of a group of WAAF. I quickly picked up his towel and threw it across, but unfortunately my aim wasn’t good and it landed in the water – there was a great cheer as Doug. revealed all, to retrieve his towel. Shortly after this dramatic incident I was ordered back to Driffield, as I went down the narrow road from the Leeming ‘drome I noticed a fairly new factory with a notice ‘Pork Pie Products’ – so if any of you get posted there, you know what to expect!
Arriving back at Driffield, I was told that I had to report to the Group Captain. On entering his office he told me that he was as mystified as me as to what was going on but I had to check all the remaining aircraft and await further orders. One of my airframe friends joined me later in the day, and together we inspected the planes – there were only 8 or 9 Wellingtons left of the original squadron plus the Whitleys of the B.A.T. flight who had [deleted] there [/deleted] [inserted] their [/inserted] own service crews. On the next day more tradesmen arrived and we serviced those few planes. The following day, the 30th May 1942, was to be an important day in Bomber Command history. We were told to prepare the planes for a special raid. Regardless of trade we all helped each other – whether it was filling up with fuel or bombing-up and finally the aircrews came out started the engines and where [sic] off. It was an amazing sight, as squadron after squadron flew overhead for quite a long time. It was of course the first 1,000 bomber raid. Target Cologne. Two days later the planes were again prepared for ops. This time the target was Essen. That was the last Wellington bombing raid from Driffield by 158 Squadron. A few days later we rejoined the main squadron at the new station…
R.A.F. EAST MOOR
[photograph of a Halifax Mk 2 Aircraft]
Halifax Mk 2 4 Rolls-Royce Merlin XXII
About 9 miles north of York, close to the hamlet of Sutton-on-the-Forest, East Moor was one if the new breed of satellite stations, with well dispersed living quarters in the wooded areas.
The first days were filled with lectures mainly about the new aircraft and one I particularly remember was about security. After this meeting 2 or 3 of us decided to go down to the local ‘watering hole’, but just as we were leaving I was called back to ‘see in’ B Flight’s first new Halifax bomber. About half an hour later I went to meet my friends at the village pub and I saw them talking to a couple of civilians who on my entry, quickly left the premises. I was surprised at their quick exit and asked the lads what had happened. On being told that they had been asking questions about what type of aircraft etc., I asked the landlord permission to use his ‘phone and called the civil police and our own service police. On returning to camp we were interrogated by our police, but heard nothing further.
During the next few days, aircrew and groundcrew were arriving to bring the squadron up to strength. Again I was allocated to P, and was quickly introduced to the new aircrew as they came to test their ‘plane. When the crew came for their next flight I asked the pilot for permission for my new assistant (straight from training school) and I to go up for our first flight in a Halifax. We all climbed on board, and had a very pleasant flight on a lovely summer’s day – except the pilot didn’t warn us that he was going to do a few tests. The first inkling was when the outer starboard engine was stopped then feathered, next the starboard-inner, the nose dropped slightly and was corrected by the pilot, then the port-inner was stopped and immediately restarted when the nose dropped. Test over, and as the pilot lowered the undercarriage preparing to land, a horn sounded, not having heard this before, I asked the Flight Engineer what it was for. “It’s a warning to indicate that the landing-gear hasn’t locked” was the response. The pilot was receiving instructions over the radio. Climbing higher, he went into a fairly steep dive as he attempted to lower the under-
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carriage – still the horn sounded. After a few more attempts he was told to use-up some fuel, then land. All aircrew were ordered to crash positions between the main spars, while my assistant and I lay on the floor with our arms protecting our heads. It was a great relief when I heard the screech of tyres as we touched down – the horn continued all the time till we got to our base. Later, a ground check was made and an electrical fault was found on the system.
Towards the end of the first month at East Moor, planes were prepared for a raid which we learned later was the 3rd 1,000 bomber raid. This time against Bremen. During that month of June several raids were carried out and any loss of aircraft was keenly felt throughout the squadron, partly because we were such a small unit – 2 Flights – 16 aircraft maximum. [inserted] One [deleted] new [/deleted] innovation to our routeen [sic] was the introduction of a heater van [/inserted]
The following story may seem incredible, but it actually happened. All I can assume is that a certain Canadian F/Sgt. rear gunner found a cheap way of getting someone else to pay for his beer – My aircraft was based close to a narrow country road and one afternoon I was working by myself, on top of one of the engines changing plugs when I heard children laughing close by. Looking down I was horrified to see a lady and two young children (about 4 or 5 years old) sat by the side of the plane with a tablecloth spread out with plates of sandwiches, then from behind I heard a man call his wife to ‘come and look at this’. Turning round I saw a man looking into the aircraft though the entrance hatch. I told him to leave the field as he was trespassing. He said he wasn’t trespassing as he had arranged to meet his friend Flt/Sgt - - who had promised to take them on a flight and if I wasn’t careful he would report me to his friend and get me put on a charge. This was getting very silly, so I told him to go to ‘that building over there’ pointing to the guardhouse and they would get hold of his friend for him. So off he went. I don’t know what happened but he never came back for his free flight. Warning! If any of you get called up again (there’s no knowing the way things are just now, they are short of recruits) don’t try the free drinks trick on me, unless you pass me a bottle or two.
[italics] It was around this time that a Group Captain from a neighbouring ‘drome insisted on holding an inspection of all personnel once a month (I must have been born with 2 left feet!). His name was Gp. Captain John Whitley and he was later to become very important to me [/italics].
The Squadron was heavily engaged in August and suffered many losses, but one cheery note was that P.O. Chambers, who had been with the Squadron since the Driffield days, finished his tour of ops.. September was also a very busy month but towards the end we were less busy and I ‘volunteered’ (you, you & you!) for a special mission, in late October. Actually, there were six or so groundcrew, an MT driver and a bus. The instructions were to drive 10 miles south of York on the A19, open the secret instructions and carry on from there. Arriving at the 10 mile spot, the secret instructions were opened. We were to proceed the RAF Harwell and to prepare our Halifax aircraft for [underlined] Glider towing [/underlined]. As we were driven down we discussed the implications and came to the conclusion that someone ‘high up’ didn’t know what he was talking about – not unusual! As far as we knew, none of our aircrews had any training for towing gliders. However, on to Harwell, or so we thought, but leaving the road directions to the driver, it was a little surprising when we entered a small town whose main claim to fame was a statue of a lady riding a cock horse (what ever that is). Fortunately, one of the party knew the area, so beating a hasty retreat – (which included reversing into the statue) and sped like the devil in case anyone had noticed our arrival). We were late reaching the gates of RAF Harwell, only to be told that the operation had been cancelled – and no we couldn’t be admitted to the camp. Our driver pointed out that he had already driven over 8 hours and wouldn’t drive any further, so we had no alternative but to find somewhere to stay for the night. Fortunately there was a farmer near by who agreed to let us stay the night in his stables and led the horses into a field. We had a restless (and smelly) night and set off early next morning for our journey back.
On arrival, we were so exhausted that we went straight to our hut (most of the party were in my hut) and lay on our beds and began to doze off only to be wakened by a Flt/Sgt. telling us that we were supposed to be working on the planes and if not, we had to volunteer to fly on a special trip – it was the easy way out[inserted],[/inserted] so back to sleep. The next morning we were told that we would be
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taking over the duties of the squadron, whose own aircraft (Liberators) had been cannibalised one-at-a-time in order to keep their aircraft flying until they had only one aircraft. Our flight down to the South coast was uneventful, but the cloud base was rather low and we couldn’t see the ground so I cat-napped. Sometime later I awoke and was looking at a strange cloud rising just at the side of our ‘plane., about the size of a large black football – it then dawned on me and just as I was going to shout at the captain he called on the inter-com ‘Navigator we must be nearly there’. ‘Yes, just nip below cloud and confirm’. At least 4 German A.A. guns were firing at us, and looking hastily back, I couldn’t even see the Channel. Quickly climbing above cloud, we eventually reached our destination. But it was going to be one of those days best forgotten. I was given my instructions to try and keep the planes serviceable at all times and to make sure that all ‘planes were fully fuelled, as the trips were to be over the Bay of Biscay searching for enemy subs. Mine laying and submarine attack was the main aim.
As I got out of the ‘plane I saw a petrol tanker on the perimeter track, so I hailed him to come over, and told him we wanted to fill the aircraft immediately. ‘Sorry mate. You don’t belong to us’, was the response. So it was a case of ‘take me to your leader’ attitude. I climbed into the tanker, back to his base and had words with his officer, who more-or-less said the same thing. I was then passed up the ranks – Flt.Lt Engineer Officer, Squadron Leader, Wing Commander and finally the Group Captain. Repeating my request for refuelling the aircraft, I got the same answer – ‘No, I don’t know anything about you’. I tried another way. ‘Sir, someone must have sent a signal for reinforcements.’ ‘No, they would have told me about it’. Feeling that I was getting nowhere – ‘May I use the ‘phone , sir?’ ‘Yes certainly. Who do you want to ring’? ‘Our own base, there is little point in us remaining here, we may as well return.’ Ah! I’d hit a tender spot. ‘Now let us think this out’ he said. The solution he arrived at was that he would call in a WAAF typist, dictate an agreement to the effect that I was responsible for all the fuel used by our unit, and that we would both sign it – I know that it all sounds crazy, but that is basically what happened. [italics] (My recurring worry is that someone in the Air Ministry may find that document, and ask me to repay them for the fuel used. However, I am comforted that my fellow members of the Squadron will dig deep in their pockets to reimburse me.) [/italics]. However, having got permission I rushed back to fuel the aircraft, as a lot of time had been wasted and it was getting towards night-time. The tanker arrived and two of us, one on each wing, commenced to fill up. The driver warned us that if the ‘drome was attacked (France was only 20 or so miles away) the standing instructions were for him to pull away immediately. It rapidly got very dark that night, (remember it was early October). Suddenly, there was a big flash and bang, and without warning, the tanker driver started to pull away shouting at us as he went – we just had time to pull out the nozzles. Quickly fastening down the petrol caps, we slide down the wing stubs and met at the bottom. It was pitch-black by this time and we hadn’t a clue were [sic] any of the buildings were situated and just hoped that the rest of our party had found somewhere to stay. By good luck, the first building we got to was the NAAFI which was practically deserted, except some of our friends were there. They had similar experiences to us in that no-one on the ‘drome was interested in us – so it was a case of do-it-yourself – our lads just commandeered a Nissan hut, ‘pinched’ beds from other huts, bedding from several places and even broke into the coal compound. So, at least we had somewhere to sleep and in some sort of comfort. Someone explained that the big flash & bang we heard was their last Liberator blowing-up on its test flight. One can imagine that the whole camp, from the Group Captain to the lowest ranks, were so demoralised by the situation that there was no point in them being there. We had our own duties to attend to.
Our original instructions were [italics] ‘You’ll only be there about a week, You’ll only need your knife, fork and mug’[/italics] – we were to remain there until we were relieved early in December!. Things ran fairly smoothly at first, but then we all ran out of money.. The normal channels were tried – going to the accounts department and explaining the situation, but to no avail. Finally, a meeting was arranged with the whole detachment and a plan of action arranged – that on the next station pay parade we would disrupt the action by walking in front of the station personnel and prevent them from being paid. The pay day arrived and we caused absolute chaos – we were threatened with dire consequences, but eventually everybody calmed down and the Squadron Leader in charge of the parade promised to look into the affair straight after their men had been paid. We agreed to this and left the parade. The next day we were paid. So at least I could buy a cup of tea at the NAAFI.
We existed (couldn’t think of a better word) there for about 5 weeks – our only possessions knife, fork and mug. [underlined] [italics] No change of clothing. [/italics] [/underlined] One day, one of our own aircraft arrived unannounced, dropped off replacement ground crew (they returned the following day) and flew us back to…
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R.A.F. RUFFORTH
It was the 5th December when we arrived back again in the area of York. Rufforth is about 4 miles west of the city and was a typical war-time ‘drome, with 2 runways and scattered living accommodation. One difference to our previous home, there was a working farmhouse [underlined] within [/underlined] its boundary. I was allocated to P, which was based close to a country road.
Routine was slightly different than before, in that we serviced the ‘planes early in the mornings (remember this was winter-time and day-light hours were short. It would be dark by 5 p.m.) Aircrews air tested, and in the course of early afternoon we towed each plane by tractor, onto the runway, fairly close together, and at a 25o angle to the runway. The planes were then topped-up with fuel (some times overload tanks were fitted), bombed up – often with a mixed load of 2,000 lb. H.E.s and incendiaries.
On one occasion there was an electrical fault and a canister of incendiaries fell to the ground, fortunately very few ignited and we managed to throw, and kick them out of the way. The reason for parking the planes on the runway was to save as much fuel as possible as some of the raids were at Turin or Genoa. I remember on the return of one aircraft, how the crew waxed lyrical of how beautiful the Alps looked in the moonlight.
It was common practice for ground crews who were on night duty, waiting for returning planes, to cat-nap as best they could. One night I was awakened by an odd noise, looking out of the door of the office, I saw a horse, then noticed 2 or 3 more. Rushing back in I rang the control tower. There was quite a panic as the returning aircraft were due in about 1/2 hour. “A” flight office was informed and together with some control tower staff we just managed to get the last horse in when the first planes arrived. Well! I couldn’t face having to eat horse meat for the next week or two.
It was possibly early in 1943 when it happened – [underlined] [italics] the worst day of my life. [/italics] [underlined] The day started just like any other at Rufforth, early breakfast and off to work. After we had ground tested, the aircrew arrived and proceeded with the air test. Everyone going for an early dinner as the afternoon was very busy – only one tractor per Flight, and pulling the ground-starter motors over, ready to start the aircraft. The aircrews came out after briefing, engines were started up, and while the rest of the groundcrew cleared the area of ground-starter motors etc. I remained in the aircraft while the pilot checked the engines one at a time, checked the fine/course pitch, and so on until he was satisfied, checking the petrol and finally signing ‘Form 700’ – which contained the signatures of all who had done any work on the plane.
Closing the hatch, with the ‘700’ under my arm I walked to the Control Tower to watch the planes take-off. It was getting dusk but I could just read the letters on the side of my plane. As the pilot opened up the engines, I was horrified to see white steam pouring from the starboard outer engine – a sure sign of a coolant burst (the planes were all powered by Merlin XX’s at this time). I expected to see the pilot immediately shut-down and stop the plane, but no, the plane carried on gathering speed, as it reached the end of the runway and lift-off. I watched the aircraft as it slowly turned to port with steam still streaming out behind. Then inevitably, there was a dull thud and a flash as the ‘plane disintegrated, killing all the crew.
I was in a state of shock. Had I missed something on my check? My F/Sgt. was on the balcony of the control tower, and he called down to me [italics] “That was your aircraft wasn’t it? You had better give me the 700 before you do anything stupid with it.” [/italics] That statement certainly did not improve my already troubled mind. What of the poor crew – they must have realised that something was seriously wrong and tried to fly to the other end of the runway, so that they could land again. It must have been hell for them before the inevitable explosion. My mind was repeating all the event that had gone on during that fatal day. Would I be arrested and await a courtmartial [sic]? I eventually returned back to my hut, and my friends tried their best to console me
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On reporting for work the next morning the F/Sgt decided that I wouldn’t work on aircraft but work in the office and be a general ‘dogsbody’ for any one who wanted assistance. I heard nothing about the accident for 2 or 3 weeks, until one day I was asked to report to one of the offices, were [sic] I was asked by a Sgt. S.P. to verify that it was my signature on the Form 700 and that was all I heard about it officially.
I was in the office a few weeks later when our office clerk said to me that there was a rumour that we were moving to another station near the east coast called Lissett, do you know it? I thought for a moment, ‘Yes! It’s a hamlet on the Bridlington Low Road. I’ve driven through it a few times. It is notorious for a stretch of straight concrete road w[inserted]h[/inserted]ere idiot motorists ‘open-up’ to see how quickly they can kill themselves.’ – and so on to …
R.A.F. LISSETT
We were still working on Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, a newer version Halifax Mark 2. and Flights A, B, & C. I was very surprised when I was put in charge of R Robert, based just out-side what was to become the Radar Office and close to the bomb dump. [italics] (Most of those who served at Lissett will have realised how dangerous that base was.) [/italics] There were differences in some of the Halifaxes – they now had the large oblong shaped tail, apart from that, most of them had radar blisters under neath [sic], but the aircraft I was working on had a blister made of metal and the rear was wide open to the air. It was suggested that it was intended to be a lowerer [sic] gun position, which never materialised. I went on the first flight and when the ‘plane was airborne I crept into the blister and strapped myself in – I’ve never been so frightened, the flight itself was rather bumpy but the air-drag was trying to pull me out of the open blister. Very carefully I undid the strap and held tight-hold of it, at the same time pulling myself into the fuselage. What a relief!
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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
Dennis Raettig's wartime memoir
Description
An account of the resource
Wartime memoir covering Dennis Raettig's training at Blackpool and the posting to 104 Squadron at Royal Air Force Driffield in August 1941. Worked on Wellington aircraft and mentions that Driffield also hosted the blind approach landing flight operating Whitley and Battle aircraft. Tells of his time at Driffield including an attempt to deploy to Malta and deployment to RAF Pocklington during the winter. Notes that the squadron change number to 158 Squadron in February 1942. Relates training at RAF Leeming for squadrons eventual change to Halifax aircraft and preparations for the 1000 bomber operation on Cologne in May 1942 as well as the last Wellington operations shortly after. Goes on to tell of his time at RAF East Moor now with Halifax. with some anecdotal stories as well as relating story of a test flight and an abortive trip to RAF Harwell to prepare Halifax for glider towing. Describes another special operation trip to the south coast with problems with getting fuel for the aircraft. Talks of move to RAF Rufforth and describes routine as well as describing witnessing 'his' aircraft crashing on take off and its effect on him as the worst day of his life. Finally relates move to RAF Lisset.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
D W Raettig
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Seven page printed document with illustrations
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BReattigDWRaettigDWv1
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Oxfordshire
England--Yorkshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1941-01
1941-08
1942-02
1942-05-30
1943
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
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Tricia Marshall
David Bloomfield
104 Squadron
158 Squadron
4 Group
animal
B-24
Battle
bombing
bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942)
crash
fuelling
ground crew
ground personnel
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
incendiary device
mechanics engine
military living conditions
military service conditions
RAF Driffield
RAF East Moor
RAF Harwell
RAF Leeming
RAF Lissett
RAF Pocklington
RAF Rufforth
runway
service vehicle
take-off crash
tractor
training
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/319/8272/ERaettigDRaettigDW410818-0001.2.jpg
d0e42944bcd55c7c810fff5fdfff3943
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/319/8272/ERaettigDRaettigDW410818-0002.2.jpg
13929016a331580a5df4ed9fe6e7146f
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
Raettig, Dennis
Dennis William Raettig
Dennis W Raettig
D W Raettig
D Raettig
Description
An account of the resource
72 items. The collection concerns the wartime service of Leading Aircraftman Dennis William Raettig (b. 1920, 1136657 Royal Air Force). Joining the Royal Air Force reserve in 1941 he trained as a flight mechanic (Engines) before being posted to 104 Squadron (Wellingtons) at RAF Driffield. This squadron number was later changed to 158 Squadron flying Halifax at RAF East Moor, followed by moves to RAF Rufford and Lisset. The collection consists of a memoir, correspondence with family and acquaintances, family history, service and personal documentation, lucky charms,personal items, cap, boots, squadron tie, research on bombing in Hull as well as photographs of air and ground crew and aircraft. It also includes an oral history interview with Joan Raettig (Dennis Raettig's wife).
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Sue Burn and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-23
2016-07-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Raettig, DW
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] August 18th 1941 [/underlined]
Mr Dear [underlined] Dennis [/underlined]
Thank you for another interesting letter. No we hadn’t heard what damage had been done to Hull until we got your letter although when we heard from Marion she mentioned that there were not many big shops left. Since then we have met a soldier called Jim Hilson who lives in Parkfield Drive & his wife sent him quite a list of the damage done he told us that Robinsons woodwork shop is down so I wonder what they are doing now. I wonder if there was anyone in the shops when they went, maybe some roof watchers. What about Co-op Bank is that still alright, I wonder what they will do if it gets bombed maybe they have got records elsewhere. Do you know if Arthur Cauby has had to join up, his job at Sissons would finish didn’t it. Yes Dennis I am sure you would be pleased to see “Raeville”, I would just love to sleep in my own bed, I do wish we were all safely back again. How was the car looking, do you think it will be ruined. Yes I too am sorry Fields Octagon Cafe is gone, the first time I [deleted] was [/deleted] saw Daddy was in there, still most of the places
[page break]
you mention wouldn’t have many people in at the time. I haven’t heard from M[underlined]rs[/underlined] Johnson yet maybe her letter got lost. I had a letter from Jack he had been spending a week-end with Auntie Eva. Things are not at all comfy here having air raids or alarms every night so I am going for a holiday to get a rest I shall not go far away so I will be able to see Daddy sometimes. I don’t want to leave Daddy but he gets a bit worried about me. How much are you weighing now Dennis, I got weighed again & I am 8st 1lb 5oz, Daddy keeps telling me that my sons wont [sic] know me when I come home but I can see where I have got fat maybe my bones are a bit better covered that is all. We are looking forward to getting those Airgraph letters now we have heard that you are able to send them. Jack said in his letter that one week he had not enough money to buy a stamp to send us a letter, well now they will cost you a bit more with the Airgraphs so how about sending Max & Jack 4 or 6 stamps a month out of Raeville money & take the same yourself I keep wondering if you arranged about paying Daddy’s Trinity House Fund. Is Marjory D. still doing the same job. I told you didn’t I that Daddy has got a Spaniel dog, Daddy brushes here [sic] every day & she looks very nice, if she has some pups before we come home I would realy [sic] feel like bring [sic] one home, but no other dog takes Micks place with me. Keep writing Dennis & lets [sic] us have the news if I go away Daddy will forward the letters on to me. Has Uncle Fred got quite better again, does he like being at Raeville’ better than Eleanors. It is lunch time now. Remember me to all our friends. Hope you are keeping well
Much Love
[underlined] Mother [/underlined]
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
Letter to Dennis Raettig from his mother
Description
An account of the resource
Writes about stories of damage to Hull in bombing related by him and other acquaintances. Enquires about other people and relates some family news. Mentions that things are not comfy at her location due to bombing but she wished to stay with her husband. Talks about cost of postage and sending of stamps. Notes that they have acquired a spaniel dog.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Mrs Raettig
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-08-18
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Tow page handwritten document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ERaettigDRaettigDW410818
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-08-18
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
England--Yorkshire
England--Hull
Great Britain
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
David Bloomfield
animal
bombing
home front
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/769/9250/EDexterKIDexterPC410810-0001.1.jpg
afa8bb0aedf55c5549fd43e15be34158
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/769/9250/EDexterKIDexterPC410810-0002.1.jpg
68446436563889837dbffc3697fef923
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
Dexter, Keith Inger
Dexter, Dec
K I Dexter
Description
An account of the resource
33 items. The collection concerns Flying Officer Keith Dexter (1911 - 1943, 127249, 1387607 Royal Air Force ), a policeman before the war, he flew as a pilot with 103 Squadron at RAF Elsham Wolds. He was shot down and killed with all his crew on 16/17 June 1943 on operations against Cologne. Collection contains a dozen letters from 'Dec' Dexter to Phyllis Dexter,There is an extract from the 103 Squadron Operational Record Book on the loss of his aircraft and crew, maps of where his aircraft crashed, official Royal Air Force personnel records, Netherlands official documents, document about his aircraft as well as a photograph of a Lancaster over Lincoln and a crew. There are photographs of his grave as well as a group of people, including Keith Dexter being interviewed as a pilot trainee by the BBC at RAF Hatfield. There are two detailed daily diaries covering his time in the Royal Air Force from from 3 April 1941 to June 1943 which relate activities while training and on operations. There are some memorabilia, a photograph of a Lancaster over Lincoln, a painting, and an <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/770">album</a>. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Lieutenant Colonel Monty Dexter-Banks and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.<br /><br />Additional information on Keith Inger Dexter is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/106139/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-08-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Dexter, KI
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
1387607 Cadet Dexter K. I.
‘C’ Flight No.2 Squadron.
No.1 I.T.W. R.A.F.
Babbacombe.
Torquay.
10 8/41. Devon.
Dear Phyl.
Here’s my new address for how long I don’t know. I hope you got my message on Saturday – I just had time to hop along grapple with my clothing and dash back without even wrapping up my undies! We left at 12 noon and got down here in the afternoon. We’re in hotels practically overlooking the sea just outside Torquay. Beds – sheets – good grub and plenty of time to eat it. If it wasn’t for damned hard work we’d be just set for a seaside holiday!
[page break]
I’m sorry I didn’t take the socks (sox) because they fealt [sic] so wet so could you send them on with my shirt as soon as the laundry return it. Also could you collect my photos from Pelling & Gross when they’re ready and send them on – I’ll let you have the dough.
It was nice to see Con & you I do hope Con wasn’t too upset on Friday. I’ve just written a quick note to her to give her my address and wish her luck with the cottage, I’m going to try and see uncle (blooming) Billy today and if there’s half a chance I’ll get them to have Con for a few days. I’m sure the sea air would do her good.
Cheerio for the present
All the best
Dex.
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
Letter from Dec Dexter to Phyllis
Description
An account of the resource
Letter from Cadet Dexter to Phyl giving his new address at initial training wing, Babbacombe, Devon. Describes his hasty preparations, before leaving home, items left behind to be sent on, concerns of the welfare of another female friend, standards of accommodation and food experienced since his arrival.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Keith Dexter
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-08-10
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EDexterKIDexterPC410810
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Devon
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-08
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
David Bloomfield
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Initial Training Wing
military living conditions
military service conditions
RAF Torquay
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/769/9253/EDexterKIDexterPC410819.1.pdf
61dd854cff5364a71ed5d14573734133
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
Dexter, Keith Inger
Dexter, Dec
K I Dexter
Description
An account of the resource
33 items. The collection concerns Flying Officer Keith Dexter (1911 - 1943, 127249, 1387607 Royal Air Force ), a policeman before the war, he flew as a pilot with 103 Squadron at RAF Elsham Wolds. He was shot down and killed with all his crew on 16/17 June 1943 on operations against Cologne. Collection contains a dozen letters from 'Dec' Dexter to Phyllis Dexter,There is an extract from the 103 Squadron Operational Record Book on the loss of his aircraft and crew, maps of where his aircraft crashed, official Royal Air Force personnel records, Netherlands official documents, document about his aircraft as well as a photograph of a Lancaster over Lincoln and a crew. There are photographs of his grave as well as a group of people, including Keith Dexter being interviewed as a pilot trainee by the BBC at RAF Hatfield. There are two detailed daily diaries covering his time in the Royal Air Force from from 3 April 1941 to June 1943 which relate activities while training and on operations. There are some memorabilia, a photograph of a Lancaster over Lincoln, a painting, and an <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/770">album</a>. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Lieutenant Colonel Monty Dexter-Banks and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.<br /><br />Additional information on Keith Inger Dexter is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/106139/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-08-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Dexter, KI
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[postmark]
[postage stamp]
Miss P.C, Dexter
61 Branwin Court.
St John’s Wood.
N.W.8 London.
[page break]
1387607 Cadet Dexter K.I.
‘C’ Flight – No 2 Squadron.
No 1 I.T.W. R.A.F.
Babbacombe
Torquay
19 8/41
My dear Phyl.
Very many thanks for the two parcels I’m awfully sorry to be such a nuisance but think I’ve got most things now! I’m enclosing a cheque in lieu of the £1/5/7 which will have to go thro’ my bank as it was intended to go towards the Gas a/c for 77 N.E. Hse which I think came through just before I left London.
Had a letter from Con the other day saying that Silk had not moved out on Monday when Arthur went round to take possession. The mother-in-law was in command
[page break]
and apparently the [indecipherable word] was on the other [indecipherable word] & she was in a pretty useful dither saying that her daughter was still in bed and that they would be out by Saturday when they could get digs in Haverhill. Arthur finally got her to swear “on her [indecipherable word] that this was so and gave her till Saturday! I would have given her one hour precisely! However Arthur went to see [indecipherable name] the landlord and he has withdrawn his mother and is quite prepared to accept Con as the proper tenant in Arthur’s place – renting the cottage direct from him. In view of the way he’s handled Silk I think it’s best. Seems terrified that there would have been a row. Still with mother as the tenant Silk can’t stay 5 minutes because Arthur has no say in the matter so
[page break]
expect it’s all right this time. Con also tells me that some bombs dropped nearby and killed a woman [inserted] standing [/inserted] near her cottage door – do hope Con will be all right. I’ve told her that I for one will be much happier if she had someone with her. Anyway Con can always let to someone from the aerodrome and go away for a bit. I’m rather glad [indecipherable name] has let it direct.
There isn’t much news we’re still at work and start some exams next week. Saw Uncle Billy on Sunday but nothing was said! I took along three other blokes in my room so there wasn’t a lot of opportunity. I’ve a good mind to ask direct as you say but it would be a rotten snub if they said No – rather
[page break]
like that business with the £100 overdraft.
Con tells me Cheeky is as pleasing as ever and lets Con bath him now. Glad [two indecipherable words] well given him a gentle stroking for me. My love to Nora when you see her hope [indecipherable name] job is secured now. I should like to see those photos when you have time there’s some of [deleted] 29 [/deleted] [inserted] 77 [/inserted] on that reel – so do try & pop in for them. Let me know how much it comes to.
Do hope you’re all right and happy in your flat.
Drop me a line when you feel like it.
All the best – love to your brother
Dec.
P.S. I’ve put on a bob or so for postage.
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
Letter from Dec Dexter to Pyllis Dexter
Description
An account of the resource
Thanks Phyl for parcels and states money sent. Writes about accommodation difficulties for family member. Notes bombs dropped nearby to home. Talks briefly about work at initial training wing and then catches up with family and friends.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Keith Dexter
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-08-19
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EDexterKIDexterPC410819
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
England--Devon
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-08
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
David Bloomfield
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four page handwritten letter and envelope
Initial Training Wing
military service conditions
RAF Torquay
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/769/9256/EDexterKIDexterPC410830.1.pdf
a55c927c6e58e10dcf24bf82ddb5fa16
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
Dexter, Keith Inger
Dexter, Dec
K I Dexter
Description
An account of the resource
33 items. The collection concerns Flying Officer Keith Dexter (1911 - 1943, 127249, 1387607 Royal Air Force ), a policeman before the war, he flew as a pilot with 103 Squadron at RAF Elsham Wolds. He was shot down and killed with all his crew on 16/17 June 1943 on operations against Cologne. Collection contains a dozen letters from 'Dec' Dexter to Phyllis Dexter,There is an extract from the 103 Squadron Operational Record Book on the loss of his aircraft and crew, maps of where his aircraft crashed, official Royal Air Force personnel records, Netherlands official documents, document about his aircraft as well as a photograph of a Lancaster over Lincoln and a crew. There are photographs of his grave as well as a group of people, including Keith Dexter being interviewed as a pilot trainee by the BBC at RAF Hatfield. There are two detailed daily diaries covering his time in the Royal Air Force from from 3 April 1941 to June 1943 which relate activities while training and on operations. There are some memorabilia, a photograph of a Lancaster over Lincoln, a painting, and an <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/770">album</a>. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Lieutenant Colonel Monty Dexter-Banks and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.<br /><br />Additional information on Keith Inger Dexter is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/106139/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-08-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Dexter, KI
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[postmark]
[postage stamps]
Miss Phyllis Dexter
61 Branwen Court,
ST John’s Wood,
London N.W.8
[page break]
[Royal Air Force Crest]
[page break]
1387607 Cadet Dexter K.I
‘c’ Flight No 2 Squadron.
No 1 I.T.W. R.A.F.
Babbacombe.
Torquay.
30/8/41
My dear Phyl.
Just a short note indeed to thank you for the snaps and ask you to get a copy for yourself of those of 77. I enclose the negatives & a cheque for 6/- to cover the cost.
The “awful child” is Patrick Cole – Charlie’s effort he’s really a jolly little lad.
Matt’s O.K. I think now a navigator which is damned interesting.
Excuse short letter. Glad you’re all right. The compensation folk have
[page break]
offered to pay for all the cost of removal except the bath & the carpet sweeper £13 in all which I think quite reasonable – don’t you? Also [indecipherable word] Flats have accepted my notice to leave as from 1st August. so everything is settling down slowly.
Heaps of regards to home & Libby
All the best – Love.
[underlined] Dec ][/underlined].
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
Letter from Dec Dexter to Phyllis Dexter
Description
An account of the resource
Catching up with family and friends, money and accommodation.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Keith Dexter
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-08-30
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EDexterKIDexterPC410830
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
England--Devon
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-08
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
David Bloomfield
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page handwritten letter and envelope
RAF Torquay
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/787/9358/LMaltbyDJH60335v1.2.pdf
b23af7b66c08924d51d2b516d0b72ec7
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
Maltby, David John Hatfeild
D J H Maltby
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. The collection concerns Squadron Leader David John Hatfeild Maltby DSO, DFC (1920 - 1943, 60335 Royal Air Force) and consists of his pilot's flying log book and documents. David Maltby completed a tour operations as a pilot in Hampdens, Manchester and Lancasters with 106 and 97 Squadrons at RAF Coningsby before being posted to 617 Squadron at RAF Scampton. He successfully attacked the Möhne Dam in May 1943. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by the Maltby Family and catalogued by Barry Hunter.<br /><br />Additional information on David John Hatfeild Maltby is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/114788/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-09-20
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Maltby, DJH
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
David Maltby's pilot's flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Royal Air Force pilot's flying log book for Squadron Leader David Maltby covering the period from 20 August 1940 to 13 September 1943. Detailing his flying training and operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Uxbridge, RAF Paignton, RAF Anstey, RAF Grantham, RAF Cranage, RAF Upper Heyford, RAF Coningsby, RAF Wigsley, RAF Dunholme, RAF Fulbeck and RAF Scampton. Aircraft flown were, Tiger Moth, Anson, Oxford, Hampden, Manchester and Lancaster. He flew a total of 32 night operations, 5 with 106 Squadron, 23 with 97 Squadron and 4 with 617 Squadron. Targets in Denmark, Germany, and Italy and Norway were Duisberg, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Kiel, Karlsruhe, Essen, Magdeberg, Hamburg, Heligoland, Trondheim, Stuttgart, Warnermund, Copenhagen, Mannheim, Sassnitz, Möhne Dam, San Polo D’Enza, Leghorn and Milan. He flew as a second pilot on operations with Flight Lieutenant Coton. He was killed returning from an aborted operation to the Dortmund Ems Canal 14/15 September 1943.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LMaltbyDJH60335v1
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1942
1943
1941-06-11
1941-06-12
1941-06-15
1941-06-16
1941-06-18
1941-06-19
1941-06-21
1941-06-22
1941-06-24
1941-06-25
1941-08-02
1941-08-03
1941-08-05
1941-08-06
1941-08-07
1941-08-08
1941-08-12
1941-08-13
1941-08-16
1941-08-17
1941-08-18
1941-08-19
1941-10-23
1941-10-24
1941-10-26
1941-10-27
1941-10-31
1941-11-01
1941-11-07
1941-11-08
1941-11-15
1941-11-16
1942-04-08
1942-04-09
1942-04-27
1942-04-28
1942-04-29
1942-05-04
1942-05-05
1942-05-07
1942-05-08
1942-05-09
1942-05-16
1942-05-17
1942-05-19
1942-05-20
1942-05-22
1942-05-23
1942-05-26
1942-05-27
1942-06-08
1942-06-09
1943-05-16
1943-05-17
1943-07-15
1943-07-16
1943-07-24
1943-07-25
1943-07-29
1943-07-30
1943-09-15
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Denmark
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Norway
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Denmark--Copenhagen
England--Cheshire
England--Devon
England--Lincolnshire
England--London
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Oxfordshire
England--Shropshire
England--Warwickshire
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Helgoland
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Sassnitz
Italy--Livorno
Italy--Milan
Italy--San Polo d'Enza
Norway--Trondheim
Italy--Po River Valley
Germany--Möhne River Dam
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
106 Squadron
16 OTU
1654 HCU
617 Squadron
97 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing
Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943)
Flying Training School
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
Hampden
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
killed in action
Lancaster
Manchester
mine laying
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Ansty
RAF Coningsby
RAF Cranage
RAF Dunholme Lodge
RAF Fulbeck
RAF Grantham
RAF Paignton
RAF Scampton
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Uxbridge
RAF Wigsley
Tiger Moth
Tirpitz
training
-
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fb02a9952cf3b6ca8d0fea3336a8a115
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/169/10296/OHowardI19250926-170330-080003.2.jpg
a712333cef03dba00c550fc711794d60
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
Howard, Irene
I Howard
Description
An account of the resource
31 Items. An oral history interview with Irene Howard née Green (1925 - 2018), Civil Defence Warden Service and war damage compensation documents, identity cards and ration books as well as various Christmas greetings and photographs of family. She worked in a factory in Manchester during the war and as an Air Raid Precaution Warden. Her house was bombed in December 1940.
The collection was donated by Irene Howard and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Howard, I
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-12
2017-03-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
C.P.No 11-10.WD
[underlined] ASSISTANCE BOARD [/underlined]
COMPENSATION FOR WAR DAMAGE
Mrs SG Green
The Assistance Board are empowered to make advances against compensation for damage to clothing and furniture, and the following payment is being made to you to cover [italics] immediate needs only:-[/italics]
Clothing £2
Furniture £5
Coupons 30
15/8/41
In order to deal further with your claim the Board will have to investigate the damage and possibly have it valued. If in the meantime you need a further advance for essential clothing or furniture and you are still living in the same district , you should call at or write to :-
The Area Office, Assistance Board, Warwick House, Ashton Lane, Sale, Cheshire.
[deleted] Trafford Bar, School Buildings, Regent Street, Chorlton-On-Medlock, Manchester, 13 [/deleted]
And or show this notice.
If you have moved to another district, you should call at or write to the Area Office of the Assistance Board nearest to your new address and show or send this notice. If you so not know where this office is, ask the Post Office.
W.D.3
1st advance 27-12-40 £6 Clothing
2nd advance 18.3.41 £15 Furniture, £8 Clothing
[Page Break]
3.
PC. Balance Pre Act.
WAR DAMAMGE ACT, 1941 (Part II)
PRIVATE CHATTELS
INSURANCE & COMPANIES DEPARTMENT
BOARD OF TRADE, ROMNEY HOUSE, EAST
TUFFTON STREET, LONON, S.W.1.
Ref. PCS KB4674
Date 1.5.42
Claimant Sarah A. Green
For loss at 10, Tarbuck St., Salford, 5 on the 22.12.40
£88 :-:- Assesses MOUNT OF DAMAGE.
£41 :-:- Granted for distress or hardship.
£ - :-:- Premium deducted.
£47 :-:- Balance deferred.
SIR/MADAM,
I am directed by the Board of Trade to inform you that the sum described above as balance deferred is the amount payable by them in respect of the above loss. Payment of the balance will be deferred and interest at the rate of 2 ½ per cent. Per annum will accrue on the balance from the occurrence of the damage until such time as payment is made.
[deleted] A deduction from the amount of your claim as assessed has been made in lieu of insurance premium on the basis shown below.
You are requested to sign and return the attached form of acceptance. [/deleted]
I am, Sir/Madam,
Your obedient Servant,
GERSHOM W.DAVIES
1 per sent on the first £2,000
1 ½ per cent on the next £1,000
2 per cent on the next £7,000
[Page Break]
RES PGS KB4674
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
War damage documents
Description
An account of the resource
Page 1. Assistance Board making advanced payment to cover immediate needs only of £2 for clothing and £5 for furniture on 15 August 1941. Advice if further help required. Annotated at the bottom '1st advance £6 clothing 27 December 1940, 2nd advance 18 March 1941 £15 furniture and £8 clothing. Page 2 - War Damage Act 1941 Part 1 - to Sarah A Green for loss of 10 Tarbuck Street Salford on 22 December 1940 total amount £47. On the reverse - annotated 'REF PCS KB4674'.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Assistance Board
Gershom W Davis
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1942-05
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page printed document with handwritten annotation on reverse of page 2
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
OHowardI19250926-170330-08
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Salford (Greater Manchester)
England--Lancashire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940-12-22
1941-08-15
1940-12-27
1941-03-18
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Claire Monk
bombing
home front
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/990/10661/EMatthewsJWStevensP410823-01.2.jpg
ca2645cc07a6a37b37d14646f50c2c20
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/990/10661/EMatthewsJWStevensP410823-02.2.jpg
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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
Stevens, Peter
Peter Stevens
P Stevens
Georg Franz Hein
Description
An account of the resource
Eleven items. The collection concerns Squadron Leader Peter Stevens, Military Cross, (1919 - 1979, Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, letters and photographs. Originally called Georg Franz Hein, a German Jew, he was sent to Great Britain by his mother in 1934. He attended school in England and when war was declared he assumed the name of Peter Stevens, a deceased school friend. He joined the Air Force and flew operations as a pilot with 144 Squadron before crash landing his Hampden at Amsterdam in September 1941 and becoming a prisoner of war. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Marc Stevens and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. This collection was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.<br />
<p>This collection also contains items concerning Ivor Fraser. Additional information on Ivor Fraser is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/108075/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.</p>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-09
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Stevens, MH
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
51a. Queen Str.
Aspatria.
[underlined] Carlisle [/underlined]
23/8/41
Dear Mr. Stevens.
My son, John Mathews has expressed such admiration for you in his letters, for the masterly way you brought your ‘plane and Crew back safely from Op’s on the night of the 6th. Aug., that I feel I must congrqatulate you on a great performance.
After such an eventful trip to land without an undercarriage was really wonderful.
John says it is entirely due to you that he is still here. My wife & I
[page break]
warmly thank you.
I am very sorry that all the crew did not come through unscathed, and I sincerely hope they may all soon recover from their wounds.
I understand they are all making good progress: John expects to be out of hospital this week.
He informs me you are back on Op’s again, and expresses the wish that he may soon rejoin you.
Wishing you the best of luck Always.
I am,
Yours Sincerely,
J.W. Mathews
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
Letter from John Matthews’ father to P Stevens
Description
An account of the resource
Letter thanks Peter Stevens for the masterly way he brought his aircraft and crew back from operation on 6 August 1941, and as a result saved his son's life.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
J W Mathews
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-08-23
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EMatthewsJWStevensP410823
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cumbria
England--Carlisle
England--Cumberland
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-08-06
1941-08-23
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Steve Baldwin
forced landing
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/990/10662/EStevensPMatthewsJ410826-01.1.jpg
7b1df35ec4a6fcb75deef825ed48ede2
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/990/10662/EStevensPMatthewsJ410826-02.1.jpg
47362a45bec2ca3c1de78c4030d0cd37
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
Stevens, Peter
Peter Stevens
P Stevens
Georg Franz Hein
Description
An account of the resource
Eleven items. The collection concerns Squadron Leader Peter Stevens, Military Cross, (1919 - 1979, Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, letters and photographs. Originally called Georg Franz Hein, a German Jew, he was sent to Great Britain by his mother in 1934. He attended school in England and when war was declared he assumed the name of Peter Stevens, a deceased school friend. He joined the Air Force and flew operations as a pilot with 144 Squadron before crash landing his Hampden at Amsterdam in September 1941 and becoming a prisoner of war. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Marc Stevens and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. This collection was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.<br />
<p>This collection also contains items concerning Ivor Fraser. Additional information on Ivor Fraser is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/108075/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.</p>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-09
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Stevens, MH
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[Royal Air Force Crest]
ROYAL AIR FORCE STATION,
NORTH LUFFENHAM,
OAKHAM,
RUTLAND
Aug. 26th 1941.
Dear Mr Matthews,
Thank you very much indeed for your very kind lines. In reply I can only say how proud I was to have John in my crew and I am looking forward to flying with him again when he returns from his
[page break]
sick-leave.
Your son, just like the rest of us in the crew, did his utmost and made our safe return possible. Fortunately his injuries were not of a very serious nature and he was able to render some most valuable assistance without which I think our return would have been very doubtful.
I went to collect him from the
[page break]
hospital last Sunday, and I believe he is with you when this reaches you. Please give him my kind regards + tell him I am looking forward to seeing him back again fighting fit.
With my best wishes, I remain,
Yours sincerely,
Peter Stevens.
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
Letter to Mr Mathews from Peter Stevens
Description
An account of the resource
Thanks Mr Mathews for his letter and says how proud he was of Mr Mathews son John and the rest of the crew for their work in getting their aircraft safely home. He is looking forward to flying with him again when he returns from sick leave. He was glad that John's injuries were not serious.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Peter Stevens
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-08-26
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EStevensPMatthewsJ410826
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Rutland
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-08-26
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Claire Monk
RAF North Luffenham
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/990/10664/LStevensP[Ser -DoB]v1.pdf
ce4571997f357bda766cc396afcc503e
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
Stevens, Peter
Peter Stevens
P Stevens
Georg Franz Hein
Description
An account of the resource
Eleven items. The collection concerns Squadron Leader Peter Stevens, Military Cross, (1919 - 1979, Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, letters and photographs. Originally called Georg Franz Hein, a German Jew, he was sent to Great Britain by his mother in 1934. He attended school in England and when war was declared he assumed the name of Peter Stevens, a deceased school friend. He joined the Air Force and flew operations as a pilot with 144 Squadron before crash landing his Hampden at Amsterdam in September 1941 and becoming a prisoner of war. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Marc Stevens and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. This collection was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.<br />
<p>This collection also contains items concerning Ivor Fraser. Additional information on Ivor Fraser is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/108075/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.</p>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-09
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Stevens, MH
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
Peter Stevens' pilot's flying log book
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book for Peter Stevens, covering the period from 6 June 1940 to 7 September 1941 when he was taken prisoner of war and then from 26 July 1945 to 22 January 1947 and from 28 September 1952 to 19 September 1953. Detailing his flying training, operations flown, instructor duties and post war flying. He was stationed at RAF Hamble, RAF Watchfield, RAF Ansty, RAF Shawbury, RAF Cranage, RAF Upper Heyford, RAF Hemswell, RAF Cottesmore, RAF North Luffenham. RAF Gatow, RCAF St Hubert. Aircraft flown were, Avro Cadet, Tiger Moth, Oxford, Anson, Hampden and Harvard. He flew a total of 24 night time operations with 144 squadron, until his aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire and he crash landed near Amsterdam. One of the crew was killed and the other three taken prisoner of war. Targets were Wangeroog, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Duisberg, Osnabruck, Hannover, Frankfurt, Karlsruhe, Mannheim, Brest and Berlin. <span>He flew as a second pilot on operations with</span> Pilot Officer Roake, Flight Lieutenant Rawlins and Sergeant Gibson. Following repatriation he joined Station Flight at RAF Gatow and then joined 401 Auxiliary squadron RCAF. This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LStevensP[Ser#-DoB]v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
France
Germany
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Cheshire
England--Hampshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Oxfordshire
England--Rutland
England--Shropshire
England--Wiltshire
France--Brest
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--East Frisian Islands
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Osnabrück
Québec--Saint-Hubert (Chambly)
Germany--Duisburg
Québec
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1945
1947
1952
1953
1941-04-03
1941-04-04
1941-04-07
1941-04-08
1941-04-09
1941-04-10
1941-04-11
1941-04-23
1941-04-24
1941-04-25
1941-04-26
1941-05-03
1941-05-04
1941-05-05
1941-05-06
1941-06-17
1941-06-18
1941-06-20
1941-06-23
1941-06-24
1941-07-02
1941-07-03
1941-07-05
1941-07-06
1941-07-14
1941-07-15
1941-07-19
1941-07-20
1941-07-22
1941-07-23
1941-07-30
1941-07-31
1941-08-06
1941-08-07
1941-08-25
1941-08-26
1941-08-27
1941-08-28
1941-08-29
1941-08-30
1941-09-01
1941-09-02
1941-09-03
1941-09-04
1941-09-07
1941-09-08
14 OTU
144 Squadron
16 OTU
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
Flying Training School
forced landing
Hampden
Harvard
mine laying
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
prisoner of war
RAF Ansty
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Cranage
RAF Hemswell
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Shawbury
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Watchfield
shot down
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1005/10746/AColbeckJC170524.1.mp3
523a16a235ce2e945b8a2efc683102c5
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
Wenham, John
J Wenham
Description
An account of the resource
46 items. An oral history interview with Joy Colbeck (b. 1923) about her brother John Wenham (1925 - 1945, 1894709 Royal Air Force) documents and a family photograph album. He flew as an air gunner but was killed in a training accident 4 January 1945. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Joy Colbeck and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle. <br /><br />Additional information on John Wenham is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/124831/ ">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-05-24
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Wenham, J
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CB: My name Is Chris Brockbank and today is the 24th of May 2017 and I am in Luton with Joy Colbeck and we’re going to talk about initially Joy’s experience in the war in the Royal Navy as a Wren but principally we’re talking about the experience of her younger brother who was killed on a training flight in the RAF and, in a crash near North Marston near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. So, Joy, what are your earliest recollections of early life?
JC: Well, I think it was recollections were moving house. I remember the house I was born in and my brother was born in. When we were about six or seven we moved to the next road to a slightly bigger house.
CB: In Maidstone.
JC: In Maidstone. All the time my father was a second in command in the grocery shop to Mr Henry Topley, his partner. And my father was, ran the business by his hard work. Mr Topley used to wear a top hat, stand outside and take the customers to the pay desk etcetera but, but my father was the one who drove the van, and he went to all the biggest houses in our part of Kent. Castles. Boarding schools. Had to pick, to pick up the orders from the cookhouse keepers, take them back to the shop, and a fortnight later my father would drive the van and deliver them back to the big houses before all, all mass buying. And so my brother, my brother never seemed to be part of this performance because he was always two years younger than me if you know what I mean. He, he took second, played second fiddle really. He [pause] I don’t remember him. He was a Boy Scout and all the way up and on, on the, we have a photograph here of his War Memorial, my brother’s death, in the Scout camp next to Guy Gibson who was a friend of Scout Master and practicing for the —
CB: The dam’s raid.
JC: The dams.
CB: Yes.
JC: On the Scout master’s lake. In his garden. But that’s beside the point but my brother was, he did it. He, my brother for some reason and we never know, we never got to the end he, he could not read. Now, we find this, I find this extremely difficult. He was [pause] I had left school and had been to secretarial college and was working at County Hall when my brother left school, because the school became a hospital and we were in a war zone. Whatever’s the word. Not war zone, is it? It was [pause] that we were in, it was, yeah, I suppose you’d say it was a war zone in England really, and was treated as such. My father was the chief air raid warden so he knew what was going on. And my brother just got on his bicycle and followed every Spitfire that was shot down and every German plane that was shot down. That was his whole interest in life that I remember. When I used to come home from work we used to say, ‘What have you got hold of today?’ And it was a bit of plastic or something which they all sat down, this little group of boys and made a little cottage out of the, out of the plastic windows. And he didn’t have a lot of friends and when, when his school closed my mother was so worried. He was in elementary school. He couldn’t pass any grammar school at all. And his reading and writing was extremely bad, but of course nobody took much notice of it and we wondered if he was dyslexic would he have been discovered by the RAF? How on earth did he become a bomber when he couldn’t read when he was thirteen?
CB: Extraordinary.
JC: I don’t know. Nobody ever mentions it. But he was, he was a nice boy. He was a lovely boy. People liked him but he, he didn’t shine. He didn’t shine at anything. So when he left school it would have been [pause] 1941 I suppose. I was seventeen in 1941. ’42, the school would have closed and my mother just had a tutor for him and my father got him a job in the brewery next to the shop, the grocery shop. Style and Winch’s brewery. And he worked in the lab washing bottles I suppose. But I don’t know. I’ve got a big gap because I wasn’t there.
CB: So, at seventeen what did you do?
JC: At seventeen I volunteered for the Wrens.
CB: Right.
JC: I left my job at County Hall and was supposed to go in the Wrens with my best friend who as soon as we got to London said she didn’t want to go and she became a Land Girl and I became a Wren. And they put me, I had no preliminary war training whatsoever. They sent me a letter saying, and a railway ticket to report to [pause] I was just going to say Paddington. It wasn’t Paddington. To the, to go to Lowestoft to report to HMS Minos as a writer to the captain. A writer meaning a shorthand typist but the rank is writer [pause] and I wasn’t welcomed. I was the first Wren and they didn’t want me because they were regular sailors. They weren’t service, there was no conscription in to the Navy at that time so they didn’t really want the Wrens but they got them. And so by the time I would get home on a weekend’s leave all the way by train across London and back by train down to Kent there wasn’t much left of a forty eight Wren’s pass getting there, and I didn’t see a lot of my brother. All I got was that he was working at Style and Winches. He was doing quite well in, in the brewery section and the next thing was that he had volunteered. He volunteered. He wasn’t conscripted. Volunteered for the RAF. And I think I only saw him two or three times after that. I, I’m trying to think how many times I saw him back. Not a lot.
[telephone ringing]
CB: I’ll just stop there.
[recording paused]
JC: And of course then we got, we got, I got shifted from up in Norfolk back down in to London to HMS Pembroke which is all the Wrens working in London. Whitehall. And I stayed there until I went to Westcliff on Sea which was a holding base for sailors waiting for Dunkirk, not Dunkirk, for D-Day. But I spent nearly two years in London.
CB: What were you doing in London?
[pause]
CB: What were you doing in London?
JC: Well, I just worked in in offices. Office job. And —
CB: Secretarial.
JC: I also, I did one interesting thing. I, because I had worked very hard on the setting up this, I’d been promoted to leading Wren and I was working very hard on the setting up of this holding camp and we had a lot of rather important people on the staff there. And we, the whole of Westcliff on Sea Promenade and the roads adjacent to the Promenade were requisitioned as a block and the civilians were moved off. It was mostly holidays. Small hotels. Private hotels. So it wasn’t difficult but the whole lot moved off and we moved, the Navy moved in and there were four thousand sailors and about four hundred Wrens.
Other: You had your choice ma.
JC: And then I worked very hard. Very, very hard because I worked for a wonderful woman called First Officer Bowen-Jones who was quite a high up ranking officer in the Wrens and she used to push, give me lots of difficult jobs to do. And one day she called me in and she said, ‘You’ve worked very hard. I want to send you on special duties.’ And she said, she’d got a lovely smile and she said, ‘You’re going to, maybe you’ll go with Churchill on one of his ventures abroad, to one of the conferences.’ She said, ‘Go and enjoy it. Report tomorrow to the Admiralty.’ When I got to the Admiralty it was a busy, busy, busy office full of American officers and British Naval officers from all over the world. And they were all [pause] well they would sort of shuffle up. We went on the back of a Land Rover from our billets in in [pause] oh, it was a long time ago. I’ll tell you in a minute. But we assembled at 6 o’clock in our billets. We were taken by Army car to the Admiralty. They had been working all day long deciding which way they’d go. Who’d go, who went and who didn’t. And as soon as we got there at 6 o’clock in the evening, it would be about seven we got there we started and we typed all that the, you know the ships and Naval officers had learned during the day. We typed it during the night on stencils on [reniers], and then we ran them off and we did that for six weeks and we had no time off. And then we were sent back to our posts and told to keep quiet. Not to say where we’d been. Not even to our officers. And we had done the invasion of Sicily and Italy, but in fact we didn’t know it was Sicily and Italy because we didn’t know and they didn’t tell us they were going to go to Italy. They just gave us a map reference along the, along the garden and up the stairs on the, on the grids. It was all done on the grid. And it’s all boring. There you are.
CB: Right. We’ll just take a break.
[recording paused]
JC: You mean one of the AGs ones.
CB: Now, we’re just going to recap quickly on yourself because you had two interesting experiences. One, Joy early on, one experience you had early on was in Lowestoft.
JC: That’s it.
CB: What happened there?
JC: What happened there? It was a Tuesday.
CB: Yeah.
JC: I had every Tuesday off. Worked the rest of the six days. In the mornings we did our washing and sewed on our buttons, etcetera. Well, about half past one the girls, we were, we were billeted in a private hotel in the attic. There were two rooms in the attic either side of the stairs and three of them were occupied over the stairs. They didn’t work, they worked in HMS Minos 2 which was a holding base. I worked in HMS 1, which was a minesweeper base, active service. So, they knocked on the door and said, ‘Are you coming down in to Yeovil, err into Lowestoft for a cup of tea at Waller’s Restaurant because they have cream buns. So I said, ‘Yes. I think so.’ So, they said, ‘Pick you up in half an hour.’ Half an hour later it was snowing. I said, ‘I think I’ve got a cold coming and it means walking both ways to Lowestoft in the snow. I’m not coming.’ And they said, ‘Ok. We’ll go without you.’ I’d been, I decided to have a bath. I was in the bath when the claxon went. We had no air raid warning. The claxon went. Out in the garden. Get in the shelters. Hit and run raids. So we, we just went. Ran down the stairs, out the back door, got in. We’d only just got in the air raid shelter when there was the most enormous explosion and about, we just didn’t know anything about it. About half an hour later the Wren officer on duty said, ‘Wren Wenham,’ that was me, ‘Back to duty.’ So I got dressed in to my uniform and walked in to Lowestoft and the whole of Lowestoft High Street was flattened. And I’ve got a picture. I, I don’t know.
[pause]
CB: Ok. Well, we’ll look at the pictures in a minute.
JC: No, we don’t. Here it is. Here’s my whatnot.
CB: Oh, report.
Other: Yes.
JC: There they are. Digging up twenty years later.
CB: Right.
JC: But, and I went into my office and the captain said that we had to stay on duty because the bomb had fallen on the main supply department and all, all my three, and it had fallen on Waller’s Restaurant next to the Naval supply because we were all in the High Street. So bang on Waller’s and every one, I think there were, seventy were killed. So, I lost my three friends. That was, that was number one.
CB: Right. Very hard.
JC: About three weeks later I was.
CB: This was 1941.
JC: About three weeks later I was machine gunned with two other Wrens walking to our quarters along the cliffs at Lowestoft. We just got down in the, in the whatnot. You had no warnings. So, that was two. I can’t think what the third one was.
CB: Right. So, if we go now towards the end of the war there were the V-1s and V-2s. So what experience did you have?
JC: Oh yes. That was dreadful.
CB: That’s in London.
JC: I, I was, I was at Westcliff. HMS Westcliff. After D-Day they began to get rid of, the numbers went down and the places were closed. We were just a closure. In August, in August 1944 I was promoted to chief, to Wren petty officer and it meant that I had to be moved because there was no, no requirement for a petty officer in there. So I was sent to the Royal Marines at Burnham on Crouch on a single posting as petty, just as what would be called secretary to the Marine’s officers because they had a big Court of Enquiry of, of, to do with the firing of an officer. And I had to go every day and take down in shorthand the doings of the court. I don’t know whether I made a very good job of it because nobody then was interested in, in talking slowly or [laughs] even knowing how to put questions. It was very difficult. And so there I was down in Burnham on Crouch, and every Sunday morning all the Royal Marines assembled outside of the Burnham Yacht Club for Sunday morning divisions. In the middle of the second, second hymn we got this colossal blowing, and we were all flattened on to the roads. Yeah. Onto the ground. Nobody was hit. The thing, the thing exploded up in the air, away up in the air and if it hadn’t exploded we wouldn’t probably have been here I suppose. But that was the third time that and after that I couldn’t sleep. And my posting came to an end and I went to the Royal Naval College at, hospital at Chatham and I was turned out. My husband came to tell me and [pause] I was still packing up my belongings when he came back again and told me that John had died. And —
CB: This is January 1944. Your brother John.
JC: Yes. And my father had phoned my husband who was on duty and he’d been to see the captain who gave him permission to come to Burnham because there was, it was the back of beyond to tell me and take me home. And I went home and, and it was awful really when I got home because my mother and [pause] when, when I was two and a half years old I had double pneumonia, and there was no hospital. I was just, my mother cared for me. My brother was eight months old and John went to stay with my father’s sister for [pause] I’ve no idea but he was certainly away from home for three months. So my mother couldn’t see him. There was, it was a real break and —
[doorbell]
JC: It was a real break. Not very nice I suppose. I don’t know how my mother would have coped to have her baby boy taken away from her. She had to look after me at home. I had pneumonia. Pneumonia for six weeks and my father took me out on my first walk and I cried so much that he kept on walking rather than take me home, and the next day I had pneumonia again. So that, so my brother still stayed with, with Auntie May and she features in this book. So he had a real break in his parenting. I don’t suppose it would have been a very quick cut off when I had pneumonia. I mean the doctor would have come. Our doctor, he came on a horse, on a horse, horseback. Privately. And, and my father took my brother in the van and off he went. So I don’t know what effect that would have had on my brother. It must have broken my mother’s heart I think. She was a wonderful mother wasn’t she?
Other: She was a lovely lady.
JC: Lovely woman.
CB: You said, you said your brother John had difficulty with reading.
JC: Yes.
CB: Did that get linked with that experience?
JC: I don’t know. Of course, he was only eight months old. I don’t [pause] that’s the only time. I know that it was snowing and there was no ambulances available. The doctor and the, and the vicar spent three nights at our house. Did their calls in between. He was very well looked after but —
CB: We’ll just stop there again.
[recording paused]
CB: These are all very important experiences to know in the background but returning to your brother John. Returning to your brother John. He joined the RAF on the 24th err the 28th of April 1943. Well, he attested then but he was only seventeen.
JC: Yes.
CB: He started, according to the records we’ve looked at, at Number 19 ITW on the 5th of February 1944 and shortly after that he was admitted to hospital and then he was temporarily discharged and put into hospital again. He then went to a different Initial Training Wing on the 24th of April 1944 and according to the records he then had been identified as an air gunner and you mentioned his difficulty with reading and so on and it may be that that had some bearing on the selection.
JC: Yes.
CB: Of his position in the aircraft.
JC: Yes.
CB: He then went to Number 1 Air Gunnery School on the 1st of July ’44 and from there in October, the 19th of October 1944 he went to 11 OTU, Operational Training Unit which was at Westcott. Which is the point of our story.
JC: Yes.
CB: And then he was killed in the crash on the 4th.
JC: Yes.
CB: Of January 1945.
JC: Yes.
CB: So my question there is that as you were in the Navy and busy and had little opportunity of finding out what was going on, what do you understand about what he was doing and what your parents knew? What did your —
JC: You mean while he was still training?
CB: While he was in the RAF.
JC: I don’t know. You see it was such a different life. Everybody’s son was in, in the Army, The Navy or the Air Force all of the way around him. If, if you weren’t, if you weren’t in the Forces there was something funny with you and I suppose you had to, I suppose you had to accept that your son or your daughter would go off into the Army. And, take my father, he’d spent four years of his, six years of his youth, of his young life not his youth because he married during his service but they’d all experienced Army life. So it was nothing different in a way. And I think they would have accepted what was going on. That he would join. He would join up but whether they would have ever accepted that he was going to be in the Air Force I don’t know.
CB: Why did he join the RAF?
JC: Why did he join the RAF?
CB: And not the Army or the Navy.
JC: I have no idea. I have no idea.
CB: And did you have any, you saw him rarely but did you have any conversations with him?
JC: No.
CB: About his service.
JC: No. No. I had no, you see I saw so little of him. I wouldn’t like to say how many times I saw him. Definitely not during the previous year to his death did I. I was going to. I told you, it’s in my husband’s diary we were going, I was going to take my husband home to meet my parents on a weekend leave because my husband had, we were already engaged but we were going to go home. Became engaged on my twenty first birthday and so [pause] I, when it came to, it’s just written in some, about the middle of October, November we were going to, my husband was coming to spend the weekend with, and would have slept in my brother’s bed and I was going to join them and I was hit by this bomb, V-2 bomber thing. So I was in [laughs] I couldn’t go to Maidstone. So my husband went by myself to meet my parents.
CB: For the first time.
JC: I think he’d met my mother because he came, he came to my mother at Southend on my twenty first birthday when I was in sick bay for a different reason, and they had given me [pause] He had produced my engagement ring while I was in bed covered in, I had a series of boils, awful things all the way around my neck and I’d had them for about a year, and they were trying to do what they could to get rid of it in the sickbay. But they couldn’t and I was swathed up in all these bandages and my mother came on the train to celebrate my birthday and she met Gerry there and he gave me my engagement ring. There it is. There we are.
CB: Very nice. Yes.
JC: And [pause] so it was, it was so natural in a way. It was happening all the way around him.
CB: And people didn’t talk about what they did in the Forces.
JC: They didn’t talk about it.
CB: They weren’t allowed to, and they didn’t want to.
JC: And they weren’t allowed to. They didn’t have the time. They were so worn out. My father was head of the ARP and they met, we were about the only people who got an air raid, a decent air raid shelter, and we had it because our next door neighbour’s brother built the new County Hall. He was a big builder, and while he was building the big County Hall he dug the hole with his digger of our, of our air raid shelter and he built us a double deck, double brick air raid shelter in our, half in their garden, half in ours. Two doors. We were very posh. We had radio and we had electricity and, but my father came home from work he, we were, we were down there. We, we put our pyjamas on as soon as we came home from work and we went straight down and we had our tea down in the air raid shelter. My mother, of course women didn’t work so my mother, my mother looked after my father and all the people who worked for him. And as soon as my father had had his tea he became the air raid warden. So I mean he didn’t talk about, we didn’t talk about family.
Other: I think the horrors were so bad as well.
JC: Yes.
Other: People didn’t want to dwell on them.
JC: They didn’t want to. They used to say —
Other: They wanted a change in their lives.
JC: My, my brother’s friends, four boys came to Maidstone in 1939 when his father built the A20. Not the M20. The A20 over, over the hill, down into the Weald of Kent and he bought these, his four sons all at school. And my father saw the for sale notice on the house and investigated who was moving in. Met them and said, ‘I’ll be your grocer. I’ll take your cards from you.’
CB: Ration cards.
JC: The [Riccomini] family. I’d love to know what happened to the [Riccomini] boys because as far as I know only the eldest one, who had a cleft palate survived and I think my brother was, was very friendly with the second boy called Geoffrey. And I don’t know what the other two were and I wouldn’t have met them anyway but Geoffrey used to come and play in our garden, and was the same age as my brother. And to think that they could, my father knew the mother and parents. To think that he knew that there was a family losing three and his was one. It was—
Other: I see what you’re saying.
JC: I’m sorry.
CB: Very difficult.
JC: We’re getting off, aren’t we?
CB: Well, it doesn’t matter because the point in the background there is Maidstone is in the front line.
JC: Yes.
CB: Effectively closest almost —
JC: It was.
CB: To the continent.
Other: Well, it’s about —
CB: So to what extent did you suffer air raids there?
Other: [laughs] She was hit by one.
JC: Well, we didn’t really suffer any real damage but we did have an unexploded bomb come through the roof of our detached house and my mother ran. Obviously, it was in the middle of the afternoon. There were no men. My mother, when the men came home from work ran to the ARP post, and said that there was a hole in the roof and they sent, they sent a man, an ARP man to investigate and he went up inside the house on a ladder and he got stuck in the hole. In the, in the, he was a big fat man and he got stuck.
CB: In the loft hatch.
JC: And [laughs] he became [laughs] didn’t he? All our children remembered the second world war was the man who got stuck in the hole. We had, we had behind our house was a place called Vinters Park which was a big private place and was used as a war, as a hospital in the war and their guns came over in to our garden at the back. So we were very close to the, we had every night we slept when we were there. Even when I came home on leave we slept down in the, we had six bunks in our —
CB: In your air raid shelter.
JC: Mr and Mrs Shaw didn’t have any children so there was my mother and brother. We mostly played cards and sent the money to the Red Cross. But we don’t, I don’t remember that we talked about people who’d died that day.
CB: What about these, these were anti-aircraft guns.
JC: The?
CB: Anti-aircraft guns you are talking about are you?
JC: We didn’t meet them.
CB: No. You had anti-aircraft guns next to you.
JC: They were over the field.
CB: Right.
JC: In Vinters Park, and they came over. The men didn’t come into our garden but in 19 — before I joined the Wrens, that was July ’41 Detling Aerodrome which was a mile from our house was bombed by the RAF and obliterated.
CB: By the Germans.
JC: And my father was on duty that night at the top of the road called the Chiltern Hundreds, the public house and he, he had the road closed and they wouldn’t allow anybody to come over the road. Well, about 11 o’clock that night he, my father brought two men to our house. They were soldiers. They were men from the Royal Air Force Defence Regiment. It wasn’t a very, it wasn’t an active, it was [pause] then anyway, they’d come back from a day, they’d come back from holiday leave to find they’d no air, no, no air base left. Not allowed up on the road. My father brought them home and they slept upstairs in my father’s bed that night, and the next morning they went back on duty. And the following night they came and knocked, morning they came and knocked on the door and said, ‘Can we, can we please come and sleep again because we’re frightened.’ And my father said they looked it. And they came for about three weeks and my father said, ‘Yes. You can come and you can sleep in a bedroom in the house in the daytime and you’re to help the men dig the hole and finish off the air raid shelter.’ So these men built our air raid shelter. And that was the only contact we had with, with soldiers.
CB: Yeah.
JC: But they were all the way around us. So my brother must, my brother was down in that air raid shelter every night. Had to be. And they weren’t allowed, boys they weren’t allowed to go off to the cinema in the evening. I mean, you didn’t go out. You went in to the air raid shelter. And what he did I don’t know, apart from the fact that after I left probably somebody else came and borrowed a bed for the night. Any vacant bed was taken up and it was, it was busy. It was really, really busy.
CB: We’ll take a break there.
[recording paused]
JC: My husband.
Other: Just one second.
CB: Right. So where did you meet your husband?
JC: At the Royal Palace Ballroom, Southend on Sea. And it was, I’d been in the Navy then for, I met him on the 28th of April 1944, Saturday night. And it was only the second dance I had been to in the whole of the war and the whole of my service. We seemed to spend all our time working. And so I met my husband at the dance and he asked me for a dance, and I met him then. And he was, he had just arrived at HMS Westcliff. I had been there already since, I think the 4th of September 1942. So I had been there nearly two years. My husband was a year younger than me.
CB: And what did he do? What was he?
JC: He was, he was, he was a sub lieutenant in the Naval Coastal Forces. He tried to be in the RAF VR but he failed one of his. I don’t know which one it was, but he failed one of his tests.
CB: And when were you married?
JC: 31st of March 1945.
CB: Right.
JC: And that was arranged before my brother died and we hadn’t told my brother. That would all have been, I don’t know if, well I suppose of course my husband would have told his future brother in law that wouldn’t he? So my brother must have known, but we didn’t send many letters. I can honestly, I can’t remember sending many letters.
CB: So —
JC: We didn’t send many. Didn’t send many [laughs] we sent food parcels to each other [laughs] but we didn’t send much else.
CB: We’ve talked about the fact that what your brother John was doing that your parents didn’t seem to know about it.
JC: Yes.
CB: And you certainly didn’t know.
JC: No. I didn’t know.
CB: So, how was it that you learned about your brother John’s death?
[pause]
JC: But what I learned, I arrived home with my husband on the 6th. Let’s see. Yes. It took, it took twenty four hours for the news to get through to my husband so that would have been the 5th of January. And we travelled back. There was no over, no trains out of Burnham on Crouch in the evening so it was morning of January the 6th that we got the train to Maidstone. And my mother was sitting there with her sister in law, Auntie May who’d brought John up as a baby, and they were just sitting there on the settee next to each other. They didn’t, they didn’t even seem to talk. It was absolutely unbelief on their, on their face that this could really have happened.
CB: Then what?
JC: Hmm?
CB: So you got there and saw mother and aunt.
JC: Saw mother and aunt and then all the, all the family and friends came up. I had to, my husband had to go back the next day. They wouldn’t give him any more leave. I had. I was given seven days, because by this time I was already on, I’d already been shifted to the Royal Naval Hospital at Chatham for despatch. And it was the old Naval physical standard.
CB: So, when your parents knew about your brother’s death, Joy —
JC: Pardon?
CB: When your parents knew about your brother’s death.
JC: Yes.
CB: What happened next?
JC: Well, we heard that, my father got on the phone to the, to the vicar in Buckinghamshire and asked him to find out some news. This young curate, eighteen, nineteen, no he would be about twenty. Twenty years old. He went to Westcott and requested an interview and was told, they said they wanted a letter. Well, actually my parents were very happy when they got this letter which is dated the 9th of January. But what they didn’t know was that every one of that, every one of the aircrew got the same letter. I mean actually lettered the same letter. I mean this must have been the standard letter one or two because we’ve seen it mentioned in the New Zealand papers. So, my father, all the other members of the crew, the five members were buried at Westcott.
CB: At Botley.
JC: Nearby. My father arranged, my father was church warden of our church and he arranged that my brother would have [pause] my brother would be buried at, from the funeral in his own church. My parents were Christian. Church of England. I’d say fairly strict Christian people but were very good people. Very, very good people. They, all the way through the war they entertained next to the church. Our family church was the Kent Royal Regiment’s Headquarters at Sandy Lane, Maidstone and every Sunday we entertained soldiers. And these soldiers were collected at church. I think the word got around, ‘Go to church on Sunday morning and Mr and Mrs Wenham will invite you to lunch,’ because we had a procession of soldiers and my father would write letters for them, because lots of soldiers were illiterate. My father would write letters. My mother mended them their socks, knitted their things for them. So they, they were very good people. They weren’t [pause] how do you put it? I don’t think they showed their grief apart, my mother became very quiet. She, she must have talked to my father about it. She must have told to him she didn’t want to stay. And as soon as we’d married within a year they’d sold the business which was due to be, my father had always hoped that John would follow in his business but that was no longer possible. And they, they sold everything up and moved to Hastings. Although my father at that stage was only borderline retirement and he went on to work for a further twenty years, but he really didn’t know what else to do with himself.
CB: So after the, after the funeral.
JC: Yes.
CB: The funeral was in the church at Maidstone.
JC: No. No. The funeral in the church was absolutely full of people. There was standing at the back. We all went and there were six airmen who carried the hearse, and we all went by transport of some sort to the Maidstone Cemetery. The military cemetery attached to Maidstone Cemetery and we had another service at the graveside and we had the Last Post and it’s the one bit of music I cannot abide. But it was snowing. Snowing again. Afterwards we went back to my parent’s home and his close relations were there and our neighbours and people from the church and we all had afternoon tea provided by my mother. Two of the airmen came up to, to my father and said that it made life easier to know that people could be so sensible over the loss of family they, they just thought that the fact that my mother had baked all these cakes for them eased the problem. It didn’t, did it? But so they all came back and then the men, we’d no idea they, I seem to remember I didn’t speak to them an awful lot but I seem to remember that, that they weren’t close members of [pause] they weren’t colleagues. They didn’t actually know my brother. Perhaps they had a special job, ‘Your turn’s come up,’ you know.
CB: They were representing the RAF.
JC: RAF. Yeah. Representatives of the RAF.
CB: Were, were they ground crew or aircrew? Do you remember whether they were —
JC: The men? I’ve no idea. No. No idea at all. But they spent the whole afternoon and part of the evening with us. And we didn’t know. We had no idea. I think that my father must have known that the New Zealanders were involved, but apart from that I don’t think my mother and father knew anything about these airmen.
CB: The other five were buried at the —
JC: Hmm?
CB: The other five were buried at the Military Cemetery at Botley.
JC: Yes. Yes, and there are pictures.
CB: Oxford.
JC: In it. In Sue Chaplain’s book.
CB: So when did you find out details of the crash?
JC: Oh, well that was when I belonged, I joined the U3A in Luton about ten years ago, I suppose. And I joined the family history group because I’d got an awful lot of pictures and things of Maidstone and that’s my that’s —
CB: Did you —
JC: That’s Maidstone. London Road, Maidstone. Sharp’s Toffee Factory Headquarters. That was the Sports Club.
Other: That was a Sports Club.
JC: And that house was built by my great grandfather.
Other: That’s right.
CB: Now —
JC: There he is.
CB: Just —
JC: And there she is.
Other: Listen. Listen, Chris is saying something.
JC: Hmmn?
CB: Just quickly, just —
JC: Yes. So, that —
CB: You didn’t know from the end of the war, well January ’45, until ten years ago are you saying you did not know how the crash had occurred?
JC: No. No. No, it wasn’t —
CB: And —
JC: It wasn’t mentioned. And I, I believe I’m positive that my father and mother, or my father never knew that. How the plane had crashed. I think he would have talked to us, don’t you?
CB: Did, where, when your own children were born did that cause your parents to wonder how their son, your brother had died?
JC: I don’t somehow think it did. We weren’t [pause] we weren’t actually living close to them. But Christopher the oldest was born when my husband was in Germany and my husband didn’t see Chris until he was nearly eight weeks old.
CB: Right.
JC: Graham was born, and his father had just had a heart attack so myself and Christopher and baby Graham we couldn’t go back. We were, we were living with my father in law. We couldn’t go back there. We had to catch a train and go to Maidstone where my mother took over.
CB: But your parents weren’t prompted to recall.
JC: No.
CB: The death.
JC: No.
CB: Do you think they had —
JC: No.
CB: Accepted that they would never find out or they were pushing it to the back of their minds?
JC: I don’t know. I can’t think. I really can’t think what —
CB: I think we’ll have a pause there.
[recording paused]
CB: We’ve talked about your perception of your parent’s attitude and the fact that they didn’t really talk about it but when your parents moved up here to the Luton area and settled here they had pictures, family pictures in the house did they? And how did they explain that?
JC: My parents.
CB: Yes.
Other: Yeah. They didn’t.
JC: My parents never lived in Luton.
Other: Luton.
CB: Oh, they didn’t.
Other: No. We lived together.
CB: No.
Other: We lived together after my parents, my grandparents moved to Hastings. My father my mother and us moved to Somerset to his parents and we were born and brought up in Somerset. So they never lived, we lived together.
CB: Ok.
Other: In Somerset. My grandparents then moved to Somerset so the whole family were in Somerset.
CB: Ok. So, I’m trying to focus on the pictures that your, your parents, Joy had in their house.
JC: Well, they had —
CB: They had pictures of your brother.
JC: My mother’s, my mother’s brother in law, her eldest sister’s husband was a photographer. A private. Made his own, hung his own things across the —
CB: For drying them.
Other: Plates.
JC: The negatives. And developed his own, and this was my mother’s and she had another one and she was very proud of the fact that they were always taking photographs and putting them in this book.
CB: But what I meant was in the house.
JC: In the house.
CB: Did they have pictures and how did they explain?
JC: Yes. Inside the house you mean.
CB: Yes. And what, how did they explain the picture of your brother?
JC: I don’t, I don’t think they needed to explain because —
CB: If they were asked.
JC: Because my brother was so much a part of, of the tight little family that there was then in Maidstone.
CB: Yes.
JC: That we all attended all the family dos. My father wasn’t very happy about it because they would drink, and they would have a singsong around the, around the, around the piano but my father wasn’t very keen on that and neither was my mother. But we all met together and I think my father was, you would describe him as the steady one of the family wouldn’t you? He was the one who, who worked hard and bought his own house.
CB: Yes.
JC: And he bought his sister a house because she was a complete invalid and any family trouble they went to my father, and my brother grew up in that. They didn’t have to talk about him because he was part of it.
CB: Yes. I’ve got that. What I was trying to get at was after the war.
JC: Yeah.
CB: After the war.
JC: After the war.
CB: There would be pictures in the house and your children —
JC: There was always a picture of my brother.
CB: Yes.
JC: Yes. There isn’t one in my house because I decided that that we’ve always got our poppy and we always talk about him but I, we’ve got three great grandsons. Nine, twelve and twelve. And although they came to, they were there at, at the parish meeting. You know. The church.
CB: In North Marston. Yes.
JC: They came to them all but I was, I was delighted. The two didn’t come up from Bath because it was a long way. No, but my, Sue’s daughter brought Woody who is now twelve. He came and he was a good boy. He enjoyed it and he, he, you know, took part. But apart from that I think on the whole that we, we don’t talk about it but they all have four of these books.
CB: Yes.
JC: This is the first book one. And then each one. We did it because in 1986 my husband had to leave the Civil Service because he was a driving examiner and he was injured in three work accidents.
CB: Right.
JC: And couldn’t, couldn’t undertake doing eight or nine emergency stops every, every day.
CB: Yeah.
JC: And he worked for Brian’s family and, but we, we, I was having to make the decision to carry on working.
CB: Yeah.
JC: Because otherwise we, you know we couldn’t manage to pay the mortgage etcetera and it was, it was [pause] oh, I don’t quite know how you would explain it but we felt a bit as if we were the bottom of the pile. All our children were successful. They were all running their own businesses except for Richard in Canada who worked in a furniture store. But all the rest were very successful and we felt that our grandchildren were growing up thinking of us as these were poor relations down the bottom. We didn’t have this and we didn’t have that, you know. We didn’t have lots of things. And so I sat down not thinking in, in 1986, three weeks before Christmas I wrote that book in my lunch hour at work.
CB: Right.
JC: Straight on to the typewriter. Straight on to the photocopier.
CB: Yeah.
JC: At the Post Office.
CB: Right.
JC: We had no other equipment. And it was to try and show them that we didn’t all have all these wonderful trips to America. One of them had been off in Concorde. That we didn’t live that way.
CB: No.
JC: Ours had been a wartime struggle.
CB: Indeed.
JC: And of course there’s that, part of my book was about telling them about my brother.
CB: Right.
JC: So we, we put it in to print for them.
CB: Yes.
JC: And they’ve still got that book.
CB: Right.
Other: Treasure it.
CB: A real treasure.
JC: Reduce them by half.
Other: It’s lovely. A lovely book to read.
CB: Yes. So the reason I asked the question was because so many people after the war, veterans didn’t talk.
JC: No.
CB: About their experiences.
JC: No. True.
CB: And what happens is that grandchildren, children of the children, children don’t, direct children often don’t get the information but the grandchildren sometimes —
JC: Yes.
CB: Elicit the story from their grandparents. So that’s why I was asking about the picture.
JC: Every one of our grandchildren has taken that book to school, haven’t they?
Other: Yeah.
JC: And it’s as I say it’s only half this size.
CB: Yes.
JC: It’s —
CB: It’s A5 size.
JC: A5.
CB: Yeah.
JC: And they still produce it and on occasions and they take, all of them all of them have taken them into school and we heard from the teachers how helpful it’s been.
Other: Helpful.
JC: And Woody’s family, when he was leaving junior, infants [pause] Junior School to go to a Senior Academy they did turning Luton into wartime as an event.
CB: Did they really?
JC: With an evacuee section.
CB: Amazing.
JC: And he used to, he took our book, and they wrote a book for me. His class. Telling me about —
CB: About Luton.
JC: About what they knew about. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. It was a catalyst for wider.
JC: It’s been a real. I wish everyone would do it.
CB: Yeah.
JC: And it did help me. It did help me through going through the U3A. We had a wonderful tutor and she told us, I told her that I had got in the back of my book here the obituaries of my great grandfather, Mr Joe. And my husband’s great grandfather who was a wool merchant. A scrimmage man. And we got them printed from the paper and I showed them to her and in my husband’s book it said that Mr Colbeck’s background were mostly public ministers in the Methodist Church, but one of his great grandfathers fought at Waterloo. So she said to me, ‘Send your money to the Waterloo Society. Three pounds.’ I waited nearly six months for an answer.
CB: Did you?
JC: And the Waterloo Society Man said, ‘We’ve had a reply. Somebody would like to meet you.’ So I said, ‘Well, can I have their number?’ ‘No.’ she said ‘But you, can we give her your number?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ And so I met my husband’s cousin. No. Yes. My husband’s second cousin. A lady in Lancashire where the family came from. Or Yorkshire. And they invited me to meet the family and I was the only relative left and it was incredible.
CB: Extraordinary.
JC: I don’t know. I can’t see that we can be any interest. Any, we haven’t got anything to tell anyone have we?
CB: People are very curious about their history.
JC: Pardon?
CB: People are very curious.
JC: Do you think so?
CB: About their history. Well, that’s why some —
JC: They are?
CB: Well, on the television there are two programmes based on finding out your history.
JC: Yes.
CB: Anyway, I think we’ll stop there. Thank you very much indeed, Joy.
JC: Yes.
CB: For a most interesting interview.
JC: Yes.
CB: To do with —
JC: Yes
CB: The air crash of John Wenham.
JC: Yes.
CB: And the loss of his life.
JC: Yes.
CB: In North Marston.
JC: Yes.
CB: In January 1945.
JC: You’ve got all the rest. It’s wonderful.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Joy Colbeck
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-05-24
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AColbeckJC170524
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:17:58 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Navy
Description
An account of the resource
Joy Colbeck was born in Maidstone, Kent and served within the Women’s Royal Naval Service during the war. Her brother, John, joined the RAF on the 28 of April 1943, qualified at as an air gunner in April 1944, before being transferred to an Operational Training Unit in October 1944 at RAF Westcot. It was here that he, along with the rest of his crew, crashed during a training exercise in January 1945. Joy goes on to explain that she doesn’t believe this affected her family very much, although she does state that people do not recall the war often, likely as they want to forget the experiences they had during it. Joy recounts several experiences of her own during the war, being a typewriter operator after volunteering at age 17. She served on board the destroyers HMS Whitehall and HMS Whitecliff, and the minesweeper HMS 01. She tells a number of anecdotes of her time during the war, including three stories of near-misses with bombs and machine guns. Joy was promoted to a petty officer before joining the Royal Marines at Bermondsey. She recalls meeting her husband during a formal dance at her naval base, but also recalls being incredibly busy during the war, an example being her husband having to meet her parents for the first time by himself as she couldn’t get the time off. Following the war, she believes that people did not talk about their experiences because they didn’t want to dwell on them and would rather move on. Joy continues to take part in memorial services, both Navy and RAF. As part of this, her mother, father, herself and her husband have all written books outlining their experiences during the war and she takes pride in her grandchildren knowing her story.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sam Harper-Coulson
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Suffolk
England--London
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-08
1943-04-28
1944-02-05
1944-03
1944-10
1945-01-04
11 OTU
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
bombing
crash
home front
Initial Training Wing
love and romance
military living conditions
Operational Training Unit
RAF Westcott
shelter
training
-
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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
Madgett, Hedley Robert
H R Madgett
Description
An account of the resource
250 items. The collection concerns Pilot Officer Hedley Madgett DFM (1922 - 1943, 147519, 1330340 Royal Air Force), a pilot with 61 Squadron. He was killed 18 August 1943 on the last operation of his tour from RAF Syerston to Peenemünde. The collection consists of letters, postcards and telegrams to his parents while he was training in the United Kingdom and Canada. In addition the collection contains memorabilia, documents from the Air Training Corps, artwork, a railway map, diaries, medals as well as his logbook, photographs of people, places and aircraft. Also contains letters of condolence to parents and a sub collection containing a photograph album with 44 items of his time training in Canada'.<br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Joan Madgett and Carol Gibson, and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.<br /><br /><span>Additional information on Hedley Madgett is available via the </span><a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/114690/" title="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/madgett-hr/ ">IBCC Losses Database</a><span>.</span>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-03-17
2019-06-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Madgett, H
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] Tuesday. 5th [/underlined] [inserted] August 1941 [/inserted]
[underlined] Wilmslow. [/underlined]
Dear Mum & Dad,
This is just to let you know that we are off on Wednesday night. And our temporary address for you to write to is:-
H.R. MADGETT. L.A.C. NO. 1330340.
c/o R.C.A.F. H.Q.
OTTAWA,
[underlined] CANADA. [/underlined]
I have just packed up the little case I brought with a letter inside, so there
[page break]
is not much that I have to tell you.
Its been raining all day long, and its very cold, so we shall be glad to get away from here.
Up to this evening, I have not had any letter from you or anything via Scarborough, so do not worry if you miss me here. Letters will be forwarded to Canada. If you see John, or Peter does, will you please [deleted] as [/deleted] tell him my address. I have just written to him, & can’t write again so soon as there’s
[page break]
[underlined] 3 [/underlined]
nothing to write about.
Please do not worry if you do not [deleted] here [/deleted] hear from me for some time, as there won’t be any post boxes on the boat you know.
So, here’s to the next time.
Best Wishes,
With Love from [underlined] Hedley. [/underlined]
[underlined] P.S. [/underlined] Do not broadcast [underlined] when [/underlined] I am going not even John because walls have ears!!
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
Letter from Hedley Madgett to his parents
Description
An account of the resource
Written from Wilmslow. Writes that he is off Wednesday night and provides new address in Canada and asks for it to be passed on. Says that letters will be forwarded from Scarborough and as he is at sea they will not hear from him for some time. Tells them not to worry and please do not broadcast date of departure.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-08-05
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EMadgettLR-AGMadgettHR410805-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
England--Scarborough
Canada
Ontario--Ottawa
England--Cheshire
England--Wilmslow
Ontario
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-08-05
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
David Bloomfield
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hedley Robert Madgett
training
-
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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
Madgett, Hedley Robert
H R Madgett
Description
An account of the resource
250 items. The collection concerns Pilot Officer Hedley Madgett DFM (1922 - 1943, 147519, 1330340 Royal Air Force), a pilot with 61 Squadron. He was killed 18 August 1943 on the last operation of his tour from RAF Syerston to Peenemünde. The collection consists of letters, postcards and telegrams to his parents while he was training in the United Kingdom and Canada. In addition the collection contains memorabilia, documents from the Air Training Corps, artwork, a railway map, diaries, medals as well as his logbook, photographs of people, places and aircraft. Also contains letters of condolence to parents and a sub collection containing a photograph album with 44 items of his time training in Canada'.<br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Joan Madgett and Carol Gibson, and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.<br /><br /><span>Additional information on Hedley Madgett is available via the </span><a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/114690/" title="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/madgett-hr/ ">IBCC Losses Database</a><span>.</span>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-03-17
2019-06-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Madgett, H
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Wilmslow.
[underlined] Cheshire. [/underlined]
[underlined] August 5th. [/underlined]
Dear Mum & Dad,
Well, of all the dumps, this is one. The only thing decent here is the food. We cannot go out of camp, the N.A.A.F.I. is not too good, & chocolate (& cigarettes) are [deleted] severly [/deleted] severely rationed, and the rain has been pelting down most of the days, and there is absolutely nothing to do all day long.
Yesterday (Monday) for example we just got up for breakfast, I wrote two letters and went to sleep – woke up for
[page break]
[underlined] 2 [/underlined]
dinner, went to sleep again till tea time, then read till supper. Then to keep awake we went for [inserted] a [/inserted] walk around the camp, and before we went to bed we had a pillow fight to let off some energy. There is not even facilities for sports.
I am sending the case back because we have been issued with another kit bag & more kit including a pair of shoes – and jolly good ones they are too.
This morning we are going to get a shipping index card, whatever that means, so it looks as though it won’t be
[page break]
[underlined] 3 [/underlined]
long now.
I hope you had a good Bank Holiday, & better weather than we are having. They say Manchester is supposed to be the wettest place in England & it’s certainly living up to its name.
Well, I think that is about all for now –
Love from [underlined] Hedley [/underlined]
P.S. I could not get a pass to Liverpool on the weekend so I did not see Edith.
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
Letter from Hedley Madgett to his parents
Description
An account of the resource
Written from Wilmslow, Cheshire and describes conditions; mainly that they are confined to camp and have nothing to do.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
H R Madghett
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-08-05
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EMadgettLR-AGMadgettHR410805-02
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cheshire
England--Wilmslow
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-08-05
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
David Bloomfield
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
training
-
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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
Madgett, Hedley Robert
H R Madgett
Description
An account of the resource
250 items. The collection concerns Pilot Officer Hedley Madgett DFM (1922 - 1943, 147519, 1330340 Royal Air Force), a pilot with 61 Squadron. He was killed 18 August 1943 on the last operation of his tour from RAF Syerston to Peenemünde. The collection consists of letters, postcards and telegrams to his parents while he was training in the United Kingdom and Canada. In addition the collection contains memorabilia, documents from the Air Training Corps, artwork, a railway map, diaries, medals as well as his logbook, photographs of people, places and aircraft. Also contains letters of condolence to parents and a sub collection containing a photograph album with 44 items of his time training in Canada'.<br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Joan Madgett and Carol Gibson, and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.<br /><br /><span>Additional information on Hedley Madgett is available via the </span><a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/114690/" title="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/madgett-hr/ ">IBCC Losses Database</a><span>.</span>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-03-17
2019-06-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Madgett, H
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
Telegram from Hedley Maggett to his parents
Description
An account of the resource
Telegram stating all well and safe.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-08-21
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One printed telegram and envelope
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EMadgettLR-AGMadgettHR410822
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Kent
England--London
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-08-21
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hedley Robert Madgett