4
25
33791
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46473/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v610006.mp3
dd40ecc0585ff38d9e8794ebee668ae1
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46473/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v610007.mp3
887d765e0db5b062b1290fb14be172c0
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46473/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v610008.mp3
29c3dba85b32e53427be304bbd352b0a
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
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
2017-06-19
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Part 1.
Interviewer: Interviewing Mr Doug Marsh of Cleethorpes about his experiences with 57 Squadron as a navigator. Right, Mr Marsh, where were you born?
DM: At East Halton here in Lincolnshire.
Interviewer: What year?
DM: 1922.
Interviewer: And what did your father do?
DM: He was in the Royal Navy.
Interviewer: And did that give you an inclination to join the Navy when the war came?
DM: Well, I did, I thought about it but I was sort of persuaded myself I was going to be a lot better off financially as aircrew.
Interviewer: Right. So where did you go to school?
DM: Well, I went initially at East Halton. Then this is all whilst I’m under ten. Well, up to ten, eleven and I had two periods when I went to school down in Gillingham because my father was at Chatham and he was on twenty two years service you see and we didn’t really see much of him during my early years because he was in New Zealand with the Navy there for two and a half years at one time and another two or so in Shanghai. However, the next schooling was when I came sort of eleven. I went to St James which is a church school here in Grimsby.
Interviewer: So was that because your father had been moved base or —
DM: Well, no it was just that we, my mother and I came back here to Lincolnshire because she owned the house here and my grandmother lived in it and also her aged brother. It was quite a big house you know, four bedroomed and they in fact looked after it when we were down at Chatham. Well, we lived in Gillingham actually but —
Interviewer: So you came back to Grimsby.
DM: No.
Interviewer: Sorry?
DM: We didn’t have any connection with Grimsby at that stage at all.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: The, when my father came out of the Navy at the end of his twenty two years service he had decided they wanted a business and they actually finished up, it was a toss up between the Post Office and a fish and chip shop and so being a, he was a cook, a chief petty officer cook and so they chose the fish shop at Immingham. And it was from there that I went to school in Grimsby.
Interviewer: Right. When did you leave school?
DM: Now then [pause] It would have been [pause] in 1938 I think.
Interviewer: And what did you, what did you do when you left school?
DM: Well, I initially helped with the fish and chip shop doing the spuds and whatnot [laughs] but that was only temporary because I had before leaving school I’d been lucky enough to get a place at the Grimsby Corporation Electricity Works which was owned by the council. The authority. They took on two boys each year but I couldn’t join, I couldn’t start I should say until the January. January 1940. The war broke out in about ’31 was it? September ’39.
Interviewer: 1939. Yeah. Yes.
DM: So then, so I was sort of killing time as it were for a year or so. However, of course the war came up and it wasn’t long before I got a letter just saying that due to the circumstances they were not continuing presently with this scheme, these two boys on a five year training course which was very nearly as good as a degree in that particular field. So the next thing was that the fish shop wasn’t doing really very well because it was firstly difficult to get fish which got gradually worse. Potatoes were plentiful but oil, my father always used ground nut oil not dripping and he couldn’t get it, you know. That was the thing that killed it off so, and then they agreed to close it down. And at that point I wanted something still to do and the Prudential man called one day and my mother said, ‘Have you got any jobs for lads like these?’ You see. He said, ‘Aye we have.’ Because all his agents were being called up and replaced by young people or women’ And so I went into that and enjoyed it quite a lot. I was with the Prudential for about probably eighteen months. Starting salary fifteen shillings but after only three months they increased it to twenty five shillings a week. And then —
[recording cuts]
DM: And then of course it came time to be called up anyway. Do you want to know about that?
Interviewer: Yeah. Yes. So yeah, so you were facing call up. You then decided —
DM: Well, not really. I volunteered.
Interviewer: Volunteered.
DM: They were advertising.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: In every paper you picked up, for aircrew.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: But you couldn’t volunteer until you were nineteen and a quarter
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And that was in the June of [pause] the fourteenth.
Interviewer: So, June the 14th you volunteered.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: And —
DM: Is that right? 1922.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: It should be.
Interviewer: Yes.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: So what happened? Did you get, once you’d volunteered did you get called to an ITW straight away or —
DM: No. No. Oh no. I don’t think. We were, the first thing was to, I went to somewhere in town in Grimsby where they did a bit of a medical on you and they asked you a few questions but nothing very serious and then the next one were to report to the barracks in Lincoln. When I got there there was quite a few and they interviewed us and [pause] I don’t think that’s actually correct. I think we got the information. They said if you go to Lincoln and then a party of us would be taken down to — ’
Interviewer: Lord’s.
DM: No. No. No. Where they used to have the zeppelins.
Interviewer: Oh yes. Yes. Sorry. Yes.
DM: I think I told you.
Interviewer: Yeah. Near Bedford.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Yes. Yes. I know where you are I general.
DM: You know. I told you last time. I’m sure I did.
Interviewer: Yes. Yes.
DM: I can’t think of its name now.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And had an overnight stay there. And the next morning we went and had various tests. A few written tests and then interviews were the main thing and they said at the end of it, ‘Right, you’re accepted as a navigator for training. Or navigator training.’
Interviewer: So how did they assess you to be a navigator? Did you [unclear]
DM: Well, I was coming to that.
Interviewer: Oh sorry.
DM: Well, everybody there wanted to be a pilot of course but it turned out that they were only recruiting navigators that day. I think it was true in all those spheres, you know. They just said, ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter who they are.’ And the next thing as you said about reporting to, well first of all they gave us a badge and said, ‘You are on three months deferred service.’ So that took us to December and then got a long foolscap sheet of telegram telling us what to do and how to do it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Travel passes and all the rest of it to report to Lord’s Cricket Ground.
Interviewer: The Aircrew Reception Centre.
DM: That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: And we sat there in the seats, in the stands as it were. There was quite a few there of course. I should say maybe up to maybe two hundred and eventually a corporal came along and he said, ‘Right. From here to the end of the row you follow me.’ And if you’d sat somewhere else funnily enough [laughs] this is the gospel truth you would have been a pilot.
Interviewer: So this intro to ACRC was the posh end. Navigators, pilots, bomb aimers.
DM: Yeah. Well, it was just that.
Interviewer: Observers.
DM: Well, they weren’t bomb aimers.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: We were, I was an observer.
Interviewer: That’s right. Ok.
DM: That’s right. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. So off you marched then.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: In your group.
DM: And it didn’t, it could have happened as simple as that. Other people missed out the other way around [laughs] probably.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Anyway —
Interviewer: So what happened at ACRC then? I assume you were —
DM: This is at large?
Interviewer: Yes.
DM: Yes. Well, we were taken to, I can’t remember the preliminaries but we were taken to a huge block of flats in St Johns Wood. They were sort of quite close to the park. What do you call it?
Interviewer: Regent’s Park.
DM: Regent’s Park. That’s right. And we used to use, like there had been a big restaurant in Regent’s Park itself to eat. So we went and we did a bit of square bashing on the streets. We got kitted out naturally. We had about three injections and the thing that leaves a mark, you know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: My memory is not so good on these things now.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: But that all was done and then they said, that was in the morning, late morning and they said, ‘Right, well we’ll march you back to your billets.’ Because of course the flats were empty. All you got was three biscuits and a blanket or two and nothing else. That was how it, there was no furniture left in the place. Not even [unclear] chair. And then they had [prizes]. They said, ‘The best thing you can do is get into your pyjamas and go to bed and stay there until tomorrow morning.’ And you did feel a bit groggy. No doubt about it with these, all these drugs and but the next morning I felt as right as rain. I think one or two I remember had trouble but it didn’t bother me. Where are we?
Interviewer: How long did they put you at Lord’s for?
DM: Well, not more I wouldn’t think than about a month and I managed to wangle leave. My father put me up to this of course. He said, ‘You tell them I’m coming home on leave and you would like to see me.’ It worked.
Interviewer: Was your father back in the Navy by the end of the war?
DM: Oh, well, he was in before it even started.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Back in and he was at Shotley near Harwich and he stayed there right through as it happened. If you want to know a little bit more he was originally sent with some ratings to Butlins at Skegness to reorganise the catering. But he phoned them after a couple of days and said, ‘We’re doing nothing here because the Butlins staff insist on doing the catering.’ So they said, ‘Right. Back to Chatham then.’ And a fortnight or so later he was sent to Shotley and he stayed there as I say.
Interviewer: Now, when you first joined the RAF why did you join the RAF rather than the Navy?
DM: Well, I fancied joining the Navy but I think you know on the other hand was the fact that I didn’t fancy [pause] well I thought it was probably a better bet from the point of view of survival because I mean when you are sunk, well —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: That’s what you are isn’t it?
Interviewer: Had you any interest in the, in the Air Force or flying before that?
DM: No. Not really.
Interviewer: So it was just the thought —
DM: I think my father was pleased in a way, you know that I had chosen not to go in the Navy. He was thinking I would probably me more at risk of something.
Interviewer: So you left Lord’s and where did you go to next? Did you come home for a while?
DM: No.
Interviewer: Oh, you were straight on to ITW were you?
DM: That’s right. At Hullavington.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: And what were you doing there?
DM: Well, the normal. Initial training. We did ordinary maths and English and bits and bobs.
Interviewer: So you started —
DM: And signals came into it. Aldis lamp and learning the Morse Code and that sort of thing.
Interviewer: It was like your preliminary navigational training.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: At that stage. Yeah.
DM: So we had a sort of connection with navigation but it was still pretty basic stuff you know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Just to say that you had worked to it on the educational level because even at that stage I’m not sure how many of us there were, probably about twenty five to thirty in a class and three of them were thrown out at that stage.
Interviewer: And there would be exams to pass or tests to pass.
DM: Oh yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Yes, you had to do tests at the end. I can’t remember really.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: How many it was now but it couldn’t have been more than about maybe six weeks I would think.
Interviewer: Then from Hullavington you went to where? Where was next?
DM: Well, I think that was when I had the time at Brighton and Eastbourne.
Interviewer: Right. Yeah.
DM: Mainly.
Interviewer: What was that?
DM: Well, we were using the schools because all the children had been evacuated and again it was more navigation rather than the other stuff we’d done at ITW.
Interviewer: So you got through the initial RAF stuff at Hullavington.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: And you now had proper navigational training.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Gradually advancing.
DM: That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: What you, what you were doing.
DM: And I think you got your LAC didn’t you at the end of that?
Interviewer: When you were down there did you see any sort of air raids or any action by the German Luftwaffe?
DM: Well, I did. Yes. On one occasion because I can’t remember which day but one afternoon a week was sports afternoon and most people just went running but there was about six of us who played golf and so we went up on the Downs and it wasn’t necessarily the first time but one of the times somebody said, ‘Hey, there’s sirens are going down there and so we looked and then an aircraft appeared so we got in some bushes thinking you never know [laughs] However, they came in and they dropped one on the Railway Station which put it out of action for a few days.
Interviewer: Where was this? In Brighton?
DM: No, this was in, now which [pause] I’m not sure which.
Interviewer: Oh right. Yeah.
DM: But it was either Eastbourne or Brighton.
Interviewer: Yeah. So they dropped one bomb on the station, yeah and then —
DM: Yes. And then another in a gas holder. We were watching. It just folded and then a cloud went up the same shape as the —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: To —
Interviewer: The bomb.
DM: Gasometer. Yeah. [laughs] Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Yeah. Anyway, they did a couple of runs and a couple of bombs each probably was all they dropped. But nevertheless they were pretty good on the targets and, sorry the other one, another one was that they dropped one, well, we started playing golf again when they’d gone but within about half an hour somebody come running across the golf course saying, ‘You’ve got to report back. There’s been a bomb dropped on your hotel,’ which did I say Cavendish or something like that?
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
DM: I think it was probably. Yeah. And it had been dropped just on the side. There was a woman apparently got killed because the wall fell on her. She had a bike. She was just leaning her bike against a wall. But the bulk of the living area was not touched but of course, they wouldn’t let us go in straight away. So we were hanging about until later in the day, evening even and they said, ‘Oh we’re satisfied now.’ They thought there might be an unexploded bomb. But they said, ‘Well, you’ll be alright to go and get your stuff.’ And we did. And they moved us into one of the other hotels. I think I’m pretty sure whether that was Eastbourne I think.
[recording paused]
Interviewer: Right. So you continued training at Eastbourne. Where was your next posting?
DM: I feel sure we went from there to the Wirral.
Interviewer: Which was to, was that to 10 AFU?
DM: Well, it was to go abroad, you know.
Interviewer: Oh right. Right. Right.
DM: What did they call those places?
Interviewer: Yeah. Yes.
DM: You see.
Interviewer: Yes.
DM: I remembered the last time you were here but I can’t bring them to mind now. You know the port out in the —
Interviewer: Yes. Oh, the Mersey.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yes.
DM: Do you know?
Interviewer: Yes, I know where you’re talking about. Yeah.
DM: You know what it is. Yeah. It was the collection point for us all RAF people anyway going abroad on boats.
Interviewer: So, you were held there for a short while and then —
DM: Yeah. Only a matter of days. I mean the only thing I can remember we got a kit bag with stuff in and you could also have a case and we had a pith helmet [laughs] and khaki shirt and shorts. So I think probably two sets.
Interviewer: Yes.
DM: And we did wear them because —
[recording cuts]
DM: We were lucky enough to go to South Africa our lot. We went first into Liverpool and then I think we went on board the ship there but it didn’t set off like. A day or two later it went up to Gourock.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: On the Clyde. And we eventually set off from there.
Interviewer: Do you know what the ship was called?
DM: I did but I can’t remember now.
Interviewer: Right. So you get —
DM: But what I can tell you about it was a converted Australian meat boat [laughs] which with all the pipes for the refrigeration everywhere, weren’t on of course but nevertheless it was unfortunate in a way because it was like a cork on top of the water. It was. It was, I mean the few troops didn’t make any difference as regards to cargo as in comparison with cargo did it and so it was pretty bad for seasickness. However, I did manage, there was three options. You could sleep on the deck steel, you could sleep on the tables which were fixed or you could have a hammock if you were very lucky. And as soon as I heard the word hammock I thought right, that’s for me. And I did get one.
Interviewer: So you knew how to use it from your father did you?
DM: Well, yes. I had been in a hammock you know before. I don’t quite remember the circumstances but I know that’s what you wanted for a good nights sleep [laughs] Not sliding on the deck. However, I was very seasick for about fourteen days and did really nothing during the day and another chap sort of looked after me because he kept going and getting fruit and crisps and things and we spent the days outside on the deck despite the weather. But it was all rather unpleasant but as soon as I was able to get in the hammock I was fine and I had an excellent nights sleep. Well, I never woke at all you know. I just, it was just the fact that the hammock gives you so much more.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Stability.
Interviewer: So you went from Gourock. Where did you stop? Did you stop at Freetown on the way down?
DM: Yes. Well, we, they told us or somebody did that we’d been across almost to America and come back again to Freetown. It would have been, as I say fourteen days. That’s a long time to get to Freetown if you went directly wasn’t it?
Interviewer: Did you see any submarine activity or —
DM: No. No. No, there was one or two scares but we, no we didn’t see any action whatsoever fortunately.
Interviewer: When you got to Freetown were you allowed off the ship at all in Freetown?
DM: No. No. A few were but I wasn’t. The vast majority weren’t. But the natives came alongside. They called them, in their [unclear] boats I think it was. Something like that. Selling fruit and whatnot. A basket you know. Throw a rope up and you could haul it up and put the money in and then get your fruit. That was interesting but we didn’t see anything of the place.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: No.
Interviewer: So you then moved out from Freetown to where was your next port of call?
DM: Durban.
Interviewer: Durban.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Yes. And you got off at Durban did you?
DM: Yes, Durban. We stayed on the ship overnight and then the next morning we were off and put on the train which was to go all the way to Queenstown. Well, Queenstown didn’t have a station but Johannesburg say, and that took us about three days if I remember rightly because you was travelling a long way. But the trains weren’t sort of going all the time express. So they took us down but they were very comfortable and that in itself was enjoyable. Saw all the scenery to be seen at different stages.
Interviewer: So you then get to Queenstown and that’s your, basically for your —
DM: Well, initially no. No, it was just a sort of, just a holding camp really. We did a little bit of work in lessons but very very little. Played tennis a lot and dug trenches but it was just, the trench wasn’t needed, you just did it for something to do.
Interviewer: Did you have a lot of contact with locals in Queenstown?
DM: Well, only shopkeepers.
Interviewer: Well, [unclear] so you were held at Queenstown. Then you moved to where? Where was your next posting?
DM: Well, Queenstown was the main one where you did navigation and bombing. It was ok because it was a good climate of course and there was a golf course right next to the field and also when you were on flying which was two or three mornings a week all aircraft had to be grounded by 1 o’clock because of the thermals and what not.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: It was even dangerous because these were Ansons and —
Interviewer: I see, so this was after your training, proper training that was.
DM: That was. Oh yes.
Interviewer: In Queenstown.
DM: At Queenstown. Yes.
Interviewer: What aircraft were they using?
DM: Ansons and Oxfords. Yeah.
Interviewer: So you were doing some classwork were you?
DM: Oh yes.
Interviewer: And then —
DM: That’s right and then —
Interviewer: Flying work.
DM: Two or three days a week flying. Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: So you were navigating the aircraft.
DM: They were all South African pilots. Air Force pilots.
Interviewer: So did you all take a turn to navigate the aircraft?
DM: Oh, no. Mostly you went just the one navigator in the aircraft.
Interviewer: Oh right. So you were just observing.
DM: I think there were maybe odd times when two or three went up and did part, at least did part of it but mostly and the same for the bombing you know. It was just a matter of one aircraft one student.
Interviewer: You went up with your pilot and did —
DM: Well, it was a different pilot every time.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. But you were practicing something you’d learned in the classroom or whatever.
DM: Oh yes.
Interviewer: On your own.
DM: We’d done charts and just basic navigation.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Because you know all you’d got was the [pause] well you wouldn’t call them a computer thing did they?
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: There was nothing electrical about it
Yeah
It was just you did it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: I can’t remember what the name —
Interviewer: The navigators. Yeah. Yeah
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: That’s right.
Interviewer: So you —
DM: And a chart.
Interviewer: Yeah.
[recording paused]
DM: We came and got back here.
Interviewer: Right. So you worked on your navigation at Queenstown.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: How long were you at Queenstown for?
DM: Oh, I don’t know. [pause] I should think it could have been something around two to three months.
Interviewer: Right. So by that time you were a sort of fundamentally qualified navigator.
DM: Well, yes.
Interviewer: Bomb aimer.
DM: We didn’t get stripes then.
Interviewer: No. No, but —
DM: We were moved down to a Gunnery School on the south coast. Where the heck did they [pause] Would that be in the —
Interviewer: Yes.
[recording paused]
DM: Still on Ansons. One block there. Ansons. It doesn’t say where it is.
Interviewer: Oh right. So you were at 43 Air School.
DM: Yes. Yes, that’s down on the south coast.
Interviewer: Yeah. Doing gunnery. Yeah.
DM: Yes. That’s right. In a turret. Flying at drogues. That’s all it was really and, and it looks as if there was a bit of bombing mixed up with that but I don’t remember. It was one of the photography and sim, simulated bombing I guess that would be.
Interviewer: So you left that station. Did you come back to the UK then?
DM: Yes. Yeah.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: I got the stripes there.
Interviewer: So you were passed out. You’re now a fully trained observer.
DM: That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: So back on the ship.
DM: Yes. Well, we went from this camp to Cape Town. We’d landed at Durban when we arrived and of course [that would be mine] of course. Then at, we were going back via Cape Town which was again sort of a long journey. We slept overnight I remember and we went across the Karoo Desert, I think, partly. Anyway, got down to Cape Town and that was quite a good set up and as it turned out we had to wait nearly a fortnight for the ship.
Interviewer: Was that in Cape Town [laughs] Nice.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: In the time that you were in South Africa perhaps at your holding camp at Queenstown did you have much contact with the locals at all?
DM: Well, not a lot. While we were at the first place near sort of between Jo’burg and Pretoria we used to go into Johannesburg. We weren’t too popular in Pretoria. A lot of the [unclear] as they called themselves they were very anti. Pro-German.
Interviewer: This was the Boers.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: The Dutch.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: So Johannesburg was the place to go and there was the Jewish group and, who I don’t know now but there was about four parties who were falling over themselves to give us hospitality [laughs] and they each had a floor of a big building and it was with single, full of single beds. Not too close together but they were, and they were only too pleased if you chose then to stay. And if I remember rightly it was sixpence a night. So there we are.
Interviewer: So you went into Johannesburg on your leaves with your friends.
DM: Well, weekends and that sort of thing
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: Went in to Joburg and also through the [unclear] It was put around that you could actually have a holiday on a farm or something like that and a friend and I we went together. Oh dear [pause]. I can’t tell you that but it was a fair little journey on a, on the train of course and we were met by the people and you see I can’t even bring their name to mind now. But they were English and they had a couple of daughters. One was away permanently at the time. The other was at school and she came home the last day before we left. So we did just meet her and she was in her sort of mid-teens I suppose. And whilst we were there well they met us with a huge great Buick car and this sort of thing and it was very pleasant and they did us proud.
Interviewer: So it was a great contrast to get to South Africa where there was plenty of food.
DM: Oh yes. Absolutely.
Interviewer: There were no blackouts.
DM: No. No shortage of anything.
Interviewer: Life’s normal.
DM: Yes. Absolutely.
Interviewer: So you get back to Cape Town and you get, you’re held there for a couple of weeks, back on your ship.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Any problems on the way?
DM: Which was, no. It was the Orion which was a pleasure cruiser which I’d seen previously because it used to come into Immingham and go on midnight sailing trips [laughs] And also the, we had all the first class cabins because they had, as somebody said I think it was four thousand Italian POWs down below and they were taking them, bringing them here to England. And we had, there was a certain amount of guard duty to do, you know but they were very friendly. Didn’t want any trouble because we had a rifle you see but we didn’t have the ammunition in the gun but you did have it in a pocket. But it was all a bit of a joke but I don’t think, I mean all they wanted to do was get off the ship. I don’t think they wanted any other sort of trouble. Didn’t want to take over or anything like that. And so it was a very pleasant trip back. No sickness. Magnificent. It was a different type of ship. Built for that sort of thing where this other thing as I say a transport vessel. I mean it was just not the right thing to travel in.
Interviewer: Did you stop at Freetown again on the way back?
DM: No.
Interviewer: You went straight.
DM: All the way.
Interviewer: Straight home.
DM: Straight home. Yeah.
Interviewer: Cape Town.
DM: No convoy. No nothing.
Interviewer: On your own.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: Right.
[recording cut]
Interviewer: So you arrived back in England.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: I think the next place you go to is 10 AFU, is it?
DM: That’s right. Yes. Just a little thing. I arrived. We arrived back, I think at Gourock where we’d gone from and I got home the day before my twenty first birthday funnily enough. Anyway, yes then we went to [pause] Well, no. No. We had a spell at Harrogate. I think everybody did, didn’t they?
Interviewer: So to the holding. The holding camp at Harrogate.
DM: Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: Yes, during which —
Interviewer: Where did you stay in Harrogate?
DM: In the hotels. One of the best hotels. Yes, and, you know we used to march around the streets a bit but I mean there was, we weren’t, you didn’t. You walked around [laughs] We weren’t in the mood for a lot of flash marching. But then they said, well, you know you can’t just stay here and they sent us on leave twice. Just because there was, well literally I suppose thousands of —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: People had been trained in Canada and America. South Africa. Even Australia, I think. A few. And they were all coming to Harrogate and they couldn’t accommodate them you see. So anyway, they said, ‘Right, you’re going on an assault course.’ And this was up near Newcastle and gave you a khaki outfit and a gun and hard hat and all the rest of it we played at that you know for maybe a fortnight. It was interesting anyway.
Interviewer: Do you know whereabouts that camp was especially when you —
DM: No. All I remember it was in the vicinity of Newcastle but I’m not sure where.
Interviewer: Right. So they entertained you for a fortnight.
DM: We were on the seaside.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: At the seaside.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: That was another thing and it was good weather because this by this time it would be about maybe May. April May certainly because my birthday in March.
Interviewer: So that’s May of 1943.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Right. Right.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: So after you’ve been playing at the seaside where did you next go?
DM: Is that right? [pause] I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it really.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: I came back from south Africa and I was twenty one in the March. And well it, that would be obviously ’43. Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: From ’40. Yes.
Interviewer: Yes.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: So where did you go after your assault course?
DM: Back to Harrogate. Did the same thing.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Over again.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: But only for a few weeks and then they sent us on leave or sent me on leave and got to go ‘cause it meant, they said you know the plan is that you would get a telegram telling you where to report. And the next thing I did was they sent up to Dumfries on another short course of bomb aiming and whatnot in a Botha would you believe because they were death traps apparently [laughs] However, survived that and then —
Interviewer: Was that a bombing and gunnery school was it? Dumfries.
DM: It was. Yes. That’s right.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Yes. And I think maybe back to Harrogate but I’m not sure about that. But in any case —
[recording cuts]
DM: The next stage was we got the telegram which said to report to Bruntingthorpe.
Interviewer: Which is 29 OTU.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: Right. So you’re up there in what you’d call a proper career move really —
DM: Oh yes. We were getting into —
Interviewer: So when you arrived at Bruntingthorpe were you allocated a crew or did you pick a crew up when you —
DM: No. No. We were all mixed up together you know. Not sure how many but I would thought maybe something like twenty of each trade. Five trades.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Involved there. The pilot and I got together. I can’t remember exactly how —
Interviewer: So that’s —
DM: I liked him, he liked me and we sort of went from there to pick the other members of the crew.
Interviewer: So that’s, is that Tony Wright?
DM: Tony Wright. Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah. Right. So you two got together originally and then you picked the other three.
DM: We did. Yes.
Interviewer: To make the crew up.
DM: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: Which would be —
DM: I think the first chap we got was the wireless operator George Allen.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And we were attracted to him because of his whole demeanour and the fact that he was at least ten years older than us and we thought well he’d only come in late because he was in the building business. No. Not building but building materials. Imports and that sort of thing in London. So —
Interviewer: So that, that’s your wireless operator.
DM: Yes. And then next was the [pause] you see I don’t think they had —
Interviewer: You had a bomb aimer wouldn’t you?
DM: Oh yeah. Bomb aimer and rear gunner.
Interviewer: Right so —
DM: That was it.
Interviewer: Was your original bomb aimer a chap called Rennie?
DM: Yes. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: That’s right. Canadian.
Interviewer: Canadian.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah. And who was your original air gunner?
DM: The Australian.
Interviewer: Oh, Cook.
DM: Cook. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Tony Cook.
Interviewer: Right. So that’s, that’s, your that’s the five who set off from the OTU.
DM: That’s right. Yes. Yeah.
Interviewer: And is that crew formed very early on then at OTU?
DM: Well, it’s the first thing to do really.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: Was to get crewed up. Yeah.
Interviewer: Right. You arrived there, you formed into a crew.
DM: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: Now was that done in the apocryphal way in the hangar you had to find yourself five people?
DM: No.
Interviewer: Or did you just accumulate —
DM: No. It was more in the Mess I think then. We were all sergeants at the time and you know just talked to as many people as you could really and see what you thought to them and some of them were sort of possibles but others were sort of discarded thinking no, we don’t want that. I had one offer myself. There was a squadron leader who had only just himself qualified as a pilot or fairly recently. He’d obviously been in the Air Force and he asked me if I would be his navigator but I sort of mulled it over and thought I don’t know. I don’t think so.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: I’ll stay with the boys.
Interviewer: Right. The fact that you’d get together.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: At Bruntingthorpe and what were you flying there? Wellingtons? Wellingtons?
DM: Wellingtons yes.
Interviewer: Wellingtons. So you start off.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: Working as a crew.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: On Wellingtons.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: And what sort of things do you do at OTU?
DM: Well
Interviewer: Cross country, night flying
That’s right. Yes. A whole range of things I suppose. Where are we? [pause pages turning] Is that? No, it’s South Africa isn’t it? AFU. That’s not much. [unclear] That was —
Interviewer: Yes. There we are.
DM: [unclear]
Interviewer: Here we are.
DM: Oh, from here. August. That’s right. Yes. Well, cross country’s there and again I think is the red for night time?
Interviewer: I think so.
DM: Yeah. But they weren’t with our own pilots. There’s sergeant right there, number thirteen but the others is Warrant Officer James, Flying Officer Heath, right, right, right, right, right. Flight Lieutenant Perry.
Interviewer: So occasionally you were taken by another pilot but generally speaking —
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: You were working as a crew.
DM: That’s right. Odd things you know you went even as a second navigator.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Without actually doing any desk work but sort of looking out and saying, because I went on one of those and they were completely lost and I was looking out of the dome and I’d been keeping following it map reading. So I came on the intercom. I said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you that’s — ’whatever it was, I can’t remember that now you see but I said, ‘That down there is —’ so and so. ‘So start from there.’
Interviewer: So the navigator got completely lost.
DM: Yeah. He hadn’t a clue and his pilot hadn’t either.
Interviewer: So your basic navigation skills at this stage are dead reckoning.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Which is —
DM: We did get Gee.
Interviewer: Yes.
DM: We did get gee there but not H2S or whatever it was.
Interviewer: So at OTU you had trained on Gee.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: But your basic fundamentals are dead reckoning.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Which was trying to lay a track.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: According to the wind basically.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: So you go A to B at a certain speed.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Apart of the wind and that tells you hopefully where you are.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: You had done astro navigation.
DM: Yes. Yeah.
Interviewer: But was it ever practical to use it?
DM: If it was it was probably only once. I really don’t remember.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: But —
Interviewer: And then on your calculation of wind drift how was that done? Was that done by flairs dropped from the aircraft by the gunner or —
DM: Well, I don’t know. It was [pause] I don’t know. I can’t remember. Sorry.
Interviewer: Yeah. Ok. So you get at OTU you are introduced to Gee.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: So you are getting more modern.
DM: Yes. That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: Was it easy to understand Gee and work?
DM: I didn’t find it difficult. No. Pretty easy.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Maths and that sort of thing was my strong subject. I wasn’t all that good at anything else [laughs] but algebra, geometry and arithmetic I was always from the age of probably fourteen I was always the top of the class.
Interviewer: Goodo. Did you get picked up by the RAF somewhere and that’s why you became a navigator? Or was it entirely —
DM: No. It may have been. It may have been the school certificate showed that. I was also good at religion funnily enough [laughs] I don’t know why. Go on. Anyway —
Interviewer: Yes. Yes. So when you went at OTU at Bruntingthorpe were there many accidents?
DM: Well, I don’t think so. I don’t. I can’t remember anything.
Interviewer: Ok. Life went, so you’re evolving as a crew.
DM: Yes
Interviewer: Getting used to the job.
DM: Used to it.
Interviewer: Getting on.
DM: Going on the intercom with other people or having them on board with us even. That sort of thing. But that was all but at the we then went to Winthorpe near Newark.
Interviewer: Yeah, which is —
DM: The heavy, the Conversion Unit
Interviewer: Unit. Yeah.
DM: And you got the other two members of the crew.
Interviewer: Right. So your new members of the crew would be then Richard Anderson was the air gunner. Is that right?
DM: Was he?
Interviewer: He was when you were lost it was that Anderson was it?
DM: Oh yes. Yeah. That’s right. It would be Andy. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. And your flight engineer.
DM: Yes. Of course. Yeah.
Interviewer: Who is?
DM: English.
Interviewer: English.
DM: He wasn’t our own engineer. That was —
Interviewer: Oh no, it wasn’t. It wasn’t. So who was your flight engineer? Can you remember?
DM: Oh, he was a Welsh lad [pause] No. I can’t remember. I’m sorry.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: I haven’t had much contact with him. Not even straight afterwards. Not like the others.
Interviewer: So at Heavy Conversion Unit you were flying —
DM: Yes. Excuse me he wasn’t with us at the time because he was shot down a week or so before we were.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: With another crew you know as a spare bod.
Interviewer: Oh right. So he’d gone as spare bod.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: Ok.
DM: That’s why English came and joined us. Because he was the engineer for the ones who got lost.
Interviewer: Right [laughs] They swapped over.
DM: They, you know he was spare because the rest of his crew had —
Interviewer: Gone down. Yeah. At Heavy Conversion Unit what were you flying? Halifaxes?
DM: Well, we did fly once in a Halifax without any great enthusiasm.
Interviewer: Not on Stirlings
DM: Would it be just the two engines was it?
Interviewer: No. Halifax was four.
DM: I know the Halifax well we did have one going on the Halifax because there was also one where they only had two engines. Was that the forerunner of the Halifax.
Interviewer: Oh, Manchester. Manchester.
DM: Manchester.
Interviewer: Manchester. So, you flew Manchesters did you?
DM: Just once [laughs] yes.
Interviewer: And you weren’t too happy with it.
DM: Well, no. Well, you know we were alert.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: That was about it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: It hadn’t got the right sort of power.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And this sort of thing.
Interviewer: Yeah. So did you fly Lancs at all at Heavy Conversion Unit?
DM: Yeah. Oh yes. We did go onto Lancs mainly.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: I feel sure. Where wouldn’t that be in here. It doesn’t show me.
Interviewer: Yes, it will I think. Yeah, it’s the next —
DM: 29 OTU.
Interviewer: OTU. Here we are. Lancs. Manchester. That’s right.
DM: Oh, there we are. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. You were flying yeah in Manchesters.
DM: Right.
Interviewer: Oh actually. You did one trip in a Wellington.
DM: Oh Wellington. Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: But you did two trips, three trips in a Manchester.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: And then you went on to Lancasters.
DM: That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: How did you feel about flying in a Lancaster?
DM: Well, looked forward to it really thinking this is the aircraft of the day.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: So there was nothing there. But as I say, that, are we at Winthorpe now?
Interviewer: Yes.
DM: Yes. Well, fortunately we came out top crew. And they sent us a bonus sort of thing. You can go to Scampton on a month course concentrating on H2S.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: Because we’d not, we’d sort of seen it but we hadn’t really used it at OTU.
Interviewer: Who usually operated the H2S set? The navigator?
DM: Oh yes. Yes.
Interviewer: So was it by him.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: In your cubicle.
DM: That’s right. Yes. It was there like the Gee thing used to be.
Interviewer: Gee box. Yeah. Right so you’re sat in a Lancaster. You’ve got pilot in the left-hand seat. The flight engineer in the dickie seat and you’re behind.
DM: Behind the pilot. Sitting.
Interviewer: Facing the fuselage.
DM: Facing port. Right.
Interviewer: Right. So you’ve got your desk in front of you.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Where’s your Gee box?
DM: There.
Interviewer: On the right.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: And where’s your H2S set?
DM: Same as far as I remember.
Interviewer: Right. So they’re both on the right.
DM: Oh no. We didn’t need, we didn’t have a Gee box when you’d got the H2S.
Interviewer: Oh, I see so you’d either have Gee —
DM: Yes. Oh yes.
Interviewer: Or H2S.
DM: We would say goodbye to that.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: And H2S which was much more.
Interviewer: Now, what else did you have? Did you have an airspeed indicator in your —
DM: No.
Part 2.
DM: Every three minutes was obviously the plan which was good in a way because it kept you very busy and the time went quickly whereas for other members of the crew I imagine it seemed a long time.
Interviewer: Now, was that the fix you got from your H2S set?
DM: Yes. It was. Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: So before your flight then when you had the flight route —
DM: Oh yes.
Interviewer: Marked on your map.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: And then you worked out where you were on that preferred route.
DM: Yes. Yeah. So it was more or less a case of giving adjustments to see if we weren’t off tracked.
Interviewer: Off Route. Yeah. Ok. Right. So you got your Gee box or H2S set.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Your desk. And you’ve got your protractor, pencils, Phillips computer they called it.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Yes. Yeah. And your maps.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Right. And that’s [unclear] was going. And you’re in quite a good position I hear because isn’t that the warmest place in the aircraft. the navigator’s position.
DM: I suppose it was yes. We didn’t, but none of us wore anything except battledress.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: With, well we did have some long johns and vests with sleeves to wear on operations and then just your battle dress.
Interviewer: What about the gunners? Did they have anything? You can’t remember.
DM: Could have but I can’t remember.
Interviewer: Right. Ok. So you get to Scampton to do H2S. To do an H2S course.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: And then you went. You had other duties.
DM: We were designated to ’57 Squadron before we started that course.
Interviewer: Oh right. Ok.
DM: You go into the room. They have you at Scampton for a month before you actually joined the squadron.
Interviewer: Now, that’s something —
DM: Officially, we —
Interviewer: At some point you lost your wireless operator didn’t you?
DM: Well, no. Not [pause] what happened there was that George Allen —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: This chap older than the rest of us he had a carbuncle came up on his hand. He couldn’t operate the key so he went into the sickbay. They wanted him in bed for a day or two.
Interviewer: Oh right.
DM: So they could take him.
Interviewer: So he missed the operation when you were lost.
DM: Absolutely. And —
Interviewer: So you’ve got a flight engineer who went with another crew and went missing.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: And your wireless operator was away.
DM: He is.
Interviewer: Having an operation.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: So the crew that went on the final operation was five of the originals plus —
DM: Two.
Interviewer: A strange wireless operator and a strange flight engineer.
DM: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: Right. Ok. Right.
DM: Just you a bit about George Allen, he was such a nice bloke and when we were all friends we spent hours and hours, days, weeks to Spain. Spain with the caravans and all sorts with him. He’s dead of course now because he was that much older but he, he said that the corporal came to see him in the sick bay and he said, ‘I knew what he was coming for.’
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And you know he knew we had not come back.
Interviewer: So —
DM: However —
Interviewer: George Allen then was put with another crew and he survived.
DM: No. Oddly enough he did quite a bit more flying but he being older I think I don’t know maybe he talked to somebody or somebody took pity on him. I don’t know it if it was pity but they commissioned him and he became signals leader on the squadron and he did spare bod trips when required.
Interviewer: Oh right. So he, he became [pause] right. He became the [pause] right —
DM: So he actually got in more.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Proper trips than we ever did of course.
Interviewer: Now, your original flight engineer.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: What happened to him? The one that was lost with another crew? Was he captured or was it did he —
DM: No. No. He was a POW.
Interviewer: He was a POW.
DM: Yes. Yeah.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: Not with, not in my, not the same camp as me.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Or we’d have made contact.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: But no.
Interviewer: Right.
[recording cut]
Interviewer: Ok. So, you do your course. You arrive at 57 Squadron which is based at —
DM: East Kirkby.
Interviewer: East Kirkby. Right. Now, did your [pause] Oh yea. Yes. That’s right. The CO was Fisher. Did you ever meet the CO? [Little Knock?]
DM: I can’t remember. No.
Interviewer: Or your flight commander?
DM: Well, I expect so. Yes. Actually, I did have the first of the preliminary interviews for commissioning but that’s as far as it went. You had to survive [laughs] a bit longer.
Interviewer: Can you remember who your navigation leader was?
DM: I can’t.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: No.
Interviewer: Ok. Ok. Right, so presumably Tony Wright went on an operation on his own with another crew as second dickie.
DM: Yeah. I think you might be right.
Interviewer: You can’t remember.
DM: I’m not sure.
Interviewer: Right. So your first operation is Hagen.
DM: No. No. Frankfurt.
Interviewer: Frankfurt. Oh right. So on the, that’s, that’s the 4th and 5th of October 1943.
[pause]
DM: What day?
Interviewer: October ’43.
DM: October.
Interviewer: Oh no. No. That’s —
DM: November.
Interviewer: Here we are. 57 Squadron.
DM: Oh, I see.
Interviewer: A cross country. Cross country. Here we are. Frankfurt.
DM: Oh, that’s right. Yeah.
Interviewer: So that is the 20th of December, sorry.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: So the 20th of December was your first operation.
DM: That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: Right. To Frankfurt.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: And how did things go?
DM: Well, it was quite nothing to speak of really. It all went according to plan and we had no problems. And —
Interviewer: No aircraft —
DM: Took six hours, five minutes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: By the look of it.
Interviewer: So, you had no problems at all. Right.
DM: No. No. Nothing amiss there.
Interviewer: So your next operation is 2nd and the 3rd of January ’44.
DM: That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: When you go to Berlin.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Presumably, had you done the, anything happen? Was the weather bad or something in 1943 or you just weren’t on the list.
DM: Well no. The only thing [pause] I’m not sure now regrettably whether it was Frankfurt or Berlin but on one of those there were two incidents. The bomb aimer came up from down below and what for I didn’t understand and so did the wireless operator and they’d both lost their oxygen by then. Anyway, I grabbed a couple of portable ones and fixed them both up with them and that was it. They came back to normal [laughs] but it was like they were semi drunk.
Interviewer: Yeah. [laughs] That’s oxygen narcosis.
DM: It’s something.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: It’s shortage of oxygen.
Interviewer: Oxygen.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Yeah. Quite. Now also I’m not sure. I think that’s probably the Berlin one where we came back and we were circling East Kirkby and I got my bag, all my stuff in my bag and I’D finished sort of thing. We’re here. And we landed and got out of the aircraft and into a truck driven by a girl which we weren’t used to. I mean we hadn’t been used to anything never mind the girls but anyway she stopped and two or three of them all said, ‘We don’t want to be here. We’re 57 Squadron.’
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: They said, well there’s or 630 Squadron also —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: At East Kirkby.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: She said, ‘There’s no 57 Squadron here.’ [laughs] And we’d landed at Strubby. So we were all for getting back in and going home like. Going.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: They wouldn’t wear that of course.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: So they took us in a lorry and we did our debriefing, went to bed and so on and then later the next day we went and got the aircraft.
Interviewer: And you went back to [pause] yes.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: East Kirkby.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: Right. So —
[recording cuts]
Interviewer: Your next operation and the final operation is the 27th and the 28th of January.
DM: Yeah, which is —
Interviewer: When you go to Berlin.
DM: That’s right. Yeah.
Interviewer: Right. Ok.
[recording paused]
Interviewer: Right. Now, on your, on your last operation just generally did your crew have any particular habits, mascots, things you did before you go to an operation?
DM: Not as far as I’m aware. No.
Interviewer: Right. So this was the final operation. You go to briefing.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Now, the navigators that were briefed independently to start with, weren’t they?
DM: Oh yes. We used to do. Complete the maps and things.
Interviewer: The navigation leader would show you whatever.
DM: Go through the route.
Interviewer: Go through the route.
DM: Absolutely. Yes.
Interviewer: Did they tell you about the flak positions or things like that to avoid?
DM: I can’t remember.
Interviewer: Right. So basically, you’re given —
DM: Possibly they did but I can’t remember.
Interviewer: They gave you the route to follow.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: You put it on your maps.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: You then go, the next thing is is the full crew briefing isn’t it?
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Right and then they, everyone talks about the mets and —
DM: That’s a bit later in the day and then you go from that straight to the dispersal.
Interviewer: Right. So you had your aircrew breakfast hopefully. A meal.
DM: Oh yes. Yes.
Interviewer: Yes. So you had your final briefing. You then put on your kit. Off to your aircraft.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Right. Now, when you get to the aircraft what’s, what’s the navigator’s job? Just get in the aircraft. That’s it.
DM: Well, yes. Yes. It is. To go up the ladder and get the stuff out on the table ready to go. There wasn’t really anything else wants to do.
Interviewer: So, the pilot and the flight engineer have to check the aircraft externally.
DM: Yes, that’s right.
Interviewer: And sign for it.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Ok.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: So did anything particularly happen on this night that you’re —
DM: Well, as I said —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: We went to dispersal from about 4:30 and took off at 5:40 apparently. Well, as we went on to the dispersal before we ever got a step on the ladder a corporal came up and he said, ‘Now, we don’t want it here when you come back because it’s due for a major overhaul. So we want it up there by the hangar.’ And anyway, he kept on about this. ‘Don’t bring it back here.’ And even when we started to taxi he was still shouting to the wind. ‘Don’t bring it back here.’ [laughs] So that [laughs] was a bit odd but nevertheless we, the bombing was ok. There were no incidents on the way out. Stuck to the route and —
Interviewer: Was there a lot of dog legs on the route to the meeting point?
DM: No, not really. We went south before we went over to the coast but then from then on it was not far from straight to Berlin. There were kinks maybe here and there.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Having dropped the bombs we went straight on again I would think for at least twenty thirty miles. Then we turned just west of south and it was before we got to the end of that leg about fifty or sixty miles along it that we started with the fire and so on.
Interviewer: What, what happened?
DM: Well, the thing was that in the, in the event it was a case of there was a bang. Not [unclear] but it was obviously some sort of explosion and somebody said, ‘Oh, the starboard inner is on fire.’
Interviewer: So, it was a mechanical problem.
DM: Possibly. Yes. Of course.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And so I just pulled the curtain back and had a look and it didn’t amount to much and the engineer feathered the propeller so that it stopped and the pilot said, ‘Right. You’d better find your parachutes. You never know.’ [laughs] And I entered, I was entering this up in the log and with that it must have been no more than about five minutes later from the first bang, ten at the most, the pilot said, ‘Christ, look at this.’ And the whole of the port wing was virtually opened up in flames.
Interviewer: But as far as you know you weren’t attacked by an aircraft.
DM: Nothing at all. Well, several of us had doubts about it. You know there was all sorts of possibilities. It could just be mechanical failure particularly as we were due for a major overhaul. Could even have been sabotage was one theory. Somebody could have. The aircraft was parked not far from the main road. Not a main road of course but it wasn’t out in the country. Somebody had somehow or other slipped something in there to go off at certain times. You just never know. The Irish for instance. But there was absolutely nothing and we had a first-class crew as I’ve said. I mean the rear gunner and the mid-upper they were very sharp and neither of them saw anything. The bomb aimer didn’t see anything not the pilot of course. But that’s just how it happened and it moved on swiftly to, the pilot said, ‘Right, you’d best get out.’ And that we did. The bomb aimer was down there anyway getting the hatch out. The engineer was watching him, you know [laughs] Hurry. I was then next.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: That’s right. And behind me was the wireless operator thumping on my back.
Interviewer: You all went out the front. The front bit.
DM: Oh yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: We did. Yes. And I said, ‘Hang on, hang on, they haven’t got the thing out yet.’ You know. But anyway, we soon got down there and we went. Again, personally I remember going through sheets of flame but nothing else. I was unconscious almost immediately. I don’t even recollect pulling the rip cord but I probably had it in my hand. Must have had, I suppose, mustn’t I? Nothing else would pull it would it? [laughs] And that was it, you know. No sight of the aircraft or anything else. I was unconscious. Somewhere on the way down I regained consciousness and thought oh dear, here we are and the, it was swinging as they do and the drill was to get hold of the ropes and pull to stop this. But at that point before I’d even made one pull, out again unconscious. And the next thing that I knew was I was easing myself up into a sitting position in a forest with a parachute partly held up in the trees but I wasn’t on it sort of thing fortunately and about a foot of snow everywhere.
Interviewer: So do you think you hit your head on something getting out the aircraft?
DM: Well, yes. I found out, not for two or three days later I found that I had a cut straight across the top of my head. I had hair of course so [laughs] it wasn’t quite so evident. But and that’s all I knew and there was, there was a possibility as I say going through these flames and there were aerials at [unclear] weren’t there? It’s just a possibility but I really don’t know.
Interviewer: Right.
[recording cuts]
Interviewer: You land on the ground. Have you guys still got your boots on?
DM: Oh yes.
Interviewer: Because you were quite lucky because often they —
DM: Well, I had one of the new type but the Canadian he lost one of his boots and that put paid to his escape.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: But I had the new black ones and the knife in the top where you cut off the top.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And I did. I went to all the trouble of doing that there and then I think. Maybe not even waited until the next morning.
Interviewer: So you had your escape boots on. You cut it down to a shoe.
DM: A shoe.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: What was your first thought when you landed? You woke up and —
DM: Well, that was a bit odd. I mean I was sort of sitting there and thinking, you know is this really happening? Virtually pinched myself to thinking well maybe I’m dreaming all this. But not so. Anyway, I first of all as I say I was on the ground and I sort of undid the parachute harness and sat up and then I got up on my feet and fell down. Again, tried it again and fell down. Now, my father had given me one of those tiny flak bottles of navy rum and his idea was if you come down in the drink this just might save your life. So I thought now is the time for the rum and so I had a half of it probably and I could stand up then [laughs] Foolishly I went and found, out of the forest and to a village and there was dogs barking and this that and the other. You know I was obviously not fully compos mentis you know because of what I was doing. But I did walk in there for a little bit. Nobody came out. This would be around 9 o’clock. Nine to 10 o’clock.
Interviewer: Do you know which village?
DM: In the evening.
Interviewer: Which village you were near?
DM: I have no idea because I didn’t see any more of it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: But then I went back in to the forest and eventually laid down in the snow and went to sleep. Woke up. I don’t know quite how long I’d slept but I woke up and I was like a board myself because of the temperature.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And I’d got as I say the battledress. I even lost my helmet. And then, well shall we have a look at the date because I’ve got —
[recording paused]
Interviewer: Yeah. [unclear] yeah.
DM: 28th of January. I hid in the forest all day and I found a railway line nearby and walked in an easterly direction on it at night. The following day I hid/slept at the foot of the stack. Rain all day. Walked to the station at Lübbenau. L U B B E N A U. Tried to board a train but unsuccessful. Slept on stack in the railway yard.
Interviewer: So your intention was try to get to Belgium or France.
DM: Well, yeah. Tried. The thing was that we’d had a lecture from a chap who came around. Not just that one but this particular chap he’d got back having been shot down in that sort of area and he got to Stettin and he got, was lucky enough to get on a ship to Sweden. I think it was Sweden rather than Norway and he was, they’d got him home of course and he was going around the stations telling us this tale.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Which he’d managed to do it. So, I thought well here I am. It’s an awful long way to make for France and go on that way which wouldn’t have been any better possibly anyway but —
Interviewer: So you were trying to get to Stettin.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: And, you know it would be obviously a gamble but also maybe pretty unlikely. I don’t know whether he was the only one who ever did it but could have been so.
Interviewer: Yeah. That’s alright. So you tried to get on a train. Yeah. So, that was the 30th. Yes.
DM: The 30th. Yes. I woke at dawn and went into the fields. I checked the canal and found the canal which is comes up later and a small Dutch barn. In the evening I returned to the canal. I beg your pardon I returned to Lübbenau but no train stopped. I discovered a three inch cut on the top of my head and scratches on my face. Nothing to eat at this stage. Water from a field dyke in the rubber bag.
Interviewer: Yeah. So you had your escape kit with you.
DM: Oh yes. Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah. Which had the water purifying —
DM: No. Just a bag.
Interviewer: Just a bag to carry the water in.
DM: Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And —
Interviewer: Horlicks tablets and —
DM: That’s right.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Yes. That sort of thing.
Interviewer: Get it quite —
DM: I’d had a few of those of course.
[recording cuts]
DM: Yes, well on the 31st I was in a Dutch barn. At daylight I saw workmen heading for a canal and I followed. I was seen by them and one man on a bicycle shouting to me to stop, in French and he turned out to be a French POW. So, you know it suddenly dawned on me he’s speaking French [laughs]. So, I stopped and he knew full well who I was and what I was about. That’s right. There was this group of French that I’d seen. They were all French prisoners of war working on the canal. They gave me food and beer and said to be in the same place the next morning. Oh, wait a minute. Have I done that right? [pause] Yeah. More or less. The thing was that I should have said that they came, the whole group of them came past near where —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: I met the other Frenchman and two of them came to me and they gave me bread and a bottle of beer and that sort of thing straightaway from what they’d saved at lunchtime themselves.
Interviewer: Where was their camp? Was it at Lubenec?
DM: No, that was at Raddusch. Yes. Where are we? Saw the workmen [pause] Oh that’s right. That’s right. They came with this bread and stuff. Other things as well and a bottle of beer and they said to be in the same place the next morning. So of course, I went back to this Dutch barn to sleep and I was there in good time to see them come. On the 1st of February that should be, at 8 am they came and they brought more food and drink and a letter from Rene, which I call Rene [Danch] who was like a full, you know all these people of course had been in the Army full time, you know. They were conscripts. This was why they were prisoners of war. Rene [Danch] and he was like a sergeant major or a warrant officer, something like that and he had perfect English. But anyway, they came and they brought a letter from Rene. At 5pm two of them came in the forest with full French uniform to wear over my clothes and a beret. On train which was just a one coach thing [unclear] and we had to stand on the piece at the end which wasn’t enclosed, you know, rather than go and sit in the seats.
Interviewer: So what was, was this train just to take workmen?
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Backwards and forwards.
DM: They travelled on it daily.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: From Raddusch to this canal site.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And I had this khaki overcoat and trousers and beret and we just stood there. Then when we got off the train we went to Raddusch, R A D D U S C H. Rene came up beside me at the station, took my arm and started talking to me in English you see. I should say maybe at this stage that the reason he had this good English was that he’d escaped with our troops at Dunkirk and they’d been training and whatnot mainly up in Scotland although he didn’t have a Scottish accent [laughs] but nevertheless he’d learned the language very well and his German was fluent as well, and French. However, he was, you know he explained where they were and how things were there and helped me with whatever they could do.
Interviewer: So basically these chaps held camp.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: They’d get on a train each day to work. They’d come back on the train.
DM: That’s right. Well —
Interviewer: Unsupervised by the Germans.
DM: Well, slightly but only slightly.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: It was a barn on a farm in the village of, or maybe it was a small town. I don’t know but they had it to themselves entirely. Ground floor and all blocked, you know paving but nothing going on in the way of farming. And they had all the downstairs and then they also had upstairs and they did their own thing. One of the number stayed at the camp all day and he had to cook a meal for them coming back in the evening. Then into the evening about 9 o’clock two German soldiers came just with rifles just to say, I don’t think they even bothered to count them but it was a routine sort of thing.
Interviewer: Yes.
DM: And then that was it as far as they were concerned. But as far as the actual, on my first night there they talked to me for a while and then they said, ‘You’ll have to go upstairs,’ you know, ‘Because the Germans could turn up any time.’ Explained all this and then as soon as that was gone they, they had gone again. I could hear them walking on these cobbles of course. I knew they’d been and gone. And they said, you know they wanted to know this, that and the other but there was only him that had any real English. And then sort of had a party and they’d got a big board about so big and they’d done what you called, what you might call a glop. It was not cake. They’d made it up by mixing cake and chocolate and all that sort of thing and they had a cross of Lorraine and the big V like this and everybody was going to get a piece of this you see [laughs] And I said about the cross, you see ‘Oh the Cross of Loraine,’ I said. Oh, oh, you can imagine [laughs] Anyway, that was very good. They had beer, they had schnapps I think but I didn’t take part in much of that because I didn’t like the schnapps. But I had, I had a drink. I had a drink with them.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And then when that was over we didn’t go out that evening but after that most evenings was work ‘til the Germans had departed. They used to take me out for a walk around the village. A little. Just three or four of us sort of thing. Just a bit of exercise because I had to spend all day up in this loft thing either on the bed or walking about. They had a big huge pile of potatoes in one corner which was, they’d got for their own use and this, that and the other. The person who was doing the catering [laughs] he used to bring me [pause] where are we? [Pause] Oh, breakfast was toast and American coffee. Lunch was chips, bread and margarine. I’ve got it here. Which goes on to another day that there was an American POW camp not too far away apparently because apart from this group who were working on the canal the other people mainly were working on the railways and several of them were as firemen on the locomotive and of course they were coming back with all the stories of the damage that was being done by the bombing so they were cheered with that. And anyway, they had also along the railways there was Americans there too, you see. Well, they spread the word amongst the Americans that they’d got me and so when they came back the second night they came back with what? Oh, that’s right. They sent me food, chocolates, cigarettes, a razor, soap and a note to which I replied. One of the Frenchmen in the camp I was in he fixed a large parcel of food which was intended for me to take with me when I left them.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: And I’d still keep the uniform and all that.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: As a Frenchman. So that was good.
Interviewer: So how long did you stay with them?
DM: Well, the plan was as I say it again of course there were at another camp they claimed that they could probably get me in to a wagon which wouldn’t be open ‘til it got to Stettin and then it was up to me to get out of it and find a boat as best you can. And so —
Interviewer: So they were going to move you from their house, their farm to a camp.
DM: That’s right.
Interviewer: And from there you were going to get to Stettin.
DM: That’s correct. Yes. Then I took this box with me. Rene [Danch] and a friend, another one of them took me on a train in my French coat, trousers and beret to Cottbus. They had to fix up a [[unclear] for that. I don’t know how they did it but as far as I didn’t talk that’s all it needed. And when we got off the train at Cottbus there were two men waiting for us you see so we all went, all five of us and they said, they were saying among themselves obviously we’ll have a drink. So they go in to this [pause] I know where we are. It’s [pause] oh dear. Well, it’s sort of, it was a bar and it was quite large, a lot of tables and full of Germans nearly. Anyway, they got a place on the table and we all sat there together and had the beers and obviously there’s something they were doing regularly, you know. The Germans didn’t mind. They knew who they were and they were all welcome in the buffet [laughs] And anyway, then after maybe twenty minutes or so we we’d had the drink and so we all went outside and all shook hands and parted company. I went with the two from the big camp and Rene and his friend would return on the train no doubt to Raddusch. I’ve got the waiting room above there.
[recording cuts]
DM: Said goodbye to Rene and went with the other POWs to their camp.
Interviewer: This was on the 5th of —
DM: The 5th of February, yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Yeah. Now the next. Oh, no. No, this is still applicable to that day. It was we walked about one and a half miles and also whilst we were doing so it was evident that there was a raid. There was sirens going and a raid coming on. We thought it was British aircraft making a raid not far away but we didn’t know where. We got in to the camp and allocated a bed in two tiers. I was on the bottom and after all the guards had left because they had a similar thing. They didn’t have guards on the job, you know. It was a big camp.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: But they didn’t bother to guard it day and night.
Interviewer: Did they just get up check they were there.
DM: That’s right. Yeah. From time to time. So, and then they ushered me into their sort of own little office where they, several of them could speak some English. There was a French man who I think was an officer and that was Saturday evening until the early hours and four or five other French people with this one particular one some with good English. Questions, questions, questions. ‘When are the Allies going to invade?’ And I said, ‘Well, soon.’ And assured them, you know that there were gliders everywhere waiting and various other obvious equipment that led you to believe that it couldn’t be long which cheered them up no end. Then eventually to bed about 2am and I stayed in the camp. Supposedly this is the next day [crank] ill in bed, no problem but I was bitten all over by fleas. In the evening they were tipped off about a possible search by the Gestapo so I was taken by two other people to an empty cottage near Cottbus. The plan to come back. Their plan was to come back the next evening and get me into this goods wagon to Stettin. The railway [pause] oh yeah, that was it. There was just one Frenchmen. One of the same Frenchmen came the next evening. I had to stay in this cottage. It was completely empty and there was nothing close by but I could see a lot of people on the roads and railway and so on because they were, you know nearby. After all you know they couldn’t do it. They made me feel better. I mean with the biggest [unclear] was getting out of the damned thing wasn’t it?
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: You know if there’s nobody outside to help.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: So maybe it was a blessing. However, I stayed the night and the next day close to road and railway watching all day with several scares but nothing happened.
[recording cuts]
DM: I left the cottage and walked to the rail track. On the 8th of February I left the cottage at dusk on the rail track. No luck with trains. Too fast. Went into the fields in daylight. Snow and hail all day. Walked into Peitz, P E I T Z the village at [pause] I haven’t said where. But it was snowing. The train standing, oh yeah that’s right. There was a train standing in the station and I climbed into a box on the end of a goods wagon. They had those with the break wheels in didn’t they?
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: A little sentry box —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: On the end and a seat. Two stops where they offloaded some of the trucks between me and the engine and they actually uncoupled me. So, you know I thought oh dear I’m going to be stuck somewhere. They might even want to come up and put the brake on. However, they didn’t. They backed up and reconnected having dropped off a wagon or two and off we went and apart from the two stops there we went all the way to Frankfurt on Oder. The train stopped in the sidings. That was evident because you know there was no hissing or anything like that any longer to do with the brakes. Then I walked on the tracks northwards where I was planning to go. Heavy snow. There was a signal box up on an embankment and it was quite high up and as I walked by two Germans opened a window and they were both yelling at me and it took a little while to dawn on me that they were probably telling me to get out of the track because I was walking in the middle, the easiest place because there was a train coming up. And there I was. I was, you know I’d [laughs] I naturally very soon forgot about their warning and I was back in the middle of the track and a very close shave with a train came behind me and he, you know literally it wasn’t coming. It was there. You know, it was o, it had no intention of stopping and there was a lot of goods wagons on behind it. But anyway, they were both looking out but as soon, I turned around and saw it I thought ooh. I threw myself on to the side and we were actually on a bridge and there was a railing to grab and I was clear. They were, as I looked up and they were looking out straight at me thinking that they’d got me probably. Fortunately. Well, from their point of view it didn’t matter maybe but that was how it worked out and dived off the track on to the bridge. That’s right. I was wet through and about exhausted. I ‘saw’ a person walking ahead of me. I don’t know whether there was anybody or it was just an hallucination.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: However, I went on and eventually it became it was coming light and I spotted this barn at Lebus. L E B U S. I slept on the straw and awake at 10am. A young Russian, it turned out to be a young Russian, a young lad anyway came up the ladder because in this barn I got under the door to get in and on the left hand side was machinery and some straw and stuff but on the right you went up a ladder and the whole thing was full of straw leading to the roof. To the level anyway and the tile roof was up above. That’s right. Well, his eyes nearly popped out of his head because I was in my white long johns. Well, everything else was wet through you know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: I’d got down in the straw. He saw me and went to fetch another Frenchman who worked on the farm. He obviously you know thought best tell him and see what happened. Well, he took me to his camp in Lebus. Not the first night, I think it was the second night and gave me a meal which was good and he dried my clothes. Back to the barn at night. And then he brought me a large bottle of milk and food and took my clothes to dry then. I stayed in the barn all day because I hadn’t got the clothes back for one thing. Went across the road to the farm where the Russian boy and a girl lived and they were only in their teens and they were living together and sort of slave labourers on the farm like the Frenchman was in a way. They dried my shoes and I had a shave, slept in the barn and stayed there all day because there was no point in going out in the daylight you know because the roads were impassable apart from on foot. You couldn’t ride a bike on them anyway. Vehicles were alright obviously but it was pretty grim. And I went to the railway station Saturday night but no train passed through. Back to the barn before daylight proper and I slept again. Stayed in the barn on Sunday night. Awake about 8.30 am. That means the following day I think. About 10am a car, oh I should say at the end of the barn because the barn was separate from the farm. It was one side of the road and the farm was over the other side of the road and there was a bridge, air bridge really. It weren’t a [unclear] bridge and I could see the road and the farm fields and as I awake about 8.30.
[recording cut]
DM: About 10am a car pulled up outside the barn and three Gestapo men because of their boots and uniform and one soldier with a rifle came in to the barn. I was in straw in the, down in the straw.
[telephone ringing]
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Yeah. Just a minute. Hang on. Hang on.
[recording paused]
Right. Came in to the barn. I was down in the straw but was soon found and believed given away by some other Frenchman in the camp where they took me for a meal. It must have been. They took me across to the farmhouse and somebody made some coffee and they tried to question me. Well, they were hopeless. They had no English and all I kept saying, writing down or speak it was number, rank and name.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: From there we went out again and the solder with the rifle and I had told me to take me into the village. Anyway, we’d only got about a hundred yards if that and they came up —
Part 3.
DM: They put me in a little snug with a door and then a few minutes later they opened the door and the Frenchman was there in his braces and that was it sort of thing. I sort of just looked and then attempted to sort of show no recognition at least and then looked away and that was it. But he nodded or whatever they’d asked him. It was me. I was the one and they shut the door again. Just a few minutes later they opened up the door and said, ‘Come on out,’ and there was a huge brown table. You couldn’t have got it in this room and they said, ‘Sit down and everybody gets a beer,’ including me [laughs] Extraordinary really. Anyway, we were back in the car quite soon and we left the farm. Left the village there to go to the Gestapo offices in Frankfurt on Oder in the car. While I was there, I’ve got notes about this but I remember that the first thing of significance was I got out of the car and there was this magnificent building for the Gestapo Headquarters of that area and it had a staircase which took you up to only, well twice the height of our stairs and we had to go up in to this higher part. Later on it curved around and it took us literally about twenty minutes at least to get to the next floor because every few steps somebody came along and they were explaining to them, ‘Well, why? What’s —’ They all wanted to know [laughs] and of course they hadn’t seen much war at Frankfurt on Oder.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And anyway, we eventually got in there and the chap in charge was turned out to be really quite a toff. He was, you know, he said, ‘You can keep your own stuff.’ And the only thing that went missing was my two pounds and three half crown coins.
Interviewer: Yeah. Right.
DM: And the stuff I had in this box. Still kept it. Razor and all this sort of thing. They didn’t mind and well that was it for that time but at night I had to stay in the, in that place and there was nowhere properly secure but there was a lift and there was a space in between it about as big as half this room and they, you know gates, metal gates that were expanding and he explained that somebody who, somebody in the building would come up every hour and hold the bucket to it so that I could relieve myself if necessary. And there was nothing to sleep on at all. Just concrete floor and anyway I did sleep and then the next morning the man who was in charge oh, by the way there was another little thing was he said, ‘Do you want to freshen up?’ You know because there was sort of a private little wash place, toilet immediately off the office without going out and I said, ‘Right. Thank you.’ So I got my gear out, shaved, washed and this, that and the other. But then I still had to hang about there and all through the day there was girls coming in with a sheaf of papers you know, came to see this, well I don’t know what they would refer to me as but anyway at that stage and so you know but all excuses obviously. I mean the paperwork I think [laughs] ridiculous. They hadn’t seen one like me before. Anyway, in the afternoon another fella turned up on, a younger fella in his ordinary everyday suit so the cells, those who were dressed, those who were dressed right they were the bosses sort of thing. No, no jackboots for them and he said the best he could that we were going down the road to the civvy prison and he showed me a pistol in his jacket pocket sort of thing so you’re not running off. I said [laughs] ‘Right. I won’t be doing that.’ So he took me, you know in the mid-afternoon he took me to this prison. Well, it was a place which was literally hundreds of years old. The walls were at least three foot thick and very old. Stove pipes running up to give some comfort and they put me in a cell with a boy. Well, he wasn’t much more than a boy. A youth. And he was in his best suit. I didn’t get out of him why he was in there but some misdemeanour and we, despite him having no English, me having no German we carried on a conversation and I found out, he told me things which I understood about the Hitler jugend and things of that sort. And I told him things you know that I thought he ought to know. Anyway, when it came dark there was no light so the only thing was to go to bed. It was a two tier bunk. I begged to grab the bottom one and a blanket. Whatever, and of course I was very soon fast asleep because, you know I was tired anyway. Then at some point, I don’t, didn’t check the time but it would probably be around nine, 10 o’clock in the evening he was shaking the bed and with that there was, oh he was pointing up to the window which was right up there and there’s a huge red glow. And I thought ah. Theres something going on. It’s markers. You know. Pathfinders.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: With that, boom and one really big bang which was close but I mean it was evident there weren’t, well after a few minutes they weren’t going to come and move us from the cell. Walls three foot thick.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: You stood a chance of surviving anything like that so I got back on the bed and went to sleep. And the odd thing about this was that the next morning you know he was up when I woke up and he never spoke a word. He just looked at me all the time. He was flabbergasted or something of the sort. Not, didn’t utter a word. They brought us a couple of bowls of sort of a soup stuff. Nothing much stronger than that. And then possibly around 10 o’clock it was [pause] yeah a soldier came on his own. Another soldier with a rifle. He came for me. I noted it was probably about 10am and we went to the station. Oh no, we went back to the office first and they gave me these things that they’d kept you know and even the food and odds and ends. Not your French uniform of course. However, we were to catch a train to Berlin.
Interviewer: Had they interrogated you at all really?
DM: Well no. They had no ability.
Interviewer: There was no —
DM: Two or three people came and had a go but I mean —
Interviewer: They couldn’t speak English.
DM: No.
Interviewer: Right. Ok. Fine.
DM: No. Nothing really at all.
Interviewer: So roughly what date was this by this stage?
DM: Well, we were back to, down here to the 16th February.
Interviewer: Oh right. Fine. Ok.
DM: Yeah. It started, it was the 15th I think when they came to the farm.
Interviewer: Yeah. 16th.
DM: 16th 17th.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Anyway, I decided as I said that there was just these markers. One bomb. sleuth attack to draw them off.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: From Berlin.
Interviewer: You got the train the following day.
DM: Yeah. Well, that’s right. He [pause] that’s right. A soldier came. That’s right. I’ve already said that haven’t I? On the train to Berlin. We got to the station but we’d missed the train that we should have caught and we went to call at the Gestapo offices first and get these bits and then we went. And the first thing was the fact that we had to wait about two hours. He was trying to take me into a refreshment room at the station. Well, they wouldn’t have that. Whoever was in charge said no. They weren’t having that. Anyway, then took me in the same area to a dormitory which was set up for German personnel to spend the night there you know. These were two tiered jobs again. Bathroom, showers and whatnot and there was only one other chap there. One German there. He said, you know, ‘Do you want to use the facilities?’ So I had a wash up, had a shave and then to top it all he was blacking his boots and said, ‘Do you want to do that?’ So I had this bloke put some blacking on my shoes [laughs] However, we, then they got to Berlin. Well, we went on to this the next train to Berlin. We had to stand in the side corridor and it was full of people being brought home from the Russian front because they had these frames holding their arms up and they had their heads bandaged up and all sorts. So I got talking, in inverted commas, to some of these and the same thing applied. No English. No German. But we nattered about it and it was evident the Russian Front was where they’d come from.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Pleased to be leaving no doubt and all that and —
Interviewer: Hang on.
[recording cuts]
DM: Oh, and then so we got in to Berlin and we went on a tramcar to Stackau, S T A C K A U Airfield. I don’t know quite where it was regarding Berlin centre. A couple of people interrogated me. They did have good English and they checked around for any hidden compasses and all that sort of thing and then took me down to a bunker which was like an air raid shelter on camp and when I walked in there was six, no seven other people there And the one I became very friendly with was the navigator. A chap called Don Hall who had been a semi-senior civil servant as it happened and they’d been shot down the night before over Berlin. Came down on, in Berlin which was very dicey and the reason was that there was only as far as I knew there was only one thing happened and that was that whoever shot this thing it killed the pilot. And that was it. They all had to get out and they all came down in the streets of Berlin. However, they all got to this stage.
Interviewer: So —
DM: Sorry.
Interviewer: So the interrogation up to this date had been pretty amateur so far.
DM: No. None at all.
Interviewer: No.
DM: To speak of, no. So anyway, we met up. There were, there was a little thing. They were suspicious of me and thought I was a plant because of my shoes being blacked and all washed and shaved. They couldn’t believe it. Anyway, they did eventually.
Interviewer: What squadron were they from?
DM: I think he was 100 was it? He was at Ludford Magna.
Interviewer: 101. Yeah.
DM: They were —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: This, they didn’t have bombs.
Interviewer: Yeah, special. Yeah. ABC.
DM: Yes, that was —
Interviewer: Airborne cigar.
DM: That’s right. Cigar.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. And they were on their 30th trip.
Interviewer: Good God.
DM: Yeah. And the, well the pilot was dead of course and the rest of them managed to bale out. We went on a coach to catch the Paris Express at Juterbog to Frankfurt on Main. We didn’t go up to Paris obviously. Frankfurt on Main where the place —
Interviewer: Dulag Luft. Yeah.
DM: That’s right. Coolers, solitary confinement and that was what they did. Put everybody in a separate cell sort of thing. Mine was terribly terribly hot so the next day I did mention it and they turned it down so [laughs] whether it was not by design or not I couldn’t know. Excuse me. That was about 6pm when we got in there but I got very hot. Not allowed anything to read. Just think, in inverted commas about the situation. Walked up and down the cell seven hundred times the first day and up to one thousand four hundred times on the second day and so on. Proper interrogation was, you went in to, out of the cell and into a special room set up. On the wall there was a plan of our flight plan.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Precisely. And there was two of them but one of them did the talking and I adopted the same attitude as before. Number, rank and name and eventually he said, ‘Oh well, if you’re not willing to cooperate we’ll send you back to the Gestapo,’ because he knew about that episode. That’s what he threatened. That’s right. Being returned to the Gestapo means no talking. Back to the cell and nothing happened. No more interrogation as a large number of Brits and Americans were coming to the camp following raids with heavy losses.
Interviewer: What date was that approximately?
DM: That was I think the 24th of February.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: And we left, well we had a night there. Did I? Yes. That’s right. The 23rd I’ve got here. All cells were emptied and we were pushed into a big room with everybody being cleared out for the reception of these Americans and Brits you know. We were scarcely room to stand let alone sit down but we had to spend the night there. And I happened to be nearby a squadron leader and I told him or he asked what I’d been doing you know. It had gotten to that. I explained some of this and he said, ‘Oh —’ you know. ‘Damned good show.’ Sort of thing [laughs] He’d been there for some weeks.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And they were taking him out but he said, ‘I’m not finished. I’ve got to come back here.’ So they obviously thought more interrogation would be fruitful with him. There was, that’s right no room to sit down. On the 24th of February we left and went to the Dulag Luft. While I was there I was sort of pointed out, one of about four to go on a little duty. Push a hand cart to another place in town and get some mattresses. Extra mattresses [laughs] Anyway, saw a little bit of Frankfurt.
[recording cut]
DM: And then the 25th or 26th we were on a train about at the Dulag Luft they gave you a thing, it looked like a suitcase with pyjamas in, a towel, soap and shaving kit, things like that. You know. Which set you up a bit. Very good really. And on a train, wagons of course to Stalag Luft 6 but it was, took days and a bit tortuous.
Interviewer: Which was, Stalag Luft 6 was which one? Was that — [unclear]
DM: No. Heydekrug.
Interviewer: Heydekrug. Sorry.
DM: Yes. I think it was 6, wasn’t it?
Interviewer: Yes. Yeah.
DM: I think it was 6.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Yeah. So that and oh and the journey up we went through Lebus and Raddusch [laughs] funnily enough. So I realised you know that we might so I was —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Looking out for it.
Interviewer: Yeah. And you got to Heydekrug.
DM: Yeah. Across Poland that was.
Interviewer: Yeah. Into Estonia.
DM: No. No. It was East Prussia.
Interviewer: East Prussia. Right.
DM: Right.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: You know, there was Latvia and Lithuania.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Were a bit higher.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: Very close to Lithuania the camp was.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: I believe.
Interviewer: When you got there what was the camp like?
DM: Well, it was well occupied. The thing was that there were three lagers. There was one for British, one for Canadians and one for Americans and because of our arrival, maybe it was a bit unexpected or something they put us in with the Americans for a few days. And that was an eye opener too. I mean they weren’t like us at all [laughs] They got, we got parcels one day when we were in this situation and quite a number you know not just one or two but there was quite a percentage of them. They sat on a, you know a long seat with a table here with the parcel and they ate the lot. You know. It’s supposed to be for the week. Amazing.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Anyway, it was only three or four days and they moved us into the British part.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: And as it happened I was sent with two or three others into a small hut rather than a brick building, much bigger and all the other chaps when I got to know them they’d all escaped in the past and they were kept in this one hut you know near the gate for security reasons. And, you know they said, ‘What have you done?’ I said, ‘Nothing really.’ I did tell them of course what it was but anyway I don’t think that ever really fussed them.
Interviewer: Do you remember who the other people in the hut were?
DM: Well, I got to know them quite well. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. Can you remember some of their names?
DM: Oh dear. No. Not now. There was one little fellow who was quite a card and I did know him quite well but I can’t remember [pause] Rupert. Rupert [Greenhalgh], yeah. Rupert [Greenhalgh]. Yes. And they all had a history of getting out of camps.
Interviewer: Who was in charge of Heydekrug from the British point of view?
DM: I don’t know. No. I can’t remember.
Interviewer: Richard [Green]
DM: Oh yes. He was. Of course. Yes. Richard [Green]that’s right.
Interviewer: A man of honour. Yes.
DM: That’s right.
Interviewer: Yes.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Well, was the camp well run?
DM: Yes. I think it was. I mean we got a parcel every week at the beginning and there was no hassle really you know so long as you just did what was required. Walked around the perimeter you know several times a day and there was things to do. It had been established quite some time. They had two full orchestras and they had people putting on shows, you know. Acting and so on and it was all free to go when it came around and showers were available [coughs] excuse me, once a week. And the food, you know they did, they didn’t provide much but we had the parcels so —
Interviewer: I presume the Red Cross got you through.
DM: Yes. We were not badly off at all at that stage.
Interviewer: Was there much attempt to escape whilst you were there?
DM: Well, they talked of it but I mean by the time we got there when the invasion was likely to come up and everybody knew that there wasn’t the same interest that there had been previously. I never got involved with any of it. [coughs] excuse me.
Interviewer: So life goes on in the camp.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: But then the Russians start coming towards —
DM: Yes, precisely.
Interviewer: What happened then?
DM: We heard this gunfire and so on and the Russians because they sort of advanced didn’t they maybe I don’t know forty or fifty miles, stopped and then cleared up everything they’d come through and then did it again. Well, we were fortunate really in that they stopped not far short of us but you could hear all of the fighting and so on the day, one day and then it’s quiet after that.
Interviewer: Yes.
DM: There was another incident happened while we were at that camp and somebody, we were out enjoying the sunshine and somebody said, ‘Ay, look at this.’ And it was one of the big rockets you know that eventually dropped on London. Not the flying bombs thing.
Interviewer: The V-2s.
DM: V-2.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Going up into the stratosphere. So saw one of those but you know what if there was a target I don’t know but it was inside German territory before the Russians came. But —
[recording cut]
DM: Then they started, within a couple of days they’d moved us out. They said you know you were going out of here. Everybody and I was in virtually the last group to leave just by chance and we went into a camp in Poland at —
Interviewer: At dawn.
DM: Dawn. That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: So you marched from Heydekrug.
DM: No. No. No.
Interviewer: On a train.
DM: No, we didn’t have any marching really. We were very lucky in that respect.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And there was some stuff we picked up you know. One or two bits of clothing and things that were helpful but other people just left because they couldn’t carry it all because you could only take what you could carry.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: And then after about three or four weeks I would think at dawn the train again to Fallingbostel. Yeah. Fallingbostel.
Interviewer: When you got to Fallingbostel what state was that camp in?
DM: Well, word was that it had been empty for some time because they’d had Russians there and there had been typhus which they’d well obviously they’d got rid of it because we didn’t suffer with it. But there was a lot of Army people already in the camp and the Air Force contingent was relatively small. But they were well organized and they were, you know the first night or two we slept in a room which had forty bods. But we got one later where we just two tiers.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And this Don Hall and myself we were together and I think it was there where they confiscated the palliases. They were straw filled.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Anyway, we, we were [unclear] board but again it wasn’t a full board all the way so one of us suggested well why don’t we put them together, sleep together on the bottom part which we did and which was a much better solution. But gradually the parcels, they’d have, one a week was the plan of course but it became one between two for the week and then you might get another one each but eventually it was just half a box each every week. And we obviously slipped into a certain amount of malnutrition. It was peculiar in that to walk around the perimeter you had to consciously think about putting one foot in front of the other and we were quite thin but not dangerously so obviously because we could still walk and, but much of that and it would have been like Belsen I suppose.
Interviewer: So where were you at Fallingbostel when the Americans arrived?
DM: No. No. No. We —
[recording cut]
DM: We were moved out. They said we were going to I think it was to, a place near Berlin. Anyway, we were walking east. We did get extra food by being out in the country, you know pulling up onions and various things. Anyway, it was only about three days the Germans in charge of us decided they weren’t going any further east. They would go west. Meet the Brits.
Interviewer: So you were heading east from Fallingbostel.
DM: Headed east first.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: But then as I say —
Interviewer: They changed their mind.
DM: Three days they thought no. No. Because by then the Russians were virtually at Berlin I think.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: And then we had the incident with the parcel. That’s right. We were diverted off the ordinary road to pick up a parcel.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Each. I think. Or one between two. I’m not sure. And we’d just left there, we were in this long column. Must have been half a mile long and on a road with dykes each side and then fields and then suddenly we had the fighter attack by our own people.
Interviewer: Do you know what sort of fighter they were? Was it —
DM: Typhoons.
Interviewer: Typhoons.
DM: I think, yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Yeah. I mean we’d seen them around all the time and they were dipping their wings to us recognising what we were but this particular party they did recognise us but too late according to what we heard later.
Interviewer: So they attacked you and several were killed.
DM: Yeah. They were. Yeah. There was one chap not far from me got hit in the head and he’d been a prisoner since the early 1940. But actually there was more Germans killed although there was only one them to probably what thirty or forty of us. They had more casualties than we did. I think maybe because they didn’t run.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: I mean we, firstly we went in a dyke and then somebody came on top of me and I can remember thinking that’s good. Anyway, soon as the first attack we got up and ran in to the fields and again there was some firing and explosions from the road fortunately but I can remember diving into the ground you know to get in to it. To get underneath the surface.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: I remember I scraped all my —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Forehead and nose in doing so. But anyway, that was it. Then he’d gone and then we of course it was disarray. The Germans didn’t know what to do any more than we did but they said that there is a farm up the road. We’re going to stay there and that we did. But unfortunately, this Don Hall who was sharing everything we were he was ill and it turned out to be pneumonia. So they put him in a hospital nearby and I sort of carried on with the stuff we’d got until it came to an end.
Interviewer: So where were you eventually released [unclear]?
DM: Oh, well we moved onto another farm. Just one day or two. Stayed the night and when we went on the farms of course all the stock of pigs and chickens anything like disappeared [laughs] within almost minutes. Anyway, we survived it and the —
[recording cut]
DM: After a couple of days the next morning there was no activity and there was no guards to be seen anyway. And anyway, word went around, you know the guards had gone and there was one officer stayed and there was two or three guards but that was it. Anyway, we still didn’t get to know anything and then we were down by the entrance into the yard. I happened to be anyway and there was a jeep coming. A chap with a red cap you know in it and he came you know fairly fast up to that point. I’m supposed to be recording this. He was sort of holding the wheel and up on his as he was putting the brake on came up like this, ‘No bloody souvenirs.’ [laughs] And you could see the jeep disappearing up the road. Maybe he’d had some experience.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Anyway, he said, well, ‘We can’t help you obviously. I can’t do much for you but there’s a place if you walk up the road. There’s a village. There’s an empty school where you can sleep if that’s what you want and nearby there’s a field full of vehicles and you’re welcome to go and see what you can do and make your own way to Luneburg.’ So we did stay in this place that night. The next morning four of us went together and we found a [pause] oh dear —
Interviewer: Kubelwagen, was it?
DM: It doesn’t really, eh?
Interviewer: Kubelwagen. Volkswagon.
DM: No. No. Well, possibly. Yeah. I think maybe it was. Or a French car. Anyway —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: It was four seater.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: We got a tank of petrol out of another vehicle so we had plenty of fuel and we also picked up a box. A wooden box filled with cans of meat, you know. Round cans two deep and they were, well we established that they were beef like. Cooked beef in these tins. You know, ridiculous really but we thought well that would be something we were allowed to eat. However, we went on as far as we could. I was the only driver as it happened. I passed my test in 1939 before the war started. And so off we went and “POW” on the front just above the windscreen we’d written so that any police or anything directing traffic they would know where we wanted to go and then set us on the right road. Anyway, it began to come dark so we thought we’re not going on in the dark and we stopped and close to a farm house as it happened by luck and with that a soldier who hadn’t been, not a POW he was a sergeant and we explained we were POWs, been POWs and we needed somewhere to stay. He said, ‘Oh, well why not here.’ And he goes thumping on the door and tells them in English you know, ‘I’ve got four men here want to sleep here.’ [laughs] Anyway, they didn’t mind. They let us in and we sort of selected one room. Well obviously, spare and we said that was, they didn’t understand but we said, ‘We don’t want to inconvenience you any more than we must. We’ll sleep two on the bed and one each side on straw.’ So they obliged. We went in their pantry and chose, the first thing I spotted was a jar of preserved gooseberries. I said, ‘We’ll have that and we’ll have a chicken.’ You know. So she did us a smashing meal for the evening. Anyway, then we went to bed. The next morning we got up and dressed, went out in the village and —
[recording cut]
DM: Quite close by we came across an Army vehicle with a trailer which was a signals unit and we talked to them and said we want to go to [pause] where did I say? Luneburg.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Oh, he said, ‘Well, we’re going to Luneburg this afternoon if you’d like to go with us.’ So, ‘Oh yeah. Rather.’ So we went back to the farm, put this box of meat in. There was all [unclear] and a bag of sugar. A big bag of sugar. And they said, you know, ‘There you are. Come and come have a look at the vehicle. It’s yours.’ So they were really pleased and anyway we went to with these other fellas and they took us to the big barracks at Luneburg. The first thing they as you walked in they gave you a round tin of fifty cigarettes I think it was wasn’t it? And anyway, obviously we had plenty of food and all that sort of thing. It was just I think three days probably there relaxing and then they said, ‘Right, there are some American lorries coming to take you to an airfield called Diepholz.’ And they did and they took us and we were in bell tents we were. That evening was when Churchill was speaking on the radio saying that it was all over and this, that and the other. So we listened to that, had a meal and a few drinks and that sort of thing. The next morning some other vehicles came and took us to this airfield, Diepholz. We went on board a Dakota and they flew us to Brussels. We had proper accommodation there and also the ladies of the city were putting on a banquet as it were in some official building and we were all invited. And they were really posh ladies you know sort of thing. You could tell by their jewellery and what not. Mostly, fairly mature, you know. They weren’t girls so we weren’t interested in them not that I would have been anyway I’m sure. I was only thinking about getting home.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: But we had a magnificent meal and then we had a bit of a stroll around the city and looked at this and that and the group I was with returned to where we’d been stationed then. The next morning more vehicles took us to the Brussels Airport and this time we joined a little crowd and they said, ‘Right. Well, you’re going in this Lancaster.’ I still had my old brevet on so the navigator he came for us, he said, ‘Oh, I see you’re a nav.’ He said, ‘You can come down the front with me.’ So that was nice. Flew over the Channel, see the white cliffs of Dover.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: To [pause] oh dear. In Sussex. Tangmere.
Interviewer: Tangmere was it? Yeah, you landed at Tangmere. Yeah.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And to move on a bit the sergeant came and he said, ‘Now you dump all your clothes. Everything.’ And got rid of them and there was a sort of the blue hospital garments and a towel and soap and so on, showers and then he said, ‘Well, you can, it’s up to you but we can, you can go to bed and sleep right through tomorrow if you want or you could get up again about three —’ No, 5 o’clock. Something like that, ‘And we guarantee to have you fully clothed in uniform, fed and all the rest of it. Money, medical and out of here on a train home.’ Oh, we’ll all do that. Get up early which we did.
[recording cut]
DM: So that’s how it worked out.
Interviewer: So you got back to, back home.
DM: Immingham.
Interviewer: Immingham.
DM: It was at the time. Yes. Yeah.
Interviewer: Right. Did you ever think of staying in the RAF?
DM: Well, a bit. Yes. There was one time and as a matter of fact I was hanging about at the airfield at Killingholme to get some petrol coupons because we were entitled. Father’s car was there you know so and I drove it more than he ever did because he hadn’t had it long before the war started. I’d passed my test so I did most of the driving until it was laid up. Excuse me. And I think it was a squadron leader came, looked at my brevet and whatnot. Medals, such as there were and they, he said, ‘Do you fancy a tour in —’ [pause] Now, would you say Persia? It was wasn’t it? Now Iraq or something?
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: That’s right. The Persian Gulf and what not. Training navigators. So I said I don’t know about that. Anyway, I gave it a few minutes thought and I thought no. I’ll not bother with that. Too quick to go away again really from the comforts of home.
Interviewer: So you got demobbed fairly quickly out of the RAF.
DM: Well, not actually by choice. The first thing was that I now what? How did it work out? [pause] There was certain things you could do but eventually they said you’ve got to remuster if you want to stay in. But I couldn’t get out straightaway mark you. I must say that because my release code was forty, and when they made the first announcement they said any prisoner of war release group forty four or higher could go now. No. No, the other way around wouldn’t it?
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: I was forty four. Forty was —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Out. Because my father was out in days [laughs] He’d been there from the very beginning. I think your age had something to do with it as well. So what to do? So and then they say you’ve got to remuster if, you know you can’t just keep drawing your warrant officer’s pay [laughs] and doing virtually nothing. Did have a session of spud picking when I was in charge of a couple of [muggins] and shared it out at the end of the day. That was in Shropshire I think somewhere. Anyway, as regards to remustering we got together two or three of us, all warrant officers of course. They said, ‘Oh, look here a driving course.’ So I said, ‘Well, yeah, I can drive but — ’ I said, ‘Anyway, yeah if you want to do that.’ They couldn’t drive you see. So, I said I’ll go on that. So that’s what we did at Melksham. Anyway, I didn’t actually complete the course. We never got on the articulated vehicles because one of the same chaps he came running in sort of thing. He said, ‘There’s a notice on the board POWs up to group —’ whatever — ‘Can go.’ So we all said, ‘Right. Well, we’d better apply.’ That wasn’t the end of it either [laughs] because this was coming up December time.
Interviewer: Of ’45.
DM: Hmmn?
Interviewer: December ’45.
DM: Yeah. Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And, and they said, ‘Oh well, there’s some courses you can go on if you wish.’ And so I thought, ‘Well, I’ve been in insurance you see so I thought if I could do some swatting up and whatnot it might help and it would be better for me going in to Civvy Street in December January, February.’ And I went to Sunninghill Park near Sunningdale and Sunninghill Park, the house we were in was demolished for the Duke of York and his —
Interviewer: Oh yeah.
DM: To build on that site.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: [unclear]
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Anyway, there was a chap and myself he was likewise a POW warrant officer and he had a motorbike. He used to go out on that. It was neither taxed nor insured [laughs] but there was one day he was doing something else and he said, ‘You can take the motorbike if you like.’ So I said, ‘Alright. I’ll try it.’ And I’d never ridden a motorbike. Anyway, I did go for a spin but nothing much more because I didn’t care for it a lot and I resolved there and then I wasn’t having a motorbike I would always have cars when I got out and I did precisely that. I had work within the month.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. So looking back on the war and your service in the RAF any reflections, any thoughts about it?
DM: Well, on the whole it was enjoyable I must admit you know. There were moments when it wasn’t but on the whole it was a good experience.
Interviewer: What was your view of the French people who had helped you?
DM: Oh well I —
Interviewer: Did you contact them again or did you —
DM: Well, only two and one didn’t last very long but the Rene [Danch] as I mentioned before probably was we kept in touch but not straightaway. It was later on. Actually, we took the caravan down there and went to his house without warning [laughs] and he was delighted. He had three or four daughters grown up and his wife and this, that and the other. It all sort of went on from there. They came and of course oh well yeah well that was it. They came and stayed with us. We went there, stayed with them although we had the caravan but they still insisted we slept in their house and so then later on their daughter she went to —
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 Dougie Marsh
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v610006, SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v610007, SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v610008
Description
An account of the resource
Interview in three parts.
Part 1.
Doug Marsh was the son of a Royal Navy officer and moved around quite a bit as a child between Kent and Lincolnshire. When his father retired from the Navy his parents bought a fish and chip shop in Grimsby but shortages meant that the business could not succeed and Doug had to find other work. He had secured a place as a trainee with the local authority but the start of the war cancelled the scheme he would have joined. He worked for the Prudential Insurance Company until he volunteered for the RAF aircrew and began training as a navigator in the UK and then in South Africa. Following training in South Africa Doug returned to the UK to continue his training. During part of this training a German plane dropped a bomb on the local railway station and on the hotel where recruits were billeted. He was posted to RAF Bruntingthorpe for his OTU where he joined up with his crew and the trained together after training flights on Manchesters and on to the Lancaster.
Part 2.
Doug Marsh continued his training on H2S at RAF Scampton before being posted to 57 Squadron for operational flying. During that time the flight engineer on the crew had gone up on an operation and failed to return. On the day of their last operation the wireless operator was in hospital and so received the news there that his crew had crashed. On the morning of the last flight the ground crew told the pilot to remember not to land at their usual dispersal because the aircraft was due for an overhaul. In the air the crew heard a bang and the plane was soon on fire. The crew baled out. Doug was knocked unconscious and came to in a field with the parachute in a tree. He hid until he was discovered by French prisoners of war who hid him in the expectation of him finalising his escape plans. He was caught and assumes his capture was due to betrayal by one of the French.
Part 3.
Doug Marsh was was captured and taken to Frankfurt on Oder where he was treated well. One night his German cell mate alerted him to the red glow outside of the window which Doug recognised as Pathfinder flares followed by a single explosion as a bomb fell. Doug just went back to sleep much to the surprise of the youth with him. On his journey to Stalag Luft 6 he passed the towns where he had hidden before his capture. Doug remained a prisoner of war until the POWs were moved away from the Russian advance. On one occasion during the march they came under attack from Allied fighters. Dougie was a small distance from a POW who was killed outright who had been a prisoner from the beginning of the war.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:47:14 audio recording
00:47:33 audio recording
00:47:35 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending OH transcription
Pending revision of OH transcription
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
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Lithuania
South Africa
England--Leicestershire
Lithuania--Šilutė
South Africa--Queenstown
South Africa--Cape Town
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
57 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
bombing
crash
evading
H2S
Lancaster
Manchester
navigator
Operational Training Unit
prisoner of war
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Scampton
shot down
Stalag Luft 6
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46471/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v530002.mp3
2ac052dbdd90e145baf146bcb066a382
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
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
2017-06-19
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
interviewer: I’m with Terry Hodson who’s going to tell us some of his memories of the Royal Air Force. Terry, I understand your first exposure to the Air Force is when you were conscripted at the end of the Second World War. Can you tell me a little bit about, you know what that period of your employment with the Air Force was.
TH: Yes. I was conscripted into the Air Force as many people were in those days and I was in an Airfield Construction Squadron all over the country at various places and ended up at Royal Air Force Coningsby where I met my wife.
interviewer: But this was right at the end of the Second World War so —
TH: Yeah.
interviewer: There were airfields still being constructed at the end of the Second World War were there?
TH: We were mainly a couple of memories, a couple of real memories over this period was that I was in Green Park when we were doing things for the, the end of the war processions that went on. The Victory Parade.
interviewer: Green Park in London.
TH: Green Park in London.
interviewer: Right where the tube station is.
TH: Yeah.
interviewer: By Bushey. Yeah.
TH: Opposite, opposite Buckingham Palace and we put parking areas down and fencing around aircraft. I remember one particular thing. The Derby was won by a horse called Horsa and we had just put a Horsa glider in situ in Green Park.
interviewer: So this is the Green Park in Piccadilly. Right. The actual, right between Piccadilly and Buckingham Palace then.
TH: That’s it. Yeah.
interviewer: Right.
TH: And we were —
interviewer: So, so despite you being in airfield construction you ended up working sort of in, they misemployed you in looking after parks.
TH: Well, no. This was our job. To do jobs for the Air Force. We also took down blast walls in MOD as it is now. It was Air Ministry in my day and we moved all around the country.
interviewer: So putting right. Sort of, so everything to do with at the end of the Second World War, removing all the blast pens and preparations for the Second World War and getting things back to a semblance of normality.
TH: Plus building balloon bases for the parachute jumping in Oxfordshire. Converting buildings in in Coningsby that were WAAF quarters but they were then turned in to officer’s married quarters and that’s where I met my wife.
interviewer: So when you would do these jobs would you stay in these locations for a short period or longer period?
TH: Yeah. The longest period was at RAF Coningsby and the shortest period was three weeks in Piccadilly.
interviewer: And was Coningsby the last, getting towards the end of your conscripted time after you were conscripted?
TH: That was my demob number came up and I was happy to go up to [Waltham] and get my demob suit and go home on leave.
interviewer: But you told me earlier that they offered you the chance of staying in the Air Force at that stage.
TH: Yes, and I didn’t want to.
interviewer: You declined the offer.
TH: Yeah. Quite forcefully.
interviewer: Was there, was that what, why was that then? You’d had enough at that stage?
TH: I’d had enough of moving around. Three weeks here, two months there. A week there. A fortnight at another place. Another month. Maybe six weeks. And three months at Coningsby was the longest so I was happy to get out and do a regular job.
interviewer: Take back any other job. And you stayed in Coningsby at that time, did you?
TH: No. I went back to my job pre-war or during the wartime. I worked at Bart’s Hospital Sports Ground at Chislehurst in Kent and I was then with my mother at Sydenham. And they used to bus down to Chislehurst to work. I came up once or twice to Coningsby to see Evelyn at weekends and thought this is getting a bit rough. I will now move up there, find work in Coningsby area which I did with a building site building married quarters for RAF Coningsby.
interviewer: Again working for a construction firm.
TH: Yeah. Yeah.
interviewer: Yeah. And then, and then sort of a couple of years after that you decided to apply for the Civil Service. Is that right?
TH: Yeah, the jobs, the job on the building site was virtually ending and I heard that they were civilianising a lot of RAF jobs. I applied and was taken on as a labourer and we did all sorts of work emptying dustbins [pause] emptying dustbins and delivering coal to married quarters that I’d helped to build. Then there was a polio scare on the camp and several airmen had gone down to it. Gone down with polio.
interviewer: So this is the late ‘40s I guess.
TH: It’s the early 50s.
interviewer: Early 50s now. Ok.
TH: Early 50s. And I went then as a messenger and after that I helped to run the Registry while a lot of the servicemen were off ill and doing various tests. And when the opportunity arose I became a clerical assistant in the Registry on the mail out, mail in. The corporal who was in charge of Registry at that time was demobbed and they asked me if I’d like to take on the Registry on promotion which I did. I then went around the general offices and various, various jobs.
interviewer: So, so this would and what was, Coningsby at that stage had the B29, the Washington that that sort of era now are we talking about?
TH: No, just before that time.
interviewer: Just before.
TH: Yeah. Just before.
interviewer: So —
TH: Just before and during that time I was in the General Office on various things. As I said I did Registry. I also did Airmen’s Movements and Releases. And later on I then went on to P1 and P2. P1 is discipline and the P2 is on the officer’s side. All their records. Postings in, postings out, leave.
interviewer: So had the big National Service call up for Korea started at this stage?
TH: I wasn’t involved in that.
interviewer: Yeah, there was a massive increase in servicemen and flying training to get ready for Korea in the sort of early 50s and so you know, I would have thought —
TH: I probably wasn’t in on the policy at that time [laughs] being a lowly CO.
interviewer: But there were lots of camps started to, you know that were run down after the Second World War started to ramp up again to train everybody for potential —
TH: I don’t think Coningsby was ever run down to be perfectly honest. Only one. One I can remember is when the TSR2 was supposed to come in. They wanted care and maintenance during that time.
interviewer: Middle ‘60s we’re talking about now. Yes.
TH: Yes. Yeah.
interviewer: And then, and then the Phantom came in in what? About 1968 didn’t it?
TH: Yeah. Well, in between times I’d been posted to the County Courts at Boston on promotion.
interviewer: County courts.
TH: County courts. Yes.
interviewer: And —
TH: Divorce and bankruptcies.
interviewer: Oh [laughs] That must have kept you busy.
TH: Yeah. Even some of them were friends [laughs] were on the list and some of Evelyn’s relations. One of Evelyn’s relations I should say was on the list.
interviewer: It must have been difficult.
TH: It was. Especially difficult was when I said to the bailiff’s when they were coming around this area, ‘Well, call in and have a cup of tea with us.’ And I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t do it. Anyway, they did. Two of them turned up one night and we had, we went out for a beer and all the curtains down the road were twitching. ‘We go there.’ ‘We go there.’ ‘We go there.’ [laughs] And this is why they wouldn’t come to me. But Evelyn went in one car and I went in another which made the curtains twitch even a bit more I think.
interviewer: Have you got any particular memories of some of the personalities that you served with and, or that you worked with at the time?
TH: In the County Courts or in the Air Force?
interviewer: As in, well no —
TH: In the Air Force.
interviewer: On the, at Coningsby the sort of —
TH: Yes.
interviewer: What sort of tricks, what games people used to get up to in those times.
TH: Yeah. Well, we had in the General Office we had a bloke called Bob. I’ve forgotten his other name now but he wasn’t a bad bloke but he was a real joker and he was always pulling our legs over the telephone and it was a big open office. I was one corner on P1s and P2s, right on the other end he was on movements and I got a telephone call one day supposedly from a Wing Commander [unclear] who was a South African. A very nice bloke actually who went on further in the Air Force but supposedly asking me what leave he had to come. So, I saw Bob in the corner laughing away on the telephone and I said, ‘Oh bugger off, Bob.’ Anyway, the phone went down and he was putting it down at the same time. Two minutes later my boss came in and said, ‘In my office, Hodson.’ So I was red faced when I came out of his office because it was actually Wing Commander [unclear] ringing me. But it was an unusual request from an officer because they normally knew what leave they’d got to come.
interviewer: Any other memories of the people that you served with?
TH: Yes. We had a youngster direct from training, secretarial training, posted in and he came in one afternoon. He disappeared off to his billet and was told to report the next morning and he was coming on to the movements I think with Bob but he didn’t come in. So we enquired where he was and he was in the guardroom. He’d been caught underneath a Vulcan that was on QRA and that means it was ready to go off to whoever our enemy was at that time and his excuse was well it was all lights underneath it and he thought it was there just to view. He found out different. I forget what his punishment was but we didn’t see him for a week or two.
interviewer: So it was pretty serious what he’d done then obviously.
TH: Well, naturally but I don’t know how he actually got under it because the dogs were touring the area.
interviewer: Yes.
TH: With RAF police anyway.
interviewer: I dare say —
TH: It was a memory.
interviewer: I dare say as well as him getting in trouble was somebody else got in trouble to the fact that he managed to do what he did.
TH: He got near it. Yeah.
interviewer: Wow. And what sort of, you said you worked in P2 and that was looking after the officers was it?
TH: The officer’s records. Yes. Postings in and out. Their leave. Posting non-effective if they were off sick. All the rest of it.
interviewer: And that presumably was when the station was new aeroplanes and new people coming presumably that was a pretty busy job.
TH: It was fairly, fairly busy. Yeah. You can say that again.
interviewer: And presumably there were no computers around at this stage. It was all the records were all on paper.
TH: That’s it.
interviewer: And in filing cabinets.
TH: Ink. Yeah. Cardex cards all over the place.
interviewer: But the RAF were always known as having everything well sorted out. The systems were good in the, you know that period weren’t they?
TH: They were.
interviewer: Everything was well documented and things didn’t get lost particularly.
TH: And as Civil Servants we worked hard to keep it right.
interviewer: And were there, did you serve along national, with National Servicemen in the sort of 50s or —
TH: Oh yeah. They were in and out all the time. But they did two years and they knew when they were going out. They knew to the day when they were going to be as I call it demobbed but they were being released I think they called in those days.
interviewer: And have you got any particular memories of, of different National Servicemen? I mean it said that people when they served as National Servicemen would get plucked from quiet little villages and they would come out into the big Air Force and they’d have quite a lot of experiences.
TH: They were all sorts. All sorts. Some were called swede bashers because they came from Norfolk. Yellowbellies were from Lincolnshire. And we did get some great lads —
interviewer: But everybody got on. Everybody got on.
TH: Oh yeah. Of course.
interviewer: And it was a happy station from talking to your wife. That everybody mucked in together.
TH: They mucked in.
interviewer: And also, with it being, being a large camp and presumably a long way from Boston and Lincoln there were quite a few social events on the camp in that period.
TH: Yeah. At that time they opened what they called Castle Club and big events and they were, there was a corporal in Accounts, Corporal Murphy who used to do bookings for the events and bands for dances. Girls were bused in from Boston to Coningsby to the Castle Club for the men to dance with. And they also had, I remember one event was, I’m just trying to think of his name now. Ralph McTell who was a country singer. He used to always dress in black and played the guitar.
interviewer: So are we talking the 50s still. This is —
TH: This was during Vulcan times.
interviewer: Ok. So we’re now in the 60s I guess. Yeah.
TH: Yeah. And Evelyn and I were at that function as were many others from the village who worked on the camp and the station warrant officer came in and stopped the event and said, ‘There is a problem outside. I want volunteers.’ And with that a lot of the servicemen were disappearing out of different doors but it was to no avail because he’d got the RAF police all at the doors. And unfortunately, it was a Vulcan that had cartwheeled in potato fields on the runway.
interviewer: Ok.
TH: The entrance to the runway and they didn’t know where the bodies were.
interviewer: Well —
TH: And they were searching. That’s what they wanted the volunteers for. But he got what he wanted.
interviewer: And was that on one night during the week can you remember?
TH: Yeah.
interviewer: Or would that be —
TH: Yeah, I can’t remember the exact dates but no one survived that crash unfortunately.
interviewer: And that was just locally was it? In the local area.
TH: That was what they called Sam Haines Farm which is on the approach to the actual runway. Other, other things I can remember a pilot pulling a Vulcan up fairly steep. As I called it putting his backside to the ground and going up and we were in SHQ and he broke some windows. Other times, another one, a squadron leader clipped the ATC van on the end of the runway. He just clipped it. It didn’t do very much damage to other aircraft but we laughed a bit afterwards because he was posted within a fortnight on promotion as wing commander. So, if you wanted promotion clip the ATC van.
interviewer: Well, thank you very much. That’s, that sounds like your time at Coningsby was an interesting and memorable time.
TH: We had good times. We had bad times.
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 Terry Hodson
Hodson, Terry E-Cold War
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v53
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:18:24 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
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
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Description
An account of the resource
Terry Hodson was conscripted to the RAF towards the end of the Second World War. He started in the airfield construction team doing work as and when needed. He was involved in preparing the area in London for the Victory Parade. He left the RAF but returned to RAF Coningsby as a civilian worker through the Vulcan era. He witnessed a number of events including one evening when the station warrant officer needed volunteers to find the bodies of crew of a crashed Vulcan. He also recalls an occasion when a Vulcan was put into a steep dive and broke the windows of the offices. On another occasion a pilot clipped the ATC van on the runway.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--London
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
crash
ground personnel
RAF Coningsby
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/209/46470/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v370002.mp3
4ae5d4fa0c612b005db71b0077bfe8d1
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
Bell, John Richard
John Richard Bell
John R Bell
John Bell
J R Bell
J Bell
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Wing Commander John Richard Bell DFC (-2024). He was a bomb aimer with 619 and 617 Squadrons in Flying Officer Bob Knights’ crew.
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
2015-07-27
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
Bell, JR-UK
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer: Well, good morning, John.
JB: Good morning.
Interviewer: Thank you very much for agreeing to do this interview for the Aviation Heritage Project from Lincolnshire here.
JB: My pleasure.
Interviewer: As you know we’re going to be collecting this information and it will go into an Archive and will be of future use for whoever is going to follow us.
JB: Excellent.
Interviewer: I wonder if you could just start by just telling us a little bit about how you came to serve with 617 Squadron.
JB: Yes, I, well I first of all the crew and I started our operational career with 619 Squadron at Woodhall Spa in June of 1943 and we proceeded to operate throughout the rest of 1943 until we moved to Coningsby around about December I think to allow 617 Squadron to come from Coningsby into Woodhall and have the airfield to themselves. And we were approaching the end of our tour, rather our pilot was approaching because he’d done two second dickie trips at the beginning which we hadn’t done and I missed a couple through illness so at some point we, we would have been split up as was the normal situation and sent off to other parts instructing at OTUs. But as a well-knit crew a family organisation as you might say we felt we didn’t want to be split up and we’d like to continue flying which seems a bit silly now when you look back. But we thought we’d volunteer to fly with 617 Squadron and we did and we were welcomed by Wing Commander Cheshire, had an interview and all went well. He said yes, ok. We were an experienced crew by then. So he was looking for experienced crews and we were very fortunate with our survival through to almost the end of our tour and that’s how we came to join 617 Squadron.
Interviewer: You must have been aware of the reputation of 617 Squadron. Did you feel that you really were joining an elite or was it a sense of concern?
JB: We knew we were joining an elite Squadron. We weren’t quite sure exactly what they were doing. In fact, at our interview we were asked why we wanted to join 617 Squadron. We said, well we were fed up with flying at twenty thousand feet and we rather liked this idea of flying low level and he promptly said, ‘Well, we’re not doing low level flying anymore.’ Which as you probably realise that was they attempted to do this after the dams raid and they lost a lot of aircraft.
Interviewer: Yes.
JB: So it wasn’t a good idea and when Cheshire took over I think in about November of ’43 he started a different programme of operating which proved very successful. Operating at night over France and with little opposition most of the time at that time during the first few months of 1944. So we knew that the chances of survival were greater or at least we thought they were rather than with the main force. Perhaps with hindsight you’d wonder why you would want to volunteer to continue to fly on operations.
Interviewer: Well, they do say never volunteer but please tell us about your impressions of Wing Commander Cheshire. He’s such an important person in this.
JB: Yes. He was very approachable. Quiet. But he had that quality you knew you were going to follow that man and he would, there was no bombast with him and no sort of dictatorial attitude. He was very quietly unassuming but nevertheless he laid down what he wanted us to do and he was prepared to lead us in this. History shows that he did lead from the front. And he was just a nice man and well respected as a commanding officer with a great deal of experience as a bomber pilot.
Interviewer: Did he give you full regard? You said you had a lot of experience as a crew. Were you encouraged to put your views and experiences into the, into the Squadron melting pot so to speak?
JB: Well, I’m sure the pilot, the pilots really were the people who put the information in actually and they carried the forward the views of the crew but I suppose that when the pilots got together and he was with the pilots discussing tactics and so on took into account what the crews felt. We didn’t directly speak to him about it.
Interviewer: No.
JB: But through the, through the pilot we would. Yes.
Interviewer: Yes.
JB: Yeah.
Interviewer: Would you be able to tell us a little bit about what it was like to be on operations with 617? Could you perhaps describe the run up to and the activities that were involved in preparing for an operation and what actually happened?
JB: Yes. It is pretty much the same as, as all preparations for, for an operational flight and we would be told in the morning that the, there was the likelihood of an operation that evening and we would assemble. Well, we’d go through the process of getting kit ready and so forth and assemble for a briefing in the afternoon and after the briefing we would then get our kit from, you know the parachute and dinghy, Mae West and stuff like that. In the morning of course we would have checked the aircraft out thoroughly so there would be an air test and that was absolutely mandatory to make sure everything worked in the air. And then the bomb load would be checked out. I as the bomb aimer would be responsible for making sure that we had the right bomb load and seeing it put on perhaps, loaded on to the aeroplane. A navigator would also have his own maps and so forth to gather and the gunners would also collect their guns from the armoury. The armoury normally was received, the guns from the turrets and they would check them over and then the gunners would go and collect them and make sure they got the right ones back into the aircraft. So all this went on and checking everything thoroughly and then the, having drawn all the maps and made sure we knew where we were going and the briefing of course would spell out the exact timing of the operation and how many, who were to bomb first. And the particular operations that we were doing with 617 Squadron were, Leonard Cheshire managed to persuade the AOC that he should do the marking because we had, I think they had some experience with poor marking by Pathfinder at the time and so he marked. And that was the first one I think on Albert. I remember that raid where he marked the target with flares from extremely low level with the Lancaster and that was the type of operation that we did throughout the four months. I think up to May. Yeah.
Interviewer: Right.
JB: When we stood down. Yes.
Interviewer: Right. Did you have any experience of dropping any of the heavy weapons that 617 Squadron was equipped with? The Tallboy or –
JB: Well, yes. The, well, during that four months we were not only dropping one thousand pounders but also the twelve thousand pounds light cased [pause] what were they called? It was a blast weapon. So we were used to carrying a twelve thousand pounder but of course the problem with that was yes it was a blast weapon against buildings, normal type buildings and but also had some inaccuracy in it because of its shape and small fins that were necessary to get to enable it to be carried in the bomb bay. Then from, after June the 6th three days later we were equipped with a Tallboy and that’s when we got into the Tallboy era and it was a much finer weapon.
Interviewer: Yes. If I may I’d like to ask you a technical question about that which comes from a question that was put to me recently at the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. What was it like? How did you actually ensure that the Tallboy was released very quickly? Was it an electronic or a mechanical release mechanism?
JB: It was an electronic –
Interviewer: Right.
JB: Yeah.
Interviewer: So there was no time delay in that because you needed extreme accuracy didn’t you?
JB: Yes. You did and I cannot remember any detail of, of problems with the release. Since then many years later I discovered that there were. Why? Why for example there were wide misses with the Tallboy landing somewhere else and there was a problem with the release mechanism. This was a strap.
Interviewer: Yes.
JB: And the straps were taken off the aeroplane on return and they were checked over to make sure they were serviceable and then put back. But there was a problem I understand with them for maybe releasing two or three seconds late which of course affected —
Interviewer: I can see you were —
JB: Yes, it was. Trial and error.
Interviewer: Thank you.
JB: Yes.
Interviewer: That’s very helpful.
JB: Yes. I didn’t, I didn’t experience any problems. No. No. Whilst I didn’t hit exactly where I’d aimed the, it was close enough so they were all in the target area.
Interviewer: You were a bomb aimer.
JB: Yes.
Interviewer: And from the point of view of the Archive for people visiting this in years to come a question must be asked and that is really to ask your, your feelings about the nature of the job you were doing because you were looking down at the target.
JB: Yes.
Interviewer: And you were releasing heavy weapons against that target.
JB: That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: With respect may I ask how you felt about that please.
JB: When I was operating with, with main force with 619 Squadron there were occasions when I realised, well obviously one realised that we were aiming at a part of the city where the industry was or the docks area or whatever it was. And hopefully the spot, the spot flares that were dropped by the Pathfinder Force hopefully were in the right area and so you were aiming at that. Nevertheless, you saw a city in flames throughout not just in that one area that you’re aiming at so the thought occasionally was you know that there is some sort of sympathy perhaps for the people who were on the receiving end. Having been through some of the London Blitz I could well understand that. But it didn’t put me off doing the job that I was trained to do. Then following on when we got to 617 Squadron of course not only were we dropping on a specific target, whatever it was, an engine manufacturing plant or but it was a single target which we were aiming at. Therefore, we hoped there were no civilians in the area. In fact, we made quite a lot of, went to a lot of trouble to make sure that the French workers in there got out before we dropped our bombs. So there was a great deal more of more satisfaction because you could see where your bombs were aiming at and where they exploded and you knew that you were taking out a specific target. So the operations were quite different and more satisfactory from, from the expert view of the –
Interviewer: Some military view.
JB: Military view. Yes.
Interviewer: Yes. Thank you.
JB: Yes.
Interviewer: That’s a very full answer. Could I ask you also about how you disciplined yourself? You were lying in the nose, you were, you were responsible for, really for directing the aircraft in those last few seconds of flight towards the target.
JB: Yeah.
Interviewer: Most important that you hit the target and yet around you there would have been anti-aircraft fire, possibly the risk of fighter attack. Can you tell us what it was like to to do that part of the operation.
JB: Yes, the, pretty well all the flight to the target and perhaps we’re talking about operating with 619 Squadron in Main Force where you’ve got several hundred aeroplanes. You’re keeping a look out for other aeroplanes to make sure that you don’t collide with them and that was one of the problems of collision and other, and night fighters. But then approaching the target then the adrenaline in started to rise because you could see ahead a flaming city way up, way ahead and the sky would be filled with thousands of shell bursts. Now, this is impinged on my memory I can see this now and thinking how are we going to get through all those shell bursts? But when you, when you get to the point where now you take over and the bomb doors are open and you are guiding with the pilot to keep him on track towards it you are concentrating on the job. You don’t think about anything else and everything else is taken out of your mind. You’re not worrying about the flack bursts. If one hits you well that’s tough. You can’t avoid them so you got on and do the job. Once you’ve dropped the bombs and taken the photograph then you can get out of the area as quickly as possibly and usually there’s a shout from the crew when I said, ‘Bombs gone.’ ‘Right. Let’s get out of here.’ And so it was [pause] if I, I was not, I was never afraid except in coming up to it wondering how we were going to get through. So there was no fear involved. A lot of apprehension. I’m sure we shall be alright and that was really our attitude throughout.
Interviewer: That is a remarkable story. I mean we who have obviously not done it but read a little bit about it —
JB: Yes.
Interviewer: Can understand something of what you’re saying there. It’s a remarkable story, John.
JB: Yes, it’s a bit, it’s akin to the Army coming out of the trenches in the First World War and going en masse across open ground and bullets were flying around. Some of them got hit. Some of them were missed and I think in that respect we were going through all this hail of flak. Somebody got hit, somebody didn’t and we were very fortunate and there was no way you could miss it.
Interviewer: No. And of course, you all lived this strange existence whereby between operations you’d be living a normal life in so far as it could be normal. How did you cope with those ups and downs of feelings and tensions and things?
JB: Well, yes. We’d use our relaxation in the usual way by going to the pub in the evening or into Boston. There was a weekly trip into Boston on the buses and so there would be big relaxation there. But it was just a matter of going to a different pub you know and the crew normally went. Crews went together. They lived together and they drank together and they flew together and so you went with your, with your, the crew were your mates, your friends and it was that sort of thing. Yes. You just, you were thankful when you got to the, to the reported to the flights in the morning to see what was going on for the rest of the day. If there was no operation planned well that was a great relief. You could get on with something else. Go and clean the aeroplane or check it over or take somebody for a flight somewhere. There was always somebody going on leave and it was a fairly easy business flying people around to, you know on a jolly. Well, not a jolly but you know taking them to where they wanted to go for leave or something like that. Or visit another, another airfield. So yeah, we relaxed as much as possible and then got hyped up when it was due for operational flight.
Interviewer: Yeah. Could you, I mean I think I could talk to you all day here, sir. I really could but I appreciate the time is passing. Your time in particular. But I must ask you could you tell us something about some of the other characters that you remember from 617?
JB: 617. Yes. There’s a thing about remembering the crews on the Squadron. I always found it difficult to remember their names mainly because the only names that appeared on the operations board were the pilots. So we knew all the names of the pilots but I didn’t know the names of most of the crews. I might know the names of two or three bomb aimers because the bomb aimers used to go to a briefing together and each member of the crew had his own briefing section. So gunners would know other gunners and I would know two or three other bomb aimers but generally you didn’t know too much about the other crews. You didn’t mix with them obviously for, you know, recreational purposes. But I remember several of the pilots. I can’t remember any particular episodes but they obviously occurred when I was commissioned. I then moved in to the Petwood Hotel and what was the Petwood Hotel then and there were several incidents of people letting off revolvers late at night and behaving in an unseemly manner but being allowed to get away with it with an admonition from the CO. ‘Don’t do it again.’ There wasn’t much he could do about it if you, if you, you know went over the line. But I kept myself to myself because I was, I was escorting a WAAF who later became my wife and so I was otherwise engaged.
Interviewer: As it were. Yeah. Again, I feel I must ask this question. I don’t wish to intrude too much in to your privacy but you know if if you have a strong personal relationship like that and you’re going off on operations was it something that you just accepted?
JB: Yes.
Interviewer: Or did you talk it through with your fiancé as she would have been?
JB: Yes, we did talk it through. She was, she was actually employed in the map section so I had to visit the map section every day and of course I visited more often than most [laughs] naturally and so I went to the Intelligence Section for details of the targets and so forth and she knew as all the ladies did that were engaged to be married to aircrew that they were in a great deal of danger. When I got to the point of approaching my fiftieth operation because you could, you could retire after thirty and we didn’t. We continued flying. When you got to fifty you had another, another stage point where you could say ok. She said, ‘I think we ought to think about the future because –’ and I knew the odds were becoming shorter. They certainly were. And this was proved to me after I left the Squadron because I went back to visit the Squadron in November and I had a chat with my pilot and he said, ‘Oh you retired just in time.’ Apparently, they were shot up on the next operation coming back from Brest and flak actually went through the bomb aimers compartment. Missed the bomb aimer because he was standing up in the turret. Now, I didn’t normally stand up in the turret. I was usually lying down. So was it fate? I don’t know. But I retired at the right time.
Interviewer: I think at that point with regret I must ask that we terminate this. It’s been a total pleasure and total privilege to conduct this interview. For the record I should say that I have been conducting this interview with John Bell, bomb aimer of 617 Squadron and the interview was conducted at Thorpe Camp on the 12th of May 2012.
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 John Bell
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v37
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:19:37 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Julian Maslin
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
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.
Description
An account of the resource
John Bell completed a tour as a bomb aimer with 619 Squadron. The crew decided they would like to continue flying and so volunteered to join 617 Squadron. They were interviewed by Wing Commander Leonard Cheshire and accepted on to the squadron. When John was approaching his fiftieth operation his fiancé asked him to consider retiring from operation flying. He knew his luck was running low and so he did indeed retire. When he visited the squadron later his pilot told him he had retired just at the right time. The next flight after John stopped flying with his crew a piece of flak entered the bomb aimer’s compartment who survived because he was standing in the turret.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-06
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
617 Squadron
619 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bomb aimer
bombing
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
coping mechanism
ground personnel
Lancaster
military ethos
perception of bombing war
RAF Coningsby
RAF Woodhall Spa
Tallboy
training
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46469/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v350002.mp3
719fca18eefa790da4f5e06a0c3bd86b
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
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
2017-06-19
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer: This is an interview with Mr Stan Waite at his home in Cherry Willingham talking about his life regarding his work at RAF Scampton in the 1930s. Ok, Stan.
SW: Well, Scampton was opened in 1916 as a First World War airfield which they used towards the end of the war, 1916 and they used it as a training ground for pilots and then it went into, back into farmland. And I left school at fourteen and went straight on the farm. And then in 1935 the MOD decided they were going to re-arm and they wanted to bring back Scampton as an airfield because in the First World War they called it Brattleby. They didn’t want to get confused with a place called Scampton near Scunthorpe so they called it Brattleby. When they reclaimed it in 1935/36 to build the airfield they decided it would be Scampton airfield although a part of it was, did carry on over into Aisthorpe. Well, when they started building, taking all the crops and the hedges out and grassing it down we had all that job. The farmer that was already on the farm he couldn’t find the capital to pay all the contractors and sub-contractors for clearing the crops and that so a local farmer decided he would take it over and it happened to be the farm where I was working. So we had two gangs of potato pickers taking potatoes up no bigger than marbles. We were taking sugar beet up no bigger, no thicker than your thumb. They opened the factories on purpose to process it to sugar. We got a gyro tillering which is a thing, a machine which people were astounded to see how it used to work. It grubbed all the hedges out and some of them was, was thorn trees and it made no bother with that. It just went along the hedgerow and knocked them down and then dropped his rotors at the back and grubbled them all out. There was rats and rabbits flying in all directions and, and then we had to burn all that. And, and then we got the two gangs of potato pickers, two gangs of Irish labourers taking the sugar beet and potatoes up and that of course threw extra work on us. We were working nearly all hours the Lord sent us and we got all that done and then we had to, we had to work the land down and level it and then sew it down with grass seed and roll it. And then I went back on the farm and it was taken over by the MOD and when the builders started moving in they wanted a lot of labourers up there and the wage I was getting on the farm was a pittance compared to what you were getting on working for the MOD and I was getting as much in a day as I was in a week on the farm.
Interviewer: Can you remember how much that was?
SW: Yes. I was getting, I was getting fifty pence a week which was ten shillings in today’s money and I was getting as much as that in a day. So my brother he had a job up there and he got me a job up there as well so I left the farm and went up there and worked up there digging the sewers, digging the footings out for buildings, the drains for the surface water. And I was still working up there when the first aircraft came in 1936 and it was a mixture of Hawkers, there was, I don’t know whether there was any Harts among them but they was Audax and Hinds and that type of aircraft and —
Interviewer: I think Heyfords were there as well. Did you see those?
SW: Well, a lot of the history books say they came first but they didn’t. The Hawkers came first from up north. And anyway, I was up there ‘til the aircraft came and then our jobs finished. They had one or two tidying up jobs to be done and I went back on to the farm.
Interviewer: Of course, there was no runways laid.
SW: No runways laid at all. It was just grass. A lot of people get the idea that the, later on that the Dambusters took off on runways but they didn’t. They didn’t take it until they put it in grace and favour and it was closed for about two year when they laid the runways and the peritracks and dispersal points. And I was working on the farm when the heavies came down from up north and they came down as Heyfords and Virginias and, and the history books still have it that they came first and it took them three days to come but it didn’t. They all came one afternoon and I distinctly remember that because I had a gang of potato picking girls from Lincoln picking potatoes and I was spinning out for them and one of the girls said to me, ‘Look up there. Look at what’s all that coming down.’ And the sky was black with these heavy bombers coming. And then later on of course they didn’t stop long. They had a disaster when one evening the gales got up and of course the planes weren’t anchored down and three of the Heyfords finished up in the middle of the airfield locked together and another one finished up in the bank at the side of the A15 that runs past Scampton airfield. So they didn’t last very long and they went and the Virginias went. And then after that we had a, we had a fairly rapid turnover of various aircraft. We had the Vickers long range Wellesley which was a bit of a disaster for Scampton because there was four squadrons at different airfields that got four ready for the long distance attack on the, long distance for a single engine aircraft. And of course, we had a haystack at the side of the old Polyplatt Lane and the one that Scampton had got ready he came in and he caught it with his wing and that writ that one off. So it’s just left the three that, they got one for spare you see. So they just had the three then and Scampton took no part in that. I think they flew from in Egypt down to Australia I think it was if my memory serves me right. And then we had the heavy bomber. The new, the new Harrow bomber came which was a high wing bomber plane fixed undercarriage. That didn’t stay at Scampton long before it was, before it was taken away and then after that there was a various mixture and of course I got called up and went into the Army and served with the Royal Engineers serving under three generals. Served under Montgomery of course with the 8th Army, and McCreery, and I can’t remember the name of the other one. Anyway, I served under three generals. We, we was pulled back from El Alamein. We were the first troops in Sicily with the first wave of commandos. I served with the Royal Engineers mine clearing and bridging and that. And then we were the first troops in the toe of Italy. And then we was, we cut the heel off and went straight across to the Adriatic side and we bridged almost every river up the Adriatic side right through. And then when the war came we was, we was in the mountains at L’Aquila which some two or three year back had that disastrous earthquake. We relieved that. Then we was pulled back to the coast and went through into Austria and that’s where I finished up.
Interviewer: So you weren’t here when the Lancasters came and the Dambusters moved in.
SW: No. No. I hadn’t got back home then.
Interviewer: No.
SW: They brought us back home in 1945 but we had to go back to Austria for a year to wait being —
Interviewer: Evacuated?
SW: Reverted to Civvy Street.
Interviewer: Right.
SW: From the Army.
Interviewer: Right.
SW: So that, so we went back into Italy in 1946. September by the time I got, got back home again. But while we was in Italy, while we was in Egypt, while we was in Italy we was three and a half years and our families never knew where we were. Everything was, was checked before when you wrote and everything like that and it was you couldn’t put anything in to give them a clue where you were.
Interviewer: No.
SW: You were either MEF Middle Eastern Forces, or MED Forces. That’s the only clue they knew then. They knew you were somewhere in the Middle East or you were somewhere in Europe.
Interviewer: Did you go back to working at Scampton when you came back?
SW: Yes. I went back but you see in them days if you was called up the person you worked for was legally bound to take you back to work but I didn’t want to go back to the same bloke as I’d been with because he didn’t have a cottage. I’d got married in 1941. So I went to see a friend of mine who was farming the other farm in Scampton, a Mr Anderson, asked him if I could have a cottage. He said, ‘You can have a cottage,’ he said, ‘And you can have a job as well.’ So I went on to that farm. Started on the first working Monday in 1947 and of course we had that terrific snow right through. One of the worst winters the country had seen. In Lincolnshire anyway. And I stayed on that farm for forty two years. I worked with that man for twenty one years and then he sold out and retired and the gentleman that took over put me in full charge. He was a gentleman from Worksop and I was with him twenty one year. So that was forty two years on one farm. And I stayed with him then until I retired when I was eighty four years old.
Interviewer: And did you see the Vulcans come over?
SW: Oh yes. I was stood at the side of the runway when the first Vulcan came because our land at that time the man I went to work for you see he was farming Scampton Cliff as well. So we saw the Vulcan circling and coming around to line up with the runway so we walked across because we were still farming all in and out the dispersal points.
Interviewer: None of that land was needed for the new runways and the diversion of the A15.
SW: Well, no. They put the diversion in before the Vulcans came.
Interviewer: Yes.
SW: The A15. And the runways had already been put down and everything.
Interviewer: Right.
SW: All the dispersals. But we were still working the land in between the dispersals and the runways and all that because there was very little security in them days. I mean a lad who was working with me we walked across and the jeep came around from the hangar and the communications weren’t like they are now. He just had a big board in the back of his van and it said, “Follow me,” and he when the Vulcan stopped he pulled in front of it and the Vulcan followed him into the hangar. And of course, once they’d got it into the hangar you didn’t see any more Vulcans for about four or five weeks because there was so much interior work to be done on them and instrument fittings and all that type of thing. And then of course I watched the build-up day after day and then they finally moved us off the camp altogether. But I got to know quite a few of the crew members and that with working at the side of the airfield then but not on it. And I’ve always been interested in aeroplanes right the way through to the present day.
Interviewer: When you knew that the spectacular dams raid had taken place and they’d flown from Scampton did you —
SW: We didn’t know anything about it where we were.
Interviewer: When you, when you did know.
SW: Yeah.
Interviewer: When you heard about this.
SW: Yeah.
Interviewer: Afterwards.
SW: We thought well it would soon be over now.
Interviewer: Did you, did you feel a sort of well I was involved with that?
SW: Well, that’s right. Yeah. Anyway, I helped to build that place I did. And my brother was the last, probably the last half a dozen people to work up there when the, he was a foreman concreter up concreting the walls on the hangars and that sort of work so he was used to flights like but I was up there when the Hawkers came. They had a disaster one day. We was, we was working on a surface drain between hangars 1 and 2 and they’d already started flying of course. But on the 1398 that run through Scampton now it used to run straight across to cliff top and about fifty yards inside the airfield boundary they’d put a twelve by twelve target up at an angle and these Hawkers used to come along, usually from the north along the line of the road, bank and turn and camera gun it. And this one was doing it one day when there was two taking off [unclear] to starboard. Then he went straight through them and it killed three pilots. The pilot and a passenger in one, probably another co-pilot and the single seater, came and went straight through and killed three of them.
Interviewer: Oh dear.
SW: And, and that was it. And for many years after that the hedge the opposite side of the road to the airfield a lady used to come out and put a, one of them little crosses in the hedge bottom. But of course, the hedges have all gone now so there’s none of that. So that was my contribution to the war effort before I went in the Army and a little bit after the Army.
Interviewer: That’s been absolutely fascinating, Stan. Thank you very much.
SW: Well, I hope it hasn’t wasted your time, Duck. I mean there’s a lot more I could tell you about my life but that’s, that’s gone.
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 Stan Waite
1042-Waite, Stan
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v35
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
British Army
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:15:27 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Claire Bennett
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
North Africa
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.
Description
An account of the resource
Stan Waite worked on one of the farms in Scampton in the pre-war years. He stopped his farming job to help with airfield construction when he found out he could more in one day than he earned in a week farming. He watched the first planes arrive and the airfield become operational again. He then joined the Army and was posted overseas. When he returned he took up farming in Scampton again and watched the new era of aircraft arriving.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
RAF Scampton
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46468/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v340002.mp3
f2c1729c9aeb5bb3652ca91660760c09
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
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
2017-06-19
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer: This is an interview with Mr John Langston at Thorpe Camp on the 12th of November 2011 discussing his wartime experiences from February ’44 to the end of the war and the three squadrons 630, 189 and 617 Squadrons that he toured in at that time. Mr Langston.
JL: Ah. Well, I joined the Air Force direct from school and I got a university short course at Oxford and did my initial training in the Air Squadron at Oxford and I was finally in the service at the end of 1942. And from there I went across to Canada for training as a navigator and, in Winnipeg and I’d been in Winnipeg in the school at Winnipeg, 5 Air Observer School for about a couple of months and this was in [pause] maybe four or five months. This was in 1943 and we were, this was a Canadian Observer’s School. We were called out of our classrooms one day and asked to form three sides of a hollow square and we waited there and up taxied a little twin engine aeroplane and out of it got Guy Gibson and he proceeded to talk to us and he was doing a, he’d been brought over to the states to see Mr Roosevelt by Churchill and then sent on this pep talk tour of the Canadian training stations.
Interviewer: Just after the dam raid obviously.
JL: Yeah. Immediately afterwards.
Interviewer: Yes.
JL: And he’d been presented to Congress and every, everybody was very pleased with him. So anyway, he got up and he told us all about the dams. Well, talked to us briefly about the dams raid and then he gave us a pep talk saying obviously we were all going to Bomber Command and weren’t we lucky [laughs] And I remember the fellow that was stood beside me said, ‘I don’t like the sound of that at all.’ However, I got back to the UK in October and had a couple of weeks at home and I was then sent off to Scotland for a familiarisation course because then you had to learn to fly again in the blackout and with wartime codes and things in a war zone. And I’d been in West Freugh in Scotland for about I don’t know maybe three or four weeks and I was called into the office to see the chief instructor and I’d wondered what I’d done. And I hadn’t done anything. He said, ‘Langston,’ he said, ‘There’s a new scheme that 5 Group in Bomber Command are instituting and they need some spare navigators on tap and they’ve asked us to pick out a few and send them down to them and they’ll train you themselves. And so we’ve decided to send you.’ And all I’d done was these few trips around the islands. Anyway, so two months later I found myself on a Stirling Heavy Conversion Unit at Swinderby and then at Winthorpe where I was trained by the station navigation officer on a one to one basis and at the end of three or four months I was deemed to be ready for combat and so then I had to wait around for three or four weeks whilst I got a crew and in due course a crew that had lost a navigator got me. And so we did a, we did a couple of trips together and they liked me and I liked them and we were posted to 630 Squadron at East Kirkby where we arrived just after D-Day and we immediately went to war then. So that’s how I got into Bomber Command and we were immediately doing back up raids so that either in support of ground force troops landing on the beaches in Normandy or else at that time the buzz bomb targets had opened up in the Pas de Calais and we were diverted there. So we were our first seven or eight or nine trips were daylight raids in main force just bombing either the buzz bomb sites or alternatively troop emplacements behind the invasion forces.
Interviewer: Were you involved with the transport plane?
JL: What?
Interviewer: The transport.
JL: Well, no. We were bombing German troops in the front line.
Interviewer: Right.
JL: Tanks and wherever the targets appeared.
Interviewer: Right.
JL: And we were bombing on marked targets which had been marked with pyrotechnics by, by, well the various agencies for doing that as some by marker shells laid down by the ground forces themselves and others by the Pathfinders going in and singling out the targets. Anyway, that went by and after we’d done eight or nine trips like that, ten trips maybe we were then, being in 5 Group diverted back on to the main, main force targets in Germany itself and from there on it was almost exclusively night raids into Germany. We went to Nuremberg twice, we went to Munich twice, we went to Stuttgart twice. We went to Darmstadt two or three times. We went, we were doing back up raids in the far end of the Baltic, Koenigsberg in support of the Russian ground forces. It was all very busy.
Interviewer: Yes.
JL: And, and my pilot, I’m a navigator and my pilot was a flying officer. He was a very keen young man. We were a good crew and, and all of a sudden after we’d done twenty odd trips he was told that from a flying officer he was going to be made an acting squadron leader and we went off and joined 189 Squadron in Fulbeck. And because of the loss rates of that time we were, we were rationed to one trip every three weeks and, but I used to fly with the squadron commander too so that gave me a bit more to do. And so we finished our tour just about the end of the year and we were doing long distance trips all the way. I mean our last trip was a place called Politz which was an oil refinery up on the Baltic. And so we finished our tour and the following morning my pilot who was really keen to keep his acting rank, I think he liked the pay [laughs] came out and found, found me and my bomb aimer. I was on the bomb aimer pillion of his, on my bomb aimer’s motorbike and he said, ‘Come here you two.’ And so we taxied over and he said, ‘Guess what?’ And my bomb aimer said, ‘What?’ And he said, he said, ‘I’ve just had a phone call from, from Wing Commander Willie Tait on 617 Squadron and he’d like us to come and join him.’ And my bomb aimer looked at him and he said, ‘F off.’ [laughs] So anyway, we got the crew together and we packed our bags and the next day having been in the squalor of Nissen huts at Fulbeck we found ourselves in the luxury of the Petwood Hotel in Woodhall Spa. And that’s how I got on 617.
Interviewer: Right.
JL: So then then 617 of course made its name, its reputation on its training so we immediately had to learn how to use this new automatic bomb site that 617 used and we were on the training bombing ranges in the Wash and up at Theddlethorpe and places up on the coast. After oh maybe a couple of weeks we were qualified combat ready on 617. And there we went off and we, in those days Barnes Wallis’ Tallboy bomb, the smaller streamlined bomb, the deep penetration weapon the Tallboy which was a twelve thousand pounder. We did several raids dropping those. Then all of a sudden to our surprise as the Grand Slam arrived, the twenty two thousand pounder and we dropped several of those.
Interviewer: It must have been —
JL: So that was my war.
Interviewer: The difference in the, the twenty two thousand, the Grand Slam and the Tallboy I believe when the, the Grand Slam was released the aircraft obviously used to shoot up.
JL: Well, the thing was that the bomb was very heavy and, and the wings actually used to actually bend up like a seagull’s wings you know as you flew. And the aeroplane itself wasn’t all that much heavier because they, to start with they, they strengthened, they had to take the bomb doors off because the bomb was wider than the fuselage. So the bomb was slung on a, in a cradle outside the aeroplane. Outside the fuselage. When the, as the plane lifted off, well I should explain that they took all the ammunition out of the aeroplane. We flew with a fighter escort. We, they took out the mid-upper turret. They took out the nose turret, they took out all the radar equipment and we had a very basic navigation fit inside and the rear turret had a man in it to have someone looking out the back really and I think his, they took out two of the guns and so there wasn’t much weight in the back either.
Interviewer: Didn’t they take the wireless operator out as well on some of them?
JL: No. We didn’t have a wireless operator.
Interviewer: No.
JL: Not in the, in the Grand Slam aeroplanes.
Interviewer: No.
JL: Because that was, that was all weight.
Interviewer: All that extra weight.
JL: What we did have was three little VHS sets. One for the bomber frequency, one for the fighter frequency which was our escort from on top and and a spare set I suppose for air traffic control, you see. And so we were very, we were pretty light and we only flew with two thirds full tanks and we, and our, all that weight on take-off was the Grand Slam bomb. It was only a five or six thousand pounds greater than the all out weight of a fully armed normal Lancaster on Main Force.
Interviewer: I see.
JL: So, but anyway, the extra weight was sufficient to—
Interviewer: Right.
JL: Lift up the tips of the wings by eight or ten inches and we could see the curve. Once the bomb had gone the wings went back into the normal position and the whole of the aeroplane did a little leap. But anyway, there was a new bombsight. The great thing about the Grand Slam was it was a development of the Tallboy. It developed, it penetrated deep into the ground on your targets. You didn’t really have to be precisely on the target but we had to have a bombing accuracy on the ranges of eighty yards from the, eighteen to twenty thousand feet which was quite achievable with this bombsight we had. And really it’s only, you only took one or two bombs on the target. It used to penetrate sixty to a hundred feet into the ground where it left a cavity and the target collapsed into the hole. That was Barnes Wallis’ great big secret. And so —
Interviewer: Where were the places that you were bombing?
JL: Well, by this time the war was developing and there was a front line that had gone up through Holland and very close to Germany but the Germans were desperate for fuel and so we were interdicting all the railway bridges that were bringing fuel up to the front line. And with the Grand Slam one bomb took out a bridge by and large and so we these were all on the Weser from leading up to the Brunswick. There were a whole series of —
Interviewer: Right.
JL: Not Brunswick. I can’t —
Interviewer: Bielefeld.
JL: No.
Interviewer: Viaduct.
JL: No. Well, Bielefeld viaduct.
Interviewer: Yes.
JL: Was one of the series of targets.
Interviewer: Yes.
JL: But there were five bridges over the river there and we, we had attacked them all in time. One or two bombs at a time and and they were all dropped down and it was a major contribution to winning the final stages of the war.
Interviewer: Absolutely. Yes.
JL: The bombs were in very difficult to make and they were in very short supply and after the third bridge had been sunk we and another crew put on our best uniforms, got into a bus at Woodhall Spa and were driven over to Sheffield to the English Steel Corporation where they made these bombs and it was very illuminating. We, we were met by the board of directors and taken into the casting room and this was a huge room perhaps about thirty or forty feet high. It was dome shaped and the bomb was the cast of the sand mould for the bomb was on the end and the crucible full of molten steel was being poured in. So we watched this for a while and we were duly impressed but what was more impressive was that all around this casting room about, oh I don’t know twenty feet off the ground there was a whole series of Russian flags. Huge flags as big as double bed sheets with the red hammer and sickle and in the centre was a plain white sheet the same size with a great big sign saying, “God Bless Uncle Joe.” And this was my first introduction to the politics of South Yorkshire [laughs] And so anyway, so we were quite impressed and we went into the next room where there was one bomb had cooled and it was on its side and there were two little men there. Little men. I mean smaller than jockeys and they’d got a pneumatic hammer and a flashlight, a torch and they were fed into the back end of the cold bomb casing and they had to, with the torch hand it around to see if there were any imperfections in the cast and hammer it smooth so there was an even explosion. And so this first chap was inside hammering away and they could take it for about thirty seconds, no more and they’d pull them out by their heels from the back end of the bomb and this chap came out. He stood in front of me shaking and so I took out a pack of cigarettes and gave him a fag and lit it and he looked at me and he said, ‘What do you do?’ And I said, ‘I drop them.’ And he thought for a second, had another drag and he said, ‘What do they pay you?’ I said, ‘Fourteen shillings and six pence a day.’ He said, ‘You’re a fool.’ He said, ‘I get ten quid a week for this.’ Anyway, very good. Lots of people heard this and the squadron lived on that story for a, ever since really. So anyway, we then did a few other long range trips. We sank the Lützow. Not the Tirpitz but the Tirpitz had already been sunk. We sank the Lützow up in the Baltic. We took out a whole lot of U-boat pens and things and finally we took out the guns on Heligoland and opened up the whole of the Channel into the Hamburg and the, and the Elbe. There were a whole crowd of ships waiting to go in. And then came the end of the war so that was the end of my story.
Interviewer: Well, it’s been absolutely fascinating. Thank you very much Mr Langston.
JL: Ok.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with John Langston
1041-Langston, John
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v34
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:17:37 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary. Allocated C Campbell
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v340002
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Claire Bennett
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2011-11-12
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.
Description
An account of the resource
John Langston flew operations as a navigator with 630, 189 and 617 Squadrons.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
189 Squadron
617 Squadron
630 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
Grand Slam
navigator
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Fulbeck
RAF Woodhall Spa
Tallboy
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/117/46467/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v330002.mp3
4ef11453b1a2f73ed4f05a602afc89ac
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
Cook, Kenneth
Kenneth Cook
Kenneth H Cook
Ken Cook
K H Cook
K Cook
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Wing Commander Kenneth Howell Cook DFC (b. 1923, 151017 Royal Air Force). Kenneth Cook flew 45 operations with 97 Squadron, Pathfinders.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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
2016-08-04
2016-07-25
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
Cook, KHH
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 Wing Commander Kenneth Cook DFC
1039-Cooke, Kenneth
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v33
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:15:10 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending OH transcription. Allocated
Pending OH summary. Allocated C Campbell
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Claire Bennett
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
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.
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
This item is being used for TOU9156 teaching. Do not publish transcription until June 2024.
Interviewer: Ok, Ken.
KC: Ok. Hello. This is Wing Commander Ken Cook DFC. I joined the Royal Air Force in October 1941, U/T air crew and after training in Canada I came, returned back to the UK, commissioned as a young pilot officer air bomber and went through various conversion training courses in the UK and eventually joined up with a crew. And our first squadron was Number 9 Squadron at Bardney in Lincolnshire flying Lancasters in Number 5 Group of Bomber Command. After about ten ops with 9 Squadron we were as a crew recruited by the Pathfinder Force which was based in Cambridgeshire and so we were as a crew posted to do additional specialised training as at that time new radar equipment was being brought in and introduced to Bomber Command and in my case it was my job to learn the gadgets known as H2S, Gee and Loran. So, my role changed from being a straightforward air bomber to becoming a radar navigator and air bomber and so it was my job particularly to work the H2S which had a capability for uses in airborne navigation device. And of course, also it’s main role with the Pathfinders was, was identifying German targets and it enabled the Pathfinder crews to find the German targets and to mark them with target indicators so that the main force crews of Bomber Command coming in behind us could identify where the target was and very often bombing on our markers. So we had to be very accurate how we dropped them and where we dropped them and I did this, I ended up doing a total of forty five ops, thirty five of those was as a member of a Pathfinder crew. We eventually having started out with the Pathfinders at Bourn in Cambridgeshire my squadron were then deployed in about April of ’44 to Coningsby in Lincolnshire to join with Number 83 Squadron that had been posted up there from Wyton. And our job was to work with the special force under Wing Commander Leonard Cheshire who was devising a system of finding the targets where the Germans where assembling V weapons on the French coast and in Belgium. And our job was to illuminate the target with parachute flares so that he trained a special force of Mosquito dive bombers that could lay the target markers in these tunnels so that our main force crews from 5 Group and other Groups could come over and do area or intensive accurate bombing as well on these targets. And I completed my forty fifth op in 1944 and was posted to RAF Fiskerton in Lincolnshire as the station radar nav officer. My job was to, we had two squadrons there, 49 and 189 and my job was to fly with these crews and check them out on their ability to use their radar equipment because now the main force were getting the same sort of radar gear that the Pathfinders had had for some time. And so it was my job to make sure the air crew when they, before they went on ops could operate their new radar equipment. And I stayed there for a year or two and eventually was posted to Headquarters, Number 1 Group at Bawtry as the Group radar navigation officer. My job was to oversee all the squadrons, all the Lancaster squadrons in 1 Group to ensure that the crews were properly trained in operating their radar equipment. Can I stop there? Right. Let’s carry on then.
[pause]
On some of the incidents that come to mind one in particular because the Lancaster bomber we all wear warm clothing because the, in the middle of winter the temperatures in the aircraft could become extremely low and in fact if you had to use the elsan at the back of the aircraft it would be extremely low and freezing. And on one occasion I was forced to go back there and use the elsan and I discovered the temperature was minus fifty three degrees Celsius and of course, in having to use the elsan and lower the clothing etcetera I found that my bottom was sticking to the seat to a little bit when I tried to stand up. But I had to stand up because at that time the skipper was calling me, ‘Come on, Ken. We’re only ten miles from the target.’ So I had to hurry up and get back. But in doing so I experienced a little a bit of pain [laughs] in certain lower regions. The other, some of the other aspects of my career was at having completed forty five ops I was then sent off to do jobs as I mentioned with other stations and other squadrons and taking me to the end of the war I applied for a Short Service Commission and this was granted. And after a couple of years the Air Ministry offered me a peacetime Permanent Commission which I accepted and I was down the rank of flight lieutenant and so I then was asked to move out from Bomber Command and become trained with peacetime navigation courses and I thought well, perhaps I’m going to shoot now into somewhere like Transport Command but none of it. Having completed my peacetime navigation course I was then asked by Air Ministry to go through the night fighter OCU at Leeming where I was then trained again to become a navigator radar operator with the AI equipment on night fighters. And so after the appropriate course at Leeming I was then posted to 23 Squadron at Coltishall on Mosquito Mark 36s and I flew with them for about two and a half years until one day I was told that I was to go back to Leeming as a squadron leader to set up the ground school for the introduction of the first jet night fighters. The Meteor NF11 was coming in and I was to head up the ground school with the expansion of the RAFs night fighter force both in the UK and Germany and also the odd squadron in Malta and Cyprus. And so I did that job for about two years and eventually was posted to RAF Newton which was then the headquarters of 12 Fighter Group as the Group navigation officer. And I did the staff duties there but also managed to keep on flying with some of the squadrons in 12 Group, night fighter squadrons until eventually one day the AOC asked me would I like to go back on a squadron as a flight commander. And so the AOC of 12 Group had me posted back to West Malling where I became a flight commander on number 85 Squadron as a navigator which was an unusual post which I enjoyed. And I did that for just over a year and one day the AOC of 11 Group sent for me and said, ‘Cook, do you think you could command a night fighter squadron?’ I said, 'Yes sir.’ He said, ‘Well, you’ve got one tomorrow. ‘You’re going to become a wing commander.’ And so I did that and I became the CO of one of the other squadrons at West Malling called 153 and I was made an acting wing commander and only had that job for about a couple of months when they decided to close the airfield because our flights were getting involved with civil aircraft flying in from the continent, particularly at night. And so they closed the airfield at West Malling and I, and I took 153 Squadron up to Waterbeach in Cambridgeshire and stayed with them for a while and eventually we changed our number to become 25 Squadron. And I completed my two years with the 25 squadron, 153/25 squadron and then one day I was told, ‘You’re going to the staff college.’ And I thought oh I’m going to learn to read and write again. But I did a one year course at the Staff College at Bracknell and after that the Air Ministry in their wisdom said, ‘You’ve done enough flying you’ve got to do an admin job.’ So they posted me and my wife to Aden as a wing commander in the organization branch which was concerned with improving the airfields throughout the Aden Protectorate and then up in the Gulf. So I did that for about two years and then I came back. I’m not quite sure what to do after that but I eventually did a job as the staff officer to the Home Commander, Home Defence Forces which was an organisation which has now been set up to deal with what would happen if there was a nuclear attack on Britain and what would the Air Force be doing to help out. And one of my jobs was to get involved with working out plans on that. And things have gradually moved along until eventually I decided to take early retirement and I left the RAF after twenty six years service in 1947.
Interviewer: And to go back to your, your Bomber Command days it’s always very interesting how the crews got together I think. Now, were you, how did you? I know you go into a sort of a hangar sort of thing and you mill around. There’s no organisation. Were you expecting that or, and did you know somebody? How did your crew come together?
KC: Well, when you got in the early stages of training you started to think about crewing up when you were flying on Wellingtons. You went, in my case I went to Cottesmore which was number 14 OTU and there you meet up with pilots, the wireless operator, straight navigator, air gunners. They were all brought in there and you’d chat with them and eventually you agreed to form a crew. And that’s what we did.
Interviewer: And it proved satisfactory.
KC: Yeah.
Interviewer: Didn’t it?
KC: For instance my skipper was an Australian.
Interviewer: Ah.
KC: Yeah. I was a West Country Gloucestershire man. The other navigator was a Yorkshire man. The mid-upper gunner was a Canadian. The wireless operator was a Londoner and the tail gunner was a Scotsman. That was my crew.
Interviewer: League of Nations.
KC: Yeah.
Interviewer: And you obviously all got on and you all gelled.
KC: We gelled. Yes. Yes. We stayed together for forty five trips. Yeah.
Interviewer: And you’ve mentioned Leonard Cheshire. Did you have much to do with him?
KC: Well, now Leonard Cheshire was based at Woodhall Spa but once we started and once my squadron had come up from 8 Group and we were now at Coningsby with alongside 83, the Pathfinder Squadron when we had briefings on a pre-briefing on a raid Cheshire would come in to see, hear to the breifing. But he particularly once we’d done the raid he would come back because often he would go on the raid himself. He would come back and listen to the debriefing and if things were not coming out clear from the debriefing of the crews he would cut in to explain what was going on where he was concerned in the air. To sort out any, so the intelligence people doing the debriefing could get a more accurate story of what was happening over the other side.
Interviewer: Did you form any opinions of him as a —
KC: Oh, he was the top boy really. Yes. He was, he had tremendous respect from all the all the, all the aircrew like myself.
Interviewer: Yes, so —
KC: What he was and what he did and of course he did a hundred ops, didn’t he?
Interviewer: He did.
KC: Yeah. Can I stop now?
Interviewer: Yeah [laughs] That was Wing Commander Kenneth Cook DFC, retired RAF Bomber Command talking at Thorpe Camp on the 24th Of September about his wartime experiences. Thank you, Wing Commander.
Ken Cook joined the RAF in 1941 and trained as a bomb aimer. He was posted to 9 Squadron at RAF Bardney. After approximately ten ops the crew were posted to the Pathfinder Force at RAF Bourn where he became radar navigator and air bomber. They were then posted to RAF Coningsby with 83 Squadron with the role of seeking V weapon launch sites. After forty five operations he was posted to RAF Fiskerton as station radar navigation officer. He then joined the HQ at RAF Bawtry as Group radar navigation officer. The 23 Squadron at Coltishall on Mosquitoes before being asked to form a ground school at RAF Leeming.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1944
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
23 Squadron
83 Squadron
9 Squadron
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
Lancaster
military living conditions
military service conditions
Mosquito
Pathfinders
radar
RAF Bardney
RAF Bawtry
RAF Bourn
RAF Coningsby
RAF Fiskerton
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46466/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v320002.mp3
89516deefc0392745cfbc6759b1bedf6
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
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
2017-06-19
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer: This is an interview with Mr Nelson Nix at RAF Coningsby on the 19th of May 2011 concerning his experiences during the Second World War as a child and afterwards. Would you like to start Nelson with that little story?
NN: Yeah. Ok then. Well, right from the very start I would be about six, five six years old and my father who kept the village store he also was in the Special Constables and then later on became in the Observer Corps which In 1942 became The Royal Observer Corps. Now, there was a post, a Royal Observer Corps post on the Fossdyke, on the riverbank which he used to man at night and do his job in the daytime of course running the shop. And after that of course they were [pause] scrub that bit, I’ve forgotten [laughs] I’ve forgotten what I was saying. But anyway, yeah he, the post itself that was issued with what they called a Darkie set and the Darkie set was so that they could contact or the aircraft coming back that was probably been shot up and things and couldn’t get back to the base or lost and that sort of thing like they did occasionally do and consequently he could contact them. Either put them on the right heading or get them to ditch on the Black Buoy Sands in the Wash which was where they could be rescued from. There used to be two, as I remember two boats in the Boston Docks that could be launched to go and pick them up. Air sea rescue as it presumably would be called then. I don’t know. But anyway, that sort of thing happened and again as a boy I can remember standing outside the shop in the evenings watching all these hundreds of aircraft which over the Wash area, would be taking off from places throughout Lincolnshire to get the height and formations before they went off to Germany to bomb. I didn’t know that. It was all rather fun for a boy of six or seven. So from that I can still picture that in my mind, all those hundreds of aircraft. It could have been some of the thousand bomber raids which I didn’t know about then. But they would be getting the height and that ready to fly off and everything would go dead quiet after that. You know, it was just one big buzz. But, and then the next thing you probably heard was them coming back again later on, you know. But, yeah it was quite an experience and even today I can remember it as if it was yesterday. Things today I can’t remember what happened earlier on [laughs] It’s hard but from then I always had a keen interest in aircraft and no military record whatsoever. I failed my medical test for the Forces on the call up when it, so I didn’t go. What I did then I joined the Royal Observer Corps and I did thirty two years in the Royal Observer Corps as a voluntary, well I went through from basically an observer to instructor observer and then on to head observer and we were, our headquarters at Fiskerton in Lincoln and when I first joined it was at Derby. But that was a long while ago. I can’t remember too much about that but we did aircraft reporting for a start and then gradually we came on to the underground posts which was a post consisted of three post members at a time. Each post had about ten to twelve observers which we could go and change duties with and what have you. And that, we used to have exercises on aircraft reporting and you know that kind of thing. And I’ve got to think back. And anyway, things sort of progressed to the Cold War situation where we was underground in these underground bunkers and they, we would go on duty, do these exercises for reading the different instruments we had on board or in the post. We were a sealed unit at the time where we were fastened down and then it was all theatrics. Well, you couldn’t practice on the real bombs [laughs] but it was just in case we did. Through triangulation if you had two or three posts within say a bomb had fell, exploded, so you’d have a flash which was recorded on a pinhole camera and all the [unclear] would be around it at four cardinal points. So by reading those and putting them over the radio to Fiskerton if you had three posts you would get, you would find out whether the bomb had actually dropped or if it was an airburst or a ground burst. So that if you had a ground burst you get more fallout than you would from an airburst. But an airburst would probably flatten things more. So that’s how it worked and I was in that as I said for thirty two years. In that time unfortunately I did have cancer and that’s what twenty two years ago now and I came on to the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. One of our lads on, which I was on Coningsby post at that time, I was head observer there and he said, ‘Well, you know, why don’t you?’ I’d lost, I’d had to sell my business and what have you through the cancer so I came down to Coningsby and I’ve been down here for twenty two years taking people around Lancasters, Spitfires, Hurricanes and the Dakota of course. But it’s part of your life but I often think what would I have done if I hadn’t have done this and I thought, yeah most of the guys here they really thoroughly enjoy doing it as a voluntary job. So there we are. That’s about it. I’m still kicking about after twenty two years of cancer so it’s fine.
Interviewer: Well, thank you very much, Nelson. That was very interesting.
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 Nelson Nix
1032-Nix, Nelson
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v320002
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:07:47 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Claire Bennett
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2011-05-19
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.
Description
An account of the resource
Nelson Nix grew up as a child during the war. His father kept the village shop and was also a special constable and member of the Observer Corps which later became the Royal Observer Corps. The post had access to the Darkie sets which were used to guide stricken or lost aircraft back to their base or directed them to ditch in the Wash where boats were on standby to collect the crews. Nelson went on to join the Royal Observer Corp himself and was with them for thirty two years. After his service he then went on to be a guide at the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight based at RAF Coningsby.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Lincolnshire
England--The Wash
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
childhood in wartime
ditching
home front
RAF Coningsby
Royal Observer Corps
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46465/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v310002.mp3
dba55bcfd3288733e70c03b9fff85978
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46465/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v310004.mp3
af811d089815158df987ec0309af7ee5
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
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
2017-06-19
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Part 1.
Interviewer: This is an interview with Mr Bob Panton in RAF Coningsby on the 19th of May 2011 talking about his post-war experiences in Lincolnshire. So what are your memories of the war, Bob?
BP: Well, all of it. All of it really. It was very fascinating with all the bits and pieces that went on. I can recall that after the 9 o’clock news every night apart from one there was a programme called, “Into Battle.” It lasted about ten minutes and you used to be absolutely glued to the radio listening to this every night which was part and parcel of what it was all about, you know. We saw very very strange things happen obviously. Only very recently was a report about someone finding an enemy aircraft which was downed in the sea. Yeah, and the powers that be were going to restore this aeroplane or get it out of the sea and it was a Dornier 17 and they did appeal for anyone that knew anything about Dornier 17s as I did. I didn’t do anything about it. Don’t get me wrong. And it was in August 1940, I was on holiday obviously, 12 o’clock father was coming down the garden path on his, pushing his bicycle and then from the south, west southwest of where we were I saw three Dornier 17s and of course as a young fellow who knew every aircraft inside out and backwards and I said to father, ‘There are three German aeroplanes.’ Father came out with some remark which I’ll not repeat and there appeared closer still three Dornier 17s. All of a sudden out of the sun appeared six Spitfires which we later understood came from Digby. Three of the Spitfires peeled away and the other three set about the Dornier 17s and I watched them shoot them down. That was a personal experience which I’ll never forget. One of them they actually sawed the wing off. It’s port wing. Just as if it had gone through a hacksaw. It just went like that and fell down to the ground. Almost immediately in our wisdom a good friend of mine who was equally mad about aeroplanes jumped on our bicycle to find the first one which came down which we knew wasn’t too far away. We got there before the Army did which the Army were not very pleased about because of course the prisoners, the aircrew had baled out and the fact that the blooming thing still carried a full load of bombs [laughs] If you look in the Visitor Centre you will see some of the remains of that Dornier 17. That was a very unusual thing to happen. They gathered all the crews together like eventually. What actually happened was not very nice. One of the poor souls was decapitated as he baled out. Got his head crushed and that was it. It parted company from the rest of his body. Another one was taken from Bilsby where this aircraft crashed to Alford Cottage Hospital by the village parson, Reverend Fletcher and when he was admitted to hospital he actually spat in the nurses face.
Interviewer: Oh dear.
BP: Which made him a very unpopular fella. But eventually three of them were killed and they were laid to rest in Bilsby Churchyard for a lot of years. And all of a sudden one day I showed somebody these graves and they weren’t there anymore.
Interviewer: Really.
BP: They’d taken the remains back home. ‘Well, that’s funny. I knew they were here.’ [laughs] Just one of the experiences, you know. You never forget. Amazing really. Joined the ATC as soon as ever I possibly could and eventually became a Senior Cadet NCO of 1073 Squadron. Won a scholarship which was mounted by the college at Manby and learned to fly with the University Air Squadrons on Tiger Moths of all things which was very nice. Open cockpit you see.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: A true plane. And then at seventeen and a half joined the Royal Air Force and went on to do flying training on Tiger Moths to start with. On to Harvards and then on to the four engine ones. The only problem with my flying was why I finished up on big things because I couldn’t have any idea at all of navigation. It never clicked. Most of the exam we had to we cheated like mad. Once outside the boundary of the airfield that was it. So I had to have a navigator behind me [laughs] as it were.
Interviewer: So, you flew Lancasters.
BP: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: And where would that have been?
BP: Mildenhall, Wyton.
Interviewer: Wow.
BP: Upwood for a little while. Variously saw an amount of service and then went on to eleven weeks with Operation Plane Fare which was what it was all about on Tuesday. The Berlin Airlift.
Interviewer: Right. You were in involved in the Berlin Airlift.
BP: Used to fly, flew Yorks on the Berlin Airlift.
Interviewer: Right.
BP: Yeah. Which was really quite something.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: It was pure and simply a cowboy outfit from the word go because that was the way it had to be. The Russians had blockaded the city. We couldn’t get anything in by road or rail and of course the surrounding territory was the Russians. They wanted us out. It wasn’t all their fault. We did things that they didn’t like and vice versa. We changed the currency without really telling them which wasn’t a very good thing to do. And I did forty nine trips from Wunstorf to Gatow with eight and a half short tons of coal in the back. So somebody trained me to fly aeroplanes and I finished up being a coalman [laughs] which was what this trip was all about. The York down at Duxford apparently when we got it sorted it all out it was apparently one of the aircraft that actually flew on the Berlin Airlift.
Interviewer: I’ve heard about the coal dust.
BP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Still being in the Lancaster years later.
BP: Oh yeah. Well, this one was in the repair depot at Duxford many years ago. I remember seeing it and I did enquire if this thing had been found to have coal dust anywhere and somebody would come and have a look and they did. Nooks and crannies. The lot. And I learned on Tuesday when they took the floor up from the York it was absolutely covered in coal dust. But it solved a problem because they got the historical records of the aircraft and I got my historical records and it fitted. It was one of them. So it was a problem that solved after about twenty three years [laughs] Very nice. I don’t —
Interviewer: What was it like to fly the Lancaster?
BP: Physical.
Interviewer: Hard work.
BP: Yeah. If you like. It was physical. Not like today’s modern aircraft. There were no computers, no power control. It was pilot flying which was what pilots were supposed to do really [laughs] if you like. But it had a few little tricks which it liked to remind you of at times like pulling off the runway because all the props turned in the same direction but the pilots that were around were good at having to. Yeah. Lovely aeroplane. The Lincoln of course was another version. Bigger in every respect and obsolete before it really came out. Only built five hundred and three I think. The only operational service it did was with Mao Mao out in Africa. That was about it really. No way would it have even if we had gone to war they would never have launched them.
Interviewer: No.
BP: The ones that jacked it up. We were told that if we did go in to action then piston engine aeroplanes like that wouldn’t have lasted two minutes and they shot Gary Powers down didn’t they?
Interviewer: Yes, they did.
BP: From about five or six miles. I don’t think a Lancaster would have lasted very long. Thank goodness it never happened like that, you know.
Interviewer: Did you sort of see the demise of the Lancasters?
BP: Oh yes.
Interviewer: Less and less of them around.
BP: Yeah.
Interviewer: And —
BP: Yeah. Yeah. You’ll never ever see another one as good as this one because that one is better than brand new. They’ve been here in the wintertime and seeing what they do it every wintertime it’s amazing. They virtually take it to bits every year.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: And then every six years. Now, eight years. It goes away to British industry to do a complete service on it. Take it virtually to pieces every time. It only does about a hundred hours a year but it’s perfect.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: Inside it’s exactly the same as it would have been many years ago. All the bits and pieces have all been found and put back where they should be but it’s dual control now of course which it wasn’t. Which it wouldn’t have been. The main reason being because we always for safety sake there was two pilots there. Bearing in mind they don’t fly it at twenty thousand feet anymore. It’s about a thousand feet over a lot of people.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: So they always have got to be in safety.
Interviewer: You’re not a small man and I know a few men in the war weren’t small pilots and like Gibson wasn’t —
BP: That’s right.
Interviewer: Over tall, and a few of the others. What difficulties would he, could you see him having?
BP: They always said he wanted to put wood blocks on the rudder pedals. I don’t think anybody dare tell Gibson that because he wasn’t a nice man to know in some respects. He was very very blunt and could be rude. Extremely rude. That’s what he had to be.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: He got the thing done did he not? Yeah. Amazing. But in this area of course this is where it all happened.
Interviewer: Indeed. Yes.
BP: The great shame I think is that the Bomber Command Memorial is going in Green Park in London. I think the Memorial should be outside of Lincoln Cathedral or somewhere adjacent because that was the pinpoint all the bombing lads looked for.
Interviewer: Circling Lincoln cathedral as they came back.
BP: That’s right. Absolutely. It was a leading landmark.
Interviewer: I suppose we should be grateful we’re having one at all.
BP: Oh, we shall. Yeah. One of the things that happened amongst several. Think about the Poles and the Czechs even left out of the Victory Parade in London.
Interviewer: That was —
BP: That was absolutely disgusting.
Interviewer: It was reprehensible.
BP: The bravest of the brave. They really were. Poor old Bomber Harris was treated like a piece of dirt when it was all over and before it was all over actually.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: The Dresden raid he took full responsibility. It wasn’t his orders at all. It was Churchill’s. It had been requested by Joseph Stalin to give him a little bit of support in the eastern part of Germany and that’s what happened.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: Passed the buck.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: We’re still deal with it a bit sometimes don’t we? I don’t know about sometimes but anyway, yeah.
Interviewer: So how long did you stay in the RAF altogether?
BP: I stayed nearly six years and the problem I got was eye trouble. I got astigmatism in one of my eyes and virtually given the chance to say you can stay in the Royal Air Force as ground crew or you can leave. So I left. Today they can cure that problem in three seconds with laser treatment.
Interviewer: How did you feel when you left the Air Force?
BP: Oh devastated. Devastated. And then twenty five years ago I came back and joined up again [laughs] which was rather nice.
Interviewer: And you’ve been a guide here at Coningsby for twenty five years.
BP: Yeah. Yeah. Twenty five in ’86. Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: You see the veterans come sometimes.
BP: Yeah. Quite, oh yeah quite often. We’ve had all sorts of people from all over the world. No doubt about that. Wonderful people that remember things. We were talking only last week to a party and we were talking about the Poles and the Czechs in front of the Mark Five Spitfire because it’s marked as one of their aircraft. And one of the gentlemen was listening very intently and when he came out with his driving licence and there was the funny name. And his grandfather was a fighter pilot on 303 Squadron. That very aircraft.
Interviewer: Goodness.
BP: Yeah. And he was, I just began to wonder whether I’d said anything wrong [laughs] but he was very interested in what happened and I said to him at the end of the day, ‘Remember the brave.’ Because he was one of them.
Interviewer: Dear.
BP: 303 Squadron. Fortunately, he lived to see the war over. Amazing.
Interviewer: Have you had any family in the war as it were?
BP: Oh, two. Two brothers.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: Two elder brothers.
Interviewer: And they —
BP: One was a rear gunner on Wellingtons for quite a time until he got virtually shot to bits and the other one strangely enough was a trainee solicitor in Gloucester, called up to the Royal Air Force. Where do you think he got posted? Royal Air Force Records Office, Gloucester and stayed there the whole war. Absolutely [laughs] Anybody else you’d put preference down and say you wanted to stay in Coningsby they’d send you up to the north of Scotland.
Interviewer: Best not to let them know.
BP: He was there right through the war. Yes. Fascinating.
Interviewer: How did you feel about your brother being in Wellingtons? What age would he have been?
BP: Oh, he’d be twenty years, a bit more than that older than me. He’d be, today he would be well over a hundred but in those days he’d be something like twenty two or three. Something like that. But he actually got the canopy, his Perspex shot to bits all around him and he wasn’t touched. Amazing. Turned into a blithering idiot. He was shaking like this. It happened to him twice and he got discharged to, he was at least six years before he was ever any good again.
Interviewer: So the war took its toll on, on your brother.
BP: Yeah. Oh yeah. He was absolutely devastated. I can imagine it too. I mean the rear turret was not a very nice place at the best of times but—
Interviewer: No.
BP: Having it all shot to pieces. Yeah. Poor old Jack.
Interviewer: And he did his service in just Wellingtons?
BP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BP: But it, he wasn’t the only one of course. The aircrew like that.
Interviewer: No.
BP: The only possibly awkward thing was and not very nice at all was when someone got absolutely petrified they could be given a special title which was LMF. Lack of moral fibre.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: And they were treated just like that. Banished. Wherever they were based they never saw them again.
Interviewer: Yeah. They were sent away.
BP: Put away somewhere and discharged and that was it.
Interviewer: Different to, different commanders had different attitudes didn’t they?
BP: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: Gibson who you’d think would be a real stickler for this didn’t really hold with anybody, sending anybody LMF did he?
BP: No. No.
Interviewer: He would get the doctor to sort of dismiss him and —
BP: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: And do it like that.
BP: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: Which is quite, you know contradictory to his —
BP: LMF is a terrible thing to do to anybody.
Interviewer: It is. Yes.
BP: Even if he was a coward it’s a horrible thing to do. I mean not necessarily be a coward because he was deadly frightened. He was petrified. But that’s what happened.
Interviewer: Indeed.
BP: Canadians and Australians. New Zealanders. You name it the lot was there. We even lost one Israeli pilot in the Battle of Britain which was unusual. Just one. I think there was only one plane. There we are. Amazing.
Interviewer: Well, thank you very much, Bob.
BP: No problem. My pleasure.
Interviewer: That’s been very very interesting. Thank you.
Part 2.
Interviewer: This is an interview at RAF Coningsby with Mr Bob Panton discussing his experiences as a boy during the war and his RAF career afterwards.
BP: Yes. First interested in flying an awful long time ago when we had a barnstormer at the bottom of Miles Cross Hill near Alford with this old Avro 504k and he was a friend of my very eldest brother who was a lot older than me and I was, I was led to believe, I was three and I actually got a flight in this Avro 504k. The only problem is for a lot of years I thought I’d done it but we didn’t. Only did because I couldn’t see over the hedge. It was taxied a few yards and that was my flight [laughs] From then on the bug was there. Flying was the dream and eventually of course became senior NCO, Cadet NCO, 1073 Squadron ATC and went into the Royal Air Force and learned to fly on a scholarship with the University Air Squadron on Tiger Moths and eventually finished up as a four-engine aircraft pilot. The main reason being because I couldn’t do navigation very well which usually raises a bit of a titter but it was perfectly true. Never was any good. By then of course the wars were all over but another one was in the offing and that was a war, the Cold War. And I took part in eleven weeks on the Berlin Airlift when the Russians blockaded the city and we had to feed two million people and all the rest of their needs and did forty nine trips from Wunstorf in western Germany to Berlin with eight and a half short tons of coal in the back of a York.
Interviewer: Did you just take coal or anything else?
BP: Only coal. Yeah. Yeah. They gave all these mucky jobs to us sprog pilots and we were called actually on Wunstorf, sprog pilots. The five of us were all fairly young and we were all there to fill in the gaps. Anyone who went sick or anything like that we took his aeroplane and did it. And unbelievably now thinking about it quite often although we were not obliged to do it we actually went on trips as passengers [laughs] Just to say we’d been flying. That was really amazing. The memory was brought back to me on Tuesday. This last Tuesday at Duxford, the Imperial War Museum when I was actually reunited with a York that had actually flown on the Berlin Airlift which was rather nice. It had been in the offing for many years but it was proved it was one of the actual aircraft. I finished up flying Lancasters on their last few trips within the Royal Air Force and then of course went on to Yorks and then to the Lincoln. And I’ve been a guide at Coningsby now for twenty five years which gives us a lot of pleasure. To be reunited again with the Lancaster which was very nice. The best Lancaster ever. Looked after like a baby thank goodness and I’ve actually had the opportunity to fly in it a few times which is very nice. Can’t do that now because there isn’t time but it’s quite something.
Interviewer: You must have seen the devastation of Germany. You know, what did you think about that?
BP: Oh, it was awful. It was really awful. But it was war and that’s what it was all about. By then even in ’48 ’49 the city of Berlin was awful. Blown to bits. Hardly a building left standing.
Interviewer: As in Cologne or —
BP: Aye Cologne. The city of Cologne of course was and by divine judgement or bad bomb aiming we didn’t up the cathedral.
Interviewer: No.
BP: Chipped a few bits off it like but [pause] And then afterwards of course when that was all over we had a very strange experience. The Manna drop which was by kind permission of the enemy. We took Lancasters with not a bomb load but food to feed the starving people out in Holland.
Interviewer: They were always very grateful for it weren’t they?
BP: Oh yeah.
Interviewer: And still are.
BP: Yeah. They were. Oh yeah. We, odd times we get someone. I haven’t seen anybody for a long time now but odd times we still get one or two people like that who remember that experience. I didn’t do it but it was there. Somebody had written it into the annals of history of the Air Force. There we are.
Interviewer: But as a boy living in Lincolnshire you had an experience with the, as I say with three Dorniers.
BP: Oh. Yeah. That was quite [pleasant] yes.
Interviewer: Would you like to tell us about that please?
BP: 12 o’clock lunchtime at home in Alford and father was just coming down for his mid-day meal and looking to the west southwest where I was there was three ever growing larger specks in the sky. As a very very keen observer of aircraft I knew exactly what they were and I was right. They were Dornier 17s. Reports later on, a lot later on guessed at the fact that they were lost and they were, had been sent to bomb the airfield at Horsham St Faiths which was Norwich Airport now and all fully loaded with bombs. And eventually six Spitfires appeared. Three of them from out of the sun and set about these three aircraft. The first one they shot it down and virtually what looked like sawed its port wing off which was the blow was sufficient to make it just drop off plus the engine All three of them bit the dust and quite an experience really. Not very long after that gathered up a good friend and we went to explore the first crash site which we eventually found. Unfortunately, we got in to severe trouble by the Army because they were sent to gather up the prisoners and we weren’t supposed to be there. Plus the fact that all three aeroplanes still had still got a full bomb load onboard which was we didn’t know that either. A lot of stories around that. The local parson at Bilsby which was where the first one crashed, Reverend Fletcher carried one of the damaged crew to Alford Cottage Hospital and when he was admitted he actually spat in the nurse’s face. Nurse [Hundleby]. Amazing story. Three of them were killed outright. One of them was actually decapitated because he was trying to get out of his aircraft and they were buried in Bilsby Churchyard. Quite a few years ago now I had the opportunity of showing someone where these guys were buried and when I got there they weren’t there anymore. Obviously, their remains had been taken home which happened quite a lot.
Interviewer: I think a lot of the Germans were sort of disinterred and taken around —
BP: Yeah. Yeah. And vice versa.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: Yeah.
Interviewer: I think a lot of them found their way to Cannock Chase, didn’t they?
BP: Yeah. They did. Yeah.
Interviewer: And buried, reburied there.
BP: Oh yeah. Yeah. Maybe. It was, it was quite an experience that was.
Interviewer: Very exciting for a young boy.
BP: Yeah. It really was. Yeah.
Interviewer: At that time.
BP: And as I say there are some of the remains of the first Dornier shot down was in the Visitor Centre at Coningsby now. Gathered those up and gave some away like. A few. But there we are. Very nice too.
Interviewer: But very exciting and of course —
BP: Well, war was like that. It really was. Some of the memories are really it’s a job to believe them. Like the blackout. I mean that was quite something. I mean everything was in pitch darkness. You wanted to go anywhere you had to feel your way along.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: The streets, the footpaths, no lights as we walked past at all of any kind. Rationing was another one. One egg a week. Well, that was ridiculous in Lincolnshire. I mean for goodness sake there was millions of the jolly things. And every, everybody who knew anything about the job had a pig tucked away somewhere. So we were never short of anything really to be honest.
Interviewer: You came from a town, a rural, or a rural —
BP: Oh yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BP: That’s right. Yeah. Amazing.
Interviewer: And your parents at this time they’d seen your elder brother go off and —
BP: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: And his experiences.
BP: He was a rear gunner on Wellingtons and eventually having had the canopy, the Perspex on his turret shot to bits around him his nerve went. As simple as that and became a dithering idiot for quite some time.
Interviewer: Then went back in.
BP: No. No.
Interviewer: Right.
BP: He was discharged. Medical discharge.
Interviewer: Right.
BP: In case it reoccurred again of course.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: But hardly surprisingly it must have been an awful experience for anybody.
Interviewer: Absolutely, I mean they say the rear gunner was the worse position.
BP: Yeah. The rear gunner. Rear gunner the rear position of a Lancaster. It was bad enough to look at its a terrible place to be. Even at peace. It really is. Claustrophobic beyond belief but somebody had to do it. That’s what it was all about.
Interviewer: But you’re a tallish man so you would find flying a Lancaster not that difficult.
BP: No. No. It was quite —
Interviewer: Some of the shorter men.
BP: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: Like Gibson.
BP: Yeah. We had one at Coningsby. We called him Andy Tomlin. A smashing little chap but he was only about five foot four. We always chided him about his wooden blocks under the bench. They always, prior to actually taking command of Coningsby one of the basic needs was how to be able to fly the Lanc. Most of them had never done it. COs only lasted three years at Coningsby you see and they used to fly the Shackleton at Lossiemouth as a training aircraft. You can’t do that now of course. There isn’t one.
Interviewer: No.
BP: So they have to learn on our own Lancaster. That’s why, one of the reasons why it’s dual control. It’s on the job training if you like [laughs]
Interviewer: And where did you fly from?
BP: Mildenhall, Wyton, 15 Squadron. Upwood for a time.
Interviewer: And then the York which —
BP: Yeah. York. York. That was we joined the Berlin airlift at Northolt. That was the initiation if you like and became at Wunstorf one of a team of five of which we were christened sprog pilots because we were relatively young but our job was to fill in the gaps as and when they occurred. That was nice really. In fact, it was good. We got more flying than anybody else and that’s what it was all about.
Interviewer: And you saw the Lancs gradually disappear.
BP: Yeah.
Interviewer: And the end of an era.
BP: Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah.
Interviewer: As far as —
BP: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: It must have been very sad to see them.
BP: Saw a lot of them removed and just junked. Scrapped. Now, we’ve got well about three I think in this country. One of them can fly and the other is in Canada that can fly. The strange thing is in Canada theirs is actually registered to can carry passengers.
Interviewer: Yes. I think they fly over Niagara Falls as well just to —
BP: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know what they charge but it must be nice.
Interviewer: I think a couple of years ago it was a thousand pounds.
BP: Were it? Well, why not? I can remember this thing very well just to fill you in on money. We were at, the flight itself was at Duxford on a Sunday, oh must be twenty years ago now and parked up. I was talking to the engineering officer, Warrant Officer Barry Sears who had gone with it [until he retired] and a chap came over the barrier, approached Barry Sears and said, ‘You’re doing a fly past over Cambridge.’ ‘Yeah, we are doing a flypast over.’ ‘I’ve got two thousand quid if either of you will take me.’ The trip was about ten minutes of course. Cambridge just up the road. We wouldn’t take his money. I said to him I’d have knocked his arm off, knocked his elbow for two thousand quid. He was serious too.
Interviewer: Yes. Yes. There’s something about the Lancaster.
BP: Yeah.
Interviewer: You just —
BP: I mean he would have only just had time to sit down [laughs] But oh dear. It couldn’t happen. There we are.
Interviewer: So you had six happy years in the RAF.
BP: Yes. Unfortunately had to do a discharge because of bad eyesight which today can be cured in three seconds with laser treatment but it wasn’t then. There we are.
Interviewer: But you’re back here at Coningsby.
BP: Yes.
Interviewer: With the, with the Lanc.
BP: Yeah absolutely.
Interviewer: And —
BP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Spreading the word to the public.
BP: Yeah.
Interviewer: That come around.
BP: Yeah. That’s right. Strange experiences quite often. We quite often see tears. That’s not in the slightest bit unusual.
Interviewer: No.
BP: Disbelief quite often which is understandable of course. We look at todays modern pieces of aviation well there’s no comparison whatsoever. Lots of people, if not everybody would give their absolute high teeth to fly in a Lanc and ninety nine percent of them would say never again because that’s what it was about. It’s a very good producer of blood and bad language. Sharp edges and bare metal. But it’s a beautiful aeroplane.
Interviewer: And you have the Poles and the Czechs come around.
BP: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: And have a look at the Spits and Hurris —
BP: Yeah. We did. Only as I said last week we were talking about the valiant gallant Poles and Czech pilots in the Battle of Britain who were not in the slightest bit interested in the frilly bits of the Royal Air Force or anybody else’s Air Force. All they wanted to do was get into battle. Stuffy Dowding was the head of Fighter Command refused to make them operational because once airborne they reverted to their own separate languages meaning that nobody had any idea where they were. They wouldn’t remain in formation. If they saw a little something that looked suspicious they went to sort it out. One of their pilots on 303 Squadron was Sergeant Pilot Josef Frantisek and he was actually turned loose. He wasn’t, no pilot was ever supposed to follow enemy aircraft back over the Channel. It was a trap. Frantisek did it every time and eventually they said oh well, carry on. And dear old Frantisek finished up being the highest scoring pilot in the actual Battle of Britain. He shot down seventeen and a half enemy aeroplanes himself. Half a one he shared with another pilot. An amazing chap.
Interviewer: And you’re full of admiration for the ones —
BP: Oh yeah.
Interviewer: Also, that come to —
BP: That’s right.
Interviewer: To see the flights.
BP: All sorts of stories you can tell about the Poles and the Czechs. This chappy last week was talking about these incidents and things and getting on about the Poles and the Czechs and he pulled his driving licence out and it was a Polish name. And his grandfather had actually been a pilot on 303 Squadron which was one of the reasons he came to look at that particular aircraft. It was really quite something. Amazing really.
Interviewer: So you hear all these wonderful stories.
BP: Oh yeah. And experiences. That’s right. We do.
Interviewer: Well, thank you very much, Bob.
BP: No problem at all. A great pleasure.
Interviewer: Very interesting indeed. Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Two part interview with Bob Panton
1029,1030,1031-Panton, Bob
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v31-02, SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v31-04
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Claire Bennett
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Description
An account of the resource
Two part interview with Bob Panton.
Part 1. Bob Panton was a child during the war. One day as his father was coming towards their house Bob saw three Dornier 17 come into view. Then out of the sun came six Spitfires and a battle started in front of him. Bob saw the Dorniers shot down and rushed to the crash site with his friend to see the site. Of the surviving German aircrew one was taken to the local cottage hospital where he spat in the face of the nurse. Bob’s brother was a rear gunner in a Wellington and was traumatised when the Perspex in his turret was shot away around him. Bob joined the ATC at the earliest opportunity before joining the RAF proper and training to be a pilot. He took part in the Berlin Airlift.
Part 2. Bob Panton was fascinated with aircraft ever since a friend of his brother gave him a taxi ride on his Avro 504k. After his wartime experiences in his childhood Bob joined the RAF and trained as a pilot. He took part in the Berlin Airlift. In later years Bob became a guide showing visitors around the aircraft of the museum and hearing their own stories and experiences.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:18:14 audio recording
00:17:43 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
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.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Suffolk
Germany--Berlin
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
15 Squadron
aircrew
childhood in wartime
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
pilot
RAF Coningsby
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Upwood
RAF Wyton
Spitfire
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/964/46464/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v300002.mp3
5e59e5bf4d71c5f11d1ec0bf1d0caeac
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
Avey, Charles George
C G Avey
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Charles Avey. He flew operations as an air gunner with 617 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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
Avey, CG
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer 1: This is an interview with Mr Charles Avey at Thorpe Camp on the 14th of May 2011 about his experiences at the end of the Second World War as an air gunner with 617 Squadron.
CA: Well —
Interviewer 1: So, Charles —
CA: What particular question would you, you can think of the questions better than I can think of the answers I suppose.
Interviewer 1: So, you joined the RAF.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer 1: In —
CA: Yeah. I volunteered to join when I was eighteen and got called up later in the year. 1943, of course. Yeah. But I, we were crewed up eventually with, but we lost, we lost our captain. We had a Flight lieutenant. We lost him because he got lumbago or something of that nature so he couldn’t carry on with us. So we ended up at Lanc Finishing School, picked up another Canadian, a Canadian captain. Flight Lieutenant Gordon Price who was going back on he’d done a tour and he was, and he was going back on main ops. But we got posted then directly to 617 Squadron.
Interviewer 1: How did you feel about that?
CA: Well —
Interviewer 1: Had you heard about it?
CA: Well, I knew of it. Particularly as it was getting near the Tirpitz business thing you know and while I was there that’s what, as we arrived the Tirpitz business was just over so we missed that of course. But I did it. I did about eleven ops after that to various places. Bielefeld and Hamburg, Bremen, Ijmuiden, [Porteshaven], Bergen. I can remember them anyway. And we lost a few crews. Four. Four crews I think in that time you know. Well, what I think about it mainly is that 1945 that early spring we were doing daylights of course. Frequently we’d go off like to Bielefeld having heard the Met man say it would be all clear. When we got there, no. It wasn’t all clear at all so you would come back. We did three trips there before [laughs] before they demolished the darned thing which the people, the local people must have been very pleased with because we kept going over threatening them and nothing happened. There you are. But I remember it. Particularly good weather you know. Apart from when we went to Bergen January the 12th and we lost a couple of crews there I think it was but coming back across the North Sea the combination of rain and sleet and snow the waves were coming up to the aircraft and the cloud was coming down to the waves. The most frightening thing I’d ever known. It really, it was more frightening than anything else I think. I couldn’t believe it. If anybody went down in that you’d never survive. And although I was born in Brighton I couldn’t swim. It wouldn’t have done me any good anyway. But oh, it was quite, it was quite an experience at Woodhall Spa living in spartan conditions. Springtime was nice but the winter was pretty, pretty grim like most airfields. I mean the ground staff had it even worse. They were wallowing about in mud a heck of a lot. I mean without them where would we be? We took everything for granted that when we went to the aircraft it would be spot on and they were, you know. Every admiration for the ground staff.
Interviewer 1: So you were an air gunner at this time.
CA: I was a gunner. Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer 1: Did you choose that or is that what —
CA: Yes. Yes, when I went up I did attestation as they called it at St John’s Wood and they took various information from us and said, ‘Well,’ you know, ‘What do you want to do? Do you want to be a pilot?’ I’d joined up. A mate of mine, I worked in a factory which meant I could stay there through the war. It was a sheltered sort of thing. Making things for the Admiralty I was at the time and a mate of mine wanted to go in. He was fanatical about the RAF and he wanted to go in. He talked me into going as well. So we both joined up together. Went up together. He subsequently, he wanted to be a pilot. Nothing else. It was all Fighter Command and the glamour and so forth but I thought, I thought, well I know that if you do that it’s a very long course obviously. So, I thought no. I’ll take the short route. I’ll be a gunner. Subsequently, I came on holiday, on leave at the end of the war and he got on the train at Victoria Station and he said, ‘How have you been doing?’ I said, ‘Oh, I’ve done a few ops with 617 Squadron,’ and so forth. ‘What have you done?’ He said, ‘Well, I started my flying training. Then they said they didn’t want any more and now I’m making tea in the Air Ministry.’ [laughs] That cheered me up enormously that did. Yeah. He was the bloke that talked me in to going in. Yeah. Oh dear. And I went back to the factory where I worked and he was there. He was there. I had to keep ribbing him about that of course. Yeah.
Interviewer 1: Were you on the last operation to Berchtesgaden?
CA: No. I didn’t do that. No. I seem to have missed one or two good ones. We used to go on leave every six weeks you see. Had a week’s leave. Lord Nuffield would give us a few bob. Something like that. I suppose you’ve heard of that. That we always had this extra bit of cash and yeah, every six weeks we were on leave it seemed. And then you’d come back and find that somebody had done, they’d been out and that. Then the weather clamped down and you’d have a couple of weeks loafing about because that’s what most of war is isn’t it? You loaf about and then you get little bits of danger. Then, then it’s all a matter of hanging on and getting bored and flying training and so forth.
Interviewer 1: Did you get used to flying backwards?
CA: It never occurred to me. Oh yeah. It never occurred to me to be otherwise you know. No. But —
Interviewer 1: And you coped with the cold and all the other —
CA: Oh well. You had to cope with all the cold but, mind you when we, not like the earlier aircraft I mean we had electric socks which plugged into the suit and electric gloves. Like four pairs of gloves and I mean you know it’s, it wasn’t uncomfortable at all really except as the rear gunner I did the rear gunner now and again with my partner and we had a clear vision panel. So it could be a bit drafty right but no I didn’t feel any great any discomfort. I didn’t even feel any danger. I suppose I thought you know there was a chap up the front looking after me. I had my faith in him. Whoever I flew with. Yeah.
[another voice in the room]
Interviewer 2: Can I ask you where you did your training as an air gunner?
CA: Well, where was it? Bridgnorth was, I went up to Bridlington as an Initial Training Wing and then Bridgnorth was Elementary Air Gunnery School and Stormy Down at Pyle in Glamorgan was —
Interviewer 2: Right.
CA: The Air Gunnery School where we did flying in Ansons and simulated attacks and so forth.
Interviewer 2: And did you use when you were in the initial stage I’ve seen pictures of air gunners training on the ground in turrets.
CA: Oh yes. We had —
Interviewer 2: You went up and down on the —
CA: And a railway thing went around.
Interviewer 2: That’s it.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer 2: Can you tell us about that please?
CA: Well, I only, we only went once. That was at Port, Port Talbot I think in South Wales but I can’t remember it very much. It didn’t seem too relevant somehow sitting there in, but we did do that. That was, it wasn’t a major feature of our training as such.
Interviewer 2: What about the skills of deflection shooting? How did, how did that work?
CA: Oh yes. We were trained on that. We had, when we had Ansons we flew in, we went up three or four in an Anson and, and marked aircraft would attack us and we had a cine camera thing which people presumably played later to see how we did. But nobody ever came back with any results about what we did, you know.
Interviewer 2: So you really just had to learn it yourself.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer 2: Rather than be trained.
CA: Well, it was we were taught. A lot of classroom work but the same as dismantling the guns.
Interviewer 2: Yes.
CA: And so forth. But everybody passed out as satisfactory, I think. That was the word that covered everything you know. Very few were exemplary. We didn’t quite know what exemplary would be.
Interviewer 2: We’ve read how when you were firing at the drogues —
CA: Oh yeah.
Interviewer 2: The bullets had paint on to see if you hit. Was that the case? Was that how it worked?
CA: Yes. Yes. We, I know we went out over the, coming down the North Sea coast and we were firing and we lost a drogue. It wasn’t very good that really but suddenly somebody said, ‘What’s all that in front of us? It’s all it looks like a big sandbank or something.’ Apparently, the navigator had got things a little bit wrong and we were approaching Texel.
Interviewer 1: Oh dear.
CA: Which was, which was [laughs] a German fighter base. So we had a quick turn to starboard and hared back into RAF Heyford, Upper Heyford.
Interviewer 2: Yeah. Yeah.
CA: Yeah. That was our —
Interviewer 2: Yes.
Operational Training Unit, was it?
Interviewer 2: Yes, I think it was. Yes.
CA: Something like that.
Interviewer 2: Did you ever meet Tom McLean?
CA: Oh, I heard a great deal about Tom McLean. Yeah.
Interviewer 2: What can you tell us about him? Because —
CA: Well, no. I didn’t hear anything special and I subsequently read that he was quite, he was a gunner with some prowess. Yeah.
Interviewer 2: Yes.
CA: Yeah. Yeah. I mean apart from one or two occasions during 1945 of course we were escorted. We didn’t even see the escort half the time unless they dropped their fuel tanks and they were all flashing being aluminium.
Interviewer 2: Yes.
CA: But so we were, we were in the main untroubled other than flak.
Interviewer 2: Yeah.
CA: Which was which was the worst thing really. That’s what took our losses but I think it was over Bremen we were attacked coming back from bridges over Bremen and they had the jet aircraft. German jet aircraft coming through.
Interviewer 2: You saw a 262, did you?
CA: Well, I saw them and then they were gone you know. We were at the front of a big main force.
Interviewer 2: Right.
CA: And I saw these ME262s I think.
Interviewer 2: Yes.
CA: But by the time you saw them they had gone like.
Interviewer 2: Yeah. Did you make up your own loads?
CA: No. No. No. We always —
Interviewer 2: [unclear] the load were you?
CA: We were always told what ammunition.
Interviewer 2: Yes.
CA: No. No. I never had to do that at all. No. The ground staff did it all.
Interviewer 2: We had heard that some gunners did choose their own loads and I didn’t know whether you knew about that at all.
CA: Well, I knew that, I think when we were training it was mentioned sort of thing but we were never called upon to do that.
Interviewer 2: Right.
CA: In fact, we were never called upon to do much at all. Apart from get in the aircraft quite frankly you know.
Interviewer 2: Gosh. When I came in you were talking about some of the raids and I know that some of those raids you were dropping Grand Slams.
CA: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer 2: What was it like when the bomb left the aircraft?
CA: Oh well, I don’t know. It’s like getting a kick up the rear you might say. Yeah. It was quite noticeable. They reckoned the aircraft used to say thank God [laughs] and the wings would go up or something like that. You know, yeah, I think we, I think we dropped one. I mean it was very rare. Most of the people at the front, the CO and the two flight commanders they would have them while the rest of us had Tallboys.
Interviewer 2: Right.
CA: But, as I say we, while I was there we didn’t drop many bombs. We brought quite a few back because nobody wanted, they were so expensive we didn’t want, didn’t want to scatter them all over the fields of Germany and do no good with them. I know some chaps went to Sheffield I think where they made these things and they came back and they said these ten tonners there’s a man inside with earmuffs, masks and all that, goggles and everything with a wheel going [unclear] wheel.
Interviewer 2: Spinning it up.
CA: Yeah. Tidying it up I suppose when it was forged. Yeah. I thought what a job. We thought we had a bad job. I wonder what he’d get, I bet he got paid more than us mind you. He should have done. I felt good God what a thing to do.
Interviewer 2: Have you been back into, into a Lancaster since? Since those days have you been back into the turret at all?
CA: No. No. I’ve been, I’ve been to East Kirkby and that.
Interviewer 2: Yeah.
CA: And I’ve been to Coningsby but East Kirkby well we can’t get in there. It’s all a matter of insurance isn’t it, I think?
Interviewer 1: That’s at Coningsby I think. You have been in the one at East Kirkby. It’s Just Jane that taxis.
CA: Yeah, I haven’t. No. They wouldn’t let us in there. No. We saw the farmers. We met the two farming gents there but I know —
Interviewer 2: You should have been given a privileged tour.
CA: Well —
Interviewer 2: That’s another story.
CA: You can’t, you can’t trust people. I might go and pull something and bring the undercarriage up [laughs]
Interviewer 2: We heard a story about how some young RAF people were looking at the turret of a Lancaster. You know, fit young people couldn’t get into it and a gentleman such as yourself was standing there and said, ‘This is how we did it in 1943 and slipped into the rear turret as though it was yesterday.
CA: Oh yeah. Well, the rear turret you could slide down a padded thing and slid into it. The mid-upper was darned awkward.
Interviewer 2: Yeah.
CA: A leg came down like. You put one foot on it, hoist yourself up in there and, well then you were in. But that was it. I always thought that was if you were a rear gunner you could have a pilot type chute and sit on it and turn it ninety degrees, open the tin doors at the back and you hoped they’d open because they would slide. If you get a mechanic in there with massive great boots and he kicks it the chances are they’d jam but there you are. You had to think about that. But then you could roll out the back. Not the, I mean the alternative is, well we won’t talk about that bit but I thought getting out of a mid-upper could be really dodgy. You’d have to find your foot to get down and then you would have to go and open the back door, sit down and roll out. Yeah.
Interviewer 2: Yes.
CA: We rehearsed it in our mind several times. Never had to do it.
Interviewer 2: Thank goodness.
CA: I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t have wanted to sit on this step and freeze.
Interviewer 2: Yeah.
CA: Really. Because, you know if you freeze well it might be too late.
Interviewer 2: Yeah. Yeah.
CA: And remember which side the grip, the release was. No good grabbing a hand over this, over this side.
Interviewer 2: Wearing your braces too —
CA: Yeah. These things go through your mind don’t they?
Interviewer 2: Yeah.
CA: But I never had occasion to worry about such things fortunately.
Interviewer 2: When you hear the Lancaster or see the Lancaster today —
CA: Unmistakable, isn’t it?
Interviewer 2: Yeah. Does it bring back all sorts of memories to you?
CA: Well, I always like to see it when it comes over here. When we, when I was up here a few years back when we had this, a wedding at the Petwood I was in the doorway with the bride and groom. As it happened I was standing at the doorway just before their wedding and the Lanc came over from Coningsby right down low. So I said, ‘We ordered that for you especially.’ Whether they believed it or not [laughs] but, oh that’s quite something when that comes over isn’t it? I’ve seen it on several places you know.
Interviewer 2: Well hopefully it will fly over, you know this weekend at some point.
CA: Well, I asked if our squadron was coming down for the flypast but I’m told that they’re probably in Afghanistan or something. Somebody sent them away. That’s what they told me.
Interviewer 2: Yes.
CA: But John Bell, ex-Wing Commander John Bell who is here with us here, he said, ‘I think 9 Squadron are going to do the flypast. If they can find us.’ There was always something like that.
Interviewer 2: The rivalry still exists.
CA: There’s always this dig you see. These people [laughs] us at 9 Squadron and they’re still arguing over the bit of bulkhead of the Tirpitz that passes from hand to hand when people can rescue it so to speak. Yeah. Theres been several occasions apparently on that.
Interviewer 2: Your spirit is absolutely remarkable. The same humour and the same spirit from those days. You still have that and its absolutely inspirational.
CA: I laugh. I’ve often laughed my way through life I suppose really. Done nothing special. Boring job. Sixty years of marriage. I lost my wife last July.
Interviewer 2: She’s just here I think.
Interviewer 1: No, his daughter.
Interviewer 2: Oh, daughter is it?
CA: Are they there? I’m on the radio, yeah and sixty years we were married and I lost the wife last year.
Interviewer 2: Oh, I’m sorry.
CA: But they kept me going. These two. I wasn’t allowed to become a recluse and cut myself off from the world. No. No.
Interviewer 2: Well, it’s been a privilege hasn’t it to meet you and to listen to what you’ve been saying. An absolute privilege.
CA: Well, I think nobody realises I’m eighty six. I laugh when the man in the fish shop said to her, ‘This old boy comes in here with a cap on.’
Other: ‘He’s come up from Brighton,’ he said.
CA: She said, ‘That’s my dad.’
Other: He said, ‘Have you seen him?’ I said, ‘He’s my dad.’
CA: A skinny little bloke with a cap on. About sixty.
Other: ‘He’s moved up here from Brighton.’ I said, ‘I know.’
CA: Sixty [laughs] I thought whoopee.
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 Charles Avey
1028-Avey, Charles
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v30
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Claire Bennett
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:20:31 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
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.
Description
An account of the resource
Charles Avey volunteered for the RAF with his friend who was fanatical about the RAF. Charles trained as a gunner. His friend was posted to the Air Ministry. On one training flight the crew were suddenly concerned at the sight ahead of what looked like a large sandbank. This turned out to be the island of Texel where German fighters were based. The first pilot Charles was crewed with became unable to fly on medical grounds and so Charles and his crew had to find a new pilot. They were posted to 617 Squadron at RAF Woodhall Spa.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1945
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Lincolnshire
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
617 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Heavy Conversion Unit
RAF Woodhall Spa
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46462/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v290002.mp3
5d0e7c3c9b4c625ba2a549896e9d0746
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
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
2017-06-19
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer 1: This is an interview given on the 14th of May 2011 with Mr Basil Fish at Thorpe Visitor Centre regarding his experiences in World War Two.
BF: Still alive is it?
Interviewer 1: Yes. Yes. It’s fine. So when did you join the RAF, Basil?
BF: Well, I was at University in Manchester and they formed an Air Squadron. This was 1941 and I preferred flying or the thought of flying to studying civil engineering so the answer to your question really is I volunteered in November 1941.
Interviewer 1: And where did you do your training?
BF: Well, we then, the initial training really was from Ringway in Manchester but this was the University Air Squadron and we then at the end of that term, the summer term I actually joined the Air Force proper with the princely rank of Leading Aircraftsman and we were, we went down to what was called arcy darcy [laughs] Aircrew Recruiting Centre down in London and from then onwards we were trained for whatever membership of the crew yweou were best suited for.
Interviewer 1: And you came to be navigator.
BF: In my particular case because I knew that two and two made four instead of five they made me a blinking navigator [laughs]
Interviewer 1: Did you have hopes of being a pilot or were you quite happy as a navigator?
BF: I, I resented if you like not being a pilot because since then of course I’ve gained my private pilot’s license and then had several hours in but at the time I was quite upset actually. But as I say I knew that two and two made four and not five. I should have said two and two make five and then I would have been a pilot you see [laughs]
Interviewer 1: And you did your, you crewed up at an OTU. Where would that have been?
BF: We did the ITW. That’s the Initial Training Wing.
Interviewer 1: Yes.
BF: At university. I was at Manchester University. So I joined with the princely rank of leading aircraftsman and then we were given what I call the real training, the flying training and we were sent out to South Africa. And believe it or not it took seven weeks to get there by boat. And then we qualified with our wing and we qualified as navigator. We thought we knew it all until we came back to England and then of course we had to, if you like re-educate ourselves to flying. Serious flying over here in Britain. Then it was what? 1942.
Interviewer 1: And you then went to —
BF: We then, we did [pause] let me just get my facts right. We did the initial training and then we went to what they called OTU, Operational Training Unit where the flying was becoming more serious and we were flying Wellingtons and that was at Swinderby and Syerston. And then after that we for reasons I just don’t know we went straight to 617 Squadron. Now, in those days people on 617 were very experienced airmen. They’d been on operational flying and that sort of thing. And as a crew when we went along never having seen a shot fired in anger I wasn’t quite sure how we were received. But after a few weeks you know it was we were part of the, part of the squadron and I stayed with them ever since. Well, for the rest of the war I should say. And then it was a toss of either going back to university and getting my degree or staying on in the Air Force. After a lot of if you like heart-searching I decided to go back to university and that then was in 1945 1946.
Interviewer 1: Where were you first stationed with 617?
BF: Well, do you mean operationally?
Interviewer 1: Yes.
BF: Here. We were the first if you like non-experienced crew or one of the first non-experienced crew to come to Woodhall Spa and that’s where I spent the rest of my Air Force career. At Woodhall Spa.
Interviewer 1: A happy time in spite of what you were doing?
BF: Yes, I adopted the attitude I really wasn’t going to come out, you know with ten fingers and ten toes. It just didn’t happen. But we were a very very close knit squadron and I stayed there and I did I think twenty four operations in in total until the end of the war. Then I applied for early release to go back to university and in those days they were jolly glad to get rid of air crew quite honestly.
Interviewer 1: Who was your commanding officer here?
BF: We had, first of all it was a chap called Tait. Willie Tait and then, Willie Tait who was a wing commander. It was then taken over by Group Captain Fauquier. Very unusual for a group captain to be in charge but he was a very, what shall I say? He seemed to be a fierce man but he had a heart of gold I found actually. So the answer to your question is William Tait, then Group Captain Fauquier.
Interviewer 1: Would you like to tell us about any of your operations or —
BF: Well, there’s one operation which I shall never ever forget and that was about our eighth and flying conditions were very very poor. Low cloud. Poor visibility and we were actually, take off was postponed on more than one occasion and we eventually took off. I forget what the target was quite honestly. And on the way back we pranged and we lost two of the crew. We were all injured one way or another but I managed to be able to walk which was an absolute blessing because I could then sort of walk and eventually we got the, the help that we needed. And I carried on flying after I’d been hospitalized for a while and unfortunately I was the only member of the crew who could actually fly. Who was fit enough to fly I should say.
Interviewer 1: So you then had to fit in with another crew.
BF: Correct. I became what was known as a spare bod. In other words, if they wanted a navigator I was the spare. Like having a spare tyre on a car I suppose. And I flew with some very interesting people actually [laughs]
Interviewer 1: Can you tell us about any of them? Or your experiences?
BF: Well, the one experience that sticks in my mind I’d better not mention names but the pilot was, he was a squadron leader chap and a very nice fellow and I knew it was a publicity stunt but we were actually going over, we were flying over Hitler’s hideout at the end of the war and the pilot did a demi run. It wasn’t satisfactory. Very hard to see the target where Hitler was and then we did another dummy run and still we couldn’t find the target and he said, ‘Well, what do you think, Guys?’ I said, ‘What do I think? I think we ought to get the hell out of here.’ [laughs] And do you know what he said? ‘You’re dead right.’ [laughs] And that was it. That was my very last. I think that was my last operational trip.
Interviewer 1: How did you feel when you came to the end of that period in your life and then a completely different —
BF: Very very relieved.
Interviewer 1: Yes. Did you miss the comradeship of the posting?
BF: Yes, I did actually. Being, being a member of a crew, particularly the first crew you’re one of the family. Rank doesn’t matter. It doesn't matter who you are or what you’re doing you’re part of a team. A team of seven. That I do, well I did miss because your first crew is, what was that saying? Your fondest crew.
Did you, how did you feel about when you were with the other crews? Did you —
BF: Well, I knew my stuff let’s put it that way and the people I flew with were very experienced, particularly the pilots were very experienced. It was, it was a job. A job of work really. That’s what —
Interviewer 1: Did, did you know at the time the prestige of being with 617?
BF: No is the answer. I was perhaps too junior. I mean Gibson was, you know the originator and then we had Cheshire and people like that who were extreme and Willie Tait was a wonderful commanding officer. I was very happy there. Let’s put it that way. Or not unhappy might be a better way of putting it.
Is there anything else you’d like to add? [pause]
Interviewer 2: Well, if I may I’d like to ask you about one or two other 617 people that you may have served with. Did you know Micky Martin at all? Was he at the squadron?
BF: No.
Interviewer 2: He’d gone by the time you had arrived.
BF: Yes, he’d —
Interviewer 2: And Shannon too had gone by that time?
BF: That is correct.
Interviewer 2: Yes. I see. That’s alright. We know that very often navigators remained in their, at their table during the bombing run. Very few of them actually looked away. Did you actually have a look at what was going on around you or did your duties keep you calculating all the time?
BF: Once my calculations had been done and I’d given the information to the, to the bomb aimer because he then was the, if you like, in charge. The bomb aimer.
Interviewer 2: Yeah.
BF: I would often actually leave my table, my navigation table just to see what was going on. And I can’t remember whether I did it every time. I doubt I did it every time because when you see what’s going on there you are just jolly glad to get back and not see it.
Interviewer 2: Yes. And were any of your operations in daylight?
BF: That’s a very difficult question to answer but I would say without fear of contradiction that all the operations I did probably eighty percent were during daylight.
Interviewer 2: Could you tell us what it was like to see a group of Lancasters flying close together? It must have been quite an experience and quite frightening in some respects.
BF: Comforting.
Interviewer 2: Was it? Yes. How close were they?
BF: Well, not close enough to collide. I mean that was the pilot’s job [laughs] and it was, it was pretty good in formation. Actually formation flying. Don’t forget I mean on that squadron the pilots in particular were very experienced indeed.
Interviewer 2: Yes. Yes. Yes. Of course. I mean we do read of collisions and and we know that Bomber Command normally flew at night. It must have taken a little bit of practice to fly in formation in daylight.
BF: Yes. But at least you could see what was happening.
Interviewer 2: Yes.
BF: As it were and I can’t remember any if you like encounters which, which were worrying.
Interviewer 2: No.
Interviewer 1: Were you on the Tirpitz missions?
BF: Yeah.
Interviewer 1: On all three or —
BF: No. The first one I don’t, the first one on the Tirpitz the squadron flew over to Russia and just being brief it was a disaster because the weather was bad and all that sort of thing. Then we came back and the very thought of doing that trip from Britain never really entered anyone’s head and somebody got the bright idea. So we flew up from Lincolnshire to Scotland and we actually could just about manage to go to Tromso and back from Scotland. So it was, and that we started out at night and of course we flew during the day and then we came back and it was it was the longest trip I can ever remember. And as a navigator you’re flying over water and we were at low level so you had very very few aids. It was hard work.
Interviewer 2: I’m sure.
Interviewer 1: When 617 were practicing for the dams raid a lot of them were frightened that it was for the Tirpitz. And yet when the Tirpitz raid came about they seemed to have relaxed themselves about it and just went for it. Did you feel like that or did you —
BF: Well, it’s when you’re in the Air Force and you’re asked to do a job you do it you know.
Interviewer 1: Right.
BF: Because you have no choice. It’s as simple as that. We didn’t actually know what the target was although we had a pretty good idea. We didn’t know what the target was. We didn’t officially know what the target was until we actually had briefing and we were briefed, a final briefing was at night but the pilots and the navigators always had a pre-breifing and when we learned what it was I wasn’t particularly surprised. And then the main briefing was late that night I think. Whatever the day it was and, I’m sorry what was your question?
Interviewer 1: Did you —
Interviewer 2: Were you nervous preparing for the Tirpitz raid as the originators had been for the dams raid when they thought it was going to be the Tirpitz?
BF: I [pause] you’re not worried. I mean quite, it sounds a bit dramatic but I never really expected to survive the war. It’s as simple as that you know. It was always going to be the other man who got killed and not you, you see. It sort of kept you going. Apprehensive would be the right, not frightened, apprehensive. You had a job to do, you’d been trained to do it and it was a question of getting out there and doing it.
Interviewer 1: When did you know that it had been successful and she had been sunk as it were?
BF: When we got back we had a forced landing. We’d been hit with flak but eventually when we got back to, we did a landing at, a forced landing at one of the Scottish aerodromes and we stayed overnight and we came down the following day and I knew then how successful it was because the Undersecretary of State for Air, I’ve forgotten his name now had come out to the squadron.
Interviewer 1: Sinclair.
BF: Archibald Sinclair. And we were given forty eight hours leave. Well, that’s all the mattered. Forty eight hours leave [laughs]. And that’s when we knew. Well, we knew actually. We knew that when we left the Tirpitz we knew it was a goner because we actually saw it.
Interviewer 1: Ah. Well, I think we ought to finish on that very successful note and thank you very much Mr Basil Fish.
BF: It has been my pleasure. I have been a little apprehensive about what we were going to do.
Interviewer 1: More worried about this then the Tirpitz. I know.
BF: Well, there you are.
Interviewer 2: We could listen to you call day. I think really we could. It’s just the pressure that you’re needed elsewhere and you’ve got other commitments but I found that absolutely fascinating and moving.
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 Basil Fish
1027-Fish, Basil
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v29
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:16:28 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Claire Bennett
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
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.
Description
An account of the resource
Basil Fish volunteered for the RAF in 1941 from Manchester University where he was a student and a member of the University Air Squadron. He was posted to 617 Squadron at RAF Woodhall Spa. On one flight his aircraft crashed on return and although injured Basil was the only member of the crew who was able to carry on his flying career and became a spare bod in the squadron. He took part in the attack that sunk the Tirpitz.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1944-11-12
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Norway
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Berchtesgaden
Norway--Tromsø
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
617 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
crash
navigator
Operation Catechism (12 November 1944)
RAF Woodhall Spa
Tirpitz
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46461/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v280003.mp3
08541f3b83154c41ee84b01a17e24c30
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
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
2017-06-19
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer: This is an interview with Ernie who was in 97 Squadron, at Tattershall Thorpe Camp, visitor camp on the 17th of April 2011. Off you go Ernie.
EG: Right. I first approached the RAF at Kidbrooke in London to join in the RAF and they said that they didn’t really need anybody at the moment but if I would like to give them some details and that about my address and all the rest of it they would be in touch with me. And this was in 1940. I was working in the City of London in a textile firm and from there I then received a letter one day to report to Kidbrooke which they took all my details and told me that they would call me in due course and let me know where to go and all the rest of it and what to do. I then, this was on the two days before Christmas in 1940. I then received a letter to say to report to Cardington which was as you know one of the big RAF stations where they had the airships there and I can remember that as if it was now because I actually went in. When I went to Cardington I actually went in the airship to have a look around and I was amazed. I really was. But two, two days before Christmas I received this letter and my dear mother she says to me, ‘Look,’ she says, ‘Why don’t you ring the RAF up and tell them that you don’t want to go before Christmas but you will go after Christmas.’ And I then explained to her all about what, what goes on and all the rest of it and I should be there on the due date. So, she said, ‘Well, you can’t do anything about it.’ So I arrived at Cardington two days before Christmas and there I received a Christmas lunch which was entirely new to me because being a civilian having a lunch in London you know with turkey and all the rest of it. We had pork and there was one or two moans and groans but, at the time. But then I was then told about a week afterwards after they had given me all the tests and all the rest of it to go home and wait to hear from them. Well, this went on quite a time and I was wondering what was going on and so I phoned up Cardington and said, ‘You know my name and all the rest of it.’ And by this way I had a number then which was 1239, 1235939 and I put my number down and all the rest of it and they said, ‘Well, don’t worry, we will be in touch with you in due course.’ Lo and behold I was then called up and went to Cardington again and was told that I would be sent to Credenhill in a few days which was right up somewhere near Wales, you know. I can’t remember where it was and that and I went there and I was told that I was going to be an armourer. So, I said, ‘What the devil’s that?’ You know, business. I didn’t know what an armourer was and he said, ‘Well, you actually play about with guns.’ So I said, ‘Oh well, you know. That’s it.’ And so when I got to Cardington I then went on the armourers course which I passed out quite well you know. And from Cardington I was then shifted over to a place called Finningley near Doncaster. During the war this is, you know and I really enjoyed it there because in no time I’d risen from being AC2 which I passed out, I then got my LAC pretty quickly because the arming officer then said that I was quite good with my knowledge of guns and the working of them and all the rest of it. And I then, they shifted me over to a new station that was opened called Balderton which was not very far from Finningley. I think it was about ten miles or nine miles something like that and then from there I went to another new station called Bircotes which is near Doncaster which was fairly new opening and that and I was about the first or second one there because when I got there there was nobody on the station. There was no food being cooked or anything else. And we were then told to go down to Bawtry Hall which was then Group 1 and I used to have my food there for a time. And then everybody started coming there and they had the canteen there and the NAAFI and all the rest of it and we started having our food there and I stayed there. I was then called back to Finningley again and from Finningley I then went to Blackpool on a fitter armourer’s course that they thought that, you know he knows a bit about things now. And I went to there and I was there which I had a very enjoyable time. I won my first dance championship there with a young lady and I came back and I was then posted here.
Interviewer: To Woodhall Spa.
EG: To Woodhall Spa and had a wonderful time.
Interviewer: What would your duties have been?
EG: My duties then I was a corporal then and I used to because the actual squadron didn’t come there until a little while afterwards. This was, it was either in February or March. I’m not quite certain.
Interviewer: Of forty —
EG: 1942.
Interviewer: Right.
EG: You know.
Interviewer: Yes.
EG: And then they started coming here, and which was 97 Squadron. By this time I’d been over to Coningsby and introduced to the people of 97 and that, you know that was there and they all came over here, you know. And within a week, it was around about a week oh sorry we started ops and within a very short time we were the first daylight squadron to fly Lancasters over Germany with 44 Squadron. 44 Squadron put up six aircraft, we put up six aircraft. All our aircraft came back safely but they lost —
Interviewer: Was this, was this the Augsburg raid?
EG: This was the Augsburg raid, yeah. And we, we were quite famous, you know. Let me think some more. Then we went on and I then was sent back to Blackpool on Bofors guns. I had to learn about Bofors guns and the rest of it. The next thing I knew I’d heard that the squadron had gone to down the road. Not very far. In Cambridgeshire. Bourn. They’d gone to Bourn but I didn’t go to Bourn. I went to Wickenby in Lincoln, you know. But what annoyed me most of all I would have gone to the squadron but I was put in the station headquarters. I knew quite a bit about things and they wanted me if anything had happened and that you know I could be available and all the rest of it. And the rest of the war literally I wasted time. You know, it was a waste of good time. But somehow all of a sudden something happened and I got this trembling business come on me and I then went to Rauceby you know.
Interviewer: The hospital there.
EG: The hospital.
Interviewer: Yes.
EG: And saw a chappie there and that and literally I said to them, ‘I’m alright,’ you know. But he may have seen something that I didn’t see and so after about a few months or so they demobbed me and I was amazed.
Interviewer: Ah.
EG: But he must have seen something because after that I went back to London you know, my old job and I then started trembling. I had a period for many months you know and I went to Guy’s Hospital where the, where they used to give me tests and all the rest of it and so that’s the end of the story.
Interviewer: Did you meet Guy Gibson somewhere along the line?
EG: I met Guy Gibson and well really I don’t want to talk about him.
Interviewer: No?
EG: No.
Interviewer: Oh.
EG: It’s something that I want to forget because to me [pause] awful man. Awful man. But, but I don’t want to say anything else there if you don’t mind.
Interviewer: No, that’s quite alright Ernie.
EG: Because you know I, Guy Gibson and myself and I had a rough old bust up and he treated his pilots like dirt you know.
Interviewer: Yes, I know. Yes. So you came out of the RAF.
EG: Yes.
Interviewer: And was that the end then of your, of your war career as it were?
EG: It was the end of my war career. I went back to my old job in the City of London but I was off, on and off at work for a period of maybe two or three years. I even, I was amazed because they sent me in and said they would like to see me and there was about four people and about a month after that I received a pension.
Interviewer: Oh.
EG: I was amazed, you know. But then about three maybe four years afterwards they asked me to go there and they said, ‘We’re going to knock your pension down fifty percent.’ You know. So I thought to myself well that’s fair enough because I was feeling much better but I was still getting these shakes now and again. So the reason was I don’t know or mentally something had happened or something about me you know.
Interviewer: Were you attached to sort of one particular Lancaster that you would take care of guns for or was it –
EG: Yeah.
Interviewer: But you’d look after guns on a lot of the Lancasters.
EG: Well, no. When, when I first came here I went around with a chappie and he showed me, although I knew quite a bit about it he showed me the system. He called it the system. He was looking after three Lancasters. The guns, you know. The Brownings, .303s they were and I learned it all then. And then after a time I took over three Lancasters you know.
Interviewer: Yes.
EG: And then you had somebody else and you teach them what it’s all about you know. But lots of people say they hated the old RAF and they hated the Army and that but I loved it. And I would think, I’m certain that I would have stayed in.
Interviewer: Did you get attached to the crews that you came —
EG: Oh, yeah.
Interviewer: Very. Yeah. And so you were here for how long?
EG: Sorry.
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 Ernest Groeger
1025,1026-Groeger, Ernest
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v28
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Claire Bennet
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2011-04-17
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:14:41 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
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.
Description
An account of the resource
Ernie Groeger volunteered for the RAF in 1940 while working at a textile firm. He undertook training to be an armourer and was posted to 97 Squadron at RAF Woodhall Spa. Over time he developed ill health and he was discharged from the RAF on health grounds.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
97 Squadron
ground personnel
RAF Cardington
RAF Woodhall Spa
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/886/46460/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v270002.mp3
17d8d5e67eba8aa030b63b971450808f
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
Hudson, Douglas
James Douglas Hudson
J D Hudson
Description
An account of the resource
529 items. Collection concerns Pilot Officer James Douglas Hudson, DFC (755052 Royal Air Force) who joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in June 1939 and trained as an observer. While on route to Malta in August 1940 his Blenheim crashed in Tunisia and he was subsequently interned for two and a half years by Vichy French in Tunisia and Algeria. After being freed he returned to Great Britain and after navigator retraining completed a tour of 30 operations on 100 Squadron. The collection contains letters to and from his parents and from French penfriends while interned in Tunisia and Algeria, newspaper cuttings of various events, logbooks and lists of operations, official documents and photographs. A further 23 items are in two sub-collections with details of navigator examinations and postcards of Laghouat Algeria.<br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Elizabeth Smith and Yvonne Puncher and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.<br />
<p>This collection also contains items concerning Louis Murray and Harry Bowers. Additional information on <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/202827/">Harry Bowers</a> and <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/220410/">Louis Murray</a> is available via the IBCC Losses Database.</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
2015-06-16
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
Hudson, JD
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer: This is an interview with Mr James Douglas Hudson on the 4th of February 2011 at his home near Lincoln concerning his wartime experiences with the Royal Air Force.
JDH: What is beginning to please me now is the increased awareness that’s arising of what happened during World War Two in Bomber Command and by those who flew in Bomber Command of whom fifty six thousand or thereabouts gave their lives without counting the cost. There has been so little recognition for all this outstanding bravery and finally more is being told and more is being how can I say made aware to a viewing public or a listening public. We’re helped with the advance in techniques of recordings that weren’t available in the days of people like Group Captain, Air Chief Marshall Cheshire and Guy Gibson. They didn’t have the facilities that we have today. So this increase in awareness by the general public and particularly the younger generation is rewarding.
Interviewer: What made you join the Air Force, Douglas?
JDH: I joined the Air Force because I wasn’t particularly happy with my peacetime, this is 1939, occupation in in Manchester in the textile shipping trade and a colleague of mine had joined Fighter Command and was having such a good time flying Spitfires and Hurricanes and I decided I would like to do the same. So I made application and I was told, this is just before the war that junior officers may be able to live on their pay. So I queried this and I said, ‘Well, what do you mean by may be able to live on their pay?’ And a cousin of mine who was a colonel in the Army said, ‘Oh yes. That’s perfectly true.’ He said, ‘But Uncle Harold,’ that’s my father, he said, ‘He’d been able to look after you there.’ I said, ‘Well, Uncle Harold it so happens,’ I said, ‘Because of the depression in the textile trade is out of a job.’ ‘In that case,’ he said, ‘He would not be able to look after you.’ And he said, ‘You’ll be very unwise to seek a short service commission.’ So instead of that I made application through the Volunteer Reserves to do weekend flying and weekend training and this was in June 1939. So a couple of months after that war was declared and I was called up immediately and my training then began at Prestwick in Ayrshire. We were called observers in those days to be renamed of course navigators.
Interviewer: Did you always want to be a navigator or did you want to be a pilot?
JDH: Initially of course I wanted to be a pilot and I was told there was a waiting list forever. But I was told that if I wished to be an air observer which now of course is a navigator I would get in just as much flying which is true. And that’s what I did. Now, I’m jumping ahead now over a couple of years because I was a prisoner of war after this for a couple of years or plus and when I came back I was given the opportunity to remuster and if I wished I could remuster and undergo pilot’s training. I refused. I said, ‘No. I was a navigator and I wish to continue being a navigator and navigation is and was my metier. Although I say it now, perhaps I shouldn’t say it I was a good navigator and my books of which I’ve written eight are based on the title, “There and Back Again.” And it’s the back again which is the important part about it. It’s one thing to get there. It’s another thing to get back and to get there and back isn’t everybody’s good fortune. In fact, fifty six thousand or thereabouts never made that. I now at the age of nearly ninety five am sitting here in my lounge at home in Heighington near Lincoln talking to this lady. I’m a very fortunate person.
Interviewer: So you did the observer’s course at Prestwick.
JDH: I did the observer’s course at Prestwick.
Interviewer: And then went to Evanton for the Bomber and Gunnery School.
JDH: Went to Bombing and Gunnery School then at Evanton and after that, after completion of the bombing and gunnery in various aeroplanes including the Fairey Battle we were moved to Bicester in Oxfordshire where I was introduced to the Bristol Blenheim and I was posted to West Raynham in Norfolk where I did two months operational flying on the Bristol Blenheim. Unfortunately, we were sent to the Middle East and I had insufficient petrol to make the journey and crash landed in Vichy French North Africa where I was taken prisoner of war for two and a quarter years.
Interviewer: Can you describe that? The conditions that you lived in and –
JDH: The conditions under which we lived were appalling. The food was an abomination. It was based on the food they gave to the Arab soldiers but it wasn’t so much the food itself it was the filthy conditions in which this food was served up to us. Our living conditions were absolutely appalling. Overcrowding was a very significant disadvantage. We quarrelled with each other in consequence. You, you could be the best of friends, if you get six, eight, ten, twelve, or twenty of you all in one room ongoing tempers fray. And this is what happened and I think this is one of the most difficult parts of being a prisoner of war and of course, being taken away from operation flying.
Interviewer: It doesn’t seem to have been as well organised as German prisoner of war camps in that you know you didn’t have much recreation or organised activities to take your mind off the conditions. Is that right?
JDH: Well, we, we didn’t have so much organised activities. We were, we were able to do our own thing up to a point. There were no specific facilities.
Interviewer: No.
JDH: No.
Interviewer: You had your Red Cross parcels.
JDH: Had it not been for the Red Cross parcels I often wonder how we would have survived. When the Red Cross parcels began to reach us there were certain days when we would just ignore the food that was sent up to us and just live for the time being on the contents of the Red Cross parcels. The one problem was particularly in the desert I was a prisoner in the desert for over a year in the Sahara Desert. A place called Laghouat, about three, three hundred and fifty miles south of Algiers and when the food, when the Red Cross parcels arrived we had what was called the Klim, K L I M, milk which came I think from Canada. It was powder and of course when we mixed this, when we added water to it we were running into trouble because the water wasn’t fit to drink. And I used to, they also sent us prunes and we used to soak the prunes overnight in water and then add this Klim milk which had been what’s the word? Reconstituted. And of course, we were inviting trouble and we got trouble. We got dysentery. So it was an awfully difficult situation. Dysentery was rife. Dysentery I think was our biggest problem in the prisoner of war camp and we’d no medications you see.
Interviewer: No.
JDH: No medications at all.
Interviewer: You mentioned in your book about being depressed at this time. This –
JDH: Being depressed?
Interviewer: Yes. Obviously, the conditions and your dysentery and everything else.
JDH: Yes, because there was no future. We’d been taken away from the activities which we’d trained for and that was to fly operationally. As you will read on in the books I was, I had the good fortune to be repatriated in November 1942 and after five or six months of ground duties I became rehabilitated as it were and became fit to fly again and the rest is history.
Interviewer: Let’s go back to your, your time in the North African prisons. What did you feel about escape? Did some, did you want to escape?
JDH: I escaped twice. In the first prisoner of war camp, a place called Le Kef in Tunisia, a fellow prisoner Ted Hart who was another Blenheim man he and I we shinned over, I use the expression we use in the book, the shithouse wall because that’s exactly what it was. It was a filthy latrine and we managed to get over this wall and drop on to the other side and escape into the night. And I spoke limited French but we walked throughout the night, a matter of some thirty, some forty miles I think to a place called Souk el Arba and went into a local hotel and noticed they had bed and breakfast available which was on a notice board in the reception room.
Interviewer: Were you dressed in your —
JDH: We were dressed in a huge army greatcoat which the French had given to us. They were French soldier’s greatcoats and they issued us with these as clothing to keep warm because we were up in the mountains. In the hills. And we went out with these on covering our uniform which was underneath. You had to have a uniform because if not we could have been shot as spies and we had to be very very careful to conceal it. And when we arrived in the hotel I said to the lady at the reception, ‘Bonjour madame, deux cafe s’il vous plait.’ ‘Certainement monsieur.’ And that’s how it began. And after that I said, ‘E deux chambre lit?’ ‘Certainement Monsieur.’ And she took me up to the room and was talking, showing us the room and I realised that I couldn’t keep up this pretence of being French in general conversation. So I just said, ‘Madame, [unclear] Francais.’ As though I was American. I said that we were Americans and that we were doing geological studies with the Vichy French and we had been working during the night. That’s why we were in this scruff. She seemed to accept that and after two or three days we managed to get a train which took us across the frontier to a place called Souk Ahras.
Interviewer: Across the frontier into Tunisia?
JDH: Into Algeria.
Interviewer: Into Algeria.
JDH: Algeria. We were then fortunate when we crossed that frontier and everybody got out to have a check of some sort of reason. There was a chap on the platform obviously checking people and we stayed where we were right opposite and two French soldiers opened our carriage door and just said, ‘Permission militaire, Monsieur?’ And I said, ‘Mai oui certainement. Bon permission.’ And off they went. Ted said, ‘Well, what was that all about?’ I said, ‘They seemed to think that we were French on leave.’ And the chap who was doing the checking on the, on the station platform could see this therefore he didn’t trouble us anymore. Now the funny part was well it wasn’t really funny was that when we were recaptured we had to come back and cross this place in reverse and he was there. I just looked at him and I just said, ‘You remember me?’ He thought we were going to drop him you see. And then I did fourteen days cells and three days dungeons.
Interviewer: So they picked you up again and put you back into Le Kef.
JDH: But I escaped again. This time in this place called Laghouat which is in the Sahara desert.
Interviewer: Who did you escape with this time?
JDH: This time we started to dig a tunnel in November 1941 and the tunnel was completed in June ‘42 and it was sixty odd metres in length. A hundred and ninety odd feet. We used two bread knives which started off being about nine inches in length and finished up by being about three. And twenty nine of us got out and twenty nine of us were recaptured. There was nowhere to go. But we’d done it right under their noses and of course their hierarchy, the French Vichy hierarchy took it out on the commandant of the camp and various people they were all dipped in rank and things like that.
Interviewer: What nationality were the guards?
JDH: Mostly Arabic. Mostly Arabic.
Interviewer: Under French.
JDH: Under French. Vichy French. Yes. Mostly Arab.
Interviewer: And their attitude to you? Or you to them as well.
JDH: I suppose we would say then in those days [unclear] comme ci comme ca.
Interviewer: They weren’t over cruel or —
JDH: Not really. No. I mean you had to excise a bit of common sense. I mean they had guns. They were armed and it paid not to be foolish. I mean you know for example we had a ligne [unclear] which was a line running around the periphery of the camp before you come to the barbed wire. You could see it actually and if we were using the, playing with the ball and it bounced underneath there don’t follow it.
Interviewer: No.
JDH: Go up to the line, look up at the guard, ‘Permission?’ And they would say [Depeche trois] You know, ‘Get a move on then,’ and they’d train their gun and you’d go and pick your ball up and acknowledge it.
Interviewer: Yes.
JDH: Acknowledge it because they were doing their duty but had we proceeded they’d have shot us. Oh they would have shot us without any doubt. Yes. And the whole thing was flood lighted you know. They floodlighted it at night. So —
Interviewer: So you got out again and got how far this time?
JDH: Oh, not very far. We were recaptured the next morning because the premier spahi which are the crack horse regiment of that part of the world they just released them into the desert and they just sort of fanned, a sort of fan movement. They just picked us up. We had no alternative. I thought they were going to shoot us because they clicked their rifles back. They were brilliant horsemen. They could ride without hands, you know and hold their rifle. So we put up our hands. I shall never forget that. Just put up our hands and it worked. I’ll say this for them three of them jumped off their horses and threw their guns across to three others and they allowed us to have some water, to drink some water. And then they just got us on the back of that, one each on the back of their horse, beautiful animals.
Interviewer: Were you punished for escaping?
JDH: Oh yeah. Had about sixteen days in the cells. Yeah. Oh, I’ve done more cells than [unclear] and back.
Interviewer: The cells, the cells sounds particularly –
JDH: There were two of us in one cell because there were so many of us they hadn’t enough cells to put us one in a cell so they put two of us in a cell and its just a stone. A sloping stone slab. And they opened the doors in the morning into a sort of courtyard to enable us if required to use their so-called toilet facilities which were pretty awful. But they had, we had the churn. It literally was a milk churn in the centre of this quadrangle which we had to use. We’d just sit on this churn or stand on it and take it in turns to empty it. You know, each one get carrying one hand. So it was a wonderful experience you know. A wonderful experience. And I remember looking at a thermometer we passed one of their bureaus, their offices on route to the place where we took this contents of the churn and this was about 4 o’clock in the afternoon and the temperature was a hundred and four. And that was in early June and it soared into July August. At midday I don’t know what it reached. Probably about forty degrees centigrade, celsius or whatever it is. A hundred and twenty, a hundred and thirty degrees. Unbearable. If we did any washing we had very restricted facilities and I got some soap sent from England and I was very fortunate to get this soap. Carbolic soap. Go out to the wash trough when the water was on. It was only on for a restricted period of time. You put one articulate into the wash tub and then put it one side to do the other one by the time you’d done the second one the first one was bone dry just like a board. Unbelievable.
Interviewer: What affect did this experience have because it was about two years you were a prisoner wasn’t it?
JDH: Two and a quarter.
Interviewer: Yes, that’s —
JDH: About a year and a quarter in the desert and the other year in two other places. At one time we thought we were going to be repatriated, so did the Vichy French in exchange for the German submarine crew and we were sent to a place called [unclear] I write about it in there.
Interviewer: Yes.
JDH: I don’t know whether I do it in that book.
Interviewer: Yes, you did.
JDH: Yes, because I I refer to the brothel. Have you read about that?
Interviewer: Yes.
JDH: And the woman I was with she’d be about forty I suppose and she didn’t speak any English at all. All French. It was rather funny. She came up to the bar actually and was talking to us in French and she suddenly changed the conversation and said, ‘Pour vous monsieur dix franc.’ So Ted said, that’s my colleague, he said, ‘What was that?’ I said, ‘She’s just said to me for me it’ll be ten francs.’ He said, ‘How much for me?’ I said, [unclear] I said, ‘Same for you. Ten francs. I’ll toss you over who goes first.’
Interviewer: And that was while you were waiting when you thought this —
JDH: We thought we were going to be repatriated you see and I was terribly concerned about infection you see. This thing. And we used [unclear] potash which you put into solution and of course its virulent purple [laughs] A bit of a mess. But now, you see these are true things. This is what happened. It’s not biographical it’s autobiographical.
Interviewer: So when the repatriation fell through you then were put back again. Is that right?
JDH: Yeah.
Interviewer: So you were back in again after having your hopes built up. What did all these experiences, how did it you know colour your life afterwards or was it just a character building two and a quarter years or what?
JDH: I think in some respects its almost been helpful if you like because I know I’ve done it. You see I can walk down the road here. There are people who talk to me, they call across to me and I don’t have a clue who they are but because of these books you see I’m well known. And I’m on my own now because my wife died six and a half years ago. I think this is the hard part. Particularly when you’ve been to a do like that and then come back in the evening to a vacuum, to an empty house. No. The part of the war which is the most disturbing to me wasn’t the flying. It wasn’t the operational flying it was the prisoner of war side. But I’ll tell you this. My crew on the Lancaster my flight engineer was nineteen and my bomb aimer who was a huge chap six foot two, towered above me just made, just failed to make the teens and he was just twenty. I mean they were only boys really. I at twenty six, twenty seven then was an old man. And we got coned once in the master searchlight. This is in the Lancaster and the master searchlight is almost ultraviolet and if one of those catches you the other aircraft home in on it and then they push the flak up. You don’t stand a chance. I don’t know of any crew, aircraft that’s been coned in the master searchlight that hasn’t been shot down and I just was waiting for it to happen and what was it going to be like. And the pilot promptly put the aircraft, this is a Lancaster fully bomb loaded, fully loaded with bombs put it into a dive and spiralled. No good at all. I mean you couldn’t evade, couldn’t evade this searchlight and we lost altitude from twenty one thousand to twelve. Nine thousand feet in no time whatsobe and gravity pushed my head on to the table and I couldn’t [pause] I was just waiting for the explosion. But suddenly that light went out. We didn’t evade it. It went out. The gunners were firing away like crazy. Now whether they had succeeded in firing down the beam and putting it out or whether something else I don’t know but that light went out. And this little engineer of nineteen years of age with the pilot they hauled this huge Lancaster from the vertical almost into the horizontal with a full bomb load and it didn’t break its back and we went on to the target. I thought we’d get an immediate DFC but we didn’t. We didn’t get anything.
Interviewer: If I can just mention or just ask you about how you did get out of the prison you were eventually repatriated.
JDH: We were repatriated. The Allies and that’s the Americans and the British and the Canadians, the Allied forces invaded Algeria in November 1942 and the Vichy French surrendered. We wondered what would happen to us. My fear was when we heard that this invasion had taken place my fear was that they might take us away from the prison camp and whip us into Germany before our forces landed but they didn’t. They unlocked the doors and they dismissed any guard who they thought had been difficult and brought in a fresh lot of guards who were courtesy itself and couldn’t do enough for us. It was all hypocrisy, hypocritical and we spent the last four days just using the place for the passing of time until there was transport able to take us up to Algiers and we sailed home.
Interviewer: And you came back in HMS Keren, I think.
JDH: HMS Keren.
Interviewer: Yes.
JDH: It sailed out there with American troops I think it was. And I don’t know what its cargo was but they loaded it up with oranges. The hold was absolutely filled. Of course, you couldn’t get oranges in this country so we took it back loaded with oranges. Yeah.
Interviewer: You didn’t have scurvy when you came back did you? [laughs] So how did you feel when you got back? Did you want to get back into the fight?
JDH: Oh yes. Because the first thing, basically the first thing that we were asked when we got, we landed in, where was it? In Greenock in Scotland and we were taken by train under guard. With guards. No civilian was allowed to come anywhere near that carriage. We were taken by train to London and interviewed by top brass and virtually the first thing they asked us, ‘Do you wish to fly again?’ And having said yes then that’s when I got the opportunity to remuster if I wished and train as a pilot and I said no, I’d like to take up navigation again and do a refresher course. This is what I did. And I could do that more quickly you see. I thought I’d get back on to flying more quickly. And navigation was my metier. I liked navigation.
Interviewer: So it was back to, to an OTU for a little while while you —
JDH: I went to, it wasn’t an OTU to start off with. What would you call it? [pause] A place called Moreton Valence.
Interviewer: An AFU. Number 6 AFU.
JDH: AFU. And from there we went to Wymeswold which was an OTU. Operational Training Unit. And from Wymeswold I went to, wasn’t it Lindholme? Which was a Conversion Unit to four engine. And then to the squadron and did my first operational flight on a 100 Squadron on Lancasters to Brunswick, Braunschweig in the middle of December ’44 and finished the tour at the D-Day landings and saw the flotilla going over. Then we came back and we spoke to the crew, the pilot and myself and we said, ‘How do you feel about carrying on?’ We said, ‘We’re game.’ I said, ‘It seems a shame now doesn’t it?’ I said. ‘We’ve landed on the other side, or they have.’ I said, ‘Carry on. Let’s support them.’ So we went to the squadron commander and he was delighted. We said, ‘On the condition we get our aircraft back.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘It’s gone. It’s gone out tonight or its going out tonight.' He said, ‘If it comes back —’ and it did come back, ‘Yes, you can have it and continue.’ I was in the Officer’s Mess on the following morning I think it was and the doc as we called him, the medical officer, Doc Marshall he came up to me. He said, ‘Dougie, what’s this I hear about you chaps volunteering to fly again?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘That’s right, Doc.’ I said, ‘And we’re going to get our aircraft back.’ He just looked at me. He said, ‘Over my dead body.’ Just like that. I can see him saying that. I have used the quashed not squashed. ‘I have quashed it irrevocably.’ He said, ‘You don’t realise how sick you are.’
Interviewer: He could see in you strain and stress that you couldn’t feel or see yourselves.
JDH: I said, ‘Doc,’ I said, ‘They’re cross countrys from now on.’ I said, ‘We’ve landed on the other side. We’ve only got to go ahead and support them as they move along to occupy Germany.’ He said, ‘Cross country runs.’ The squadron at the end of that month lost another six Lancasters. Six. So –
Interviewer: Did you have the same crew in for nearly all your thirty ops?
JDH: No. When we finished operational flying they all went different places and I only met the bomb aimer again. I don’t know what happened to the rest. We’ve tried to contact them in the meantime you know over the period. We’ve tried on the internet website.
Interviewer: But for your thirty ops.
JDH: Thirty ops.
Interviewer: You was –
JDH: Oh, the first lot.
Interviewer: Yes.
JDH: Oh, they’re both dead. John [Riddick], he was the, he was killed in a crash very soon after we got back and my wireless operator Tony Randall there’s a picture in the book he was killed on his first operational flight on Halifaxes. I think he was from Pocklington or somewhere. I’m not sure.
Interviewer: Well, you were on the Nuremberg raid.
JDH: I was on the Nuremberg raid.
Interviewer: But because you’d gone, been one of the first to go you didn’t appreciate the catastrophe to come.
JDH: Well, as far as Nuremberg was concerned I can remember this quite clearly when we got back, back to the squadron at debriefing we were always asked the same sort of questions. ‘Well, how did it go?’ ‘What was it like?’ And I remember using the expression, ‘A piece of cake.’ The following morning [pause] firstly our ex-gunner, he got frostbite and was taken off flying and he was given ground duties and he sort of acted as a nursemaid for us for a little while until he got fit again. And he came into the billet at about mid-day or whatever when it was time for us to get up again and he said, ‘Well, chaps how many do you think you lost last night over Nuremberg?’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘Not many.’ I said, which is the entire command, I said, ‘Twenty.’ ‘No.’ He said, ‘Think again.’ I said, ‘More than that?’ He said, ‘Yes, more than that.’ ‘Thirty?’ ‘No.’ Then he finally said, ‘Ninety seven.’ I said, ‘Don’t talk rubbish.’ He said, ‘That’s what they say.’ And we did lose ninety seven and another thirteen failed to make their own bases and they crash landed in the UK and never got back to their base. So effectively we lost a hundred and ten aircraft that night. Ninety seven. Thirteen, a hundred and ten give or take, seven or eight hundred aircrew. And I say this, I’ll repeat it we lost more aircrew in that one night over Nuremberg than Fighter Command lost throughout the Battle of Britain. You see I know all this and therefore, oh I beg your pardon I don’t have to be prompted or asked or told. I know it. It just happened and I shan’t forget it. I never will forget it. And at ninety four, five what do I do? Do I go on? My publisher says, ‘Yes, you go on because you have a mission to fulfil.’ I said, ‘What is it?’ He said, ‘You’ll find out as you go along.’ And I think this is part of the mission. We thought we’d got five hundred pounds for that raffle.
Interviewer: This was –
JDH: Barton on Humber last Sunday.
Interviewer: This was a signing of your autobiography and –
JDH: Yes.
Interviewer: Later published.
JDH: I sold thirty five books.
Interviewer: Yes. So they see your mission is to continue spreading the word really and –
JDH: Spreading the word. Oh, I know where the book is [pause] This is my eighth book.
Interviewer: Yes. Just now, “Just Douglas: A Navigator’s Story.”
JDH: Yes. I’ve got the covers for another one called, “The Best of Douglas.” But I don’t know what to do about it. But I’m writing another one now and it’s called, “St Bernard and Puppies.” It’s a make-believe story for children of all ages. I hope to get it to East Kirkby in Easter.
Interviewer: Oh excellent.
JDH: We’ll see.
Interviewer: So you did your thirty ops of which Nuremberg was one of them and you came to the end and wanted to remuster and they wouldn’t let you. So you went to Sandtoft to do some instructing which –
JDH: Instruction work. I hated it. Absolutely hated it. It’s not so much the instruction work but I just hated Sandoft. I don’t know. It was just something about the place I didn’t come to terms with at all. And I did as much flying as I could. They’re, all the instructional flights are logged in the book. Well, I don’t think in that book but certainly in this book. So, you know what I talked to you about happened and I have the written proof of it here and I have the aircraft letters and numbers which is, is a good fortune. My wife’s family are in here too. He was a big man in the St John Ambulance. That’s my wife’s father. Her family were co-founders of Blackburn Rovers Football Club.
Interviewer: Goodness.
JDH: You know who that is don’t you?
Interviewer: Yes, I do. Just Jane at East Kirkby.
JDH: Yes. Those are the Pantons.
Interviewer: So you, you have your books to sell and you go to the various commemorations.
JDH: Yeah.
Interviewer: And that is obviously a very important part of your life now.
JDH: Very important. Here’s a great guy. Air Chief Marshall Sir Clive Loader. He did the preface for my, for that book. I’ll show you.
[pause]
JDH: Was it this one?
Interviewer: Yes, it was.
JDH: Yes.
Interviewer: There it is. It’s just by your finger.
JDH: “On Sunday the 27th of August my wife Alison and I had the great honour of representing todays Royal Air Force. I was deeply touched – ” This is Douglas Hudson, “I was deeply touched when he asked whether I would be prepared to write a forward to this, the sixth edition of, “There and Back Again: A Navigator’s Story.” I’m truly delighted to do so. Sir Clive Loader,” etcetera etcetera. He’s retired now and I don’t know whether I ought to try to contact him or not. I perhaps feel that it would be an intrusion into his retirement. I don’t know. It’s very difficult to say.
Interviewer: Can you see yourself having a different life?
JDH: Could I see myself –
Interviewer: Yes, you know it’s –
JDH: I don’t know. You see, look. It’s the life of now with so much in it which I can think about. Somebody said I’m a ladies man. So be it. That’s Sandra Morton. That’s the lady across the road who introduced you. That is Marguerita [Allen] She used to phone me from California quite regularly. She now is living in Preston. And that is Lola Lamour. In other words, Joanne Massey. Now, she and I will be re-enacting together at East Kirkby in May.
Interviewer: Well, that’s wonderful. Thank you very much Douglas. It’s, it’s been a treat to listen to you. Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with James Douglas Hudson
1024-Hudson, James Douglas
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v27
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Claire Bennet
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2011-02-04
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:40:51 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
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.
Description
An account of the resource
James Douglas Hudson followed a friend to join the RAF. He trained as a navigator and was posted to 101 Squadron at RAF West Raynham. On his final operational flight with the squadron he ran out of fuel and crashed. He was taken prisoner by the Vichy French in North Africa and spent time in a prisoner of war camp in Laghouet and Le Kef. He attempted escape twice but was recaptured. Douglas was repatriated to the UK in November 1942. He volunteered to return to operational flying duties and was posted to 101 Squadron based at RAF Waltham. One of his operations was to Nuremberg and he was shocked to hear about the losses of that raid. He and his crew volunteered for a further tour but the Medical Officer intervened and declared he was medically unfit to fly. After the war Douglas wrote books about his experiences in Bomber Command.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-11
1942-06
1942-11
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Algeria
Germany
Great Britain
Tunisia
Algeria--Laghouat (Province)
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Nuremberg
Tunisia--El Kef
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
100 Squadron
101 Squadron
aircrew
Blenheim
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
crash
escaping
Lancaster
navigator
prisoner of war
RAF Grimsby
Red Cross
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/168/46459/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v260002.mp3
a8c4c3913704fcbd59b33c5fbdbe204a
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
Rutherford, Les
R L Rutherford
Robert Leslie Rutherford
Description
An account of the resource
Ten items. The collection contains four oral history interviews with bomb aimer Robert Leslie "Les" Rutherford (1918 - 2019, 146263 Royal Air Force), his prisoner of war diary, material about entertainment in the Stalag Luft 3 Belaria compound and a photograph. Les Rutherford served as a despatch rider in the army, he was evacuated from Dunkirk and volunteered to transfer to the RAF. He became a bomb aimer with 50 Squadron and completed 24 operations. He was shot down over Germany on 20th December 1943 and became a prisoner of war.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Les Rutherford and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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
2015-12-09
2015-10-05
2015-06-05
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
Rutherford, RL
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer: This is an interview with Mr Les Rutherford on the 24th of January 2011 at his home in Lincoln regarding his experiences in the Second World War. Over to you, Les.
LR: At the beginning of the war I was called up into the Army in October just one week before my twenty first birthday which ruined my mother’s plans of course for a birthday party. I was called up and enrolled in Perth in to the 51st Highland Division, did my training there which we spent a week in Perth then moved to Aldershot and the Corunna Barracks at Aldershot. Then did more training there. We were kitted out in uniforms and all the necessary things and then in January, the beginning of January we moved to France and I was a despatch rider then. We moved to various places in France first and I was attached to a field ambulance. We moved across to first of all we were around about Lille in the Belgian frontier and then we moved to Metz or near Metz on the German frontier. In actual fact over there they used to have these artillery duels across the two different armies and we were in actual fact in the Maginot Line. The famous Maginot Line. We used to go in this line for a couple, a couple of cigarettes the French would let us fire a gun [laughs] you know. But and then when the Germans advanced and began their offensive the, well there was one incident that it was early morning and we were suddenly, somebody said, ‘Look at all these aircraft.’ And we were looking up and there was crowds, scores of these aircraft flying over. Flying over. German aircraft, and I was looking up and these and somebody said, ‘Run for shelter. We’ve got to go up to the shelters.’ So, I was looking up and running to the shelter and I tripped and fell and hit my chin on a doorstep. Split my chin right across. And they came running up with an ambulance and thought I’d been hit. And I said, ‘No. I’m alright. I’m alright.’ Anyway, that was the beginning of the offensive when they went and bombed Holland of course from there in Belgium. And so then they moved us across from Metz to try and stem the German advance. We moved across country and at first we thought we were going to Paris. We were heading straight for Paris. Then about ten miles before we got to Paris we turned off north and went off and were stationed around about Lille and then the trouble really began then. That’s when they, as far as we were concerned that’s when the war started or when the fighting started and with being field ambulances we were busy. And one of my duties was to, when our own field ambulances were all used up we used to travel at night and there was a standby unit which had ambulances for anybody that wanted them but one of my jobs was to go to this unit and guide them back to the, to where our field ambulance was. And another thing you used to have to do was to go up to the forward units and get a list of the injured and whatnot. A lot, a lot of work went on at the time. But of course, we were gradually pushed back and pushed back until eventually we got to St Valery. And by this time Dunkirk had taken place. We didn’t know anything about it of course but it was June 12th in actual fact when we got to St Valery and we were trapped there. There were ships coming and going out, way out to sea on the horizon but nothing could get into St Valery. St Valery was surrounded by cliffs and the Germans surrounded up on these cliffs and they were lobbing mortars and all sorts of things in to us. In actual fact, under the command of Rommel who was commanding the troops there. And I got, I got together about a half a dozen men and said, ‘Look. There’s a door there. There’s a shed side there been blown off. If we take that, go out and perhaps get to these ships.’ So they said, ‘Right. We’ll do that. If there’s no ships get into here we’ll do that.’ So it got to about 11 o’clock at night. The town was blazing by this time and when it, when it came to these men they wouldn’t go. So another chap and I took a door which had been blown off. We belted across the sands with this door between us and launched it and we got to these rocks, put the door in the water and when we got in the water came up to our necks nearly and then it turned out this chap had, he couldn’t swim. So I thought well this is remarkable you know [laughs] you’re going to go and you can’t swim. I could swim. I’d done a lot of competition swimming and I could swim so I parked him on the door and I got on the back and acted more or less as a rudder and a propeller and he had a piece of wood that he used as an oar and off we went. And we put out to sea and oh we got well out. Way out to sea and then it got to be early morning, well, you know, I don’t know what time it was. It would be six, seven o’clock in the morning and we could see these trawlers, these ships coming out from, it turned out they were coming from Veules les Roses and they were going straight out to sea from there and then turning and we were nearly in their path. And in actual fact we could see there was still two trawlers, French trawlers to come and we sort of waved at these trawlers and the first one went past and they threw us a lifebelt. I thought well that’s going to do us a lot of good [laughs] you know. And then the next one came by and they threw us a rope and this chap had been sat on this door all night and he couldn’t move his legs properly. I had to tie the rope around him and they hauled him up. And then I tied the rope around myself and they hauled me up. And we’d had nothing to eat for about three days. In actual fact they’d just got a meal going for us when we got to St Valery and these 109s came over and strafed us and we had to get out of it. So we didn’t, we never did get the meal. And they hauled me up onto this, on to the deck and they gave me a glass of hot rum and I went out like a light. Just out. And the next thing I knew was I was, they were waking me up. I was in a bunk on this ship and they were waking me up and said, ‘We’re transferring you to an English ship.’ So they put a blanket around me. They’d taken all my clothes off and had put a blanket around me and took me down into this lifeboat and transferred me to the English ship. So I got on there and I was pretty well fagged out. But then when I sort of got myself settled down a bit on this ship I found one of the ship’s officers and said, ‘You know I was transferred from that trawler.’ I said, ‘What happened to my uniform and clothes?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Nothing like that came over.’ So I said, ‘Well,’ I said, I’ve only got a blanket here. I haven’t got anything else.’ So he said, ‘Well, I don’t know. I can give you a pair of socks.’ [laughs] So I put these socks on and I landed at Southampton with a pair of socks and a blanket. And they had got it all arranged by this time on the docks at Southampton and we were taken into a big shed and the uniforms were all laid out and you just picked one to fit you know and they’d got everything laid out there. It was wonderfully organised. Then we moved from there to Devizes. We spent about a week there and then moved up to Scotland to a place between Hamilton and Glasgow. We stayed there for two or three days and then we were sent home on leave. Then when we came back we went up to Grantown on Spey and spent the rest of the time up there. While I was up there we formed, I found a chap who played the piano and I played guitar and we found we were in the petrol company then of, when I went up to Scotland I was with a petrol company and there was a supply column and what was another column. Anyway, there were six of us altogether got together. There was me on the guitar and my friend on the unit he was on piano and there was the saxophone, trumpet, a drummer and a violin. You had to have a violin for the Scottish dances. The only thing they had up there at the time for dancing was three old, three old ladies. Not the ones in the lavatory, the three old ladies with an accordion and a drummer and violin. So our band went down a storm you know. We had no musical flare. Just buy in. We played in dances all over the place and we were stationed in Castle Grant and the Earl of Seafield, the Countess of Seafield was still in residence while we were there. And then in the winter when the winter came on she moved to the country house, Cullen on the coast and she asked us, our band to play at her going away party and we played in the big hall in the castle with all the accoutrements. All the swords and everything else around the walls and all the ancestors looking down on us and all the ladies were in Highland evening dress and all the gentlemen were in Highland evening dress with the velvet jackets and all the silver trimmings and things you know. And it was absolutely wonderful. It was a wonderful sight because we were playing all the Scottish dances, Scottish reels, “Strip The Willow,” you know, [unclear] Reel,” “The Dashing White Sergeant,” all these sort of things and of course as the evening went on they got more merry and the CO came to us beforehand saying, ‘Now listen lads,’ you know, ‘When you’re up there we don’t want any jackets all open or, you know drinking or beer and things like this,’ he said, ‘You’re in with the society. You’ve got to keep to the letter.’ We hadn’t been there half an hour when the countess came up with a tray of beers and said, ‘Here you are lads. Get on with it. [laughs] And undo your jackets, you know you’ll be uncomfortable sitting up here in all this heat. Its too warm.’ You know. And she was absolutely charming and, but I’ll never forget, have never forgotten that dance for the spectacle. It was absolutely wonderful. Anyway, shortly afterwards there was a notice posted on the, in the unit asking for volunteers for aircrew duties. So I volunteered. They said you should never volunteer in the Army but I thought well I’ll have a go here and so I volunteered. I was accepted and in June of 1940, 1941. 1940.
Interviewer: ’41 I should think.
LR: Be ’41. June ’41. I moved. I was sent down to Stratford on Avon and sworn into the Air Force in the Shakespeare Theatre there and from there moved up to Scarborough to the ITU, IT.
Interviewer: ITW.
LR: IT Initial Training Unit.
Interviewer: Yes.
LR: ITU. Billeted in the Grand at Scarborough right on the top floor. It was, that would be at the end of June we were going up there and the weather was absolutely wonderful. We had a wonderful time there. Did all these lectures. We used to go, come down, the lecture rooms were all at the bottom of course and we’d do half and hour or an hour’s lecture and we had to go back up to our room, up all these steps. No lifts. Up all these stairs, get the lecture book for the next lecture. Back down the stairs again and then the next lecture up the stairs again. Down again. And then in the afternoon we used to go down to the beach for PT. That meant going up the stairs, change into PT kit, down the stairs again and then I don’t know if you know the Grand. It’s up on the cliff and there’s more stairs right, led down to the beach. Doubled down these stairs down to the beach. A quarter of an hour, a half an hour PT, a dip in the sea and double back up all these stairs again. I’ve often said I’d never been so fit in all my life as I was when I left Scarborough. And then we were put on a, we went through all the exams and things and put on a draft to go to California, was it? No. Florida. Florida. So off we went. We went to West Kirby near Liverpool to be transported and then they found they’d got two to many on our draft so they knocked two off. Me and another chap called Roberts who was next to me on the list. They picked the two in the middle and took us off. So off we went back to Scarborough. So then we had to wait for the next draft and the next draft took us to Rhodesia as it was then. And we went up to Rhodesia. We went up, we sailed from Glasgow. We went back to West Kirby and then we went up to Glasgow to get on board ship and strangely enough we went on the King George the 5th docks and while I was in the Army I’d done sentry duty on that, on that dock while we were up there. And so we set sail for land. For Africa. We landed at Durban and then we spent a couple of days at Durban and we went by train. I wish we’d known. I wish we’d appreciated. We did what is now train journey up through Natal and all up through all the old Mafikeng and places like that and up to Rhodesia which I think was three days we were aboard on this train. We eventually got to Bulawayo and we spent some time there. While we were there another thing that happened there which was rather amusing was the flight sergeant in charge of discipline came around after we got this. ‘Any of this new batch, any of you play water polo?’ Well, I had. I’d played for the county of Northumberland at water polo. So, ‘Yes. I’ve played.’ And then there was, actually I think it was five of us and the rest of them were off from well-known clubs. Two of them were from the London Police Club which was well known and another one from the Otter’s Club and all really good water polo players, far better than me and the flight sergeant he just couldn’t believe his luck. He said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘We play regularly. We played the town team,’ he said, ‘And they hammered us every time.’ So we were there about two, three weeks maybe waiting for a posting and in that time we played I think five or six games. We won them all in double figures. And then we, then we were posted and we could see in the newspapers the poor old Air Force team was being hammered again. The flight sergeant, he just couldn’t believe it. Anyway, we went up to Mount Hampden on a pilot’s course and I passed out on Tiger Moths. When I say passed out I mean I passed the course [laughs] passed out at other times [laughs] And I was posted then to, back down to, literally Mount Hampden was up near Salisbury which is now Zimbabwe and I passed. Passed that course. Then went down on twinned Oxfords down at Heany which was near Bulawayo. I was ready to go solo on the Oxfords and the chief instructor sent for me. He said, ‘We’re taking you off flying.’ I said, ‘Oh, why?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Your reactions are too slow.’ ‘Oh.’ So he said, ‘We’ll send you back up to Salisbury and then you’ll go on a navigator’s course.’ On an Observer’s course it was then. Observer. So I said, ‘Oh, alright.’ You know. So off I went. When I got up there a crowd of us all at the same, on the same boat been taken off these courses. So one of them came around. He said, ‘Where were you on ground subjects? The navigation and things like that on the course?’ Because we had taken ground subjects as well of course and I said, ‘Well, as near as I know fairly near the top. So he said, ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘We all were.’ He said, ‘We think what’s happened is that they’ve taken the top two off each course and because they were running, everybody wanted to be pilots and they were running short of navigators or observers as it was and whether that was true or not I don’t know but I like to think so. And so I went down from there. We moved down to a camp between Johannesburg and Pretoria and we spent Easter there. And then we were sent down on a course to East London and did the observer’s course there. The observer’s course was you passed three courses. You passed which you probably know, you passed as an air gunner, a bomb aimer and navigator. You had to pass three courses and so we went through all that then moved down to Cape Town to get the boat home and we came back on our own. We didn’t come back in convoy. We came back on an armed merchantman and came back to this country. We were down in Cheltenham I think it was for a while and then posted up to Finningley on an OTU course ready for operations. And while I was there the OTU disbanded and one of the instructors, a pilot, squadron leader sent for me and asked me to go with him. He was going back on a second tour and he would like me to go along as his bomb aimer. Oh, when we got to Finningley that was the thing, when we got to Finningley we arrived late evening, a crowd of us and the next morning we reported to the navigation office and the navigation officer said, ‘Which of you are navigators and which of you are bomb aimers?’ Because by this time they’d separated the two and we said we are all full observers. We’ve done the lot. The officer said, ‘Right.’ He counted us off. He said, ‘You half there you’re navigators and you half there you’re bomb aimers.’ So I became a bomb aimer. And –
Interviewer: Were you disappointed not to be a navigator? Or was —
LR: Yeah. Well, the navigator had more sort of kudos to it.
Interviewer: Yes.
LR: Shall we say? You know but I, in actual fact the bomb aimer was fairly simple job compared to the navigator. And so then we were posted. This squadron leader asked me to go with him on his second tour. He was doing his second tour and he was taking a second tour crew with him apart from the bomb aimer and engineer. So I went with him. The only snag was I had to do thirty trips while they were only doing twenty so I had to try and get in a few trips to catch him up when bomb aimers went sick. So we were posted to 50 Squadron. That was February the 1st I think when we went to 50 Squadron. I did twenty, twenty three trips I think altogether and then —
Interviewer: Do you remember some of the ops you went on.
LR: Pardon?
Interviewer: Some of the ops that you went on.
LR: Oh, they’re all down here. [pause – pages turning] The first op was on Wilhelmshaven and I flew with, remember a chap named Maudsley [unclear] I flew with him.
Interviewer: Oh right.
LR: Not my own pilot. And then we went on a cross country. We went on a cross country and everything went wrong on this cross country. Before we went on ops the whole crew, we did a training flight and it was a brand new aircraft. It was, it turned out there was something wrong with the compasses because I was up in the nose doing the map reading. It was daylight. A daylight thing and we had to fly down to Cambridge and then from Cambridge we were going across to Wales. South Wales, then up the Welsh coast and back to Lincoln. So we set course from here to Cambridge and I thought well that’s fair enough. There’s not, it’s the only big city [unclear] so I took it easy up in the front. Saw this big town coming up and I said, ‘Oh there’s a town coming up now, you know. This will be Cambridge.’ It will be Cambridge, Jock, wouldn’t it?’ You know just as the navigator was Jock. ‘Yeah, it should be.’ So we looked. We said, ‘It’s a bit big for Cambridge.’ And it was London [laughs] I know how trigger happy the crew were. We were frantically firing off the colours of the day and all this. So then we set course then back for Wales and it turned out that on courses east to west or west to east the compasses worked. But on north and south courses they were all haywire. We flew up the Welsh course. Of course, we knew going up the Welsh coast exactly where we were. And we of course had to map read from then on without a doubt. And then we landed back in at Skellingthorpe and as we landed the tyre burst and we cartwheeled along the runway, wrote the aircraft off. Cartwheeled along the runway and we all got out without any injury. That was absolutely amazing. And then after that I went to St Nazaire, Duisburg, twice I went to St Nazaire. And then I did a couple of so-called gardening trips laying mines and at Duisburg twice. On April the 8th and April the 9th I was with my own pilot. Then I went the next night with another pilot. His bomb aimer must have been sick. Then La Spezia, in Italy and then we did that boomerang trip. You know, when we went, we bombed Italy and went down to North Africa. And then we couldn’t get back to this country because of fog coming down so we spent a week down in Algiers and had the time of our life really. And then we flew back again.
Interviewer: How did you feel on these trips? Were you, you know did you dread them? Did you —
LR: Did we —?
Interviewer: Did you dread them or did you just see them as a job or —
LR: No.
Interviewer: Frightened.
LR: It was a job you know. People got shot down but it wasn’t you.
Interviewer: No.
LR: It was never going to be you. We would be alright. Frightened? Well, yes up to a point. Up to a point and you would go to the target and of course in the nose you’re looking at, you see the target and all the searchlights and flares going down and all sort of things and at the back there was a wonderful firework display if you like to put it that way but you think well how the hell am I going to get through this lot? And then came the job of dropping the bombs. And then you sort of dropped it and out the other side and you’d think we got through it. Then you’d set a course from home and that was it.
Interviewer: A lot of bomber crews put it down to teamwork but you were with a lot of different crews. Did that make any difference?
LR: It did up to a point. Yes. My own crew were brilliant. They really were. And we did some nice stuff. There were two things when I went with other pilots where one the navigator hadn’t a clue and we were leaving the target [papers shuffling]. Sorry.
Interviewer: Ok.
LR: And we did this one trip with this crew and he didn’t have a clue when we left the target. We set course and he didn’t know where we were and then we saw these islands. I was up in the nose and of course it was dark. I couldn’t see anything until I saw, ‘There’s coast coming up ahead pilot.’ He said, ‘Yes. Right. We’ll try and pinpoint something.’ Then there was some islands. I said, ‘There’s some islands down there in the sea.’ ‘Oh, bloody hell. It’s the Channel Islands.’ And of course, we got shot up all the while [laughs] but we knew where we were then of course and we had to land on the south coast because we were short of petrol. We were really running out of petrol and we landed I think one of the south coast aerodromes and we had breakfast there and, and then topped up with petrol and came back. But and there was another one where we had to ask assistance. We got back to this country and you could ask for assistance and what they did they sent up a searchlight and give you the exact coordinates of the searchlight so that the navigator knew where he was. And then that was, that was alright. You see it wasn’t very often that you could get a pinpoint at night except on one occasion I flew with a pilot to Italy. Milan, I think it was. Anyway, we flew on this one and it was absolutely bright moonlight and I was able to map read all the way over France it was so bright. And I map read right to the target and back again and giving the navigator pin points all the way. So, and then the result of this was a couple of days later or maybe a little bit later the bomb aimer for this particular pilot he’d been sick that night. The bomb aimer of this particular pilot came to me and said, ‘You’ve given me a right job you have.’ I said, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘The pilot wants me to map read every night when we go.’ So I had to, I had to go to the pilot and say, ‘Look, that was exceptional that night.’ I said, ‘It doesn’t happen every night.’ So the poor old bomb aimer was taking the flak because, because I’d done a map reading and he wasn’t. And then we went, we did the Pilson raid. The first one. And we went on this raid and we used to have a kitty, the bomb aimers, we used to put a couple of bob each as it was then. Two bob. And the one who got like nearest the aiming point —
Interviewer: Got the photo.
LR: Scooped. The photo scoop.
Interviewer: Yeah.
LR: And I won it that night. I think I was four miles from the target. I can’t remember but it was several mile. It was more than a mile from the target and I won it and what happened was there was a little village near Pilson which was more or less the same shape and the PFF marked that village and we bombed the village and had to go back. I didn’t go on the second one but they sent another had to go back and do the raid again on Pilson.
Interviewer: You mentioned Henry Maudsley. Do you remember anything about him?
LR: Not really. No. Very aloof.
Interviewer: Ah.
LR: Sort of man. In a polite sort of way. You know. He was. Didn’t know much about him. He was a gentleman. Put it that way. He was a nice man. He was very good. Yes. Very good. On my first trip he was quite good to me. He was nice. We did trips to Pilsen and Duisburg and another one to Duisburg. That one we were attacked by a Junckers 88 on that one and I was with a Squadron Leader Birch. And his tactics if you saw a fighter was shove the nose down and the tale was told whether it was true or not several tales used to be told but two tales that were told about him which I shall tell you about so the rear gunner reported a fighter. I wasn’t with them. And so he put the nose down and dived down and the navigator was looking over his shoulder and said, ‘Where are you going? What are you doing?’ He said, ‘Diving down into that cloud.’ He said, ‘That’s not cloud. It’s snow.’ [laughs] Now, whether that was true or not I don’t know but it makes a nice tale.
Interviewer: They lived to tell it.
LR: Another time I was on leave and when I came back somebody said, ‘You ought to have been here.’ He said, ‘Peter Birch, he flew over Skellingthorpe with all the engines feathered.’ He said, ‘He got height and got to speed, feathered the engines and feathered all four engines and went over the aerodrome.’ Now whether that was possible or not I don’t, I mean people pooh pooh the idea. Whether it was true or whether it was a story again I don’t know. I’ve never been able to verify it. But it was said that he flew over, over the edge with all four engines feathered. So I don’t know. I don’t know whether that’s true or not. I went to Dortmund. Wuppertal. Wuppertal is, wipe that out. Oberhausen. In June Turin. Oh, we went on a special trip to Reggio Emilia which is Northern Italy and it was, that was the one when we had to go down to Africa because it was in July and we couldn’t get back to this country without flying over France in daylight. So we went down to North Africa. We flew down there and my pilot was second in command of our Group. A Group I think it was five or six aircraft to attack this transformer station. Two of them we had to rendezvous over Lake Como I think it was. Two of them, two of them collided and crashed into Lake Como. The rest went on and there was a ground mist. We were having trouble identifying the target but eventually we identified it and we had to call up the other aircraft with a call signal. A code signal to say that we had got this aircraft and we dropped TI markers to identify it and they couldn’t see them. They didn’t know where it was so we went around and bombed the transformer station and then went around again and machine gunned it and we set course then for North Africa. To Blida. The others didn’t find it at all. They just went on and abandoned it. And this, this other group a squadron leader was in charge. He got a DFC and the navigator got a DFC as well. We were, we were a bit chuffed about that. So no and oh when we got to, went to Blida which was near Algiers and we had, we couldn’t get back to this country.
[recording paused]
Interviewer: Try that. Ok.
LR: Ok. When we had gone on this trip to North Africa the, apart from our crew the gunnery leader on the squadron wanted to go as well. He wanted to. He fancied this trip you see so he came along with us on the trip and we got to Blida and this chap’s name, he was well known that he never bought a drink. He was always missing when it was his round and a chap called, his name was Hipkin so my pilot was a pretty good at impersonating. He used to get on the telephone impersonating. There was all sorts of things went, jokes went on with this impersonating but while we were there he went, we had a big Mess at Blida. He went to the upstairs phone and phoned the bottom one and asked for Flight Lieutenant Hipkin, you see. And so he said, ‘Me. Here?’ You know, and off he went to the phone and he said, ‘Oh yes, we need a gunnery leader at –’ one of the bigger air place near Algiers. There’s a big, there was a big air base there. Anyway, he said, ‘We need an air gunner leader there so we’re posting you there.’ And he came back to us and he said, ‘I’ve been posted. I’ve been posted to Algiers.’ You know. We said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘What do I do?’ He says, ‘My wife’s back home,’ he said, ‘My car’s back there at the squadron. All my gear. What am I going to do?’ So we said, ‘Well, what is the posting?’ He said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘It’s a squadron leader posting.’ ‘Oh, you got promotion then.’ ‘Well it seems so.’ We said, ‘Well that calls for a drink.’ So he had to buy a round and then he became so agitated towards the finish the pilot went upstairs again and phoned again. Flight Lieutenant Hipkin. So he says, ‘Flight Lieutenant Hipkin? Yes. Yes. That’s me.’ He said, ‘What was your name?’ ‘Hipkin.’ ‘Ah,’ he says, ‘It’s not Hipkin we want. It’s Pipkin.’ He said, ‘We’ve got the wrong man.’ [laughs] So he came back down, he said, ‘Oh, it’s all a mistake,’ he said. So, ‘Well, that calls for another drink then.’ [laughs] So, you know, we did several trips after that to Milan, Leverkusen, Hanover, Cassel. Oh, we got this new wing commander and he took over our crew because my pilot had been posted away after he’d just done just, I think he’d only done seventeen trips and they posted him away. Anyway, we got this new wing commander and he took over the crew. ‘Right. We’ll go on a bombing trip to practice bombing.’ To Wainfleet. And up to then I’d been using the old mark, I forget what mark it was bombsight. The one where you used two dials and you used to have to twiddle these dials. Anyway, got on board this one and it had got the new Mark 10 or Mark 11. Something like that. Automatic. I’d never used one before. So I knew briefly how it worked. Well, I knew how it worked but what I couldn’t find when I got on board was I couldn’t find the switch to switch it on. So with a new wing commander, yeah and we were getting near Wainfleet and I thought well there’s only one thing to do. I can drop them by sight. I can’t, I can’t tell him. I can’t [laughs] I can’t find the switch for bloody working [laughs] So anyway, we were just turning, running on to the target and I clicked this switch and the thing worked. The bomb, it came around lovely and came and all the settings and I was able to bomb. Another, another time with my own crew we were practicing a time and distance run where you bomb a target. Let’s bomb something. Sight something that’s say two or three miles away from the target and then the navigator works out how long it would be. How long it would take to get from there to the target.
Interviewer: Yeah.
LR: And then it tells you when to press the button. And we did this on the bombing run at Wainfleet. So we started off and you worked out the time and distance and everything and said right. Now, I’m sat in the bomb aimers place. Not looking or anything. Right. Press the button and the bomb went off. Did a practice bomb and went off. I looked down and to my horror there was a line of trawlers going out. The bomb was heading straight for them. Fortunately missed them. That was the crew. And then of course it was Frankfurt. Missing.
Interviewer: [Frighteningly]
LR: I was shot down in Frankfurt.
Interviewer: Right. If you’d like to tell us about that it would be —
LR: Well, we were just running up towards the target and we were attacked by a Junkers 88. They attacked us. The first attack set the port engine, inner engine on fire and the pilot managed to stop that. He came around and again and I looked through the inspection hatch where the bomb bay, the bomb bays were on fire. And then he came around for a third attack and knocked out the, one of the starboard engines and the pilot gave the order to abandon because we were burning pretty well by then. And we had, the crew had just chest parachutes. We had the two hooks. I grabbed mine, put it on and missed one of the hooks. So just one hook fastened and as I did that the plane blew up. Now, I don’t know whether it was the petrol tanks that went or whether it was the bomb that went but the plane blew up. It threw me forward on to the bombsight and knocked me unconscious for a while and when I came to the entire nose of the plane had been blown off and I was trapped in there. My legs were trapped somehow. I don’t know what was coming. I tried to get out. Anyway, what I did I pulled the rip cord, the parachute pulled me out and I damaged my leg in doing it. I don’t know what happened. It was, I didn’t break it or anything. It just, my knee was, went funny and then I was holding the parachute for oh less than half a minute I should think. So if I hadn’t got out soon I would have you know. I don’t know how far I pulled and I landed in the middle of a wood. Fortunately, I landed in the same direction as the wind on a path so I didn’t get caught up in the trees. So I buried my parachute and whatnot and sort of started walking to see where I was and by, I walked at night. My leg kept giving way under me. I had a lot of trouble with that. I kept falling. But I came through a couple of villages and by this time it was starting getting light in the morning so I had a look for some place to hide. I walked to one village and people walking past me going to work I assume, you know. One of them said, ‘Morgen,’ you know. I said, ‘Morgen.’ And look, you know they didn’t take any notice of me.
Interviewer: Obviously –
LR: I was in my flying kit. Yeah. Battledress.
Interviewer: Yes.
LR: And flying boots. And I got on the banks of this river. I knowing it was the Oder and, was it the Oder? Yes, it was the Oder. And there was a sort of lot of bushes and things there and I hid underneath these bushes and stayed there all day. I slept in actual fact and it was cold because it was January. It was December. December. And I stayed there all day. Then the next at night I got up to start walking again and I was way out on the road, nothing in sight and suddenly I heard the shout, ‘Halt.’ And it was just some German soldiers. So I tried the good morning trick, you know. ‘Morgen. Morgen.’ But it didn’t work [laughs] and they came up and shone a torch on me you know and I heard one of them say, ‘Englisher Flieger.’ You know. And rifles came off their shoulders and came down. That was that. I was taken prisoner. They took me to their headquarters. They were, they weren’t Army. They were Air Force, I think. And what happened they were guarding a Halifax which had crashed nearby and of course I shouldn’t have been out there so they took me in. They set me down at this table and they brought, a German officer came in and he sat at the other side of the table and I was sat on a stool and he said, he started to try and question me and he didn’t speak very good English. Very little English in actual fact. And I just said I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. And then all of a sudden I got such a belt across the head. Knocked me off the stool and on to the floor and this, there was a German there, I think he was a sergeant major or something like that. He spoke perfect English. There was no doubt about it. And he said, ‘You stand on your feet. Stand.’ He said, ‘You stand on your feet when you’re talking to a German officer.’ Alright. You know. Nothing much I could do about that. So he said, ‘I’ll have your name, number, rank.’ At that time I was flying officer. I said, ‘Flying officer.’ So he said, ‘You’re not an officer.’ So I said, ‘Yes I am. Flying officer.’ ‘Where are your badges of rank’? I said and of course I had my battle dress so I said, ‘On my battle dress. On the shoulder.’ ‘Oh, they’re not badges of rank.’ He said, ‘Your badges of rank go on the sleeve.’ I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘These are my badges of rank.’ He said, ‘Where are your papers?’ I said, ‘I don’t have papers.’ He said, ‘When the Luftwaffe went over England,’ he said, ‘They had papers. Identity papers.’ I said, ‘But I’m not in the Luftwaffe.’ I said, ‘I’m in the Royal Air Force,’ I said, ‘And the only identity I have are these.’ I took my identity disks out and showed him. I said, ‘We don’t carry papers. We carry these.’ And he looked and the disks weren’t stamped with a rank. They were just stamped officer. He said, ‘Oh, you are an officer after all.’ I said, ‘Yeah. That’s what I’ve been saying.’ ‘Oh well,’ he said, ‘In that case,’ he said, ‘You’ll be hungry and thirsty no doubt.’ He said, ‘If you just sit down,’ he said, ‘And I’ll go and see if I can get you something.’ And he came back with the best glass of lager I’ve ever had in my life [laughs] and some black bread which was the worst bread I’ve ever had in my life.
Interviewer: Was he someone who did interrogations regularly do you think?
LR: No.
Interviewer: No.
LR: No, he wasn’t. These were Army.
Interviewer: Right.
LR: Air force, ordinary Air Force people.
Interviewer: Oh.
LR: And as it happens the main Interrogation Centre for aircrew was at Frankfurt.
Interviewer: Dulag Luft.
LR: Where I’d been shot down and there was, I had an armed guard the next morning took me to Frankfurt. I remember we went into the station and he sat me down on this seat. One of them stood there while the other one went off to make some enquiries and there was a civilian came past and he spat at me. Spat in my face. And the guard just moved him on. He, you know, ‘Go on.’ And when I saw the state of Frankfurt when I went through I could understand his feelings. Of course, then I went and we got on a tram and we went on a tram to Dulag Luft and as I remember it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
LR: Along with all the German people. A bit vulnerable really because Frankfurt was in ruins. And then they took me to Dulag Luft, straight into solitary confinement which was the psychological thing. Put into solitary confinement and when you’ve been put in there for a couple of days you could talk your head off when you come out. All they did was give me food and then there was a chap came in. He said he was from the Swiss Red Cross and, ‘Right. Name, number and rank,’ you see. ‘Where were you stationed?’ ‘What was you squadron?’ I said, ‘I can’t tell you that.’ He said, ‘Well, it’s only so I can tell your relatives. Inform your relatives that you’re safe.’ See. I said, ‘Well, all you need for that is my name, number and rank.’ He said, ‘Well, it would look better if you tell me.’ I said, ‘No. It’s not.’ [laughs] You know. Anyway, then they took me up. As it was early December and Christmas was coming up they took me out of solitary confinement early along with a lot of others. But first of all I had to go up for interrogation and again it was the proper interrogation people and he said, ‘Name, number and rank.’ I told them and they started asking questions and I had to say, ‘I can’t tell you that. I can’t.’ You know. They said, ‘Well, we know all about you, you know. It’s just a case of you verifying what we know.’ So I said, ‘Well, if you know all about me,’ I said, ‘I don’t need to tell you do I?’ He said, ‘How is Squadron Leader Parkes doing in his new post?’ And that threw me. Squadron Leader Parkes, he’d been promoted two days beforehand at the squadron, as squadron commander as a squadron leader. And only two days beforehand. ‘Now, how is Squadron Leader Parkes taken to his new post?’ New post.
Interviewer: You would have been trained in what would happen.
LR: Oh, we were told.
Interviewer: But were you prepared for how much they did know?
LR: No. I wasn’t.
Interviewer: No.
LR: I was amazed what they did know. Started telling me different things you see and that the idea is we were warned against this. The idea is to say well if they know that we might as well tell them what else they want to know. But if they gleaned just that little bit of information then they can use it on the next one. They said, they said, ‘We’ve got a friend of yours here.’ I said, ‘Who’s that?’ He said, ‘Flying Officer Hookes.’ I said, ‘Flying Officer Hookes? I don’t know anybody of that name.’ ‘Yeah. Flying Officer Hookes.’ And it turned out it was Flying Officer Hughes. They couldn’t pronounce it properly and Flying Officer Hughes was shot down that night. The same night. We became very good fiends in actual fact. Tommy Hughes. And that was it. Then they sort of released us. Well, I say released us they put us in a room altogether and because I’d damaged my knee they gave me a hospital bed to rest on. But then they transferred us then from there to Belaria, Stalag Luft 3 by the usual cattle truck.
Interviewer: Did you meet up with Hope who had also survived the –
LR: Not ‘til later.
Interviewer: Right.
LR: I thought that I was the only survivor because they said they’d found the bodies in the plane.
Interviewer: Oh, they did tell you.
LR: The Germans told me this at the time.
Interviewer: Yes.
LR: They had found the plane with the bodies inside and what not.
Interviewer: Right.
LR: But they didn’t tell me that the wireless operator was safe and apparently he was blown through the side of the plane. No. He had applied for a commission and his commission came through after he was shot down.
Interviewer: Oh.
LR: And so the Germans being the Germans transferred him to an officer camp.
Interviewer: Oh.
LR: Which Stalag Luft 3 was an officer camp.
Interviewer: Yes.
LR: And they transferred to him and he came and he came to Belaria.
Interviewer: You must have been surprised to see him.
LR: I was. He was surprised to see me [laughs] Yeah. And that was that. So I started life as a prisoner of war.
Interviewer: I don’t know, you can’t prepare yourself for anything like that so how did you find it or you know was it something to –
LR: Well, I spent the first three weeks I think it would be in hospital while they tried to do something about my knee and it was all swollen and they said I’d got fluid on it and whatnot and they were trying to treat me. I was in prison camp and it didn’t matter how long it took sort of thing. I had to have heat and used to have a big shield put over my leg with electric light bulbs in which was all heat. This went on until eventually I came out and went to the hut that had been with Tommy Hughes as well was in there. And —
Interviewer: How many more were in your particular hut?
LR: There were I think eight of us to start with. In the hut. In the room. The hut —
Interviewer: Oh yes. The rooms in the hut.
LR: Was divided into rooms.
Interviewer: That’s right. Yes.
LR: And I think it was eight to start with and then in double bunks.
Interviewer: Yes.
LR: Double bunks. And then they put another bunk on the top and made them triple bunks and put more people in. We had some Poles came in and, a couple of Poles and it was quite crowded in actual fact.
Interviewer: And everyday life in a –
LR: Well, boredom was the main —
Interviewer: Right.
LR: Problem. People took courses. If somebody was an expert accountant he would, he would start teaching people accountancy or and so forth. Anything like that you see. And of course, there was, I was fortunate in that I was musical. I played a guitar and we had a band and that kept me busy because we used to do arranging and all sorts of things like that so that filled the day in. Arranging concerts and things. We had a very good band in actual fact. The leader was a chap called Whiteley, Len Whiteley who had been trumpeter with Billy Cotton’s band. And later on we got some Americans in the camp and we got a base player who used to play with one of the big American bands, you know. He was good. He was a good arranger as well. So we managed, you know.
Interviewer: You weren’t involved in escaping yourself but did you know –
LR: No.
Interviewer: Of people that were and did you take any part in —
LR: I didn’t take any part at all in the escape but we knew of it afterwards. Not before. We didn’t know. I mean these things were kept very quiet obviously. For obvious reasons. But we knew of it and the camp commandant, our camp commandant, the senior British officer as he was called was he said we were to boycott the Germans altogether. Not to speak to them. We used to bribe them for bring in, bring in a couple of eggs and give them a cigarette something like that but we weren’t. We had to stop all that sort of thing. Not to talk to them. Ignore them.
Interviewer: Tell us the story about the radio please.
LR: Oh. The radio. Well, we had a radio and it was this radio was dismantled. The carcase of the radio was hidden under the coals. Under a heap of coals in the hospital block. And the components were taken out each night and given to separate people, different people so that if one was sort of discovered it would just be one item gone and the radio was assembled every night for the 6 o’clock news. To receive the 6 o’clock news from Britain and then dismantled again and shared around. We became short. We had a valve failure. Now a valve in actual fact was a fairly major component and so we needed to get another one. Now, in the camp we had apart from the guards there were these goons. Well, we called them goons. Or ferrets. Ferrets we called them and they used to go around looking for trouble. And they used to go around looking for trouble like long screw drivers which they used to try to poke into the earth to try and detect tunnels and they would look under the huts because the huts were on, were built up over the ground on stilts more or less. Short stilts of course. And they would walk into a room looking to see if anybody was doing anything they shouldn’t be doing. Now, if they found anything important they were given a week’s leave and instant promotion to the next higher rank. So and at that time there was a tunnel in progress which had flooded. We found it did flood in the Belaria compound. We couldn’t get a tunnel going because it flooded. So we bodged this tunnel up. I say we I didn’t have anything to do with it. But they bodged this tunnel up so it looked like the genuine thing and then they said to one of the ferrets, ‘Bring us in a valve for the radio,’ you know. Oh No. No. He couldn’t do that. Couldn’t do that. That’s much too much. You know. So we said, ‘Look, if you do we’ll show you a tunnel.’ Ah. And so in came the valve. We got the valve for the radio. The ferret went off and reported to the commanding officer who’d only been there for a couple of weeks and he came bounding out in white overalls and everything saying, ‘Ah you know you can’t beat us Germans.’ And things like this and he was delighted. The commandant reported to his superiors that he’d found a tunnel and the ferret got his week’s leave and we got our valve. So everybody was happy. Yeah. So some funny things went on. I don’t know how far it’s true this story but I did, the story went around that now we had to be careful when a new influx of prisoners came in that they didn’t infiltrate a German with them. So they had, all prisoners had to be vetted. When we used to flock around the gates. Flocking around the gates wasn’t to welcome the prisoners as much as to see if you knew anybody. And if you knew somebody you pointed them out. Oh we knew him, you know. So that invariably everybody knew somebody. And apparently they got one chap who was suspect in this place and when they questioned him closely he didn’t seem very knowledgeable about things. Not as knowledgeable as he should have been and they were fairly sure, absolutely sure really that he was a German infiltrator and so they reported to the commandant the next day that one of their men had been too overcome. It had been too much for him. He drowned himself in the fire pool. And now, I can’t verify that story but it was prevalent at the time. It came around. It wasn’t in our compound and as I say it’s a story you’ve got to be careful about telling really.
Interviewer: You’ve met or at least knew of personalities like Bob Stanford Tuck and Douglas Bader.
LR: I never met Bader. I met Tuck and Roland Beamont.
Interviewer: Yes.
LR: He came while I was there. He came to the camp and for the next two days I should think or more than that you couldn’t separate him and Tuck. They were there with their hands going all over the place fighting all the battles all over again [laughs]
Interviewer: But not good reports of Bader’s behaviour.
LR: Bader wasn’t well liked. He, we had Escape Committees and if you had any ideas for escape you put them to the Escape Committee and they decided on the feasibility of it and what not. Also, the main reason was that you didn’t try some foolhardy, foolhardy attempt and jeopardise any escape attempt that was in progress. So, but Bader would have none of that. He said if he got the chance he would go regardless. He didn’t believe in Escape Committees and he was fairly arrogant I believe. And although I’d never met him but I know he wasn’t well liked.
Interviewer: And when you heard about the fifty that had been shot after the Great Escape that must have been a terrible shock.
LR: Oh, that was, you know. We just couldn’t get over it. It put a whole new light on escaping really. Any attempt to escape before that was sort of an adventure if you’d like to put it that way. If you got away with it well and good. If not well well what it did among other things if somebody escaped it tied up the police and Home Guard in the area or the military in the area trying to find them, you know. And we thought well, you know keep the Germans busy. If they’re looking for me then I’ve done something else.
Interviewer: Did morale drop in the –
LR: It did a bit. Yes. We said, well what do we do about escaping, you know?
Interviewer: So you, you stayed there until July, January ’45.
LR: Yes.
Interviewer: And the –
LR: When the Russians advanced.
Interviewer: Yes. And —
LR: We could hear the Russian guns.
Interviewer: And did you feel that this was, you know –?
LR: Well, this is the end. Yes.
Interviewer: Yes.
LR: This is the end. But then Hitler ordered that if prison camps looked like being overrun the prisoners had to be shot you know. And they dropped, the Air Force dropped leaflets warning prison commandants that they were responsible and if any prisoners were harmed [pause] I’ve got one of the leaflets in actual fact. And they, we didn’t know what to make of it really. We didn’t know what, you know. Anyway, we, we moved out of the camp and we walked through —
Interviewer: You weren’t given much notice I don’t think.
LR: Not a lot of notice. We said that we were going to go out one day. I think it was as I remember it was, we said we would go out one morning and then it was postponed until the next day. Something like that. And anyway, we went off walking and it wasn’t very good.
Interviewer: And the snow and the cold.
LR: It was a cold winter of course and the winters out there were particularly cold.
Interviewer: And you wouldn’t have much clothes.
LR: Just sleeping at night in barns and pig styes or whatever wherever we could. Just bed down and just as we were.
Interviewer: I understand that the guards suffered as much as the –
LR: The guards did.
Interviewer: Yes.
LR: Of course they did. Yes. Yes. Yes, they were fed up.
Interviewer: And you were taken to —
LR: To Luckenwalde. Now, that was a big camp, you know. There were French, Italians, Russians. Oh, the Russians they were absolutely badly treated the Russians were. The Russian prisoners. We used to see them being taken out to work you know and you know, terrible. But when we were, we were released we went into the Russian barracks and some of the murals that they’d painted on the walls were fantastic. The Russians released us but in actual fact we were still prisoners of the Russians then because there was this thing going on at home between Stalin and Churchill over the Cossacks. And I believe, we didn’t know at the time but I think we were held as political prisoners to a bargaining thing because we didn’t, we weren’t released until June. We listened to the May, the VE Day celebrations. We listened to them on the radio in the camp. We were still in the camp.
Interviewer: How did you feel about that?
LR: Not very, not very much. We were fed up with the Russians. In actual fact there was a jeep, an American jeep came through with some report, two reporters and they said, ‘Who are you lot?’ And we told them. They said, ‘Well, we didn’t know anything about you.’ They said, ‘We’ll have a convoy come and pick you up.’ And they did. The next day a convoy of American lorries arrived at the camp and some of the lads tried to get on board and the Russians wouldn’t let them. And we thought, we ran along, some of us ran along the road a bit. We could get out of the fence and catch the lorries as they were leaving because the Russians turned them around and the Russians fired on us. Fired over our heads and stopped us from getting on the lorries. They said what they wanted, they wanted to register us and the senior British officer said, ‘Tell me what you want registering.’ They wanted the name. Your name and your rank, number and where you lived. Where you came from. And he said, ‘If you give me a couple of days I’ll give you, I’ll get you all that.’ But no. they had to do it the Russian way and what they were doing they were translating it into Russian. Cyrillic lettering and it took them about two weeks to do it. It was all time wasting. We had, they let us out. They let us move from the camp. It was south and east a little bit. About a half a mile or so. We would go for a walk if we wanted to rather than be in the confines of the camp. They promised us radios and food and goodness knows what which never materialised and just on the other side of the wire there had been a park and there was a lovely lake there. So we, somebody said, ‘Oh, we’ll go swimming.’ And off we went to swim in the lake. Of course, nude of course. There were no swimming costumes and off we went. There was such a big thump in this lake. We wondered what on earth was that? Sort of looked around and the Russians were still on the thing, on the top throwing grenades into the water. Threw the grenades and they made a good bump. All the Russian girl soldiers were all there waiting and we all came scrambling out of the water you see [laughs] scrambled out and back into the barracks and the Russian girl soldiers laughing like mad. One of the things of course leading up to that was we got a lot of refugees in and woke up one day and the hut was divided into, big huts they were and divided in two. In the centre portion was a washing area with a big sort of round basin. Taps all the way around it where we could wash and whatnot. And we got up one morning and it was sort of walked down to this place and there was some ladies stripped off washing. Well, we just couldn’t believe it you know. We had to get washed and the toilets there were the seats, you know, open. There would seats along one side and then seats on this side and we went to the toilet and women were there as well thinking nothing of it. You’d just, you know and we just couldn’t get on with this somehow. Sharing a toilet with a lady and washing with her. You know. Especially having, having been cooped up for a long time. Yes. That was all very primitive. It was a very primitive camp was Luckenwalde. The food. We didn’t get any Red Cross parcels at first and the food was just barley and mint tea.
Interviewer: Was there a lot of illness?
LR: Not as much as you would expect, I think. The main trouble with that sort of thing was when they transported us. We were, they took us out once, they were going to move us from the camp and they put us in these railway trucks and crowded into these trucks you know with no toilet facilities and it used to be shocking. Of course, some of the men had diarrhoea and that and couldn’t control themselves and there was nothing they could do.
Interviewer: No.
LR: And we used to, we used to drain hot water out of the engines thing to make tea with, you know. Out of the engine tank. The steam. Steam engine. And oh, it wasn’t very good. Then they decided that after two or three days we couldn’t move anyway. The railways couldn’t move us so we went back into the camp again and we stopped there until they decided, the Russians decided that we could move. The Americans came. They took us to an American base and oh, we got there. White bread, coffee. Proper coffee and all proper food and everything. Luxury. And we were there for a while while they arranged transport to take us back. And they took us on a, we went on a Dakota back to Brussels. And then in Brussels we went on a Lincoln bomber back to England and the reception in England was absolutely fantastic. We didn’t know what to expect because we’d had, there were letters we got from home accusing us of being cowards for being prisoners of war and things like this you know. One letter a girl wrote to say she was marrying somebody else. She said, “I’d rather marry a –“ what was it? [pause] Rather marry this man than marry an Air Force coward. Something like that. But you know these things happen and we didn’t know what sort of reception to expect. So was that.
Interviewer: When you came home did you go to Cosford?
LR: I think. I think Cosford.
Interviewer: Yeah.
LR: Yes. Cosford. Yes. And when we got there there was a whole load of WAAFs waiting to escort us in and it was late at night. It was, it was around about twelvish or thereabouts and they’d had a dance there before, before we got there and the band had packed up. And they unpacked their instruments and played for a dance just for us. And we were all packed up and disinfected and goodness knows what and sent off home.
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 Les Rutherford
1022-Rutherford, Robert Leslie
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v26
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Claire Bennett
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2011-01-24
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
British Army
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:27:19 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
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.
Description
An account of the resource
Les Rutherford was called up for the Army just short of his twenty first birthday. He was in France at the time of Dunkirk and made it to the beach of St Valery where they were under constant bombardment. He and another soldier found a door and used that to paddle out to the Channel in the hopes of joining a ship to get back to England. A trawler rescued them both and passed them over to a British vessel. While still serving in the Army Les saw an advertisement for RAF aircrew and decided to volunteer. He was trained as an observer but was posted to 50 Squadron as a bomb aimer. His aircraft was shot down over Frankfurt after a triple attack by a Junkers 88. He spent the rest of the war as a prisoner of war at Stalag Luft 3 at Sagan.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Poland
North Africa
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
England--Lincolnshire
France--Dunkerque
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Oberursel
Poland--Żagań
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941-06
50 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
bomb aimer
bombing
Dulag Luft
Ju 88
Lancaster
prisoner of war
RAF Skellingthorpe
Red Cross
shot down
Stalag Luft 3
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46458/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v250002.mp3
8a097d5b21ae450b8b5f698d153762aa
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
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
2017-06-19
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer: This is an interview with Mr Wilf Keyte on the 15th of November 2010 at his home in Lincoln regarding his experiences in the Second World War.
WK: I joined the RAF in December 1937 and I eventually made my way to RAF Scampton and joined 83 Bomber Squadron and I was working in the stores, in the Maintenance Flights of 83 Squadron. It had recently moved down from Turnhouse in Scotland and I stayed with the squadron until 1940 [pause] 1940, when I was posted down to RAF Henlow in Bedfordshire where I was, I was working on such things as the Queen Bee which was a guided missile aircraft which we had and it was used quite a lot in those days. But I eventually left. Left Henlow and was posted to the Orkney Island to RAF Skeabrae where I was the barracks, in charge of the barrack stores in in the Orkneys. I was only supposed to have stayed there for a maximum of nine months but in fact I was there from January 1942 until November 1943. I was given a home posting so they said to RAF Swinderby in Lincolnshire and I found myself in charge of the barrack stores at Swinderby. We had, it was a heavy bomber Conversion Unit where they were converting crews from twin-engined aircraft to four-engined aircraft. A mixture of Stirlings and and Lancasters they had there. I stayed, I stayed at RAF Swinderby for the best part of two years and I used to live near a village called Burton and the most remarkable thing about living out there that there was the ditches were filled with thousand pound bombs on the roadside. In fact, I had a bungalow which was next, next door to a bomb dump and I used to ride through this bomb dump to get to Swinderby. I stayed at Swinderby until in 1945 and I was, I was posted to RAF Syerston and at RAF Syerston I found myself involved with a force which was called the Tiger Force which was supposed to be to assemble a force of Lancasters, three squadrons I think it was to fly to Okinawa and the intent was to bomb Japan from Okinawa. And I was told that I was due to fly out to Okinawa in a Lancaster on the 15th of September 1945. Events of course took place with the bombing of Japan with atomic bombs which meant that the Tiger Force was was cancelled and they wrote, all the people were being sent here, there and everywhere. That as far as I was concerned it went on for about three months where I was sent down to number 5PDC I think it was. It was based at, in London and the Viceroy Court was the block of flats that we had. And we were repeatedly let go on leave and I finally finished up with amongst us there were six of us that had been there since August waiting to go overseas and the CO saw us. We decided that we’d had enough of messing around with waiting for this movement and we went off to the orderly room to ask if we could go on leave. And the CO came out and saw us and he said, ‘What are you —’ so and sos, ‘Doing here?’ And we said, ‘Oh, we’re waiting to go on leave sir.’ He said, ‘Oh, I’ll fix you.’ Well, the result was that next day we found, we found that we were, we were on orders to move and we went up to Waterbeach in Cambridge and we eventually flew out of Waterbeach in a Liberator and I was down in the bomb bay of this Liberator. We flew to Malta and stayed overnight and then the next day we went on to place called Castel Benito in Libya. It was called Idris Airport afterwards but we flew on from there the next, not the next day because we sat. There was no movement the next day. We flew on to Cairo and we stayed in Cairo for five days and then we flew on to Habbaniya in Iraq. And we eventually the next day we flew on to Karachi which is now in Pakistan of course and there they decided where we were going. Somewhere in India. And I was one of the people who was selected to go. Go down to Puna. What it was that the, we’d been going to the cinema and playing bingo and we started checking on how much was being paid out in prizes because we found out that the sums that were given in prizes didn’t work out how much people were paying. They did. The army were running it and they weren’t very pleased with us and they got rid of us to Puna over Christmas in 1945 and we stayed at, stayed at Puna until after Christmas. Then I went on to where I was scheduled to go and that was Avadi, which was a big base near Madras. And that’s when I came up against the Tiger Force again where I found out that the base had been built for springboard for the attack against Japan and it was for all three services. Fifty miles of rail tracks gives you some idea of the size of the place and we had even three English style pubs there. But before I left England I’d been selected for a commission and I went on from Avadi. I was given a hot weather posting up to a place called Kanpur in the Central Provinces. And it was while I was at Kanpur that a posting came for me to go down to Ceylon to do the officer’s training. And I was down in Ceylon at a place called Kandy which was up in the hills and I then found out why Mountbatten had moved his headquarters from Delhi, actually and the rest of the command had moved it from Delhi because it was beautiful in Kandy. It was like a warm summer’s day. And I completed my course, courses at Kandy and went back to where I came from which was Kanpur in India. But the wing commander I worked for said it was unfair for me to be promoted or commissioned on the same unit as I’d been working as a flight sergeant and he thought I should be posted but the CO said, ‘If he’s any good now’s his chance to prove it.’ But it didn’t last very long because they had a vacancy for an equipment officer at a place called Chakulia which was in the state of [Baha.] That was out towards the east side of the country and I went. I went to Calcutta where the headquarters was and I went in to see the group captain administrator and I was told I’d got to close this unit within a fortnight. And I visited the unit. It was three hundred and twenty miles from Calcutta and said, ‘No. It will take me six weeks to close that station down.’ And there was a door opened in the office and I didn’t take any notice of it but then the AOC walked in and he said, ‘The trouble with you people at Chakulia is that you’re away from all discipline and you’re enjoying yourself out there.’ And the group captain finally got a word in and he said, ‘He’s only been there forty eight hours, sir.’ Anyway, I went back to Chakulia and it did take six weeks because there were, there were several storehouses full of equipment plus a lot of vehicles we had to get rid of and the only place we could get rid of the vehicles was a place called Ranchi which was a two hundred mile trip by road and then you had to wait for the drivers to come back before you could send any more vehicles. But I finally did finish it and went back to Barrackpore near Calcutta and when we got there we were told, ‘Well, you’ve wasted your time because we’re scrapping all this stuff.’ And that’s what happened. It was all put up for sale. Everything that we had there. And I was sent to, to the on another closure job which was at RAF Dum Dum which is now Calcutta Airport and to close that station down and one of the things that we had there was, there was some Spitfires which were being shuffled from England out to Australia and they, we couldn’t get any pilots to fly them and so we were told to put the axe through them and make them unflyable. Well, eventually we moved. We did. We did manage to close the station down and took all the airmen out to Delhi for them to be sent elsewhere and I went up to Delhi and reported into the air headquarters and I was told by two flight lieutenants ‘Oh, you’ll be going to Singapore now but you’ve got to wait to see the wing commander.’ And I waited to see the wing commander and he said, ‘Oh, you’ve been here long enough. Go home.’ So that was the end of my tour in India. And I came home and eventually I was sent up to a unit called RAF Montrose. Eventually I found myself having to close Montrose down. I was, I was made the officer in charge of the marching out and I had to go through all the buildings handing them over to the Works Department to close RAF Montrose. And we moved up to a place called Edzell which was twelve miles inland and they tried to get me posted earlier but the CO said, ‘No. You wait until he’s finished his job,’ and they said, ‘Well, you’re not going to keep him.’ And they sent me down to the Group Headquarters at Hucknall and I left. I left that all behind me. Eventually I got to a place called Kidlington near Oxford. I’d been on an explosives course on handling and sorting explosives and I found myself closing units down all below. They were getting rid of all the bombs from RAF stations and they were being shipped and dumped out to sea. And I finally finished that job and I found myself being posted overseas again. So that’s, that’s the end of the story as it were.
Interviewer: You were, your time in the Orkneys attached to Fighter Command.
WK: Yeah.
Interviewer: Can you tell us what you were doing? Your job more specifically?
WK: Well, I was, I was, I went up there and I was in charge of the barrack stores.
Interviewer: Right.
WK: And I found, found myself getting another job because the RAF was expanding and the Navy were pulling out of a place called Grimsetter just outside Kirkwall and I was sent over, sent across to Grimsetter to go around and check all the barrack equipment. Blankets etcetera. In other words take over the station so that the RAF could move back into Grimsetter and that took me several months of course. Two months when I was working with the Navy.
Interviewer: And you had your family up there.
WK: Yes, we were fortunate enough that my wife and two sons they came up to the Orkneys and we, we lived on a farm in [unclear] and they enjoyed the life there. The one thing they didn’t enjoy was the wind which [laughs] because there was a paper in those days in the Orkneys which was called, “The Orkney Blast,” and it was aptly named, “The Orkney Blast,” because I was blown off my bicycle several times with the strong wind and even our coal lorry was blown off the road with the strong winds. But we lived with the cold wind in the Orkneys. You got used to it but when we left in November 1943 and we got on this ship at Stromness the sea was flat calm. It was just like sailing across a sheet of glass. It was most uncanny because the Pentland Firth is well known for the ferocious seas that you can get up there.
Interviewer: Pathfinders.
WK: Well, not so much the Pathfinders as it was. It was the [pause] I can’t remember the name now. The Tiger Force.
Interviewer: Oh.
WK: Yeah.
[recording paused]
WK: When I was in India I had, I’d been selected for an officer’s training before I left and I arrived, when I arrived in India they knew all about it and they sent me down to Ceylon and there was, there were two squadrons of Dakotas in those days. One was based, well both were based at Karachi and one flew eastabout and the other flew westabout and I went on the eastabout route which we took off at 6 o’clock in the morning because of the weather conditions. The heat was uncomfortable for flying and we landed for breakfast and then we flew on for another two hours and landed for lunch and night stop and it took a week to fly from Delhi down to Ceylon and [pause] sorry. Oh yes. The, when I, my final unit in, in India was in a place called Dum Dum. It was a village which had a reputation for rebels and one the reason it was named Dum Dum was because that was where the Dum Dum bullets were made originally which were well known worldwide for use by terrorists and the, they were flying the people out from Dum Dum when we, when we closed down up to Delhi and the CO decided that we were not going to. He and I were not going to fly in these Dakotas. That he sent the rest of the station and we we were sent aboard a BOAC York flying first class up to Delhi and the pilot was very kind to us. He did a circuit around Calcutta so that we could take a last look of it before we went home. Where they used to get, used to get tea —
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 Wilf Keyte
1018,1019-Keyte, Wilf
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v25
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Claire Bennett
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2010-11-15
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:20:26 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
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.
Description
An account of the resource
Wilf Keyte joined the RAF in 1937 and was based with maintenance units. He was posted to Scampton and Henlow where he worked with the Queen Bee missile unit. He was then posted in charge of stores to the Orkneys and then RAF Swinderby. Wilf was then posted to India where again he was in charge of stores and was given the task of closing stations in India before returning to the UK where again he continued this role including working with the Royal Navy to close their station at Grimsetter to return it to the RAF.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1942
1943
1945
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
India
England--Bedfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
India--Delhi
Scotland--Orkney
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
ground personnel
RAF Henlow
RAF Swinderby
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/147/46456/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v240002.mp3
efdbfb1e6fa09c97c42e6282e336d83e
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
Cole, Colin
C Cole
Colin Cole
Description
An account of the resource
31 items. The collection relates to Warrant Officer Colin Cole (1924 – 2015 RAF Volunteer Reserve 1605385) who served with 617 Squadron. The collection contains two oral history interviews his, logbook, service documents, medals, memorabilia from the Tirpitz and six photographs.
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. Six items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties or to comply with intellectual property regulations. 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
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-27
2015-07-27
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cole, C
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JM: Well, good morning. This is Julian Maslin interviewing Colin Cole at his home at Bardney. Colin, I know you were a wireless operator on 617 Squadron. I wonder if I could just ask you just to say a little about your background and then go ahead and tell us the story that you have about the disposal of munitions at the end of the war. Colin —
CC: Right. Yes. I can do that. As far as my background is concerned I came in to the RAF in December of 1942 and to train as a wireless operator air gunner and I first went to Blackpool and then on to various training stations and my first entry in to Lincolnshire was when I joined number 617 Squadron at Woodhall Spa in August 1944. Right. Now, what would you like —
JM: I’d like you to say a little if you could about how you were involved in the operation to dispose of munitions. Particular types of munition at the end of the war.
CC: Oh right. Yes. The, yes after the dams raid there were a number of the mines, they called them Upkeeps, the Upkeep mines left over and they sort of gathered together what few there were left. I think there were around about ten or fifteen that needed disposing of. They were ended up at Scampton and in a rather unstable condition and there were arrangements made to dispose of them. Now, how I came to be involved in this was that they brought three aircraft down from Scotland which were, had already been converted for the original dams raid and so that they could carry the mines out to sea and drop them in a safe, in a safe place. The reason I was involved was that all that was needed really was a pilot. You didn’t need a whole crew but in that day and age every aircraft that flew, every Lancaster that flew had to carry a wireless operator. So I was seconded from 617 Squadron at Binbrook to go to Scampton and fly on, well as it turned out only two or three of these missions to dispose of the Upkeep mines. Now, the idea was that they should be loaded on to the aircraft, you know, in the normal way and dropped out to sea. The place they looked at dropping them was on the Atlantic Shelf. Just over the Atlantic shelf so that they dropped in to deep water and either exploded or just dropped to the bottom of the sea and there’s probably many of them still left down, left down there to this day you know. So that, that was basically all we did. I did two or three runs on these things and we’d drop them, you know sort of quite without any trouble at all and, and got rid of them. The, what was I going to say? [pause] There’s not really anything more to say about that apart from the aircraft, oh this was by the way in September 1945. ’46 sorry. September 1946 and onwards over the Christmas period and there were, there were others taking part in this of course and finished by about February of 1947 and then the aircraft were just scrapped and that was it. Yeah.
JM: You raise a number of points here that I’d like to explore.
CC: Yeah. Ask me questions.
JM: You don’t remember do you which aircraft by their squadron letters or whatever? I mean —
CC: I can remember by the squadron letters. The one I flew in was AJG.
JM: That was Gibson’s aircraft.
CC: The answer to that is going to be no.
JM: Oh.
CC: Gibson’s aircraft, as far as we can reckon was converted back into in a normal Lancaster and ended up with 467 Squadron at Waddington. Now the AJG that we had there had been originally a dams aircraft which was I think AJC. It had been converted back into a normal Lancaster. It had gone to Metheringham and it was used there for a bit and then it was converted back again into a dams aircraft when it was thought that the war may needs to drop more of these.
JM: Right.
CC: Mines, you know.
JM: Right.
CC: They were a sort of, and it was converted back and for some reason somebody painted AJG on it. But according to the code letters which stayed with the aircraft you know from the date of manufacture which I can’t remember off hand what it was it wasn’t the original AJG after all that [laughs] Everybody says that you know.
JM: Yes, you would.
CC: Yeah. And at the time nobody knew what Gibson’s aircraft was. It was only after the film came out in 1954 that all that came up to the —
JM: Yeah.
CC: Fore again, you know. I mean it was just another, just another old aircraft.
JM: Do you remember the letters of any of the other aircraft that were used because I think you said there were two or three?
CC: There were. Good question. I shall have to tell you that afterwards.
JM: Ok.
CC: I can look. I can look them up you know. Sort of —
JM: Moving on you said you’d been seconded from Binbrook to Scampton.
CC: Yes.
JM: Does that mean that 617 was actually transferred to Binbrook at one point?
CC: It was. It, 617 was destined for Tiger Force.
JM: Yes.
CC: In 1945, and we trained for Tiger Force and then the Japanese war ended and we still carried on training because we went out to India under South East Asia Command and then we only stayed out there for about what January, February, March, four months when India was, Mr Ghandi was jumping up and down about independence and he sent us back [laughs] We came back and we were posted. Posted to Binbrook. Yes.
JM: And the, the crew, the pilot that you flew with on, on these disposal operations was that pilot somebody who had extensive service with 617 or a recent arrival?
CC: No, it wasn’t actually. The, the pilots that, and that in the plural at that time my main secondment to Scampton was not for the mines at all but for pilots training for conversion on to Lincolns. And that was my main job there was flying with all sorts of pilots to train on to Lincolns and this was a sort of little job that came along while I was there.
JM: Perhaps we could return to the subject of Lincolns a bit later but I had —
CC: Yes.
JM: I had a feeling that perhaps there would have been quite a rush of people to get the opportunity to fly in a Dambusters Lancaster on a trip like this even, just as passengers Or am I being a bit nostalgic about that?
CC: No. Not particularly.
JM: Just a job was it?
CC: It was just a, yes I mean as I say and I can repeat this that it wasn’t until 1954 ’55 when the film came out that all this arose.
JM: Right.
CC: You know. I mean I can’t remember the squadron ever talking a lot about the dams raid that [pause] you know, we all knew about it of course.
JM: Yes.
CC: But no. It wasn’t [laughs] It was totally different. A different story you know.
JM: So when you went up to drop the mines did you drop them from low level as in the raid or from —
CC: Oh no. No. No. I think we dropped them from about eight thousand feet. Something like that. Just dropped them, you know. There was no spinning. They didn’t. They weren’t spun or anything like that. Just dropped them.
JM: They weren’t fused.
CC: Oh no. No. No. Ours didn’t go bang but I don’t know whether one or two did you know sort of on hitting the sea but no. Just [laughs] yeah.
JM: Well, that’s lovely. I wonder if I you could just turn your memory to the idea of training pilots to convert to Lincolns at Scampton because I’m sure that would be an extremely valuable piece of history. As far as I’m aware there’s not an awful lot written about that. Could you tell us a little bit about what the training programme was and how it went and any stories that you may have from that occasion?
CC: Well, there wasn’t really. The Lincoln was just a big Lancaster really, you know. It wasn’t like training on, I suppose on to a completely new aircraft. They only did circuits and landings. They didn’t do any cross-country work or anything like that and apart from one or two crews most of the pilots came on their own if you know what I mean. So, you know, posted on their own just to, I think it was just to get the feel of the aircraft. The fact that it was different in size and all that sort of thing you know. It was really. But I didn’t have any part in the, you know. I mean they naturally flew with an instructor, you know, sort of and as far as I can remember they weren’t there for all that long, you know. Only a few weeks of sort of getting used to the aircraft and then back on to the squadron.
JM: We know from history that when aircraft were introduced they often had initial teething problems and there often quite a few accidents before these wrinkles were ironed out. Was that the case for the Lincoln or was it seamless?
CC: Not particularly. It was, it was only an overgrown Lancaster in, in its sense if you know what I mean. It wasn’t a completely new aircraft. I didn’t hear of any, a lot of accidents. Not particular accidents. I think there was. I think there was an odd, you know later on there was an odd collision you know and that sort of thing but no great, no great teething troubles at all. So don’t know.
JM: I I know from previous conversations with you that one of the most important operations that you took part in when you were with 617 was the attack on the Tirpitz.
CC: Yes.
JM: I was wondering whether you’d be kind enough to tell us a little bit about that experience.
CC: Yes. Yes, I can. Right. Well, I didn’t take part in the first two attempts. They went in the September and I think it was the October. August and October one of which they went to Russia and flew from there. And then when the final attack came they brought the, the Tirpitz down to Tromso, Tromso Fjord and that made it within striking distance of Lossiemouth providing we carried extra fuel tanks and so the aircraft were modified. All had new engines. The front turrets, sorry the mid-upper turrets were taken off and we didn’t, we only carried a crew of six and two additional fuel tanks were placed in the fuselage. And that, and that was it. It was going to be a long trip, you know. The one in which we sank was it was that we went on the 11th of November up to Lossiemouth from, from Woodhall Spa and the following day we flew from Lossiemouth up to Tromso and, and back which was a trip that took just over thirteen hours. So, you know it had to be carefully planned and that. The only problem I can remember we had was it was a very very clear night. There was a big area of high pressure and the temperature dropped to minus goodness knows what on the night that we were going to take off. So what they had to do was we had to run the aircraft up to the point of take-off and then they sprayed it for de-icing and then we’d take off and that. And several of the aircraft of 9 squadron didn’t go because they’d run out of de-icing fluid [laughs] But anyway, that’s another story. The trick was that we flew at low level up the Norwegian coast and the reason for that was to avoid the radar that the Germans had all along the coast except in one particular spot about halfway up which was known. And we went through that area, over Sweden and then climbed to twelve, thirteen thousand feet over the target. Apart from that, you know it was a clear run in and we dropped our bomb which was said according to records to have dropped near the forward bow and was considered to have helped in the fact that it overturned. Well, in that context it, I can say because has also been recorded that our rear gunner when we were leaving the target the smoke and that cleared a bit from the aircraft itself and he came on to the intercom and said, ‘Skip, she’s turning over.’ So it was the first indication we had you know of, of the ship turning over from that point of view and then we just flew back. We weren’t hit at all, our aircraft and we just flew back to England. We had a, you now we had a diversion. The weather wasn’t too good at Lossiemouth and we had a diversion to an airfield called Fraserburgh at which we landed and that was that.
JM: I have a recollection of on a previous conversation with you, you told me that the bomb was held in place by some large straps and I believe it may have been part of your duties to to recover those straps.
CC: Oh yes. Yes.
JM: Could you tell us a little bit about that please?
CC: Yeah. There is. There are, for the Tallboys there are some straps which were fixed around the bomb itself in the bomb bay which when the bomb was released the straps came apart and dropped to such an extent that they failed the bomb doors when [pause] when they were being shut. So it was the wireless operators job to go back sort of over the main spar and get hold of the toggle which, which was straight and pull the straps up while the pilot shut the bomb doors and that. But yes, that was, apparently that was a problem. An initial problem that they had and talking to an historian of 9 Squadron he said that yes Barnes Wallis actually came down to 9 Squadron to sort the problem out. And he devised this system of a toggle on these straps to pull them up so —
JM: That’s very interesting but have I got this correct? This would have meant that you were actually looking down through the open —
CC: Oh yes. You could. Well, you could see through a hole.
JM: Right. At this most powerful battleship which was shooting up at you.
CC: Well yes [laughs] that’s true.
JM: How did you feel at that moment when, when you were doing that? Was it just a job to be done or were you —?
CC: Well, I think it was just a job to be done really you know. Sort of [pause] yes. It’s like everything else. Afterwards it all sort of blows up into an historical event if you know what I mean but at the time you just sort of, that’s what you’re doing, you know.
JM: And, and was it the same feelings that you had when you knew you’d been ordered to attack the Tirpitz again because as you say it was the third operation. Was it the same, another job or were you in any way concerned that it was going to be a particularly difficult job?
CC: We, no we, we weren’t but I gather that the pilots were told that there was a danger with it being at Tromso. There was a, there was a fighter airfield at Bardufoss which is just down the road from there and there was a possibility that we might get fighter intervention wouldn’t we. But the rest of the crews weren’t told. Weren’t told about it you know. So we just [pause] because that ties up with I remember our skipper saying we dropped the bomb and photos taken and, you know all the stuff that goes with it and that, he says, ‘Right,’ he said, ‘Let’s, let’s the hell get out of here.’ You know [laughs] so that was obviously why. You learn these things afterwards as I say. Yeah.
JM: Because really, I mean if the fighters had intervened then the squadrons involved could have taken heavy losses and obviously the authorities were prepared to take the risk.
CC: Oh absolutely. Yes. Yes. It would have done but yeah what, I mean one of the dangers of course with that, was well I wouldn’t say not so much them actually shooting a normal Lancaster down. In fact, we had two fuel tanks, well the tanks were empty but they were still full of fuel gas you know and would have, would have naturally made it much more difficult if they’d been hit by bullets or anything like that I suppose.
JM: Well, this has been fascinating. I I would like to ask you just a little bit more about —
CC: Sure.
JM: Life on the squadron. You were on 617 Squadron and down the road at Woodhall Spa. Could you tell us a little bit about what the daily atmosphere was like as you were going about your training? Your preparations and so forth.
CC: In actual fact quite relaxed. Of course, all the officers were at the Petwood and you know which is the main story these days about 617 being at Woodhall Spa. But in actual fact of course we were on the other side of the aerodrome at Tattershall Thorpe and I don’t think you know where Thorpe camp is now.
JM: Well, we are actually volunteers at Thorpe camp.
CC: Oh well there you are.
JM: I should have said.
CC: Well, we were there of course. Yeah. You know. Sort of, yes we were in the woods [laughs] in, well in Nissen huts actually you know sort of converted into quarters. Day to day we just went down to the fly. We did a lot of sort of training and bombing runs at Wainfleet that’s now no longer there. No longer with us, you know. But spent a lot of time over Wainfleet and it was a lot of analysis of how close and that the practice bombs were dropped and and that sort of thing and one or two odds and ends that we got on. One thing we didn’t know very much about that we, I think it was in the November. Probably the November time. They were looking at dropping commandos in dinghies over Norway and the idea was to drop them on these dinghies with parachutes. Now, that’s all we knew and we did one or two trips, you know. Sort of nothing happened about it but and that was all we knew about it. It never took, it never took place you know. So —
JM: That would have been extremely difficult and hazardous an operation.
CC: Oh God. They could have [unclear] How they were going to do it I don’t know. There is, I think there is a bit of detail about you know. And the only other thing we had a few days down, our crew had a few days down at Boscombe Down where they were testing smoke. You know how the Red Arrows issue smoke out? They were looking for that sort of thing for the sort of bombing master to —
JM: Right.
CC: And it was a lot of boffins down there trying smoke flares and smoke. Mixing smoke with the exhausts and and all that sort of thing and we went down there to fly a Lanc. An old Lanc you know to —
JM: Who was your captain on those? On your time on 617?
CC: Sorry?
JM: Who was the captain? The pilot.
CC: Oh Leavitt. John Leavitt.
JM: Right.
CC: Yes. Yes.
JM: And did you take part in any of the operations that used the Grand Slam?
CC: No, because they didn’t, well not with a Grand Slam on but flying probably a ordinary Lanc because they didn’t carry a wireless operator or wireless equipment because of the, but there was you know a sort of shadow aircraft.
JM: Right. I’ve heard about that.
CC: Yeah. So that was the only way that I sort of went. Yes. But not actually drop, not actually to drop one. No.
JM: I believe the officer commanding 617 at that time would have been Wing Commander Tait would it not? Could you say a little bit about what he was like? He seems to have been quite a highly respected but somewhat distant figure. Would that be fair comment?
CC: He tended, well yes of course as NCOs you don’t come up against them. Against him you know. You normally only come and get your own signals leader for normal, you know. I mean you do see him but [pause] Yes. I met him quite, quite a bit at events after the war you know. Sort of. And I think he tended to be a bit reserved. Not shy. Yes, reserved probably, you know. He didn’t converse a great deal although you know I mean as far as commanding the flights on raids he seemed fine, you know, sort of thing. But he left us in the December ’44. But yeah. So —
JM: Now you started the conversation by, well once or twice referring to the famous film of the Dambusters.
CC: Oh yes. Yeah.
JM: I would like to just to ask you two final questions if I may relating to that. One of them was whether you have any memories of how you felt and how others felt who had served on the squadron at the time that the film was made? And secondly, there has recently been a follow up programme.
CC: Yes.
JM: Have you seen that?
CC: Oh, I’ve seen that. Yes.
JM: Whether you have any comments on that.
CC: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Of course, they, yes and in the follow up programme they said of course there was a lot of mistakes and that. Well, there would be you know. Much of the stuff was top secret still early in 1950s you know. And that’s why they when you look at the original film the, the sort of mines they dropped were round and not cylindrical you know. Sort of things like that and bits and pieces that film makers sort of do. Nothing, I don’t think there was anything to get all het up about if you know what I mean. Probably some would say, ‘Oh, Tait didn’t do that.’ Or Nigger didn’t do something or other [laughs] which was the name of course now that they’re having to try to avoid.
JM: Yes.
CC: But I did actually because they put the film on late didn’t they?
JM: Yes.
CC: Well, I wasn’t going to watch it you know and I thought yes I will and watch and see if they took any bits out but they didn’t you know. They left all the, but I think at one time it was tended to cut little bits out you know. Where reference to the COs dog was made but it, they didn’t, they left everything in. I mean it was just a dog you know. There was no disrespect for anything else. Never even been thought about it you know. It was just how it was in those days, you know. But there we are. That’s [pause] but yes I watched the remake of it. Yes. It wasn’t bad actually. I thought it was, you know sort of [pause] There we are. I don’t know what the new film is going be be like if it ever comes out.
JM: Colin, thank you very much. Your memory is pin sharp going back all those years and it’s been a privilege to listen to you so thank you so much for your interview.
CC: That’s alright. What did you ask me about the other aircraft?
JM: Yes. The other, the Lancaster.
CC: I can nip in to the other room.
JM: Yes that.
CC: And just get it if you like.
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 Colin Cole
1016-Cole, Colin
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v24
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Julian Maslin
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1944-08
1944-11-12
1945
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Norway
Atlantic Ocean
England--Lincolnshire
Norway--Tromsø
Scotland--Moray
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:32:24 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
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.
Description
An account of the resource
Colin Cole took part in the attack that sunk the Tirpitz. He describes how the aircraft was adapted for the operation and flew via Lossiemouth. Colin disposed of the Upkeep 'bouncing bombs' as part of his service with the RAF. They were dropped on the Atlantic Shelf and then the adapted Lancasters were scrapped. He trained for Tiger Force.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
617 Squadron
aircrew
bouncing bomb
Grand Slam
Lancaster
Lincoln
Operation Catechism (12 November 1944)
Operation Guzzle
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Scampton
RAF Wainfleet
RAF Woodhall Spa
Tallboy
Tiger force
Tirpitz
Wallis, Barnes Neville (1887-1979)
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46455/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v230002.mp3
523ce88877fb13518712fa48add88342
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
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
2017-06-19
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
RH: Right.
Interviewer: Hello there. Just for the record could you just please give your full name and date of birth.
RH: Yeah. My name is Reginald John Herring and I was born on the 25th of the 4th 1930.
Interviewer: Ok. Thanks. My name is Dave Harrigan and I’ll be just carrying out the interview with Reg. Reg, then, well let’s just start really before the war obviously.
RH: Yeah.
Interviewer: Just to talk a bit about your family background where you came from. Family history if you like and then we’ll just proceed through.
RH: Yes. Well, briefly I was born in Hackney. I had three brothers, three sisters and we moved from Hackney, they were going to pull the house down. I should say also at this point that my mother had died when I was six years old. So at that point we moved from Hackney to a place called Becontree. At that point my elder sister was married and away from the home. My second sister was away living in Norfolk with her friend. Her boyfriend. My third sister was engaged to be married and my eldest brother was already married. My second eldest brother had moved away to Wolverhampton to get married and I was left with my father and my elder brother Joe who was four years older than I. At this point it was during the beginning of the Phoney War. One thing that is vivid which I made a note of there is the barrage balloon incident at Whipps Cross Hospital, near Bridge Road where they hoisted a barrage balloon. We were all excited about it and so forth. Then the Phoney War went on. In the meantime, apparently I understand now that we were not at that time entitled to an Anderson shelter. We didn’t qualify for one so dad decided to build one and we were banned from going to the end of the garden until he’d finished it. This project involved the half rolls of mangles, wooden mangles and I don’t know if you can remember these wooden mangles or not but they are split into two half-moon sections. So we had, I don’t know how many of these mangle rolls delivered or dad brought them along but we were not allowed to go down there until he’d finished. And the great day come. It was a Sunday. I remember it being a Sunday and off we went down the end of the garden to see this wonderful shelter that he’d built which looked like Fort Knox with all the wood and as I say the dirt and a couple of little shelves inside for two candles apparently. Well, we said, ‘Oh yes, this is fine dad. Great.’ You know, ‘This is marvellous.’ Well, the following week it rained like hell and the whole lot collapsed. So we still [laughs] we still were not entitled to an Anderson shelter but by this time the six months had gone by and the war had actually started so we were evacuated, Joe and I, my brother. And the first evacuation was to Sizewell on the east coast. We weren’t there terribly long, about a month or so when for no reason we were aware of we suddenly got moved from there over to a place called Hockley Heath, twelve miles west of Birmingham. It wasn’t very pleasant. It was a detached home. Sorry, a semi-detached home with a Welsh family lived on one side and the people we were living with was, the husband was Welsh and the wife was English. The husband was a very stern man and we didn’t very much care for him at all. But by this time the time was creeping on. We had the usual things a child would have to do. Chopping wood and my particular job was to keep this water container full of water because we had no gas. We had no electricity. The lighting was an oil lamp that came down from the ceiling and it was, and the battery powered radio [pause] I’m going a bit too fast here. By this time Joe was now fourteen and he disappeared. He was taken back home. Apparently because he was fourteen and dad said he was ready for work so he couldn’t stay there. So I was now left on my own with this family. And the two children next door didn’t like me at all. I was a London boy. They didn’t like me. Anyway, time went on and as I say my duty was to fill this water bin up and also chop the wood. Keep the woodshed full of chopped wood. So this went on. If I wanted to I couldn’t, I was never allowed into the best room. We had a kitchen sort of with a wood burning stove in the corner but the best room I never went, actually went in. I went through it to go up the stairs to go to bed but I was never allowed to sit in it. So if they had their battery powered radio on with accumulators obviously I could listen to it through the wall. So I was quite content to listen to the radio through the wall until it was time for me to have to go to bed. And then we had a bus that took us to school. We had an incident on the bus. Now, again I was a bit of an outcast being a London boy. I wasn’t a local lad. I didn’t mix too well so I used to sit at the back of the bus and I always stayed there. And there was an incident with a malicious, wrong word, a girl was molested down at the front end. The bus driver by the way had a sort of a metal screen around the back. I can’t recall it exactly but he could hear the noise but couldn’t see what was going on and he wouldn’t stop the bus. I don’t know for what reason until we got to the school where there was a big kerfuffle and we was all taken into this room and interviewed. Nothing was said. We were all interviewed and the following day the bus turned up again as usual for school and there was this lady accompanying the students on the bus. So we all go to school again and again we get interviewed. Come back home and I can remember the woman saying to me, ‘You’d better go straight to bed because I don’t know what he is going to do when he comes home.’ Which frightened the life out of me. So now I went up to bed and shed a few tears. And then I heard a knock at the door and the voice I heard was, ‘Well, I think it’s better to leave him alone for tonight.’ So with that I didn’t hear any more and this lady went away. There were no telephones by the way. There was no way of communication other than by physically knocking on the door. Who this lady was I don’t know to this day. The following morning thinking I was going back to school again I started to get dressed and the lady came up and said, ‘I want you to put on your best clothes.’ She said, ‘We’re going to the Bullring at Birmingham,’ she said. ‘Apparently,’ she said, ‘Whatever was said about you was wrong and this is a present.’ So off we go to the Bullring at Birmingham. I’m wondering what I’m going to get as a present and we go into this ironmonger’s shop. Came out with a three quarter size axe. And then it dawned on me what the present was. It was for me for the wood from the shed. So anyway, I was out in the woods, the two lads next door and myself and looking for broken trees and sort of to cut up and they decided they wanted to have a go at me with birch branches. So they started battering me with these birch branches so I lost my temper and chased them back home with the axe. Shortly after that I got called back to London. Dad called me back to London and I then went on to Canterbury Road School and I was there for about two years I think. At that time my sister Maud who lived in Canterbury Road and her husband said to my father, ‘Well, we can give you one room for you and Reg to live in,’ you know, ‘For the time being.’ So dad and I lived in this one room. My sister had never done anything to it. Never cleaned it or anything like that. She had one child at this point and time went on. We had a couple of air raids then one in particular where we’d, we had a Morris shelter or a Morrison shelter which as you know is still famous with children in the second room at the front and the siren had gone and things were getting a bit noisy. So I grabbed the young boy, Terry, the youngest son and got him in to the shelter and my sister was just following us in when this bomb dropped. The next thing I know is that I’ve managed to pull the grill up. I remember getting the grill up. The grill was a framed mesh that you could drop down. I remember pulling it up and then it was all rubble then. Or dirt and rubble, noise, darkness. And then we heard the voices. ‘Are you ok? Are you ok?’ And these hands came in and started pulling the rubble and dust away and brought the grill down and as I made a note in there I said the faces, everybody’s face was white and grey. We all looked the same you know [laughs] It was quite weird. We got out at that particular point and then disaster struck. My sister had come into the room which she didn’t normally do and she’d found bed bugs under the bedframe. Now, the bed frame was the old-fashioned frame of two steel, one forward, one aft. Sorry one frame at one and one into the other and the bed itself was in a silver frame with a mesh on it dropped into it and it was in those joints where these bed bugs were coming. Now, my sister obviously told her husband who was a captain in the Home Guard and I could hear him having strong words with my father and the next thing I knew was we’d moved. We moved to one room in Leslie Road in Clapton. That home is still there. I’ve got it on the internet. So we got this one room. I’m now, what? Fourteen? About fifteen. Fifteen, sixteen years old. Dad had a girlfriend, a lady friend and when we moved there she said, ‘Well, I’ll take Reg’s ration coupons and his clothing coupons and I’ll see that he gets —' you know. Well, that didn’t happen. I never saw them again and I never got any clothes from her or anything else. Dad never stayed there. I say he never stayed there that’s wrong but he very infrequently stayed there so I’m more or less left on my own in this room. And the situation was that we had, there was a bathroom there but they’d boarded the bath over and left a bowl, a washing up bowl and there was a bucket with a lid on it that you could shut, put over the bucket and that was our toilet. And I used to have to take this bucket, it was terribly embarrassing for me at that age to have to take this bucket down the stairs, through their kitchen and empty it into their toilet at the bottom of the stairs and then wash it out and bring it back up again. And then horror of horrors I discovered more bed bugs. So I went out and bought myself a couple of boxes of Swan Vestas and I rolled the mattress back as far as I could get it at one end and I literally sat there burning these bed bugs. One in each corner and I moved the mattress back and burned the other corner. And when I saw my father I said, ‘I can’t stay here any longer. You know, I’ve had enough.’ So I went and joined the Navy. So I must have been seventeen and a half then. So that’s basically the, that part of the history. The rest of it is Naval.
Interviewer: I think it would be interesting just to so what was the actual date that you joined the Navy?
RH: I joined on the 1st of January 1948.
Interviewer: Right. So obviously after training there you just, you were part of the post-war fleet really.
RH: Yes, I mean I don’t know if you want the movements. I mean it was quite a quick.
Interviewer: Yeah. Please. Yeah.
RH: I went to Royal Arthur which I now understand was Butlins at the time or before the war. I was there for six weeks and then I was transferred then to HMS Anson which was a thirty five thousand ton battleship for a further six weeks which I then got myself into serious trouble. I knew nothing about the Navy like most of the new lads. Nothing. So the routine of having to change and get dressed into another part of the uniform, working rig they called it and be up on deck in twenty five minutes was beyond my capabilities. I couldn’t shower and, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t shower, get changed, get up on deck which was five decks below the main deck, right [laughs] to be on parade in time. And of course, having a shower in stone cold and it wasn’t fresh water it was salt water I couldn’t stop myself I had to urinate in the shower and one of the old ABs, able seaman who had seen the last war and the war before that, you know collared me. Put me in the rattle on charge. So I was then charged and my punishment was to be up on deck at 5 o’clock in the morning with two other lads who were also under punishment and we had a hundred weight of potatoes and we had to peel them by 7 o’clock.
Interviewer: By hand.
RH: That was part of the punishment. The other part of the punishment was jumping over six inch anchor cable with a rifle over your head. You know, to hop over the cable and hop right around the [unclear] front end, back over the starboard and port anchor and come back again and then hold the rifle out at arm’s length for thirty seconds. And the, what do you call it? The sight would make a dent in your arm. Actually bruise it, you know. We’d done this for seven days I think it was on the trot. It was all good fun.
Interviewer: So once you’d been indoctrinated then obviously we talked a bit about how the Korean war broke out. Would you like to mention that a little bit?
RH: Yes. That was quite quick for me. Theres a routine in the Navy that you were obliged to look at the notice board every morning. That’s the first priority. The reason for that is to see if you’ve been drafted. You’re being sent somewhere else. So I was in, hang on I’m in advance of myself. Yeah. Prior to that I was on bomb and mine wreck dispersal. Do you want that bit or shall we just move to the —
Interviewer: We’ll move onto the thing. Yeah.
RH: Yeah. Yeah, I was on HMS Tyrie, which was a trawler. There’s a photograph of it there. A converted trawler for wreck dispersal and we blew up wrecks on the east coast. Big [unclear] they were quite large [blows] because we used to use pairs of five hundred weight charges tied together. Take them out and you’d have two depending on the size of the wreck you’d have probably two on one side of the side of the boat, two on the other side of the boat. Not the ship. The sea boat. Right. You would have previously located that wreck with ASDIC, now called Sonar and you’d drop a marker buoy on it. So the following day you’d come back ready to drop your charges down alongside the ship. The idea being that either to blow a trench one side and then blow the ship or the remains of the ship into the trench or take off the superstructure. It had to be at a certain level below high water for the passage of big ships.
Interviewer: Right.
RH: Coming through the Channel. So that was the theory. We’d had a particularly nasty one where we’d lowered the charges and we were ready to blow and I’ve written what happened then. The boat sailed off for about two miles away and the sea boat then had a big reel of cable in it, electrical cable with a chunk of old copper iron plate for the earth and set the detonator charger, you know. And you would go by the buoy marker as to where the charger was obviously. Now, we didn’t realise it. Nobody realised it. Unfortunately, the gunner who was in charge of all this operation had gone sick and was replaced by another gunner who was very very young and unfortunately, no didn’t quite know what was going on. The chief torpedo man told him that it was unwise to set the charge until we’d done our last run and made sure that the buoy hadn’t moved. But he decided we’d carry on. Anyway, we blew the charge and we were too close to it and this three quarter ton reel of, three quarter underweight not a ton went over the side along with the stoker who was in charge of the engine. He got a broken arm, the coxswain got a broken ankle because the rudder came down and whacked him in the leg. So it was panic stations for a while and of course we got the first wave of the blow. So we managed to get the boat in line with it so we’d got bows on to it and took the, took the wave. In the meantime, the ship hurried along at ten noughts, we couldn’t go any faster [laughs] and picked us up. That was the Tyrie. I then went in the depot and went on to bomb and mine disposal and we had to go out to a Grimsby trawler during the night that had picked up a mine in its net. They wouldn’t let it in harbour obviously because of the, and if you could imagine this big net full of fish and stuck inside the fish was a dirty great mine swinging on a davit. So, anyway, we get out there and get aboard and it was an old World War One mine corroded, terribly corroded but in the compartment of the mine itself you’ve got quite a large airspace. You’ve got the main charge but quite a nice airspace and which had got compressed air in it and you’d got the detonator and primer and then the main charge. You’d got a detonator, primer, charge in that order. So the primarily thing is to get the detonator out first. Once you’d got that you were fifty percent safe. So to get to this situation we said to the skipper, ‘Well, you’ll have to lower the mine down on the deck.’ Bearing in mind that with a trawler there was plenty of light so it’s fair, you know. So plenty, so we got the coconut matting and lowered the mine down on the deck. And then we cut them out the trawler net and the skipper was screaming his head off because it was about three hundred pound he said for a new net. So we cut the net and all these fish came pouring out all over the place. You’ve now got a deck full of slippery fish, blood, guts and all the rest of it hanging out and a horrible looking mine sitting there very forlorn, you know [laughs] So anyway fortunately we spotted the detonator so the officer in charge said to me, ‘Alright, Herring.’ I don’t know, they don’t call me Reg. Herring. He said, ‘Put that in your pocket and get up on the bridge.’ I said, ‘Yes, sir. I put it in my pocket and I trundled up to the bridge. The skipper said, ‘What are you doing up here?’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve been ordered to come up here with the detonator.’ Well as soon as I said that he shot off [unclear] [laughs] So I’m standing there with this detonator in my pocket. I mean it’s dead, it wouldn’t do anything and we got the, got the primer out and declared the mine safe etcetera. So I then got the order to throw that detonator over the side and that was the end of that episode. Another episode was a bit sillier which involved a callout by a man. I don’t know what harbour it was, I don’t know what seaside resort it was but this chappy had previously reported a landmine on the coast. On the, on the foreshore. And the way I understood it was that if a mine was found above high water it belonged to the Army. If it was found below high water it belonged to the Navy. So we got called out and he had previously reported a mine, a landmine and it had been dealt with by the previous squad to me. So I was the new boy in this squad. You know, the do it all lad. So off we go down to wherever it was and I can remember there being a jetty with a load of people on it in the distance. But the chappy said he’d marked it with some stones but unfortunately the tide was coming in so we had to be a bit sharp about it. So we formed up in line abreast and shuffled our way through the surf until we, one of us stumbled across this little pile of stones you see. I say little pile, it was quite a big pile. Right. Ok, we’ve located it. By this time the sea is now coming in urgently so the gunnery officer in charge said, ‘Right,’ he said, ‘Herring, get out there,’ he said, ‘With the phone.’ We had been a portable handset phone and, ‘Get out there,’ he said, ‘And see if you can feel around it and tell us what the measurements are and so forth, roughly.’ I said, ‘Right.’ So I’ve got my hands in this sand and silt, I’ve got the sea coming up and I can’t swim by the way. I’ve got the sea coming up over my shoulders and I’m saying, ‘Well, I think it’s about two foot wide, sir and about two inches, three inches deep.’ Because as far as you put your hands in the sand it came back again at you. So you know you couldn’t really tell. I said, ‘It’s got a handle in the middle.’ So, I heard a sort of a mumble. ‘Right. Ok. Get a line on it. It’s a mark —’ something or other. I could only just get this in the phones. So I tie the rope around the handle. It’s quite true this is. We all got back to the shore, pull the cord tight on this so-called mine and the four of us got on to the end of it and heaved. Nothing happened. So we commandeered four policemen. Now, by this time the crowd on the jetty had got bigger. They was quite some way away but they had got bigger. And the four policemen and ourselves heaved on this line so the order is two, six, heave. You’ve probably heard it yourself. So anyway, ‘Two, six, heave,’ and we were all flat on our backs and out comes a brightly green painted dustbin lid.
Interviewer: Oh no.
RH: So [laughs] it was just after that I was sent to Korea [laughs]
Interviewer: As a punishment [laughs]
RH: I was causing too much trouble I think.
Interviewer: I agree. That’s marvellous. I mean we’re getting near the end of our time but if its ok with you I’d just take a quick resume really of your service in Korea. You know, what actions that you saw.
RH: Yeah.
Interviewer: The ship you served on.
RH: I was shipped out to Hong Kong and I was supposed to pick up the Cossack at Hong Kong.
Interviewer: That’s HMS Cossack.
RH: Sorry, the HMS Cossack. Yes. But unfortunately, I was unwell and was transferred to the Peak Hospital which is or was right on the top of the mountain at Hong Kong. There was a Navy hospital here. In the meantime, Cossack had sailed off to Japan ready to load up for the Korean action presumably. Anyway, I was sent to the Peak and after about five weeks I came back down again and I joined a New Zealand frigate for passage to Hong Kong, to Seoul. That was what I was told. They were going to Seoul because nobody really knew anything at that point in time and I joined the frigate and we sailed out of Hong Kong and I was, I went down to the Mess desk and the Mess deck was in total silence. And that’s totally unusual for a ship. Everybody was dead quiet. And it turned out that when you were in harbour on a, on a warship they normally put an awning over the quarter deck so the officers can have tea parties and so forth while they are in harbour. But as soon as you leave harbour you take it down and this rating had gone along the guard rail itself to take down part of the awning and slipped and gone underneath the [port screw]. So the journey out to Cossack was quite miserable. It was only about, I don’t know twenty four hours or so. The two ships met in some bay. I don’t know what bay. I don’t know where it was but this frigate joined up with the Cossack and they lowered the boat and I jumped in it. Take the boat over to the Cossack, climbed the ladder, saluted the quarter deck and before I could get down below she was underway and off to clear. At 5 o’clock in the morning we were firing all guns and we had anti-shock lamps and every one blew. We had, what was it? Coconut. Not coconut. Cork. We’d had corks all over the deck head. So apart from the broken glass and everything else we were covered in cork. That was our opening attack [laughs]. The next thing that invaded us was cockroaches. So I mean the ship had never fired it’s guns for a long time. It hadn’t fired them since the, I think it was the Narvik raid. It had been fired with dummy shells, you know blank shells but never the actual cordite shells so of course the kick back was tremendous. It went right through the ship and all the cockroaches thought we’ve had enough of this and fell down like, you know [laughs] So you got a dinner full of cockroaches. What did we do then? Yes, we’d done a lot of secret things that no one would ever admit to. We had a job to go and apparently to pick up this man who was supposed to have been an agent for South Korea and we had twelve bods on board and by God they looked ferocious. They were blacked up. They were bearded. They weren’t Naval people at all and they sat on the torpedo deck during the passage and we’d, we’d hoisted up alongside on the port bow. I remember a dhow, a small dhow. I don’t know the details of it but I found out afterwards that the idea was that they were to be taken to a certain point up on the Korean coast, loaded on the dhow, sailed off and capture this bloke. They caught the bloke because I’ve seen photographs. Well, I’ve seen the bloke himself with a bullet through his head on the upper deck of our ship. That’s another little story. They brought him back but they wouldn’t bring him back alive. They would not bring him on board alive. They insisted that they kill him first and they did. They killed him first and they sailed off on their dhow and that was the end of that. So we had this body in a cabinet, a steel cabinet on the deck which normally held brooms and scrubbers and things like that you know. And this body was temporarily bunged into this cabinet. Right. Now, we have the middle watch coming up. The middle watch is from twelve to 4 o’clock in the morning and the gunnery people are always on standby. They’re not at action stations but they were at what they called cruising stations whereby they can immediately be at action stations if required. So therefore they’ve got to stay by their guns. So there’s one man on the phone, sitting on his guns who has to be on watch all the time. The other three or four of them could lay down on the decking if they wanted to. But they couldn’t leave the deck. They had to be in their positions. Now, apparently, I don’t know who organised it to this day, how it was worked out but the body during the middle watch was taken up and laid alongside the now prone sleeping sailors who were dozing off during the middle watch. When it came to the end of the watch they all sort of woke themselves up and started to come down the deck for their food and which left one bod laying down who nobody knew about. So, ‘Come on Harry, what the hell are you doing.’ You know. ‘Get up. It’s the end of the watch.’ And of course, that’s what they’d done they’d put the body on the deck at the same time [laughs] So —
Interviewer: Military humour never changes does it?
RH: No. No.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RH: But —
Interviewer: Ok. Well, thank you very much Reg. We’ve come to the end of the time now.
RH: Yeah. That’s alright.
Interviewer: It’s a wonderful tale you’ve told there. Very eloquent. Thank you very much and we will be in touch with you. Ok.
RH: Alright. Fine. Yeah.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Reginald John Herring
1014-Herring, Reginald CJ
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v23
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dave Harrigan
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
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 Navy
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:36:25 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
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.
Description
An account of the resource
Reg Herring was living in London at the start of the war with his father and elder brother. His father built a shelter that collapsed after a heavy rainfall. Reg was evacuated to Sizewell and then to near Birmingham. After the war Reg returned to London and decided to join the Navy where he worked as bomb and mine disposal. He had many interesting years in the Navy including a strange mission to collect the body of a spy.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Birmingham
England--London
England--Sizewell
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
childhood in wartime
evacuation
shelter
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2191/46454/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v220002.mp3
20688448837d2c55a1a2302fabf8a0d9
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
Reid, Kathleen
Reid, K
Reid, Kathryn
Reid, Katy
Description
An account of the resource
92 items and a <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2219">sub-collection with thirty-seven poems/songs</a>. The collection concerns Kathryn (Katy) Reid (Royal Air Force) and contains memoirs, correspondence, poems and photographs. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by David Stuart Miers Reid and catalogued by Nigel Huckins
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-01-23
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.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Reid, K
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer: Today is the 30th of September 2012 and I’m here talking with Katherine Reid about her time serving at RAF Waltham. So, Katherine please could you tell me a little bit about when you joined up?
KR: When I, when I did. How I came to sign up you mean? Well, I, I was an occupied person at work. I needn’t have joined up but I, I decided that I, I wanted to try and get into the RAF. I was very small and I didn’t know whether they would accept me but they did. I, I was very healthy they said so that was the main point and then of course I did the pre-training and I was sent to RAF Grimsby. That was my first station. I wasn’t very really very far from home so that was nice. I was able to go on my days off back to see my mother and father so, but the atmosphere [pause] I was at three or four other camps during the war. I think I had five places really to go that I was sent to but the lingering memory is of Grimsby. It was such a, you could call it almost a happy station. It is quite the opposite of what, of course it was running for and that was a dreadful number of deaths. But the atmosphere was always quite as cheerful as it could possibly humanly be and the lady, the woman officer we had for the WAAFs was exceptionally kind. And when we’d had an awful lot of tragedies I remember one Christmas she organized a children’s party for children in the village and we were invited to go and help there. And that, that was a very nice thought. She was particularly kind. I’m so sorry I can’t remember her name. But also the other officers were very good too. Now, I had, I was a volunteer but I had not got any particular qualifications for whatever. I decided what I wanted to be was in flying control and at first I had to do what all the volunteers, all the girls who were called up had to do and that was you had to do all the cleaning and you had to even use a duster on the ceilings you know, everywhere. And all the unpleasant things that you had to do and I think it was a sort of an early training to see if you were capable of doing that. Maybe they thought you were capable of doing further things. However, it was a rough time and we had a, if I could, I won’t name her but we did have a Scottish officer and when I and the girl who I’d met when we’d found we had things in common, she’d just been told that too. And we went in front of her and she said, ‘Oh, how good of the Air Force to send two volunteers to clean my station.’ [laughs] And that rather calmed us down you see and so we had to clean the station. We had to do the dusting up high on the, all the wires that were in the different rooms and everything and our life was rather sordid but we did adapt for a few months. And then she was lucky and she was given the, because she was a very good shorthand typist in civilian life she was given this job of of working with the head man who was, he arranged the bombing runs and what to do there and she stayed there all during the war and got a very high [pause] what do we call it? Well, something to signify her good work and so that was rather nice after starting right at the bottom as we did. Well, I was lucky and after a few months when I was there being, I was looking after the WAAF officers I used to sometimes do that but I could never get the fire going for them coming back into their room you know. That was a great worry to me because I could never get that thing going and I didn’t particularly like it there, the work although the officers were very nice. The lady officers. However, then I had to, so I was, one of the WAAF corporals in charge of the telephone, she said to me, ‘I will get you trained and you can go into the telephone office,’ you see. So I took the training and passed and so I went in. We had a very big, in Grimsby a very large telephone department and one night one of the officers came in. I was there alone. At night you did night duty sometimes by yourselves and I said, ‘But I didn’t join up just to be a telephonist. I want to be where the action is.’ And so he laughed but two days later I was, I worked from in the morning and a girl was shaking me and saying, ‘Come on. Come on. You’ve got to get a bus.’ And I said, ‘Why?’ And she said, 'Well, the squadron leader has said you are to go for a week to Waltham.’ Waltham Grimsby, and so I quickly got myself ready and got the bus and off I went to Grimsby and I saw those planes and I thought oh my gosh, isn’t that wonderful. However, then I spoke to the officer there and he was a very kind man and I said, ‘Well, you see I joined up to be where the planes are.’ I wanted to do something that was directly, you know, ‘Something directly with the actual actions of the war.’ And he, so he said, ‘Well, I can’t get you to Cranwell yet but I’ll send you upstairs to flying control and you can learn to do the work.’ So I was very fortunate and we had two girls doing the radio and so I joined them and after a few weeks I was able to take my own, you know my own time and duty with them. There was always two girls. One to do their notes, did everything that was said over the air from the airmen and everything that was said to us in the flying control had to be, you know written down so that it could at times any reason for going back on what had happened on, you know if there was a tragedy or something like that they knew what had been said to a certain extent. It was not shorthand but it was a sort of a very rough kind of English just so you could make out because of course people were talking quickly. You didn’t have time to go slowly and it was in English or whatever. I used to turn it and so that’s what happened and they, we had to bring them down at night and we stacked them. We stacked them at so many feet between we had a big wheel in front of us and we had some iron A B Cs at the beginning of their names you see and we put them on the hooks so we knew exactly when we had them in the air when they came back. And one was given the first course, lined up, and prepare to land and then the next one was brought in, ‘Prepare to land,’ when we told him, you know that he could come down. So we were very busy for over an hour concentrating on this. You never sort of thought of anything else. You concentrated on which aircraft. It was their number and their name. A for Abel and so on you see. I made that clear and you put the hook, you put their number, their ring on the hook. Looking at it we knew exactly where we had them stacked. And then afterwards you’d turn and look at the, at the end where you, we would go on for over an hour and you would look at the wall where the airman of the watch had put the names of the poor men who hadn’t returned. And we then, one of us would stay on duty all night and we’d get the airman of the watch. He used to sleep on the corner by one of the, well we had plenty of machines there. You know, big machines in big iron cases and he used to sleep there in the corner and, but we were alone there listening out for anyone who managed to come back or anybody else who wanted help and the officer of the watch used to be asleep in a room just next door to us so that if it was technical or something like that because I think that was one of the weaknesses at Cranwell when I got there. We were not given enough information on on the way that they needed help. Especially the young fliers who were training and when they first were on their own some of them were very very nervous and you had to get an officer to give them, you know any help that they might need with their engine if you follow me, on a plane there on saying that.
Interviewer: Yeah.
KR: And you, you know you felt well we should have been given some instruction because you could tell how nervous some of these young men were on their first flight by solo flying and we used to grieve for them about that. However, then [pause] oh yeah so we, so one of us stayed all night listening out. I hope I put that clearly enough and then we would have the day off. Part of it would be sleep and we’d be ready then to go back on duty the next night. But always two girls and, but about, during the day there were quite a lot of officers sitting around the table and they were there if we needed technical instruction, you know to give out to anyone. It was very very sad sometimes. We had a lot of losses. A lot of men not returning. But the atmosphere on that station to say that was absolutely wonderful and everybody was so nice to each other you know and so kind. I never heard an officer getting cross or anything like that or any, any trouble and the girls that were in the Nissen huts, that was always a happy time. We just had the old cook stove and the, the [pause] we had an officer in the photographic department and he used to go around the shops and sort of talk nicely to the shop keepers and he used to get things given you see in the way of food and then he used to bring some to our hut because one of his girlfriend’s was in our hut. And one night he got some mushrooms and we used to put it in the big, a long big pan that we had, iron one and put that iron one into the one stove we had in the, in the hut. And then we used to all sit around you see after one girl had cooked whatever he’d given us. And one night he’d got mushrooms and we were looking forward to eating these lovely mushrooms and then one of the girls called out, ‘Oh,’ You know. There was something there in the mushrooms that was the grubs [laughs] so we couldn’t eat them. It was rather disappointing but on the whole we were lucky and thanks to this man we always had something to eat in the evenings. Then so, but I I continued in flying control quite a year or so and then my, the posting came through to go to Cranwell. Now, I we had dances of course. Dances for, for aircrew. They, they always had glamourous girlfriends in beautiful dresses you know, and they had the room where they used to go to the dancing but we also had our dances and a little place we made up and for entertainment. So that was quite nice but we also had a few boys who could play instruments and so we had dances and you know they would come in groups of people and that was rather nice. And a few lectures. There was always something happening anyway, and we used to dance as well and because most of the girls in those days were not expert dancers and so, of course they didn’t know, the airmen who were dancing with because usually they’d had a little drink you know before they’d come to the dance. So it didn’t matter that we couldn’t dance either. They didn’t realise that [laughs] So that was nice. Happy parties we had. And then we used to go to the cinema down in Grimsby. So, so it was plenty of entertainment. Then from, well Grimsby well the worst night [pause] the worst night was the night we had the fog. They, now people in looking after the weather they didn’t seem to have an awful lot of equipment and going now you know to not in, it was a long way from the end of the war. We were about middle of the time of the war and they didn’t have, they did have equipment don’t get me wrong but they didn’t have a lot and they used to come up to flying control every day with balloons and put them up and something they could contact from the effect of this. They helped, would help them with their other instruments to say about the weather if I’ve explained that properly. Anyway, they had forecast that there would be fog stretching across a lot of the north of England but it would be clear. The air would be clear by the time that the men had returned from the bombing the capital of Germany. But as I say it wasn’t quite the modern equipment that they had and they were wrong. And so that was the most awful night because when our men came back there were so many crashes and so many deaths. We had ninety men killed coming back. Not from events being over the capital of Germany and come back alright but trying to land at Grimsby was almost impossible the fog was so very dense. And we, you see when they tried to come back in the darkness as I understand the way it was explained to me they were a wonderful plane but when even if their wings were to touch something else like another plane wing or or even a tree or something like that then that Lancaster would just drop and this is what was happening you see. Coming back more or less at the same time and we lost the ninety men and the doctor in charge was very upset that there was all of these men and he couldn’t save one. So you can imagine the atmosphere on the station and it was just a few days before Christmas. The WAAF officer arranged a children’s party for the children of the village and we were asked, the WAAFs were asked to help to organise it so that helped. And it, we made it quite as happy, and aircrew was taking part, the ones that were left to make it a happy Christmas for these village children. But that was typical of the station and of course we had the usual Christmas celebrations even though the atmosphere of the station had been so sad losing so many men and a Christmas dinner like all other Air Force stations had with the same amount of food. So that was quite good. But then I got my posting after I’d waited about a year and a half to go to Cranwell. And my boyfriend who, we used to go to the cinema. He was a Yorkshire boy, about, he was twenty one and he, we used to go to the cinema down in Grimsby and often we would walk back because, often and at other camps there was a bus and, but when you the first time I was on the bus coming back with all the aircrews who had been having a good evening out you know you oh you were quite shocked at the songs [laughs] and things like that. They were so happy but then you got used to it all and they were particularly very kind and considerate with me. It was amazing because I was the smallest WAAF on the station and they called me half pint [laughs] always addressed me as half pint. And so it was always a happy bus coming back from the cinema or any dancing that they’d been to down in the town. But so that was good and I think this was always every night a bus brought them back if you’d been down in to Grimsby to have a nice evening out. But we did have lovely dances. The officers had their separate one and as I say they, they, the women from around who were invited were always dressed very glamourous. We used to try to look as best as we could in our [laughs] in our uniforms but, and as I say most of us couldn’t dance in those days but nobody cared because you know you were just happy and you had little drinks some of us that did enjoy a little drink on special occasions. And then it was always sad when the night was over because you know you just thought well have had a celebration and what would tomorrow bring really. But you didn’t try to think about that.
Interviewer: Could you —
KR: We had a happy social life and then so, but and when I went to Cranwell just then about this time that I’m talking about the, my friend who was this Yorkshireman he, he ferried my kit bag up to when I’d go up the hill to the bus and we’d be off to Cranwell and we were on to each other then until in that terrible fog their plane as I say was lost. So that was very sad. But I did write to his people in Yorkshire and got a nice letter back and he was buried in the grave of his uncle there in Yorkshire. But he was only twenty one and it made you realise what a, what a waste of life war is. War is a waste. A precious waste. Then, but that’s almost the end of my time at Grimsby dear. I passed exams at Cranwell. They were Scottish instructors and I’d been teaching in Scotland when I was, before the war and of course I used to think why they don’t open their mouths more. It must be the cold weather in Scotland you know [laughs] But, and the same thing with these two men. They were very clever instructors but they didn’t open their mouths so you had to concentrate like mad and of course there was no heat at Cranwell. No heat at all. We had chill blains on our hands and feet and what we used to wear our greatcoats and our mittens even because no room was warmed up at all and, and then you had to concentrate like mad. Like mad on their Scottish accents. And they were excellent instructors but it was a very cold time. Believe me it really was. And we had the, we had, we were tested of course. There was written tests and twice, twice we had written tests and we had tests on the actual working of the machinery that we had to deal with. And it was a happy time but a very very cold time. Everybody was sitting in their warmest coats and put several socks on our feet, you know to keep warm and I remember that for the coldness and the food wasn’t very good there. We used to depend on the Salvation Army coming around and the other vans if we ever wanted. So after I’d passed all my exams I was hoping to get back to Grimsby but instead I was sent south. I was sent, that’s right, being with bombers I was sent down to Norfolk with the fighters. I don’t know whether you want to know about them or not because the difference was, the difference was how clever it was for whoever did it in the Ministry of the Air Force to select the man for a job. The fighters that were young men who were, you know get up and go and a bit more happy go lucky and the bombers were serious and were still happy some of them. Amazing how they could be happy in the job they had. But it was amazing how they were like family men and a lot were unfortunately and had children and that would make you even more sad when they didn’t return or were injured which so often happened. But it was very interesting how they somehow seemed to select in nine cases out of ten the right kind of man for the job. And that was more of course happy go lucky type of a station down there in Norfolk.
Interviewer: And how was it working with the Americans in Norfolk?
KR: Oh, the Americans. Oh, I was on an American station. That was after Grimsby. And they were separate even though we worked with them in this big station and that was actually in Norfolk. Not very far from Grimsby. Not Norfolk. Grimsby. And they worked separately even they had their own flying control. They used to bring down their bombers by having a plane up in the air and directing them from the air. And of course, their flights were mostly in the mornings. Daylight. They bombed by day and it was rather a sight to see them going off in the mornings you know. So many planes. Hundreds of them it seemed and they were brought down by somebody in an aircraft in the sky.
Interviewer: Yeah.
KR: Which was strange to us. And we always wondered why they had very good sentries at night on every plane that was left in the airfield. They had their separate, separate part of the airfield but like cut in half and they had their own machinery and everything. We didn’t have anything to do with them. But except if things went wrong a bit and they were worried about certain, the communication system and on the day of the, when war, the last day of the war, the last days of the war I should say their, their signals weren’t working so of course I remember this man coming around to me and getting very upset about this because it was very important. But they directed them coming, their planes from one plane up in the sky directing the landings from there. Well, of course we were still down in our office in the airfields and bringing our men down like that. But it was very interesting in that it was so, we were so separate but yet, and we didn’t ever have any functions you know for our spare time. But of course we, and we didn’t ever have their good food. They had wonderful food in but we did not have good food there and towards the end of the war it was very bad indeed. You could tell that our country was short of the necessary foods and so one of the girls whose father was a doctor said that we must put plenty of jam on our bread. You know, to get a bit of nutrition. So we did just as we were instructed and we were only too pleased to because we got so fed up of just having well yes, plain foods but it was plain too that our country was short of foods. We did have [pause] we didn’t have any of their ice cream and their luxury food. They had their, they were billeted away from the lake. We had the lake with the airmen stationed at one side of the lake and we were stationed far enough away on the other side of the lake but, and we had one dance with the, with the Americans and we didn’t even get any ice cream [laughs] which was very disappointing to us. But they on the whole it was you know you used to socialise with them but they were treated like children almost if I can put it that way. I don’t mean to be disrespectful but everything had to be reported and if, you never knew when if you made a date with them whether they would come because something else had gone wrong on the station. But on the whole the atmosphere was quite good and their uniforms were made of very I remember much better material than our boys you know [unclear] to keep them warm in the winter. But it was a wonderful sight to see them all going off in their planes. Their white planes every morning. And you’d often wish that you would have been able to be helpful in directing them because they were so busy. But so, but you could tell that at the end of the war food was not easy for us. I was with the fighters there and one night, oh it was a new station. I must remember to tell you that. We got the last station for fighters at the end of the war down there in Norfolk.
Interviewer: What was the name of the station?
KR: Pardon?
Interviewer: So what was the name of the station at Norfolk?
KR: Oh dear [pause]
Interviewer: It doesn’t matter if you can’t remember.
KR: I don’t know but it was the last one. Actually, I’m afraid I’ll have to leave you to find it.
Interviewer: That’s fine. Don’t worry.
KR: But you know, it was on this one and we had a very important man who was, who was taking it over and again I’m sorry I don’t have a remembrance of his name. But they were all fighters because we needed the fighters to escort the bombers to the last efforts of bombing Germany, capable of bombing every night and we, so but he was a very eminent man. Now, I was a highly, I was a highly trained RT operator and so I was going to get my, I was going to be made on the higher grade but instead I was posted to this new station. Me and one other girl and I must just tell you just quickly about this because they were all learners more or less and so one night they were doing circuits and bumps. That means going and flying off and just doing a few circular loops and then coming down again. There were sixteen new planes and they were all lined, lined up in front of me and I had to do the speaking and I had this girl with me. She was doing the racking and this very eminent doctor man I’m sorry I can’t give you the name, I’ve forgotten it. I didn’t write it down and you do forget over the years but, and he said to me, ‘Well, I think I’d rather do the speaking.’ And I took at that and I confess and answered the officer and I said, ‘But sir, I was trained at Cranwell. I’ve done three or four years of this work and I’m quite capable.’ So he just sat down beside me just in case [laughs] But he never said another word and I brought those sixty men in at night time, you know. Each one had to get up and then check them around and then come down and I brought them all down safely and I was very pleased with myself [laughs] But that was the first time I’d ever really taken a deep breath and thought oh gosh what does he think we’re here for. So that was, and that was then I got a scholarship so my life changed altogether because I had got a scholarship to a place in London for training for the theatre. And although I wish that I’d stayed another year or so to see how this new station got on but there we are.
Interviewer: Is there a, sorry —
KR: The only, the only, there was one tragedy when I was on duty. I don’t know. I think I should tell you about it. This was in Norfolk. Now, the bombers were disciplined but the fighters were not, I don’t know why and they used to chatter to one another when they were up in the air. And so when you were trying to get a message to them it was very difficult because of all the chattering and they were up for circuits and bumps. That meant that they were up and down you see exercising and there was twenty seven of them up that day and it was daylight. The weather good but they were busy chatting and then the call came through to me to say that there was something wrong with their engine and they wanted to come around the opposite way to land to what the whole twenty seven of them would do, you see. Instead of coming down in good order they wanted [pause] so I, because you couldn’t say anything like that with twenty seven men up. You couldn’t. You had to call to the officer sitting at a desk, sometimes not near enough to you as they should have been to ask permission. So, I had to get through all the tangle of their gossip because they were not disciplined as I say like the bombers to be quiet and only speak when it was necessary. They just chatted away. Be happy go lucky as it were. And so I had to get the message first to get permission from him for this plane to come and land the opposite way to what we were landing. I put it clear and unfortunately, they, they didn’t get my message because they couldn’t get, I couldn’t get through all the chatter that was on. Had that been bombers it would have got through and so they crashed and they were, I had to put down there were twenty six planes. I watched men die in a burning plane. When I got up I couldn’t ride my bicycle and anything, any food for a long time. It didn’t taste right. I was terribly terribly upset about it but they gave me pills and things like that and but I just felt oh dear. I can’t tell you how I felt because I, you know I just thought I tried to get back to them. I did get back to them but they didn’t get the message because of all the other pilots chattering. Not on what they were doing but joking to one another, you see. But that was the type of fighter. I suppose that was the type of fighter you really wanted. Somebody who was lighter hearted. But I couldn’t ride my bicycle when I got off duty and I couldn’t eat and everything so I asked, I asked for a posting. Nobody, I was, there was no criticism. I had done what I could so everybody was nice to me and after you know I was given a lot of vitamins and thing like that. But I thought no I would get away. So I asked for a posting and I finished the war on a station where we were dealing with, that was in Yorkshire and it was when they were fighters. So I was still with fighters. They were negotiating with them from the ground to find the enemy which was interesting. Very interesting. And so I finished the war there where you did twenty four hours and used to sleep there at night on the floor. Our only, well it was the rats. They, your sleeping bag got chewed sometimes where your feet were. The right place. But we used to do night duty sending the, we had the appliance to find where our aircraft was in the sky you see. To direct them to the bomber and where they were as well. And so I did more where the fighters again were after the enemy and it was interesting and the station [near a farm] But you were just, you did twenty four hour duties there but you did miss the station. They were just in this village twelve of us WAAFs stationed on farms. So the food was good but you missed that comradeship of the, of the other girls and the rest of the people. So I had a very interesting war.
Interviewer: I believe there is a poem that you want to share with us.
KR: Pardon?
Interviewer: Is there a poem that you’d like to share with us just before we end?
KR: Finish our —
Interviewer: So, did you want to read a poem?
KR: Oh well. I’d love to. I don’t really need to, I know it but perhaps I’d better so you can edit it. I’d better, I wrote it on the back of my book here. Have I said enough? Have I said enough?
Interviewer: No, you’re been more than welcome to read your poem if you like.
KR: Pardon?
Interviewer: You’ve been very very helpful. Absolutely.
KR: Are you sure?
Interviewer: Absolutely. Thank you very much.
KR: Is it still on?
[recording paused]
“Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-laden wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the lofty silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air….
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor even eagle flew —
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.”
“At Cranwell in winter was a bind.
A colder place than Cranwell is very hard to find.
Why should I stand and shiver?
It’s time I used my head.
Instead of turning to a block of us,
Next Sunday I’ll stay in my bed.
My good idea turned to ashes,
Snug in bed on Sunday to find,
Two hundred WAAFs at Cranwell
Were all in this state of mind.
Two hundred WAAFs at Cranwell.
What a wonderful sight to be seen.
After two weeks of spitting and polishing
Cranwell had never been so clean.”
That’s because we had to wait outside the week before going into Sunday Service. We had to. The WAAFs had to be the last to go in of course because we were the least important. That was understandable but we were very cold. It was in the middle of winter and there was ice around us and everything but we hadn’t said we’d do this. We hadn’t said we’re not going to the service but we all must have had the same thought. So because we didn’t go to the service we were put on jankers for a fortnight.
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 Kathleen (Katy) Reid
1013,1014,1015-Reid, Kathleen M
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v22
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-09-30
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:52:08 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dawn Oakley
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
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.
Description
An account of the resource
Kathleen Reid worked in reserved occupation but wanted to join the RAF as a WAAF. She was initially trained as a telephonist but remustered to flight control. Duty meant staying all night in the tower to guide flights home. Then they would be left with the grim sight of the board detailing the flights that had not returned. Her boyfriend was killed while trying to land in thick fog. After being based at RAF Grimsby she went for further training at Cranwell and was posted to a fighter station in Norfolk. Fighter discipline was different than what she was used to with bombers and on one occasion there was a tragedy when she could not communicate with a pilot in trouble because of the on-air chatter and the plane crashed.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
control tower
ground personnel
RAF Cranwell
RAF Grimsby
training
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46452/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v210002.mp3
bb25f9759fe68b4d9e2f7a48a1017036
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
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
2017-06-19
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer: It’s the 18th of May 2012 and I’m here to interview Mr Allan Holmes whose uncle was with 103 Squadron here. Right Allan, could you tell us about your uncle.
AH: I certainly can. Right. My uncle who was Frank Norman Holmes born at Twenty Foot in Kirmington and went to school at Kirmington. He joined 103 Squadron in 1941 and completed thirty ops with Geoff Maddern, Don Charlwood, Graham Briggs. I forgot the names of the others just at the moment. And then after they did the thirty ops he went to Finningley Gunnery Training, didn’t like that and volunteered for 582 Pathfinders and on the, that was in 1944, I think and he was lost on the night of May the 4th 1944 on a raid to Montdidier. That was the same night as the big Mailly raid where there was four hundred odd bombers. The other thing a little story about Uncle Frank was he was always late for briefings at Elsham because him and [pause] I’ve forgot his name now. Anyway, he was always looking, he was always going poaching and he got caught with the Lord Yarborough’s game keeper and was taken before Lord Yarborough who said to his game keeper, ‘What’s this man doing here?’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘We’ve caught him poaching, my lord.’ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘He can go shooting wherever he likes. Don’t bring him here again because he’s doing a far better job than you.’ And so that was some of the antics that they got up to. He was lost on May the 4th as I said 1944. He is laid to rest in a cemetery in Rouen in France. I don’t remember him because I was only about four years old then when he was lost. Another little story apparently when I was a little kid the, when he came home on leave my dad, my father and Uncle Frank they had a little air rifle, not very powerful I don’t think and they used to give me pennies to crawl under the table and they used to fire pellets at my backside. So they was always up to some fun and you know they had to have some fun in them days because who knows how long they was going to be here with us. They never grew into old men. He was always a young guy to me. There’s not a lot more I can say about him really.
Interviewer: You regularly go to the Mailly Le Camp Remembrance Service. Could you tell us something about that?
AH: Yeah. Mailly Le Camp. That was a big raid. Some Lancasters went from Elsham Wold. One of the old veterans Jimmy Graham was one of the men that flew on that and Jimmy was at the Mailly celebrations or commemorations this May which is 2012 with one or two others. Another Australian guy there as well. It’s very well attended. The Air Cadets from Scunthorpe and —
Interviewer: Immingham.
AH: Immingham. They also come along and form, they have the band which comes along with us and do various presentations, concerts and they do all the national anthems for all the cemeteries that we visit. The British, the Australian, the Canadian, New Zealand and they put up a good show for us does the Cadets. And we do various other visits after that to different cemeteries and the reception we get is absolutely fantastic from all the French people and all the standard bearers that turn out. Firemen. Everybody at every cemetery that we go to which is absolutely fantastic. So all the lads that we lost are all very well remembered and the cemeteries and the graves are all fantastic and well looked after.
Interviewer: That’s fabulous. Lovely. Thank you.
AH: So, there you go.
Interviewer: Thank you, Allan. That’s brilliant. Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Allan Holmes
1012-Holmes, Allan-N Lincolnshire Disc 2
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v21
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-05-18
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
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
Second generation
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:05:24 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary. Allocated C Campbell
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
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Description
An account of the resource
Allan Holmes’ uncle was Flight Sergeant Frank Norman Holmes (1577142 Royal Air Force) who flew operations as an air gunner with 103 and 582 Squadrons. He was killed 4 May 1944 on an operation to Didier.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
103 Squadron
582 Squadron
air gunner
RAF Elsham Wolds
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46451/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v200002.mp3
a3cc9457bfc32817edb3570731f1d74f
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
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
2017-06-19
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer: It’s the 18th of May 2012 and I’m speaking to Mr John Tomlinson who was a resident in Elsham Wolds during the war. In Elsham village during the war. Thanks for talking to me, John and I’d just like you to recall your memories from the wartime when RAF Elsham Wolds was active.
JT: Well, I left school early because I managed to get an apprenticeship with the Air Ministry Works Department. So they allowed me to leave school early and I came up here and I was an apprentice electrician and I found myself working most of the time on the runways when the Wellingtons were here. And we, we had to work when the operations were on and it was very very cold on the runways in the winter. And we more or less counted the planes in and counted them back and it was very distressing at times when not all of them came back. I remember various ones crashing on the airfield on their return. And also I remember the happier times when my parents lived in the village at the time and a lot of the members of the aircrew came down to our house and my mother made cakes and we had cakes on the lawn in the summertime. And the, the chef from the Officer’s Mess came down with a party of men and picked fruit from our orchards to bring back up to the airfield to, for use in the Messes. And we had many happy memories with with the aircrew and ground crew at that time. I don’t think I’ve much else to tell you really.
Interviewer: But you, how old would you be then?
JT: Well, I was fifteen when I left school.
Interviewer: Ok.
JT: And I left [pause] I joined, I was in the Air Training Corps at Brigg and during that time I had three flights with Wellingtons from here mainly in the afternoons but one was in the evening and enjoyed those. And then I found out in the after some time that I wasn’t going to get in the Air Force for quite some considerable time so I decided in those days to say farewell to the RAF and joined the Army and I left the village in 1942 and I was away and have no more recollections of the aircraft. But I did hear of Lancasters you know going and my father used to talk. He worked on the airfield as well and he used to talk of the noise, and it was a rather a pleasant noise of about twenty or thirty aircraft circling the village on take-off ready to go on ops. And we think it’s marvellous now to see one Lancaster come over the village but in those days it must have been marvellous to see all those aircraft going in one go sort of thing.
Interviewer: Yes. Yes.
JT: But as I say I left the village in 1942 to join the Army and I’d no more connection with the RAF after that.
Interviewer: So, when you came back the war was over and —
JT: Yes, unfortunately I didn’t get back until the end of forty, Christmas ’47.
Interviewer: Right.
JT: So, the war was over then yeah.
Interviewer: Ok.
JT: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: But there were Polish people living on the airfield at that time. They called it Warsaw Hamlet in those days and people used to live in the huts and that on the airfield even after the war. Yeah.
Interviewer: Ok.
JT: That’s all, I think.
Interviewer: That’s lovely.
JT: Yeah.
Interviewer: Thank you, John. Thanks very much.
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 John Tomlinson
1011-Tomlinson, John-N Lincolnshire Disc 2
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v20
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-05-18
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:04:16 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary. Allocated C Campbell
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
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Description
An account of the resource
John Tomlinson lived in Elsham Wolds at the time when the airfield was operational.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
RAF Elsham Wolds
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46450/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v190002.mp3
9599564b228d6ff44dd9ed3a81ceb234
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
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
2017-06-19
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer: Ok. It’s the 18th of May 2012 and I’ve got here Roy Smith and Cliff —
CT: Thorpe.
Interviewer: Thorpe. Now, Cliff and Roy were youngsters living in Elsham when RAF Elsham Wolds was active so they are just going to have a chat together about the kind of things they remember from those days. Ok. Over to you.
CT: Right. I was a schoolboy living in the village and in my spare time I used to walk up Pit Hill to watch the aircraft take off on the main runway. I used to hide behind the hedge and as the aircraft took off I could see the wheels turning and wave to the personnel in the aircraft. It was quite good fun in them days. I didn’t realise the implications really. But I also remember going to the dances in the NAAFI.
Interviewer: And where was that?
CT: On the aerodrome itself.
Interviewer: Right.
CT: And the entertainment that we used to be invited to. I vividly remember going through the main gate and down past the wood and past the, now then what do they call it, Roy? They called it [pause] not the hospital.
RS: Yeah, the hospital.
CT: Yeah. Which was in the woods.
RS: That was in the woods.
CT: Yeah. I remember that quite well.
RS: It was the other side of the wood.
CT: Yeah.
RS: The hospital we had.
CT: The most vivid memory I have was I used to work in the school holidays. I went to Brigg Grammar School and in my spring, in my holidays I used to work on the farm which was in the middle of the aerodrome and it was called Mr Dodds. I was in charge of two horses and I used to go dragging the fields when they’d picked the potatoes and various other jobs with a hay rake and things like that. But on one particular day, I used to fetch the horse from the middle of the aerodrome and go right down into [Willoughby] cars, Elsham cars and do the work and then go back to the aerodrome and what we called one York. We used to, no dinnertime just go straight through. It was one York. On one particular day I went through the main gate and I was riding on the back of the horse and I got about a hundred yards or so down the long road and an aircraft was approaching. A Lancaster, and it came over my head and just as it came over my head it backfired. The horse reared, I shot off the back and the horse galloped off and back to the stable in the farm and I had to walk much to the leg pulling when I got back. I shall always remember that. There was no damage done but the horse was startled and the aircraft went [pft pft pft] I remember an aircraft crashing in Elsham Moors. I watched it go around and the tail fell off.
Interviewer: Oh, my goodness.
CT: And it came down and crashed and set on fire and I was the first on the scene and the second on the scene was of course the fire engine from the aerodrome and it blew up and it burned and as they dragged the pilot out there was only the pilot on. All the others had baled out it was just frizzling and I will always remember the smell of burned flesh. That sticks in my memory and it had burned the woodland around it and I got a bit of Perspex as a memento because bits of Perspex in them days was made into rings and all sorts of things as souvenirs.
Interviewer: And did the pilot survive?
CT: Oh no.
Interviewer: No. He would be gone.
CT: No. No. He was dead.
Interviewer: Oh dear.
CT: He just frizzled the poor old lad.
Interviewer: Yeah.
CT: So, I remember that vividly. I also remember a Wellington early on. Before the Lancasters and the Halifaxes came the Wellingtons was the first aircraft and it came in to land over Wootton and it hit the pylons and a big blue flash and that was the end of that. It crashed. There was also another incident I remember where they were loading up the bombs and one fell off and blew up and I think it killed two people. I’m not quite sure about that but it certainly did a lot of damage.
Interviewer: And where were you at this time? You were on the —
CT: I was on the —
Interviewer: Periphery.
CT: I was watching.
Interviewer: Right.
CT: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: So —
CT: I spent a lot of time, there was, now then there was a wood on the top of Vicarage Hill.
RS: [Oxibel?]
CT: [Oxibel?] yeah. And we used to go home and sit there and watch the aircraft just take off and land. It was the thing we used to do in them days.
Interviewer: So, what about you Roy? What can you remember?
RS: I can’t add, I can’t really add to that.
Interviewer: You remember, you remember them taking off.
RS: Oh, I can remember them taking off.
Interviewer: Yeah.
RS: I can remember being stood there with five or six of us.
Interviewer: Yeah.
CT: I once remember —
Interviewer: I expect it was quite exciting wasn’t it for you.
RS: I can remember going down the road here and one had just come into dispersal at the side of the road and they was climbing out and one of the aircrew called us across. I thought what have we done wrong like, you know. And he says, ‘Here, come here you lads.’ And there was about six of us and he lined us up at the side of this Lancaster and took my photo.
Interviewer: Marvellous.
RS: And I’ve looked in every magazine there is now to see if I could find that but —
CT: We often used to talk to the aircrew.
Interviewer: Yes.
CT: The WAAFs used to bring them in the trucks and they used to, you know get on board. But another thing I remember was, was watching one take off and it must have had a heavy load and it overshot the runway and went straight through the hedge and over the, over the road. And as it climbed over there’s a big wood down there it just clipped the trees and kept going fortunately but it fetched the top off the trees in the wood.
Interviewer: Good gracious.
CT: It was that low. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
CT: I bet they had a bit of a shake up.
RS: And one was taking off on the main runway and it just got full revs and coming up there and something went wrong and they veered off to the left and went over. Over the perimeter track, over the main road, through the hedge to the quarry. The chalk quarry. And he just hung over the chalk quarry like that.
Interviewer: Wow.
RS: It didn’t go down it just hung over.
Interviewer: Over the edge.
CT: The rear gunner had baled out in the road.
RS: Yeah. And that was [PME]
CT: Yeah.
Interviewer: Wow.
CT: And a bloke was repairing the top of the bit you know they take the top soil off and they called him Gordon Wraith and his nickname was Wackem because he played cricket and he used to whack them. Anyway, he was pairing, it was his job and he was pairing the soil off the top and he ran like the clappers because he saw the aircraft coming and he ran the wrong way and the aircraft hit him. It did a lot of damage but it, he recovered.
Interviewer: Gosh.
CT: But he was very lucky because as Roy said the aircraft was balanced on the edge of the pit like that.
Interviewer: Yeah. I can remember seeing it now.
CT: They all got out through the back except the rear gunner who had baled out anyway.
Interviewer: Wow.
CT: Yeah.
Interviewer: What an experience.
CT: Yeah, you could see the wheel marks.
Interviewer: Yeah.
CT: Coming through the hedge and everything.
Interviewer: But obviously these memories are well embedded in your brain aren’t they?
CT: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: Because they were so unusual and —
CT: Yeah. Yeah. It’s hard to remember exactly what date it was but I remember them building the aerodrome in 1941 and laying all the tarmac and things like that and —
RS: Yeah.
Interviewer: Was there, were there any, you lived in Elsham was there any damage in Elsham?
CT: No.
Interviewer: From anything.
RS: No.
CT: No.
Interviewer: No. So that was good wasn’t it?
CT: I knew the padre very well.
Interviewer: Yeah.
CT: They called him the Reverend Ratledge.
Interviewer: Ok.
CT: His wife was a right smasher and they lived near the church. There was some little cottages and they lived in the village. Yeah. And they used to take services in the church and I used, I was in the choir in them days. I used to pump the organ as well and the lady who used to play the organ she was the school teacher. They called her Miss Beaston. Dorothy. Dorothy Beaston and she played the organ with all the stops out, flat out and of course she pumped it with air like a pump shaft and it was hard work keeping up with her because they had a gauge and as the bellows got full the gauge came down. It was always going up and it was hard. I was only a little lad but I was pumping like mad trying to keep it going. I remember that.
Interviewer: So, did a lot of the servicemen come down to the church for the services?
CT: No. Not a lot.
Interviewer: No. Ok.
CT: No. No. They used to go to Brigg and Scunthorpe a lot. They had a bus.
RS: They had their own service up here didn’t they?
CT: Yes. They had their own.
Interviewer: Right.
CT: Yeah.
Interviewer: And did the padre from Elsham go up there?
CT: Yes.
Interviewer: Come up to the camp.
CT: Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
CT: Yes, he was. Most of the airmen used to go to Scunthorpe and Brigg boozing just to let steam off. But I got to know quite a few of the personnel really. As I say I was twelve.
Interviewer: Yeah.
CT: It’s a long time ago.
Interviewer: It is a long time ago. Well, thanks very much both you for your contribution.
CT: I can’t remember any more at the moment. I remember when, oh I told you about the one blowing up didn’t I?
Interviewer: Yeah.
CT: Yeah.
RS: There was one crashed at the end of Oxibel?] that was just on the —
CT: Oh yes. I remember that very well.
RS: It was on a test flight and it come down.
CT: Yes, it was.
RS: About there was I don’t know there was. I don’t know. There was a —
CT: I’ll tell you in a minute.
RS: Seven or eight on it I think there was.
CT: I think there was more. I was, I was cutting the parsons front lawn. I used to go and chop sticks for him and he used to give me sixpence a week. I used to go chop sticks and pump his water up out the well and I was cutting his lawn and this aircraft came very low and it was a Halifax and it crashed about I should say a quarter of a mile from the vicarage as you come up in the field near the aerodrome and there were sixteen RAF. Now, then what do they call them? Apprentices. Students. There were sixteen on board. They all got killed.
Interviewer: Oh dear.
CT: All the lot of them. And to this day I think you can still go and see what the plough brings up and it brings bits of the aircraft up.
Interviewer: Really?
CT: Yeah. Yeah. That was a bit of a do but —
Interviewer: Yeah.
CT: Really.
Interviewer: That’s very sad.
CT: Yeah.
Interviewer: Because they’d only be young, wouldn’t they?
CT: Yeah.
Interviewer: Very sad.
CT: I think that’s it.
Interviewer: Ok. Thanks very much both of you. That’s fabulous. Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith
1010-Thorpe, Cliff-N Lincolnshire Disc 2
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v19
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-05-18
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:11:22 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary. Allocated C Campbell
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
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Description
An account of the resource
Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith grew up in the village of Elsham while RAF Elsham Wolds was operational.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
childhood in wartime
crash
Halifax
RAF Elsham Wolds
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46447/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v180002.mp3
9e1a59f8b5d86e0f3686b1aabcb7d54a
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
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
2017-06-19
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer: We’ll start again.
PS: Right.
Interviewer: It’s the 25th of January and I’m here at Westmoor Farm and I’m talking to Peter Scoley who is the sort of founder and landlord of the friends of Metheringham Airfield. Peter, you’ve been in this area for a very long time. Like all your life. Is that right?
PS: More or less. We came to Martin Moor in 1937.
Interviewer: Gosh.
PS: And, but we had to leave of course when the aerodrome was built. That was in 1943. And then Zena and I came back here to live in 1968 so most of my life with a little chunk in the 40s and 50s.
Interviewer: And a bit missing. When you had to leave where did you go to?
PS: We went to another farm at Bracebridge Heath at the north end of Waddington aerodrome a quarter of a mile or so, between a quarter and a half a mile from the end of the northern end of the main runway. And so we were entertained nightly by Lancasters taking off and landing at Waddington.
Interviewer: Right. So, so I mean you wouldn’t have been very old then. About eight years old.
PS: Ahum.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: Yeah.
Interviewer: So would you have seen action from Metheringham itself or didn’t you get down as far as here?
PS: No, I never saw Metheringham operations. I only saw it built but not operational. Though on occasion because we had this barn here still operational during the war.
Other: As a farm.
PS: As a farm. Father visited weekly because my uncle really looked after it but my father came here every week and it was on some of those occasions when I was on holiday from school that we saw things like the FIDO operating and the odd aeroplane going in the circuit and so on. But —
Interviewer: Were you allowed to stay up late enough to [laughs] —
PS: [laughs] No.
Interviewer: To see FIDO operating.
PS: The FIDO that I saw operating was actually during the daylight hours. One very foggy day, I can’t remember now whether it was the Christmas holidays or the April holidays. I think it might have been Christmas holidays actually in 1944 it was operating during the day.
Interviewer: Was that a test run or did they actually need it?
PS: I don’t think so. I think it was, I think it was operating because air ambulances were coming in from Europe with American wounded on.
Interviewer: Peter, excuse me.
PS: For Nocton Hospital.
Interviewer: It’s absolutely stone cold. Can you get the girls to come back collect it and warmed up for us.
PS: Righto, duck.
Interviewer: Shall we?
PS: Can you, can you pause?
Interviewer: Yes.
[recording paused]
Interviewer: Stopped it so [pause] So they were running FIDO during the day.
PS: Are we on now?
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: Oh right. Yes. I can remember. I can remember it very clearly because on that particular day father was bringing a battery to Smalley’s, the motor engineers of Martin for recharging. In those days if you, if you remember the wireless sets we had weren’t plugged in to the electrics because we didn’t have any but there were on big glass batteries filled with acid that was re, that were recharged every week. And we were coming down to Martin to have this battery charged. To get there of course we had to come through Metheringham Aerodrome. Now, the road was closed but because father had this farm here he had a pass to come through so we came up to the main gate and he showed the pass and we were waved through. But he was warned at the sentry post, guardroom that the FIDO was running and there was a guard on the road, to take directions from him. So further up the road we came across this guard with a 303 rifle and a fixed bayonet and in front of us we’d seen a lorry disappearing into the fog past this chap with a bayonet and father stopped and said, ‘Is it safe to go through?’ And so the guard said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘That lorry has just gone through,’ he said, ‘So I think you can.’ So off we went and the roar as we went through was terrific and the flames as I recall were not the same as you see on the films and pictures of FIDO working which tend to show a very low flame.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: Very close to the ground. The flames that I remember, don’t forget I was eight, nine years old were much higher than that. They were more like eight to ten feet high and they were blue and with a yellowish tinge.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: And the roar was fantastic and the heat terrific. But anyway —
[recording paused]
PS: Switch on then. So we drove through and went off down to Martin to get the batteries recharged. Mission successful.
Interviewer: Yes. It is interesting what you say because all the pictures or almost all the pictures of FIDO are taken at night so the only bit you see is the yellow part of the of the flame and no one every talks about the noise. They only talk about the flames and the fumes and everything like that.
PS: That is my recollection of it.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: Don’t forget as I say I was eight nine years old.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: And that is my memory.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: Fickle though it might but with a picture that I have of FIDO is quite different from that shown in the books.
Interviewer: Yes. Well, that’s, that’s quite amazing. So what was going on at Waddington? I presume that you had a much closer view of, of events there.
PS: Not really. I suppose because one was only at home during school holidays though obviously during those weeks you got the aircraft flying overhead every night taking off on operations. And being only half a mile or so from the end of the north, north south runway at Waddington fully loaded Lancasters coming over twenty or thirty at a time and skimming the house by about sixty to a hundred feet the noise was rather shattering and if you were trying to get to sleep a fairly, you were given a fairly impossible job.
Interviewer: Did you ever get used to it?
PS: No. Never really got used to it. But you counted them out and you counted them back. The other thing that I recall from my bedroom window there was an air raid siren two hundred yards away on the AV Roe aircraft factory roof end and every now and again it would go off. And I don’t know whether anybody remembers air raid sirens these days but believe me in those days if it went off the heart raced a bit.
Interviewer: It is frightening.
PS: We, I was ill with measles at the time but in March of 1945 Bomber Command suffered the last intruder raids of the Luftwaffe when various night fighters flew over aerodromes in the UK and shot the place up and on two occasions that happened at Waddington. On one occasion the bomb dump was set on fire and we had shell cases littering through the trees. You could hear them hitting the trees and bullets whistling through the air. That was rather frightening and then they did in fact manage to set the Waddington bomb dump on fire one night. And the —
Interviewer: What were the bombs, were they exploding?
PS: No, they weren’t. No. Fortunately not.
Interviewer: Because they weren’t fused, were they?
PS: No, they hadn’t got that far.
Interviewer: No.
PS: But something was burning there.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: And various people from RAF Waddington came around to all the outlying houses, farms and everyone telling everyone to get out quick because if the bomb dump went off it would level a fair, it would level a fair area of land.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: And so mother explained that we couldn’t because my brother and I were in bed with measles and my father was in bed with flu. ‘Righto,’ said the officer. He said, ‘We’ll lay an ambulance on.’ As it turned out before the ambulance arrived they got the fire under control so it was all cancelled but it was a little bit of a hairy old do for an hour until things got under control.
Interviewer: Yes, I can imagine.
PS: Well, that was the nearest I got to the war.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: Because most of the time with being away at school, in the latter half of the war at anyrate, in Yorkshire we very rarely saw any aircraft up there and German aircraft in particular. But further south of course things were rather different.
Interviewer: Yes, I can imagine. Well, I grew up in London but I’m not quite old enough. It’s strange because I have a memory of getting out of bed and lifting the edge of a blackout curtain and looking out and seeing searchlights panning the sky. Now, it couldn’t have been the Blitz because I wasn’t around in the Blitz.
PS: No.
Interviewer: So I’m not quite sure what this memory was.
PS: Well, don’t forget there was a little Blitz in 1944.
Interviewer: Ah, well it could have been something like that. Yes. Yes. I didn’t think much about it. It just looked like all pretty lights in the sky you know.
PS: Yeah.
Interviewer: Obviously, obviously very young. Now, you are now with your connections to the Metheringham Airfield and considered by lots of us as, as a chief archivist.
PS: God. Yeah.
Interviewer: You must have the odd story to tell. Things that were related to you or, or something like that.
PS: Oh God. Now, my mind’s gone a blank.
Interviewer: Of the —
PS: Yeah.
[recording paused]
PS: Yeah. Yeah, well perhaps for a start we could talk about the origins of the, of the Visitor Centre because they were not simple. Zena and I had thought, had been wondering for a long time about a Memorial to the Bomber Command people here during the war but we could never really think of anything that we could do. We didn’t particularly want, just want to put a Memorial slab or stone. We wanted something a bit different but nothing occurred. In any case at that time we were both busy with our own lives. Me in farming and Zena with local government. But it just so happened one day that Zena was at a meeting with North Kesteven District Council officials at a time when — [beeping noise] I think I can —
Interviewer: Ok.
[recording paused]
PS: So anyway, Zena was at this meeting with the North Kesteven District Council at a time when they were having to rethink the financial aspects of local government because agriculture which up ‘til then had been the mainstay of rural life was ceasing because of the end of the Cold War was ceasing to be as important as it had been hitherto. And so the local authorities were having to reassess businesses and tourism and all sorts of other things that were happening in their areas in order to get revenue for the county. One of the things that the Tourism Department at Sleaford was concerned with was the wartime aviation and they were creating what became known as the Airfield Trail which it was hoped would attract tourists into the area to go around and visit all these old aerodromes which by then were becoming of national interest. So during the conversation Zena happened to mention that we had got some old wartime, World War Two buildings on the farm and would they be interested. They said they would. They’d come and have a look which eventually they did and it was decided that one of the buildings in particular would be a good place to have what at that time was going to be known as a Memorial Room. The council would renovate part of it in which the exhibition would be and then the place would be open for people to visit when they were in the area. At that time nothing more was planned. It, coincidentally one of our neighbours on the other side of the airfield had built a Memorial to 106 Squadron which in 1992 was dedicated at a squadron reunion.
Interviewer: Was this the one that is actually on the airfield site?
PS: Yes.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: When it was dedicated and we talked to the squadron about our plans they showed interest and asked to be invited to the dedication of the Memorial Room when it was opened. And we said yes. In the meantime, John Pye who had done the other Memorial said would it be appropriate for him to build another Memorial outside the Memorial Room? So we thought it was a good idea and which he did. That was in 1993 and in July of ’93 at the squadron reunion they came here for the dedication of the new Memorial and —
Interviewer: Partial opening.
PS: Yeah [pause] Ok? Yeah. So anyway, the squadron arrived in July of 1993 for the dedication of the second Memorial.
Interviewer: When you say the squadron you mean the Squadron Association?
PS: The Squadron Association.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: Yeah. And had a look at the half-finished Memorial Room and there was a preliminary suggestion that it mightn’t be a bad idea if we were willing for it to be also the Squadron Museum. So anyway, we all went away and thought about that. We had to think about this. They, and they came back again in October of that year when the Memorial Room was finished and opened for a month for local people to come and have a look and we had an official opening with the chairman of the North Kesteven District Council and a little ceremony and we closed again for the winter at the end of the month. During the winter we had a general meeting when the Friends of Metheringham Airfield was set up. The title was, as I recall was suggested by our number one member who has only just died a week or two back. Ron Mitchell. And we’ve been the Friends of Metheringham Airfield ever since and the committee was formed and it went on from there. The following summer in July when the squadron came down for their reunion, or the Association came down for their reunion they of course visited the Centre and we had a little party there. And one of the squadron members had a quiet think and thought it would be a good idea if we renovated the end room. Well, we hadn’t got any money to do that at the time so nothing much happened. But it just so happened that the poor chap died that winter. Then we found out that he had left us two hundred pounds in his will for to help with renovations at the Centre. And so we renovated the end rooms and they’re now called the Carey Powell Room.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: In memory of our benefactor who’d in fact had been a rear gunner here. He was a two tour rear gunner which was a very rare bird indeed.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: In World War Two.
Interviewer: It certainly was.
PS: And a very nice man and a great supporter. So we were very pleased to, to name the room after him and to keep his name alive. So the, the museum has sort of developed from the there. The next job we did was to clear out the old gymnasium which had become redundant as far as the farm buildings were concerned and so, we cleaned it out and freshened it up. And since then we’ve had all our meetings and things in there. The lectures we started in the Centre in 1994 as it happened. I think Jim Shortland gave the first one and I believe we had about seventy people in there at the time. But gradually as time went on numbers increased and the centre wasn’t big enough and so we moved across to the school room, what is now the school room and a gymnasium until that became too small when we started having the lectures and things in the main room in the gymnasium. And that basically is an outline in how we first started and has carried on to this day with under the guidance of a group of very dedicated volunteers. We are now a charity and which has been helpful with the financial aspects of the friends and we hope that interest will survive because we believe that the memory of Bomber Command people deserves it. There may be controversy over what Bomber Command did during the world war but one can’t get away from the fact that fifty five thousand men, young men, young boys lost their lives serving their country and that is the main thing as far as we’re concerned in preserving the memory of 106 Squadron.
Interviewer: That’s, that’s really the core purpose of the organisation, isn’t it? That it’s totally wrong and mercifully I think the country is now decades too late beginning to realise it totally wrong to blame brave volunteer —
PS: Yes.
Interviewer: Service personnel.
PS: Yes.
Interviewer: For the mistakes, perceived or real of their political masters.
PS: Absolutely. It’s been most unfair and again well we’ll not mention any politics in this but we know the guilty ones.
Interviewer: I’ll not mention any names. Well, Peter, I think we’ve come to the end of the session now and thank you ever so much for talking to us and I’m sure that your name won’t exactly be in lights but your voice might well be coming out of peoples computers. Thank you.
PS: [laughs] Right.
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 Peter Scoley
1008-Scoley, E Peter G
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v18
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1992
1993
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:23:19 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary. Allocated C Campbell
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Jeff Williams
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
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
Julie Williams
Description
An account of the resource
Peter Scoley was born on a farm which became RAF Metheringham during the war. After the war Peter and his wife were fundamental in creating a museum on the site.
106 Squadron
bombing
FIDO
Lancaster
memorial
perception of bombing war
RAF Metheringham
RAF Waddington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46446/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v170003.mp3
7b0a025060d3546c7e9fc983ab2ece3c
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
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
2017-06-19
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer: It’s the 18th of May 2012 and I’m here to interview Mr Ken Duddell who was born on the 1st of March 1924 in Horsehay in Shropshire. Good afternoon, Ken.
KD: Good afternoon, Angela.
Interviewer: Could you possibly give me some information about your training with the RAF?
KD: Yeah. I joined [cough] I joined the Air Force in January 1942 just before I was eighteen and I qualified as a flight engineer in July 1943 at RAF St Athans. I was then posted to 1 Group in Lindholme and then on to Blyton for training. After training at Blyton with a crew, I joined a crew, we went to 460 Squadron Binbrook but our skipper went missing on a second dickie trip. So we stayed there a while, then we went to 12 Squadron at Wickenby hoping to get another skipper. We didn’t. And finally we went to Faldingworth where we picked up Squadron Leader John Whittet who was converted on his second tour. He’d done a tour on Blenheims and Wellingtons before in the Middle East and he qualified on Lancasters and we got posted to 103 Squadron Royal Air Force, Elsham Wolds where he became B Flight commander.
Interviewer: Ok.
KD: From Elsham Wolds, we got to Elsham Wolds in November 1943 and the skipper took over as B Flight commander and we commenced operations shortly afterwards. I flew as a flight engineer on Lancasters and our crew, shall I name the crew? Our crew was Squadron Leader Whittet who was the skipper, pilot, Flying officer Jackson who was the bomb aimer, Flying Officer Dennis O’Neill-Shaw who was the navigator, Flight Sergeant John Kinlay who, a Royal Australian Air Force who was the wireless operator, Sergeant George Bishop the mid-upper gunner and Sergeant John Watt the rear gunner. We commenced flying in November and from then on we flew until the skipper had finished his twenty operations on second, second tour. And we didn’t fly every night because the two flight commanders A and B had to alternate as did the wing commander in charge of the squadron. One of the things we did it was wintertime and we, Butcher decided, that’s Air Chief Marshall Sir Arthur Harris decided that he would attack Berlin as much as he could. So during that time we went to Berlin nine times and on one time going into, going to Berlin we got hit by a fighter. But as the fighter opened fire so the rear gunner opened fire. Within a few seconds the mid-upper gunner turned and he turned his turret and he fired at him as well and the fighter broke off and although he damaged us we carried on with the mission and bombed Berlin and then came back to Elsham Wolds.
Interviewer: So, Ken, when you went out on these missions how did it make you feel because you were only nineteen and a half years old at the time? Were you, were you scared or what?
KD: Well, if you —
Interviewer: How did you feel?
KD: If you said you weren’t scared you were actually telling lies because everybody was in some way or another. I was there because A) I had an elder brother who was in the Air Force serving in the Middle East. He’d gone out in 1939. Second brother was in the Army and he, he was, he had been to Norway and then he went to Ireland and then eventually went over D-Day plus one. A younger brother, I was the third, the younger brother, the fourth was in the Navy. He was on Destroyers and he was on the run to Russia, Murmansk with the convoys that went there. So my, my feeling was that we were part of a quartet who in any way we could help each other we did this. What the system was at, on operations half past eight in the morning we reported to the skipper that everybody was fit on the crew and then we were detailed. In the meantime, they discovered whether there was operations on or not and we had when we’d done this we were found out if we were allocated to fly that night. If we were the idea get everything together. We would go out to the flights, to the aircraft that had been allocated us and then we would do an inspection and then do an air test for probably half an hour carrying out, you know checking the guns, checking the wireless, checking the navigational aids etcetera and the performance of the aircraft. Come back and hand it over to the ground crew who would then refuel and re-bomb and so forth. After that we would just wait ‘til briefing time and briefing would probably, in the winter was about 3 o’clock time in the afternoon. We would report to the briefing room which was a sealed room and you could only get in if your name was on the list and there was two RAF policemen there checking that you were the actual one. But you went in with your crew. Went in with your seven crew. Previous to that the navigator had been doing his map and route to the target etcetera. So when we got into briefing the wing commander or the group captain stood up and gave a short briefing and pulled the curtain back and we found out where we were going that night. Sometimes you’d find there would be quite an uproar in actual fact. There was a bit of bad language spoken because people said, ‘Not going there again.’ And then they would check the route. The navigation officer would go through the route, what’s the name and somebody would say, ‘Well, hang on. The last time I went there a few weeks ago we got trapped in there. It’s a dead, it’s closed up.’ Because what the Germans had done from the German border right up by Kiel down to the bottom of the French Belgian border and the Dutch border they’d put searchlights, anti-aircraft guns. They had radio masts so that the fighters could fly in between them and to try and map out the course of the, which we were going so they could attack us. And then generally yes it will be alright. Everybody went through the briefing and we then, you decided if you had a flying meal then or whether you had it before. We always a flying meal before take off just in case you didn’t come back because it was always bacon and eggs [laughs] And off you’d go. We got rations. They’d give us sweets and Horlick tablets and we also had an escape kit that you signed for and put in your overalls about six inches square and about an inch deep which had got map, a silk map of Germany and Europe. You’d got also some five cigarettes with matches and the matches were like Bengal matches which you had on bonfires. Not ordinary matches because these if you were escape and evasion you could light a fire somewhere or light things. And we also had water purification tablets so that if you, if you were evading and you came across water if you were uncertain whether it was pure you could get some in, put the tablet in and let it operate and you could get in there. Then when we’d had our flying meal we went up to the squadron at the time preferred, collect all our kit. Put our kit on. We had everybody except the navigator and wireless operator wore special clothing. The reason the nav and the wireless operator didn’t because they were curtained off in a section of the aircraft and the heating for the aircraft came through by the wireless operator. So, they were alright. We used to wear ordinary underwear, long johns and long vest. A vest without a collar with three whats the names on. They were lovely. Normal battledress and then I used to wear what they called an outer suit which had a fur collar and it was I suppose gabardine or something like that but it had lots of pockets in so you could put stuff into your pockets. Sea boots, socks like the sailors had, flying boots. We had four pairs of gloves, one pair of mittens with the fingertips cut out, chamois gloves, silk gloves, and a pair of gauntlets. So then you had the WAAFs and airmen who looked after the flying clothing. It was centrally heated in there so it didn’t go damp and so forth. They handed you your parachute, your Mae West and your parachute harness which would be numbered with yours, with your name on it usually too. Put that on, got all your, engineers had a tool kit to carry. We carried a nav bag that we had to keep a log and we’d got technical data about the aircraft on it in case we landed away and off we’d go to the aircraft. Transport would take us out. We’d do a quick check around to see it was alright. Lots of people had different things they did before take-off like seeing the tail wheel was well lubricated or the last cigarette and quite a lot of people had little, little things they carried with them for good luck. I had a, I had a silk scarf which my mum gave me. I never had it washed during that time. I thought it’s luck. You know it would be bad luck if I did that at all. And then we’d get in the aircraft when the time was right, start up and the sergeant would come in with the Form 700 which was the Servicing Unit. Skipper would sign it, close the door and off we’d go and we’d taxi out. And on the runway there was 103 Squadron one side and 576 the other and it would be alternating aircraft going, taking off. As soon as the other had cleared was about two hundred feet you’d start rolling along again. This was a very dangerous time of, of this because if you had any trouble, you had a wheel, a tyre burst or if you had an engine go until you’d got safety speed, until you got flying speed which was about a hundred and five knots you lifted off and away you’d go. Undercarriage up, flaps up and about four hundred feet you’d be on climbing power and away. You were pretty good then at all with it. Then you went up and if we were going out by Mablethorpe or on the east coast this was one of the favourite ways. We would climb straight ahead and we’d go Goole, [crawl] base. Goole [crawl] base until it was time to set course. Then we’d set course over base and off we’d go climbing all the time again trying to get as high as you could. We often got up to, in the cold we’d get up to twenty three thousand feet with the aircraft. It was very cold up there but you weren’t too bad. If we were going down south we just turned left, climbed to four thousand feet and down to Reading and then from Reading you went out Beachy Head. We would start climbing to go out Beachy Head and across to southern France as high as we could get. One time I know we were going out Beachy Head and Jerry was coming in and dropping red markers for his crews so they could see. But we didn’t stop for a cup of tea and a handshake, you know [laughs] we went on. Everybody said good luck to us and then it was just following the route, sorting everything out, keeping your eyes well open. Our skipper used to, you did one thing, you didn’t say nothing unless you had to. And often the navigator would come up with a change of course, the wireless operator would come up perhaps with a message from Group and because they or base they would transmit quarter to and quarter past every hour if they’d got anything to transmit and the wireless op would listen out and he would probably come up and say, ‘Nothing’s come up skipper.’ And that was it. But about every ten minutes the skipper would go around the crew asking if everybody was alright and he addressed the crew as they were. Bomb aimer, flight engineer, navigator, wireless op, mid-upper gunner or rear gunner and if you’d got anything to say to anybody you talked in that way because it was not Tom, Dick and Harry because if you had a spare person come in place of one he would be, he wouldn’t know what was going on. So if you stuck to that system it was well away which we did all the time.
Interviewer: Right. So, when you got to your target and you’d dropped your bombs what, what was the feeling then?
KD: Well, the thing was as you came over and the bomb aimer said, ‘Bombs going.’ ‘Bombs going.’ ‘Bombs gone.’ Two things. We always carried a four thousand pounder so you can, you can realise if you just you know if you’d got something that’s four pound and you drop it you feel a bit better. As the four thousand pounder went the aircraft started to lift up normally and your heart came out of your feet and started to come up your legs. The other, where it should be. All gone and then when you’d, when the, when the bomb aimer said, ‘Bombs gone,’ you still had to fly along for about forty five seconds because you had to wait until the Cookie had hit the ground and exploded and you dropped a flare in the meantime which caused the photo to be taken so you could take [unclear] you’d hit the target or you hit whatever you set out to do and you felt it and you thought God almighty. The big question we’re better now because not only you’d got rid of the bombs but you’d used roughly half the fuel and if you got twenty one thousand pound of fuel on you would use ten thousand pound of that so you know that was better. You could manoeuvre the aircraft better then if you got attacked and so forth. We didn’t get attacked going over the target or going out of the target but we did get attacked one time on the, coming in before we got there and we, this fighter came in and you could, you could not only hear it you could feel it in the aircraft. When the fighter opened fire they were nearly always tracer because this, this again would, I would say trying to make you frightened as well which it was of course if it was hitting you. And the fighter came in between the fuselage and the port inner engine, number two engine and you could hear it thumping in to the, the cannon fire thumping in to the aircraft and you could also see the other going into the side. But at the same time as he opened fire our rear gunner opened fire and within a few seconds the mid-upper gunner was joining him and we got, now normally when the, when the, when either of the gunners or anybody saw a fighter coming towards you, you would take evasive action. But on this occasion some clever bloke at Bomber Command had decided we’d have a little instrument on the front of, in front of the pilot which indicated a red arrow or a green arrow. The red arrow was port so when the gunner opened fire he didn’t need to speak you should have done it this way. But the skipper said, ‘Which way do you want me to go rear gunner?’ And of course, before he, before he could answer, he was so busy looking after the fighter, the fighter broke off. I suppose it would be about thirty to forty five seconds if that that the fighter attacked us and they were hitting him and he went off again. We got damaged but we were able to drop the bombs and go. But coming out again it was, you had to be, you had to be careful for it as well because the Germans adapted a system where they could, they knew which way you were coming out and find you and it was almost like a dual carriageway. On the right hand side they were going in. On the left hand side they were coming out and there were the German aircraft dropping flares just like lamps lighting up a dual carriageway so you had to be careful of those. One of the things we did, the skipper and I apart from the others the bomb aimer would look out but sometimes he’d be doing the radar so he wouldn’t but sometimes the wireless op would stand up in the astrodome and he’d keep an extra lookout. But the skipper and I he looked in front and to his left and to be aircrew you had to be ninety degrees to you to be able to see otherwise you weren’t able to do this. And that was his job and then mine was to look straight ahead my side because I sat on his right hand side. Out to the starboard wing over the top and over the top of the skipper as well and sometimes so I could you know search for him. If we were in searchlights he would drop the seat and he would be on instruments so he wouldn’t be able to see outside but sometimes there was a bulb on the starboard side on the engineer’s side and I’d look down quick. Look down at the target you know and he’d know I’d done it. ‘Don’t look down there engineer.’ He’d tell me off. But you’d come back and you were, you were active all the time. You’d got to keep your wits about you and come back and coming up to the enemy coast no matter which one it was you usually put the nose down and lost a few thousand feet, you know to get the speed to go on because we were keeping it. And then coming back if we were coming back into Mablethorpe as we did often you’d come across the North Sea or come up the North Sea over the east coast of England and you dropped down to what? About three or four thousand feet. Come over the coast and then you’d see lights. Green and red lights coming from the left side. The port side. The left hand side. That was the Halifaxes going back to Yorkshire and that way. You would come in and you, you’d call. Our aircraft was K-King mostly. King 2000 and the WAAF who was on the air traffic would say, ‘Call down wind K-King. Call downwind.’ And you’d come back and you heard a different voice and you knew you were back. You heard this WAAF there talking and sometimes you got to know them you know. Oh, that’s Betty or Freida or something like that. Then you’d come down and then come in, circle in and land back at dispersal depending upon if you’d got any bad damage. If you’d got bad damage you took it to the hangar. You told flying control and they’d take you to the hangar. If not you’d come back and in to the ground crew. They’d have a look and sort it out. See if there was any external damage and then you’d get out and the skipper would just sign the 700 if there was any snags with it. One of our ground crew, Ricky his name was he was LAC airframe mechanic and every trip before we went we used to have jam in four pound tins in the Messes. He’d got one of these tins with a drop of petrol in and some water and a rag and he’d clean the floor of the aircraft from the nose to the tail. And as we climbed in the aircraft to go and the skipper would say, ‘Thank you very much.’ And he’d say, ‘Bring it back clean, skipper.’ Hoping that we would come back. Yeah.
[recording paused]
KD: At Elsham we had obviously that every, every part of every, every aircrew person that the skipper went and sat in the flight commander’s office. The navigators had their own section as did, the same with engineers. Anyway, you can do this too and when you came back and you got stripped off and changed and went into operations to be debriefed from it the first thing you did was look at the board up there to see who’d landed and who hadn’t and then, just in case because you’d got friends on them you know. You would know a lot of people in there. We actually lost about twelve hundred who were killed anyway and you, you just wanted to know how your friends had got you know. You’d come back and you say, ‘Oh, good trip?’ ‘Yeah.’ Or, ‘Oh, we had a really awful one.’ And so you’d look at that and if, if when you went they still hadn’t come back you didn’t, you didn’t say, ‘Oh, well they’re gone,’ because they could have landed somewhere because sometimes especially if they landed at a training aerodrome they wouldn’t think too notify Elsham that aircrew had landed you see. So this often happened because it happened with one, my friend Cyril Bradclough. His crew. They landed at Wellesbourne Mountford I think at times but they forgot to notify Elsham. So nothing had come by about eleven, half past eleven in the morning so they sent telegrams to the families to say they were missing and then about half past one this aircraft came over and they landed. So fortunately, they went on seven days leave straightaway.
Interviewer: Very good.
KD: Survivors leave. But you always looked for people that you’d got, so and so and especially if somebody was coming up towards the end of the tour. The tour was roughly thirty. Twenty if you were second tour. And I did twenty nine and you’d look and see twenty eight, twenty nine. Oh yeah. So and so and so and so’s crew. And you’d got, you’d got friends and you know and if somebody had gone you just hoped that they had been able to bale out and even if they were taken prisoner of war that was better than being killed. But you didn’t get notification until a long long while after whether probably you had left the squadron and gone somewhere else and then you had heard that your friend had survived. Like I had a friend on 576 Squadron, Cyril Van der Velde he was a flight engineer. He got shot down on the 3rd 4th of May at Mailly le Camp and he was, he was, he escaped and he joined the Maquis for about seven or eight months before he got captured anyway. But I had a friend Tom Moore, he was a signaller and he was on 103 and in the beginning of December his brother came to visit and was allowed to live in his Nissen hut because he’d been accepted to be a navigator in the Air Force and we the three of us went out together a couple or three times and then the night of the 16th of December 1943 to Berlin Tom got shot down and he was killed. He’s buried in Berlin and a couple, I’ve always said to Valerie, ‘I must go and see Tom’s grave before I go.’ So a couple of years ago she said, ‘We’re going.’ So we went to see his grave and it was, it was upsetting because to me he was still twenty three year old. My friend Tom. And I’d had sixty seven years since then. Courted the girl I loved, married, had a family and I was still living. He was still lying there where he was. It could be very upsetting. Especially if the crew were popular and nearly every one was anyway. You only found the odd one that was a bit gruffy.
Interviewer: Well, Ken, thank you very much for for telling us your stories and this oral history will be kept for many a youngster to listen to. So, thanks very much, Ken.
KD: That’s fine, Angela. Any time. Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell
1008,1009-Duddell, Kenneth Ivan-N Lincolnshire Disc 2
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v17
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-05-18
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-01
1943-07
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:27:03 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary. Allocated C Campbell
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
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Description
An account of the resource
Ken Duddell flew operations as a flight engineer with 460, 12 and 103 Squadrons.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Berlin
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
103 Squadron
12 Squadron
460 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
flight engineer
Lancaster
RAF Elsham Wolds
superstition
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46444/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v150002.mp3
0da16dbb93a637dcc3de8e409d1af514
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46444/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v150003.mp3
259431274215222c5fd47fd96858361e
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
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
2017-06-19
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Part 1.
CA: Christopher Allison.
Interviewer: Good afternoon. Would you just like to give us your name and date of birth please.
CA: The 23rd of the 9th ’25.
Interviewer: And your name again.
CA: Christopher Allison.
Interviewer: Thank you very much. And you were in the Royal Air Force during the war. Yeah? That’s correct.
CA: Well, I joined up in ’43.
Interviewer: Ok, thank you. We’re here with the children now from the Primary School.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer: And each in turn would like to ask a question of this gentleman.
Student 1: What did it feel like to actually have been, you could think about being killed every day?
CA: Well, you had to live with it otherwise you just, you know you’d just fizzle out. You have to live with it really, you know.
Interviewer: It was a difficult time, wasn’t it?
CA: Well, it was. I mean I lost a mate. He was only nineteen. I thought oh my God. And then I thought well you’ve got to live with it or you know you just fall to pieces especially looking like that.
Interviewer: That’s right [laughs] So you’re, I’ll just ask a question then if you’d like to come in again then so we’ve got some background.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer: So you were posted on to Lancasters then.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer: What was your position on the Lancaster?
CA: Flight engineer.
Interviewer: Flight engineer.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer: Ok. Right.
CA: I know this is a C on here but —
Interviewer: I know what you mean.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. Ok. Do you have a question you would like to ask?
Student 2: Yeah. How did it feel not knowing if your loved ones were safe at home while you were fighting in a foreign country?
CA: Well, you have to live with that as well because you see my dad died when I was eight so there was only mum on her own wasn’t she and you had to live with it.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. One thing they found out that in the Blitz of course, you know whilst people were fighting over the skies of Germany people were dying back in England from the same bombing.
Other: Yes. That’s right.
Interviewer: Yeah.
CA: My dad died through wars in the long run from World War One wounds.
Interviewer: Right.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. Which a lot of guys did after the war.
CA: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: They just lingered on. Yeah.
CA: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer: Ok, would you like to ask a question.
Student 3: How was it like to work on the Lancaster bomber?
CA: Well, it was alright as long as you were safe. It was lovely you know. there was nothing wrong with them at all and especially —
Interviewer: How many missions did you fly then in total?
CA: Well, I wasn’t a gunner but you had front gunner there like and a mid one there and the rear gunner used to catch it really bad. Once they attacked you it would be the rear gunner what got it first. The only advantage he had he could open the back door, swing it around and he baled out. Easy as that.
Interviewer: Yeah.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer: Did you complete thirty missions then?
CA: Not many. No. No.
Interviewer: No.
CA: Because the lads had done most of the hard work when I got to Kirmington.
Interviewer: Right.
CA: Well, I was, I tell you I met Bomber Harris and Donald Pleasence. You remember him, do you?
Interviewer: Yeah.
CA: Well, they got shot down in Germany somewhere and the French got them back and when they got back to England they had a caterpillar but it was on the tie.
Interviewer: That’s right.
CA: And he was a smashing guy, you know.
Interviewer: Yeah. Ok. Have you got a question now?
Student 4: Yep.
CA: Right.
Student 4: When you were in the war did it, was it frightening trying to, in the Lancaster bombers?
CA: What? Frightening?
Student 4: Yeah.
CA: No. No. No. You’d be sad but not frightening. It was sad. Very sad. It gets me now sometimes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
CA: When we go to the Memorial don’t we? Sadness and —
Interviewer: Yeah, that’s one thing I found. I’ve done a lot of these recordings.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer: And one thing I find is that a gentleman who like yourself just survivors I’ve talked to some people who were the only survivor of an aircraft. They feel a lot of sadness and its sometimes guilt.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer: That they’re the only ones that got through it and, you know it seems to be something that runs through it.
CA: You have to live. You have to live with it and the first bit I saw of a German I did my twelve weeks training at Skegness and he flew down there and he shot the blooming clock tower up. Have you heard about that?
Interviewer: Yes. I know. Yeah. Yeah.
CA: Yeah. Well, I was there when they did that.
Interviewer: Right.
CA: And then when we went down south they flew in one morning when my mate was walking down for training and they machine gunned us. So what we did we fell on the floor and rolled out the way. But the sod come again the next day. But they got him. The next day he come they was waiting for him. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. We’ve got two other gentlemen here with us now if I just get a different aspect.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer: Roughly the same questions really. How did you feel? You know, obviously —
CA: Yeah.
TB: My name is Tony Bradley. I was born in 1930 so I wasn’t actually in the Armed Forces during the war but I lived in Hull and Hull got very badly bombed during the war and to me, I was ten years of age and when I got involved I went in to the Army Cadets and I finished up as an air raid warden’s runner. But the war to me at that time was exciting. Not frightening at that, in the beginning because it didn’t involve me but a little while later on it did get very frightening and when I first saw people being pulled out of houses who were dead or injured which I did see I began to realise what war was all about. My mother had a very lucky escape because we were right in the middle of Hull where we got a terrific pounding. We lost buildings all around us and you just didn’t know from one raid to the next whether you were going to be lucky enough to escape from it because there was a lot of people killed in Hull. I was pleased that I wasn’t in the war a few years later. At the time I just wanted the war to carry on because I wanted to get in it because I had two cousins who were flight engineers. But its later on in life when one goes into the Services oneself, I was in the Royal Navy and I went to Tobruk and had my first interview with death as it comes in wartime was at the Knightsbridge Cemetery and I was with one of my friends looking for his brother. And when I saw all those gravestones that really brought home to me what war was all about and it’s pointless. It carries on. It doesn’t achieve anything except bring a lot of misery to a lot of people.
Interviewer: Thank you very much. Yeah.
PB: And it never leaves you does it when you see those gravestones.
TB: Yeah.
PB: A lot of that, you see I went through that with the, during the war you know we were in air raid shelter.
TB: Oh yes.
PB: Being, you know bombed and everything else. But as I say later on I went in the Royal Marine Commandos and I did what? Nearly a years training when I went in there from square bashing to Naval gunnery to Tarzan courses and all the rest of it, you know. Tent lines on Dartmoor the middle of the night. Crawling under tracer bullets and of course in middle of the winter we were in tents.
CA: Yeah.
PB: And all that type of thing but eventually I was destined to go to, I was in this here drill shed at Stonehouse Barracks in Plymouth after I’d finished my training. I was a hundred percent fit and I got this here call. ‘Marine Bateman, one step forward. To the right. You’re going to Korea.’ Of course, I was [sub] engineer specialist and eventually I thought well that’s it. We were going to out in civilian clothes and be kitted out by the Americans you see and of course I was going to be blowing up bridges and one thing and another and anyhow they got that many volunteers thinking it was the Americans they thought there would be plenty of food, you know. Gum, you know. Chewing gum and all the rest of it. So they got volunteers and I finished up going to Malaya. So I mean that wasn’t much better. And I finished up in the jungle in Malaya for nearly three years and once getting out there I was taken out to some little outpost called Grik and we was in these here thatched roof huts. There was rats infested and just air flow and I had an orange box crate for a bedside cabinet and so on and we used to go out on patrol. And one particular time I always remember I went on a twenty four hour patrol and finished up on the twenty nine day patrol in the same clothes I had stuck, you know that I had on.
Interviewer: Yeah.
PB: And of course we weren’t getting no airdrops because the jungle was too thick and so we were eating tree bark. We had some natives from Borneo who showed us a few things how to do. We was eating tree bark, raw fish and we managed to live on that for twenty nine days. We had to cross the River Perak, a fast flowing river. Two of the Marines got washed down the banks. They got drowned. And we finished up going down elephant tracks and we had to go to this place called [Tomanga?] Some disused tin mines. And I always remember when we got out there we had to identify some bodies which was in some dried up culverts so we could smell them about two miles away. But one of the worst thing that’s ever happened to me when we’d got in some swamps, a sergeant and nine Marine Commandos and we got ambushed. There was somebody played a bugle and we were just getting picked off. There was no ground cover. Getting picked off and these Australian Air Force were strafing the area in these Mosquito bombers. A wooden structure type of plane. Strafing the area and the bandits fled otherwise I wouldn’t have been here now. They didn’t know anything about us and we finished up with three.
Interviewer: Yeah.
PB: Three of us left out of the ten.
Interviewer: So you see what happens back. Not just World War Two. This country has been involved in a lot of conflicts.
PB: A state of emergency and what our idea was to resettle the people instead of them trying to starve the bandits out of the jungle because they was going in to these [campons] and demanding food. So what we had to do is put them into big compounds where they couldn’t help the bandits.
Interviewer: Yeah.
PB: So that was initially, and of course another time I must tell you this I was in an ambush position. We got some information that these bandits was going to come along this track at a certain time of night and just before it got dark we got laid out, oh the sergeant said, ‘No talking,’ and we had little travel ropes to each other so we weren’t allowed to talk. One pull and so on, you know and we was, when I got laid out with my Bren gun I realised I was on an ants nest and of course I could feel them wriggling underneath me. They were supposed to have come along with this longish trap within the hour and it was two and a half hours later they came along and I see these lanterns coming along. And of course, when we got there we ambushed them and we killed nine and carried them back on bamboo poles.
TB: Can I just bring one thing to you is if, if you think on this that since the Second World War there has only been one year when we haven’t had a serviceman killed in some conflict or other.
PB: Yeah.
TB: That’s something to think of.
PB: And every time I see these dead bodies come back I think about my mates. You know lads of about what? Twenty? Twenty one years old, you know. And you think to yourself what’s it all for?
TB: Its not only that it’s when you see dead bodies.
PB: Yeah.
TB: I was out in Suez before the conflict actually started. I was ashore doing some work on the electricity station there and we had a party of Mauritians and a sergeant and a major and they were ambushed and if you’d have seen what the natives, I say the natives, see what the natives did to those bodies you’d never forget it.
PB: No.
CA: No. That’s true.
PB: That’s why I’ve never slept with my wife for twenty five years because I’ve had her in strangleholds and shouting out and she’s not slept with me for twenty five years. Do you want my name by the way?
Interviewer: Please, at the very end. Yeah. That would be good.
PB: Right. I’m John Patrick Bateman. I joined the Marines. I was born in 1928 and I joined the Royal Marines in 1949.
Interviewer: Thanks very much.
PB: And I came out in ’58.
Interviewer: Right. So you got a little synopsis there. Have you got anything? Any thoughts about that then? What you’ve just been hearing.
Student: That’s pretty scary.
PB: Are you going to join the Marines or the Naval or the RAF? Are you going to join?
Student: The RAF.
Student: Going to join the —
Interviewer: You’re going to join the Air Force —
TB: You are.
PB: The RAF.
Student: Yeah, RAF.
PB: Why?
Student: My dad’s in the RAF.
TB: Fair comment but do what you want to do.
PB: Yeah.
TB: Not what other people want you to do.
Student: Yeah, I just I like the RAF. I like planes. It’s —
PB: Well, I was in the Army Cadets. I came out of the Army Cadets and went into the Navy. I came out of the Navy. I went to work Marine Services. I was a marine superintendent of diving and I took up flying and flying became my life. I was addicted to flying. I had my own glider. I taught gliding and I took a private pilot’s licence and I used to think if I had only been old enough [laughs]
Interviewer: Yeah.
TB: But no. So do what you want to do.
PB: Same as me you see. I was in the I was in the Scouts. The Cubs, then the Scouts, then the Sea Cadets and you know, and of course I used to do lots of in fact I used to do fire watching. I was working at a munitions factory during the war and the blokes, the chaps used to say to me, ‘Will you do my turn tonight?’ Three and six a night it was and I used to do the fire watching.
Interviewer: Yeah.
PB: In a little shed.
Interviewer: Well, that gives us an insight. Sorry would you like to say one other thing?
TB: Just it’s just one thing when you’re talking among your peers remember three things. Three letters. PPR. Pride, Respect and Responsibility.
PB: Yeah.
TB: And they’ll take you through life being a good citizen.
Student: PPR.
PB: And they will be. They will be.
Interviewer: Ok. Thank you very much.
CA: Like I was saying about [unclear]
PB: It’s nice of you to listen to us anyway.
CA: We flew down the blooming Humber.
PB: Pleased to meet you. What’s your name?
Part 2.
[Preamble at start]
Interviewer: Right, Chris. So —
CA: Do you want my full name now?
Interviewer: Yes, please. If you could start with your full name.
CA: Christopher, Christopher Francis Allison.
Interviewer: And your date of birth?
CA: The 23rd of the 9th ‘25.
Interviewer: And which forces were, which armed forces were you in?
CA: In the RAF.
Interviewer: Ok.
CA: RAF.
Interviewer: Ok.
CA: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: And you said your service number.
CA: Oh, 3007708 [laughs]
Interviewer: That’s wonderful. So, Chris what we look for is to begin your career in the RAF and can you tell us a little bit about joining? You said you volunteered and that was something your father said you’d never, should never do.
CA: I did. Yeah.
Interviewer: But you did.
CA: I did, yeah.
Interviewer: So what happened? What made you volunteer?
CA: I don’t know. I was always crazy about flying like you know and I was in the Air Cadets for about two years. We used to go to Immingham every week.
Interviewer: Yeah.
CA: And that’s why I flew from Binbrook to Waltham in a Wellington just to get a little bit of experience like you know.
Interviewer: Yes. Yeah.
CA: And then from there it all happened. I went to Sandy for a week to get my uniform.
Interviewer: Right. Yes.
CA: And from there we went to Skegness and we were there for a good twelve weeks.
Interviewer: Yes.
CA: And you learned how to use all the rifle, a revolver and all that lot you know, and hand grenades and whatever. And I think we was, we stayed there until that Christmas time because the, all the officers they served us with the, a Christmas meal like you know. And then gradually we went down south to now where the devil did we [pause] Portree. And well, I must admit I don’t know how long I was down there for. How long have we got down there? Anyhow, I wanted to come on leave but the officer said you can’t go until we’ve had D-Day and so that was it. But my mate and I were walking to do a little bit of work. You know, information like hydraulics and flying and this German aircraft come in and machine gunned us so [laughs] me and my mate we just dropped on the floor and rolled out of the way like this and I think the RAF Regiment gentleman got a bit of a rollicking because he should have fired at him but I think he did the next time and that was the end of that. We never saw him anymore like. And then we had odd crashes here and there like. There was a, well it wasn’t a Wellington, the next one. A Warwick. It took off and it, it stalled, turned over and crashed into the empty yard where there was a guy doing a job. So that was the end of that story. Then another one, I think it was a, I think, I think they were learning on a Beaufighter and this pilot came in and he slipped across and he knocked a civilian guy over and killed him. And when he got out and see what he'd done he fainted. But the aircraft came along and hit the side of the, the air raid shelter where we were inside. So we were lucky in the air raid shelter and that was the end of that. That’s, that’s all happened there until D-Day and then of course we were free to move when we wanted to like. So then I came on leave of course, you know.
Interviewer: So, that was, that was your training period was it? And that was to be —
CA: Well, yeah. For the, you know hydraulics and everything else connected with the aircraft.
Interviewer: So, and that was to become a flight engineer.
CA: Well, yeah. It was but more or less. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: So after that what happened next?
CA: Well, eventually I got posted to Elsham and there were two squadrons there and I don’t know how the devil I fiddled it but I said, I must have said I lived at Keelby and I fiddled and got to Kirmington on 166 Squadron and that was it. That was lovely and then we were mucking about there like on to, well I think I was on two bombing missions. I don’t know. I can’t remember and then a leaflet raids and you know things like that because the lads had done all the big stuff there like you know. We lost a thousand guys any rate there.
Interviewer: Yeah.
CA: Yeah. And, and as I say Bomber Harris come this night and they said, ‘You’ve got to line up with the rest of the guys.’ Well, they were all around you know, the Red Arrows, not the Red Arrows, listen to me. Dambusters and he come along and was giving them medals. And that’s what he said to me. ‘Where are you from airman?’ I said, ‘Just down the road, sir.’ Well, I was because Keelby was only about three miles away and that was that. And then of course I met who have we got down here? Donald Pleasence, you know, the actor and Bomber Harris. And then oh, I forgot to tell you when I was down south Montgomery. Montgomery came when I can speak properly and he gave the guys medals there because they’d knocked a wall down somewhere did Mosquitoes. Can you remember that?
Interviewer: Prison.
CA: Yeah. [unclear]
Interviewer: It was the Dutch prison wasn’t it?
Interviewer 2: The Amiens raid at prison.
CA: Ah, we found out more two or three years ago, didn’t we? There was more to it than that and he looked like Montgomery. I should say it could be wasn’t it? Yeah, and so that was that. Yeah. Well, they flew in low there didn’t they and knocked this wall down these Mosquitoes and that was it.
Interviewer: Yeah. And released the French prisoners.
CA: I forgot about that with looking at this. What else do you want to know then?
Interviewer: So you’re on an operational squadron by then.
CA: Yeah, by then. Yeah.
Interviewer: What was it? What was your job when you —
CA: Well, you were flying —
Interviewer: What was the job in the aircraft?
CA: Well, I suppose if worst comes to the worst if the pilot got hit and killed you would have to take over but you were just more or less function. Make sure everything was working alright, you know. Looking at your meters and God knows what because we had everybody else like. There was seven of us you know. You had bomb aimer and navigator and wireless operator. All that lot like you know.
Interviewer: And you would sit just behind the pilot.
CA: Aside. At the side of the pilot. Yeah.
Interviewer: What was your job say? Can you describe what it’s like taking off or —
CA: Well, as long as you got, as long as you got plenty of revs on and all that you were alright. Of course, you had to come into the head wind to take off. Oh yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
CA: You see at Kirmington you used to take off, start off the other side of the road. They’ve scrubbed all that now haven’t they at Kirmington.
Interviewer: Right. Yeah. So I mean what was your did you fuel, making sure the fuel went to the right engines and the right tanks and this sort of thing.
CA: Well, yeah. I mean it was a hundred octane what they flew with like you know. Oh yeah. And never everything, nothing really went wrong. It could have done but it didn’t do.
Interviewer: Well, done. That was a part of what you’d do.
CA: Well yeah, because as I say most of it had gone by the Germans. They’d lost their, lost their sting a little bit by then, hadn’t they? I mean I was only in what two years.
Interviewer: But what was it like then? So if you were flying over Germany any, can you describe what it was like to be in your seat and —
CA: Well, not really. As long as everything happened alright you come back alright. I don’t, you couldn’t live with that otherwise you wouldn’t do it.
Interviewer: No.
CA: No. No. You, we couldn’t be frightened. No. No. No.
Interviewer: Did you, did you —
[unclear asides]
[recording paused]
Interviewer 2: We’ll talk about those now. Yeah.
Interviewer: Ok. So, but you did fly over places that had already been bombed.
CA: Oh yeah. That’s right. Hamburg and what have we got down here? Hamburg [pause] Dresden. We’d go down Heligoland. The dams. Leaflet dropping. Leaflets. Oh yeah. I went over Holland as well and, yeah.
Interviewer 2: Did you drop food to the Dutch?
CA: Pardon?
Interviewer 2: Did you drop any food to the Dutch?
CA: No. No. No.
Interviewer: What about you said you flew over the dams and —
CA: Oh yeah.
Interviewer: And Dresden. What was it like? What did you see?
CA: Well, it looked like as though, it looked like a sea because they’d done these dams to flood the German’s, all the works and all that. And I think it, they succeeded for a while but they were saying the Germans soon built them up again.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
CA: Aye.
Interviewer: What about Dresden because that was, that was towards the end of the war.
CA: Yeah. Dresden. Well, no. I don’t know. You see you had to go, I think when you got to ten thousand feet you had to have oxygen like you know but as you got depending on all what you were briefed on. Whatever you know.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
CA: Oh yeah.
Interviewer: What would you think was the most difficult moment you had in the air?
CA: Well, I think, I don’t know there was only once we were going back and there was a thunderstorm on. I mean, I know fog could be bad thing like but I don’t think we ever came across fog. I know I was coming back over the Humber and it was a bit rocky like you know because it was thundering and lightning but once you got to Kirmington if you saw if it was daylight enough you could see the spire which was green and you knew you were safe home again like, you know.
Interviewer: So, the thunderstorm. What happened with that because they can be dangerous can’t they?
CA: Well yeah. Just, just made the aircraft do a little bit of that and that’s it.
Interviewer: [unclear]
CA: Well, well they were just normal guys and they seemed to all take it in their stride and well, I don’t know. They lived as though they were going to live forever.
Interviewer: Yeah. What about those that didn’t. You know, that didn’t come back.
CA: No. No. I don’t know. I don’t know. Bless them. It all happened so quick.
Interviewer: Yeah.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer: Any personal friends of yours that —
CA: Well, there was only that one guy I was telling you about who was nineteen and he, I don’t know. It’s a shame really when I think about it isn’t it? They never saw, well I mean they was all around about nineteen to twenty five I think. Some of the pilots must have been a young person like you know.
Interviewer: Yeah. And he, he went down.
CA: I’d have thought. Yeah. Yeah. Well, as I say quite a few survived but they were saying on the telly the other night that if you baled out there the, the German guys looked after you but the population they would kill you didn’t they? Eh? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They, they I don’t know if they had to bale out over Germany and France or somewhere or they crash landed there but they all survived and then when somehow they got back to Kirmington and if they come back they got a, put a caterpillar on their tie. Yeah. Yeah. And the other one was a ladybird. I don’t know which was which now. I should. I don’t know. But the French used to get them back somehow. They were pretty good like that.
Interviewer: And did you say Donald Pleasence was —
CA: Oh, he was there at Kirmington and in them days he had a good mass of hair [laughs] But no, he was, he was I didn’t know much about him like only he was famous wasn’t he in the end.
Other: Yeah. Very.
CA: And if, if anybody was very very lucky and did, got about thirty trips they used to go to Kirmington pub and celebrate. Oh, some had designs on that aircraft Jane. There was Jane painted on the pilot’s side and then the Beer one, B for beer it was every time they’d done a mission there was this, this beer dropping into a glass. Then on that side there was all the missions they’d done and glasses of beer. It was lovely. I mean like there was A for Apple, B for Beer, C for Charlie and all that like.
Interviewer: Yeah.
CA: But there was some of them they couldn’t do paintings on there.
Interviewer: Did you have a painting on your aircraft?
CA: Well, we had [pause] no I don’t think we had because I was sort of fiddling about a little bit on W-William and you see we went right down. Well, I think we had twenty six aircraft and W X Y Z, you see. So, well, one was X-ray of course. No. We hadn’t. No. No. Some of them were hit and miss all the time. The biggest thing of all was I can’t understand it they never mentioned the girls what used to fly the Lancasters to replace all these to Kirmington, Elsham did they?
Interviewer: No.
CA: They’ve never been mentioned.
Interviewer: It was only after the war that they talked about the ATA girls.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer: Now that these young girls were the same age as the pilots and —
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer: They used to fly them on their own.
CA: Well, they must. They must have brought the Lancaster to Kirmington on their own mustn’t they? On their own.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember the number of your Lancaster. Whisky.
CA: No, I don’t. No, because only a number. If it was A you would have to go through the alphabet wouldn’t you? A B C D E F like.
Interviewer: How many missions did you do, Chris?
CA: I reckon about, I reckon about four.
Interviewer: Yes.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
CA: Because there was nothing left really was there? What were you saying?
[recording paused]
CA: I don’t know why we dropped the leaflets. I thought it would tell them to pack in fighting. Yeah.
Interviewer: And this was in Norway. You went over dropping leaflets in Norway.
CA: I should say so. There must have been, you know. Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: To stop the, to say don’t fight.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
CA: Yeah, because we was, one time the Italians were with the Germans weren’t they? Eh? I don’t know. He must have at the end of the war he died at Kirmington. He must. I don’t know whether he, I don’t know much about the Lancaster but apparently in order to the Americans used to do carpet bombing and for some unknown reason they got underneath in the way and it damaged the aircraft and he must have panicked when he come over Kirmington because he baled out and he got caught on the aircraft.
Interviewer: Right.
CA: And he just fell to the bottom and it killed him and I saw that. I saw him coming down and he just missed an haystack by about a hundred yards. It might have saved his life. I don’t know. But he must have panicked for some unknown reason.
Interviewer: And the aircraft landed.
CA: I don’t know where it went.
Interviewer: No.
CA: It went, it went over the Humber somewhere and nobody seemed to know anything about it. No.
Interviewer: Ok. Well, let’s, were the Lancs difficult to look after in terms of, you know —
CA: Oh no.
Interviewer: Your job as the flight engineer. Were they complex?
CA: Oh no. I think they always say they were the best aircraft to fly. I think they were brilliant. I know there was the Halifax or what we used to call the Halibags but Halifax and the Lancaster and that was the last one they did towards the end wasn’t it because like that other guy, Somerscales he was on [pause] No. Not that guy. He was on, on about a half a dozen different aircraft. No. He, no, George, no. Stan Somerscales, they were flying back to England and they had been on a bombing, a second bombing mission and they got you know shot up badly and they were struggling. He saw this village or town ahead of them and he was struggling to get the aircraft away from it. He told the crew to bale out and the last guy, ‘Pass me my, pass me my parachute.’ Well, he should have had it. He should have been sat on the damned thing. Poor old George, it crashed and I think he died with the nuns looking after him. That’s the guy I was on about. He hurried in front of someone.
Interviewer: Yeah.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
CA: And he got the DFC.
Interviewer: Yeah. You mentioned that you knew Morse and that —
CA: Oh that. Yeah.
Interviewer: And you used to sometimes swap signals and not such —
CA: Well, yeah. You know on very, very rare you’d get some crackpot rear gunner would give you a funny message on there. If you remember. I’ve forgotten Morse now. All I can remember is dot dot dot dash dash dash dot dot dot. SOS.
Interviewer: So the gunners would flash Morse to the following aircraft and —
CA: Well, yeah. I think, oh I know something else. I think every aircraft used to have a pigeon aboard if I remember right. Didn’t they? Yeah. When you just mentioned that. Because if you succeeded alright like you’d have a job to, if the Germans were keeping an eye on you they would have Morse wouldn’t they? Pigeons would be different, wouldn’t it? And instead of coming back through —
Interviewer: Sorry Chris. Finger trouble on my part. Where were you?
CA: Yeah. Me and my mate had been out somewhere for the day and we come back at night time and we didn’t come through the main entrance what’s security. We come in, we cut through somewhere and the next day one of them, well it was a flight sergeant or somebody or the warrant officer said, ‘Oh, the CO wants to see you.’ I thought oh my God, we’re in trouble because we didn’t come through the security gate like. So I walked in there and there was a lady CO. She said, ‘Oh, come in airman.’ She talked real posh. She said, she said, ‘Do you want to go out in Class A or Class B?’ I said, ‘Well, I don’t know ma’am.’ I said. ‘My mam’s a widower and —' I said, ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Oh’ she said, ‘You’d better go out and think about it and come back.’ So I went back and I said, ‘I’ll go out in class B ma’am.’ And that’s what I did because you see otherwise you had to wait your time didn’t you? If you’d been in say so many all in like a section weren’t you? A B C D.
Interviewer: Right.
CA: So I came out in B.
Interviewer: Right.
CA: So back to Sandy again I went didn’t I? I got my civilian suit and all that didn’t I?
Interviewer: Yeah. So just we were talking earlier that you’d gone back to Scotland and you’d been put in charge of some German prisoners of war.
CA: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: You want to just talk.
CA: Oh, you didn’t get that did you?
Interviewer: No.
CA: Oh yeah. And then, I don’t know. I don’t think they knew what to do with us because they were trying to get rid of us like after the war and then she just said, ‘Well, would you like to just see to these German prisoners of war? They’ve got to go and do a job.’ Like, and that’s what I did like and they were pretty good really in a sense and you got talking to them. They spoke pretty good English and you know there was three categories A, B and C like. Some were Germans, some mid-way and some with us like you know and they were doing jobs and we used to wander up in the morning and he said, ‘Do you mind if we put these containers under each tray? Make it drip.’
[telephone ringing – recording paused]
Interviewer: How you guarded the prisoners so that —
CA: Oh yeah. Well, he just said, ‘Will you guard these Germans. He said, ‘Just get a Sten gun but no ammunition. So, of course, I go in the armourer and I said, ‘I’m going to take ammunition.’ You know. I’m not taking any chances. So that’s what I did. But they were brilliant I must admit and [pause] yeah. They behaved pretty good.
Interviewer: Yeah.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer: To the tree.
CA: Yeah. Yeah, well as I was saying when the phone rang, oh yeah, he said, ‘Do you mind if we tie these containers to each tree and cut it so that the sap runs into the bottle like?’ I said, ‘That’s alright.’ And then he was talking about it and when we come back I said, ‘What’s all that about?’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘We make our own, we do our own hair cream.’ He said. ‘Do you want some?’ I said, ‘You must be joking.’ I said, and he took his hat off and he’d got a lovely mop of hair which the Germans had and that was the end of that conversation. They used to say, ‘I will make this for your mother.’ And you know, oh yeah. They were lovely. And that was the end of that.
Interviewer: Yeah.
[recording paused]
Interviewer: Alright. Yeah.
CA: Oh aye. And I used to write the letter and then of course had to go through all the rigmarole at Kirmington and hoping that he got the letters but he never got the letters.
CA: Right. That’s interesting.
Interviewer: Yeah. I told you about that guy used to write to. He was an Army guy. I said, ‘Did you —’ when I saw him after the war, ‘Did you —’ pardon?
Other: Name?
CA: His name? Oh, I don’t know what his name was. I don’t know. I don’t know. I can’t remember his name.
Interviewer: Yeah.
CA: I can’t remember.
Interviewer: Yeah, I mean that’s —
[Recording cuts suddenly].
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 Christopher Francis Allison
1007-Allison, Christopher Francis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v15-02, SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v15-03
Description
An account of the resource
Interview in two parts.
Part one.
Chris Allison served as a flight engineer. He answers questions from school children about what it was like to fly in a Lancaster.
Also taking part in this interview was Tony Bradley who was a child in Hull during the war, and Patrick Bateman who served in Borneo in the Royal Marines.
Part two.
Christopher Allison served as a flight engineer on 166 Squadron at RAF Kirmington.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dave Harrigan
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
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
British Army
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:15:33 audio recording
00:23:23 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary. Allocated C Campbell
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.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Borneo
Great Britain
Malaya
England--Lincolnshire
166 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
childhood in wartime
flight engineer
prisoner of war
RAF Kirmington
strafing
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46443/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v120002.mp3
7b29be586234127b0dd260fdc8883d68
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
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
2017-06-19
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer: It’s the 12th of May. I’m here with Bernard Bell. I’m here to talk about Kirton in Lindsey and North Lincolnshire during the war. Ok.
BB: Yes. I was born in Gainsborough and lived in Scunthorpe down East Common Lane during the war years. When the war started in 1939 I can remember exactly where I was as a five year old child. During those years my memories go back seeing a lot of action of the bombers going over our part of Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire in raids of a thousand bombers at a time to Germany. They came from Yorkshire, Norfolk and Lincolnshire to go out to sea. During those early years I remember a plane crashing just off Warley Road and it was a Wellington bomber. I think the crew was seven and all seven were killed unfortunately. Later in nineteen, I think it was probably in 1944 when a Lancaster bomber crashed at Ashby Ville on the road going out towards Brigg and that was on a Saturday lunchtime where again apart from one of the crew they were all killed. These are memories of mine from way back. And later on after the war I obviously had been amongst the RAF during the war, joined the RAF for a four year period in 1952 and stayed in the RAF for four years. My service was at Kirton in Lindsey which was a surprise to me as I had a home posting and was able to go home every night on a pass and back the next morning for two and a half years. Somebody must have found out at Air Ministry and had me reposted to Iraq and I stayed in Iraq for the remainder of my service which was roughly eighteen months. So that takes you back over a long period of my history here in Lincolnshire. I was born in Lincolnshire and brought up in Lincolnshire and later after I came out of service I went to live in Nottinghamshire where I still live.
Interviewer: Can you say a bit about your role when you were at Kirton in Lindsey? What did you do?
BB: About —?
Interviewer: About your daily duties when you were in RAF Kirton in Lindsey.
BB: Yes. When I was at Kirton in Lindsey I was a store, a technical storeman. Funny. Rather funny because in Civvy Street I worked at HB Toombs in High Street, Scunthorpe as a tailor and was in the, in the clothing trade and trained in tailoring. I said somehow they thought I’d be better fitted to technical which rather surprised me. I was in the technical stores at Kirton in Lindsey for those two and a half years and Flight Lieutenant Paine, Pilot Officer Eaton and Flight Sergeant Adams were in charge of the stores. As I say I stayed for that period of time.
Interviewer: Also, we’ve got here in our notes that you played piano in a dance band during wartime. How was, what was that like?
BB: Oh. My uncle had a dance orchestra and played at Kirton in Lindsey in the Town Hall in Kirton over the war year period and the dance orchestra was called the Romany Dance Band. I remember a chap they called Skelton was the drummer, my uncle was the pianist, I don’t remember much of the others. I played the ukelele for a short time as an accompaniment [laughs] Probably that’s why they got sacked [laughs] But that went on through the war and they had a lot of sessions at the Town Hall in Kirton which was quite interesting. I don’t know what happened after that. They stayed on I think until about nineteen, probably 1948 and my uncle, who lived in Kirton, in Church Street had an insurance business and he, a lot of insurances were done on the camps of Kirton and Hemswell. So he had a lot of customers over there. So my family go back over many years in this period in this area.
Interviewer: You mentioned earlier your family have got connections with World War One manufacturing. Could you tell me a bit about that?
BB: Yes. In World War One my family which was Marris and Beverley owned a foundry in Kirton in Lindsey just off Church Street opposite the church and they made equipment for the Army during the First World War. They were virtually my grandfather was a blacksmith and in the Second World War he was making or repairing kettles and things which were in short supply. If anybody had a kettle which had a hole in it he would put it right. He was doing this during the war years.
Interviewer: What were relations like between the town and the airfield? Did the airmen —
BB: Very good. Kirton in Lindsey was always acceptable to the RAF. I think Lincolnshire was known as an RAF county. It’s known as Bomber County and its always been well respected and well looked after and always been very welcome as we are still when we have our reunions. We are made very welcome here at Hibaldstow as you can see. As you hear this morning you know they make us very welcome. Very welcome. Which is very nice indeed, you know. Unfortunately, Kirton is now I believe, I’m told is about to close. I haven’t got confirmation of this but I think it is about to close and sold to a civilian company. Which is rather sad because I think it’s been there since 1916, I think it opened. It’s a long long time.
Interviewer: Are there any memories of the airfield that are particularly kind of dear to you?
BB: The —?
Interviewer: Are there any memories that you, you know of the airfield that are particularly dear to you? That stand out?
BB: No. I think the thing what stand out is the bombing. The bombing raids and the number of planes what went over our house. My, my children didn’t believe me for a long time until they saw a video with these planes on. Just didn’t believe that there would be a thousand planes going over the top. It was black. The sky was almost black with Lancaster bombers and you did wonder because a lot of them got killed that didn’t come back. It’s rather sad. War is sad anyway you know. There’s no winners in wars. There’s only losers. We all lose really at the end of the day you know and so many of them got killed. You know, pilots often after the first flight over Germany they were killed you know. Which is, it has to be remembered because through them we’re here today and have our freedom what we’ve got.
Interviewer: Absolutely.
BB: So we have a lot to be thankful for.
Interviewer: Well, thank you very much for sharing. Is there anything else that you would like to say or —
BB: I think that’s about it. If any of my schoolfriends are still about in Scunthorpe [laughs] I’m still about.
Interviewer: Well, thank you very much.
BB: I went to Brumby Wood, Brumby School in Cemetery Road. Mr Sumpter was the headmaster in my day and I remember some of my schoolfriends were Peter Wainwright and [Cush] Cowling and one or two more. If they are still about I would like to get in touch.
Interviewer: Brilliant.
BB: Right.
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 Bernard Bell
1005-Bell, Bernard-N Lincolnshire Disc 1
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v12
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Scunthorpe
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:07:15 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary. Allocated C Campbell
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dawn Oakley
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
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.
Description
An account of the resource
Bernard Bell was a child in Scunthorpe during the war.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
bombing
childhood in wartime
crash
entertainment
RAF Kirton in Lindsey
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46442/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v110002 BellGA.mp3
e0b67d2a2816cebb32e23f476d305ba7
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
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
2017-06-19
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer 1: Hello. One two one two. Testing. Testing. Testing. One two. One two.
Interviewer 2: I’m just about to hit the button now.
GB: Right.
[recording paused]
GB: George Arthur Bell. Born in Boston, 18.4.25.
Interviewer: So, George we’re going to be talking about then. Now, part of your life —
GB: Yes.
Interviewer: Was around Boston as the war broke out.
GB: That’s right.
Interviewer: And I will begin there. What were your memories of that?
GB: Well, my mother died when I was seven and there were three children. I’d got a sister sort of four years older and a brother four years younger and life was a bit difficult. We lived in Sydney Street. I was born in 75 Sydney Street and next door was my in-laws, my grandparents. My mother’s mother and father they lived there and they were quite helpful in their way but mainly we seemed to go, they were Shepherds their name and we mainly used to go to my father’s side, the Bells at Frithville where he was born and his mother and father lived there. And we spent of course you did everything on your bicycle then. There were no, not many cars and early on it was, we can just, you just got on your bike and went. But of course, I went, I went to school at Carlton Road. The, what was, what they called Elementary Schools then. I did sit the exam for the Grammar School but I wasn’t actually keen to go to the Grammar School really because I got on well at Carlton Road, I was into sport and football and that sort of thing, and I didn’t, didn’t get in. And there was another thing you could apply for which was the free place but I didn’t say anything about that so I didn’t enter that. I kept silent [laughs] But later, as it turned out later on both my teachers at school thought that I was material perhaps to go to the Grammar School and they got on to my father a bit and he said, ‘Well, right. We’ll, I’ll pay for you to go.’ And we applied to the Grammar School to go but it was getting on a bit and we got a rather curt note which I’ve still got from the headmaster saying that the places were full and that was it. So quite funny really. It’s not what you know it’s who you know but who you know. But —
Interviewer: Very true. Very true.
GB: But there we are so I eventually left school at fourteen and started work with my father who was a jobbing brick layer. A builder in a small way. He’d been in the trade all his life. He was actually left school when he was thirteen. I’ve got all his books and what he left at school and the work he did in well maths and writing and everything. It, and these days with all the advances in so called education it’s pathetic really what what’s turned out and his stuff when he was, when he was thirteen. But anyway, he worked for several local builders and I’ve got an example of his work is in that. In the book I’ve written in Boston.
Interviewer: Yeah. The name of your book is what George?
GB: The name of the book is, “Living the Lincolnshire Life.” Of course, the picture of the book on the front pages is my grandfather on the engine and, and his man Harold Evison called, his nickname was Keck. Keck Evison. I don’t know why oh why. And that’s one of my uncles. Uncle Fred. He was, eventually went to London and got in to the fish and chip trade.
Interviewer: So what year was this then? Was this building up to the war was it?
GB: Yes. Building up to the war. Yes. Yeah. And well it would be 1939 it would be because I left school in 1939 and started work with my father. I got fifty pence a week which is not a lot really. Not these days [laughs] for a forty eight hour week. I had a weeks holiday. My father was a fairly hard taskmaster in a way which he’d been brought up that way. He’d actually served four years during the First World War. He joined up when he was eighteen and came out when he was twenty one or two and had been awarded a military medal.
Interviewer: Oh right.
GB: In 1917. Which I’ve still got. And so he’d sort of been there done that. Seen quite a bit.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
GB: Lucky to get.
Interviewer: Yeah.
GB: But —
Interviewer: There was some hard men coming out of that war.
GB: Aye. Yeah, but, and times, times were hard. I mean in those days well just after the war, well even when I first started you could fire a man in two hours. Just give him two hours notice and that was it like. No, no appealing or anything like that so [pause] but and we of course during the summer which was, we enjoyed it, it seemed a good summer as they did in those days really. And we used to go to Frithville up at where my grandparents lived and they were quite receptive and we used to do a fair bit of swimming with the neighbour’s sons. The Sergeants. They had a garage and they had two boys, Reg and John. Well, John eventually went on. He joined the Air Force and was awarded the DFM as it, as it so happens.
Interviewer: So, this summer then really was the halcyon summer before the big conflict.
GB: Before the, before the war.
Interviewer: Yeah.
GB: That’s in September. Then it started, didn’t it? Well, of course prior to that in 1938 there was a scare. The Munich scare that came on. Everybody was, they were busy you know sandbagging various places and whatnot and the playing field on Sleaford Road they dug a series of trenches which within about a month were full of water [laughs] so, useless really.
Interviewer: Yeah.
GB: But that was, that was how it went on. But —
Interviewer: I guess so we move on now then. Obviously, it’s just gone past the summer and we enter into —
GB: Into the —
Interviewer: September now so —
GB: Yes. Well, war broke out and we were quite busy really because father did a lot of the farm repair work which was, well needed and was sort of a Reserved Occupation and he got, got me, well not deferred but he got on as an apprentice. An indentured apprentice which was for five years which meant that you know subject to everything I should be eighteen and I should be nineteen before I should be conscripted. But which in some ways it, looking back it helped a bit. The war could have been won.
Interviewer: I wouldn’t say it was easier though.
GB: No. No. No, it wouldn’t. And we did a lot of work on local farms all around Boston and District and repairing things and you came across various things. I mean several aircraft crashed around about. I saw the one come down at Sibsey Northlands where the Memorial Service is held every year.
Interviewer: Right.
GB: I was working at a barn about, well about a couple of miles away. I didn’t actually see the plane come down but I heard it and saw the plume of smoke come up and —
Interviewer: Was this a bomber or a fighter?
GB: It was a bomber. It was a Lancaster.
Interviewer: Right.
GB: And of course they were still in there the blokes were. They never got them out or anything and they had this annual Memorial Service at Sibsey Northlands. You probably may have seen it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
GB: I did see that but of course you didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know then that it was a Lancaster that had crashed but you knew something had gone on but you, things were hushed up always really. You know, it didn’t [pause] Well, news was hard to come by really that, but that’s, that was one thing I saw. There was another on down Frith Bank towards Anton’s Gowt and a Manchester crashed down there on Cartwright’s farm.
Interviewer: Ok. That’s interesting.
GB: You could see that.
Interviewer: That must have obviously come from Waddington then.
GB: Well —
Interviewer: Because that’s where they were based wasn’t it?
GB: Aye. Maybe. I don’t know where it came from. You could see it, you know. As you went past the road you could see it you know about well a half a mile away in the [pause] And another episode was that –
Interviewer: What year was that? Can you remember what year that was? 1941? Something like that?
GB: I should think it, well it would, I should think it would have been 1941 ‘42. They phased Manchesters out, didn’t they?
Interviewer: They did. Yeah. Yeah.
GB: Because they were the two engines job and they went to four with the Lancs, didn’t they? And another, my uncle farmed at Lade Bank at Old Leake and there was a fighter crashed on his farm and it flipped over and killed the pilot. I think it was, I’m not sure whether it was a Hurricane or a Spitfire but two or three days later we walked to the farm, walked down and you could see where it had gauged the ground out and landed and of course it would have gone. Gone and picked up and away really. But that was another incident there.
Interviewer: So, working on the land then or you were working obviously —
GB: Yeah.
Interviewer: During this period.
GB: Yes. Yeah.
Interviewer: What changes did you notice really? Was there —
GB: Well, not a, not a lot really. But it, you know you worked from half past seven to five and [laughs] and then when you got home you went swimming or fishing or something to do with something like that.
Interviewer: Did you notice a lot of troops in the area? Was there —
GB: Not a lot. There were quite a few because they were I, eventually when I was fifteen joined the St James Men’s Club. That was, it’s now, oh gone. Where? Well, it was the St James Hall and the Church. The Church is all gone and the Hall’s gone and it was Wickes and now Wickes have moved and the whole caboosh has gone and this was a Men’s Club. In fact, I’ve got all the minutes of the whole set up from when it started to when it ended. They’re quite interesting. When you joined and who you were and all the rest of it and, and I was lucky to get in because the age you were supposed to get in was sixteen but with it being wartime and they, you know —
[recording paused]
Interviewer: Aye, are you ready?
GB: Yeah. Yeah. Well, there was quite a few Land Girls of course. Girls seemed to be sparse in those days somehow [laughs] Didn’t, there wasn’t a lot of social life and we used to go to Frithville and they organised, well most villages did and you know whist drive and dance sort of things. Social evenings. And they were always well attended and they were quite fun. And we worked around about. I remember at, well the farm I was working on when I saw the Lanc come down or that incident there were three girls there. Roberts, I mentioned a bit in the book I think and there were, there were three girls. Aileen, Ena and Hilda and they were well Aileen was about, well three or four years older than me and she went on to marry a pilot, a bomber pilot and I think she’s still alive.
Interviewer: Oh right.
GB: But she must be a good age now. But I tried to contact them but they don’t seem to want to know anything really. That’s how people are.
Interviewer: For some people it was a long time ago now.
GB: Aye, yeah. Yes, but, and of course Ena she was about my age and we were working at one, on their farm and she, when the thrashing machine came to thrash the stacks and whatnot she of course you had to have a waterboy. It wanted a lot of water the engine did and she was waterboy and of course you know with working there and I would see this girl come and [laughs] I thought she was a bit of alright like [laughs] I was sixteen then. I’ll let you –
Interviewer: [laughs] Didn’t get to see many around here.
GB: No. No. And my cousin. Then they had a sister, Hilda. She was a bit younger but they all went to the High School at Boston. They biked. Likewise, at Sibsey Westhouses. We worked there for, then at the Everards. They were brother, two brothers worked at farm at either side there. Sibsey Westhouses and right at the bottom end there was another farm Tommy Farr farmed. He had four daughters and they would come from their farm and you would see them sort of and they biked up to Boston, the High School, from there and, you know.
Interviewer: You know during this time you know obviously rationing occurred.
GB: Yeah. Yes.
Interviewer: Was in force.
GB: Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: How did that affect you?
GB: Well, you didn’t have a lot of butter or anything like that and you just made do really. It’s, and just accepted it. It was just there and you got on with it.
Interviewer: Did you live off the land though a bit better?
GB: Well yeah. I think you did. Yes. Well, your folks were farmers weren’t they?
Other: Yes. Eggs and —
GB: Eggs and butter and that and milk and that sort of thing was.
Other: Yes.
GB: You were better off really.
Other: Yes.
GB: Well, near Bury St Edmunds you farmed, didn’t you?
Other: Yeah.
Interviewer: I was thinking about the pheasants as well in the fields around.
GB: Ah, well that’s right. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, it was quite, but and then during that time, well when mother died my sister and I went to, during the funeral and afterwards we went to stay at, well my uncle, well this great uncle actually at Stickney where they farmed and I used to spend all my holidays there from then on. From sort of eight up to leaving school and I really, you know enjoyed it and got on proper well. It was quite interesting working on the farm.
Interviewer: Yeah.
GB: I mentioned a bit in the book about the duck shooting and rabbits and hens and that sort of thing and one, one chap well this was in Butterwick because it’s actually one incident where they were having a shoot and one of the farmers as you did on the last breed when they all broke. The pheasants and game broke out from the last breed and you would chase after the rabbits and whatnot and this farmer they were, he got carried away a bit with his gun and clubbed the rabbit and shot himself and killed him. Yeah. His name was Lyons. Bill Lyons.
Interviewer: Oh dear.
GB: And that but —
Interviewer: That brings us in now really coming up towards the summer of 1944 really.
GB: Aye. Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: And obviously something arrived through the letterbox, didn’t it?
GB: Well, that’s it, yes. Eventually it came through like, you know. It was inevitable which I expected and off I went to Lincoln then to join the Army. Which was, well a bit of a shock in a way really but you know you just got on with it.
Interviewer: What did you go in as?
GB: As a soldier. A private soldier.
Interviewer: Yeah.
GB: In the infantry. It was the barracks at Lincoln.
Interviewer: Yeah.
GB: The Lincolns were stationed there. The York and Lancs and the Sherwood Foresters.
Interviewer: And which regiment were you?
GB: It was Lincolns.
Interviewer: You were the Lincolns then.
GB: The Lincolns. Yeah. Yeah. But it was quite an interesting experience there. Discipline was pretty strict you know as it was but I mean on every Thursday you would have what they called a doubling day and you had to double. If it was doubling day north you doubled. And then on sort of once a month it was doubling all the way like. North, south, east and west like. You just, it was —
Interviewer: So, were you, were you leading up to D-Day then and —
GB: Well, not, not, yeah I suppose we would be really. We did sort of six weeks primary training, then twelve weeks infantry training. Then after that it was, you know just you didn’t quite know what you were going to do and where. And we, well I thought perhaps because I was, I was nineteen then and they sort of put us as if we were going abroad. Not in, not to France and Germany. And I went to a holding camp near Nottingham. Whatton they called it. It’s a prison now. And from there on, you know we used to go into Nottingham a bit. Nights out and whatnot and then eventually we, well got on a troop train from Gourock and went out to India. But you know it was about, well for about a week we were on a boat. Well, five weeks I should think.
Interviewer: Wow.
GB: And we went out. It was, well it was about a week before we set out from Gourock funnily enough and what not. I think there was about five thousand boats on there. And we then you had to go right out to almost to America and turn around because of the U-boats. Then once you got to Gib you were ok. The Mediterranean was clear then.
Interviewer: Right.
GB: Which was quite pleasant. But going to, well the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic it was pretty horrendous. It was rough and sort of about five thousand blokes were sick [laughs] And you know, what a mess.
Interviewer: I can imagine.
GB: And we were in the bottom, the bottom deck. H8 starboard. That was what —
Interviewer: What was the name of the ship? Can you remember?
GB: The Orion.
Interviewer: The Orion.
GB: Yeah.
Interviewer: Ok.
GB: Yeah. P&O.
Interviewer: Right.
GB: Yeah. The Orion. And we were right at the bottom and, you know if we’d been torpedoed well, I mean you’ve no chance like to get out of there. But we got to Gib and then we went to Aden and to you know through the Suez into Aden and, and then we stopped at Port Said for a, just a bit of a refresher and clean up and what not and it was quite interesting and it was, it was warm the weather.
Interviewer: Yeah. So what time of the year did you arrive then in India?
GB: In India? It was January 1945.
Interviewer: 1945.
GB: Yeah.
Interviewer: So you were still expecting to go into Burma.
GB: Well, that was it. That was what it was all about like, yes. You didn’t know where you were going to go in India or what. But, but I suppose somehow somebody did and you were allocated and you know got off the ship and went to a train and where it took you and we went to Jhansy to start with and then got on another train. Went off to Delhi where, and then joined the battalion. Second Battalion King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.
Interviewer: Oh. Right.
GB: Who were stationed there then on what they called internal security because India then was a bit of a hotbed in a way prior to the segregation and you know the split as it were. But and of course a lot of people don’t know but the Indian, there was an Indian Army that fought for the Japanese.
Interviewer: Fought with the Japanese.
GB: For. Yes.
Interviewer: Oh right.
GB: With them. Yeah. Yeah. What they called [pause] I don’t know whether it was a Free Indian Army but there was definitely a sort of formation of I think about twenty or thirty thousand. A division anyway that fought with the Japanese.
Interviewer: That’s interesting. So did you actually get, get up by the time then obviously getting into 1945 was the most of the fighting done or —
GB: Yeah. Well, yes. We got into, we had been stationed in Delhi for quite a while and during that time it wasn’t, you didn’t see any tourist sights or anything like that. You know, if you went to [unclear] you didn’t see the Taj Mahal or anything like that sort of business [laughs] But it was quite interesting in a way. It was a bit of a peacetime station because you see the battalion had been stationed in Burma prewar because Burma was part of the British Empire then.
Interviewer: Right.
GB: Which not a lot of people knew or know and they were stationed at a place called [unclear] About forty miles north of Mandalay. It was sort of a hill station sort of thing. I’ve got books about it actually but and when the, when the war broke out they were pushed out and they had to scarper. Well, they were pushed back and had a bit of a trip, a rough trip to get back into India which, well they lost quite a few. But they’d not got, they had a new station in Delhi on what they called internal security which were sort of they had to keep peace in Delhi and well I mean four companies and a battalion and we always had one company stationed in the Red Fort at Delhi because that was the old city. And in case anything broke out they were there to quell it and —
Interviewer: Yeah. It was quite obvious at that time that the Indians were wanting partition as well.
GB: Yes.
Interviewer: And independence, wasn’t it?
GB: Yes. It was. Yes, it was quite obvious then because I remember doing guard duty on the Presidential Palace which, what it is now, it was Wavell he was the Viceroy then and he was in residence then. We used to have to do guard duties all spick and span and a fair bit of bull and that sort of thing like, you know. [laughs] But —
Interviewer: Yes.
GB: And I think Auchinleck was CnC but there’s not —
Interviewer: So it seems everybody that didn’t make it in the desert were sent to India then was it? Yeah.
GB: But during that time I got a bit, well I don’t know, I got a bit fed up really like that but you’re that age and I thought well the call came for, they wanted some volunteers for the Parachute Regiment. Paratroops. So I thought, well I’ll have a go at that. I can’t think why. Anyway, we had to go before the CO and you know say why you wanted to go or this, that and the other. I can’t exactly remember what I did say. Why I wanted to go or anything like that but in the end nothing came of it because the battalion were then ordered to move. To go down to Southern India for jungle warfare training. Sort of a completely different set up to what they’d had in in Delhi. I mean in Delhi it was in a way a bit like peacetime. I mean they’d got the regimental tailor and the [dersi?] wallah. I mean and you could get a shave in bed. A bloke, a shave wallah would come around and shave you in bed [laughs] The NAAFI was well stocked.
Interviewer: The empire was alive and well.
GB: Well, you believe what [laughs] anyway we got all I was in the advance party and up we shot down to near Ootacamund. It’s right in southern India which is a hill station. Well, we weren’t stationed there but it wasn’t far away. We were about forty fifty miles from it. A place called Gudalur at, I think it’s mentioned a bit in the book and one or two odd pictures and what not and we had this sort of six, six good weeks there doing jungle warfare training prior to moving on to Burma and what have you and which the, it was run by the Australians. They were sort of doing the [unclear] and what not. The training. They were a bunch of, well they were macho characters really. They’d been in New Guinea survivors really. They had seen service in New Guinea and they used to tell us you know sort of you join the Navy and you see the world and you join the Army you see the next — [laughs]
Interviewer: It's very true isn’t it? It’s very true. Yeah. We’ll be coming to the end. So you finished then in India what? About 1946 as a timeline.
GB: That’s right. Yes. Yeah.
Interviewer: Came back to Blighty that year.
GB: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: So when you came back then did you more or less just find yourself quickly demobbed.
GB: Yeah. That’s right. It was. I mean the war finished in August in Japan. August the 15th and it was another well fourteen months before I got demobbed and even then I was Class B because I was a builder and had got a trade. You could advance. Get out a bit quicker. So I came out under Class B but —
Interviewer: Did you return to Lincolnshire immediately then?
GB: Yeah, I came back to Boston and started off with the well I had two or three days with another builder in Boston [Van Pleusen?] and then I got back with my father.
Interviewer: Yeah.
GB: And we just resumed.
Interviewer: Right. Was there any war damage to repair around the local area?
GB: Well, quite a bit of bomb damage in the area of Boston. It’s documented in the diaries in the two years when. When and where. In fact, there was, well you wouldn’t know but on the corner of Rosegarth Street, you won’t know where that is I should think. In West Street. No. Not far from the Railway Station into Boston in West Street. I’ve got some pictures of it actually where they dropped a bomb on the Royal George, the pub. There was a pub there and a bakery, Loveleys Bakery and it, two girls were killed that I went to school with. There was a family of four or five and the girls were killed. I knew them both well but that was quite —
Interviewer: Did you ever, I mean the Americans were based just a few miles down the road at several bases. Did they ever come up to Boston or did you see them?
GB: Well, not a lot. We didn’t see a lot of Americans. Not really, no. Mainly we had the paratroops. The, I’ve forgotten what division they were now but and our English —
Interviewer: Were they English or American?
GB: English.
Interviewer: Ok.
GB: And they were all local about here and their headquarters were at, where did we go to when they [pause] the Garden Centre out towards Newark. We’ve been there. Got the odd plants.
Interviewer: Belton?
GB: No. Not Belton. But it’s a house there where, where the headquarters anyway but you know we used to play when I was at the club. We used to play various battalions. Well, you know they’d go up to the club and have a game of billiards and they would organise matches. Snooker and table tennis and that sort of thing which was quite interesting really.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it’s been fascinating talking to you George. I think we’ve covered a great deal really and thank you very much for giving your time. What we were looking for you’ve described beautifully.
GB: Well —
Interviewer: That’s your younger experiences prior to joining the Army in Boston.
GB: Aye. Right.
Interviewer: We’re very thankful for that. So that’s the end of the recording then with Mr George Bell.
GB: Yeah.
Interviewer: In Boston. And thank you very much.
GB: Aye, well that’s alright. Yes.
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 George Arthur Bell
1005,1006-Bell, George Arthur
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v11
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dave Harrigan
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary. Allocated C Campbell
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:30:36 audio recording
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.
Description
An account of the resource
George Bell grew up in Lincolnshire. He was called up to the Army and was posted to India and Burma.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Burma
Great Britain
India
England--Lincolnshire
India--Delhi
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
bombing
crash
ground personnel
Lancaster
training