1
25
33791
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2667/47104/PElyE19010001.1.jpg
6d2a67813c136be4360c0a133569e0a3
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2667/47104/PElyE19010002.1.jpg
caa6543a0dc9fb9197dce74ba96b2278
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2667/47104/PElyE19010003.1.jpg
9fc7a4dd33116678e020c523f53a8aa6
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2667/47104/PElyE19010004.1.jpg
1a750498df5e113b9927a0e2db135f12
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2667/47104/PElyE19010005.1.jpg
ce9af17d87da16ac024d2ae4e85141e1
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2667/47104/PElyE19010006.1.jpg
6e892c5a432a53a0c0074a3ac0e93327
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
Ely, E
Millichap, RE
Description
An account of the resource
One item. The collection concerns Squadron Leader R E Millichap DFC and contains a toy rabbit mascot. He flew operations with 630 Squadron from RAF East Kirkby.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Janet Bamford and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-02-16
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
Ely, E
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
Rabbit Mascot
Description
An account of the resource
A small stuffed toy rabbit wearing a green top and brown dungarees. It was the mascot of Squadron Leader R E Millichap.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
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
Text
Physical object
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One stuffed toy rabbit
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending 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.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PElyE19010001, PElyE19010002, PElyE19010003, PElyE19010004, PElyE19010005, PElyE19010006
630 Squadron
RAF East Kirkby
superstition
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2428/47030/PRobinsonG-21805.2.jpg
12c46e658dc51eaeed6a107b9374831c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2428/47030/PRobinsonG-21806.2.jpg
9c28f9cf53de3afdca64bd5bef4da664
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
Robinson, George
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. The collection concerns AC1 George Robinson (1623526 Royal Air Force) and contains correspondence and photographs. He served as ground personnel with 514 Squadron and was killed 1 May 1944 when the aircraft he was in crashed in the Channel while <span>on an air experience flight.</span><br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Geraldine Wells and catalogued by Andy Fitter. <br /><br />Additional information on George Robinson is available <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/224054/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-04
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
Robinson, G-2
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
George Robinson
Description
An account of the resource
A head and shoulders portrait of George Robinson in uniform with white training flash on his field service cap.
On the reverse is written: "From Mrs R Tempest Wilsford Nr Grantham. Please return this" and in a different hand: "To Eileen. All my love, Eddie."
There is also a company stamp.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
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
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PRobinsonG-21805, PRobinsonG-21806
aircrew
love and romance
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2428/47029/PRobinsonG-21801.2.jpg
6ef5fde2c0059261ca960d889fc8cb40
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2428/47029/PRobinsonG-21802.2.jpg
3f11110d5cdab95ba1d9175be0c613e8
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
Robinson, George
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. The collection concerns AC1 George Robinson (1623526 Royal Air Force) and contains correspondence and photographs. He served as ground personnel with 514 Squadron and was killed 1 May 1944 when the aircraft he was in crashed in the Channel while <span>on an air experience flight.</span><br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Geraldine Wells and catalogued by Andy Fitter. <br /><br />Additional information on George Robinson is available <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/224054/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-04
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
Robinson, G-2
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
200 airmen
Description
An account of the resource
A group of some 200 airmen in uniform, seated and standing in ten rows in front of a hedge, behind which is a building.
On the reverse is written: "I'm in the corner as usual" and "Freddie My mate is on the other side of this hole". There are also some arithmetic calculations.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
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
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PRobinsonG-21801, PRobinsonG-21802
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2428/47028/PRobinsonG-21803.1.jpg
ab13f54e1211213bdb58074dd2e3b56b
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2428/47028/PRobinsonG-21804.1.jpg
f9b1cb62331b8cd41e275654d8df3b2a
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
Robinson, George
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. The collection concerns AC1 George Robinson (1623526 Royal Air Force) and contains correspondence and photographs. He served as ground personnel with 514 Squadron and was killed 1 May 1944 when the aircraft he was in crashed in the Channel while <span>on an air experience flight.</span><br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Geraldine Wells and catalogued by Andy Fitter. <br /><br />Additional information on George Robinson is available <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/224054/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-04
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
Robinson, G-2
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
George Robinson and a woman
Description
An account of the resource
A full length portrait of George Robinson and a woman. She is wearing a dark dress, jacket and hat. He is in uniform with a button hole flower. They are standing close together, arm in arm and smiling.
On the reverse is the Betta Photos LTD stamp with the date, 3 Apr 1944.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
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
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PRobinsonG-21803, PRobinsonG-21804
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-04-03
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-04-03
love and romance
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2428/47027/MRobinsonG-21623526-180204-01.2.jpg
67776c5e40302729a81e4b600bed112b
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
Robinson, George
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. The collection concerns AC1 George Robinson (1623526 Royal Air Force) and contains correspondence and photographs. He served as ground personnel with 514 Squadron and was killed 1 May 1944 when the aircraft he was in crashed in the Channel while <span>on an air experience flight.</span><br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Geraldine Wells and catalogued by Andy Fitter. <br /><br />Additional information on George Robinson is available <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/224054/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-04
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
Robinson, G-2
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
George Robinson
Description
An account of the resource
A worn envelope on which is written: "Mr G Robinson R.A.F. Papers".
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
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
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One envelope
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MRobinsonG-21623526-180204-01
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2428/47024/NRobinsonsG-2180204-01.1.jpg
3c53517bd684ba4b4b8a645243ee6c05
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
Robinson, George
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. The collection concerns AC1 George Robinson (1623526 Royal Air Force) and contains correspondence and photographs. He served as ground personnel with 514 Squadron and was killed 1 May 1944 when the aircraft he was in crashed in the Channel while <span>on an air experience flight.</span><br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Geraldine Wells and catalogued by Andy Fitter. <br /><br />Additional information on George Robinson is available <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/224054/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-04
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
Robinson, G-2
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
Wilsford Airman Missing
Description
An account of the resource
A newspaper cutting about George Robinson being reported missing. It briefly describes the circumstances and gives some details about his late father, his recent marriage and his education.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Grantham
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
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
Text
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One newspaper cutting
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
NRobinsonsG-2180204-01
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-04-03
1944-05-01
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
crash
missing in action
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46779/AMorrisH17XXXX-01.2.mp3
003cbb1405631b2ca19e9da3b6833e83
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
Air Sea Rescue Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ASR-MCS
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
My five and a half years in the Royal Airforce from 1941 to 1946.
My name is Henry Stanley Morris, I was born on the 26th July 1924 at Plaistow East London. Later my parents moved to Barnet in Hertfordshire. I left school aged 14 in 1938, went to Walworth and Pending. War was declared shortly after in 1939 although 1940 was quiet until the Germans overran Belgium and the British and the French army were forced to retreat to Dunkirk. Where they were rescued from the beaches. The Government in their wisdom formed the Home Guard and the Air Defence Cadet Corps. Later renamed the Air Training Corps which in 1940 I enlisted in 189 Sqn High Barnet. We were taught theory of flight, Morse code, basic navigation, physical training. In the Air Training Corps I spent a week away under canvas at the RAF School of Engineering at Holton in Buckinghamshire.
Together with several other squadrons we were told some VIPs were coming to inspect the camp and school. We then had to whitewash the road kerbs to the resentment of most of us and (our introduction to RAF bullshit). The great day arrived; the cortege was led by RAF Military Police car, driven by a very attractive WAAF. Lining both sides of the road we were told to cheer when the VIPs came by. The WAAF driver received a resounding cheer but we remained a little subdued when the VIPS came abreast. To our astonishment we later realised it was His Majesty and Her Majesty King George V and Queen Mary.
On my 17th birthday in the afternoon, without informing my parents, I got a bus to RAF Recruiting Office in Deanfoot Road, Edgeware. I told them my age was 18, born in 1923, not 1924 and I was accepted. Several weeks later, together with several other young men, we had to swear the Oath of Allegiance and received the King’s Shilling. I was now officially in the Royal Air Force and I was sent home on deferred service.
In January 1941, I received a railway warrant to report to Warrington and then I was taken to RAF Padgate where I was kitted out with a uniform and given a very short haircut at our own expense. In due course we boarded a train to Blackpool where I spent 4 months doing my basic training which involved many hours of drilling, route marches, physical training (PT), Morse code, rifle and bayonet training, rifle shooting. Being directed into a room where we were subjected to, after removing our gasmasks momentarily, various lethal poisonous gases i.e. mustard, chorine, throwing mills bombs and lots of this took place at Lytham St Anne’s. Once a week during this time we marched to Burton’s where they had us take part in a weekly Morse code speed test. Hence the phrase, going for a Burton.
My sister has enlisted in the WAAF a while before me and, having finished her basic training at Morecombe, was posted as a typist to a maintenance unit in Cheshire living in a Civvy billet. Her landlady agreed to put me up for a weekend to visit my sister. I obtained a weekend pass to Bramhall in Cheshire. Public transport was very limited so I decided to hitchhike, although road traffic was sparse. Eventually a large 8 wheeled lorry pulled up and a heavily built lady driver with arms like tree trunks, remember no power steering then, offered me a lift to Manchester, my luck was in. I had an enjoyable reunion with my sister.
After 4 months we boarded a train which took us to RAF Yatesbury No 1 RAF Signals School. Some of us were trained for ground duties and the rest for aircrew. To my dismay I was rejected for aircrew due to defective colour vision in red and green. Later driving did not present a problem, or I say later driving a car did not present a problem. There was an airfield adjoining the camp where there were twin engined De Havilland Rapids’ for the training of aircrew wireless operators.
I obtained permission to go home one weekend and bring back my bicycle; on Sunday evening left the train at Swindon and set off for camp on the bike knowing that it would be impossible now to return in the normal way by 11:00 hours. So knowing of a hole in wire perimeter fence, I broke into camp only to be caught by an SP patrol for which I was put on charge and awarded 14 jankers, which meant reporting to the guardroom in full kit at 06:00 hours and then sent to cookhouse to wash dishes in soda water for around 2000 men. My hands were raw after 14 days.
After another 4 months I passed out as a fully-fledged wireless operator AC2. Being young and stupid I then volunteered to transfer to the army, answering General Montgomery’s call for wireless operators for his tanks for the breakout at El Alamein, thankfully I wasn’t accepted. Shortly afterwards I was put on embarkation leave which happened twice. On the second occasion I was given a railway warrant to report to RAF Padgate where I was told to report to a hut, allocated a bed and realised my fellow RAF colleagues were talking about boats. At this stage of my RAF service I had no idea that the RAF had boats; I was greatly intrigued even though I couldn’t swim. The following morning I realised I was part of a contingent of 30 MBCs (that stands for Motor Boat Crew) and 1 Officer on overseas draft. We were fitted out with Icelandic kit and our kitbags were marked accordingly. We spent a few days under canvass, in tents and then we boarded a train for Gourock, North of Glasgow where convoys were assembled to cross the Atlantic. In the event we boarded the RMS (Royal Mail Ship) Queen Elizabeth which, at that time, was the largest passenger ship in the world. Before we departed the RMS Queen Mary arrived having a massive gash in the bow filled with concrete having, we later discovered, collided with a Royal Navy cruiser, slicing it in half with a loss of over 600 crew members.
Returning to our situation we were told not to undress as we were going to enter a U-boat infested area which, as you can imagine, to an 18 year old was quite frightening. I awoke at 6 in the morning to hear heavy gunfire and machine gun fire to be later told that they were just testing the guns. As the troopship was capable of some 35 knots she sailed unescorted. It was January 1942 and the seas were horrific, I was dreadfully seasick. After six days we entered the Hudson River, New York in dense fog, the New York tugboats were on strike at the time so our Captain did a fantastic job of seamanship with help of fellow officers by docking this huge ship alongside Pier 52 unaided.
We had several thousand Italian POWs on board as well as several thousand Norwegian trainee aircrew. In the adjoining berth the massive France liner Normandy lay on her side, having been set on fire by German saboteurs. In an effort to extinguish the fire excessive water forced her to capsize. Our contingent was the last to disembark and eventually we boarded a bus to take us to Pennsylvania Railway Station where we boarded a civilian train for a two day journey to Miami, Florida. Being a bunch of young virile young men from all walks of life, our Officer requested that dining car attendant to add bromide to our tea, so we were later told.
I encountered American apartheid as I was sitting next to a black lady on the train having a pleasant conversation when the train entered South Carolina and crossed the Mason/Dixon line where upon a beefy American policeman came on board and a sign went up saying ‘White’s Only’ and the black lady had to move. Part way on our journey we were finally told by our Officer, Flying Officer Wilford that we were heading for Nassau in the Bahamas. On arrival in Miami Beach, which incidentally had been taken over by the United States Airforce, we were allocated to a hotel and were told to report to their mess where the food was excellent. Five days later we boarded a small American ship and sailed through the night, arriving in Nassau around 6 a.m. Nassau, at this time, was a British Colony, nothing like the tourist attraction it is today.
After disembarking we boarded a bus which took us to RAF 211 OTU (Coastal Command) Oaks Field, which was a very large RAF airfield run by Coastal Command for training aircrew in Mitchell B25 twin engined bombers and Liberator 4 engined bombers for attacking U-boats in the Atlantic. It was extremely hot, bearing in mind we were still wearing our RAF blue, after a day or so we were issued with a United States Airforce KD (that’s khaki drill) and we were taken by bus to the Montague Beach hotel which was situated a mile or so south of Nassau and had been requisitioned by the RAF to accommodate the RAF Marine Section, Canadian Army and Combined Special Forces. We were then introduced to our Commanding Officer, Flight Lieutenant Wilkinson, his deputy, Flt Sergeant Lockwood (Coxswain), Flt Sgt, Rogers (Fitter Marine – Engines), assisted by other ranks, several sergeant and corporal coxswains, motor boat crewmen (known as MBCs), orderly room clerk, a chippy boat builder, several medical orderlies, a corporal wireless operator mechanic in charge of six or seven wireless operators and one armourer and a cook. From memory the total complement of 250 ASR / Marine Craft Section Unit was around 80 personnel distributed around the three bases; Montague Hotel, Harbour Island on Eleuthera and Lyford Cay at the northern tip of New Providence Island.
Our diesel and high octane aviation fuel storage facility was on Hogg Island, now known as Paradise Island; a present day tourist venue accessed via a toll bridge from the mainland. Admittedly we had a motley collection of boats at the Montague were 2 US crash boats P190 and P191. I was allocated to P191 as wireless operator. From memory they were about 52 ft. long with Norscot engines which were not suppressed so to use the radio it was hopeless unless engines were stopped. We also had a requisitioned Chris-Craft J656. At Lyford Cay at the northern tip of New Providence Island, another requisitioned boat J803 was on stand-by. She had been a civilian motor cabin cruiser, again from memory about 50 ft. in length.
At Dunmore Town Harbour Island, a 102 ft. ex US Coast Guard cutter P89 was stationed there, her armament had been retained which consisted of .5 Browning machine guns and the crews’ quarters were very comfortable having an ironing board and electric iron as well as a nice galley. My dear old friend and fellow wireless operator, Roy Smith, was a member of the crew.
It is interesting to know that the principal islands had a Commissioner, answerable to the High Commissioner in Nassau (the Duke of Windsor). My friend Roy fell in love with the Commissioner’s 16 year old daughter Barbara Mulhern; having got special permission from his parents and his Commanding Officer, they got married on the island. Later, P803 was de-requisitioned and replaced with a Miami Chaser P712, later renumbered to HSL 2779 which was an American designed rescue launch.
At this time the Royal Navy had a flotilla of 12 MTBs stationed at Port of Spain, Trinidad, they were disbanded and the RAF were allocated MTB 339 for use as an Air Sea Rescue Long Range Rescue Launch to which I was allocated as wireless operator. We turned to harbour, the crew had a confrontation which the local white lads over who should dance with the five local white girls and a punch up ensued when one was knocked out cold by one of the crew members who was an RAF champion boxer. Subsequently 339 was sent to relieve P89, the crew of which were brought home in disgrace.
At that time there was no means of communication with Nassau other than sending a telegram in Morse code by the Government wireless operator who maintained a 2 hour watch every morning. For the remaining 2 at 22:00 hours the remaining 3 operators on 339 maintained a 24 hours watch with Oaks field, Nassau. So, if an aircraft ditched in the sea, we would put to sea and hopefully rescue them, but sadly this didn’t happen very often. On one occasion we did have a very successful pick up when the crew of a Mitchel B25 bomber were located in their dinghy and we took them on board. The skipper, Flt Lt Wilkinson, told me to contact Oaks Field and arrange for an ambulance to be at Princess Wharf, Nassau as some of the crew were injured. I tried to contact Oaks Field to no avail so I retuned my transmitter to a local Bahamas telegraph, who were transmitting between the islands. Eventually they responded to my request to contact Oaks Field to listen out on my frequency. Thankfully there was an ambulance waiting when we docked. For this I was complimented for my initiative.
We had to spend 3 months at each of our bases so on returning from Harbour Island, together with other members I was posted to Lyford Cay where the crew of Miami Chaser HSL 2779 resided. There wasn’t a lot of activity at this end of the island. I should say there was not a lot of aerial activity at this end of the island but on one occasion we were called out to search for a 4 engined Liberator that had ditched somewhere off Grand Bahama, which is one of the largest islands in the Bahama Group. Sadly all we found was a nose wheel of the aircraft and a leather flying jacket whose owner we were able to identify. On return to Lyford Cay, which was in the dark, we ran over a reef and damaged one of the propellers and we subsequently had to return to Nassau for repairs.
On the trip back we ran into a storm and we saw a water spout, a phenomenon indeed. We gave assistance to a banana boat that had complete engine failure so we were able to offer a tow back to Nassau. In gratitude bananas were on our menu for some time after.
Apart from rescue duties we had 2 trawler type boats T170 and T70, these boats were fitted with 2 power winches on the stern so that we could tow a massive steel target which, with the aid of the power winches, we could assimilate a U boat-surfacing or submerging. When the target submerged it released a green dye so that when the Liberators came out from Oaks Field they could practice bombing. I was in radio contact with the pilot and gave him his results. We would also go out into the Atlantic at night so that these Liberators could locate us with their lead light activated by their radar. The purpose of which was to catch unsuspecting U-boats on the surface at night recharging their main batteries.
Meals were cooked on these boats surprisingly on a coal fired range. My first Christmas overseas in 1942 and away from home I felt very homesick. Our chef prepared a traditional Christmas dinner served by our officers and senior NCOs. I received an autographed book as a Christmas present from Peggy Evans, my WAAF fiancé back in England and in it she had composed and written the following program:
There’s no need to hang a lantern in a tree to light the sky
There’s no need to tell my wishes to the folks a passing by
For the stars will light the heavens in a way they always do
And my wishes for your Christmas are especially for you.
A month or so later I received a letter saying that she had met someone else, was devastated to the extreme (laughing).
Vera Lynn was another cause of homesickness, on occasions I would tune my receiver to the BBC Overseas service and, if she was singing ‘there’ll be bluebells growing on the white cliffs of Dover’, there would be some wet eyes among the younger crew members.
HSL (MTB 339) and crew, having finished their 3 month stay at Harbour Island, were ordered back to Nassau and to be relieved by P89. On the appointed day we cast off and headed out of harbour for the ninety mile trip to Montague, our Nassau base. Midway we encountered P89 and pleasantries were exchanged with an Aldis hand held signal lamp. On arrival 339 was secured to our mooring in Montague Bay, both Packard 1050 horsepower engines were shut down and I signalled Oaks Field that we had returned to base, although before doing so we had refuelled at Hogg Island. The crew then boarded tender J252, had a meal and went to bed only to be awoken at around 1 a.m. by Flt Sgt Lockwood and told to dress immediately and get down to the dock and board the tender to take us out to 339. A marine fitter was already aboard warming up the twin Packards which, being marineised aero engines, were noisy. We were quickly under way, I signalled Oaks Field our estimated time of departure (ETD.), apparently I was told by an MBC that we were going to the assistance of the US Navy sub chaser 1059 on exercise that was stuck on a reef. Fenders were placed along our port side 339, by our MBC crew members and our skipper, Flt Lt. Wilkinson brought 339 alongside the US Navy stricken boat allowing, so I was told, several US sailors to jump on to our foredeck. We left the sailors at Princess Wharf, Nassau, back to our moorings, formalities dealt with, a good job accomplished.
There were no street lamps outside Montague so it was very dark when one evening I was sitting on a beach, being bitten by sand flies, feeling lonely and miserable when a young girl approached me and we struck up a conversion. Initially I thought she was a white girl with a good sun tan, I invited her to come with me to the cinema in Nassau the following evening and she accepted. I Met her the following evening and we started walking into town, no buses at that time, as we entered the area of street lighting I realised she was a coloured girl, commonly referred to as ‘Conky Joes’. It must be said that like all British Colonies at that time, there was no apartheid but it was frowned on to consort with black members of the population and coloureds were classed as black. Nevertheless lower ranks did associate with black girlfriends over the hill. However, bought 2 cinema tickets and was shown to our seats in the darkened cinema and, oh dear, during the interval when the lights turned up the contemptuous looks I received from local white people. Later felt very saddened when I had to tell her that I could not see her again as I was infringing RAF instructions.
I feel that when we first arrived here we were told that VD was rife among the local population, horrific films were shown to us mostly young lads of the effects of contracting the various forms of VD. Once a week we were paraded and issued with complementary condoms.
The Duke and Duchess of Windsor resided at Government House, the Duke being High Commissioner and heavily guarded by a contingent of the Canadian Army for fear of him being abducted by U-boat members and taken to Germany. The Duchess was well liked as she had no side and was regularly to be seen at the Bahamian Forces Club outside Nassau where dances were held and she would dance with the lads. As for the Duke if he drove by we had to stand at the kerbside and salute, frequently he was intoxicated. I was led to believe that he was a man of the people but on the frequent times he came aboard our launch he confined himself to the skipper or the coxswain at the helm, not a word to crew members.
On one occasion at Montague we were given an opportunity to have a dental check-up if a filling was required the dentist sat astride a bicycle on a stand peddling very quickly to drive a drill very painful. I developed a large wart on the side of my second finger of my right hand which made it difficult being a wireless telegraphist to hold a pen or pencil, so was taken to hospital at Oaks Field, given a general anaesthetic to have root removed, I was not totally under for the whole operation and I recall hearing something which sounded like scrapping on concrete and also asking for water and a hand coming under the sheet with a wet swab and then passing out again.
After about two years we were given the opportunity to go on leave for two weeks either to Havana Cuba or the States, you were granted fifty dollars only and my American uncle, my dad’s brother, generously sent me 100 dollars. So then with my two pals Stan Matlock and Frank McPhail we all hitched a lift to RAF Windsor Field, calling at the flight office; Frank having the gift of the gab persuaded the pilot of a United States Airforce C47 transport plane to take us to Miami US Airforce base. I don’t remember any mention of parachutes; on arrival got a taxi to Miami railway station our ticket included a bunkbed as we would be spending one night on the train arriving in New York late the next day as I recall, forgotten exact location but found the Salvation Army Red Shield Club which provided a clean overnight bed for servicemen for the night. The accommodation and food were excellent and also the basement showers and swimming pool were clean too. Having cleaned and refreshed ourselves we found the nearest USO (that’s United Services Organisation) where coffee and sugar coated doughnuts were freely available, and free tickets were given to servicemen and women to theatres, roller-skating, restaurants and many other forms of entertainment. Wherever we went, recognising us for Britons, the reception we got was wonderful; tickets were obtained for a television show and I was called to the stage to participate in a quiz show and I won Twenty Six Dollars which enabled me to treat my two pals and also buy myself a ‘Bulova’ wristwatch which I still have in working order.
I left my pals for a few days to make contact with my uncle Charles, we arranged to meet at Grand Central Station and as soon as I saw him from behind I knew it was him he was so like my father. He treated me to a wonderful day out taking me to several interesting places and all the time asking me questions about conditions back home. Unbeknown to the family at home he had married a Russian born eccentric lady, so we boarded an electric train to Bridgeport Connecticut to meet his in-laws who had a seventeen year old daughter called Helen. We were going to play cards so several dollars were put in my hand and Helen and I boarded a local bus into town to enjoy ourselves and we did; she was a nice girl still at teacher training college and we vowed to keep in touch. Later on arriving at her home my uncle wanted to take me home in his car way out in the sticks to meet his strange wife. During the drive I inquired from my uncle why he drove so slowly apparently at that time third party insurance was not a legal requirement so he drove very carefully. His wife whose name I cannot recall now made me very comfortable as best she could but oh dear the house was so isolated cold and draughty. I let my uncle introduce me to his nearest neighbour who was half a mile away and took me to Ansonia where he worked for a Birmingham engineering firm and found that he was highly respected designing huge machinery for moulding tyres all sizes. The canteen manager had lived in the states over thirty-five years and still retained a Scots accent.
So it was back to join my two pals in New York; one night we met up with three girls for a fun night out and at one o’clock in the morning we all linked arms and walked along fifth Avenue singing ‘Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey and a kiddley divey too’. We were far from intoxicated but for a moment a burly policeman swinging his long batten truncheon approached us with a look as if we were drunk and disorderly.
Public toilets at that time came as a shock to me as toilet compartments had no doors possibly to combat homosexuality. Now our time at New York almost at its end, Stan decided to sort out the time of our train back to Miami, returning he said it left at 09-30pm but to our dismay on arrival at Pen Station the one train a day had left at 09-30am. We quickly realised that the possibility we would be AWOL (absent without leave) which is a serious offence. Booking on a train going south via Washington, where on arrival all passengers had to get off due to some fault on the track, we were advised to find somewhere to park our tired souls for a few hours. We finished up sleeping on the floor in the reception area of a large hotel. Later we re-boarded the train and continued on the long haul to Miami arriving at US Customs and Emigration. We responded to a request over the public address system to report to the British Embassy where I was entrusted with responsibility for delivering two sealed embassy bags to Nassau. This meant we sailed through the formalities and arrived by air back at Nassau, where I was relieved of the official bags and we returned to our unit Absent Without Leave I alone was told to report to our commanding officer expecting a severe dressing down and was handed a cablegram from my eldest sister informing me my sister serving in the WAAF had died, he expressed a lot of sympathy as I was pretty devastated so no further mention was made of being AWOL and my two pals were absolved too.
A small draft of MBCs and Wireless operators arrived from UK via Canada and were distributed among the boat crews, so I was brought ashore to assist Corporal Johnny Aram in our maintenance and repair workshop. He resolved minor repairs to American built radios and transmitters from the boats, also bringing the large twenty-four volt batteries ashore for re charging. Several times in a choppy sea transferring battery from boat into tender we would accidentally drop it into the sea. I learned to do properly metal filing and soldering, which I became quite adept at. During this time Helen from Newhaven and I had been exchanging romantic letters; Christmas 1944 came along with the usual festivities, before dinner a large group photo was taken of the compliment of 250 ASR/ MC Unit except those on duty at Lyford Cay and Harbour Island, it was rumoured that a large number of men at Oak Field and ourselves were going to be returned to UK via Canada, naturally we were overjoyed. So in January 1945 we were all conveyed by trucks to Prince Georges Wharf to board a United States transport ship for Miami where we boarded a troop train bound for Monkton Nova Scotia Canada. Leaving Miami at 85 degrees Fahrenheit and after a very long train journey up the eastern seaboard of the United States, through New York to the United States/Canada border and customs we eventually arrived at Monkton to a temperature of minus 12 degrees Fahrenheit, oh god it was cold. On the train we had discarded our KD for our warmer Airforce blue, nevertheless a lot of men went off sick with cold etc. I recall there was thick snow everywhere but the Royal Canadian Airforce three storey wooden barracks were warm and comfortable, should there be a fire a slide was fixed on the outside to evacuate the building quickly. Apparently we had just missed a troop ship sailing from Halifax to UK, so the Canadian Airforce didn’t know what to with such a large body of men so it was suggested we could either unofficially get a local job or visit relatives for three weeks in the United States; free railway travel warrants were available. I very joyfully elected to get the train down to Newhaven Connecticut to stay with Helen’s family. Our relationship had seriously progressed and she met me at Newhaven station we had a wonderful time together and permission was granted by her parents and we became engaged. Sadly I received order to return to Monkton it had to be recorded the English are not liked by French Canadians as they have not forgiven us for taking Quebec by force in 17 something, I transgress for in due course we boarded a troop train for Halifax docks where we embarked on the 35,000 ton ex Dutch liner MV New Amsterdam. Interestingly there was a lot of sexual activity, with many hundreds of American WAC’ars equivalent to our ATS girls aboard at one point; the captain of the ship had to make an announcement to those responsible to refrain from releasing inflated condoms for fear of disclosing our position to enemy U-boats.
After an uneventful Atlantic crossing, during which time I acted as a batman to some ungrateful jumped up Wing Commander, we docked at Liverpool. Customs came on board and demanded duty on all the cigarettes we had and any other items that were subject to duty. After all these formalities we eventually disembarked to be put on a train for West Kirby the following morning, given railway warrants to our home town.
After two and a half years away I was given a wonderful welcome home by my parents, elder sister and neighbours. Two weeks later I received a railway warrant to report to RAF Chicksands Priory, a wireless enemy and allied interception station, in Bedfordshire. Coded messages received were sent to Bletchley Park for deciphering; it had been established that information received had helped to shorten the war. Chicksands was home to around 2000 RAF and WAAF wireless operators who had been screened for overseas duty. In order to get home on a weekend pass I bought myself a second hand Coventry Eagle 250cc two stroke motor bike. When I managed to obtain petrol with the help of my dad, I would bring home on my pillion Annette, also a wireless operator from Scotland. As soon as the European war ended in June 1945 all the RAF lads, including me, having been back in the UK for six months, were put on overseas draft, I was bitterly upset as I thought I had done my stint overseas, however I had to go. After a period of leave, at which time I celebrated my 21st birthday at home, bearing in mind Japan was still fighting fanatically and at the time nobody knew for how long, I decided that, as Helen did not want to live in England and at that time I did not want to live in the States it was time to break off our engagement as my parents had lost both of their daughters and to have their only son leave the country would have been a great loss to them. I was due to be condemned for some time for this decision.
Churchill was determined to retain India, the jewel in the crown, and also wanted to make a big presence in Burma and I think to impress the Americans. So I was sent to RAF Northwield in Essex to be kitted out for India. Subsequently, with other Chicksand bods, entrained for Oxford station and by RAF Lorries to RAF Broadwell, a satellite airfield to RAF Brize Norton. I spent the night at Broadwell meeting George Lefay, a wireless Op from 250 ASR Marine Craft Unit Nassau, small world The following morning twenty two of us boarded a twin engined DC3 transport plane enroute to India and the first staging post was Sardinia to re fuel; very turbulent over the Mediterranean. We were next scheduled to land at El Adem in Libya but at about 01:00am we made a forced landing on one engine at Benina airfield near Benghazi where there was still much evidence of bitter fighting during the Eighth Army Desert Campaign. We were made comfortable in ex Italian Airforce barrack huts; in the morning, engine repaired, we set off for Lydda (Aqir) airfield in what is now Israel but then Palestine, two days under canvas and sampling the luscious Jaffa oranges, continued in same aircraft but with a new aircrew to Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf. We arrived in the early hours of the morning exceedingly hot to very primitive toilet latrines, many crates of grapefruit were put aboard our DC3 so when we re-boarded there was little room to move about, However we started moving and, with both engines at maximum rev’s, our pilot got the aircraft into the air and we set course for Karachi in India our final stop.
Seven hours later I recall we landed and when the main door opened I was delighted to see my old dear mate Jack Westing from Signal School Yatesbury standing there holding a clip board with a passenger list, I was able to get away from my fellow passengers and meet up with Jack. Apparently he was now grounded from flying although was last to leave by parachute from a stricken Wellington bomber over Japanese positions over Burma having just bombed them. He was rescued by friendly Burma natives and restored to allied lines. He showed me some of the local sights and, getting very tipsy, we vowed to stay in touch, made our goodbyes and I returned to our billet to re-join my other mates only to find they were all packed to proceed to railway station to board an Indian troop train bound for Lahore. It should be noted that we had all been issued with a Sten gun which could be dismantled and stored in kitbag. The Sten gun was a close quarter automatic machine gun and not very accurate. The carriages were very uncomfortable with wooden seats no windows and a hole in the floor for a toilet. Whenever Indians stopped we would rush along to the driver for hot water to make tea. Milk and tea were sold by the wayside by young Indians dispensing everything.
The crossing of the Sind desert was very hot and we saw first-hand the primitive living conditions of the inhabitants and small mongooses galore. Some two or more days later we reached Lahore, a bustling city of Muslims and then taken to the RAF cantonment beside a massive maintenance unit. I was shown to the signals cabin where a 24 hr watch was kept with the rest of India and United Kingdom. I am not proud of what I am about to relay but first must emphasise some of the men had been away from home and stationed in India for over five long years. Remember no skype or cell phones. So the RAF in India and Singapore at the appointed hour at ten o’clock formed up in an orderly fashion and marched out of camp to the cantonment. Later the camp Commander called us to the camp cinema; we were warned of dire consequences we subsequently, reluctantly returned to our duties. At some camps the army moved in with rifles and fixed bayonets and the ring leader in Singapore was arrested and imprisoned for seven years, however it did speed up demobilisation for some. India was becoming a hot bed of unrest between Hindu and Muslims with mass slaughter taking place; myself and an IOR (India Other Ranks) wireless Op would be taken out by truck to an isolated radio hut in the jungle to receive a weather report at specific times from somewhere in Russia, forgotten name, it was a little unnerving on my own to hear noisy illegal political meetings taking place in the jungle very near to us. Later I was posted to a very large signals centre in the New Government building in New Delhi. When construction and drainage was completed it was attached to Old Delhi and became known as just Delhi, Capital of India. The signals centre handled vast amounts of Morse plain language traffic so I introduced the use of a typewriter to record messages instead of handwriting for this I was made up to a Corporal, more money. I did not enjoy good health in India; first I had a very bad dose of tonsillitis, in hospital they were going to remove them but because of the high risk in such hot climate of infection they decided to leave it in abeyance.
My demob number came up and I was sent with others to Bombay transit camp; in due course embarked on the SS Georgic to sail home via the Suez Canal, Mediterranean, Gibraltar and Liverpool and then West Kirby to collect my civilian suit, shoes, overcoat, hat and two months leave for my five and a half years. I was awarded three medals; the Atlantic Star was my prized one and India gave me Pulmonary TB which in those days was often fatal but in my case a complete recovery after several years. Hope you have found this narrative of some interest THE END
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Interview with Henry Morris
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eng
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00:53:15 audio recording
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AMorrisH17XXXX-01
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46778/AStokerK15XXXX-01.1.mp3
e9469ab0ef455194e5084f37e73fe717
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Air Sea Rescue Collection
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2017-01-10
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ASR-MCS
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15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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I was born in Dover on 2nd of July 1926. When war started in September 1939, I was thirteen, I went to River school. George Blackman, the well-known Youth Leader in Dover ran the Army cadets and decided to form a cadet branch for the Air Training Corps which was a good help for us lads who wanted to join the RAF. I was very good at aircraft recognition and was soon made up to Corporal Cadet. Which was a good help when I volunteered for the RAF Marine Branch in 1943 as I always liked the sea and was called up when I was 17 3/4 in March 1944. I went first to Bedford and we were there kitted out and then sent on to Skegness and then after basic training I was sent to Stranraer the Marine Craft training school. For nine weeks I put in for ASR postings to either Dover or Ramsgate but the powers that be thought different and I was sent to OBAN Flying boat base which was 520 miles from my home but this was typical. I was put on crew of a Seaplane Tender the Corporal Cox’n was Fred Stiles who had been awarded the BEM for going overboard in a very cold sea and rescuing two airmen who had crashed in a Catalina flying boat, Fred died a few years ago. After two or three months I was posted to the Far East and went to Ceylon, India, and Burma, I joined 230 Air Sea Rescue Unit at acciab in Burma and was put on to Hant’s & Dorset launch 2686. We had three launches in our unit one day we would be on duty and would go to a section given to us where there was action going on and then if any of our aircraft were damaged we were in the area to go and pick them up if they had crashed , we used to often stay in an area called Foul Island and we sometimes would be there five days waiting for another callout and one day when we were South of Acciab off of Ranlee island a call went out to search for a Liberator that had crashed and our two launches that were back at base went off and eventually found them and among the crew was Flt Lt Nicholson who was the only pilot who got the VC in the Battle of Britain . we often went down and stayed a few miles South of Jutubia I am sorry to say that all the time I was with 2686 about eight months, we did not get a pick up but we were in the areas where we might be needed if anything had happened, it does seem a bit of a disappointment but I picked up more people on the Marine Craft Section back in Britain than I did out in Burma. I was with 230ASR until just before VJ Day then I went into hospital in Rangoon where they found that I had a tropical disease of the kidneys and was to be sent home I arrived in Calcutta on August 15thVJ Day when the war had finished I carried on to Bombay waiting about five weeks there and eventually got on board the troopship Georjic for the journey home to Liverpool which took about 3 ½ weeks I was then put into hospital at RAF Hereford for about two months and then posted to Gosport. On torpedo recovery we used to check where the torpedoes were dropped and then recover them with a derrick on a GP Pinnace interesting work sometimes we would have our break over on the isle of Wight one time the Queen Mary came out of Southampton going to the United States of America, after about six months |I was posted to Felixstowe 1103 MCU most time running about in a marine Tender plenty of work as it was a repair base and a test place also for flying boats and sea planes, the Shetland Flying boat which was larger than a Sunderland was there and one Sunday night it caught fire on the moorings two chaps were on board on boat watch and the heat from the cooker caused an explosion there was always a smell of petrol when you went alongside but luckily the chaps were able to swim ashore so no loss of life. 1946 I was picked to be one of the crew a pinnace 1416 to go to London to stand by two Sunderland’s that were landing at Greenwich and they were to be open to the public to go aboard, I was to ferry them in an Marine Tender which we had picked up at Woolwich Arsenal The Sunderland’s Landed around 6am and I and my deckhand were sent up to Tower Bridge at 5 o’clock to make sure that there was no large logs etc. these floating and likely to be in the area when the aircraft landed, everything went off OK. I had to take the crews ashore as they were going to be billeted in the Royal Naval College. Later on two HSL’s arrived and on Saturday and Sunday the launches were also open for the public to view. I also had the MT to do the job I and my deckhand worked right through the day from 8am till 6pm carrying ten people a time and they had about eight to ten minutes aboard the Sunderland’s and then returned to Greenwich Pier for another lot it was very popular the crews of the Sunderland’s put a forage cap inside the door and when the visitors came out they left a tip which the crews on the aircraft shared with us two lads and we got about £4 each which was a lot of money in those days our pay rate in Group 3 was three shillings to thirteen and six a day. Back at Felixstowe one day three German “Junkers Fifty Two float planes” landed they had been taken over by the Dutch Airforce I had to take the crews ashore to see our CO and they had lunch with him and then after being re fuelled by us they then took off about four hours later. Another day two Beaufighters flew over Felixstowe one touched the other one’s wing and it crashed in the sea and shocked me as CO Flt Lt Garwood came down the pier on his bike and told me to wait for him and take him out to the scene of the accident, whilst going around we found an aircraft seat with one of the crew strapped to it, and the pinnace picked it up and the other chap after a few days they found him when the brought the aircraft out of the water. One weekend the RAF sailing Club held a regatta at Felixstowe and I was detached to stand by in case of any mishaps it so happened that a sailing dinghy turned over about two miles off shore and I went to their aid and we righted it up and towed it back to base, I believe if I can remember right the mast had broken however on the Monday after they had left the pier master called me into his hut and said those officers that you picked up yesterday left you this envelope and inside it was two £1 notes which I thought was very nice and helpful in those days. Another time in Felixstowe I took the crew of a Sunderland out and they were going on a test flight and went down towards Southend and the next thing we heard was that they had crashed and it hit me rather because quite a number of those chaps I used to take out to the boats cause I never saw them any more they salvaged the aircraft and I have photos of it here at home sorry. for going back but things come to my mind now that when we were in acciab and as I have said we used to go down off of an island called flat Island and we used to go ashore and the natives used to give us chickens which they soon killed off and gave us the remains and we took them on board plucked them and one of our crew was a butcher and he used to butcher them and we often had chicken stuffed with soya link sausages and whatever else was going. But there was so many things went on some come back to mind but with my age now it is a bit of a difficulty. I enjoyed my service in the RAF and all told I was in just on Four years I think it was. I Just remembered that when I had Flt Lt Garwood in the Marine Tender and we were pulling gits of the aircraft which had crashed off Felixstowe I gave it one good pull on something and it turned out to be an oil tank and all the oil came over the edge of the boat all the oil came floating out and went all over the CO. and he was not Amused but that was just one of the things that happened, also we had a bad winter there and the sea water had frozen all around the flying boats and we couldn’t get to it with any boats at all we had to wait for the ice to eventually break up, as the river broke up farther towards Ipswich we were able to get out but it seemed strange walking out to a flying boat instead of taking a boat, while at Felixstowe it has just downed on me there was a lady there who was working with the designs of aircraft and she would sometimes come down to the jetty to get me to take her out to certain aircraft and once she was on board the pilot had to do what she told him. about what she wanted the aircraft to try or not and sometimes they would take off about thirty feet off the water and they would have to cut the engines and the aircraft would bang down onto the sea and it was on the landing area of course but it seemed strange for the aircraft to come in and cut the engines and then with a dirty great bang, but she knew what she was doing and used to have special bars along in the aircraft for stress and strain where they used to measure all the power that was necessarily coming through from hitting the water at dangerous heights . I would just add it’s sad to say that there were around Fifty or Sixty of us chaps on 230 ASR and I kept in touch with three or four of them after the war but I am sorry to say that they have now all passed away and it is really sad when you have got nobody to chat with about the old times …….. Thank you very much.
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Interview with Kenneth Stoker
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AStokerK15XXXX-01
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00:18:39 audio recording
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46777/AStandenFC16XXXX-01.2.mp3
75e41d538175218a2c0db59d63a050b9
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Air Sea Rescue Collection
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2017-01-10
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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ASR-MCS
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
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My name is Frank Charles Standen, I was born at Forrest Hill south east London on the 24th of October 1921. Like most of boys of my age I was keen to join the RAF mainly because they were people like, Sir Kingsford Smith, Sir Alan Cobham and they were blazing trails in the airways around the world. Unfortunately my parents would not let me join the RAF before the war, but coming of the war I was now 18 and I therefore decided myself that I would leave my job as a railway clerk and join the RAF, for aircrew training. After being accepted for aircrew training I on March the 6th I was at RAF Uxbridge for my swearing in, from there they said there’s a delay in training but you can go home now, you’ve got your number and we will be in touch later when we will recall you to the RAF, so I was now in ready for aircrew training. Sadly I was called up to Babbacombe in early july 1941, where I was injected, medically tested, gas masks tried on, various things and then we were actually based at Babbacombe in the Trecarn Hotel, but after about a week or so the aircrew receiving centre was transferred to north west London, in the area of Regents Park and I was with my colleagues transferred to Regents Park where we continued our training, square bashing and various things, but later they told me that I had a Lazy Eye muscle and whilst they gave you a card to let you put a goldfish into a bowl they said since we have now got a backlog of Trainees and you are a volunteer while we no longer want you for aircrew , but you can of course remuster’. So therefore I remustered to Motor Boat Crew. So from Regents Park, about three or four of us, went down to the west country; spent one night in an RAF field and then from there we went down to Ilfracombe and were boarded into civilian houses. That’s when I came across the Motor Boat Crew.
We were based at an isolated entrance to Ilfracombe Harbour and there was a little Chapel on the hill, and that was the Marine Craft Section under a Chiefy Sgt called ‘Snakey’ Harris; it was the name he was known by in the RAF but it was, I think, a little bit wrong because he had a good judgement of people and kept discipline and he understood the way people felt. Anyhow, we did our training on knots and we had a couple of motor dinghies, a Sea Plane Tender and also a Pinnace and we had our time at sea. We were also doing signalling both Morse code and Flags until we could move onto the next step which was the school which was still then at Calshot. Later it turned out that it was used for Combined Operations so the school was moved up to Scotland just outside Stranraer.
Anyway after passing out I did quite well I was promoted to AC1 and had the option of going to various places but I chose Dover, which was near and easy to get to from London. So about ten of us moved down to Dover and when we were sorted out I finished up at Ramsgate, which was a sub depot to Dover, 27 ASR. There were three launches there and after a spell on a Dumb Refueller I was pleased to be on HSL 127’s crew, which was a very successful one, under a 1st Coxswain whose name was Eddie Edwards. He was again a regular and a former mercantile ship’s crew, and again a very good leader of men. Later we had a Skipper come aboard who was called David Jones; he was a Flight Lieutenant and it was a very successful crew, in fact we picked up on two occasions, that’s separate ones, crews from 149 Sqn which was using Sterling Bombers out of Lakenheath. I think why we were busy, apart from there was a lot of air activity over the Channel between the Luftwaffe and the RAF, but in addition of course we had an airfield behind us which was fitted out with ‘FIDO’ the fog dispersal system or arrangement and therefore any aircraft, and certainly any bombers, coming back would prefer to come across the narrow sea rather than the whole of the North Sea, and also FIDO would be an airfield to locate. So the next thing was we had various pickups; there was one occasion when we were liaising with an aircrew on board to show how efficient ewe were and on that particular occasion there was an attack by the Luftwaffe over Deal and you could see the Dog Fights going on. Then, suddenly there was one aircraft that pulled up and we saw a parachute bail out so, with the crew on board, the skipper came running down because we were on a Two Hour Notice. As soon as he was aboard we were underway and the aircrew on board were quite impressed, not only was the parachute coming down just off the coast, just as he went into the water and just as he bounced up ‘bingo’ we were alongside and hauled him out of the water, parachute and all. As I say it was beautiful and almost a staged arrangement; fortunately he was unhurt but very wet. We brought him back ashore and all were happy.
There were several pickups, in fact 127 had quite a record at that stage, as the months went by I then went on my 2nd Coxswains course up at Corsewall because it had moved from Calshot and Corsewall is outside Stranraer. So that was going quite well and I then was told that I had got an overseas posting, but the school overruled it and said, now you are posted to us, although temporarily, we have to continue your training. Sadly though the crew of 127 were actually all going overseas. So when I finished successfully my training and had become a 2nd Coxswain, I went back to Ramsgate but there was already a new crew on 127 and our people, I learned later, were actually on their way to Tunis. In preparation of course for the invasion of the soft underbelly of Europe.
While I was kicking my heals a little bit at Ramsgate, a Dover boat came around that was HSL 178 and was located for a while in Ramsgate. The 2nd Cox’n on board 178 was due for leave because he was a married man so I volunteered and said that I could take over his position till he comes back from leave. In the meantime of course I didn’t know, and he didn’t know, that 178 was going back to Dover with me on board. I wasn’t on her for long but I then was on HSL 2547 and was the 2nd Cox’n on her which was a bit successful because, after about a month or so, the 1st Coxswain was on leave so I was acting 1st Cox’n on 2547. And, low and behold, whilst I am acting 1st Cox’n we had a pick-up of a Belgian pilot who was in the RAF who bailed out very nicely onto a minefield. Well it was more for deep shipping, so the skipper after having a chat with me said we might as well go in and pick him up. When we did pick him up he was a Typhoon pilot, I don’t recall his Sqn number but it was an RAF Sqn with Belgian airmen and his name was Charles Demoulin and in later years I found out that he had written a book after the war and that’s another story. I have double checked the pick-up of Demoulin was not 2547 it was 2549.
Anyhow to continue, in January 1944 I was selected for training as a 1st Class Coxswain and was temporarily away from Dover back to Corsewall for six weeks. I was successful and on returning to Dover fully qualified, I was allocated to HSL 186 which was under the command of my old skipper Flt. Lt. D A Jones DSO who was my skipper on HSL 127 but he didn’t go abroad with the crew way back in 1943. His Cox’n on 186 was a Canadian Warrant Officer on loan from the Royal Canadian Air Force and I was led to believe that I would take over as 1st Cox’n as and when the Canadian was recalled to the RCAF. I remained on HSL 186 acting basically as a 2nd Cox’n and was still with 186 when the invasion commenced and we actually operated more towards the west so that we were protecting the western area just beyond the invasion beaches. Whilst I was still on HSL 186 I got a ‘Records posting’ to a newly formed Mobile Unit which was Unit 33 which was, at that stage, operating from Calshot until a likely place came for operating nearer the French Coast. I had no specific launch but was used as a relief 1st Class Cox’n for the Unit 33 ASR. Of course, once the invasion was on, we used to tie up behind the merchant ships and then of course, when Mulberry Harbour was formed, we could actually operate from the Mulberry harbour itself and then subsequently of course, as the invasion was successful and mopping up was going on, we had a base at Ostend. We operated from Ostend on various HSLs; these were Hant’s and Dorset’s of course now, no longer the 63 footers. We operated there not much traffic because it was getting more inland obviously but once May 8th came almost the next day we pulled out of Ostend beck to Felixstowe. Whilst we were at Felixstowe we were reformed because we heard that there was the possibility of being into Norway or possibly the Far East, which, as I was newly married, I wasn’t that keen on.
As luck would have it there were six boats on our Unit that were going to Norway; two for Oslo; two at Stavanger and two further north, I think Trondheim. I was lucky to be on one of the HSLs that went to Stavanger so wasn’t a lot of air activity, if there was it was Sunderlands but I suppose we were there just in case there was a lot more flying in that area. I was then removed from Stavanger to Tananger which was a little Island as there was obviously not the work for us. The skipper volunteered to take over a German launch, it was a Flieger Schnellboaten No 534, the 19-mtr job with two big MAN diesel engines not quite like our launches, but a very sturdy one, so sturdy that we could and did get a Jeep onto the foredeck because the role taking a Flt Lt RAF, who was an expert in radar and they were very interested to see what the Germans had got which could be of interest to us. So our role then with a jeep, manned by three sometimes four SAS soldiers, we would go to German units either on the Islands or on high points on the coast. We would moor as near as we could, get the jeep off the foredeck and as many of us that could, would then zoom around looking for these former Radar stations German ones of course, some of them were still manned but they had obviously been advised to await the Allies coming but to list all of the things that they had and certainly the arms so it was quite pleasant, exciting and I suppose it was the lack of general responsibility.
We collected, in the jeep or a trailer behind the jeep, armaments and various things for dumping and then would come back load it onto our German boat, take all of the ammunition in and drop them over the side in the deepest fjords that we could find. That was quite exciting certainly; when it came to explosives there were sticks of more or less dynamite all wrapped up in waterproof paper but regrettably they wouldn’t sink they floated. So we opened these packages, which had about a dozen sticks of dynamite, and threw them over singly, they still floated so the skipper, after we had got them all back in again, said ‘well we’ll have to do something else’ and since we had also allocated to us an RAF armourer he said ‘well we will have to dispose of them on the land’. So looking at me he said ‘you go to the armourer and see if you can help him out’. Well that was a problem because this bloke said ‘I believe you can burn these’ so he said ‘if you put them on the fire they would just burn and fizz’. I said ‘have you ever done it’ and he said ‘well, no’, so we then lit a bonfire and hiding behind a rock, that seemed to be regular things in fjords in Norway, we tossed a stick of this dynamite which, of course, did just fizz. It seems it has got to be within something that resists so therefore that’s when the explosion takes place where, as in the open air, it just fizzed and we gradually got more and more nerve and were bunging them onto the bonfire madly like November 5th. That more or less was the story because soon after the Atom Bomb was dropped and we were then due to come back to the UK.
When we started our journey home the weather was extremely rough and we were heading south before tackling the North Sea and one of our outer engines went for a burton, sorry was US, and the Skipper requested to put in Gothenburg in Sweden and as we were a nation at war they were a neutral country we were limited and could only go in on their agreement, but the request was granted. We spent a couple of days there until the weather eased then we headed to Copenhagen to await a new engine to be flown out to us. This took some time and, as Christmas was nearing and I had received a radio message while I was at sea on the wheel that my son had been born, I wanted obviously to see him. Of course about six months had passed then so I asked the Skipper for compassionate leave and he granted this and indeed he drove me to Kastrup airport where I got a flight on an RAF Dakota coming back to the UK. This was done (we were to land at Hendon but because of fog we were diverted to Croydon which is south London but closer to my mother’s home, on landing and passing through the admin buildings I was asked if I had any weapons on or with me or anything that should not be brought into the country, I said ‘no’ so was allowed through. I then caught a bus to the end of my mother’s road) and had my leave and saw my new son and spent my final days at Corsewall on standby, flying because at that time there were dozens of Flying boats coming in from all over the world. They were landing on the loch where the school was and I thought that is the job to see me through to my demob and it did. It was and it was interesting, we did 24 hrs on and 24 hrs off and we had our office on the pier and as I say it was quite interesting. We would make sure that the flight had landed properly then the maintenance staff would come out and look after the moorings and we would come back and tie up at the pier. While I was on that job my demob came along so in August 1946 I packed my bags, went down to Uxbridge, was dealt with as being demobilised, given a suit of my choice and that was it, that was the end of my service.
I must admit that I have omitted saying that I gave a very short run at Ramsgate in 1941 and ‘42 and at the beginning of ‘43 because we had several pick-ups and it was a very busy time indeed. We picked up two German Matelots who were floating around on a four foot long and about two foot deep inflated rescue effort. The poor devils had been sitting there since their convoy had been shot up by the navy off the French coast and they had drifted within a couple of miles of our coast. They were so cold we had to cut them free where they were holding on to cod line to make sure that they didn’t get washed off their floating bed. As I said we also picked up Lancasters; we picked a fellow we saw shot down he was actually a German, when we fished him out well indeed before he went in, but it was a bit horrific because as I was pulling the shrouds of his parachute as he was under the water and I saw the back of his head the hair and as I pulled the last bit he didn’t have anything but his scalp left. He must have had some explosive in his ear that got rid of things, it was a bit of a mess but I had a shock but then again we often found floating bits and pieces. Anyhow I think that’s about it, let’s hope that it‘s enough.
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Interview with Frank Standen
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eng
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Sound
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Pending review
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AStandenFC16XXXX-01
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00:37:03 audio recording
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46776/AOlneyPJ20160227.2.mp3
de4cbb88be432880fa6951213017081c
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
Air Sea Rescue Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ASR-MCS
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
These are the memoirs of Peter John Olney now aged 93 years and recorded on the 27th February 2016 I served in the Royal Air Force from October 1942 to November 1946. In pre-war years 1930 to 39. I spent many school holidays in company with and offices of a professional Sailor and Fisherman on the Thames estuary, and I gained experience in handling and general management of relative small sea going craft. In the early war years I served in old school flight of my school ATC No 726 Squadron. I was called for pre service registration in Sept 1941 and there interviewed by an Army officer who accepted my wish to serve in the Air Sea Rescue service. A month or so later I received a questionnaire requesting details of my nautical experience and knowledge of navigation gained from the ATC. Having joined the RAF in the Autumn of 1942 at RAF Cardington a pre-war home of airships R100 & R101 after kitting out posted to Blackpool a recruit training centre there I discovered as a result of my replies to my questionnaire mentioned previously I had been accepted as an AC2 in the trade of MBC and then been allotted trade pay since the first day of my enlistment my pay was therefore higher than that of my fellow recruits at a pay parade one of the officers suggested quite firmly that I went to a Post Office prior to returning to our billet and deposit some of the cash. In December I was posted to RAF Corsewall a Marine Craft training centre situated on a large country estate on the south shore of Loch Earn in the south west of Scotland. After completing training there I was posted to RAF Calshot near Southampton the pre-war centre of marine craft and from there sent with an officer and other crew members to Dartmouth where we took over from the boat builders a new Air Sea Rescue 60ft Pinnace No 1309 after sea trials we sailed around the coast of south west England then the coast of wales and the isle of man to the Air Sea Rescue base at Larne Northern Ireland and I believe the number of that Air Sea Rescue base was No 58 I served at that base for twelve months during which time I was detached with a crew to Portree isle of Skye which was subsequently opened as an air sea rescue base and whilst at Portree we were directed to the islands of Colonsay and Oronsay. As we were making fast at one of these islands we received a crash call it had said that a light house officer had seen a plane crash just short of the island of Tiree we went there but just before we arrived we were told that no aircraft was missing, we wondered if it was just an exercise. That evening we returned direct to Portree. In the darkness I could see the moon and the lights from Northern Ireland when we returned to Larne in Northern Ireland. When we returned to Larne. I was detached once more for a Cox’ns course at RAF Corsewall, Larne was a quite place but in the spring of 1944 we were posted to a Mobile ASR unit No 32 & 33 ASR which at the time was attached to 27 ASR at Dover, we went there with Flying Officer Storey and crew and after our arrival engaged on patrols in the English Channel. On one of those patrols we undertook our first rescue we were directed to an American crew who were on the water between Dover and Calais. Calais then being held by the Germans, Spitfires were circling overhead to protect us a Walrus aircraft came down and took four of the crew and we returned six, on our journey back to Dover one of the American crew commented to me that he wou8ld no longer be frightened of coming down in the Channel for he had not even got his feet wet. Subsequently in June 44 probably the 1st of June we were directed to our base at Poole in \Dorset. Unfortunately when of the Isle of Wight we developed steering failure and after some difficulty in steering with two of us in the steerage locker and the use of the engines a marine craft was sent out to us from Calshot and towed us back to that station, on the way we passed through a crowded anchorage of assault vessels which were there for the assault in Normandy , our boat was slipped almost immediately we still slept aboard and the following morning we awoke to find that all of the vessels in the crowded waterway had left…it was D Day. Our craft having been repaired was then sent with us to Poole in Dorset which was to be our base for a while. The following Morning D Plus ONE we rendezvoused with an aircraft control vessel in mid-Atlantic and were there dispatched to a crew that were on the water near the Cherbourg peninsula on the way and very near to the French coast a water spout appeared in our wake we were under attack further waterspouts appeared but as a target we were extremely small and were a considerable distance away from the French coast and the danger was only slight. However we were withdrawn and a craft approaching from a different direction made the rescue. We subsequently made patrols based from Poole and Calshot and as our allied armies took over the coast of Normandy and advanced eastwards we patrolled the coast and naturally any damaged aircraft the crews were disinclined to cross the channel but put down in Northern France. Often then we operated from the harbour at Cherbourg and from the Mulberry harbour that was created at Arromanches in France. As the allied armies advanced eastwards and liberated Belgium we then were dispatched to Ostend with other crews of 32 & 33 ASR and berthed at what had been the E Boat pens reinforced concrete structures built by the Germans to protect their E Boats from attacks and damage from RAF Bombers. On one occasion we were directed to amphibian Walrus aircraft which was on the sea a few miles north of Ostend it one American airman aboard we were told the American aircraft had disintegrated presumably from damage sustained over Germany and broke up in the air a number of parachutes were seen but after surveillance only one parachute was seen on the water and the Walrus aircraft rescued the airman concerned we transferred that airman to our launch and escorted the Walrus which had lost power and was unable to take off to a beach near Ostend. I subsequently contacted that American airman sent him a photograph this was many years after the war ended and he told me that he had been down in the channel for some time, following this action all of the crew were saved. Shortly before the end of the war when I was on a junior NCO’s course my boat was called to a damaged after being Mined craft that was on fire when I made a perilous rescue of a single sailor who was that boat this was witnessed by the Navy who gave Three Cheers for the RAF and subsequently three members of my crew were decorated for their Bravery. Our HSL had been slightly damaged during that rescue and we were directed back to Felixstowe for repairs whilst there Hostilities Ceased and we witnessed the surrender of a flotilla of E Boats their bows were vastly different to our HSL’s they were more like the bow of a submarine. And whilst there we were directed to Norway we travelled up the East Coast of England and parts of Scotland and crossed the North Sea from there, we finally berthed in Oslo at the very top of Oslo Fjord and berthed amongst Oslo airport ferry pool subsequently were berthed by the island of Gressholmen the island was two or three kilometres into the Fjord from Oslo centre and I took over control of a German pinnace with initially a German crew to ferry members of our staff to Oslo when required. It was strange that ocean going boats were sent to Oslo because it took us at least half a day to reach them at sea, and only on one occasion were directed to the open sea when German transport aircraft I believe Junkers were being ferried from Norway back to Germany but we enjoyed Oslo and were there until November 1945 when were directed back again to the UK, I was then posted as an individual to Scotland and was employed with a Sea Plane Tender servicing and towing etc. Flying Boats that returned from the Far East for Maintenance and for mothballing. I was discharged from the Royal Air Force in November 1946 and did subsequently enrolled in the University of London and a London Hospital and qualified as a Doctor in 1953 as an Addendum of the above record I have to add that on our return from Norway we passed along the west coast of Sweden and unfortunately or perhaps fortunately we developed minor engine trouble and put into Gothenburg Sweden had not be in the war and it was a delight full surprize to find all of the shops fully lit and fully stocked there only shortage was of western cigarettes I being a non-smoker had Hoarded my ration to pass to my father but I could not resist the temptation to trade them for some Swedish currency with which I purchased a rather voluminous Handbag for my mother which she treasured for many years and I purchased some elegant fishing equipment for my father and purchased a watch a Swiss made watch which I still have in my possession…..Thank you I should also make note of one incident which occurred when we were in Ostend which is both amusing and ….. we were patrolling along the north coast of France when we approached too close to Dunkirk which was still held for a short while by the Germans as the allies had by passed the Dunkirk area as the priority was to capture ground of far greater value for supply purposes we were channelled again off Dunkirk when a shell exploded close to the beam of us, I was on the wheel and opened the throttles both faster than our fitter liked he was coming through the engine room hatch to complain to me when another shell exploded he rapidly returned below to make certain our engines were going at full speed unfortunately this fitter Joe Newton was subsequently Drowned in a boating accident in Norway.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Peter Olney
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
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AOlneyPJ20160227
Format
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00:23:22 audio recording
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2016-02-27
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46774/AMooreA16XXXX-01.2.mp3
83383cc1c696064ab72cdc6d769bf7e1
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Air Sea Rescue Collection
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-10
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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ASR-MCS
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
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I came into this world in 1923 and I was born on a small farm called The Furze in the village of Roos East Yorkshire. I was christened Alec Moore, Alec with a C as a lot of people put X on the end, and I stayed on this farm for six years, and then in 1929 we up’d sticks and went to live at Holmpton, now Holmpton is in the RAF annuals now but that comes later, I left school in august 1937 at the age of 14 and went to work at a the grocers shop which was four miles away from the village at a place called Patrington and I had to ride back and forth with a cycle which was normal in them days, I left there to start work back in the village joiners shop on my fifteenth birthday, 21st February. Now because of the war work, the village joiners shop slowed down so I left and went to work for Sangwin’s of Hull who were doing war work for the military at Spurn Point mainly shuttering for concrete, now seeing what the Army did with their full packs etc. running up and down these sand dunes which is mainly Spurn Point. I decided to volunteer for the RAF, during March I had to go to Hull for the usual medical, I passed that OK, and then I had to go to Padgate for a couple of days which was attestation etc. then in May I left the firm I was working for because I was called to Padgate for my training which was the 7th of May, now the 7th and 8th May were the TWO nights that Hull was really and truly Blitzed. So I did my Basic training at Padgate after passing out I went to Bassingbourne where I was for a few days, then I was posted to White Waltham for training as a Ground Observer, now we ground observers we did the same duty as the civilian ground observers who covered England, Scotland and Wales but we had our own ideas of why the RAF did it in Northern Ireland, now once I had passed out as a ground observer I was recommended for an NCO’s course now that started on the 1st September and I was tested on the 11th and I passed it, after five days leave I was posted to Edlinton Northern Ireland. Ground Observers were used all over Northern Ireland, the observer posts were seven miles apart with different places where we had to relay our information which was aircraft height where it was going and what it was. The post consisted of four observers, three wireless operators, accommodation was a Nissen hut containing all the required equipment, beds, cooking utensils and the wireless post where they operated. The lookout post was nearby and it had all the necessary plotting equipment on it, I was reclassified to LAC back dated to 1st of September and on the 31st I received my LAC pay. During November 41 to April 21st 42 I was moved around to quite a number of these observer posts in fact I was posted to eleven different ones not very long at each one, on the 2nd of April I was made acting Corporal, then I was home for some leave 14 days April to May 1942. Whilst on these posts we had to look after ourselves so needless to say we made sure we wouldn’t go hungry one day I decided to do a Rice Pudding after writing home and asking for instructions I duly started with a dish with rice and milk but not realising how rice swells I ended up with a two gallon galvanised bucket, Happy Times. One of the chaps when he came off duty would sit on the end of his bed and within a couple of minutes he was hard fast asleep, we always said he would go to sleep on a clothes line. Another one only smoked “Craven A” cigarettes never anything different he wouldn’t offer one and he would not accept anybody else’s. In June 42 I decided on a change of job where I was working more, I applied to be a concreter in the work service it was July before I had to go to Belfast for an interview with the assistant engineer, I also had a medical, I passed both OK but received notification in July that our CO had refused the application. One good thing was during July 42, I received my Corporals pay, still being moved around to different posts. On the 30th October 1943 I decided to re-muster to Motor Boat Crew, I had my medical and my interview and passed both of them OK. January 20th I was posted to Corsewall in Scotland for my Motor boat course, half term test in February and in March I had a trade test and passed that AC1 67%. Then home for 14 days. On the 7th April 1944 I reported to 5 BC Blackpool whilst waiting for a posting you go on parade in the morning and you’re given all kinds of duties, another chap and myself we were main escorting AWOL Airmen who had to go for interviews etc. in May I was posted to Ilfracombe there were sixteen of us in the detachment the billet was in the pub on the corner of the harbour, the launch was an ST 1400 Seaplane Tender our job was Target Towing in the Bristol Channel for the Liberators from Chivenor to practice bombing, they rarely had a Hit. On the 3rd of August I had an LAC test and I passed that 81%. September I went to West Kirby to await a posting so I volunteered for Cookhouse duties now whilst on cookhouse duties one job was to ensure the trough for washing your fighting irons knife, fork and spoon that the water was kept hot because of the grease etc. many a time there were dropped in because of splashing fingers. Some airmen came and claimed them otherwise they went into a spare box for anybody who wanted them. Now in November we left West Kirby for Greenock and we sailed on the 9th , Now we arrived at Naples on the 17th November then we left Naples and we went across to Bari and then from Bari across on the “Otranto” to Port Said then from Port Said we went down to Kasfareet and then in January 1945 we returned to Port Said and were allocated to Pinnace 1353 now from January to March we were sailing backwards and forward, we eventually arrived at Haifa from Port Said and there we were stuck in Haifa all of February because we had an engine failure , now then, a new engine came through for us but the Officer in charge at Haifa said it was theirs , eventually after numerous communications hear there and everywhere we had the engine fitted then we left for Beirut and then from Beirut to Famagusta now we really had a rough crossing we were all in the wheelhouse and in the Fo’csle where all our gear was ,When we went below it was anywhere but on its shelves. So we arrived in Famagusta on May 10th we then left for Larnaca, now our job at Larnaca was towing Targets for Beaufighters to practice Rockets concrete headed ones but we rarely had a hit. Now, whilst I was there I had to go down into Larnaca to get some provisions , when I came back up the jetty …No Launch… it had to go out because one of the Beaufighters had come down a bit low, wingtip hit the water, that was it, into the drink. So we later rescued the engine. During July 45 I had to go back to Port Said so I left Larnaca for Famagusta then from Famagusta on the “Fooerdick” arrived at Port Said in August I started my 2nd class Cox’ns course whilst I was on one of the launches moving about in the harbour I came up For’ard and the front stay caught my Cap which I had had with me all those years it went into the Harbour, so it is now at the bottom of Port Said Harbour. We Had a Trade Test Board and I passed at 88% during this course there was a callout the “Empire Patrol Disaster” when the ship caught fire so all launches that were available with volunteer crews went to assist. Now October I got posted to Alexandria then I was sent to Suez and the reason for that was three or four of us we were on board this tanker because the tanker “DROMUS” was taking two HSL’s that had been hoisted aboard and we were there to scrape and clean the hull’s, these were to be taken to Basrah but they were off loaded at Abadan, they were towed by tug to Basra, after them leaving the tanker it was going on to Australia so I asked the CO in charge “Any Chance of staying on the tanker” obviously the answer was Negative, After five days at Basrah I went by BOAC Sunderland to Bahrain and there we were billeted at the BOAC Seaplane post , this was quite a large detachment as I just said our accommodation was the BOAC staging post that had been taken over by the RAF in 1946 whilst there I had a spell in hospital in Muharraq with Yellow Fever then along comes June the 5th I had a release medical July 16th I left Bahrain by Dakota for Shaibah then went up to Basrah for a week then back to Shaibah for three days then we went by Lancaster they had taken all of the innards out and we were all sat in there for Kasfareet I stayed there for twelve days. And got to know my release gen on the 7th and then we left Kasfareet for Port Said and I boarded HMS OTRANTO we sailed at 1800 hrs we docked at Southampton at 0800 on the 16th we left by train for Hednesford, I went through the procedure of being kitted out in Civvies etc. then was taken to Stafford station. I then finally arrived home on the 19th of August at 0715hrs in the morning with a total of 77 days leave which expired on the 3rd of November and on the 11th of November I started on my joiners rehabilitation course in Cottingham Rd, Hull. So my life in the RAF was two halves as you might say 11 different places in Northern Ireland and about 14 different places in my RAF Motor Boat career. You will have probably worked out that I am now 93 years old coming up 94 but I don’t feel it by a long way I hope this is interesting for you, A bit that I missed out was the fact that when we were at Bahrain we used to use tank landing craft and these were used for conveying vehicles etc. when they were offloaded because there was no deep water for RAF Muharraq we had to take them under the causeway when the bridge opened so that we could off load for Muharraq RAF Station. I mentioned Holmpton at the beginning now it is known as RAF Holmpton because of the Cold War an underground Bunker there which is well and truly hidden but is open during the summer months to the public to see what the working life was down underground, so I know it is nothing to do with Motor Boats crews etc., but is just a piece of RAF Information . Thank You
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Alec Moore
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Format
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00:21:50 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Identifier
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AMooreA16XXXX-01
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46773/AMeacockC[Date]-01.mp3
8713b2a74e096290d302b623ca794afe
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Air Sea Rescue Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-10
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ASR-MCS
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Charles Meacock
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Conforms To
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Pending OH transcription
Pending OH transcription. Allocated
Identifier
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AMeacockC[Date]-01
Format
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02:42:15 audio recording
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46771/ALloydT[Date]-01.mp3
d44adf77bbf06fd4be97b21fecd74692
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Air Sea Rescue Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ASR-MCS
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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 Lloyd
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Conforms To
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Pending OH transcription. Allocated
Pending OH summary
Identifier
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ALloydT[Date]-01
Format
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02:04:39 audio recording
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46770/AJonesCE[Date]-01.mp3
1846e297d57b422fc9d83e53d4f088de
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
Air Sea Rescue Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ASR-MCS
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Cyril Ernest Jones aged 94
Joined the RAF Marine Craft Unit March 1941. Initial training RAF Wilmslow. Posted RAF Molesworth after training then posted overseas Jan 1942. After 4 months sailing at high seas posted to RAF Habbaniyah set to work in Command Marine Officer’s office. Remustered to motor boat crew a few months later. Posted to RAF Basra Iraq. Whilst stationed at Basra sent to Port Said Egypt for 2nd and 3rd class coxswain’s course.
I was still at Basra promoted to corporal and sergeant. As sergeant posted to 219 SAR Basra. Posted to RAF Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. After a month posted home end of tour.
Stationed at RAF Mount Batten spent 4 years there then posted back to Basra but stopped at Verbania as the officers did not think it fair to do 2 years in the Persian Gulf. Went to RAF Fanara Egypt. After a short stay at Fanara posted 1153 MCU Fanara. After which posted RAF Cyros Cyprus. At Cyros I was joined by my wife and daughter. After 4 years I returned to the UK and posted to RAF Mount Matten again. Posted to Malta after 3 or 4 years again with my wife and daughter. After 4 years I returned to the UK to RAF Immingham. On close of the unit posted back to RAF Mount Batten. Whilst there I spent 3 years instructing. From there I went to Tobruck North Africa. I returned again to RAF Mount Batten at end of tour and was posted from Mount Batten to Falmouth where I finished my service.
I joined in 1941 and left in 1975.
Launches served on
60ft Pinnaces
41 ft. Sea Plane Tenders
Z Craft
Rank Cargo Lighters
63 ft. HSLs
Army Search and Rescue Boats
Promotions were
RAF Basra LAC Corporal and Sergeant
RAF Malta Flight Sergeant
RAF Tobruck Warrant Officer
I had an interesting journey from Basra to Port Said; no-one seemed to know how to get there. I contacted the Sergeant in the Orderly Room. Information received go from Habbaniyah to Baghdad by RAF bus, Baghdad to Syria Damascus by local bus. From Syria to Haifa by train and by train from Haifa to Cairo and from Cairo to Port Said by train. This trip took 3 months, it was a hell of a journey when I completed the course he said return the same way you came to Basra. After six months returned to Port Said for 1st Class Coxswain’s course. Then returned to Basra by flying boat from Cairo to Basra, the whole trip took 6 hours instead of 3 months.
The other trip of note was a trip from 1153 MCU to Limassol to work with the Royal Navy recovering mines. Job completed set off on return trip, half way along the north coast of Cyprus the boat started taking on water seriously which we could not contain with the pumps. In conjunction with the skipper, Flt Lt Stone, we decided the only option was to send a mayday. Having sent a mayday was to strand the boat on the nearest beach. Having put the boat on the beach I jumped over the side with the blow line which I made fast to a palm tree. After about 10 minutes the starboard side of the boat fell in to the water. We all managed to get ashore safely where we were met by a party from 1153 MCU from where we returned to the base by boat.
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Interview with Cyril Jones
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eng
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Pending review
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AJonesCE[Date]-01
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00:05:56 audio recording
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46769/AHuntleyR[Date]-01.mp3
1e3094f1b0a8b982863edcea56e7adeb
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Air Sea Rescue Collection
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2017-01-10
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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ASR-MCS
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15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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My name is Ron Huntley and I am 93 years old; my Air Force number was 1436327. Prior to joining the Air Force in July 1941 I had taken a Government Training Centre course, in Whaddon near Croydon, for five months in general engineering and they had sent me down to Fairoaks aerodrome in Chobham where I was working as a sort of apprentice improver learning engines and so forth and basically they were repairing Blenheims and Tiger Moths and that sort of thing. I was in digs, of course I was away from home but I enjoyed it for about three months when we were working days, and then all of a sudden I was told I was on permanent nights. Well I stuck on nights, which was pretty rough, 7 till 7 five nights a week and very little time to do too much else and after some time, about May I would reckon in 41, I said to the supervisor that I was going to get myself another job. I wasn’t going to work nights anymore and I learned a lesson then when I was told I was in a reserved occupation and that if I went anywhere else it would be where they sent me as I had a Government’s Training Centre course and it could be further away from home, it could be nights again but it would certainly be something to do with aircraft and with a side remark he said the only way out of this is the Services.
Now that triggered something in my mind and the following morning I went to my digs, had breakfast, changed and put a suit on, got the train and went back to Croydon, went into George Street where the RAF Recruiting office was and I asked to join the Air Force. I had a few small maths tests to do and they asked me some questions. I wanted to be a Flight Mechanic and I passed that apparently quite easily and they said right we will take you as a Flight Mechanic, sign this form you are now in the Air Force and we will let you know when we are going to call you up.
On the 11th of July 1941 I was due at Cardington in Bedfordshire to be kitted out and get the usual short back and sides haircut and so forth. We were kitted out, it was quite reasonable where they were making things fit and you were changing with others; this doesn’t fit me does it fit you kind of thing. Anyway we all got fitted and after four days we were put on a train, about I suppose a couple of hundred of us or so were taken to Skegness and I remember walking up Skegness railway station platform, which was open and wooden at the time, and seeing the PTIs at the top in their white roll neck sweaters, all looking fresh as daisies. They were taking the men in sections of about thirty per squad, I looked at one of them and he looked like a handsome fella really in a way but he looked like a real tough cookie, about six foot one, and short back and sides really short back and sides and I remember thinking I hope I don’t get him. Sods law being what it is, who should I get, him. He turned out to be a very nice man; he was a Corporal and PTI. His name was Tommy Reddington and in fact he was a professional boxer and while I was there he boxed Freddie Mills who later won the World Light Heavyweight Championship. He won the fight while I was there he had lost one previously to Mills before I arrived, and after I left I read in the paper that they had fought again and Mills had knocked him out. But he was a nice chap and I thoroughly enjoyed being there although six weeks of up and down and round and about and being left right, left right, constant marching was quite a bit boring by the finish, but I learned to fire a rifle and throw a mills bomb.
At the end of that stage I was posted to Cosford near Wolverhampton on a flight mechanics course; it was a sixteen weeks course that was an interesting course where half of us were airframes and half of us were flight mechanics and it really was a learning curve for me as I learned very much about an engine and propellers and hydraulics and so forth and I enjoyed it very much there.
My first posting was to a station in Northern Ireland, Edlington just north of Londonderry; it was a Spitfire Squadron. I can’t tell you the number of the Sqn I have no idea, I can’t remember now anyway but they were doing patrols over the Western Approaches, but the main thing there was scrambling. The Wing Commander was very anxious that the flights, both A and B, should get off very, very quickly. They used to do four or five scrambles a day; it also meant that we were doing guard duty in the night and for a couple of hours as a section and it strikes me that walking around the aircraft in the middle of the night with a rifle, which of course had no bullets in it at all, was a funny sort of experience as to why one had a rifle and what the hell one could do if anything happened anyway.
I didn’t last long there, it was about two months or three months perhaps, and the whole Sqn was moved lock, stock and barrel to Coventry, we went across from Larne to Stranraer and took fourteen hours in the train to get down to Coventry with the Sqn. Then the aircraft arrived and that’s when we learned why of course he was doing the scrambling so much because it became, after a short while obvious, that the Sqn was due for overseas because everybody was going to get embarkation leave. About eight or nine of us were surplus to requirements so while everybody was getting Pith hats and all the rest of it, I was told that I was surplus to requirements and that I wouldn’t be going and that my next posting was to Lark Hill on Salisbury Plain, to an Army cooperation unit which was flying Tiger Moths, Piper Cubs and Taylor craft. They had a couple of Lysanders there, and the idea of this was that every ten weeks they had about twelve officers, Second Lieutenants, coming in they were to learn to fly because the final analysis was for them to go and spot for the artillery to make sure that the shells were landing in the right place. The limit of their flying, when they were in operation, was 400 ft. which didn’t make the job for a cynic because at 400ft in a Tiger Moth at a maximum speed of 100 miles per hour with any wind, never mind against it, was a pretty vulnerable position to be in, I would have thought. We used to get a three ton lorry or something like that and put a couple of us, a rigger and a fitter, we would get in the van we’d have a driver of course and we’d have petrol, oil and tools and we would go to various fields already designated and these planes would come in and land on these fields. The idea was of course that when they went to France they could land on any convenient spot and we ran around Salisbury plain doing this for quite a few months. Then they moved the whole Sqn, the whole lot, to Old Sarum near Salisbury. That was the first time I had been on a camp, other than at Cosford, that was a permanent base with brick buildings and so forth. Also I played quite a bit of football there which was very good.
An incident there that they also had a Fleet Air Arm Sqn, about thirty of them with two Fairy Battles and they mapped out the grass to the length of what was considered to be the deck of an aircraft carrier and they were trying to land them in this space to see if they could land on an aircraft carrier. One evening a rigger and I had to stay with one Tiger Moth because the pilot had been killed and his ashes were going to be scattered over Old Sarum itself and this was after tea of course so we were late. They came back and most of the ashes seemed to have gone over the plane, sad really. Anyway we went into tea late, half past six towards seven o’clock but that’s the time also when this Fleet Air Arm Sqn went in and of course the meals are listed beforehand so they knew, and that meal that night was Sheppard’s pie, which I always considered was the best meal that you ever got in the RAF. Anyway when we got there the corporal in charge said we haven’t got any more it’s all gone, Egg and Chips for everybody. Now the rigger and I of course being the RAF would have just said OK we’ll have egg and chips but the officer in charge of the Fleet Air Arm would have none of it. He said ‘my men are due this meal, where is the meal’. Well the long and the short of it was that they called the orderly officer and the next thing I know the Group Captain’s come back in. The Group Captain, who was in charge of the Station, usually left about four o’clock and came back in at about nine o’clock. Anyway he came back and there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing going on and the following morning. We had brought four cooks with us down from Lark Hill but they were not used as cooks because Old Sarum already had its own cooks, but the following morning our four cooks were in charge. A new staff was put in and, to his credit, the Group Captain was there behind the servery and seeing that everybody was clean and their nails were right, the girls hair was up and all this, and that the amount of food that was being put on everybody’s plate was adequate. And to his credit that Group Captain was there breakfast, dinner and tea for a week every day, so the food at that station got better than ever.
I can’t remember dates places and times particularly well but sometime in 1942 I was told I was posted again into Duxford in Cambridgeshire which was, if you remember, the Big Wing Station of the Battle of Britain fame. When I got there I found they had Typhoons, there was only about eight or ten flight mechanics went there with me at the time I went, and I realised why because the modifications that were needed to be done on the Typhoons was quite a thick book and the Sqn was operational at that moment so these machines were having to be done. But the trouble was it was towards the winter and they got cold and the one thing you couldn’t have on a Sqn that was on international duty or operational duty, they would have to be able and ready to go, so these things were run up every four hours. They were all kept in sandbag bays but you had to run them up through the night as well and it was quite an exercise to go around at night stripping off the top covers starting them up and getting the oil temperature up, right and level getting out putting it all back and putting the covers back then going to the next dispersal point to do the next one and hoping that you could do it in time to leave yourself twenty minutes to run to the flight site and get yourself a cup of tea before you started all over again.
I came in one morning with a pal of mine, Pitts his name was, and he came from Dover. I never saw him again after we left but I said to him let’s have a look at DROs this morning as we walked in. I don’t know why I did it because it wasn’t a normal procedure that I did. We were on our way to breakfast, I looked at DROs and on it had ‘Wanted Urgent engine fitters for Air Sea Rescue Launches’ and I remember saying to him I’m going to have a go at that and he looked at it and said ‘yes, so will I’. So we went into the Cheifies office and said would you put us down for this, we’d like to volunteer for this and he looked at us rather sideways almost in disbelief that we would want to leave a station like Duxford and go in for something like that. Anyway we said yes we would and he said OK I will put you in for it and we went to breakfast and to be honest we wondered if we would ever hear anything more about it at all. But the urgency of the situation was evident when four days later when the Chiefy called us in and said you are both going down, you’re both posted, you’re going to Locking in Western Super Mare on a fitter marine course. So we were both sent on a ten week course there on marine diesel engines. Diesels, of course, in them days were fearsome, people were afraid of them, not like they are today, nobody knew much about them. Actually they turned out to be fairly easy and it’s a good job I learned because when I had finished the course my first posting took me to Padstow in Cornwall on 44 ASR unit. The first boat I went on was a 60ft Pinnace No 1234 and it had three P6 Perkins diesels as its motivation.
I am not all that conversant now with the actual dates that things happened at Padstow, I remember we did give some assistance on some dinghy sailing trials we also picked up a body of an Air Training Corp’s fella. I also remember 50 Americans arriving to look at how the British ASR system worked and paid us the compliment of building their own crash boats very much like ours. In fact I also understand that they used Scott Paine designed High Speed Launches. I also remember searching for a Flying Fortress crew. We were assisted by quite a few aircraft on that occasion as I remember but the sea was extremely rough and we hove-to there off Trevose Head for quite a while before we could even think of getting in. We also picked up three empty dinghies as well as one with seven survivors in it. I’m not certain if it was the crash but something had happened there, I don’t know for sure where they went but we took them back to Padstow anyway to be looked after.
One of the ones I remember most was on the 15th of February 1944, by this time we had got the Thorneycroft launches there, my launch No was 2641. We were out looking for a Liberator that had gone down, she had been over the Bay of Biscay and shot up about fifty miles out of Brest I think and it had been forced to ditch, it had been attacked by two JU 88s. A number of search aircraft were out looking for it and about mid-day we finally got there and found them but the aircraft were the biggest assistance to us to get there. When we got there we found nine people, one was dead and eight were survivors in three dinghies which had been dropped from the two search aircraft. They had tied them all the dinghies together, we brought them back to Padstow and peculiarly enough, despite being in the water for about twenty-two hours, most of them walked off the boat when we got back to Padstow. I was quite surprised; one or two of them of course had to be assisted but it’s amazing how quickly they recover given warm clothing in the warm and food while coming back and rubbed by the medic.
The end result of that of course was that some years later and, when I say some years later, I mean in the late Nineties I was talking to a detective inspector who was interested in another incident of ours and he told me, I said I had a photograph of this incident and I said I couldn’t remember who they were. He found out exactly who they were and sent me a brochure with them in and I rang a fellow in America and it turned out to be Carlton Lilley who was a bombardier who flew on that plane that we picked up and in the year 2002, at their total expense, I was invited over to America to their reunion in Pensacola and I met four of the survivors and their families. It was a most really heart rending thing, because to see people that you had picked up some forty years or so before was quite an event and the families were over the moon that they could see someone who had picked up their fathers or whatever. It struck me how much the people over there look up to their veterans as against the general attitude that exists in this country; they certainly are honoured over there as people who have fought for their country they looked after. I was very impressed with the way they did it unfortunately they are all by now dead, I have written to them but I have found each one has died in turn so that’s no longer there.
We also, on 2641, had a rescue with the Destroyer, Warwick, which was torpedoed by Padstow. We brought a lot of survivors in then and a lot came in on the pinnace, about 50 odd, and the pinnace had to beach itself, it couldn’t get them all off by just coming into the buoy. There were two or three trips to get them, we picked up a few ourselves on 2641 and brought them in and also out there about the same time, about mid ‘44, there was a Liberty ship went down and that was torpedoed and that was only about six miles out. Obviously we were going around for Normandy and there again the Navy was out as well and were picking up survivors and various things that were floating about. Of course the Liberty ship was carrying a lot of quite good stuff, in fact we managed to get aboard some large sealed cartons that contained 10,000 Lucky Strike. We got a couple of those aboard as well as other things but the navy, of course, were very quick, they were picking up anything that was going. I think the Navy did very well out of that Liberty ship.
On the 18th of April 1944 we were taking 2641 on a stand by and we were asked to take out the Harbour Master and one of his Petty Officers, there were not many Navy at Padstow, to a radar Buoy nine miles out that was not working properly. There were only five on board that day as a minimum crew so seven aboard all together. We went out to this radar buoy when we got there we dropped the rope ladder over the side so that they could go and have a look. No sooner had we got them over the side than we had a crash call; we were to go to Watergate Bay where an aircraft had gone down. Immediately the buoy was finished with all together, obviously the boat turned around straight away and returned to Watergate Bay. It took something like half an hour to forty minutes I think to get down there.
The lifeboat was already there and the lifeboat had picked up something like nine, ten or eleven people. It looked like an abattoir almost because this was all covered in blood and muck and stuff. In the Bay the water is very clear and we saw what we thought was a body of some sort but it turned out it was a undercarriage wheel but attached to it about six foot down was a body and the skipper Flt Lt Morelli dived in to try and release it but he couldn’t and eventually that body and the wheel was towed by the lifeboat into Newquay. We were in touch with an aircraft because it had come out from Chivenor and it was circling around and told us to go further out so we went a couple of miles further out looked around and we found two bodies which we obviously took aboard with a couple of officer jackets of some sort, two underarm briefcases and a suitcase.
The suitcase was sealed and I think there was something else but I don’t know what it was but that was about all we could find. It took about an hour and the aircraft couldn’t find any more so the skipper decided we would return to base but before we did he said let’s have a look at what we’ve got and the suitcase he said one was obviously a Yugoslav officer going to Yugoslavia for some reason, probably to do with the mafia or something, and he said the other one was a medical officer. He was going to Alexandria by the look of the papers that was the two jackets we got and of course from the information in the underarm briefcases. We opened the main sealed suitcase and it contained white five pound notes in bundles of fifty, we couldn’t believe it we had never seen so much money in our life but it was counted and somebody said there was £45,000 in it. This was a terrific find, anyway we gave our ETA and rushed back to Padstow and we were met by the Senior Medical Officer from St Mawgan where the plane that had crashed had gone out from. Originally he came and he took everything we had on board, the ambulance took the bodies obviously but he took everything else that we had and, although it became the talk of the base for a day or two because of the money and so forth, it was really forgotten and other than knowing that the lifeboat had also picked up some £18,000 in dollars in a body belt. It was on one of their chaps nobody knew much about it but there was just rumours running around that also on the plane was gold but that was coming from the fishermen at Newquay not from any authentic source. And as far as I was concerned that event finished then totally until after I had left the RAF when I heard other things obviously, I will talk about this at the finish.
The Padstow experience finished, I left Padstow some time towards the end of the year Sept/October something like that because, with the war being in that position where we thought it would be over, the need for two or three boats at Padstow was unnecessary. There was a life boat there but there was no activity going on much there that couldn’t be handled by the lifeboat and I was posted from there to Castle Archdale in Northern Ireland which was a Marine Craft Unit looking after the boats that took the crews out to the Sunderlands and so forth that were out there doing their job and we took the crews and the fitters to do their operations.
My experience there was very limited really but one incident comes to mind; one evening there had been fog and a boat had gone down in the morning to Killadeas which was about seven miles down the loch at the other end. Also an RAF station and because of the fog the boat had been left there and towards the evening we were duty crew that night and one chap says ‘I think I will go down and pick up that boat and we will come back with it’ and I offered to go. I said ‘I will come with you if you like’ and, as a fitter, it really wasn’t my job to go there. Anyway but what I didn’t know was that he really didn’t know the real system. There were a lot of rocks in that lake and he just went at it, we went down there and after a little while all of a sudden such a bang and we hit a rock and it pushed the props through the bottom of the boat which of course started to take water not very quickly but never the less taking water. Luckily there are a lot of islands around there and I said in the mist ‘look there’s an island there let’s make for that’ and I was using the floorboard as a rudder to try and get the thing going the right direction. He steered it and we got close to the shore and hit another rock and we lay in about six foot of water with the nose out of the water and the rest of it in the water clear. We had a torch so we could see but we sat all night in there because nobody came out at all. So we sat all night in the front of that we were afraid to get into the water; if that was just an island that’s all it was. We were soaking wet, we would have been in worse trouble than where we were so we stayed put. 6.30 am the following morning the Tannoy went and we realised that what we were looking at wasn’t an island, it was the mainland and from there I could have walked to billet in about six minutes, with no problems at all and we spent all night there. Anyway it so happened that at that moment when the Tannoy went, the duty crew woke up and the fellow that I was with that was taking the boat down was the one that was supposed to make the breakfast and the tea. Somebody turned and looked and saw that he wasn’t there and said ‘where is he’ then looked and said ‘where’s t’other fella that went with him, Huntley’ and they said ‘oh’ and so he took a marine tender straight out came careering across to see us, turned and saw us, also forgot the rocks and finished bang straight on top of two rocks so we stood there looking at our so called rescuer about 500 yards away, or less than that, stuck on the top of the rocks. A third boat had to come out to pick up the crews of both of us. I don’t know what happened at the finish because I backed away from it because it was nothing to do with me when the start doing that caper but it was quite an incident in peculiar as had we not been in an island like that so easily would have drowned.
I certainly enjoyed my stay in Ireland because I did a lot with motor bikes and we were there with a pal. I had a fellow called Stan Brand, he was a motor cyclist and we were dealing with quite a few of the professional motor cyclists. On the odd occasion, we went to Belfast and spent the weekend up there; I enjoyed it immensely and to the finish and the 30th of July 1946 I arrived at Uxbridge for my demob; picked up my demob suit and then went back into Civvy Street.
The incident where we picked all the money up and everything else of course has been in the magazine and it’s called the ‘Gold Plane’, I think the edition is the 209. Anyway, in the late nineties I was in touch with Derek Faulks who was a Detective Inspector and I was talking about the crew and this photograph that I have of the American crew. He spoke of his interest in the ‘Gold Plane’ as he called it and I said ‘the Gold Plane’ and he said ‘well it was the one that crashed’. So I said well I was on the launch that went there to that incident and he actually said ‘there is a film made called the ‘Gold Plane’ by the BBC and it’s been shown twice on BBC2 and I have a copy of it’. But the thing is he spent 16 years of his life chasing it and he had the satisfaction of, he knew there were sixteen picked up but the pilot was never one they had got and they buried somebody and they called him an unknown seaman of WWII. He was quite sure that that was the pilot and he wanted him exhumed and he had great difficulty from the Home Office in getting it done. Eventually they agreed on the basis that if he was right they would pay and if he was wrong he would have to pay. Two Group Captains came down that were in the business of checking bones and things and freely gave their time to do it and they checked and it turned out that it was the pilot of the aircraft and he was lucky because his brother was able to come over from Canada and see him officially buried with Honours because, after all, he was a hero in his own country for being it and the argument had always been was it sabotage. This is why they spent so much time on it. Most of the people don’t believe it was sabotage but there are incidents in this that just don’t add up. For example, if you listen to the tape of Derek Faulks, he was told by the officer in charge at St Mawgan, he told his wife that it was sabotage but not by the enemy. Of the two people that were French there, one was in La Cagoule, which is a fascist-leaning union, and the other one had been through MI6. So they all say, of course, as it happened six weeks before D Day, it was all a very hush hush. Most people just didn’t believe that it was anything, but because of the money there was a thought and said ‘who by?’ I can’t tell you but it was said there was gold on the plane as well and of course half of the fishermen in Newquay went out on their boats looking for gold and to this day I think they still do it at times.
Anyway, unfortunately Derek Faulks died without knowing, but later on in life, I asked my son in law ‘just check and see if you can find anything at all about it other than what we already know’. In the ordinary way, anybody would have gone straight to the RAF detail but he went to the BBC records, remember they were asking people whether they knew of any incidents and, if so, they would put them on tape and so forth. One of these things he picked up was a letter from a woman called Marianne Haseldean and I have a copy of it which stated that her father had taken gold down to Cornwall and gone out and the plane had gone without him and that that plane had crashed and the pilot or in effect was an army officer. My son got the details of the army officer and his records and there is four pages of that and I have that also. He also states that he went down to Cornwall taking this down he was actually Polish and he was at Baker Street with MI6 at the finish. He went down from there to Cornwall and the gold was put on board the plane. He went to get on the plane and, at that moment he was told ‘No, you don’t, you’re not going tonight’; the gold was taken off, that plane took off and that’s the plane that exploded over Watergate Bay. The following day he got on another plane and the plane trip was Lyneham, St Mawgan and then down and round to Alexandria or Farsi Island, Italy or whatever but that was a regular nightly trip that squadron 545 Sqn did. It was a Canadian Sqn and they were using Warwick aircraft and that was the run they did that plane exploded the following day. Another plane a Warwick did the same trip and took the gold and it was landed at Fazio to an American unit where he left it and finally came home, but unfortunately Derek Faulks or other people don’t believe it they never knew that there was gold on that plane and putting gold on the plane actually alters the stories somewhat whether one believes that it was sabotage is another matter. I can’t make up my own mind, there is a lot of discrepancies in it but it does seem that one would have to agree that there was someone that was prepared to kill sixteen people to stop one thing happening and that takes a bit of believing at times although one knows that people are expendable. Anyway that’s my story so far I hope it’s of interest to you and thank you very much for listening.
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/.
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Interview with Ronald Huntley
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eng
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Sound
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Pending review
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AHuntleyR[Date]-01
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00:38:43 audio recording
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46768/AHaynesE[Date]-01.mp3
378dfd5ac1dcf503251b9d1ca2e77ab9
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
Air Sea Rescue Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ASR-MCS
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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 Eric Haynes
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 OH transcription. Allocated
Pending OH summary. Allocated T Hardcastle
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AHaynesE[Date]-01
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:07:35 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.
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46767/AGriffithsG[Date]-01.mp3
1f35795aa7657b739ae7c90e4ddd7307
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
Air Sea Rescue Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ASR-MCS
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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 Griffiths
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AGriffithsG[Date]-01
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
00:13:42 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending OH transcription. Allocated
Pending OH summary. Allocated T Hardcastle
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.
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/805/46766/ADoneK[Date]-01.mp3
b28689655142fae0be0a0c8359e339b7
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
Done, Ken
K Done
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Ken Done (Royal Air Force). He served in Air Sea Rescue.
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
2017-06-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Done, K
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 Ken Done
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
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ADoneK[Date]-01
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:19:31 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending OH transcription. Allocated
Pending OH summary. Allocated T Hardcastle
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.
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46765/ABoutcherFL[Date]-01.mp3
ce6668d55240181c36ef026513e1efa6
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
Air Sea Rescue Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ASR-MCS
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
My service No 1438838 and I am nearly 95 years old, I joined the RAF in early spring 1941, aged 19 and Marine Craft in early autumn 1944, I trained for Flight Mechanic in Morecombe in 1941, as Fitter in Blackpool in 1943, and Marine Fitter at Corsewall in 1944. I was posted to Scotland, England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Holland. I served on Whaleback 158, then a Hant’s & Dorset 187, and lastly Long Range Ex Naval MTB 019, I served at the following, Cardington where I joined in 1941, kitting out at Blackpool 1941, Morecombe in 1941 square-bashing and flight mechanics course, Longtown near Gretna Green on single engined trainers, then Fighter Command at Castle Town near Thurso with Hurricanes and Spitfires on 167 Gold Coast squadron with Rolls Royce Merlin engines, the whole squadron moved to 12 Group at Ludham Norfolk for six months then to 11 Group at Hornchurch for only two days filling in bomb craters the whole squadron then moved to Westhampnett satellite of Tangmere in Sussex and re equipped with cannon for shooting up German tanks etc. on the French roads. As half the squadron was shot down it was removed to Woodvale in Lancashire and Dutch crews replaced us making it a completely Dutch squadron, we were paraded before Prince Bernhard and dismissed. Posted back to Blackpool Squires Gate on a Fitter 2E course and after passing I was posted to Chedburgh in Suffolk on Short Sterling’s, which funnily enough also have Rolls Royce Merlin engines, four in number. After six months I spotted a notice requiring volunteers for ASR I applied and was promptly posted to Marston Moor Yorkshire on Halifax’s these were radial engines which were new to me but after a few days I was posted to Corsewall near Stranraer on the fitter marine course and after passing that I was posted to Gorleston in Norfolk and spent the next nine months on the North Sea day and night on square search The boats I was on were Whaleback 158 Hant’s & Dorset 187 when the European war ended we were sent to Den Helder Holland on the same duties whilst there I was posted to Calshot for long range duties in the Pacific war but fortunately when that ended our two boats were sent to the Western Isles we set out up the channel into the North Sea stopping at Blyth and Aberdeen going through the Caledonian Canal stopping at Fort William and Oban and arriving at Bowmore Isle of Islay spending the autumn and winter shooting up mines but really meant to be saving any Americans if they were downed in Liberators taking them back to the States. Finally in the spring of 1946 we returned the boat to Calshot stopping at Londonderry, Larne, Douglas, Holyhead, Fishguard, Bideford, Newlyn, Torquay, Calshot and were finally demobbed in May 1946, I was lucky to meet some great characters such as Fortune Fowler skipper of 017 which like us was posted to the isle of Islay he was an Ex tramp steamer skipper and a real old sea dog, our skipper was Geoff Budden on 019 a young Ex pilot and fearless, I remember us rowing him up to a mine washed up on the beach which he climbed on top of and disarmed, I had good friends Knocker Knock on the whaleback and Andy Coleman on one of the Hant’s & Dorset’s Knocker was a very experienced fitter and helped me a lot working on the Napier Sea Lion’s which I knew nothing about. Andy Coleman was a friend of mine from the marine fitters course and we met up again in the middle of the North Sea on our way to and from Den Helder in separate boats, food in the service was generally poor but one meal I remember was a feast of Herrings we caught at Den Helder in the mouth of the Zuiderzee and cooked fresh. As I was in the engine room I did not sea rescues happening only the aftermaths of live or dead being transferred ashore at Gorleston. On our fitters course it was drilled into us to use our caps in case of an engine fire and this happened to me, I was up in the under cart priming a Halifax when it occurred and I beat out the flames with my cap until the rest of the ground crew were able to get the extinguishers working and the aircrew out of the aircraft, I was told I would be awarded a mention in dispatches by the Flight Seargeant but instead I was posted the following day to Corsewall on Fitter Marine Course ……….That’s Life.
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 Frank Boutcher
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ABoutcherFL[Date]-01
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:09:21 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending OH summary. Allocated T Hardcastle
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.
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46764/ABiltonW[Date]-01.mp3
438590a0794989d045149a6d5535d031
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
Air Sea Rescue Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ASR-MCS
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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 Bill Bilton
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ABiltonW[Date]-01
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
02:27:04 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending OH transcription. Allocated
Pending OH summary. Allocated T Hardcastle
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.
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2627/46751/PSmithAT2301 copy.1.jpg
9fd0cd5710b4d41d0e9484bf8f6cc409
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
Smith, Albert Thomas
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. The collection concerns Sergeant Albert Thomas Smith (b. 1908, 560209 Royal Air Force) and contains correspondence, documents and a photograph. He served as an engine fitter with 106 Squadron.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Diane Ralph and catalogued by Lynn Corrigan.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2023-06-14
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
Smith, AT
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
Albert Thomas Smith and Violet Mary Ralph's wedding day
Description
An account of the resource
The wedding of Albert Thomas Smith and Violet Mary Ralph. The couple are sat between two women. Three men and a woman are standing behind. Albert is in uniform showing his sergeant stripes and Violet is in a high necked, long dress holding a bouquet of flowers and fern.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939-12-16
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PSmithAT2301
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1939-12-16
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.
love and romance
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1529/46737/MRamsdenB55792-160808-01.2.jpg
a30c8ecf5d611b19f57f863d0ebea2ff
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
Ramsden, Benjamin
B Ramsden
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
2016-08-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Ramsden, B
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. This collection concerns Pilot Officer Benjamin Ramsden (55792 Royal Air Force) and contains his decorations and photographs. Although a pilot, he flew operations as a bomb aimer with 100 Squadron and was killed on 13 August 1944.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anne Merritt and catalogued by Andy Fitter. <br /><br />Additional information on Benjamin Ramsden is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/119306/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
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
Commemorative scroll
Description
An account of the resource
Scroll commemorating Benjamin Ramsden. It carries the Royal Coat of Arms of George VI and text honouring Ramsden's service.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One page document
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MRamsdenB55792-160808-01
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1529/46730/PRamsdenB16010003.1.jpg
22362ebae8ced999d77503e68d8c7936
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1529/46730/PRamsdenB16010004.1.jpg
3642a9c839675b2558c4333265224fd4
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1529/46730/PRamsdenB16010002.1.jpg
5752816be2bdb40af7f4e1b8c7f9cce9
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1529/46730/PRamsdenB16010001.1.jpg
73bb6cfc9470905ad302658ab7fe4a06
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
Ramsden, Benjamin
B Ramsden
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
2016-08-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Ramsden, B
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. This collection concerns Pilot Officer Benjamin Ramsden (55792 Royal Air Force) and contains his decorations and photographs. Although a pilot, he flew operations as a bomb aimer with 100 Squadron and was killed on 13 August 1944.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anne Merritt and catalogued by Andy Fitter. <br /><br />Additional information on Benjamin Ramsden is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/119306/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
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
Benjamin Ramsden's decorations
Description
An account of the resource
Obverse view of war medals. From left to right: The 1939-1945 Star, The France and Germany Star, The 1939 - 1945 War Medal, The 1939 - 1945 Defence Medal.
The reverse view of the same four medals.
The box in which the medals were posted to Ramsden's widow.
The ribbons of the France and Germany Star and of the 1939-1945 War Medal have been transposed.
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
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Physical object
Physical object. Decoration
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two medals, two stars and associated ribbons
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PRamsdenB16010003, PRamsdenB16010004, PRamsdenB16010001, PRamsdenB16010002
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1529/46729/PRamsdenB1604.1.jpg
d4ca839582f89c2133f06d4b57b2e806
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
Ramsden, Benjamin
B Ramsden
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
2016-08-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Ramsden, B
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. This collection concerns Pilot Officer Benjamin Ramsden (55792 Royal Air Force) and contains his decorations and photographs. Although a pilot, he flew operations as a bomb aimer with 100 Squadron and was killed on 13 August 1944.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anne Merritt and catalogued by Andy Fitter. <br /><br />Additional information on Benjamin Ramsden is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/119306/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
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
49 airmen
Description
An account of the resource
A group portrait of 49 airmen in uniform, taken outdoors, against the side of a hangar. The men are arranged in four rows and Benjamin Ramsden is seated in the second row, fifth from the right. Ten of the men have a white arm band on their left sleeve.
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
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PRamsdenB1604
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
hangar
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1529/46728/PRamsdenB1603.2.jpg
9118f2cc6f2134af8e48d33d111ff4ce
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1529/46728/PRamsdenB1605.2.jpg
5dd5947a86b52a21e8400db0a7e8f893
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
Ramsden, Benjamin
B Ramsden
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
2016-08-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Ramsden, B
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. This collection concerns Pilot Officer Benjamin Ramsden (55792 Royal Air Force) and contains his decorations and photographs. Although a pilot, he flew operations as a bomb aimer with 100 Squadron and was killed on 13 August 1944.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anne Merritt and catalogued by Andy Fitter. <br /><br />Additional information on Benjamin Ramsden is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/119306/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
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
50 airmen
Description
An account of the resource
A formal photograph of 50 airmen in uniform, taken outside, against the side of a building. The men are in four rows and Benjamin Ramsden is in the front row, fourth from the left. Most of the men have a white training flash on their field service cap.
The reverse of the photograph has 44 names and three signatures.
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
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PRamsdenB1603, PRamsdenB1605
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Language
A language of the resource
eng
aircrew
training