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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/270/3422/AHeatonSM160322.1.mp3
faf7544445c20c5d8a834bb67cdbf1ae
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Title
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Heaton, Stuart Michael
Stuart Michael Heaton
Stuart M Heaton
Stuart Heaton
S M Heaton
S Heaton
Description
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One oral history interview with Stuart Michael Heaton (b. 1925, 1818543 and 164742 Royal Air Force).
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2016-03-22
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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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Heaton, SM
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AS. This is Andrew Sadler interviewing Michael Heaton at his home in Swiss Cottage London em on the 22nd of March 2016 on behalf of the Bomber Command Archive. Michael thank you very much for allowing you to interview em you, em can I start by asking you where an when you were born?
MH. Yes I was born in Worcester on the 29th of May 1924.
AS. Right and em what, did you have parents involved in the First World War?
MH. No but my parents were living at that time of course but my father was not involved, he was in a reserved occupation.
AS. Oh what, what, what was his occupation?
MH. Em it was em ha, I should know it, it was with a factory in Rugby eh where in fact he met my mother. Em I am just trying to recall the name of the factory but they were making some parts for machines, I just can’t recall the details.
AS. So how did you em, how did you come to be, to join the Royal Air Force?
MH. Of course ah eh I was fifteen when the war started, there was plenty going on very quickly. And eh there was a film I remember, a Holywood film, I can’t remember what the details were but it dealt with eh the crew of a bomber. And eh somehow that had an impact with me and I thought, ‘that is exactly what I want to do when the time comes when I am old enough.’ There was a preparity, prepartity for joining up, for volunteering and I joined the ATC, the Air Training Corps eh which was of immense benefit to me learning about discipline and eh the navigation.
AS. At what age did you join that?
MH. Eh, I was sixteen or seventeen.
AS. And were you at school then?
MH. No eh I was working in a bank in a place called Ledbury in Herefordshire and eh this bank, I was eh educated at Ledbury Grammar School eh which I joined in 1933 and left in eh 1940. And eh the grammar school was also the headquarters for the Air Training Corps. And the two or three years that I was with the Air Training Corps were a tremendous benefit to me both in ways of learning about discipline but more importantly about navigation. And eh when the time came that eh I was eh summoned to Birmingham before eh, before a selection, aircrew selection eh I was already eh quite knowledgeable about em eh navigation and so when I was asked, what would you like to be. That category I told them, to be a navigator. Most boys would go in for to be a pilot only probably to be disappointed because that was overstaffed and eh so I was summoned when I was eighteen to Birmingham for this eh aircrew selection and were there for about two days actually. And at the end of it when I came before the em selectors eh they said to me ‘would you like to join immediately or wait for eight or nine months when you would be sort of called up.’ So I said ‘I would have no hesitation whatsoever I would like to join immediately.’ Went home back to Leadbury, met by my parents in a weeks time I was in the Air Force, that’s how it started.
AS. Where did you do your training?
MH. Well my training which was very long indeed, over about two years. Training a navigator was the longest course of the aircrew officers. So we had to report here in London, St Johns Wood, ACRC, Aircrew Receiving Centre known as “arsey tarsey”or the [unclear] eh and so I reported there at eh [cough] a place just opposite the zoo, London Zoo.And then we were on the go all the time, either peeling potatoes, scrubbing the floors, going to lectures, swimming various things em for about six weeks as far as I can remember. From there we went to our first posting eh on the way to Scarborough on the Flying Scotsman I remember which of course has now come back. And eh that was to the ITW. That was an important first course em all em aircrew went there before they went their different ways. I found it was absolutely no trouble at all because I knew everything they told me through my time in the ATC. So it was immensely helpful in that respect. And the course was about six weeks I can’t quite remember. So do you want me to go on about the training?
AS. Yes.
MH. So having finished that and passed the course we then went to a transit cam, place in Ludlow where we were living in tents out of doors waiting eh for our time to board a ship which would take us to Canada. That was a tiresome place, I found it tiresome anyhow, food was awful etc. From there we went on to Manchester to Heaton Park [unclear] eh and waited there for our time to board the em the Queen Elizabeth. That was a troop ship at that time carrying a huge number of people em to New York. I don’t know how many, there was talk of forty or fifty thousand certainly on, on board the ship you could hardly move. Eh the beds were in layers all the way up with an electric light all the way up. My misfortune was to have one right at the top. Eh I didn’t enjoy the voyage at all, of course there were, there were, there were nothing accompanying us, the ship was very fast. But one thought did think about eh German submarines which were quite active at that time.However, passed without any problems as far as that was concerned. But I felt ill all the time, didn’t know what it was, thought it was sea sickness but it turned out to be em, it turned out to be eh. What is the name of that stuff when you go yellow?
AS. Jaundice.
MH. Jaundice, exactly, jaundice, anyhow I was forced to look at the Statue of Liberty as we sailed into New York. We were treated there with an enormous amount of kindness by the American people. Got bananas which we never heard of course they were not available in this country during the war. Eh I gave the [unclear] so on and so forth and, and from there we boarded a train to take us up to Canada to a place called Monkton on the East Coast which was a sort of receiving station in Canada. Eh and we and I reported sick, that’s when I knew I had jaundice so I went straight to hospital and eh I was there for about ten days or so and eh was then released. So and then from, from that eh receiving centre we were put, we were, we were able to choose actually which place in Canada where we were able to go to. I had met some friends by then and we had wanted to all be together.So most of us managed that and that was in London Ontario. The other place was eh a place near Winnepeg eh, much further eh to the West. So this was a very important eh, eh place to be and high standards were demanded eh and eh threats were made if you don’t do this and don’t pass this you will be off the course and sent home. Eh included amongst that penalty would be air sickness. I was afraid about that because I suffer from motion sickness as a boy and I didn’t tell anybody about it. In fact I found when we got in the air we were so busy I didn’t have time to think about it.So em that was a great relief for me. Anyway this course, the Observers Training Course lasted about four months, about four or five months. And em it consisted of eh well it was like being going back to school really except that the subjects were different. We all lived together in a big sort of Nissan type of a building and time em was divided between em flying or going to this em school. They took em we were er, we were very ,extremely well looked after. I am just looking back, we had absolutely, no, hardly any time for ourselvses. Apart from navigation there were other subjects, meteorology, morse code, armaments to name a few about seven or eight differnent subjects to learn about which we would be examined. And eh it was necessary to get em certain proficiency in them in order to be, to get our brevet.That was, that was available in the end if we passed everything. So there was a certain amount of tension going on, it was very competitive there about eh about eh twenty five or thirty in the class I suppose, eight class, eighty nine A, I remember. The pilots were eh were em not of the Air Force and eh Avro Ansons were the, were the aircraft which was used. We went either as first navigator, we took it in turns as first navigator or second navigator. Got used was getting used to eh preparing a log, doing various tests on eh on board and eh hoping to reach our target at the right time. That was extremely important to do that and hopefully not get lost. I do remember getting lost at night em I had no idea where I was, there were no pin points I could see. Em but the pilot informed me we were near Chicago [laugh]. So many miles off course it was absolutely hopeless. So I thought ‘oh I am not going to pass.’ Anyhow eh it so happened that the commander, the wing commander from time to time flew with eh, with us one by one. And I was very fortunate to have wing commander, I have forgotten his name an extremely nice man. And eh when we were given a target and an ETA you had to arrive exactly at the right time. You got no help with the navigation at all you had to do it yourself. Navigation mainly was by way of pinpoints in order to ascertain the wind eh direction and velocity. That was extremely important to get that right, if you got that wrong you would never get there at the right time or in fact never get there. I so happened on this particular day, it was a fine day, cold, we were in the month of November eh cold but eh very bright and we reached the eh, eh the target exactly on the eta. I do remember the wing commander looking at me and giving me a thumbs up and I thought ‘that was really very lucky that I got there.’ Em do you know the time, I am interested in music eh and eh I play the piano a bit and eh for the Sunday Services. Eh I played well a sort of, more like a harmonium, I think if I remember it and that helped me a little I think. Eh ‘cause I got to know the padre who invited me out to meet his wife and what not. And eh probably the eh wing commander would attend church service so. I was pointed out in some respects which was only a small thing but looking back I think it was quite helpful for me. Anyhow just jumping ahead we did have some time over Christmas, went to Toronto, me some people there, were taken around and enjoyed ourselves. Eh and we were beginning then to think about the end of the course which would probably be around February or March. Eh and at the end of the course that was when the commissions were put out, were granted rather eh and eh, eh there was a big celebration of it. Anyhow, I thought and won’t, remember writing home to my parents, don’t expect me to get a commission it is absolutely hopeless. ‘cause I had been, I hadn’t been so fortunate with my eh flying eh navigation, made several foolish mistakes. Em ground navigation seemed, seemed to be going eh fairly well but I was quite sure that I wouldn’t be selected for a commission. So we came to the end of, the end of the course, I am jumping ahead quite a bit now. Came to the end of the course and we were on parade and our names were called out, mine being one of them and told to stand apart. I thought ‘oh my goodness is this going to be some more trouble?’ One thought and another. But it turned out we were being selected for, for a commission. So I could hardly believe it eh, when, when I heard that was the case. I was the youngest in the class so I thought that was against me to. It was a matter of astonishment for me for this to have happened. We were then left to go to our own devices and send telegrams off to our parents if we wanted to do that and generally jump about and make a noise sort of thing. Eh the award eh we could invite our friends to a big celebration eh where we would be awarded our wings our brevet eh.The band playing and so on. So our friends from Toronto came down I remember and friends we made in London came as well and also it was a very joyful occasion. Then we had leave for em ten days or fourteen days. We went down three of us to New York and had a good time before going back to Monkton in Canada to get ready for the ship to take us back to England. The ship then was the Isle de France and we made eh, we made it safely back to England glad to say. And em we were, had a week leave with our parents when we went home and in our officers uniform. Feeling extremely proud of myself [laugh] and eh and my parents were quite pleased about it I think. From then on eh [cough] eh we to an advanced navigational,advanced navigational course. In a place near Cheltenham I think or Gloucester. Em, it didn’t last very long. And just to get used to navigating over England which is a very different situation from navigating over em Canada.England being far more difficult to navigate. Em then from that place we had an important move eh to eh an aerodrome in Oxfordshire who’s name just escapes me for the moment but that was to crew up. This was a very vital eh matter, it happened eh that eh, it started of in the Officers Mess and it was for, which consisted of eh all, all the groups. Pilots, flight engineer, navigator, wireless operator, gunners and eh, for the, for the captain who was the pilot to select. Well; we were there all in a rather nervous state rather like getting married. Eh waiting for a pilot to come and ask you whither em you would like to be part of his crew. Well I saw a eh fellow and I thought he looks quite a safe type. Pilot officer, he was an extremely important person of the crew because your life depended on him. And eh it just so happened that he came to me and said, eh, he was rather nervous as I was and said eh ‘would you like to be part of my crew?’ Eh so I said ‘yes I would.’ So he said ‘well have a cigarette.’ Since I was a non smoker I didn’t quite know what to do about it. Anyway I thought it was rather unmanly not to have one, so I had the cigarette and was huffing and puffing, didn’t like it very much. Anyhow from that point we both went to a Sergeants Mess in order to fill up the remaining ones. That was again the wireless operator,eh flight engineer, the bomb aimer and the two gunners. The rear gunner and the mid upper gunner, crew of seven which all Lancasters had. Well that took a little bit of time and eh Harold who was my pilot and I, he was very nice. He always used to say to me ‘what do you think about so and so, do you think he would fit in?’ That sort of and our crew came together and we stayed together for the whole of the rest of the time. Of the all the missions were done with the same crew. So having, having got crew that was extremely important we were then going to train on Wellingtons which was a very different matter from being on Ansons. And eh so we had to get used to that and it was at that point to that I first came in contact with radar navigation. At that point, at that time rather eh it was extremely secret and eh, eh we were told without any shadow of a doubt eh terrible things awaited us if we found to be talking about it or in any way discussing it outside of our class. The main, the main radar at that time was GEE, G, double E. Which was a marvellous way of ascertaining where you were. The course lasted, so whilst navigator were learning about this the rest of the crew were in eh, circuits and bumps that’s a very up and down in the Wellington. For a pilot really to get used to a Welling, to a Wellington machine. So I didn’t do very much travelling on the Wellington at that time which I was quite glad ‘cause the circuits and bumps really made me quite, quite nauseous. No sooner were we up but it was time to come down, didn’t like it at all. So I was much happier learning about radar navigation. Em I am skipping ahead, I have forgotten the amount of time we were learning about eh, eh radar. The next station, then we went to was somewhere near eh Leicester, I think was it, I can’t remember. Eh and we were then on Stirlings again it was necessary for the pilot to get use on this big, huge, sprawling eh machine. Eh from navigation course eh we were going on a long trip at night and in the day time, sometimes as far as Cornwall. Sometimes up, eh tried to get eh used to, eh this is for particularly the navigator to get used to eh to using the Gee radar but never forgetting the DR. Eh direct navigation which we had learnt about eh in Canada. We were marked on the logs that we presented eh and from there we went onto another course on Lancasters. A Lancaster Finishing Course again for the pilot to get used to em driving a Lancaster. By this time we, we were, because the next station was a squadron. So we were all anxious of course to get on the squadron and ah we had to pass various tests to do that. Navigation, from the navigation point of view we were marked quite severely on the proficiency, how,we had our logs were examined very carefully. Anyhow all of this was very time consuming of course. We hardly had time to do anything else and eventually from there we were posted to a squadron. This of course was the object of joining the RAF. By this time almost two years had passed with all the various courses as far as I was concerned. The gunners course was much shorter and the other ones to were much shorter. Eh and the squadron was number 50 Squadron which was stationed at Skellingthorpe outside Lincoln, about three miles outside Lincoln and there we stayed until the end of the war. So our training then had finished and I had come to the point when were, it’ the real thing. ‘So should I stop there?’
AS. You started at Skellingthorpe in the squadron can you tell me about, about the missions that you went on, what it was like and what the living accommodation was like?
MH. What the accommodation? Yes, ok so I was an officer a pilot officer eh Howard my em, the pilot was a flight lieutenant. I forgot to mention, he had been a trainer in Canada. Eh and so we went about together a lot eh. We, we had a very cosy sort of a place we were lucky eh the main, we weren’t in with a whole lot of other people, we had a room to ourselves. With a fire lit I remember, it was almost, I shouldn’t say, it was almost like home. We had batmen to look after us or bat women to look after us em [cough] ‘excuse me.’ We being officers of course we had our own mess eh the non commissioned officers the NCOs they had their own mess as well of course. There was a division on the crew with Harold and myself being the only two officers and the rest of the crew being NCOs. But once in the air that didn’t have the slightest difference at all and we were all the same in the air. And em we would go about together too. If we were going into Lincoln for a drink or a night out sort of thing then of course we would go together with the rest of the crew. But on the station we were officers and they were NCOs, there was that difference. And eh the food, the food was very good really eh I don’t, I don’t remember complaining at all about it. We were waited on in the Mess. And em there were frollocks and people getting drunk of course at nights and doing ridiculous things. I suppose that is young men sort of playing the fool and all the rest of it and eh the spirit was “you may as well make hay while you are at work, whilst you have the chance, you might not be here tomorrow.” That, that was not a matter which was eh, dealt, dealt upon, I think it was, we think it was in everybody’s mind.Because one did see empty places in some of the accommodation places when crews had not returned. But I don’t think it was, well for myself eh it wasn’t a matter I dwelt upon. Eh It’s, it’s, it’s difficult, it’s a difficult subject you. Before you went on a raid eh you had to divest yourself of anything that might give your name or any information and put that in a locker. You did wonder, or at least I wondered, ‘I hope I see that again.’ [laugh] because one couldn’t tell. Anyhow we had to have our first operation and this was of course a cause of great excitement for us all and nervousness as well to. The target was Gdynia a port on the Baltic a long way away, long way away for a first, for a first trip. Eh it was at night time eh and eh so we knew we were on a raid that particular night because we were told to report to the briefing room at a certain time, I don’t know what the time was. Probably most of them were late afternoon or early evening for take of. Eh on reaching the briefing room with a whole lot of other crews, the briefing room consisted of all crews sitting round a table in a hap hazard sort of way. Waiting for the commander to come in to tell us what was going to happen. Eh I had all my navigational equipment with me of course, charts, various instruments and all the rest of it in a big bag. And eh we all sat together as a crew and , waited for him to come. Now the, the commander was a man called Wing Commander Jimmie Flint, F,L,I,N,T and he was a well known and,person and continued to be very well known after the war and he lived to be a hundred actually and died only fairly recently within the last couple of years anyhow. He was a man, he was known as “Twitcher Flint,” “Twitcher Flint” a big moustache and eh he would come over and say ‘Well chaps eh, eh you target for tonight.’ Whatever it was, if that target was a long way away a great groan would go up. Eh because it was going to be more difficult and last longer of course. Anyhow this was our first target and eh he would then, various people would come on to give us the directions about the eh course to go there.The track and the course to get to the target and what time it was necessary to get there bye. This, this happened on every target that I was on.So we had to listen. The met, eh meteorological man would come on and eh give his idea what the weather would be. Above all what the winds might be. Of course this was very difficult because nobody was over in Germany to give this information. So we used to regard the wind eh direction and velocity which was given to us as a bit spurious. But anyhow we didn’t have any alternative. So the various, various other people would come sometime to wish us well and then eh it was time to depart for the plane. Now eh the navigator had a lot of work to do at this particular point. He had to plan eh the course and eh get his log ready recording various information. So he was left behind in the briefing room while the rest of the crew went off to the plane. This was always a sort of nervous part I felt. Eh anyhow we had to get this done within a certain time, obviously because we had been given a, we had been given a time for take off and there was quite a lot of work to be done by everybody to do for that time. So after we, the navigators which had remained behind finished their, got all their charts recorded and ready, we went of in the transport. Hardly saying anything to anybody I remember. Sometimes you were the last to be dropped of at your plane and I found out, a very lonely position I must say. Eh dropped of outside the plane, by the time I got there they were revving up, the ground crew were all out.A lot of activity going on the ground eh waiting for me to,to eh get on the plane. I was the last man to get on, I got on, got on the plane over that great hump in the middle of the plane to the navigators cabin. Saying hello to the crew, effectively the wireless operator eh the partition between the navigators cabin and the pilots and the flight engineer and the bomb aimer in front, in front. Almost as soon as I got in eh the pilot wanted, we were all on intercom of course to make sure that was all right and wanted to get going. So I really had to rush pinning down on the chart, getting ready for eh take off. I don’t know how much detail you would like me to go into. Eh for take off we weren’t allowed, the wireless operator and I to sit at our places eh ‘cause in case there was an accident we, we get the worst of it. So we had to go down and squat down between the partition, between the navigators cabin and where the pilot sat, in a squatting position eh until we were airbourne.That happened all the time. There were were always various switches I seem to remember that had to be switched, I really can’t remember the details now but they had to be recorded on my, on my log. As soon as we were airbourne I would be back at the navigators cabin and I was then kept busy all the time until we reached the target. Eh first of all taking off if it, if it was in,in winter of course, darkness came early. But if I could get a pin point or something, well I had Gee of course, I could get some, some eh, eh pin points to put on my chart to ascertain what the wind velocity and direction was which would be helpful to me. As soon as we got near the European coast then the radar was of no use at all because it was jammed by the Germans.They would give you false information which would be disastrous so radar was wonderful up to the, up to the coast but then you couldn’t use it. It was also useful coming back as well. Anyhow from then on it was a matter of eh various legs, legs on the chart which we had given to at the briefing. Eh with order to reach the target, we didn’t go straight there of course, we might go through four, five, six, seven or eight different legs in order to get there. On this particular bombing commission to Gdynia I remember we had to go to Sweden first by various means. Eh, which of course which we shouldn’t have done to get to Sweden and Sweden at that point in Sweden the, the target was, was directly Sotheby. So that is what happened and by that or whatever eh we arrived fairly well on time, I am glad to say which was a huge relief to me. Eh and eh the bombing at the, as soon as we got near, near the target the bomb aimer would then take over the navigation.And he would guide the plane, starboard skipper, port skipper to the actual bombing point and it was up to him then of course to eh, bomb the target. Gdynia was a, was port on the, on the Baltic and as soon as the bombs were dropped everything on the aircraft went up, ourselves included because of the release of the weight of the bombs of course. So I wasn’t used to this, all my navigational instruments went flying everywhere, all over the floor. I should explain that there was a very dark,black heavy curtain eh which joined the eh, em partion between the navigators cabin and, and where the eh pilot sat eh and eh ‘cause I had to have the light on obviously. So I learned a lesson from that to put all the navigational instruments in a bag as soon as we got near the target otherwise you would never find them again. So em quickly to eh give a direction to the pilot making quite sure we were going Westwards and not Eastwards em for the first leg home. There were all the time directions to be given by the navigator to the pilot, eh ‘skipper eh course number,’ Whatever, whatever degree what we,he needed. He eh and I would have eh em a compass inside the navigators so I could tell if he was keeping to that course. That was very important because if comp, if the pilot strayed from the course that was given to him, that seriously affected if we would hit the target. So I would, I would say to him ‘Skipper you are two degrees off.’ Now that irritated the pilot very much indeed once we got back on the ground. Not in the air. He would say to me ‘how do you expect me to keep this course all the time? you don’t realise what a heavy job it is piloting, keeping the course.’ So I said ‘What you don’t realise if we don’t keep the course we won’t hit the target.’ So it was something that happened all the time. But it really was, it really was important that, to do, that he would keep the course. I know it was hard for him and I couldn’t resist it once or twice.[laugh] Well there was the matter of getting home and very important at this point to make sure you were going West and not East for obvious reasons.Then it was the matter of getting back home safely again it wasn’t a direct matter. Eh various legs and all the rest of it and once we got over the, to the North Sea we could use Gee then and home in on Gee and eh and arrive safely. Eh,I just, just mentioned eh I was never very much, my thoughts didn’t go to if we would get shot down and or anything like that. My great fear and it really was a fear, this thing I had dreams about is if we would get lost in the darkness. It was winter time em, very often ten, tenths cloud you couldn’t see anything eh couldn’t you couldn’t have any pin points to [unclear] there was nothing to help you. You had to go on D, direct navigation and, and, and go on what you thought was the right way. All to often we would be flying to a target and the gunners would say ‘oh everybody’s going off to the starboard.’ You think ‘I am not going to the starboard.’ But it caused a certain amount of fear. If you didn’t get to the target on, well if you got to the target on time that was fine, that is what should happen. But it was very, very difficult, only,only a few minutes in a few minutes it was very difficult to do that a long way from home with very little navigational help. Astral navigation was of no good whatsoever because it was too long winded. And the aircraft anyhow getting the bubble and the sextant with the plane jumping up and down.It was virtually impossible and you would probably get a bad reading anyhow.Although we did use it when we were training in Canada as a last resort. But my main fear was getting lost or getting to the target too early in which case you would circle the target which was very dangerous. Or get it too late when the fighters would be up for obvious reasons. And also on, on these raids remembering there were five hundred, seven hundred even a thousand aircraft all bombing at different heights at different times and the, and the chances of, chances of aircraft crashing into each other. That is what was on my mind more that anything else. Also I thought if we got lost, the shame of it all, I would be blamed and eh this worried me intensely I must say.Much more than any sense of danger. Of course it was wonderful getting home and to think we got home safely, we bombed the target and a feeling of exhilaration. The first, as soon as we got of the plane we were welcomed by the ground crew which was always nice. Oh I should have mentioned when we were taking off it was quite customary for the CO to come and see us of, the dentist would see us of, the padre would see us of. Everyone would be waving at us so it was quite nice. Anyhow as soon as we got down the first point to go to was the intelligence and there we were eh quizzed about eh what had happened in the raid. And did we see [unclear] my log was particularly eh necessary.Because we had to make a note of if we saw any planes going down or anything out of the way which had occurred to us had to be marked in our log. So all that information was delivered to em, to them. For the men it was up to the mess for bacon and eggs which was a great treat because eggs we only eat once a week eh and then eh back to our billets. And then next day fine we were on the next night, so I will stop there.
AS. What year was it that you did your first ?
MH. 1944.
AS. 1944 so how many did you do all together?
MH. I’m sorry.
AS. How many sorties did you do all together?
MH. Twenty two we wanted to do thirty because that was the tour. A tour consisted of thirty and we really wanted to do thirty but the war ended to our disappointment.[laugh].
AS. When you were in Skellingthorpe, how much time did you get, did you do, do sorties every, every night or did you have time to rest or were you just waiting for the weather to be right?
MH. Well eh we flew, we flew when we were told to. Eh we obeyed exactly what we were told to do. Yes exactly we had time of. Time of we’d go, we’d go into Lincoln to that pub there I have forgotten the name. I have forgotten the name of it now, a pretty awful pub I seem to remember. Or we would go and see, go to the pictures eh, go and have a supper out somewhere and eh that was nice. We had quite a lot of free time as far as that was concerned. During the day time we had to report to our different sections. I had to report to the navigating sections. Oh by the way to, we had to deliver eh logs to the navigation section and they would be looked at and logged A,B,C or D you know and if they hadn’t been done properly we would be in for trouble. Which I thought was a bit, a bit of unnecessary really for after all, there but anyway that was what it was. There was a good lot of teasing went on and eh it was quite a happy occasion. Eh being in the, being in the mess and getting to know other people. Navigators tended to stick together and each group tended to stick together. But we used to go out as a crew, get drunk and all those sort of things people do or did in those days. I remember it being a socially, happy time.
AS. When you em, how did you hear about the end of the war, when were you told about it?
MH. I think we must have been at the station when we heard about it. Em some people went to London eh, eh I personally made some friends in,in Market Harborough. Met a bank manager there who my family knew his brother and eh they were awfully nice to me I must say and I would go and spend the weekend sometimes with them. Em,sort of a bit like going home. Occasionally we had leave and I could go and for instance on Christmas of that year I was able to go back to my parents. And who were, who were in a state, they were very nervous. They didn’t show it, I only heard about it afterwards. And eh anyhow it was very nice to, I was very fond of them, eh it was very nice to be home again and have proper sheets on the bed.[laugh] and be, and be looked after sort of thing. It was, it was very necessary that you didn’t talk too much about what went on. Eh and especially you shouldn’t write about it eh through your parents or anybody else. A great friend of mine eh from my time at London Ontario, eh made a big mistake in writing to his parents about it. Unfortunately his letter was censored and eh he was had up before the group captain and eh he was all but eh loosing his commission, he didn’t but it was a lesson for him. So, so I had to arrange a scheme with my mother were as I wouldn’t tell her what target we had been on the night before. It was nearly always reported in the newspaper, I used to cut it out of the newspaper and just send this piece of the newspaper to her. So she would know from that and funnily enough only the other day, just before you came. I came across the book that she had kept all these eh cuttings in. So anyhow that is just by the way.
AS. At the end of the war, what happened to you at the end of the war?
MH. Yes, ok at the end of the war was absolutely eh, eh I don’t know, everything suddenly changed all of a sudden em, it was very disappointing in many ways. When we were in uniform during the war the air force, particularly aircrew were regarded with a high, from the public with high regard and eh we were extremely proud of that. Uniform and having a brevet and eh, and being at the squadron we were highly respected. That all vanished as soon as the war was over we were just people again [laugh]. Eh and eh there was a feeling of, well I didn’t have a feeling of relief that the war was over I regret to say. Because I really wanted to complete the tour and, and do the thirty, thirty missions all together.So I was really disappointed and anyhow it was a sort of no mans land type of place. We didn’t know what was going to happen, nobody did. I, I as I say I didn’t go to London to celebrate.But eventually we were given a choice,that we could em, join another squadron which would take us abroad. Because em,a long time had to pass before we could be demobilised in view of the enormous number of people involved. In fact it took me about eighteen months before I was demobilised. So we were [sounds like weren’t] given the opportunity of volunteering em to go abroad in Transport Command. So Howard and I talked about it and I was all for it actually, there was nothing, I didn’t want to go down a mine or, or be a harvester or anything like that. So and I thought there was an opportunity to see a bit of the world so and he seemed to like the idea and the bomb aimer eh, although he wouldn’t be a bomb aimer he would be a second pilot. There would be just four, they would be Dakotas we would be flying, a bit of a come down from a Lancaster. He eh and the wireless operator we decided we would like to do it so we said goodbye to the gunners and the flight engineer. And eh so that was rather sad the crew was broken up actually and I never saw them again. So the four of us were sent up to 10 Squadron which was in a place called Melbourne in Yorkshire and there started training again on, on Dakotas. For me it was easy well very easy indeed I didn’t have much to do and I had almost forgotten pretty much what we do there, what we did there.[cough]. It was to get used to dropping eh materials out of, out of, out of the plane. Eh which I didn’t like the sound of very much. The plane door was open and we had to push things out and get used to that and get used to being in a, in a Dakota. Anyhow and also being on a different squadron which was a Halifax squadron which we thought was going another step down as well. Eh so eventually came a time when we would eh, fly out to India. So that took place from Cornwall and eh I remember my parents were holidaying there. I met up with them there and they saw us of actually. So we flew out to eh India in Dakotas, by stages, by stages from there, the first stage was in,in,in Corsica I think it was. And then to Libya, then to Palestine as it was then, then to em,em East Africa and then to Aden and stopping the night each time. We didn’t do any night flying at all so it took quite a long time to go.Unfortunately from the flight to Aden I developed a sinus which was extremely painful em with the pressure. So I had to stay behind there and they had to get another navigator to take them on to India and I stayed in Aden for a week. The worst week of my life I think, it was just awful feel ill and all alone, heat, humidity, just awful. Anyhow all things come to an end and I eh flew as a passenger to Karachi and then, then eh to Bombay and then was told that 10 Squadron was in Poona only a short way away from Bombay. So we joined the, we joined them there and met up again with Harold of course who by now was a squadron leader, I was now a flying officer, eh and eh the bomb aimer who was a pilot had been commissioned as a pilot officer and the wireless operator, awfully nice guy he was there still as a flight sergeant. And we did trips up to here and there Karachi mainly, mainly and eh then Harold who was quite a bit older, two or three years older than I am was eh demobilised. And returned to Canada where he eh he was married to a Canadian so we said goodbye to him and the bomb aimer to, the second pilot he was called by then. He was an older man to so that just left the nav, wireless operator and myself of the original crew. [door bell rings] Em, so I wasn’t very happy on the squadron and eh, eh there was an opportunity to join another squadron in eh Calcutta, number 52 Squadron and eh volunteers were being asked and Johnnie the wireless operator and myself volunteered to go to 52 Squadron. So they allowed us to go. So we then flew to, as passengers to 52 Squadron in Calcutta. This was to have quite a big effect on my life actually. From 52 Squadron which was a very nice squadron to be on eh, they were flying between Calcutta and Hong Kong. So we then teamed up with a new pilot called Rex Ainsworth who was a very proper pilot with a moustache and eh second pilot Paddy Williamson, four of us. And we flew between Calcutta to Rangoon, to Bangkok, to Saigon to Hong Kong. That was the route, staying of at each place for the night.We all liked Hong Kong so much because there were a lot of things going on there it was fabulous after war rations and so on. Something always seemed to go wrong with the plane at Hong Kong, funny [laugh] Anyhow I left [unclear] and that happened a few times, there were other trips to. Then the squadron moved down to Mingaladon airport, that is the airport for Rangoon. And we were stationed there for a time. Then at long, long last my number for eh came up for,for going home and eh so I went home on,by boat. Took about three weeks, I was home carrying a bottle of whisky and eh eventually to my home to the great joy of my parents and myself and then wondered what am I going to do?
AS. So how was fitting back into civilian life?
MH. Yes that was difficult, that was difficult because we were so used to discipline of the Air Force and how one spoke and behaved and so on. And coming home to civilian. England was in a poor state, this was January 1947. Dreadful winter, one of the worst winters ever recorded and coming straight from, from Burma that was noticeable shall we say. Em getting used to English ways, the country was demoralised. Rationing was worse than it was during the war I think. No idea of a job, I didn’t know what to do, I had been in the Air Force for four years. I didn’t want to go back to the bank eh every thing I saw, the people I thought were lacking in spirit and fed up so what with that and the weather. But, but when I was being demobilised I was told about, there was a course for em ex officers which lasted about eh, eh three I think about three or four weeks,to help you, to help you learn what to do about being a civilian again. I remember this and I thought, the course was at Worcester and only about sixteen miles from where my parents lived, a place called Ledbury in Herefordshire. Em I thought ‘I will go on this course.’ It was a good opportunity, so I went on the course and eh telling us all about accountancy and eh various other subjects and all the rest of it, which is, which is quite helpful. But the main thing about this was at the end of the course, if you were considered suitable, there were offers of various jobs from companies. So I remember BAT, British American Tobacco eh had a job and I thought, ‘I don’t want to stay in England any more it is hopeless, everybody is so down and out, what am I going to do, I had been abroad, I really want something better than this.’ I thought ‘ok I will go abroad again.’ So I applied to BAT and they wrote and said ‘yes we would like to see you, come up to London please.’ So I came up to London and spent two days at one of the railway hotels at their expense and went through a whole lot of questions. And eh seen by a psychiatrist I remember eh, asked all sorts of difficult questions. Hopeless questions just to see how you would react and at the end of it em, eh they said ‘we will get in touch with you.’ At the same time there was another company in Calcutta who were looking for eh a company secretary. I thought oh, well I, I might add I had vowed when I was in Calcutta that I would never in my life, ever [emphasis] return to this city again. It was because of the heat and the humidity and, and poverty and anyhow, so this was in Calcutta. So, so there was a firm with a head office in Coventry Alfred Herbert Leading in Machine Tools [?] So they invited me for an interview as well. So I went to Coventry and eh, and eh there were three or four other people after the same job I think. Anyhow I got an offer of a job from eh BAT at the same time as I did from Alfred Herbert in Coventry. Both very different jobs, there was a snag about both eh. With BAT you had to say you wouldn’t marry before you were twenty five and that you would spent all your working life overseas. I didn’t like either of these at all. Both tying me in. With, with the Calcutta one, the climate and for reasons I have just said I didn’t want to go back there.Anyhow I eventually chose the Calcutta one and I got a job on a four year contract. Went out to Calcutta again[laugh] as a civilian in a very different city for my eyes from what it was before and eh there I stayed for eleven years.
AS. Working for BAT?
MH. No to BAT I said ‘thank you very much I am taking the other one.’ So with Alfred Herbert. It was a good choice, it was a good choice. They had this enormous area of land, the whole of India [unclear] parts of India to cover and Ceylon and, and Malaya and that and Thailand. So it was enormous. And I, I did well there and prospered. I was made a director eh and the only reason I left there really was for health reasons. I really found that my health was suffering because of the climate so I came back after eleven years then had difficulty settling down in England again. But the idea of living abroad now had gone.
AS. When you came back were you working for the same firm?
MH. No, ah it is interesting, when came back, I wanted to go, I went to Coventry eh to see if anything was available and was told ‘we really appreciate what you have done but we are very sorry we haven’t got anything available for you.’ Eh that was a big blow for me because I had hoped maybe to go to Australia where they had a subsidiary company or maybe to Italy. Anyhow,but there was a good reason that they didn’t have anything. Within five years the company was, had been taken over by Government and was, was bankrupt. Alfred Herbert,so Alf, so Alfred Herbert who I met on a couple of occasions at least because his third wife used to live in Calcutta. So that was the sort of common touch and she always wanted to see me whenever I went to Coventry on leave. The four year contract I had with, meant I had to stay in Calcutta for four years. I, I wouldn’t be allowed home in that time eh and eh then I would have six months leave and the next time I went back it was a three[two?] year contract, four and a half years. ‘Are we, are we still on? Oh, can I diverse?Yes.’Once when I was in Alfred Herberts in their factory in Coventry, and enormous factory making machine tools. You couldn’t see the end if you stood up. Because I was a director of the subsidiary company in India eh I was allowed to have lunch with directors and the senior staff in Coventry. So on this particular day eh, I was invited in to have lunch at, at, at the canteen I suppose and they said ‘This is where Sir Alfred generally sits, but don’t worry about it he has gone home and you won’t be in any trouble, just sit there.’ So I was sitting next to the place where Sir Alfred generally sits. Sir Alfred I might add was greatly feared in the whole of the. He had founded the business since I had been, enormously successful for him and eh his word was well, it was wise not to upset him. So there was a general chatter going on whilst you were giving your order for lunch. Suddenly the door opened and in walked Sir Alfred, his Rolls Royce had broken down. So he came in and sat right next door to me. So he said, the waitress came up and eh, so he said ‘I will have this or the other for lunch.’ And then turned to me and said, everybody was quiet at this time of course. ‘Well Heaton,’ he said ‘Tell us something about India.’ Well of course I was enormously embarrassed so I said ‘well Sir eh, it’s very hot.’ [laugh] He saw that I was embarrassed and [laugh] moved into other conversations. Anyhow when, when I had decided to leave and eh he wrote me a letter, personal which I still have eh and asked me what my reasons were for leaving India. And I told him, eh I think he was afraid that I might be, I might know something about some wrong doing or something like that in the firm. And I was very friendly with his grandson actually eh and he thought I would tell him, because he addressed this letter not to the company but to my private residence. Then said when I came home eh that I should report to him. So I had hopes of that but in that time he had died at ninety one. I have a photograph of him in my study that I can show you in due course and you can see from his face the sort of man he was. Well then, when I came home, then I, what am I going to do? How can I can a job? Well, started looking at advertisements all the rest of it. And eh wrote of eh tantalising letters I hoped to eh, to eh various places who I thought would be very happy to have me with my, with my Indian experience and being a director at a young age and all the rest of it. I thought, I had high hopes, I said to my mother ‘don’t worry I will soon get a job.’ I didn’t get a job. Those people who replied to me were terribly sorry, not suitable eh disappointing thing. In the meantime time was getting on and eh, eh I was running out of my leave pay, final pay. And eh, so very disappointing, getting a bit disheartened as well thinking is something the matter with me. And so I was looking in the Telegraph and I saw there was eh, there was a estate agency up for sale, for half sale. So I said to my mother ‘I will go and have a look at that.’ In Surbiton near London. So my mother came with me, we went to Surbiton and so this rather pokey business and half of it was available to me if I bought it for two thousand five hundred pounds, which was quite a sum in those days. We are talking in nine, eh nineteen fifty nine, fifty eight, nineteen fifty eight.Anyhow short of the tale was I thought ‘blow it, yes I’ll pay it.’ So I bought half the company without knowing anything at all about estate agency. But I felt I had to get away from Ledbury and that was, that had been the problem actually. Anyhow I started work with this company. Didn’t like it very much, thought I would have to make a go of it. Found out [unclear] there had been some fiddling about.With the customers deposits being used for paying wages or something. When I asked my partner ‘what is all this about?’ So he said ‘well we haven’t got the money.’ I said ‘you can’t use this to pay.’ So straight away, up to see solicitors, they said ‘you must resign at once and get out of it.’ Which I did, I thought what about my money ‘well you will, see what the best we can about that.’So there I was having bought a house in eh, em, I have forgotten what the place was Hersham, Hersham on Thames and eh back to square one. So then I started asking, answering advertisements and immediately got a reply and got a job straight away, Bush House as a company secretary. I stayed there for one year, there was no, no eh future for me in there. Eh I looked at another advertisement in a, in a print, printing factory also for a company secretary, got that without any trouble. That was sold to Pitmans and new people came in, didn’t like them, stopped there. Moved out of there, got a job with International paints, eh a job much lower than normally I would have taken there. And quite enjoyed it, I thought I must make a move again. I saw an advertisement in the paper em, eh jeweller requiring a company secretary must be about forty, that was exactly my age. I applied for it, then I was asked. ‘Am I boring you with all this? Just stop me.’
AS. Please carry on.
MH. Tizex[?] were the people concerned I had to go to them first and as luck may have it there was a, a Sir Hilary, somebody I forgot. Anyway he was a rear admiral during the war and in the Indian Ocean. So Indian Ocean, I thought ‘oh India.’ So I mentioned ‘Really where were you in India?’ That put me out from other people who were applying for the job, I believe in retrospect. So Anyhow, he said ‘ok I have got to see a lot of people, we will be in touch.’ About a month went past, he rang me up one evening at home, he said ‘are you still interested in the job?’ I said ‘yes I am.’ So he said ‘come and see me again.’ So I went again and he told me more about the job. The job was Ciro Pearls Ltd with eh, with em shops in this country, in Germany in and in America. Eh so widely run. So he said you [pause] ‘look shortlist now six people and eh you will be hearing from them.’ Anyhow I heard from them, present yourself at the shop in Regents Street and I was the last one. Oh Chairman a very nice man, a Russian Vladimir Gorash em. I have got his photograph here to.And eh a few simple questions. In short I went home it was Easter time, I said to my mother ‘I think I have got that job.’and I had. When I got back there was the offer. Well that’s my last, I was with them for twenty five years. Em,and rose to be Managing Director and in time Chief Executive Officer of the entire group. So it was really a good move. So I did a huge amount of travelling particularly in America, East to West Coasts. Em all over in this country,right up as far as Aberdeen. [Unclear] in Germany many[unclear] and in Austria we opened a shop in Vienna another one in Saltsburg. France in Paris altogether about a hundred shops altogether or about a hundred outlets I should say. There em and I retired em when I was sixty five having done twenty five years with the company. Em; did well salary wise eh was almost my own boss pretty well. The eh, the,the Russian Chairman retired and died.And eh I became, became, I took over his job and held that for about eh oh I suppose twenty years going up to that job altogether. So, so it finished, a highly satisfactory, very interesting, the shops were all in the best possible places. I travelled by Concorde or first class. I was expected to, to eh act in a, a certain way and with that came all these props as well. So it was a very interesting job for me. Quite unlike anything I had done previously. I went round the world once and called in on Calcutta to my old place again to in Alfred Herbert and met some of the staff which were still there. So em and since then retirement, just enjoying myself until now[laugh].
AS. Thank you very much as far as your aircrew were concerned you said that you, when you changed squadrons and went over to India you left three of them behind and you never saw them again. Did you keep in touch with any of the other aircrew.
MH. Yes my pilot, yes until he died, he was in Canada.
AS. Was he a Canadian?
MH. No.
AS. But he married a Canadian.
MH. Yes, he was, he was a teacher an RAF teacher there, an instructor. He was an instructor in Canada em then he decided he wanted to take a part in the war.He was in the Air Force as an instructor, he wanted to take part in the war and came back to England and that’s where I met him. But he had married when he was in Canada, this Canadian girl. Em, so he came back by himself leaving her out in. in Canada. She actually did come over with a view of staying in, in this country until the end of the war but she hated it so much that she went back to Canada. So he was without his wife until he went back again. Unfortunately he was on the booze and he died, he was only sixty nine.
AS. Oh right.
MH. The others I have lost touch with.
AS. Right, well thank you.
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AHeatonSM160322
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Interview with Stuart Michael Heaton
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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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Sound
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eng
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01:22:28 audio recording
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Pending review
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Andrew Sadler
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2016-03-22
Description
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Michael Heaton grew up in Worcester and was a member of the Air Training Corps. He worked in a bank before joining the Royal Air Force and trained as a navigator in Canada. He completed 22 operations as a navigator with 50 Squadron from RAF Skellingthorpe. After the war he was transferred to Transport Command with 10 and 52 Squadrons in the Far East. Following demobilisation, he went into various jobs and when he retired he was the CEO of Circo Pearls Ltd, where he had worked for 25 years.
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
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Canada
East Asia
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
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Hugh Donnelly
10 Squadron
50 Squadron
52 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
C-47
demobilisation
fear
Gee
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
military living conditions
military service conditions
navigator
RAF Melbourne
RAF Skellingthorpe
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/291/3446/ALorimerH160622.1.mp3
89e8541e9729f5d0b1d3205c8e3e4a55
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Title
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Lorimer, Hugh
Hugh Lorimer
H Lorimer
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Pilot Officer Hugh Lorimer (b. 1922, 183601 and 1369405 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a wireless operator with 10 Squadron.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2016-06-22
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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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Lorimer, H
Transcribed audio recording
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PL: Well, first of all I’d just like to say my name is Pam Locker. I am interviewing Mr Hugh Lorimer of [redacted] Knaresborough and the date is the 22nd of June 2016. And can I just start, Hugh by saying thank you very much indeed for agreeing to give us your interview. We do appreciate it. And I guess if we just start the interview by you telling us a little bit about your, your childhood and how you came to be involved with Bomber Command.
HL: My pleasure. Thank you very much in the first instance for coming along to do this interview. I’m glad to take the opportunity to pass on quite a bit of my memories to people in the future who may be interested which I sincerely hope they will be. And I thought I’d sort of start by sort of telling you why I joined the Royal Air Force in the first place. I was just a young schoolboy. I’d be about maybe twelve, thirteen years of age and I was standing outside the house one morning and I saw this fleet of biplane aircraft flying over the house at low level. I wondered what the dickens they were doing. So I made a few enquiries and discovered it was one of these flying circuses which was going to operate from a field about three or four miles from my home. But unfortunately I was told they were only there for the sort of Tuesday and Wednesday of that week and I was at school. And I thought oh my goodness, I’d love to go and see that. So I pondered it. And I found out what the entrance fee was. It was sixpence and I didn’t have sixpence. I had to scrape around for quite a few days. I found a few of my father’s empty beer bottles [laughs] and took them down to the pub and collected six pence. And in the morning they started the exhibition I did what we say in Scotland I plugged the school. Played hookey. And I ran the three or four miles to this airfield and there was these lovely aircraft. And as I went in I paid my sixpence and they gave me a ticket. And somebody said, ‘Keep your tickets. There will be a lucky draw later on.’ So I stuck it in my pocket and forgot all about it and just spent most of my time watching this wonderful exhibition. Absolutely enthralled. And then I heard people shouting, ‘We’re just about to make the draw.’ And what happens? The first number out is mine. And the prize was a trip in one of the biplanes. And then there was three or four other numbers came out and they all got the same thing. I thought we would be going up in three or four planes. Far from it. We were all piled into the one plane and I sat on somebody’s knee while we flew around the country for about ten minutes or so and then landed. And that was me. I was hooked. Hooked line and sinker on that one. And that all finished. I went back and I went to school the next morning. ‘Lorimer, where were you yesterday? The headmaster wants to see you.’ So I went to see Mr Martin who was the headmaster. He congratulated my enterprise at trying to get there he said, ‘But never mind. Hold your hands out,’ and I got six of the best. He said, ‘Next time you want to go and see the air force come and ask. We’d be pleased to let you go.’ So that was fine. School finished and the war started. And by that time I was in a reserved occupation. And —
PL: What was that?
HL: And had I not, had I not wanted to go I wouldn’t have needed to go to war. In any event I couldn’t go until I was eighteen and I still had a year to wait. So I waited for that year and I found out that being a reserved occupation the only people that they would employ in the, during the war was in the Royal Air Force. I said that’s exactly what I want. And I said, ‘Please may I join up now,’ and I joined up on my eighteenth birthday. And then I went off for my training. And I wanted to be a pilot and unfortunately I had what they called excessive long sight, hypermetropia in one of my eyes. Which they said would probably affect my ability to be able to land it properly at all times so I’d have to look for some other post. And I finished up being trained as a wireless operator as it then was.
Other: Yes. It’s me.
[recording paused]
HL: My first posting was to Blackpool of all places which I thoroughly enjoyed. We lived in one of these houses with about thirty or forty of us. They were all boarding houses. And we had tremendous camaraderie. Joined up as crews in a way. But we had a, a sergeant who was a bit of a, a whatnot. None of us really liked him and he was always trying to get us into some sort of trouble. And one day we were down on Blackpool Pier and the tide was in. Who should come marching along the pier but our sergeant. And there were seven or eight of us at the time and we all fell across him and unfortunately he, he toppled over into the water and we had to go down and rescue him [laughs] That was, that was the first of our escapades. But it was all good fun. Good spirits. And we finished our training as radio operators or wireless operators and were posted out in the first place to units where we worked on the ground whilst we were waiting to be called forward for aircrew training. Which was, it was a very good insight into what the ground crews did. Apart from the aircrews who did all the sort of, the famous stuff so to speak. The unheard of lads. And we were one of them to begin with while we experienced both sides. I was at a, on a special course one day. At Chelmsford it was. I’d just arrived to do this special course and I was recalled to go on my aircrew training and I was pleased about that. And I started my aircrew training and I went through for about six months. Went up to Kinloss on my, as an individual wireless operator and found that we were to be crewed up there. There was pilots, navigators, engineers, gunners, radio operators. The whole lot. And we were told to spend a few days getting to know each other and form our own crews. And at the end of the day that’s exactly what happened. We all gathered in the square and we formed ourselves in to crews of seven each. And we all, and I happened to be with a crew who was real cosmopolitan. We had two Canadians. An Irishman. An Australian. Two Scots. And an Englishman. We did our training on Whitley bombers. And when that was completed we moved down to a place called Rufforth which is just outside York where we converted on to Halifax bombers. At the end of that training we were posted to form a Special Duty Flight and I wondered what that was. We discovered it was two Lancasters and two Halifaxes and we were going somewhere but we weren’t told where. But we were to go and get all sorts of inoculations and we were given KD uniforms so we knew it was somewhere hot. And we set off down the Bay of Biscay. Sorry. Before we get there, there was one little point I forgot which is very important. Because it was Lancasters as well as Halifaxes in this little Special Duty Flight the pilots had to be able to fly both aircraft. And my pilot, Doug Stewart from Canada was told to go to Royal Air Force Scampton and he had to take a navigator, sorry take an engineer with him and the radio operator. So the three of us went up to Scampton and we joined the 57 Squadron then that was there and we got on our first trip. Made quite a few circuits and bumps and doing very well. And then the instructor said, ‘Well, that’s fine. We’ll do one more trip.’ And that’ll be it. You’re quite competent.’ So we took off down the runway and unfortunately the undercarriage gave way. And we were doing about just getting close to ninety miles an hour at the time and the aircraft was written off. And we had, that was our first prang. We were sort of shaken a bit about but then we all, we walked out. And that was it. We were fine. We went back to join our Special Duty Flight. And then we set off for what happened to be a rather interesting trip. We flew down the Bay of Biscay to a place called [pause ] hold on for a second [pause] The name’s gone [laughs] What the dickens was it? [pause] No, never mind. I can’t remember the name of the place but it was in [unclear] . We landed in an airfield in French Morocco. And the interesting thing was it was broad daylight after a night trip across the bay and I heard these people shouting. It was eight young natives. They were selling newspapers and what they were saying was, ‘All the English football results,’ [laughs] So we, we bought a newspaper at our first stop. We had to wait there to be told where we were to go next. Went from there along the Libyan coast to Tripoli. It was called Castel Benito then and we saw that that was our first experience of seeing the effects of the desert war and the place was absolutely bombed to bits. Wreckage everywhere. But we were operating still onwards. We were going from there to Cairo West. I wondered where the dickens we were going to finish up. We thought that would be it. Middle East uniforms. We had rather an interesting experience actually on that trip. It was extremely hot and our pilot got a bit of heat stroke actually. It turned out to be. So when he tried to land the first time he misjudged. And he misjudged twice and went around for a third time and he misjudged again. But at this time he put the revs on the aircraft because we were trying to climb to get back airborne again and the engines were overheating. And we were just barely moving and our landing wheels were still down in fact we hit the top of a sand dune. And we bounced. Not downwards but upwards. And we were able to maintain, the pilot was able to maintain control and we came around and we went and made a safe landing but we had to stay in Cairo for about two weeks whilst our skipper recovered his, his health again. We thought well that was it. Well we wondered where we would be flying from. They said, ‘No. You’ll carry on from here to Bahrain.’ We went to Bahrain and there I saw an aircraft lying at the side of the road, at the side of the runway which was in a bit of a mess. And I went into the, into the sergeant’s mess at that time. At that time I was a sergeant. And I saw this fellow standing beside me. It was one of my old school mates. I says, ‘Who did that out there?’ He says, ‘It was me.’ He said, ‘I had a bad landing.’ [laughs] So we had a long natter of course and he wanted to know what we were doing. We couldn’t tell him. We didn’t know. Anyhow, we had to move on a couple of days later and we finished up at Karachi in India. And we thought this must be it now but it wasn’t. We carried on from there to a place called Salbani in Bengal. And there we joined up with the other three aircraft, the two Lancasters and the Halifax and we set up our own special unit there. And it was the home of a Liberator squadron which was operating against the Japanese. So we were in that area and really enjoying it but our job as a Special Duty Flight, we found out when we got there was to determine how these, these four engine aircraft could operate under these tropical conditions. And that was our job. And we went for all sorts of tests. One of our tests was to see if we could get over Everest but we couldn’t make the height. We got to about twenty five thousand and that was it. The aircraft wouldn’t take any more. One of the things about the weather out there was it changed dramatically from you know, without much notice. You get thunderclouds you’d be in trouble and such like. And that’s what happened to us. We were coming in to land at Salbani and one of these tropical winds blew up and it was because of this gust of wind that I actually came to join Bomber Command. Which is part of the story. This is, this is how fate dictates what will happen to you through your life. When we hit the runway we had a nice, nice landing, we were just taxiing down and this gust of wind caught us and it turned us right over and blew us right across the airfield upside down. Wrote off the aircraft. And fortunate, for some reason again we all walked out unscathed. But we had no aircraft. That was a bit —
PL: What year? What year was this Hugh?
HL: 1943. This story is in the, in the records for it. It’s all there. So we hung around for about a good six to seven weeks while our future was decided. We were set down, down the, on course for a bit of a rest. R&R they called it, which we thoroughly enjoyed, but when we got back they told us that we were going back to Britain and this is [laughs] we had to go back by train to Bombay. Well, that was a long long long long way. We were given sandwiches and stuff to get there which petered out long before we were half way down the journey. And the train stopped at this station and right opposite us was a big buffet and I said, ‘How long will we stop for?’ They said, ‘Oh a good fifteen, twenty minutes.’ So I volunteered to go out and buy the sandwiches. But what I had not reckoned with, reckoned on was the way the natives [laughs] didn’t think about queues. They just barged in and I kept finding myself at the back of this barge. I never got the sandwiches because I suddenly realized the train was moving and there I was. And I had to turn around and run but I couldn’t reach my carriage. There was a carriage near the end which had a window open and I just caught the top of the window and dived straight through. And inside there it was full of the local natives of the rather low caste. And they were packed in like sardines and I was jammed up against this door and I thought, ‘What the devil do I do here?’ Well, I thought, I just felt my hip pocket. My revolver was still there so I just kept my hand on it and waited and waited and waited until the train came to a stop again and I got out quickly and ran along to the front where we were travelling first class and jumped in. They said, ‘Where are the sandwiches?’ [laughs] I won’t tell you what I said but it’s not repeatable.
Other: He doesn’t normally talk much my husband. He’s making up for it this morning. He reads.
HL: I’m missing my slipper [pause] So, that was just a little bit of a what I would call the humorous side of air force life. And we had a lovely trip back on a rather nice boat. And joined these, went through the Suez Canal, through all the Mediterranean in convoy because there still were submarines about. And we got to Liverpool and one of the jobs I got at Liverpool Dock was to be in charge of the baggage. I was put ashore as the baggage master. And because I went ashore I had to take some food with me because I’d be down there for quite some time. And after about an hour or so’s work supervising what was going on we all stopped for a, for a meal. Including the local lads who were working with us. And I pulled out my sandwiches. Beautiful white bread and they came over, looked at it, ‘Oh my goodness that looks really good.’ I said, ‘It’s only a, it’s only a sandwich.’ But he was having his, and it was a dirty black brown bread. It was called the National Loaf. I said, ‘Oh my goodness. Look. Do us a swap.’ He said, ‘Thank you. I’m not going to take them. I’m going to take it home to my family. They haven’t seen white bread for two or three years.’ And it suddenly dawned on me at that time you know people are suffering. Particularly in Liverpool because they had a lot of bombing. And I think of that story often. Went on from there to join 10 Squadron which was our posting. And when I got there I found myself promoted to officer rank and the rank of pilot officer. Which was totally and utterly unexpected but for some reason they thought I was good enough. And that was it. I did a total of thirty one operations with 10 Squadron. Eleven of them were over France. Started from D-Day where our job was to disrupt as much of the enemy’s supplies to their, to our boys that who on the beaches down below as far as we possibly could. I think we did a reasonable job of it. It was a success in the end. But one of the interesting things about that is that what I didn’t know at the time was that on the beaches below my own brother was there. They were at Caen. And he was a corporal at that time in the Royal Scots Fusiliers and we were comparing, you know stories some time afterwards and discovered that whilst he was fighting down there I’d been dropping bombs, or my crew were dropping bombs on German troops at a particular position not far away from where he was. And I found out that Field Marshall Montgomery had awarded him the military medal for his efforts. Just a little story but part of a family and our effort together. And because of these [coughs] excuse me. These French trips and French bombing raids. Switch off for a second.
[recording paused]
PL: Restarting the tape. So Hugh you were talking about Caen.
HL: Yeah. Talking about the bombing we did following D-Day. And I did eleven trips to various French cities. Including Paris where we bombed marshalling yards and other places like oil depots and got to Le Havre where we bombed the troops themselves. The German troops. And as a result of that, lo and behold seventy years later the French president decided to award we veterans with a Legion d’honneure. And I was one of the lads who was able to pick up this award and the rank of Chevalier. Which I understand is the equivalent of a knight in France. I don’t think it’s quite the equivalent for a knight in this country. No Lady Lorimer [laughs] Yeah. Talking about that just going back to say to my training days when I moved, talking about roughing us out as I did earlier on in this conversation we had a rather an amusing incident. One of the things we all had to do as crews was to learn escape and evasion. Just in case we were shot down as a lot of our lads were. And some did manage to escape and evade and get back to this country. A lot of others unfortunately didn’t. But one of our jobs was to go out and practise evasion and escape. And it was midsummer really which was very pleasant from our point of view. We went up as a crew and were dropped off at Kirbymoorside. It‘s a way up in the north part of Yorkshire. And we had to get back to the base which was about maybe thirty odd miles away. Certainly by sun up if at all possible. We tried to work in darkness although there wasn’t much darkness at that time of the year. We were fortunate. We managed to escape most of the people who were looking for us because everybody was out. Home guard. Police. Firemen. You name it. All looking for us and we managed to evade them. But it was getting fairly close to about five or six in the morning and we were a bit hungry. And suddenly we niffed this smell of bacon. Oh boy it sounded, it was great. We wondered where that is? And somebody for a joke says, ‘You know they just told us in this, at the briefing that the best place to look for food if you’re shot down in Germany is to go to a farmhouse. That’s the best chance you’ll have of getting any food.’ So we said, ‘Right. Let’s sniff it out.’ And we found it was coming from a farmhouse, it was just about oh seven or eight hundred yards away. And we crept our way up there and in to the farmyard. And a door opened and this nice lady came out and said, ‘Who are you?’ We told her, ‘We couldn’t avoid smelling your bacon and eggs. We wondered if there might be any chance of a rasher.’ Cheeky we were but we did it. She said, ‘Come in lads.’ And she gave us a wonderful breakfast. All seven of us. Thoroughly enjoyed it. And then at the end she just stood at the end of the table and she burst out laughing. She was laughing her head off and we said, ‘What are you laughing? Are you laughing at us? We know we’re — ' ‘Oh no. No. No. No. I’m just waiting till my husband comes in. He’s been out all night looking for you. I just want to see his face.’ [laughs] Yeah. That’s a bit of, you know, humour. We got back safely and that was it. But going back to the actual Bomber Command raids and our, the rest of my trips were primarily over Germany. Cologne. Dusseldorf. All these places. We had our share of flak and share of fighters but again for some reason we came through unscathed. But when I think of it and heard of it later on the lads we left behind in in India were still out there. They didn’t see a single raid but we’d come back and completed our tour. Anyhow the war finished and I liked the air force so very much I decided I would like to stay in. And I made an application and they accepted me and I was given the permanent commission and I finished up as a wing commander in the supply branch. They didn’t want any flyers or wireless operators in the, in these recent days. Weren’t necessary. But it’s been a wonderful life with the Royal Air Force. And here we are in Goldsborough seventy odd years later able to talk about it and look back on the all the wonderful memories, friendships, relationships that built up. And one of the things I didn’t, didn’t mention to you but I will now mention now is that for some reason the Queen decided to award me with an Order of the British Empire which I went down and got in 1977 in her Silver Jubilee Honours list. And with that I think I can say that’s about it. Do you think?
PL: So after, after, after the war ended you stayed in the service.
HL: Yes.
PL: And so what sort of things, what sort of things did you do?
HL: Well, to begin with because I wasn’t flying I had to find a job which I wanted to do. And I was given free rein on a station. I spent six, about six weeks it was going around all the departments to find out what interested me. And the one that interested me most was logistics, because you were involved in everything that way. Movement of men, materials, stores. Working with civil industry. Rolls Royce. This sort of thing. And that intrigued me. It gave me an insight into, well modern life which obviously I hadn’t seen in the five years of the war because it was a very sheltered life. So I joined the, what was then known as the equipment branch and came lots of, lots of units. We served in England obviously. Spent some time in Malta. Cyprus. Germany. And that was it. I thoroughly enjoyed it. When we, when we finished at age fifty five I still didn’t want to finish work and I wondered what the dickens I could do. And one of my mates was a, worked for British aerospace so I said, ‘What’s my chances of landing a job? I’d like to go on this [unclear] contract that the British government is doing with Saudi Arabia at the moment if it’s at all possible.’ And he came back and said, ‘Yes. They’ll have you with pleasure. Would you like to go out?’ I said, ‘Yes. I’ll go,’ So I went and spent six years with them working on the [unclear] contract on the logistics side using my experience. Which was a real eye opener to, for what happens in civil life as opposed to service life. But fortunately a lot of my ex-service colleagues were there so we had friendships all the way through. It was, it was just like being back in the air force again. Yeah. And well that’s it really.
PL: What do you think the key differences are?
HL: Camaraderie. I think that is the big difference. You see you’re one big unit in the service and we’ve each just got one purpose in life and that’s to defend our country and we all work to that cause. Be it in peace time or war time. So you worked together. As a civilian in civvy life you were very much on your own. You made a few friends but never really had the same togetherness. That’s the big difference. To be quite honest of the two lives I would choose the service life all the time. And if there’s any of you listening in to this at the moment don’t have any worries about joining any of the services. You’ll find them wonderful. Go ahead and enjoy it all because that’s what life’s all about.
PL: That’s wonderful. And just, you mentioned your brother.
HL: Oh John. Yes.
PL: And he survived the war.
HL: He survived the war but he died before — he would have got that medal that I got from the French had he been alive. But he died and of course he didn’t. He wasn’t awarded it. Yeah. Yes.
PL: So going back to your, your tour over Germany with Bomber Command.
HL: In Germany.
PL: Yes.
HL: Yeah.
PL: You were saying you went over, after D-Day you were still —
HL: Oh yes. After D-Day I did. I did all thirty one trips. Eleven of which were in France. The rest were over Germany.
PL: Did you want to say anything else about those?
HL: Not particularly. No. Because there’s enough been said about it and I’d — no. No. No, the memories are such that I just want to keep these to myself.
PL: Of course. Of course. And so as we talked a little earlier what do you think about the way that Bomber Command has been treated over the years?
HL: Well, up until that rather drastic raid as it was called — was it Dresden? - we were all treated fine. But for some reason which escapes all of us because we only did what we were asked to do from that point onwards we seemed to get a name which we didn’t really deserve. And that hurt. Hurt terribly. I felt as if I was second class at one stage. Until it suddenly dawned on me it’s not really. It’s what I think personally that matters. Not what other people think. And I knew I did a good job. And that’s all that really matters. But we were treated shabbily. We waited all these years just to get the recognition of the, that Bomber Command clasp they made out. It should have been a medal. But every little helps. But for some reason the authorities decided no. Shame on them.
PL: Absolutely. Do you think that was a political decision?
HL: I think it must have been. Yes. I can’t think of any other reason. Yeah. And yet it was taken. I often wondered. Because Bomber Harris didn’t get all [unclear] at all. And whether there was some sort of a, [unclear] between them we’ll never know. I don’t know. But it was well known that they didn’t agree on many things. It could well be the cause.
PL: Well thank you so much Hugh. That’s been a fantastic story and is there anything else?
HL: I hope I haven’t bored you.
PL: Not at all. It’s been wonderful. Is there anything else at all that you would like to be recorded?
HL: I can’t really think of anything that’s of any particular interest to tell you about apart from what I’ve, what I’ve said.
PL: Well thank you very much indeed. Thank you.
HL: I could tell you, there’s one highlight strangely enough. Yes. After the war. I was at Cranwell at the time and the cadets there exchanged places with the cadets from the Air Force Academy in Colorado. And I was asked to go out there along with a few of our other lads and look after the cadets. And we had a wonderful two weeks in Colorado Springs. At the, at the American Air Academy. One of the highlights of being an air force during, after the war.
PL: Wonderful. Wonderful. And did you keep in touch with your comrades in the —
HL: Oh yes. I kept in touch with all of them until I think I’m last. The pilot, Doug just died last, January of this year. He was ninety nine.
PL: Goodness me.
HL: Yeah.
PL: Well, thank you very much again.
HL: My pleasure.
PL: Thank you.
[recording paused]
PL: So we’re resuming the interview and Hugh you were just telling me about the special ops that went over to India.
HL: Special Duties. Yeah.
PL: Special Duties. And what happened to the other crews that were staying there.
HL: Oh they stayed there until they finished their particular job but then they finished up flying troops. They didn’t come back to the UK until the war was finished.
PL: And so were they troops who’d been prisoners of war?
HL: No. Actual, our own military.
PL: Right. Right. Right.
HL: Yes. Yeah. That’s what it was.
PL: Thank you very much.
HL: A bus service. Not my cup of tea.
PL: 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/.
Identifier
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ALorimerH160622
Title
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Interview with Hugh Lorimer
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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00:40:56 audio recording
Creator
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Pam Locker
Date
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2016-06-22
Description
An account of the resource
Hugh Lorimer skipped school to see flying circus and won a flight in one of the aeroplanes. He later volunteered for the RAF and began training as a wireless operator. He was initially was posted to Special Duty Flight test flying in India. However, when their aircraft was written off they were posted back to the UK. He completed a tour of operations as a wireless operator with 10 Squadron.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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France
Great Britain
India
North Africa
Asia--Mount Everest
England--Yorkshire
India--Mumbai
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Carolyn Emery
Temporal Coverage
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1943
1944
10 Squadron
57 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
crash
crewing up
Halifax
Lancaster
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
perception of bombing war
RAF Kinloss
RAF Melbourne
RAF Rufforth
RAF Scampton
training
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/298/3454/PMcClementsR15020003.1.jpg
cbd931dca507c3c834e1473ae2fbdbbe
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/298/3454/AMcClementsR151021.2.mp3
7566254d805d96dea97149125640b82e
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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McClements, Robert
Robert McClements
R McClements
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. Two oral history interviews with Robert McClements (-2022, 1796607 Royal Air Force) and one with his wife, Iris McClements (b. 1926). The collection also contains his log book, service documents, photographs and a model of his Halifax. He completed a tour of operations as a mid-upper gunner with 10 Squadron from RAF Melbourne. The log book belonging to L Kirrage, his flight engineer, is also included.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Robert McClements and catalogued by Barry Hunter and David Leitch.
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
2015-09-21
2015-10-21
2018-02-25
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
McClements, R
Requires
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1943: Volunteered for the RAF
19 December 1943 -11 February 1944: RAF Pembrey, No.1 AGS, flying Anson aircraft
23 April 1944 - 20 May 1944: RAF Lossiemouth, No. 20 OTU, Flying Gunnery Flight, flying Wellington aircraft
8 July 1944 - 23 July 1944: 1658 RAF Ricall, 1658 HCU, flying Halifax aircraft
30 July 1944 - 18 February 1945: RAF Melbourne, 10 Squadron, flying Halifax aircraft
July 1944 - February 1945: served on 10 Sqn as a Flight Sergeant Air gunner.
3 March 1947: RAF Kirkham, Released from Service, having attained the rank of Temporary Warrant Officer
Chris Cann
Robert McClements was born on 6 December 1924, in Belfast. He left school at the age of 14 and worked various jobs to help support his family. While there was no conscription in Northern Ireland, in late 1943 while working at the Harland and Wolff shipyard he volunteered to join the RAF, as aircrew.
Following basic training at RAF Bridlington and then initial gunnery training at RAF Bridgnorth, he was posted to RAF Pembry to join No 1 AGS and train as an air gunner. Air gunners course · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
He completed the gunnery course in February 1944 and was posted to No 20 OTU at RAF Lossiemouth and then on to 1658 HCU, at RAF Ricall, to train on Halifax aircraft. In July 1944, with all training finally completed, he began his operational flying with 10 Squadron at RAF Melbourne flying Halifax aircraft.
His early operational trips passed without incident, but on one operation the aircraft experienced heavy icing, causing it to lose all lift and go into an uncontrolled descent. With the aircraft going straight down the order to ‘Bale out’ was given, Robert managed to get out of his gunner position, but then found himself forced to the floor unable to move. In the cockpit, the pilot engaged full power and he and his engineer battled with the control column to pull the aircraft out of its dive. The flight home passed uneventfully although the engineer reported that the aircraft never ever flew again.
Throughout the rest of his tour there were other eventful sorties. On one, two of the bombs ‘hung up’ and they had to release them from the carrier units using an axe. On another, the bomb aimer forgot to press the bomb-release button so they had to go around again. Luck was again on his side when, on a night raid, another aircraft on a turning point swung across the top of his Halifax, narrowly missing the top of his gun turret. Robert went on to complete a full operational flying tour of 38 operational sorties over Belgium, France and Germany amassing over 200 flying hours. PMcClementsR1503.2.jpg (1600×1299) (lincoln.ac.uk)
After his operational tour, Robert was released from flying duties. He remained at RAF Melbourne and trained as a Unit Fire Officer and he and his flight engineer took charge of the station warrant officer’s office. During a routine site inspection, he met a German prisoner of war who was making a wooden model of a Catalina aircraft for the officers’ mess. Robert asked him to make a model of his Halifax aircraft for him. The aircraft, remarkable in its detail, has been a treasured memento of his time served in the RAF. Robert McClements and his model of Halifax ZA-V · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
Robert met his future wife, Iris, on a visit to the Observer Corp HQ at York where she was a serving member. He left the RAF in 1947 having attained the rank of Temporary Warrant Officer. He and Iris settled in England where they worked with her father, in York. Latterly, he and Iris set up their own business in Wakefield selling motor vehicles.
Chris Cann
Iris McClements (nee Dobson) remembers, at the age of 11, being issued with a gas mask before the war had started. When she was about 13 years of age, her family moved to Eldwick to avoid the bombs.
She was a member of the Home Guard before joining the Women’s Junior Air Corp where she attained the rank of sergeant. She recalled wearing a grey uniform, being issued with a bucket, stirrup pump and helmet for fire watching and learning the theory of the internal combustion engine.
In 1944, she passed the entrance exam to join the Royal Observer Corps and was based in York, as a plotter. Her role was to listen to information from the spotters via headphones and place it on to the plotting table. This included the number of aircraft, direction of travel, height, and whether they were friendly or hostile. This was to give warning of enemy operations or to track operations heading to Germany. She worked eight-hour shifts which changed each week. The spotters in the outposts were also watching for aircraft that were going to crash-land, so that the crash sites could be identified. Iris visited a couple of these sites. She met her husband to be, Robert, on one of his visits to the Royal Observer Corp HQ in York.
She lived on an ex-World War One motor launch in York that the family had used for recreation. When off duty she would often travel into York to go dancing, swimming and to the cinema.
After the war she and Robert worked with her father in the motor trade. She then set up business with Robert in Wakefield.
Chris Cann
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DE: So, this is an interview with Robert McClements. My name is Dan Ellin. It’s taking place on the 21st of the 10th 2015 and we are at Riseholme Hall. So, could you tell me a little bit about your early life and how you came to volunteer for the RAF?
RM: Yes. Coming from Northern Ireland there was no conscription but I volunteered for the Royal Air Force when I was about eighteen or nineteen. Previous to that I’d left school at fourteen. I had to do. My father was unemployed and they wouldn’t give him any benefits. Due to that fact I was told to go to work. I worked for a while in a carpet warehouse. I also worked for a while at a window making company called Crittall. I finished up in the Harland and Wolff shipyard. Built, shipbuilding which I can’t remember how long I was there but I did then join the air force. Went to London to AC Receiving Depot. And consequently up to Bridlington in North Yorkshire for some training and that started my air force career. Stop it there.
[recording paused]
DE: So just paused it for a second. Just started again.
RM: Yeah.
DE: Bridlington.
RM: Bridlington. We did more training there. Marching about. Morse code. Etcetera. And finally we went on leave and were posted to Bridgnorth. That was the first time we saw a machine gun which was a Browning 303 and a few turrets. And spent a while getting used to that and shooting them. That went for about six to eight weeks and then we went on leave. From leave we went, I went to Lossiemouth in Scotland where we crewed up with the rest of the crew apart from the flight engineer. My other gunner was a chappie from Southern Ireland who unfortunately got ill and didn’t complete the course. And I then picked up with a chap called Webb as my additional gunner. We went on leave from Lossiemouth — down to, now then, I’ve forgotten.
DE: It’s alright.
RM: That’s that. Yes. So from Lossiemouth we went down to Riccall in Yorkshire where as a crew we then had the pilots being used to four–engined aircraft. We spent time there passing the usual tests and what have you. And finally were posted to 10 Squadron at Melbourne. Just south of York. Finish that for now. On the squadron obviously we were there to do a job. Consequently, after at least a fortnight, three weeks, being retrained again I would say. We did bombing. Machine gunning to the sea. Etcetera. And cross country before the pilot himself was sent on what we called a dickey trip with a crew. To get experience of what he was going to take us into. We then started flying and our first one or two trips were reasonably easy. They were daylight into France. Bomb sites. Troop concentrations and such like. And then consequently we flew on from there and did a full tour including quite a few daylight trips and quite a lot of night trips. We didn’t go to Berlin. We did all the runs in the tour. The Essen [pause] I’ve forgotten the name of the damned place. Anyway, we did all the places in the Ruhr that had to be done.
DE: Yeah. They’ll all be in your logbooks though. That’s fine.
RM: Yeah. They’re in the logbooks.
JM: Chemnitz.
RM: Chemnitz. That was the farthest one we went. That was a long way into Germany. And various other bits and pieces that we had done. But, as I say, the logbooks had them all in. We had a few run ins with ack–ack fire like everybody did. We had a run in with searchlights once. We had a run in with icing up on the wings which was a little bit serious since we fell out of the sky. And due to the pilot and the engineer getting their feet on the dash and heaving on the [laughs]
JM: Stick.
RM: We managed to pull out.
DE: Can you tell me a bit more about that?
RM: Well, it all happens very quickly when these things happens. You haven’t time to think about it. First thing we knew was we heard the ice bouncing off the fuselage. And then Bob said, ‘It’s getting a bit dodgy up here. We’re icing badly. Bale out.’ Well, as soon as he said, ‘Bale out,’ I got out of my cockpit — out of my turret but by that time we were going straight down. I couldn’t move. I was stuck to the floor. But eventually he put the engines through the gate full bore and him and the engineer — they didn’t pull the stick out but they had a real good go at pulling at it and eventually we got out. And that was it. We flew home quite happily.
JM: The plane never flew again did it?
RM: Well the engineer said that the plane was scrapped. I don’t know. I didn’t see it in the scrap heap. But it got a nasty shake up same as we all did. And that was it. That was about the main bits that stand out on the time I flew. Apart from once when we landed on FIDO. Well, most people know what FIDO is. It’s two strips of fire down each side of the runway. It’s very easy to not see it. It sounds silly that but flying up to it we knew FIDO was lit but we didn’t see it until we were pretty close to it because obviously we were in dense fog. Anyway, we got up to it and made a landing. It was a little bit [pause] I think the pilot’s main trouble was settling the kite down in the heat. Anyway, we landed alright. No problem. And that was it. Finished.
DE: They were, they were your two most memorable spots.
RM: Yeah. That was about the most of it. The rest was the usual thing of a bit of ack–ack here and ack –ack there. It was all in a day’s work wasn’t it?
DE: What was, what was that like? Being, being shot at with ack–ack?
RM: Well, at night time it wasn’t so bad because bang, you were past it and it was gone. But in daytime you could see where, if they were getting close to you. Which is a little bit hairy when you say, ‘Well that was six hundred yards away.’ And the next one’s two hundred. You’re waiting for the next one. So you got the nose down then. You were dropping down pretty quick. Anyway, we got away with it. And that was we never able to predict what they had but we were fortunate. They hadn’t enough guns to hit us. Two guns might have managed it but not one.
DE: I see. Some people talked about Scarecrows. Did you ever come across any of those?
RM: Well the word got around there were Scarecrows but I never met anybody that actually say they saw a scarecrow. Sorry. Saw a Scarecrow explode. Usually, when there was a big enough bang like that it was an aircraft that was going up. That was it.
DE: Did you see any of those?
RM: Oh yeah. Well, there was a war on [laughs] yeah. Not a lot but enough.
DE: You mentioned searchlights as well.
RM: Well, we had a run in. We were very fortunate with the searchlights. We were, we were coned. Well, we weren’t actually coned. We were hit by one searchlight and followed by another one. So we had two but by a little bit of colour fudging on the pilot’s part, don’t ask me what he did. But he went up and down. We were out of it and that’s it. We didn’t worry about why we missed them. Or they missed us. We were off.
DE: Ok. And thankful for it.
RM: That was it. Yeah.
DE: You were a gunner. So did you, did you see fighters at all?
RM: Only on three occasions and there was no occasion when I was inclined to go for a fight. They were carrying cannons. We were carrying 303s. So I kept out of the way.
DE: How did you do that?
RM: I didn’t tell the pilot I saw it. Or anybody. It was there above us but nobody could see it and I could see it and I thought as long as he’s there it’s not going to trouble us. That was it.
DE: Right. I can’t say I blame you.
RM: [laughs] No. It was a fool’s game to try and shoot at an 88. I mean all they had to do was get that close, so anyway And several other times I’ve seen fighters and they weren’t going to bother us so I didn’t bother them.
DE: Yeah.
RM: I’d no intention to.
DE: We’ve interviewed other, other gunners who said exactly the same thing as that.
RM: Yeah. I’m glad I’m not alone in that one. No. That was a fool’s game to try and — if you had to fight them you would do but you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t engage in the fight. But there it is. You had to have a go anyway. But nine times out of ten it would be too late. I mean he was shooting from four hundred yards. We’d got two hundred yards. It wasn’t a battle was it?
DE: So do you think he hadn’t seen you or he wasn’t interested?
RM: Well, he was above us. He wasn’t interested. He was, at that time they had upward firing guns so if I could see him he couldn’t see me. So, he was after somebody else. Or in a bomber stream looking for somebody else because we didn’t realise for a while what they were doing. This upward firing gun. I mean rear gunners initially were for, that was the idea. They were coming behind which they did do. Until they got this clever idea. And all they shot at then was your starboard wing which had all the gubbins in it. And once they’d hit the wing they knew they had you. That was it.
DE: So were you the, were you the rear gunner?
RM: No. Mid–upper.
DE: You were mid–upper.
RM: Very exposed. Most people had a bit of tin around them. We had nothing. Perspex.
DE: Yeah. And sitting on top of a big target as well.
RM: Well, sitting on the bomb [laughs] I knew one thing. It would be quick when it happened [laughs]
DE: Did your, did your pilot fly you straight and level or did you do —
RM: No. We went straight and level. We didn’t mess about. If you were going to start weaving about like they did it’s quicker to go that way then that way.
DE: Sure.
RM: No. We’d no fancy ideas of what we were going to do or what we were going to do. We had to fly there and fly back as quick and as quietly as possible. That was it. No chit chat in the crew. Once we were in the plane and we were up in the air that was it. We didn’t chat to each other or natter about. It was business.
DE: What was, what was your crew like?
RM: They were good. We had a good crew. We’d no — let’s put it this way there was no one — anyone ever said, ‘We’ll have to get rid of him. He’s no good.’ We were all — well, how should I put it? We all got on well together. There was never a crossed word in any of the crew. Or any dispute.
DE: Did you socialise together when you weren’t flying?
RM: Not a lot. We did occasionally. I did more socialising with my friend Pepper who was in another crew. How we met we were going to have [laughs] we were going to fight. Him and I. I’ve forgotten what it was. But we’re good friends. And that’s it. Him and I did most of our trips in to York. Although occasionally I would take the engineer. Les. He would come with us. He got quite friendly with my girlfriend’s family did Les. But the rest of the crew were, well the Canadians. The officer. He was an officer was the pilot so he spent most of his time obviously in the officer’s quarters. But we’d go out occasionally for a drink but not — we wouldn’t make a habit like people think we were out boozing every night. We weren’t. When we went out we had a drink or two but we didn’t make a big habit of being every – like my granddaughter said one day, ‘Well, you were always drunk grandad.’ I said, ‘What do you mean we was always drunk,’ I said, ‘You listen to the wrong people. So we never flew when we had a drink. If we were flying we never had a drink.
DE: Apart from when you finished?
RM: Oh when we finished we finished up in the — we didn’t land at our base. When we finished we finished up in a place called Mepal. Which I think was a New Zealand crowd.
DE: Yes. In Norfolk or Suffolk. Yeah.
RM: Yeah. And I vaguely remember at 3 o’clock in the morning in the local fire station with a crate of beer [laughs] I don’t know if I’ve got it written down. Don’t ask me what time we took off next morning or where. How we flew home but we did. And Les, our engineer had a grand getting the rest of the kite started with the trolley acc. Taking the — to get them started. The camp we were on seemed very quiet and not very communicative. So that’s how we got home.
JM: You flew around a bit didn’t you over the aerodrome when you got back?
RM: Well, we just flew around once or twice but not like some of them did. Several would land and they were taking all the toilet rolls we had in the mess and then when came back they threw them all out over the station.
DE: That was a celebration.
RM: That was a celebration. Yeah.
DE: Yeah. For finishing the tour.
RM: Right.
DE: Wonderful. You were telling me earlier about the time when you had some hang ups.
RM: Well, one time we were bombs away. I think it was the engineer used to go and just check they’d all gone. And on one occasion he found that two of the smaller bombs hadn’t gone. So he shouted to me to come and give him a hand and he’d opened a hole somewhere on the floor above the bombs and we started trying to let them go. Which we did. I had an axe and he had a hammer or something and we — but we didn’t hit — we hit something to make them move. And eventually we got them away. Don’t ask me how we did but we — they fell.
DE: And was that over, over Europe or over the sea? Or —
RM: That was somewhere over Germany. Well just off the target. We did away. We tried. We checked them straightaway that they were all gone.
DE: Yeah.
RM: So that’s, that’s what we did. We managed. We loosened them one way or another. I wouldn’t say it was efficient engineering.
JM: What about the hang up when you flew around again.
RM: That wasn’t a hang–up that. Well that was a hang up and the bombers aimers problem. He hadn’t pressed the button or the button wasn’t working. On a daylight. And he didn’t say, ‘Bombs away.’ He said, ‘Oh. Sorry Bob,’ That was the captain. He said, ‘We’ve still got the bombs on.’ So, I don’t know whether Bob said it or the bomb aimer said it but, ‘We’ll have to go around again.’ Which wasn’t a good idea. It was a daylight and as you realise everybody is going in. Straight on then off home to the right. We’d go around this way. There’s only us there. Another bomber stream is over doing their job. So when we got about a quarter of the way around and they started predicting. Fortunately, as I said before they’ve only one gun. So when they shot the first time it would be about, I should think, half a mile away. A long way off. The second one was nearer. And the fourth one was nearer still. So, I think we all said at the same time, ‘For Christ’s sake Bob, get us out of here ‘cause the next one is going to hit us.’ So he did. He put the nose down and we, we got out. That was it. There’s not a lot more. Well there’s nothing more.
DE: Well.
RM: That’s enough.
DE: I’ve got some more questions I’d really like to ask you. The, you’ve been very kind in bringing in your collection of photographs and your logbook. I’d really like you to talk a little bit about the model.
RM: Well, the model aircraft that I have was made by a German prisoner of war at Melbourne. At that time I was in the station warrant officer’s office. I’d finished flying. And like most aircrew at that time, well all aircrew, were posted off the camp. But in our case, the engineer, myself and my other gunner were kept back on the camp. Odd bods. I was sent on a fire, I was sent on a fire officer’s course to a station somewhere near Hull. And when I come back they said, ‘Well you’re the station fire officer now.’ So I went down to the fire station. I had a walk around. Walked out again. I thought well it’s alright. The flight sergeant had been a flight sergeant fireman for the last ten years, I think. So I left it to him. That was the fire officer. We were that time then I went into the station warrant officer’s office. The station warrant officer had been posted elsewhere so my flight engineer and myself were more or less supposedly in control of the office. If you can call aircrew in charge of an office a wise thing to do, fair enough. But we ran it. He ran it. I didn’t. At this time I was involved with my wife in York. So I could spend a lot of time in York. Not being at Melbourne. But on a telephone call I would be back in the camp in half an hour. And if they wanted to know where I was I was on ack site which was about four miles away. Inspecting it.
DE: Right. Ok.
RM: That was it.
DE: Yeah. So tell me about the model.
RM: The model. We were on what they call a site inspection one day. That was going around the billets checking that everything was in order and everything was tidy and there was no, anybody lurking there that shouldn’t have been. And in the corner of the Nissen hut there was a small unit where I think at one time there used to be a corporal in charge of the Nissen hut. But in this case it was empty. And there’s a table and a chap behind it and I couldn’t see him for shavings. And I thought what the heck’s he doing here. And there was another aircraft, RAF chap with him. So he could speak English. I said, ‘What’s he up to?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘He’s making this for the [pause] one of the officers.’ ‘What is it?’ He said, ‘A Catalina.’ And I looked at it with a half made Catalina in wood in front of him. So I thought it was a damned good idea if he made a Halifax. Which he did.
DE: A German prisoner of war.
RM: A German prisoner of war that did it. And as I say, he made it out of, I don’t know, scrap from a camp scrapyard. There was nothing else. What he had as tools I have no idea. I should have been a bit more interested in it at the time but I wasn’t. I just gave him the order. Do a Halifax for me. Which he did. As you can see now. And that was it.
DE: And it’s your Halifax.
RM: Yeah.
DE: Yeah.
RM: Yeah. No one else got one.
DE: No. but it’s a model of your aircraft.
RM: Yes. Even the number on it is right. ZAV. Yeah. That’s it.
DE: And the scrap that it’s made from — where do you think that came from?
RM: The camp scrapyard. Nowhere else.
DE: So you think the Perspex is —
RM: It’s off a Halifax or somewhere.
DE: And the same with the bit of aluminium.
RM: Yeah. And the guns you can see are nails. I don’t know whether they was ever in a Halifax but he got them somewhere. Yeah. Including the piece of aluminium that the names are on. That’s off a Halifax somewhere. It’s got to be. Don’t ask me how he managed to do the nails. I don’t know how he did it. Marvellous.
DE: Yeah. It is wonderful. Yeah.
RM: Yeah.
DE: What did he charge you?
RM: He didn’t charge me anything [laughs] I was in charge of him.
DE: Oh right. So it was an order. Make me one.
RM: Yes. It was an order. Well it wasn’t an order not in that sense. I just said can you make me one? I wasn’t going to — at knife point. Oh well that’s another tail isn’t it? I don’t think it wants to go on their though.
DE: What’s that?
RM: We were in the mess one night. Drinking. This was after, I wasn’t flying then and we had some of our people. Air force aircrew that had been prisoners of war were back on the camp. So we were having a drink. You know. Enjoying a drink. I remember George. George, the lad, came from Birmingham. He said, ‘They’ll be having some booze up there.’ I said, ‘Who?’ He said, ‘The prisoners who are up there in the Nissen hut.’ I said ‘Oh.’ He said, ‘They’ll have a good brew going you know.’ I said, ‘So what?’ He said, ‘Making all sorts of beer and wine and stuff.’ I said, ‘So what?’ He said, ‘Do you want to go and have a bloody look at it?’ Well, he said, ‘We ought to raid it.’ Anyway, we finished up, about four of us down where they were in the Nissen hut. Somebody dragged a table out and put a chair on it, says, ‘Have a look through that hole in the roof. That flap.’ So I said, ‘Alright.’ So I went up and looked and right enough he was right. There was all sorts of buckets and tins with various stuff bubbling and squeezing around in it. ‘Yeah. It looks alright to me.’ So I put it down again. He said, ‘What are you going to do?’ I said, ‘I’m not doing nothing.’ Which disappointed him.
DE: Right.
RM: He thought I was going to throw it all out. I thought, ‘Bugger that. They’re happy enough doing that. It’ll keep them out of mischief.’ So I went back to the mess and started drinking again. He wasn’t very happy but I thought, why do it?
DE: Yeah. Why. Why indeed.
RM: They were drinking. They were making a bit of beer. They weren’t making any problems. I thought I couldn’t make any as good at that [laughs] so that was it.
DE: Yeah. Wonderful. So after you did your, your tour and you were working in the station fire department.
RM: Well, I wasn’t there very often to be honest with you. I mean they knew more about fires than I did.
DE: Right. Yeah. When were you eventually demobbed?
RM: ’45 I think it was. To be honest with you I’m not quite sure. That book that I’ve got that the chappy is looking at now. It’s in there.
DE: Service book.
RM: Yeah.
DE: Yeah.
RM: Yeah so, I — that was a rather funny thing. When I went to join the air force as aircrew. I wouldn’t have done anything else. If I hadn’t wanted to fly in the air force I wouldn’t have, I’d have gone back home. Anyway, I got flying and I remember as well they said to me, the officer in charge at Belfast, ‘When do you want to go?’ So I thought to myself, when do I want to go? I had a few pounds to spend. ‘Oh. Next Monday. Monday week.’ So he said, ‘Alright.’ At the end of my time I was on Melbourne until more or less the camp was closed down. And the time came for me to be moved to another camp. So I was sent a travel warrant somewhere down south. To be honest with you I’ve forgotten the name of it. It was well down south. So, when you joined the air force then when you went in you had a chit to say you were signing in. And one to sign you were singing out. Well, I had one for signing out and I was going around and into the office. It must have been a station warrant officer sort of thing. Thinking back now. I had my chit to sign in and it was a WAAF who was in charge. So she looked at it and she said [pause] she saw my demob number on it which was well over the time. She said, ‘You should have been out.’ Well, I knew I was. I said, ‘Yes. I should be.’ And do you know what she says to me? ‘When do you want to go?’ [laughs] exactly the same as when I’d joined up. ‘When do you want to go?’ I said ‘I’ll go now.’ So I went round that camp with signing in and signing out and then I was posted up to near Blackpool. I’ve forgotten the name of the place now. There was a place near Blackpool where everybody got demobbed. And that was it. So that was how I got out.
DE: Ok. I’d like to talk a little bit about what you did after the war but if we can just go, go back. You were working in shipyards in —
RM: Harland and Wolff’s. Yeah. Belfast.
DE: You didn’t have to. There was no conscription for you. You didn’t have to volunteer.
RM: No.
DE: Why? Why did you want to join the RAF.
RM: I wanted to fly. I’d always wanted to fly. My mother knitted me air force blue cardigans and things. I don’t know why I wanted to fly. Never actually bothered about actually flying but I wanted to be in the air. So I thought well I’ll join the air force. And that was it.
DE: It wasn’t anything to do with playing a part in the war.
RM: Well, we had been bombed in Belfast. A lot of people don’t know that. We had been bombed probably once or twice. I think they were trying to hit the shipyard but they dropped one or two bombs. They didn’t interfere much with the production of ships. So [pause] yes that was why I really wanted to join. I just wanted to fly. I thought I would join the air force. They fly. And I got [pause] sorted out with the aircrew in Belfast and they sent us down to London and the usual thing went on.
DE: Yeah.
RM: But that was the only reason. I just wanted to fly.
DE: What was, what was your trade in the shipyards? What were you doing?
RM: I was working with the shipwrights and welding. It was a sort of a bits of all sorts in those times it was. The war was on and anything that was being done was being done. So I did a bit of this and a bit of that.
DE: Ok. Did you witness any of the bombing of Belfast?
RM: I did. Yes. Yes.
DE: What was that like?
RM: It wasn’t very nice [laughs] we lived quite near to the shipyard and my experience bombing I realised that they were undershooting the target. So they dropped, I think, a few odd bombs on the shipyard but they didn’t hit any of the slipways or do any damage like that. No, they ripped a bit out of Belfast which wasn’t a very nice. I mean at that age that I was then I’d never been bombed before. It was just one of those unknown things. You don’t, you don’t realise just at the time what’s going on. You know a lot of bombs dropping and banging but it’s just, you know, you just take it. We had to go down to the country to my mother’s place for I don’t know, about a month I think. While the house we lived in was knocked in to shape. It was mainly glass windows and an odd door blown off but the house was still all in one piece. So it wasn’t what you would call bad.
DE: Where were you at the time when that happened?
RM: At that time they’d built air raid shelters in the street. I don’t know why but they did. The houses obviously weren’t going to be strong enough so they built air raid shelters on the road outside the house. Just brick walls and a concrete roof and that was it. Nothing else inside.
DE: And that’s where you were when you were bombed?
RM: That’s where we were when we were bombed.
DE: Ok. Having, having experienced that what did you think about the job that you were doing in the RAF and in Bomber Command?
RM: I thought it would be a good idea to hit them back. Basically that was what it was all about. Getting back. Getting at the Germans. Because I do remember one of the interviews I had for aircrew. Would I like to go to Japan or Germany? And I straightaway said Germany. So I must have had something against the Germans mustn’t I [laughs]
DE: Ok. I see. So, we jump back about why, why you joined up. If we can just take you back to your time on operations. What was it like on, in the squadron when you—?
RM: The squadron itself was alright. We had no problems with anyone on the squadron. We didn’t, we didn’t appear to have any heavy losses. So, there was nothing. Nothing ever mentioned about oh this is bloody awful or anything. It was, it was — how shall I put this. I was nineteen. First time let loose. So there was nothing to cause me any problems. You know, there was, it was just, it was a way of living. It was like being a cowboy isn’t it? You had to go shooting people up, that’s it, you could. You could shoot them. So we went and bombed Germany. Got our own back. No. We had a good squadron. It was — listening to other squadrons or what people had done and how they were being handled we were very fortunate at 10 Squadron. We had good — good officers. They were all good. I mean, they didn’t change them very often but when they did we always had good officers every time. An officer flew with you as well. I mean, I mean a lot of them were officers but even group captains. If you look at my logbook I think we flew — oh no it wasn’t me. It was [pause] the other — Canadian flew with a group captain as a pilot. They were good. There were no problems. Food was good as well. People say the food wasn’t — you know. People talk about food. We always, we were very fortunate. We supposedly all tell these tales about we had a chef from one of the main hotels in London. He might have been. I don’t know. But we always ate the food. There was no problem eating. We got the best. That was 10 Squadron. We were special [yeah] yeah. And that’s it.
JM: You had special dental care didn’t you as well?
RM: Pardon?
JM: You had special dental care.
RM: Oh yes. Yes. I forgot about that. If you wanted to go to the dentist you always went in the afternoon. Because he ate in the mess at lunchtime got a few whiskies in to him. Steady his hands.
DE: That sounds good.
RM: Well it does good if you went in the afternoon.
DE: Yeah. So apart from the dentist did you have anything to do with the medical officer at all?
RM: Only once. When we were at Riccall converting on to Halifaxes. They thought we were, they slowed down a bit, they hadn’t enough aeroplanes so the aircrew were a bit backed up. So they decided we wanted toughening up so we’d go on a commando course which was really, wasn’t really a full commando course. But a bit of marching about and climbing over sticks and mud and consequently you had to wear boots. Well, at that time we were wearing shoes and the boots we got to go on this commando course of course were somebody else’s boots. Had done the week before. So they were big and they were damp and I got a couple of blisters on my heels. So I thought I’ll report sick. Get out of this. So I reported sick and got out my heels to the doctor my blisters. Then it was [M&D Medicine and Duty]. So I didn’t go sick again.
DE: Right. It wasn’t worth it.
RM: And I never wore second hand boots ever in my life again.
DE: Yeah. I can’t say I blame you. Well unless you can think of anything else to tell me about the time when you were in the RAF in service I’d like to ask you to tell me about —
RM: Well, no, there’s stuff that [I won’t go into] at that time I was running a little old motorbike that I got from my father in law and petrol was rationed. But if you knew where the sump was on the FIDO you could find petrol. Didn’t do the engine much good but it ran on it.
DE: Were they using aviation fuel for FIDO then? So it was high octane.
RM: Well, I was on a two stroke at the time. I think it would have run on anything. But they did tell me that some of it was very high grade. But I thought to myself that most of it would be paraffin, but the experts said no. It was petrol. So I wouldn’t dispute it one way or the other. But what I got I ran on it.
DE: I don’t blame you.
RM: Yeah. Saying that the chap that got it for me he told me that he got it out of the FIDO. He may have got it out of the transport section. I didn’t ask the question.
DE: Yeah. It was just to keep your bike running.
RM: Just keep it running.
DE: So that’s how you could get in to York.
RM: Yeah.
DE: And back out again in —
RM: No trouble. Yeah.
DE: Wonderful. So what, what did you do when you were finally demobbed?
RM: When I was finally demobbed I went [pause] back to Ireland. I went back home. I don’t know how long I was at home to be honest with you. I’d met my wife in the meantime but I wasn’t married then. I wouldn’t have got married while I was flying. Anyway, I finished up back in York and I worked for my future wife’s father who was in the motor business at that time. And I’d just bought a boat to live on. And one of the first jobs I got there was going to the headquarters of 6 Group at Allerton Park on the Great North Road. They had Nissen huts that were being pulled down. And the Nissen huts had been fed the electricity on the proper thick electricity wires.
DE: Cables.
RM: You know. The cables. So my first job was to take two men. Pick up, and go to Allerton Park and dig up three hundred yards of that electric cable. And then take it back to York and have them dig a trench on the riverside down to where his boat was moored. Because at that time the electricity people wouldn’t or couldn’t do it themselves. So being a man of action that he was he said, ‘Well, if we put the wires in will you connect them?’ And they said they would. So I organised that. It was quite a job. While I was there the lord of the manor himself, Lord — what the hell do they call him now? Lord —
JM: Mowbray.
RM: Lord Mowbray come down. He was an old man then. These two fellas. And I’m in the ditch as well. Giving them a hand to get this out. And he says, ‘Young man. What are you doing there?’ ‘What are we doing? We’re digging a bloody cable out.’ I said. No. I didn’t say it that way. I said, ‘We’re just removing this cable.’ ‘Oh’ And that’s it. Off we went. So we did that. When you think of it. Taking up the cable and taking it back and putting it down. Now they'd have a squad of men and an army of post with signs on it not to touch.
DE: Yeah.
RM: Yeah. That’s how I did it then. Yes, I’ll give the corporation their due in York. They connected both ends. No problem. And put it on to the boat with all you wanted on the boat then. We didn’t have to worry about having our own power line. Consequently moved in to the business end with the — well I worked for him. I didn’t move in to it. I worked for him for quite a while. And Iris, my wife–to–be she worked with him as well. Worked for him for quite a while and then we decided that enough was enough and we’d go off on our own to a place called Wakefield. So we started up in Wakefield and that was it.
DE: What were you doing there?
RM: Selling motor cars and motorbikes.
DE: Right.
RM: So that kept me going for quite a while. Well, until I retired. And that was it.
DE: Smashing. Thank you. A couple more things that sort of intrigued me that I’d like you to go back to if that’s ok. Can you explain how, well how you met your wife and why you wouldn’t marry while you were still flying.
RM: Well anybody flying in Bomber Command was a fool to get married. Which was, which was the case of my brother Taffy who went missing. He wasn’t flying in the war then but he was flying and he left a youngster of about six months old behind him. So she had her hands full to start. That’s the way I looked at it. No. That was why I didn’t get married when I was flying. That was, I thought, this is a fool’s game. You know. We didn’t have big losses but you knew there was one missing there and one here, one there. I thought, well that’s [pause] that’s no job. So I left it.
DE: How did you deal with that?
RM: People missing? Just part of the job you know. You’ve got to get back to you’re nineteen. You know. You’re not, you haven’t a lot of worry in your head like if you were married you had. But I hadn’t. I wasn’t married. I had no worries in my head. I hadn’t have to worry about anybody. So it didn’t matter to me.
DE: Ok.
RM: I’m bomb proof. An odd chap. You could see sometimes you’d think he’s worried. He’s [pause] he could be he could be a fella for the chop. And you weren’t always right but sometimes you were right. You could more or less — as if they realised that they were on a number. You don’t know.
DE: Did you have any lucky charms or rituals that you—?
RM: All I had was [pause] I bought it myself funnily enough. A green scarf. Now, I’m an Orangeman and to buy a green scarf in Belfast you were either a Protestant or you’re Catholic. I don’t know why but I bought this brilliant deep green scarf. And I always wore that. So maybe that was a charm. I don’t know. Well I’ve still got it haven’t I?
JM: You have. You lent it to me.
RM: He borrowed it to go on his Peking – Paris rally.
JM: It still works you know. Got me out of a few scrapes on the rally. Especially when the engine blew up. I needed your scarf a lot.
RM: Yeah.
DE: Had you, had you bought it to be something to take with you all the time or was it something you wanted —?
RM: No. I took it for all the time. To get all my gear on at night. You always got bare around the neck so I used to have the scarf tied around my neck.
DE: Did any of the other people on your crew have —?
RM: Yes. The wireless operator had a little teddy bear thing that he had. He talked about that and always looked after it but the rest of the crew I don’t think any of them did. If they had they didn’t say. No. Bob always the pilot used to have a packet or a box of two hundred cigarettes in his battledress pocket. I often thought, ‘If you bale out Bob they’re not going to be there when you landed.’ [laughs] But why worry him.
DE: Fair enough. That’s smashing. Thank you. One question that we ask most of the people that we interview. What are your feelings about the way Bomber Command has been remembered over the past seventy years?
RM: Well up to Green Park it wasn’t remembered at all. That’s the only thing recently that brought in to people’s attention. That was the initial one but I think this one that we’ve got going now in Lincoln I think is a better idea really. The one in Green Park is good but I think what they’re doing here in Lincoln is going to be better because they’re going to build a monument and there’s going to be a Garden of Remembrance where people can walk. And I think it’s more, shall I say, homely. It’s a better feeling for people to go and be able to walk. I’m not saying that because I’m talking to you and you’re going to give me front page [laughs] but that’s what I mean.
DE: Yeah.
RM: I don’t know what —
DE: We might give you front page now you’ve said that on the tape.
RM: Yeah. No. But that’s what I think. The idea I’ve looked at that going to have that building. The Chadwick building. That’s going to be a good idea It’s there on the sight and also you’re going to have a Garden of Remembrance with grass and flowers and things. I think that’s, I think that’s a good thing.
DE: Wonderful. So thank you very much. Unless you can think of anything else you want to tell me we’ll draw that to a close.
RM: No. I think you’ve got it all there.
[pause]
RM: No. I think that’s more than I thought I could remember.
DE: Ok. Well you’ve done fantastic. You’ve talked for just over fifty minutes. What normally happens is I’ll press stop and —
JM: Oh I’ve just thought of something.
RM: Yeah. Yeah. No. I think I’ve got it pretty well buttoned down there.
DE: That’s wonderful. Thank you very very much.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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AMcClementsR151021
Title
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Interview with Robert McClements. Two
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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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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
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eng
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00:51:23 audio recording
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Pending review
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Dan Ellin
Date
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2015-10-21
Description
An account of the resource
Robert McClements grew up in Northern Ireland and after working in various jobs he volunteered for the Royal Air Force. He flew a tour of operations as a mid upper gunner with 10 Squadron. He discusses the model of his aircraft that a German prisoner of war made for him.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland--Belfast
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Chemnitz
Great Britain
Great Britain
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Chris Cann
10 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
arts and crafts
bombing
demobilisation
FIDO
Halifax
memorial
prisoner of war
RAF Melbourne
superstition
training
-
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/298/3455/AMcClementsRAG150921.1.mp3
116852866337479117c915293c4fb279
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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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McClements, Robert
Robert McClements
R McClements
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. Two oral history interviews with Robert McClements (-2022, 1796607 Royal Air Force) and one with his wife, Iris McClements (b. 1926). The collection also contains his log book, service documents, photographs and a model of his Halifax. He completed a tour of operations as a mid-upper gunner with 10 Squadron from RAF Melbourne. The log book belonging to L Kirrage, his flight engineer, is also included.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Robert McClements and catalogued by Barry Hunter and David Leitch.
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
2015-09-21
2015-10-21
2018-02-25
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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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McClements, R
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1943: Volunteered for the RAF
19 December 1943 -11 February 1944: RAF Pembrey, No.1 AGS, flying Anson aircraft
23 April 1944 - 20 May 1944: RAF Lossiemouth, No. 20 OTU, Flying Gunnery Flight, flying Wellington aircraft
8 July 1944 - 23 July 1944: 1658 RAF Ricall, 1658 HCU, flying Halifax aircraft
30 July 1944 - 18 February 1945: RAF Melbourne, 10 Squadron, flying Halifax aircraft
July 1944 - February 1945: served on 10 Sqn as a Flight Sergeant Air gunner.
3 March 1947: RAF Kirkham, Released from Service, having attained the rank of Temporary Warrant Officer
Chris Cann
Robert McClements was born on 6 December 1924, in Belfast. He left school at the age of 14 and worked various jobs to help support his family. While there was no conscription in Northern Ireland, in late 1943 while working at the Harland and Wolff shipyard he volunteered to join the RAF, as aircrew.
Following basic training at RAF Bridlington and then initial gunnery training at RAF Bridgnorth, he was posted to RAF Pembry to join No 1 AGS and train as an air gunner. Air gunners course · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
He completed the gunnery course in February 1944 and was posted to No 20 OTU at RAF Lossiemouth and then on to 1658 HCU, at RAF Ricall, to train on Halifax aircraft. In July 1944, with all training finally completed, he began his operational flying with 10 Squadron at RAF Melbourne flying Halifax aircraft.
His early operational trips passed without incident, but on one operation the aircraft experienced heavy icing, causing it to lose all lift and go into an uncontrolled descent. With the aircraft going straight down the order to ‘Bale out’ was given, Robert managed to get out of his gunner position, but then found himself forced to the floor unable to move. In the cockpit, the pilot engaged full power and he and his engineer battled with the control column to pull the aircraft out of its dive. The flight home passed uneventfully although the engineer reported that the aircraft never ever flew again.
Throughout the rest of his tour there were other eventful sorties. On one, two of the bombs ‘hung up’ and they had to release them from the carrier units using an axe. On another, the bomb aimer forgot to press the bomb-release button so they had to go around again. Luck was again on his side when, on a night raid, another aircraft on a turning point swung across the top of his Halifax, narrowly missing the top of his gun turret. Robert went on to complete a full operational flying tour of 38 operational sorties over Belgium, France and Germany amassing over 200 flying hours. PMcClementsR1503.2.jpg (1600×1299) (lincoln.ac.uk)
After his operational tour, Robert was released from flying duties. He remained at RAF Melbourne and trained as a Unit Fire Officer and he and his flight engineer took charge of the station warrant officer’s office. During a routine site inspection, he met a German prisoner of war who was making a wooden model of a Catalina aircraft for the officers’ mess. Robert asked him to make a model of his Halifax aircraft for him. The aircraft, remarkable in its detail, has been a treasured memento of his time served in the RAF. Robert McClements and his model of Halifax ZA-V · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
Robert met his future wife, Iris, on a visit to the Observer Corp HQ at York where she was a serving member. He left the RAF in 1947 having attained the rank of Temporary Warrant Officer. He and Iris settled in England where they worked with her father, in York. Latterly, he and Iris set up their own business in Wakefield selling motor vehicles.
Chris Cann
Iris McClements (nee Dobson) remembers, at the age of 11, being issued with a gas mask before the war had started. When she was about 13 years of age, her family moved to Eldwick to avoid the bombs.
She was a member of the Home Guard before joining the Women’s Junior Air Corp where she attained the rank of sergeant. She recalled wearing a grey uniform, being issued with a bucket, stirrup pump and helmet for fire watching and learning the theory of the internal combustion engine.
In 1944, she passed the entrance exam to join the Royal Observer Corps and was based in York, as a plotter. Her role was to listen to information from the spotters via headphones and place it on to the plotting table. This included the number of aircraft, direction of travel, height, and whether they were friendly or hostile. This was to give warning of enemy operations or to track operations heading to Germany. She worked eight-hour shifts which changed each week. The spotters in the outposts were also watching for aircraft that were going to crash-land, so that the crash sites could be identified. Iris visited a couple of these sites. She met her husband to be, Robert, on one of his visits to the Royal Observer Corp HQ in York.
She lived on an ex-World War One motor launch in York that the family had used for recreation. When off duty she would often travel into York to go dancing, swimming and to the cinema.
After the war she and Robert worked with her father in the motor trade. She then set up business with Robert in Wakefield.
Chris Cann
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
My name is Robert McClements. I volunteered for the Royal Air Force at nineteen. I trained and finished up at Melbourne with 10 Squadron, on Halifaxes. Two points stand out in my memory which was nothing to the do with the Germans. But one was on a turning point. I believe it were Reading, during a night raid, we had another aircraft. I’m not sure whether it was a Halifax or a Lanc swung across the top of us on a turning point. Missing the top of my turret by six inches. This was rather upsetting at the time [laughs] Needless to say we got over it. The second point was coming back from a raid, I don’t know where, we iced up. And of course that means the aircraft loses flying direction and goes straight down. Our pilot seemed to have the presence of mind to drop us through to full power and dive down rather than fall down and consequently he pulled us out of the position we were in and get straightened up and flew home. That was worst part of the trip. During the bombing runs we had a few nervous squeaks one way or another with mainly with other bombs falling down over us and searchlights. And we were trapped in searchlights on two occasions. And fortunately, fortunately we got out. The rest of the trips were reasonably easy apart from the usual ack-ack and what have you. And night fighters. Cut it there.
[recording paused]
RM: My wife keeps talking about the time I was on leave and when we got back our kite had been on a trip with some, another crew obviously and didn’t come back. Consequently we got another aircraft. But my wife seems to worry that it was our aircraft that was missing.
IM: No. You didn’t like to go to another aircraft.
RM: Well when we were flying V Victor we were flying it. That was alright. But once it went missing. What? We got another one. Another V Victor. So it made no difference.
IM: It was like having an old car.
RM: No. No. No.
IM: To keep you happy.
RM: Not when you’re flying aeroplanes in a bombing raid. They’re all made for a job. There’s no comfort. That’s it. You get what you have and you do the best with it. That’s it. Didn’t want to do that [laughs]
[recording paused]
RM: When I finished the tour which was thirty eight trips I was invited out to the Observer Corps Headquarters at York to see how they handled the aircraft. That’s where I met my wife. Consequently, I came back to York after I’d finished my tour from Ireland and went to work for her father. Go on then. I’m going to go on as long as you want me to go. I’m not going to start Paisley. I’m not going to go Paisley [laughs]
MJ: Go on.
RM: Go on. Consequently, after I’d finished flying my engineer, or our engineer and the other gunner Reg Webb were kept back at Melbourne to do all sorts of jobs. Engineer was sent to the warrant officer’s office. And I was there for a while. And consequently I was sent on a fire officer’s course and came back from that after six weeks as a fully blown fire officer. For what was left of Melbourne which was slowly being closed down now. The war had more or less finished within reason. I met my wife in York who consequently I married and helped her father to start a business in York which was mainly concerned with motorcycles. And my wife spent a bit of time running around the country on a motorbike buying and selling. And that was the finish of the air force for me and consequently the end of the war. Thank you.
On behalf of the International Bomber Command I’d like to thank Robert McClements on the 21st of September 2015 for his recording for the Bomber Command Archives. And once again I thank him with great pleasure.
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Identifier
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AMcClementsRAG150921
Title
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Interview with Robert McClements. One
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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00:05:25 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Mick Jeffery
Date
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2015-09-21
Description
An account of the resource
Robert McClements flew operations as a mid upper gunner with 10 Squadron.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
Contributor
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Julie Williams
10 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
Halifax
RAF Melbourne
-
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/350/3521/AWildR160224.2.mp3
5975d4c3de0bd63b6e78bb45cd3db876
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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Wild, Ralph
R Wild
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Ralph Wild (b. 1918, 941581 and 184464 Royal Air Force).
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-02-24
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Wild, R
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
GR: Right. This is Gary Rushbrooke, for the Bomber Command Association. I am with Flying Officer Ralph Wild on the 24th of February 2016. We’re in Sheffield but Ralph lives in Canada and we’re doing the interview in Sheffield. So. Ralph, I know we’re in Sheffield, and you’re in Canada.
RW: Yes.
GR: Was you born in Sheffield?
RW: No I was born in Rotherham. Rotherham, Yorkshire. Kimbolton, Rotherham, Yorkshire. 27th of September 1918. And, um —
GR: Just as World War One was finishing.
RW: I was actually in — I was in two World Wars. That’s right.
GR: Yeah.
RW: So I was in the First World War and the Second. Ok. Well in 1938, the present — the Prime Minister of Britain, Neville Chamberlain, went over to see Hitler and thought that he was armed to the teeth and we of course, between the wars, had been demobilising and had nothing whatsoever. Particularly fighters. And so he saw there was a real problem, so he had to correct this. Anyway he got Hitler to give him the Peace Treaty which came back waving Peace and saying, ‘Peace in my time.’ So as soon as he got back again, his aim was to buy time. He knew he couldn’t cope with Germany the way they were right then. And actually, between 1938 and 1939, they built six hundred Hurricanes and Spitfires which the Germans knew nothing about. They thought we were flying all kinds of aircraft but nothing of the air quality, what they had, 109s, you see. And that really was the difference between the Battle of Britain. Losing or winning. That’s what it amounted to. Anyway, they also realised that they had no personnel to supervise the planes and everything else like that, so he brought about Conscription. So anybody that was the age of twenty was automatically conscripted into the Army. And of course, I was one of those. So I went to Derby, I think it was.
GR: I’ll just back-track a little bit to before you was conscripted. So, born in Rotherham. Brothers? Sisters?
RW: I have, I have two sisters. I’m the youngest of three children.
GR: Right.
RW: My sister Nora was born in 1912. My second sister was born in 1915. And I was born in 1918. We’re all three years apart.
GR: Yep.
RW: So I was the baby in the family. Of those two girls. Yeah.
GR: And did you grow up in the Rotherham area?
RW: Yes, yes. I did all my education in the Rotherham area. And then I worked for the Municipality. The County Borough of Rotherham.
GR: Right.
RW: That’s where I worked when I graduated. Anyway, coming back to the thing there. So I went to see them in the army and I said I wanted to join the air force. You could volunteer for the air force and the navy but you weren’t conscripted.
GR: That’s right, yeah.
RW: So. The army didn’t get deferred. So they said, [unclear], nothing to do with us [unclear]. So they deferred me, so I wasn’t called up until later. All my friends that I’d gone to school with had all gone in the army, you see. So I was the only one that went in the air force. But it was a really good thing because I went in, but of course, going in at that level, I could only go, I was only going in for six months you see. And so you couldn’t obviously go for air crew or what-have-you. It was impossible. So I go before the Attestation Officer and he says, ‘What do you know about the barometer?’ I say, ‘You want the Kew or the Fortin type?’ He looks at me and he says, ‘You mean there’s two, son?’ [laughs] This was an officer. I says, ‘Yes.’ He says, ‘Knowledge like that, you’re an instrument repairer.’ So he asked me one question in the air force and I became an instrument repairer. So I became an instrument repairer. So they immediately transferred me and I went to Cranwell. I learnt to become and instrument repairer at Cranwell. So that’s how the whole thing started. Aye, when War started on September the 3rd, I immediately volunteered for air crew. But they wouldn’t accept me for air crew because I was fully-trained ground crew. And ground crew were scarce as hen’s teeth and they said they couldn’t sacrifice me from ground crew. So they said, ‘You stay on as ground crew but we’ll put your name down for air crew and when the situation improves, you’ll get transferred to air crew. Three and a half years later, my air crew posting came through.
GR: Right, we’ll talk about that later. So, yeah. So September the 3rd 1939.
RW: Yeah. So then I was then really transferred. So I was then, on graduation, they sent me up to Church Fenton and I was — They formed 249. Well actually I was sent to 242 Squadron which was a Canadian Squadron as a matter of fact. Which Bader got eventually. But when I got there, they were already — Churchill had agreed with France, that it he would supply so many fighter squadrons to go France to help the French because the French had nothing at all, you see. This is against the RAF personnel, they didn’t want — because they were short of aircraft anyway. And they were going to give these aircraft away, which we lost too many really. Anyway this was what transpired. Now they had the Bristol bomb bay sitting on the airfield when I got there. And they said, ‘Oh. You’re going to go over to France.’ So I had to go straight away to the medical officer to get my ‘flu shots because it’s always, ‘He’s service.’ So I went and got my ‘flu shot. When I came back again, the planes were taking off so I got left behind. So there was me sitting there with 242 Squadron, you see. Nothing to do. So anyway, three days later, 249 Squadron was being formed at Church Fenton. So they dumped me from 242, and made me 249, so I became one of the three instrument repairers at 294 Squadron.
GR: At the foundation of the squadron.
RW: Foundation of the squadron. And when we got there, they had Fairey Battles, Miles Masters, Miles Magisters, Boulton Paul Defiants, Lysanders. It had everything but — they had no fighters. Well, they had Fairey Battles which was absolutely terrible. Oh, well, we had a Blenheim. They had a Blenheim. That’s we had on the squadron. [laughs] And eventually they got rid of all this junk and they sent a full squadron of fighters came in there. So we did all our preparation training there and when we’d finished our training at Church Fenton, they moved us to Leconfield and we all [unclear] from Leconfield. Patrol up and down the North Sea protecting the shipping. The Germans were bombing the shipping, you see, in the North Sea so we had to protect them [unclear] there. And then when we went — Moved from there to Boscombe Down in Wiltshire because we had now to protect Southampton. Southampton was getting more attacks than what the other was. So we defended that. On our squadron was Flight Lieutenant Nicholson, you’ve probably heard of him.
GR: He was to win the V.C. Yeah.
RW: The first fighter V.C. of the war. Anyway, he was on the squadron there and Middle Wallop was the other station. Just the two stations were protecting Southampton. Well after — Do you want to know anything about Nicholson at all?
GR: You carry on.
RW: Ok. Anyway, one of these sorties, Flight Lieutenant Nicholson, he was in charge of ‘B’ Flight and he went up and he was attacked by a German fighter and he was shot at and his plane caught fire. And he stayed with the plane as long as he possibly could and he actually got burnt. Anyway he baled out of the aircraft and when he came down, the Home Guard, as you probably know, was being formed at that time there and they were very trigger-happy and they thought it was a German coming down then so they shot at him. [laughs] And they shot him in the foot. So this caused a bit of an embarrassment, you see. So all in all, it transpired that he got the V.C. Now whether there’s any connection, it’s hard to say. But you’ve got the first fighter V.C. Anyway.
GR: He was one of the pilots that you looked after.
RW: That’s right.
GR: As an instrument —
RW: I was on ‘B’ Flight so he was on my squadron. So, same as Neil.
GR: Tom Neil.
RW: Tom Neil. He was on — I was on his squadron too. I flew his plane. I looked after all these planes that they flew. All these things, yeah. Anyway. As we go to that then, the — I think it was 77 Squadron. Now it was 75 Squadron or 77 Squadron. We were at North Weald. And they got completely decimated and they were down to five pilots and about seven or eight aircraft. That’s all they had left. So they thought it was impossible to regenerate them there, so they kicked them out of there and sent them to Boscombe Down. And we were sent in from Boscombe Down to North Weald then for the [unclear] war. We served in the Battle of Britain in their place the whole time. And I stayed there —
GR: So you was at North Weald during the majority of the Battle of Britain.
RW: Yeah.
GR: Was — Well, I know North Weald was bombed. Was you ever under fire by the Germans?
RW: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We, we — In fact they dropped, they dropped a land mine and it landed right in the middle of the airfield there and it didn’t go off, so we were all evacuated, sort of thing, ‘till they actually finally got the bomb disposal squad to come over and get rid of it. But, oh yeah, we were bombed. But we weren’t at the station. North Weald was the permanent station but we were sent across the aerodrome to dispersal. It was a mile across, for the field. Right beside the Epping Forest. And we were stationed the whole time in Bell tents. There was about eight or ten men to a Bell tent. Right through the, right through the Battle of Britain. I never heard any —
GR: It was a warm summer, so — [laughs]
RW: A warm summer as luck would have it. But oh, it was pretty hazardous. Anyway we survived that and it was, it was pretty treacherous because the, you know, sleeping in a Bell tent when you had to sleep with your feet to the pole and all we had was a gas mask for pillows. They gave us a tin helmets to put on our head so whenever there was a raid, [laughs] all we did was just put our tin hats over our head and hope for the best, ‘cause you had a canvas cover to protect you, you see. And actually, right alongside there, was these shelters for the aircraft. You know, they had these booths, like and then inside there was actually places like air raid shelters. That’s what it amounts to. But coming out of the station there, Beamish — Beamish. He was in charge of this, this wing commander and he said it was unhealthy, or the medical officer said, unhealthy to go into these things they had, so we were forbidden to go in these things so we had to stay in our Bell tents the whole time we were there. The glorious thing about this was that we had to — The Hurricane didn’t get recognition, of course as you know, in relation to the Spitfire. Just like the Halifax never got recognition in relation to the Lancaster. But the thing is that, in my opinion, the Hurricane out-did the Spitfire in the sense it could turn inside but it was the maintenance was the big thing. Like if our aircraft got shot up at all, well it came down and had holes in it like that, but all the riggers would do, they’d go up to there and they put a thing there, put a plastic — then put a canvas patch over it.
GR: Patch over it.
RW: Put the thing there, and all. It set and they could fly again. Now a Sptifire, if it had anything like that, it had holes in it but it had to be riveted. They had to make a patch.
GR: Panel.
RW: Then rivet this thing on there. So we could actually, we had timed it, we could actually, our planes would come down again, we could refuel them, re-arm them and everything like that and within about an hour and fifteen minutes, we could go up again. Spitfire couldn’t come close. Couldn’t come close. So we really were far more efficient in that sense, than they were. And I say, particularly like, a perfect example is the oxygen. The oxygen bottle in the Hurricane, there was a small panel on the side there, and you just took the, undid four screws like this, took the thing out and the other thing, you had to unscrew the thing, took the oxygen bottle out, threw it onto the ground, got all the new bottles, put it in there, thread there, and they went on, you see, we had twelve aircraft to do you see, when they came down. [laughs]
GR: Yeah. [laughs]
RW: It was just like ants. You see. A mass of bodies there, following the planes, you know. As soon as they came in, you followed them. A fellow chased up into the cockpit and so we did our bit like this. We changed all these bottles. But the amazing part about it was, that if you were in that time, if we lost probably one or two aircraft that day, that same evening, they telephoned to the Hawker factory and say we wanted two more aircraft and the ladies would fly from Hawker Hurricane, these planes, and they flew them straight to our airfield and they were followed by like a Blenheim or something or other, an officer or something, to pick them up and take them back again.
GR: ATA ferry pilots, wasn’t it.
RW: And it was our job then. We had to have that plane ready for 9.00 a.m. the next morning. And of course it had been come from the factory to us and was not airworthy by RAF standards so we had to go in every one of those aircraft and go through it and make sure it, everything worked. And if it needed adjustments, we’d work until it got too dark, then we’d go to bed and about 4.00 or 5.00 o’clock in the morning, we’d get up again. Run out to the aircraft.
GR: And get going.
RW: We had to do it by 9.00 o’clock. It was laid down. 9.00 o’clock, that plane had to fly.
GR: Yeah.
RW: And we did it. Every plane flew off on time. It was marvellous the system they worked out, how these ladies could fly these planes and they were picked up and taken away.
GR: Excellent.
RW: We never lost out at all from the whole thing. And,er —
GR: So you survived the Battle of Britain.
RW: Yep. Survived the Battle of Britain.
GR: And then how did your RAF career progress from there?
RW: Yeah, well. That’s right. Well of course, when it came to, I guess the end of October, the beginning of November, things tapered off and there wasn’t much, you know, compared to what we’d had, servicing the aircraft right through the Battle of Britain. So I volunteered for Overseas Service and I got posted to Crete and so I went home on Embarkation Leave for khaki, pith helmet and full khaki outfits like this. And I went out to the west coast there and I got into this camp and they caught me in the wrong camp. It was like, three — One, Two and Three Camps, like that, and they put me in Three Camp. So when I went into Three Camp, I went out on parade for three days and they never called my name. So after the third day, I thought, ‘There’s something screwy here.’ See. So I went over to the flight sergeant and I said, ‘How come you don’t call my name?’ He said, ‘Who the hell are you?’ He says, ‘You’re on a charge.’ I says, ‘What for?’ He says, ‘You don’t have your white flash on your helmet.’ I said, ‘I don’t have a white flash.’ He said, ‘Aren’t you here as a trainee?’ I says, ‘No.’ I says, ‘I’m ground crew.’ He says, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ So I should have been in Two Camp instead of Three Camp. So they posted me to Two Camp and I go before the officer. It had been, well for three days, you see. So he takes off his hat and he scratches his head, he says, ‘There’s something wrong here, somewhere. The kid’s been in camp for three days. How could he be able —‘ Well. He says, ‘My system’s — Well, the next boat that’s on it, you’re on it.’ And it came to Canada. [laughs] So that’s how I got to Canada. Instead of going to Crete. So. And the thing was that, the glorious thing was that when you got to — and the sent us up to [unclear] and they took us over on tenders, from the ship, ‘cause the ships were out on the estuary, of course.
GR: Yeah, yeah.
RW: So they had to take us all on one of these tenders, so we went over to — I was finally — we were passed to a French luxury liner. Just been converted. It was being made into a troop ship at that stage in the game, it had just been taken over, so it had swimming pools and everything. It was just exactly the same as it was in peace time. So we travelled First Class coming back over then. Anyway, on board ship with us was about a hundred or so navy men. We couldn’t figure out what this was. Anyway when we got there, they said, ‘All RAF persons go to the starboard side of the ship.’ So we go to the starboard side of the ship. They say, ‘Take off your khaki and put on your blues.‘ We couldn’t figure out what this was, you see. And it turned out, what transpired, so we learned, that the spies were watching the harbour and they saw all these khaki going on board the thing there, so they thought, they guessed, they’re going to go down through Gibraltar. And they were going to warn the submarines, you see, about it. This was what we all figured out. So anyway, we couldn’t figure out what the navy were doing, anyway. But also alongside of us was the ‘Cape Town Castle’. Another ship and it turned out that this was taking back London children from London to Canada. Evacuated them to Canada. This was what it turned out to be. Well anyway, we started out and we get south of Ireland, going like this. We ran into a huge storm. And I mean a storm. You know, the ‘Cape Town Castle’ were completely disappearing in a hole. Masts and everything, just completely disappeared. And then when it came up over the top there, we were going down. The screws would come out of the water like this and as it went in again, the whole ship would shudder when it cleared the thing, and we’d do like the same. It was way past — French luxury liner was doing exactly the same. We came up there and our screws came out of the water and got on the top. The whole ship would shake when the screws bit the water again, like. It was quite an experience. Anyway, we gets three and a half days later, we came back to White Cliffs, you see. We thought they’d brought us back to Dover and it turned out, is what you see ahead of you is Canada. So we arrive in Halifax harbour and four abrest, as far as the eye could see, was World War One American destroyers. Four form of destroyers. And Churchill had just bought this Land Lease business.
GR: Yeah, Land Lease. Yep.
RW: And they bought these things because the Battle of the Atlantic was in full force at that time and in consequence of that, they had to have protection. And so we didn’t have enough ships. We were losing ships faster that what they were making them, you se. So he got all these ships here and this is what these navy men were. Now they were secret dogs [?] in the French luxury liner coming over and [unclear] they had to take these things back and they were, left the — So anyway, we thought, ‘Oh well, now, we’re going to go down.’ Because we didn’t know where to camp there. We were just the next ship. You know. We’re going to it. We thought, ‘Now we’re going to dump them off and we were going to go down, down to Gibraltar.’ Next thing you know, they tell us to go ashore. We go ashore and they put us into, in ‘Canadian National’. Of course the ‘Canadian Pacific’ was passengers and the ‘Canadian National’ was frigate. So they didn’t have many passenger trains. Anyway, we were in this stinking passenger train. They put us in this train. And they locked us in the train. Locked us in the train. They were afraid we might escape, you see. [laughs] So locked us right in the train. So anyway, we get as far as Truro, Nova Scotia, and they allowed us to wind the windows down and the people fed apples to us up there and said, ‘You’re going to go west.’ You see. So we [laughs], we went on this thing there sort of thing. So we get to Montreal, and we get to Montreal. We’re allowed to, because they’d just ordered carriages. No sleeping accommodation. It’s sleeping — for feeding they used to come down this centre of the thing there with vats and you’d have knife, fork and spoon on your plate on your lap, you see. And they slap potatoes on, whereas like this you see, you’d eat on your lap like this. Pretty frugal, I tell you. Anyway, we get to Montreal and they were afraid we might escape so they had military police, arm to arm all along the platform there, ‘cause we were allowed to come out and stretch our legs, you see, because, you know, you’d just sit in the seat.
GR: Yeah, yeah.
RW: All of the time. All of the time. And so, so then we get back on the train again and they said, ‘You’re going to go west.’ Next thing, we come to Winnipeg. When we get to Winnipeg, there’s no military police, no [unclear]. They had Number 2 Air Command Band playing for us on the platform there. Playing, giving us a welcome, you see. Again they said, ‘You’re going to go west.’ So we immediately thought we were going to out to Vancouver then go down through the Panama Canal and go through into Gib that way, you see. It turned out nothing of the kind. So two and half hours later, the train comes to a jolting halt and we look out of the window there, because this is December the 4th 1940 and snow, snow as far as, I say, way in the distance leads to a grain elevator, you see. It turned out to be Carberry. And that’s the station. Of course Greyhound Pacific was a passenger station but the Canadian National wasn’t a station at all. So it was just a little tiny hut which said Carberry on it at the side there. But no station. Nothing. So we had landed there and so we had to, we were disembarked from there, so we had to jump down. There was no platform. We had to jump down with kit bags. Right down, you know, three or four feet. You know, down to the ground. Well it was — They’d dumped all these kit bags. And they were supposed to have transportation to take us to the camp, you see.
GR: The camp, yeah.
RW: But, well, we started to march and we had to boot kit bags up and kit bags down all the way through for about half a mile, I guess. Then finally the trucks arrived and they took all our kit bags. But then we still had to march two miles, and this is December the 4th and December the 4th in Canada is not exactly summer weather. So we had little, you know, wedge hats and ordinary greatcoats and everyone marched to this camp. When we get to this camp there, that was a revelation. We were the first RAF to come to Canada, on December 4th, and we were started in the [unclear], we were the first. The Commonwealth Air Training Plan was being started. So Carberry where we were, was, they had the runways in, they had no hangars but they had the facilities. They had the hospital and the accommodation, that sort of thing, all fixed, and they were gradually building it all up there. And we were being brought over, as ships permitted, you see, to bring six, until we were fully made up and continued to make up the Commonwealth Air Training Plan, in being — So, I say, well anyway, we walked into these huts, and I'd been living in Bell tents for months and they had hardwood floors, they had twenty-two beds. Twin stacking beds. And they had heaters on each end of the thing there, and they were looked after by civilians. Looked after the heating system for the thing there. And of course we’d had no heat at all in there. So. Then you went between, like each type of building and the connecting thing there was ablutions. They had hot and cold running water, baths, showers. Oh, after being — because when I’d been at, in a tent there, when I’d been, as an instrument repairer, you were in three’s, you see, so you had A Flight, B Flight and Maintenance. But on Fighter Command, you never needed Maintenance because the ships never, the planes never were full long enough to go into Maintenance. So the Maintenance man was a spare part. So what we did on the squadron was — I was on B Flight. There was A Flight, B Flight, Maintenance. So the Maintenance man was the spare man and his job was to look after the oxygen. That’s how we worked it, so I say, when a plane came in, you dumped the oxygen bottle, threw it on the ground, you collect all these things there and every morning, every morning at the base, and they’d send a truck over and you’d dump all these empty bottles onto the truck there. And the Maintenance man, the man who was Maintenance that day, he went back to the camp and refuelled all these oxygen bottles. And that third day was the saviour of my life because I’d be able to get washed. Because we had no facilities out there. There’s no hot and cold running water. They used to bring hot water over to us and I say, we had outside biffies and oh. We were really frugal there, I’ll tell you. But every third day I could wash my undies.
GR: And what-have-you.
RW: It was really — You couldn’t wait for the third day. It was — You lived —
GR: So it’s winter in Canada but it’s luxury.
RW: So anyway, when I got to, I say, there. So we lived in this Canadian quarters and we had nothing to do between the whole of December. Nothing to do. ‘Cause, you know, we were not that —
GR: No aircraft, no nothing.
RW: And they started bringing aircraft over. They started bringing Ansons over, like the fuselage separate from the wings and we were supposed to assemble these things there and in the time, in the three months, I think, we made five aircraft. So. You need — How many aircraft do you need? Since I was Flying Training School. So the thing didn’t work at all so they realised it wasn’t going to work because they were sinking so many ships, you see, that they weren’t coming and when they came to us, we had to take an airspeed off and an airspeed indicator from this thing, put it in this plane and — Substituting all round, it just didn’t work. So then the government decided that was for the [unclear]. So they arranged with the American government to get Harvards. And of course America was not at war of course until ‘41, so they were neutral. So they couldn’t give them. They couldn’t supply these to us, so what they did, they flew the planes to the border and left them there. And then they pushed them over the border and we took these planes and flew them to Calgary. That’s how we got the planes. [laughs] So it was fine. And another FTS became the first station there to turn out pilots.
GR: And you was there as instrument fitter, maintenance.
RW: I was instrument repairer.
GR: Ground crew.
RW: I was always senior, you see, because I was, everybody else, I was an LAC. And I came out as an LAC. All these other kids were AC2s. They’d all come in. So of course I was automatically promoted to Corporal. In the meantime, in Britain, they had instrument repairer 1s and instrument repairers 2s. Like when I’d taken the course, it was, that was the only course there was. But then of course as things developed, they started to get all these other things like, they had George, you know, the automatic pilot and things like that which I hadn’t been taught on because it wasn’t part of the set-up at that stage. And so they had to have another course now, because of radar coming into being. So these other people went back on to become instrument repairer 1s. But I was never anything but an instrument repairer 2, so I couldn’t train in Canada as there was no facilities there, so I had to go back again, which I didn’t want to do anyway, or out to [unclear] so they ordered my, they made me an acting corporal. They couldn’t make me a full corporal because this had to be — I had to be a 1, an instrument repairer 1 to get a full corporal. So I went for three and a half years, I was an acting corporal, never got higher, I couldn’t get promotion. But anyway, that’s the way it was. But anyway, it was — The Canadian people were simply marvellous to us. And when it came to Christmas time, I don’t know whether you know this, it’s the custom in the Royal Air Force that all RAF personnel get a week off for Christmas and all the Scots people get a week off for New Year. That’s the custom in the Air Force. So anyway, the Commanding Officer got us all together and said, ‘There’s nothing doing for Christmas, so if anybody wants to go down to Winnipeg.’ So they laid on a military plane. It came from way in the west, picked up all the people and it brought them into Winnipeg there. And when you got to Winnipeg, just before Christmas, they had all this, Women’s Auxiliary in Winnipeg. All lined up on the platform with their husbands and what-not, like that, and you were instructed to give your name and the town you came from. So I was Ralph Wild from Rotherham, Yorkshire, you see. And so I was never claimed. There was about a hundred and some people there picked up and finally a man came up to me and he said, ‘Where are you from?’ And I said, ‘I’m from Rotherham.’ He says, ‘Oh.’ He says, ‘Well I’m from Leicester.’ He says, ‘I was born in Leicester.’ He says, ‘But I’ve already got a Leicester boy but I’ve got a large house.’ He says, ‘And I’ve got two daughters there.’ He says, ‘Do you want to come and stay with me?’ He says, ‘There’s accommodation for you.’ So I said, ‘Fine.’ So I went to stay with them for a week. And I had a ball because they took me to hockey games, they took me to — Oh I had a real, I tell you, for real. They really looked after us. So I get back to camp again one week later, commanding officer gets us together, ‘There’s no change in the arrangements, nothing developing. If anybody’s got any money left and want to go down for another week, you can do.’ You see. So I thought, ‘This is a wonderful idea.’ So I go back, ‘cause I hadn’t spent a penny, on the thing there. And Mrs Hancox, the lady, she says, ‘Anytime you’re in Winnipeg,’ she says, ‘this is your second home.’ And I thought, ‘That’s wonderful,’ you see.
GR: That’ll do me.
RW: So I come back down again and as I get on the platform, I think, ‘I can’t go back to her and say I’m here again,’ you know, ‘for another week.’ So I thought, ‘I’ll go through the assembly line.’ So I went through the assembly line. I was allocated to a man from Liverpool. Mr Ormiston [?], and they were an older couple, so I had a quiet New Year, but it was nothing compared, thing, anyway half way through the week, I’m in Heaton [?] store in Winnipeg and who shall I run into but Mrs Hancox. She said, ‘What are you doing here?’ I said, ‘I’m down for another week.’ She said, ‘Oh terrific.’ She says, ‘I’ve just a bit more shopping and you can come home.’ I said, ‘No, I can’t do that.’ She says, ‘Why not?’ I says, ‘I’m already assigned somebody else.’ ‘Oh.’ She says, ‘I told you could come to me.’ I says, ‘I can’t look the gift horse in the mouth and come two weeks, you know.’ She says, ‘That’s my decision, not yours.’ she says. And it turned out she was very upset. She thought I was looking for something better.
GR: Oh dear.
RW: It hit her straight away I was looking for something else, you know. And it did — it took me three months to convince her that it wasn’t that at all. So then I used to go to her, oh she was marvellous. I say it was a second home to you and I was there for all this length of time and it went on from there. So I think it was [unclear] from one to another. So I had a ball. I say, of course, I met my wife, of course, in 1940, ’41 I guess, I met my wife.
GR: Was she one of the daughters?
RW: One — er — [laughs] No, no.
GR: Oh right.
RW: Oh no. No. There’s a long story there.
GR: So you were actually based in Canada for three years.
RW: Three years.
GR: On instrument fitting, maintenance, yeah, yeah.
RW: I was always a corporal the whole time I was there. So anyway the thing was that we used to go down, every second weekend we were allowed to go down into, anywhere you wanted. Most people went to Brandon or they went to Winnipeg monthly and yes, I had a weekend to stay with these different people, you see, like that. So one of these weekends, it’s one of the fellas that was running the week, he went down and he got allocated, you know, then you went — Stood on the platform, and he got picked up by these people. Every Friday afternoon, there were people, they were waiting, they knew we were coming in you see. And he got picked up by, it turns out that my wife’s family, the Eastons, and they took him and he we was a wine, women and song, you know, you name it, he did it. He could drink and he did it. You name it. And of course my wife’s family were quite staid people, they were quite religious people and no drink at all and blah, blah, blah, so this wasn’t his kettle of fish really, you know. Anyway they took him up to Gull Lake. They had a cottage at Gull Lake you see. So they took him. This was the summer time. So they took him up to Gull Lake and he had this nice [unclear] you see, so when he came back again, he said, ‘Wow.’ He said, ‘I’ve got the perfect place for you,’ he says. ‘Next weekend,’ he says, ‘you go down with them.’ So the next forty-eight, I went down with him. They took me to the Easton’s place, you see. When I went in there and my wife, it turns out, she was a registered nurse and she had certain weekends off as happens, you know, and this one weekend, she had this weekend off. Anyway, sat around the dining room table and I looked across at her, I don’t know what it was, the bell rang and I took one look at her, that was it. I never looked at another girl. It’s the funniest thing I — I can’t explain it, but it was there. It was just something hit. So we got on like a house on — so eventually we got, I was engaged to her and we got married in, June 12th 1943. And so we went on our honeymoon to Niagara Falls and [coughs] and when we came back again, August the 4th, on August the 1st, my aircrew posting came through in 1943, my aircrew posting came through.
GR: So you’ve waited nearly four years, you’ve got married.
RW: Got married.
GR: And then you’re aircrew.
RW: So I then I got sent to Regina there and I became a navigator. And I was, because of my age of course, I’m an old man. Everybody else is eighteen, nineteen, twenty. And of course I’m, by this time I’m an old man.
GR: So your aircrew training took part in Canada.
RW: Yeah. The whole thing.
RW: Yeah, I went through the course, because of my knowledge, of you know, I was experienced before, the experience that I had, obviously, I came out top of the lot. So then I got my commission. So I was posted then back on Bomber Command, and, so that was a bit of a problem, anyway, so, and they sent me back on Bomber Command and they sent me up to Lossiemouth.
GR: So when did you leave Canada? When did you actually leave Canada to come back across the Atlantic?
RW: Well I got, that was in —
GR: Roughly.
RW: In March
GR: ’44.
RW: In March of ’44. March of ’44 ‘cause I got married in ’43 and yes, March of ’44, I graduated as a flying officer. I was top of the class. And so I got preference treatment and I got sent to Lossiemouth.
GR: Was your new wife left back in Canada?
RW: At that stage, yes.
GR: Right, I’ll —
RW: She was a — There’s a story behind that too.
GR: So you end up in Lossie, you’ve arrived in Lossiemouth.
RW: So I arrived in Lossiemouth, yeah. She was back in Canada. And she was pregnant by this time, but anyway I get up to Lossiemouth there and fate, most of my life, fate played a hand. I don’t know what it was. It was there. But I was allocated to these officers’ quarters and on the bed on my left was a flight lieutenant and he was a pilot and obviously quite experienced, you see, and I was navigator here in the second bed and a man on my right was Bert Jenkins and he was a bomb aimer. He was a flying officer too. And he had trained in South Africa. I had trained in Canada. And the pilot had trained in United States. And he went over, trained as a pilot, and he graduated top of his class so they kept him back instructing for two and half years in America, so he came back as a qualified pilot. In fact he became a squadron leader. He took over my squadron. Ted’s squadron. He took over Ted’s squadron. Anyway. So there we were, three men, all — I was twenty-six, Bert was twenty-seven and he was twenty-five. Three men. Everybody else was eighteen, nineteen or twenty. Except us. So we were old men. Old as the whole crew. So anyway, we get together and compare notes and Les [unclear] my pilot, he turned round to me, he said — Well what they used to do is they used to form up crews and they’d actually all assemble in the hangar and get, fraternise around in the hangar there and usually the pilot would select a navigator , the navigator then selected a bomb aimer and he selected a wireless — and they go down the line like that. And you make up your crew. And that was one of the glorious things about the Royal Air Force. Smartest thing they ever did. They could have said, ‘Joe [unclear] pilot, Sam Small navigator, Willie White, thing.’
GR: Yeah.
RW: Here’s your crew. Go to it. And when they get on to the squadron there, the pilot, the navigator, will say, ‘How the hell could they give me such a do-do pilot? There’s no way I’m going to survive thirty raids and they resent the Air Force for putting him with this fella. So the [unclear] Pontius Pilot. They washed their hands. They said, ‘You make up your own crew.’ That’s also — Anyway, I never did go in the hangar. I never got in a single hangar. Les next to me here, he turned and says, ‘Are you crewed up yet?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Would you like to be my navigator?’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t mind.’ How can I get it wrong and fly — I said, ‘Fine.’ He says, ‘Well let’s, let’s compare notes.’ He says, ‘Let’s go down onto the beach at Lossiemouth, there, and we’ll see what —‘ So we — He was Wesleyan, I was Congregational. He was almost identical education to myself and he had been in America and I said that I’d been in Canada and everything we talked about it, it seemed to jive. And we really hit it off, so anyway, we got back again, he shook my hand and he says, ‘Ok. That’ll be fine.’ Now it turned out he made up his crew, being a flight lieutenant he was able to go to HQ and get access to all the records of everybody and he went down to the records [laughs] and picks. He never would admit it. But he picked his crew. So he had an ace crew, believe you me. So anyway. When we — We did the exercises there and the final exercise was a five-hour cross-country trip from Lossiemouth and I went from Lossiemouth to Ballymena in Ireland, down to St Ives in Cornwall, over to [unclear] on the east coast, over to Liverpool and Liverpool back to Lossie. And we took off, went through the clouds, get above the clouds like this, and for the first time in his life, Les never saw the ground for five hours. We were at ten-tenths cloud over Britain. He never — So the first time in his life he’s completely at my mercy, you see, as I told him. We got on fine, but I mean, I guess he was, being senior, he knew what was what, so he — Anything, he could pretty well size up where he was. He used to know where he was. But not when you’re above the top. Anyway when we were coming from Liverpool, back to Lossie, he says, ’Pilot to navigator,’ and I says, ‘Navigator to pilot’ he says, ‘Would you mind giving me a course out to sea.’ He said, ‘I’d like to come in, it’s quieter coming in from the sea,’ he says, ‘to Lossiemouth.’ And I thought, ‘What’s he talking about?’ And it suddenly hit me. Between Liverpool and Lossiemouth is the Highlands of Scotland. And we’re letting down, you see, we’re coming down from — Oh Les. Smart cookie. He didn’t want — he didn’t know about my navigation. [laughs] So I took him fifty miles out in the North Sea, turned him round. We came down through the clouds and came down. I went right over the watch tower. Just like that. We taxied to dispersal, he gets out, shuts engines down, [unclear] navigation again. We began a wonderful, wonderful relationship. We had absolutely — Perfectly. He was the only man I ever knew that when we went on a bombing raid, he always requested from me, which I gave him, a miniature copy of the whole thing. He used to have a board strapped to his knee that was the whole route. So when I, ‘cause as navigators, when we went on a raid, we had to go into the navigation room an hour before everybody else. They’d say, ‘Briefing time, 3 o’clock.’ Or something like that. We’d have to go in at 2 o’clock. And we’d get the whole low-down. Where we went. What was everything. The whole shebang. So we had to plot it out on the charts, for the night plan. I made a chart for him. And that, the whole thing. Where we were going, obviously. So when I used to tell him and say, ‘You’re next course will be one, two, five compass.’ You see. And he’d repeat, ‘One two five compass.’ ‘And that’ll be in two minutes.’ You see. And then two minutes later I’d say, ‘Turn now.’ And he’d turn and he’d do it, you know. Right on time. He’d say, ‘On course.’ And I kept checking. Oh, he was quite a pilot. So I say, we hit it off just simply marvellously.
GR: So obviously you’re at Lossiemouth and you don’t yet know which squadron you’re going to.
RW: No. That’s right. When you graduate from this five-hour cross-country tour, they allocate by two things. They allocate you to a place as a crew and how you operate as an individual in your own line. I guess we all passed, flying colours. So that’s how I got to 10 Squadron. It’s a VIP squadron, you see. Allocated to 10 Squadron, so we were a select crew.
GR: Right.
RW: So when we got to 10 Squadron, they told us straightaway, ‘This is shiny ten. You are on shiny ten now. We have a reputation. And you’re not going to spoil that reputation. If you don’t meet our standards, off the —’ And that’s true. They kicked them off the squadron. Wouldn’t have you. You had to — Ooph. You had to be top.
GR: Yeah.
RW: And you did it. It was your job, you had to do it.
GR: You did it. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about the first, the first raid. The first operation you went on.
RW: Well that — The thing is, they teach you so many things, but there’s so many things they can’t teach you. And it’s all a matter of, in other words, who is the most important man in the aircraft? Have you ever figured that out? There’s seven men in the aircraft. There’s a pilot, navigator, wireless operator, flight engineer.
GR: Bomb aimer. And two air gunners.
RW: And your two gunners. Yes, I’ve often been asked, ‘Who is the most important man.’ Have you ever figured out who is the most important man in the aircraft?
GR: It’d be a cross between the pilot and the navigator ‘cause without the pilot, you can’t fly the plane and if you get lost, you need the navigator.
RW: You’re right. But the answer is everybody.
GR: Yeah.
RW: If that tail gunner doesn’t shoot down that fighter, I can be the most marvellous navigator in the world, it’s not going to be a tinker’s damn. I’m gone. So I depend on him. He depends on me. Everybody depends on everybody else. And you make sure. My pilot did. You make sure you does your job.
GR: Yeah.
RW: And that’s the secret of senior crews as far as I’m concerned. You knew your job, you had to be up with it, like in other words —
GR: And you all trusted each other.
RW: Well, like Les and I. If we were going to go to, say go to Dusseldorf, well we’d automatically get books out. We’d go to the library for books about Dusseldorf and about it, you know. And also study the area around there, so if ever we got shot down, we wouldn’t be, it’s, ‘What the hell do we do now?’ You’d have to know where the railways are, you know, and this sort of thing like that, so we did this. Nobody said you had to. But there again, it’s the extra things you did, for your own good. A lot of the fellas, ‘Nah.’ Same as the ditching. We had the ditching. We used to go to Bridlington harbour for ditching. Well when you went to Bridlington harbour for ditching, you had to do it. They used to time you, you see. You had — The aircraft only stays afloat for so long. It goes down. So everybody has their assignment. Like as a pilot, he had bring it in but then the navigator, I had to take a fix that, where we were and I had to get the walkie-talkie [unclear] we got out into the dingy. You know. The bomb aimer — We all had our jobs. And the wireless operator used to press the key, thing there, and that was the reconnaissance thing there, so they’d got to pick up that key, you see. They had to pick up the sound. The key and the whole Monty on that base. All these things and he had so many seconds to do this. And we did, I think six or eight times we went to Bridlington harbour. We had to do one. The requirement was one but he took, he stood there, ‘Not good enough, let’s do it again.’ [laughs] But we did, but we did. But I mean it’s life and death. And he realised, you know, you only get one shot at this thing, you’ve got to do it right. And so, he brought along a lot of those fliers what to do. He was a wonderful pilot really. Really something. So. So on the first raid, he also laid down the law that nobody mentioned anything about anything but the operation of the aircraft.
GR: Yeah.
RW: Period. You never say, just, always, pilots and navigator, navigator, pilot, blah blah. All business, business. As a matter of fact, after a few raids I was called in by the navigation officer, he says, ‘Would you like to fly as second navigator on this thing. This fella’s got a good record but he’s lousy on his trip. There’s something wrong. Could you try that?’ I said, ‘Ok.’ So I went to second navigator with this man. And he was a flying officer too. And we get in the plane there and they’d been flying for a short time there then the bomb aimer chips up there, ‘I was in the [unclear] there last night there. I went to so and so. Oh, I had a piece of tail.’ And so on. He was yapping away like this you see. And they were talking like this all the time.
GR: Just idle chatter.
RW: Yeah. So I stood this for about half an hour and I was getting worried. So I thought this is not right. So I finally said, ‘This is the second navigator speaking.’ I says, ‘I’ve been on so many raids,’ I says, ‘This is the first raid I’ve ever been on when I’m scared stiff for my life that I will get it.’ I says, ‘Unless we can have better co-operation on this plane — Nobody says anything about anything, only the operation of this plane. Unless it relates to the operation of this plane, I want no other idle conversation whatsoever. And I want every one of you to automatically tell me you understand that.’ And I went round through all seven men. Including the pilot. And there wasn’t another peep out of anything. So when we, we went on the raid. Came back again. So when later, I went before the navigation officer, he says, ‘What do you think?’ I just told him what I thought. And he went and looked at the charts and he says, ‘My God, look at this. Wow.’ And you could see that that first thing, he was — ‘Cause he couldn’t help it. He’s trying to concentrate but he can’t help but listen to this stuff. And it turns you off. You’ve got to concentrate on what you’re doing. And from the moment I laid down the law and I flew according to my instructions, he was fine. I saved that kid’s life.
GR: Did that crew make it, do you know?
RW: I never knew.
GR: You never knew, but that —
RW: ‘Cause when I came back again, he turned round to the boy and says, ‘Would you like to change your crew?’ He says, ‘I wouldn’t mind, Sir.’ They took him off. So it just shows you. That’s right. I saved that kid’s life, I’m sure I did. And that’s the way it was. Anyway. Raids, oh, all different kinds of raids. But it was a matter of, again, Les tutored us. The air force had spent thousands and thousands of dollars training you. You had to give back. They didn’t want to waste that money. So you had to give them their money’s worth. So I say, you make sure, if you’re going to do it at all, you must do it well. So nobody did anything but their best. Although we did [unclear]. We just did it.
GR: You survived.
RW: That’s right. Yes, I know. It was probably partly due to that, that this happened because other things — We went on one raid there, they put on the raid three times. They put the raid on and then because the weather was acting up there, they cancelled it. So of course, you know, the tensions had existed, things like that so the bar is always opened afterwards, you know. It’s not going to fly. And they turned round again and they put it on again. So these fellas had been drinking at the bar a bit and of course my crew incidentally, five out of the seven men never drank. And only two men smoked. Can you imagine? One crew. That was just that way. Like, Bert used to smoke. Les and I didn’t of course. So of course there was this rationing, of course. We used to get the coupon once a month so I get a rationing for smoking and a rationing for cigarettes, for chocolate. So Les would get Bert’s chocolate ration one month, I get his chocolate ration the other month but we both gave him our cigarette ration. We used to give it to him, so he had three lots of it. That’s how we worked it all the time. But — On that same basis. But things like that, it was all worked in beautifully, you know, how it all worked together for each other. But I say, on this raid I was telling you about, we put on this raid and after — All briefed again and ready to go, it was scrubbed again. The third time they put it on and it stayed on. So when we came in for briefing the third time, the commanding officer stood up there and says, ‘Anybody that’s been drinking at the bar must organise to go and see the medical officer before he leaves and he’s got something for you. You must all take it.’ And he had a jar, like a gallon jar, I guess, filled with this white fluid. I don’t know what the hell it was. You had this. And anybody that he —, pour some of this and I’ll give it them, you see. Like this. Well it was the custom of course, when you’d been on a raid, the navigator and the pilot always went in to see the intelligence officer and you gave a report on what you’d seen, what you’d done. Anything unusual. You always — Anything unusual. Like, when they had this and they heard music being played and this thing. Now music being played is unusual but it doesn’t mean a thing really. But if fifty or sixty people talk about music —
GR: Say the same thing, yeah.
RW: There’s something different. And they had to figure out what this music was, you see. That sort of thing. And it turned out that they, in the early stages of radar, they were controlled from the ground, you see. Automatically. So when they went up, they said they knew, the ground knew at all time, what height you were flying, what speed you were flying but they had to relay this to their [unclear]. Initially they gave it to them verbally, to tell them what to do, you see. So we had to get around that. So anyway, we get around that, as we had aircraft which had men speaking fluent German. Absolutely perfect German. Absolutely. And so when they called up they’re giving instructions, our man would be, ‘Don’t listen. That’s this —’ The other fella — And of course here you are. Who are you going to believe? The two fellas talking perfect German here. Who do you believe? You’re both on the same wavelength. You know. And so they had to figure out a way to overcome this, you see. So they hit upon the idea that if an aircraft went up like, of course as you know, we used to fly dog-legs.
GR: Yeah.
RW: You fly dog-legs. Which is a dual [?] concept. In other words, a dog-leg helps me as a navigator. If I go from point B to point C, I have to hit it, you know, you’re allowed a two-minute margin. Maximum two-minute margin. You had to be on the target within two minutes. No ifs and buts. That was laid down. So you had to be within this two-minute all the time. So if I’m at point B and going to point C, and I’m not going to make that thing, that point in the required time, what do I do? I alter course before I get to point C and turn my course to the next course, to the next leg, and I cut the triangle. So I get to point D on time.
GR: On time.
RW: Now that’s a job, you see, like that. Now the Germans didn’t, they knew, but you see it put them off because they said, ‘Oh they’re going to go to so-and-so. No. Oh no. They’ve changed. They’re going to so-and-so.’ So they had to advance, they had to tell the fighters ahead of the time, all the time. ‘They’re coming to so-and-so.’ And they had to — So, you know, it served them, they couldn’t figure out exactly where we were going to go. So it worked both ways in that connection. But, as I say, it was this where the intelligence officer had to figure out all these different things. How you got around these different things like that. But —
GR: So what happened at war end?
RW: Anyway this man —
GR: Go on. Sorry.
RW: So when we came back from this raid there, this one man admitted to the intelligence officer, he’d flown about five hundred miles when he suddenly came to. He’s in the aircraft. He’s flown the plane. He’s taken off perfectly. And he suddenly came to. He’s flying a plane. He’d sobered up. [laughs]
GR: God!
RW: Just shows how this stuff, I guess, worked on him. Can you imagine. The man. Instinct. He flew by instinct. And suddenly came to. He came out of it.
GR: Probably had a good flight engineer.
RW: Whatever. It just goes to show these things do happen.
GR: Oh God, yeah.
RW: But one thing leads to another. But as I say, it was all [unclear]. Les said, ‘When you’re going to bomb, you go over the target.’ And, wow, how we got on. Like in other words, how I got separated from the others was, we went to a place called Recklinghausen and we’re going on to the target like this, you see. I always take them to a target point, I like, I guide them to there then the bomb aimer and the pilot and I’ll take over and they go over the target, ‘Left, left, steady, zero.’ That’s nothing to do with me. So I automatically take five minutes. When they’ve gone through the target. You don’t drop the bombs and go. You had to keep on. Going straight and low. Because there’s all these other guys doing the same as you. You can’t deviate ‘cause otherwise you’d cause accidents. So anyway I had to analyse from point so-and-so, and then I had to tell him what course to fly to come back home. Anyway he takes the thing over the target, but the thing is that we’re coming over the target there and there’s three or four different ways you can bomb. You can either bomb through the clouds or you can bomb blind or you can bomb according to what they tell you. You know, they tell the instructor which type of thing and how to set the fuses. So anyway, we’re coming over the target there and he says, ‘Oh.’ He says, ‘I can’t see the target.’ He says, ‘I can’t see the target.’ I said, ‘Do you want me to bomb blind?’ Like, you know. I came round, coming to the thing and he says, ‘Oh.’ He says, ‘Wait a minute.’ He says, ‘There’s a patch of blue sky over the side there.’ He says, ‘Not too far away.’ He says. ‘That’s probably drifted over the target.’ And Les says, ‘We’ll go round again.’ Well, Christ. You know. So he goes round again. He comes round again for the second run-in like this. And we’re going for this second run-in again like this and he goes, ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘We’re not quite over the target. We just missed it.’ Les says we go round again. Well by this time, we’d written it off. So we come round the third time, you see. And it was — We were the only ones there. Everybody else had gone. They’d all bombed blind, you know. Then I went up front and saw it. I could see, oh it was beautiful. And we’d bombed — And of course they can back-plot on this thing there. They tell you exactly where your bombs fell. So we get back to base, you see, and it were reported that we had [laughs] gone around the target three times. And it got to HQ because — And Mahaffey, he goes round to the squadrons there and he picks out people that have distinguished crews and, you know, and they get, as you know, advanced into whatever it was. So then, he came to the squadron, you see, and the squadron, he says, ‘I had a crew last night that went round the target three times. I want to see them right away.’ [laughs] So he came and spoke to us, so-and-so, that’s, so take it from there. So we got selected as Ace Crew sort of thing. So we did improvements from then on, but, so I got taken off to do extra navigation. So we had to do mine-laying, you know. Gardening they called it. And we had to go like from Lossiemouth or wherever it was. We had to go over to the Norwegian coast and hit the coast at exactly the right spot then you turned the aircraft so many degrees like this, and you’d count whatever it was, like that, and you dropped the mines, you see, like this. ‘Cause mines go in the water, eh?
GR: Yeah yeah.
RW: So there’s no sign at all. But then you had to come, back then, brought back, and that was given to the navy and they back-plotted, so you had to be dead accurate [emphasis]. And believe you me, you’re going in at low level and they’re shooting everything but the kitchen sink. [laughs] God. Some of this stuff. Things still coming back, oh ya, ya, ya.
GR: [laughs]
RW: I lived through it. Anyway. So they had to make thing that we had to drop these things there and then they would know exactly where the bomb, they would know what the ship had to avoid and this sort of thing like that. So that’s, when we graduated from that, oh, I’ll never forget that as long as I live though. Oh. And I can just imagine what the Dambusters seen. There’s things coming out —
GR: Low level. Yeah, yeah.
RW: You had to hit it bang on. It couldn’t deviate. You had to hit it bang on. Then turn. Exactly the right thing and drop. But we did it. Les was bang on. He was good.
GR: Yeah.
RW: So anyway. I did my bit.
GR: And the war finished.
RW: Yeah, well then that’s another thing too. When the war ended, my squadron, of course being in Bomber Command, they decided that the rest of the — The Adriatic war was still continuing so my squadron was taken off Bomber Command and changed to Transport Command, so 10 Squadron became Transport Command.
GR: Oh right.
RW: So we were then trained to go out to Burma to drop supplies to the troops in the jungle. In Burma, you see. So we were switched from our Halifax 111s to DC 111s. Dakotas. And we had to practice dropping supplies to the troops and we had to practice jungle things. We had to go back to, what was worse than anything, we had to go flying on, going back to the flying by the stars. Like, that’s one big thing. At the beginning of the war, the big problem was we were using astronavigation. We were using the nautical tables which were what the navy used. And of course the navy go at twenty knots. We’re going two hundred and forty knots. And we had to use these tables to work it and we had to — When you used a sextant, of course, you ‘d, before you went on a raid, you had to check the azimuths for what stars you want to use, you see. You get these azimuths and you put them down on the chart there and get — you take a shot. You go up into the dome and you’d set thing there and you hook it, the star, the aircraft. Oh God, it was pretty grim. Anyway, you take, and it goes for two minutes then the blind goes down. Take the azimuth and go down again. Mark it in my chart there and go and see what the next azimuth was, put this on the sextant. Go back up again. It takes two minutes. Takes a minute to go down, go back again. Another two minutes. Go back down, a minute again for another two minutes. Go back down again. Then I had three shots to work out. Now if I got — Worked all these calculations out. If I got within twenty-five miles of my target, that wasn’t bad navigation. That’s how they navigated at the beginning of the war.
GR: Yeah.
RW: And so in fact they still do. And — On long trips, they had to, by the stars, pointers. And so, oh, I hated that, but when they were using it, you could have the option to take a sextant with you. But I never even took a sextant.
GR: You never bothered. No.
RW: I was never going to use the blooming thing anyway, so, I think it was too cumbersome anyway. But I say, you had all this working to do. And working it all out, and then — Now, they realised, the air force, that things had to change. They had to improve. So the only thing was, they were losing aircraft by, you know, not flying on track, so they first of all instigated this flying, what they called ‘in the stream’. You had a five-mile path through the sky and you had to stay within this five-mile path through the sky. You had a thousand bombers. You see, your rendez-vous point was say, Reading, shall we say. And we’d have to meet at Reading. There’d be three waves of three hundred aircraft in each wave or something. It’s a path, you see. So then you go down there and you’d have to take — That’s another thing too. You were given the time you take from Reading, the raid starts at Reading.
GR: Yeah.
RW: To go to Cornwall, shall we say. But it doesn’t tell me when to leave Welbourn. I had to be there at that time. There’s twenty-four aircraft, don’t forget. Twenty, between twenty and twenty-four aircraft. I can’t think now. You taxi down, you go and get the thing, wait for the red light, you see. And you could be number one or you could be number twenty-four. You don’t know ‘till you get to the end of the runway, what number you are. So number one takes off. And you have to get to Reading. I’m number twenty-four. Now I’ve got to get to Reading —
GR: Same time as him, yeah.
RW: So I had to take that time, so I had to make him go like the clappers. What it was, he had to climb high, to cushion me. You’re taking off and climbing at least five thousand feet. So. Oh. It was hazardous. I mean you didn’t know. You couldn’t do a thing about it until you [unclear]. Oh. So you had to finally get to this place. You had to start with this two-minute, this two-minute margin. You had to take off and keep within it all the time. But it worked. If you did it. But it kept people together, this what they call the five-mile path through the sky. Now the Germans, they did, they had ways of tracking you. They could home onto you. Now what they did was, they rarely came into the stream. If they came and attacked you, the bomber, they’d get the bomber but his tracer would be visible to, for all the other bombers and they’d have a go at him.
GR: Yeah.
RW: And all – Saying, the fighter pilot goes way in to get this fella like that when there’s all these fellas going to shoot at him. So they used to stay on the — They knew exactly what speed you’re flying. Yeah, you’re on radar. They could fly on radar. And that’s where in my situation, I had complete control of other things. Like, everybody had Gee. Some had Gee and H2S. Most of the people had to live by that. Now we had access to all those different things because we had to pick up and get more accuracy. And that’s the secret of the whole thing, but I say, they, so they would follow you. Just after you like that and if somebody drifted out of that five-mile path through the sky, you was picked off just like that. They came along. Followed with you.
GR: Yeah.
RW: Some stupid clot there. So that’s — Navigation, they realised is so critical. It had the five-mile path through the sky which corrected it to some extent, then they had this timing which was very important, and then they had this, after all this, this control like they had at the end and it saved aircraft terrifically. ‘Cause they could find out how many men had been shot down. But I don’t know if you realised that the success rate on — The Lancasters were a more efficient aircraft. They could carry a bigger bomb load, they could carry more accuracy and they were faster. They could fly higher. They had certain advantages over us but they had limitations on other aspects. Whereas the Halfax 111 was better in other respects and it would benefit one way or the other. And, how can I explain it. They had ways whereby you could keep accuracy going with the other. More so than in the Lanc. Also the success rate of evacuating an aircraft was far superior in the Halifax. In other words, I think it was seventeen percent. I think the maximum, like for every Lancaster that was shot down, the chances of success was only seventeen percent, in other words, the exits from an aircraft. In a Lancaster, there’s a big spar, number one. That was their big — They had this big spar, Lancaster and you couldn’t, with fully-clothed and all this thing, with the parachute, get over the spar, get to this thing there. The Halifax on the other hand got rid of three people in the front. Like where I was, where I was sitting, I was facing this wall here, right behind me in the floor was the escape hatch. Right behind me, attached to the wall there was my parachute. So if you said, ‘Bale out.’ All I had to do was to turn around, unhook the thing there, put on my parachute.
GR: And out.
RW: Lift up the thing like that. Out I went. And the wireless operator was right beside me there. He came out.
GR: He did the same.
RW: And the three of us could get out. No problem at all.
GR: Thankfully you didn’t have to do it.
RW: No, but I say, it was there. But the Lancaster didn’t have that chance. The pilot, what chance did he have to get, bale out over the top? But the thing is that the other fellas, they had to go to — oh yes, tail gunner, I guess, he could turn his —. Turn around and go out backwards. But things like that, but the other fellas, I mean the mid-upper gunner for instance, where did he go?
GR: Where did he go? Yeah.
RW: Chance of him getting out there is —. So the chances, as I say, I think was seventeen percent.
GR: Quite a few people I’ve spoken to —
RW: The success rate with the —
GR: Who served on both aircraft —
RW: That we had twenty-seven percent against their seventeen. So that’s considerable really when you think about it. The amount that might succeed and all things like that, so I liked the Halifax. It was, it was a different type of aircraft. I meant the Lancaster was strictly designed as a wartime machine for doing a wartime job, which it did. Whereas the Halifax, really, was a commercial aircraft which had been converted to flying in the wartime. That’s what it amounts to. And. So we had more, a lot more, we had a lot better — My compartment where I was, a little tiny navigation compartment, whereas the navigator in a Lancaster was really cramped, you know. And I had the wireless on my right there. I mean I could, whilst I was doing my wind-finder, I passed the winds, just like this, one piece of paper, to him like that. And he just put these into code and he’d send them off to HQ like that you see. I just had to hand it to him. He put his arm over. There you go. Away it went. Was the way we did it. They had to move.
GR: Move about.
RW: Yeah. So we had advantages over them that’s for sure. But, anyway. We came through.
GR: You came through. Did you keep in touch with the crew after the war?
RW: Well, I say, I’ve got only one alive now.
GR: Yes.
RW: Hugh at Hexham. My wireless operator. He was good.
GR: We’re going to go and see him, aren’t we so —
RW: Yeah, he’s a good kid. But the others of course, they’re all gone by.
GR: Over the years.
RW: One died of cancer and well, Bert, my bomb aimer, he came over to Canada. All my crew came over to Canada and stayed with me. Well, they came over for two of the reunions. Quite a few of them. Les was not a, he wasn’t the type, he didn’t drink at all, of course, he didn’t think that’s in his bracket, so I finally got him to one. I think he went to one. The very last one, I think he came to. But he wouldn’t come to any of the other three. But most of the others did come. But when they came, I used to take them to the Rockies and take them on trips everywhere for a couple of weeks or something like that.
GR: Yeah.
RW: So we hit it — But I say, it was — The wonderful thing about Bomber Command is that, is the camaraderie. Like it’s, as you say, after the war, we all stick together. We’re brothers.
GR: Yeah.
RW: I never forgot. They say, ‘I saved the life of, they saved my life.’ You know. So it’s just one of those things. It’s, you do things instinctively I guess. For survival.
GR: Yeah.
RW: And you can’t change that.
GR: No.
RW: So if you’re all working to the same common cause, you have a fighting chance. But if you don’t, it’s, you know, it’s one of those things.
GR: Right. I shall pause the recorder there.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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AWildR160224
Title
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Interview with Ralph Wild
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:17:07 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Creator
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Gary Rushbrooke
Date
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2016-02-24
Description
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Ralph Wild grew up in Yorkshire. He originally served as ground personnel with Fighter Command but he later remustered and became a navigator and flew operations with Bomber Command.
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. Fighter Command
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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England--Yorkshire
Great Britain
Contributor
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Cathy Brearley
10 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
C-47
crewing up
Gee
ground personnel
H2S
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
Hurricane
love and romance
military ethos
navigator
RAF Church Fenton
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF North Weald
Spitfire
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/367/5861/PCavalierRG17010033.2.jpg
995110fd7ed36cc46f17faf4cc4bed6e
Dublin Core
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Title
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Cavalier, Reginald George. Album one
Description
An account of the resource
57 items. Photograph album showing pictures taken during Reginald George Cavalier's service as a squadron photographer. It includes material from his photographic course training in 1940, and service with 76 Squadron at RAF Middleton St George, and with 88 Squadron and 226 Squadron with 2 Group and 2nd Tactical Air Force at RAF West Raynham. The album also includes target photographs, images of Christmas parties, visits by VIPs including Eisenhower and the King, as well as captured German ordnance and aircraft in France, the Netherlands and Germany.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-04-10
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.
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Cavalier, RG
Dublin Core
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Title
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Middleton St George
Description
An account of the resource
Photograph 1 is of Reginald George Cavalier amongst several loaded bomb trolleys. In the background are trucks and aircraft.
Photographs 2 and 3 are of a group of airmen watching a 4000 lb bomb being lifted on slings. Captioned '1000 lb bomb.'
Photograph 4 is of four Naval officers looking at the rear gun turret of a Halifax.
Photograph 5 is of three airmen handling bombs on a crane, watched by Naval officers.
Photograph 6 is a discussion between Naval officers and airmen beside bombs stored on the ground.
Captioned 'Visit of the Royal Navy, R.A.F. Middleton St George. 14th July 1942.'
Photograph 7 is of three Halifaxes, one coded 'Z-ZA', another 'T', a hangar, a truck and two trailers. Captioned 'View from Photo Section window.'
Photograph 8 is of four airmen sitting on top of a Halifax.
Photograph 9 is of Reginald George Cavalier in the cockpit of a Halifax. Captioned 'R.G.C. in cockpit of Halifax A/C.'
Photographs 10 and 11 are of a Halifax, one coded 'H-MP'. Captioned 'Halifax A/C. 78 Sqd.' [Squadron code MP is for 76 Squadron.]
Date
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1942-07-14
Format
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11 b/w photographs on an album page
Type
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Photograph
Identifier
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PCavalierRG17010033
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Navy
Temporal Coverage
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1942-07-14
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Durham (County)
Language
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eng
Contributor
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Darren Sheerin
10 Squadron
76 Squadron
78 Squadron
bomb dump
bomb trolley
ground personnel
Halifax
hangar
RAF Middleton St George
service vehicle
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/510/8412/PDunnG1501.2.BMP
505c4b2651ad5389c9a6458077b498ac
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/510/8412/ADunnG150405.1.mp3
d86cd9b1133884331255b8b76f63465f
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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Dunn, George
George Charles Dunn
G C Dunn
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Dunn, GC
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. Two oral history interviews with George Dunn DFC (1922 1333537, 149315 Royal Air Force), a photograph a document and two log books. He flew operations as a pilot with 10, 76, and 608 Squadrons then transferred to 1409 Meteorological Flight.
There is a sub collection of his photographs from Egypt.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-08
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.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AP: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewer is Andrew Panton, the interviewee is George Dunn, Mr Dunn was a RAF Pilot who flew various types of aircraft during the Second World War, the interview is taking place at Princess Marina House in Rustington West Sussex, on the 5th April 2015.
GD: My name is George Dunn, I was seventeen years of age when the war broke out and I was born at Whitstable on the North Kent coast, so I saw quite a lot of the Battle of Britain and being facing the Thames Estuary all the hoards of German bombers that were coming in to bomb London, when the London Blitz started, at, I joined the local defence volunteers, and then that became the Home Guard, and when I reached the age of eighteen I volunteered for aircrew. I was interviewed up at Chatham and I originally registered for wireless operator/air gunner, but they said to me would I consider pilot training, which I agreed, and after a written exam and a selection board, I was advised that I could take up pilot training. First aircraft I flew was a Tiger Moth because I did all my training in Canada, the first place was at Saskatchewan, a little place called Caron west of Moose Jaw and from there I went on to A V Roe Anson’s at a place called Weyburn again in Saskatchewan. When I came back to the UK in September 1942 I was then posted to Chipping Norton which was a satellite of Little Risington on airspeed Oxford’s this was to acclimatise us to the flying conditions in this country, we had been used to flying with full town lights and city lights, but this was of course flying in blackout conditions. From there I was posted to Lossiemouth which was number 20 OTU, and formed my crew, and we did my OTU on Wellington’s.
AP: So can you say a little bit about the Wellington Bomber, how you found it to fly and what you did [inaudible word]
GD: Well the Wellington Bomber I found was a nice aircraft it wasn’t difficult to fly and we had quite an easy course on it.
AP: What about op’s with the Wellington? Can you remember any?
GD: No I didn’t do any operations on Wellington’s
AP: So from the Wellington, where did you go next?
GD: From Wellington’s I was sent to Heavy Conversion Unit which was at Rufforth just outside York, on Halifax aircraft.
AP: And was that your first op aircraft?
GD: No, surprisingly enough, normally if you went to a Heavy Conversion Unit, you had, you flew a certain number of hours and then you were seconded to a squadron where you had to do two operations with an experienced crew, but in my case I was sent to number 10 squadron at Melbourne to do my two second dickey trips as they were called and believe it or not I had not set foot in a Halifax aircraft until that first raid. First raid was Essen, which was rather a heavy place to go to, to start with but we got through that alright and the following night I did my second, second dickey trip to Kiel, so I got two fairly good targets under my belt to start with.
AP: And could you talk a bit about the experiences you had on those trips, I mean did you engage fighters, flak, ack ack searchlights?
GD: What when I was on my own crew?
AP: yes.
GD: Yes, our first trip as a crew was to Dortmund, and right throughout our tour we were fairly lucky we were never attacked by a fighter but we were coned at one stage.
AP: So can you talk about what that means?
GD: Yes, coning is when you initially get trapped by a blue searchlight, a radar searchlight and once that’s on to you the white searchlights form a cone so you could be, you might call it sitting like a fairy on a Christmas Tree, and the only suitable manoeuvre to get out of a coning, is by a corkscrew method, if you can do that then you’re ok, but on this occasion we managed to get away from the cone.
AP: And
GD: Yes if you are coned the thing is, is to keep your eyes on your instruments, don’t look outside because you will get blinded by the light. On the 17th, 18th August 1943 I was based at Holme on Spalding Moor south east of York and on this particular afternoon the first thing we noticed when we got to the briefing room were there were extra service police on the door which we thought was rather unusual, and when we got into the briefing room and they drew the curtains across we saw this red ribbon going all the way up to Denmark up the North sea, across Denmark, missing the North German coast because of the heavy flak and then we saw this tiny little place on the Baltic coast, and we thought what, what’s going on there, what’s this all about, never heard of it. When we were briefed we were only told that it was a secret research station connected with radar, at no time were we given any indication of the real work that was going on there. The chilling remark that was made at the end of the briefing was that the target was so important that it should be destroyed that night, otherwise we were told quite firmly that we would go back the following night, the night after that until it was destroyed, and you can imagine the feeling we had knowing what reception we would get if we had to go back on the night after. After the briefing of course we went back to our usual pre-op dinner or meal, bacon and eggs usually, and eventually to the parachute room picked our parachutes up, and into the crew room, dispose of all our wallets and anything that might identify us, and took off, reached our climbing height, and proceeded through the Yorkshire coast up towards Denmark. Included in the main force was a low number of Mosquito’s which were used as a spoof raid on Berlin, this was to make sure that the German authorities were thinking that the main force was going to Berlin, and of course as we got nearer the main force veered off to Peenemunde, and the Mosquito’s carried on to Berlin. This caused quite a lot of consternation amongst the German aircrew controllers because they weren’t sure where the main force were, and when the German night fighters were alerted they had no idea what was going on, the German ground controllers were in a bit of a state and one German pilot realising what was going on proceeded to Peenemunde without being told, so of course by the time the German fighters had got there the raid was virtually half over. We were fortunate we did our run in from the Island of Roden which was about a five minute run in from the North, and we went in on the first wave, the target was well marked we went in at about seven thousand feet it was a brilliant moonlight night and my bomb aimer got quite excited because this was the first time that he had actually been able to identify the target because normally we were bombing from eighteen or nineteen thousand feet, so this was quite an occasion, and I can remember telling him don’t get too excited just concentrate on what you are doing. So we moved in no trouble at all the flak was very very light we were able to, despite the pathfinder markers we were able to identify our aiming point visually, dropped our bombs and came out without any problem. We were very lucky that we were in the first wave because we were able to bomb and get away from the target before the fighters arrived, in the original plan, four group which I was a member of, was scheduled to go in on the last wave, but because they were frightened of smoke from the ground generators obscuring our aiming point we were reverted to the first wave which was very fortunate but not so fortunate for those who were transferred back from the first wave to the last. There were three aiming points on Peenemunde itself and our aiming point was the living quarters of the scientists and the technicians, and one wag on our squadron said there would be a prize given to the first aircraft back with a scientists spectacles hanging from its undercarriage. Once you begin your final run in you are really under the control of the bomb aimer because he, he’s the one that can only see the actual line of path to the target so he will be giving you instructions, such as, right, left left, right right, steady, until you actually came to the point where he’d say bombs gone. We were only told that it was a, as I said before, a secret RADAR station, and it was some time afterwards before that it was revealed that it was for rocket research. So, of course the best thing was that the day after, it was only after a Spitfire reconnaissance which evaluated the amount of damage that we knew with some relief that we were not going to have to go back that night. The aftermath of course was what was the overall result and it was generally recognised that the rocket programme was put back by at least two months, and in his book Crusade to Europe, General Eisenhower said that the second front would have been seriously compromised had the Peenemunde raid not taken place when it did. It is possible that the raid on Peenemunde could have taken place a lot earlier, because in May 1940 a note was pushed through the door of the British Naval attaché in Oslo, from the writer claiming to have very important information connected with German activities, and if the intelligence people were interested would they put a coded letter or word in the broadcasts that were made usually to the resistance, this was done and another letter was pushed through the door and the sort of information the writer indicated that they had, was to the intelligence people so ludicrous that they thought it must be a hoax, and it was ignored, and it was many many, well this was 1940, it was some years later when snippets of information came through and two German Generals who were in a , they were prisoners of war, were in a bugged room and amongst the things that they discussed was that they couldn’t understand why Peenemunde had never been bombed, this of course brought it to the notice of the authorities and from then on every endeavour was made to secure other bits and pieces of information, to ascertain whether this was true. The final answer to the problem I think was when a WRAF intelligence officer very keenly spotted a launching ramp on one of the reconnaissance photographs, and this really was the, was the result of good reconnaissance, and it really gave the answer that there really was something going on at Peenemunde, and from then on of course a committee was formed Mr Churchill appointed Duncan Sands to chair this committee and eventually after a few meetings it was then that they decided that this would, Peenemunde would have to be bombed. Of course one of the things was how were they going to do it, Air Vice Marshal Cochrane of five group who’s group had been used to some time and distance bombing wanted to go in with about, I think about 150 Lancaster’s, it was also discussed that a small force of Mosquito’s would go in, but Sir Arthur Harris the chief of Bomber Command, he felt that if a raid was going to take place it would have to be successful one hundred percent at the first go, and he made the decision that it was going to be a maximum effort, so all groups of the Bomber Command were going to take part. Consequently almost six hundred aircraft were sent, probably the decision was right because the place was destroyed, virtually destroyed on the first raid. Four days after the raid on Peenemunde, the place was visited by Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, and Albert Speer the armaments manager and they, after a survey Hitler himself decided that the place would not continue to operate, at least on the scale that it had done, and it was then that the whole project was moved to various places particularly the Harz Mountains. Of course the success of the raid was not achieved without some loss and unfortunately the total aircraft loss was forty and two hundred and twenty aircrew were killed, mostly occurred in the last two waves of the, of the raid so as I said before we were very very lucky that we had been moved from the last wave to the first wave, because we were virtually in and out without any problem. Of course the success in some ways of flying on operations is the team work, the crew have got to work together and I was very fortunate I had a very good crew, we originally formed up at OTU at Lossiemouth, it was a question of one person getting to know another. I well remember my bomb aimer coming up to me and saying “have you crewed up yet?” and I said “no” “how about crewing up with me” “yeah sure do you know any navigators?” “Yes I know a navigator” and that’s how it went on, so we finished up with five, and later on we acquired a Mid-upper gunner and a Flight Engineer who was actually allocated to us. We were lucky in this respect because my Flight Engineer’s Wife and Mother ran a pub just outside Horsforth in Leeds so on our nights off all seven of us used to pile into a Morris Eight, and go off to a night out and as you can imagine the customers made a great fuss of us, and we were never short of free drinks. [laughter] I can well remember the only time when my navigator did suffer from, I don’t know what it was, but he suddenly came up on the intercom and said “ Skipper were about ten miles off course” and my reply was “well look we can’t be, I’ve been steering this course that you gave me without any deviation, so get your finger out and get us back on course, otherwise I’ll get the bomb aimer to take over the navigation” this really put the wind up him and he, he got us back on course, don’t ask me why but whether he’d made a mistake with his GEE box fixing it turned out ok at the end. Of course most of our navigation was dead reckoning but the saviour that we had, but it was only I think to about five degrees east that the GEE box from where we could get a fix on our position enabled us to keep to a reasonable course. Of course whilst the aircrew got most of the glory, it was the auxiliary staff that really supported us people like the parachute packers, the ground crew, as far as we were concerned we had an excellent ground crew on our aircraft, everything was tickety boo, the windscreen was all polished they went completely out of their way to make sure that the aircraft we were flying was in one hundred percent condition, and the only way we could reward them was taking them down to the pub on the occasional evening and buying them a few beers, it was our way of saying thank you to them. I well remember that on our last night our very last raid which was a castle, outside the control tower there was a whole host of personnel waving to us a lot of air cadets and when we got to the runway for our final take off the crowd round the caravan way, the crowd outside the caravan the controller which gave you a green light when it was ready for you to take off, and then finally opening the throttles for what you knew was going to be your final operation, and wondering how it was going to go, but of course at that time you were really concentrating on getting the aircraft safely off the ground. I well remember, I don’t know which raid it was but probably my fault we had not secured the front escape hatch properly, and on take off it blew open, my oxygen mask, tube rather was ripped off and I had to borrow the mid-upper gunners oxygen tube, he had rather an uncomfortable flight trying to breathe his oxygen having given up his tube to me, but we did get over it, and we did manage to close the escape hatch with some difficulty, I must take full responsibility for that error. Yes on that final flight when you got the green light knowing that this was going to be your final operation, you had that feeling of great support from those people that were standing there, they knew that it was your final op, and they were willing you to go on and come back safely and that was, that was really comforting, but of course you were more or less concentrating on the take off at that time because that was a very dangerous time for a fully laden, fully fuelled, fully bombed aircraft, until what you reach was known as safety speed, where it was, you were then able to climb to your normal altitude.
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 Dunn
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Andrew Panton
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-04-05
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ADunnG150405, PDunnG1501
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Format
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00:25:12 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
George was born at Whitstable and was 17 when war was declared. He joined the local Defence Volunteers which became the Home Guard. When he reached 18 he volunteered for air crew. He was interviewed at Chatham and sat an exam and selection board to train as a pilot. All of his training was in Canada and his first aircraft was a Tiger Moth. When he returned to England, he was posted to RAF Chipping Norton on Oxfords flying in black-out conditions. From there he was posted to RAF Lossiemouth, operational training unit on Wellingtons. He was then sent to a Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Rufforth on Halifaxes. George was posted to 10 Squadron at RAF Melbourne. He flew operations to Essen, Kiel and Dortmund. On 17/18 August 1943, while based at RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor, he took part on the bombing operation to Peenemünde rocket research station.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Canada
Germany
England--Chatham (Kent)
England--Kent
England--Oxfordshire
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Moray
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Essen
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Peenemünde
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-08-17
1943-08-18
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
10 Squadron
20 OTU
aircrew
bombing
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
civil defence
crewing up
Gee
ground crew
ground personnel
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Home Guard
military ethos
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Chipping Norton
RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Melbourne
RAF Rufforth
searchlight
Tiger Moth
training
V-2
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/510/8413/ADunnGC170308.1.mp3
0bdeaf205e0caafc4a51fbc886e08f7f
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
Dunn, George
George Charles Dunn
G C Dunn
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Dunn, GC
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. Two oral history interviews with George Dunn DFC (1922 1333537, 149315 Royal Air Force), a photograph a document and two log books. He flew operations as a pilot with 10, 76, and 608 Squadrons then transferred to 1409 Meteorological Flight.
There is a sub collection of his photographs from Egypt.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-08
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.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 8th March 2017 and I’m, I’m in Saltdean with George Dunn to talk about his experiences in life, and particularly in the RAF. So what are your earliest recollections of life, George?
GD: I think probably er, when I went to infants school, which was about five and er, that was at West Meads Infant School in Whitstable. From there I went to the Oxford Street Boys Council School and er, I was quite good at football and er, I played and was captain of the juniors, and then the seniors, and er, I did actually get picked for the county but that’s another story, because it happened just after I left school er, where did we go from there?
CB: What did father do? What did your father do?
GD: My, my father was a plasterer, I had two sisters er, one is two years younger than me, and the other one is er, twelve years younger than me, she still lives in Whitstable and the other one lives in er, New South Wales, Australia. I left school when I was fourteen and er, joined Pickfords the removal company as a junior clerk. I stayed with them in, in the, in the following years, I played football for various local sides, and er, I can remember the day that the war broke out. I was sitting round a little radio set that my father had bought with Black Cat tobacco coupons er, we weren’t very well off so that was one way of getting a, getting a radio set. I don’t know how many cigarettes he must have smoked to get it [laughs]. I can well remember, we were all sitting round this radio set on the day that war was declared, anxiously waiting for Mr. Chamberlain to er, make his announcement er, which he did at eleven o’clock I think it was, and it was a funny feeling ‘cos one minute we were at peace, and in the blink of an eyelid, we were at war and of course we were all wondering what it was going to mean, er going on a bit er, when the blitz started on London I used to stand on the er, cliffs at Whitstable and could see all these hordes of German bombers coming up the Thames Estuary. Because Whitstable is on the North Kent coast and er, it was er, it was an awful sight because you knew what was going to happen when they reached London. I also saw a lot of the Battle of Britain er, which er took place obviously mostly over Kent and Sussex, and I think possibly that might have influenced me in why I joined the RAF. The other reasons that I joined is, for one thing I have a fear of drowning, and I didn’t fancy the army ‘cos one always had a picture in the background, the trenches and er, the terrible slaughter that went on in the First World War so I thought well I’ll go for the RAF. When I went up to Chatham, er this, I would be eighteen at that time, this was in January 1941, I went up to Chatham and er decided that I would apply for wireless operator air gunner. We had to do a written, a written exam and er, when I went to the interview, I think there were three RAF officers there, and they said, ‘why have you applied to er, er for a WOPAG?’ So I said, ‘well I don’t really think that I’m sufficiently educated to er, go for anything higher like a pilot’, and they said, ‘well we’ve had a look at your results and we think you are qualified, so would you consider er changing to under training pilot?’ So I said, ‘well yes, I’d be quite happy to.’ I was quite elated to think that er, then er, National Registration Card was stamped U/T pilot, under training pilot. I wasn’t called up until June of that year 1941 and I went down to um, oh prior to that, of course, after I volunteered at Chatham, I did go to Uxbridge to be sworn in, going back to er, being called up, I went down to Babbacombe and spent a week there getting kitted up er, listening to er, lectures on Air Force Law er. and that sort of thing and doing drill, and at the end of that er week, we were then posted to initial training wing, which was number eight at Newquay. That was a six week course which involved er, going back to partially mathematics, basic navigation, Air Force Law, Morse Code, and then at the end of that, I was posted up to a transit camp at er, West Kirby in the Wirral. I had only been there a short while when I was strickened down with appendicitis and peritonitis and er, I was on the dangerously ill list, my parents were sent for to come up because I was not expected to live er, anyway fortune favoured me and I did recover. At the end of that, I was given three weeks, I spent three weeks in an RAF hospital, had two operations and er, at the end of that was given three weeks sick leave er, after which I had to go to RAF Holton for a, a full medical at the end of that they said, ‘we’re going to put you on six months home service, you won’t be able to go abroad.’ Which rather disappointed me because er, there was very little elementary flying being done in England at that stage, nearly all the flying was being done under the Commonwealth Air Training Scheme at Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia and er, lots of places in Canada When I got back to er West Kirby after sick leave, within about three days, I found I was on draft for Southern Rhodesia. Well, I’d always I’d always fancied Canada so I went up to the warrant officer and I said er, ‘can’t send me to Southern Rhodesia,’ showed him my card which said six months home service. So I was taken off draft, spent a few more weeks there just kicking the heels, and then was sent to another transit camp at Heaton Park in Manchester. There again it was a question of weeding gardens, picking up litter, literally didn’t know what to do with you. A few days before Christmas, I suddenly was told I was on draft for Canada, so this time I kept quiet and I was on tenterhooks right up until the day we set sail, which was Christmas Eve and er, on the ship, and we set off. It was a an awful ship er from Norway, it was called “The Bergensfjord” and the weather was atrocious across the Irish Sea, and for thirty six hours I was absolutely stricken down, along with many others, with sea sickness. We were, we were just, people were just laying all over the ship, in the toilets, absolutely prostrate, anyway we finally recovered and we got to, to Halifax Nova Scotia I think it was, er New Year’s Day or thereabouts. From there we caught the train down to Moncton, which was a Royal Canadian Air Force Base, and when we got there that evening, the dining table was a sight to behold. There was butter, sugar, milk, ice cream, steak, you name it, it was there, and we thought if this is what we’re going to get for the next nine months or so, it’s gonna be great. We then went on to er, I was posted to Saskatchewan, which took us three days to get there on, on the train, the seats were just slatted on this train so our backsides had got quite a few dents in when we got there er, it was snowing practically the whole way and quite deep snow at, at er a little place called Caron. There was nothing there apart from the RAF or the RCAF base and er a couple of grain elevators and two or three cottages, it was about eighteen miles west of Moose Jaw, so I did my er, elementary training there on Tiger Moths, which I think was sixty hours, and from there I was posted to a place called Weyburn, which was south east of Moose Jaw, and that was on er twin engine Avro Ansons. At the end of that course, we got our wings and after that we were posted back to Moncton, which included er a week’s leave which I spent with some distant relatives in Toronto, also called Dunn. From there we went up to Halifax again and er, we were shipped back to this country er, arriving here at Greenock, from Greenock we went down to Bournemouth to await a posting er, to carry on the further flying. I went to er Little Rissington and from there er, to Chipping Norton, which was a satellite of er Rissi, and did a er short course on Air Speed Oxfords, which was about I think forty five hours, that was to get used to er the flying conditions in this country because of course, Canada was well lit up, but this country was under blackout conditions so it was quite, quite a change. On completion of that course, I was sent up to er, Lossiemouth er, on er OTU on Wellingtons 1C’s and it was there that we formed our crew, initially of five people. Now the way a crew was formed was quite casual, we were strolling around in a hanger, in my case I um, met up with a chap from Ayr who was a bomb aimer, and he said, ‘are you crewed up yet?’ and I said, ‘no.’ He said er, ‘do you fancy crewing up with me or me with you?’ I said, ‘yeah fair enough.’ he said, ‘I happen to know another Scotsman called er Todd, Jock Todd, he’s a wireless operator. If you like I’ll have a word with him,’ so that was made three of us, we then met up with er, er a pilot officer [phone ringing]. Shall I take that?
CB: So you’ve got your wireless operator.
GD: And er, he said -
CB: And, your bomb aimer.
GD: And he said um, ‘oh I know um, I’ve also met up with pilot office and navigator from Belfast, he’s not crewed up with anyone,’ so we got introduced and er, that made four of us and um, I forget now we, we, we met up with a little Canadian rear gunner er, a little chap called Dixie Dean er, so he made up the five which was all you needed at um OUT. From there we did our, we did our course, and er were then posted to um, Rufforth, which was a Heavy Conversion Unit, Halifaxes er, near York. Whilst we were there er, Reg the navigator knew of another gunner, a mid upper gunner who was er remustered physical training instructor, and er so that made us up with six and then the flight engineer was the only one that was actually allocated. This chap came up to me, his name was Ferris Newton, and he said, ‘er are you George Dunn?’ I said, ‘yes,’ he said, ‘oh I’ve been allocated as your flight engineer,’ so I said, ‘fair enough.’ Well of course it was a bit of a bonus er having him, because it turned out that not only did he own a car but his wife and his mother ran a pub at Horsforth near Leeds, so we used to er get seven of us, if you can believe it, in a Morris 8, that was three in the front and four in the back, and we would go over to er Horsforth from er Rufforth, and er well now perhaps I’m jumping the gun a bit. We didn’t go there then, we waited till we got on squadron, anyway when we got to Rufforth, I’d hardly my feet had hardly touched the ground and they said, ‘you’ve got to go off to 10 Squadron at Melbourne to do your two second dickie trips,’ because a pilot, had to go and do two trips with an experienced crew before he was allowed to take his own crew on operations, but at that time I hadn’t even set foot in a Halifax, most pilots did a few hours flying and then they were sent off, but in my case I was sent off virtually straight away, and of course, of all of all trips, the first one was er Essen, which was probably the worst target that you could er imagine having to go to, probably the most heavily defended town in the Ruhr, so I did two I did Essen that night and Kiel the following night and then went back to um Rufforth to start the conversion on the Halifaxes. And of course, the first thing the others wanted to know, you know, ‘how did you get on George? What was it like?’ so I said, ‘well put it this way, when you go on your first trip make sure that you got a clean pair of underpants with you.’ [laughs] Anyway we, we got through our Heavy Conversion Unit and er we were then posted to 76 Squadron at Linton-on-Ouse. Now at Linton, there were two squadrons operating at the same time, 76 and 78. I did five trips, I think it was, from there with the crew and then sadly they said, ‘your um, your whole squadron is going to a place called Holme on Spalding Moor.’ What had happened was that the Canadian group, number six group, was being formed and they were given all the peacetime stations, and this applied to the Australians as well but both the Australians and the Canadians said, ‘look our chaps are not going in to Nissen Huts, if they go do operations on raids over Germany, there going to have something decent to live in,’ so we were shipped out to a Nissen Camp, and the Canadians and the Australians got all the peacetime stations so that’s where we finished. We carried on our tour from Holme on Spalding Moor, and of course during that during that period, when we got the nights off, we would pile in this Morris 8, three in the front and four in the back, and off to um “The Old Ball” at er Horsforth, and of course the locals were very good to us, we stayed overnight er, one or two of us stayed in the pub, the others were put up by some of the customers, they were very hospitable there’s no doubt about it, and of course, we’d go off back early in the morning, the following morning feeling a bit worse for wear. So where do we go from there?
CB: So when you came to the end, did you do thirty ops per tour?
GD: I did thirty, the rest of the crew didn’t because I had two in front of them.
CB: Yes with somebody else, with another captain did you?
GD: When I went to Number 10 Squadron.
CB: Yes.
GD: Yes.
CB: Right, so what happened then?
GD: Well when we finished our tour of course, we were all split up which was a bit emotional, and from the first morning, following our last trip, the following morning I was woken up by the adjutant and said, ‘sorry, but we’ve got a rather sad task for you. You’ve got to take four coffins containing two Mosquito crews which collided nearby, you’ve got to take them to um, York Station to go to their respective er, er towns where they were being being buried,’ er which was a little bit of an anti-climax because you know, there was only one er place beside the driver, the rest of us had to sit in the back with the coffins. So there we were, we were split up, and er I went to um er OTU at Finningley, Wellingtons again, 1C’s, er I didn’t stay at Finningley long because they had a satellite station at Worksop, and er there I was instructing. I did two instructors courses, one on Wellingtons at Church Broughton and another one, a month at the Central Flying School at er Lulsgate Bottom, which is now Bristol Airport. I carried on instructing until I think it was just before Christmas ’45, and er I saw a notice on the er on the board about er, they wanted er Mosquito crews, well I’d already become friendly with a, with a navigator who was in the navigation section at Worksop, and er I said to him, ‘how do you fancy going back on ops, on Mossis?’ He said, ‘I’m a bit fed up with instructing,’ I said, ‘yeah well so am I,’ so we volunteered to go back and er, we were posted to er, Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire, and from there to er, a satellite station at Barford St. John, which was just outside of Banbury. We did short, I did about four or five hours dual on a Mosquito before I went solo and from there we were posted to 608 Squadron, which was a main force Mosquito Squadron at Downham Market in Norfolk. I did a number of trips there, mostly to Berlin, and then a friend of mine who was on a Mosquito met flight at Whitton said, ‘there’s a vacancy come up for a crew with us on a met flight, do you fancy it?’ So we said, ‘yes,’ we weren’t, we weren’t all that happy at 608 Squadron, I don’t know why but the atmosphere wasn’t the same as when it was on Halifaxes, so we moved to Whitton on this met flight, and er I did er a few ops on that and then war, the war finished and then I stayed on er, I stayed on the met flight, we moved to er Upwood er near Peterborough, and then it was disbanded. It was the 1409, the met flight, and it was disbanded, and we went on to 109 Squadron which was being converted to a met flight, er from there, we had very three quick moves, we went to Woodhall Spa, Wickenby, and Hemswell, all within a month, and then whilst we were at Hemswell, there was a request, they wanted to start a met flight er Mosquitos, at er Malta. So they got ten crews together er and er I’d still got my navigator, and we flew out in a Stirling to Malta and when we got there, the er powers that be said, ‘what are you lot doing here? We don’t know anything about you,’ so we, we appointed, well most of the pilots were flight lieutenants, there’s no other rank above that, so we appointed a spokesman and he went and saw the CO, the Group Captain Station Commander, he said, ‘well I don’t know what’s going on,’ he said, ‘we’ve got no idea of what you are doing there, we, we weren’t told,’ so they gave us er, they gave us an old hut on the far side of Luqa Airfield, they gave us an old lorry to transport us so we just spent a lovely six weeks in Malta going to Valletta and Silema, they didn’t want to know us. Anyway they, whilst we were there, I did manage to get one or two ferry trips in er from Italy in Mosquitos, and er eventually they decided that they weren’t going to form a met flight after all, so we were split up, I went to um a, a, a transit camp at El Marso, which was er well, and my navigator which was just outside Cairo and er literally just kicked our heels. We went into Cario most days, sunbathing at er one of the hotels swimming pools, and then eventually I er got a posting to Ismailia and my navigator got a posting to Heliopolis, which is a suburb of Cairo, and when, and when I got to Ismailia, I reported to the er flight commander, who was er Flight Lieutenant Tommy Grace, I said, well told him the story that I’d been through Malta and we’d er we weren’t required after all and er I said, ‘I don’t know what I’ve come here for?’ I said er, ‘what aircraft do you fly?’ He said, ‘we fly Spitfires,’ so I said, ‘well I haven’t flown a single engine aircraft since I flew a Tiger Moth er when I first er started flying.’ ‘Oh,’ he said ‘I shouldn’t worry about it,’ he said, ‘you’ll soon get used to it,’ gave me the pilots notes on the Spitfire. In those days, there was no dual er Spitfires so er I just got in and went off, and what we were doing, basically we were renovating um aircraft, mostly Spitfires for er the Greek Air Force. We testing them and then there were two Greek pilots there and once we passed them, they had to pass them out and then when we got er about ten Spitfires ready, we used to take them over to Athens with a Lancaster escort to do the navigating and er refuel at er Cyprus, and come back to Egypt in a Lanc as passengers, and of course whilst I was there I managed to get a a trip in a Hurricane, a Mustang and various other training aircraft. Harvard, a thing called a Fairchild Argus, er an Auster, a Proctor. it was a free for all [laughs].
CB: How long were you doing that for?
GD: And then er this would be and then it got to um, it would be, I suppose about May and I had a phone call to say I was wanted over at a tented camp, everything was tents, the mess, the living quarters, everything was tents. There wasn’t a building there apart from the hangars and they said er, ‘we’ve got some Halifaxes here that er we want testing, and we haven’t got a, there’s not a Halifax pilot in the area anywhere that we can know of.' Well just a few weeks prior to that, an engineering officer had also been posted from Kasfareet where I was then, to this place at er Kilo 40, which was known as Gebel Hamzi and um, he’s gone to sleep look [laughs].
CB: He’s doing all right.
GD: [Laughs] and er there were some Yugoslav pilots there who er had never flown Halifaxes, so I had to take them up, test these Halifaxes and er pass these er Yugoslav pilots out to fly them.
CB: Where had they come from then?
GD: Don’t know where they come from, er and then of course whilst I, whilst I was there, I got the opportunity of flying a couple back to this country and er also in that time, I flew, I think it was a couple of Mosquitoes back here, er and my last flight in June ’47 was to bring a Halifax back here which I left at er Thetford.
CB: But what was your unit? If you were flying these things and ferrying them, what was the unit? Was it an MU or was it a squadron?
GD: No, no, no, it wasn’t a squadron. I’ll tell you what it was [opens a draw looking for something].
CB: So just get them. So your unit was at Ismailia still but it was actually an MU as well as flying base?
GD: Well that’s, that’s what it was called, 132 MU.
CB: MU yes.
GD: There was no squadron.
CB: No.
GD: No squadron or anything like that.
CB: What I meant was, MU didn’t normally -
GD: Just 132 and 132 MU
CB: Yes. [Pause] So when you, you delivered the aircraft, Halifax or Mosquito, how did they get you back there?
GD: I came back in used to come back in the York
CB: Ah.
GD: Yeah, where are we [flipping through pages of book] yeah came back in the York from Lyneham.
CB: Lyneham. So you’d fly all these planes into Lyneham would you?
GD: No, no er, one, once I went to Gosforth with one and then we’d nip home for a few days leave and er report back to Lyneham for for, ‘cos that was transport command.
CB: Right. So why were these planes being brought back, what had happened to their crews?
GD: I don’t know, you know, I don’t even know why they were there.
CB: Because the Yugoslav pilots were flying the Halifaxes.
GD: I don’t know where they went to, I was only there, when did I go there, October ’46 I went to Kilo 40 [looking through book], yes I was only there for, only there for a short period.
CB: Yes, but what was the reason for you going out to Ismailia in the first place?
GD: Well that was when, that was when we, we didn’t form the met flight er see.
CB: Right.
GD: When they split us all up at Malta, I don’t know where the others went to but my navigator and myself found ourselves at El Marsa, at this transit camp near Cairo.
CB: So when you returned the Halifaxes to Britain, was it just the two of you on the plane?
GD: Oh no, no.
CB: You had a full crew?
GD: No, no, no we didn’t have gunners, just er er wireless op, navigator, flight engineer, and pilot.
CB: Right.
GD: No, no need for gunners.
CB: No.
GD: And then of course we used to have to clear customs er when we got back here in those days.
CB: What were you bringing back - figs?
GD: [Laughs] Oh they were very hot the customs yeah. I brought a Mosquito back once and they were, they were quite thorough, went all through the fuselage and everything.
CB: What did people bring back then carpets or? I mean a serious point because in the Middle East they made carpets.
GD: Well I suppose people, a few people tried to get back cigarettes and booze, usual thing, but er it wasn’t worth it. No they were too thorough.
CB: So that’s October ’46, you didn’t leave until ’47 so what did you do the rest of the time?
GD: Well I was flying, um doing mostly flying Spitfires on testing.
CB: Because at the MU they’d been repairing them.
GD: Yes, yes.
CB: Any hiccups with that, when you were test flying?
GD: No, no they were, they were in pretty good condition, yeah, but I mean, see there’s one there, Halifax in January er I brought it back to Manston for customs clearance and then took it up to Scotland, to a place called Edsel, but for the life of me, I don’t know how I got back from there. Must have been by rail I think, then the next thing was coming back I, I delivered it to Edsel on the 17th January and flew back in a York a week later.
CB: How long did it take in a York to fly to Ismailia, you made a load of stops?
GD: Er fourteen hours, we went to er Castel Benito and then on to El Marsa, Palestine.
CB: Castel Benito.
GD: No Egypt, North Africa.
CB: Ah yes, in Libya, yes. So how did you find those ferry trips, were they exciting, boring or-
GD: Oh boring, nothing to do, I mean they weren’t comfortable.
CB: What sort of height would you fly?
GD: Oh no idea really.
CB: To keep cool I was thinking.
GD: Wouldn’t be, wouldn’t be that high I shouldn’t think.
CB: No.
GD: Probably around fifteen thousand, probably yes.
CB: So what was the most memorable point about your service in the RAF would you say?
GD: Are you talking about an operation? oh I think um, probably the raid on Peenemunde which er -
CB: How did that go?
GD: Well from our point of view, it went very well but er not so, because when we er, when we went to the briefing er that afternoon, the first thing we noted was that there was extra RAF Police on the door, which we thought was rather unusual and er of course when we got inside and everbody was there and they drew the curtains back, we saw the er the red ribbon going right the way up the North Sea across Denmark to keep us clear of the flak on the North German coast. But er when we were in the briefing, you know, they, they pulled the curtains back and when we saw this track and then it finished up at this vague point on the Baltic coast. I mean we were used to bombing from about eighteen, nineteen thousand feet on German cities you know, big areas, and this target and we weren’t told the precise nature of what was going on there, all we were told was that it was a research station connected with radar, but that it was a very important raid as far as we were concerned, as far as this country was concerned. Because we thought, well I mean, it was just five hundred and ninety six aircraft, what are five hundred and ninety six aircraft doing on a target not much bigger than about two football stadiums, where we were used to er, I mean huge areas. What could possibly be there that would warrant a maximum effort from Bomber Command and of course initially, it was gonna, the raid was gonna take place in three waves, two bomber, two bomber groups in each wave. Now initially, 4 Group which was Halifaxes, together with another Group, I can’t remember which one it was, was scheduled to go in last. Our aiming point was the living quarters where all the scientists and the technicians were, but the schedule was changed, we were moved from the last wave to the first, because they were frightened that our aiming point was gonna to be obscured by smoke from the smoke detonators, so they moved us to the first wave. Which as it turned out was very fortunate from our point of view, I mean we, we ran in on our final run in, er the flak was only light and we, we bombed and turned out and came away, but of course when the raid was halfway over, the night fighters arrived because what had happened in, in with the main force, there were about a small force of Mosquitoes I think it was, about eight that went on to Berlin because they wanted them to think that it was a raid on Berlin. So the Mosquitoes veered off to Berlin, we veered left to Peenemunde and of course, over the previous months Peenemunde had got a bit complacent, because at one time, when Berlin was bombed, although it was about um, I think it was about sixty miles away, the air raid sirens and that all went off at Peenemunde and everything was shut down so it interrupted their all their work. But then of course, Peenemunde was never bombed, it was always Berlin, so of course they got complacent, so when we got there that night, they had no idea that was there was going to be a raid, and over Berlin the Mosquitoes had been dropping window, you know the little slips of aluminium which had been previously used on Hamburg, and the night fighters of course were at their usual height, looking for the heavy bombers at eighteen, twenty, twenty one thousand, and they weren’t there and it was er the, the ground controllers were in turmoil they, the -.
CB: The German ones?
GD: Yeah the German ones. The night fighters were saying well where are they, and the ground controllers couldn’t tell them, and it wasn’t until one pilot happened to spot the fires at Peenemunde about halfway through the raid, that they realised that it was Peenemunde that was being bombed. So of course all the night fighters and I mean it was a perfect night, it was no cloud, er moonlight, we, we went in at seven thousand feet instead of eighteen, nineteen thousand, and er of course once the night fighters got there, they had a field day. We finished up losing forty aircraft, nearly three hundred men
CB: Amazing
GD: So that change from us going from the third to the first wave, I might not have been talking to you now.
CB: Yes yes, saved you. So how long was that flight?
GD: Well it was about seven hours forty I think.
CB: Right.
GD: Seven hours forty I think.
CB: Now going over the Baltic and then, first of all over Denmark and then over the Baltic, how close did you get to Sweden?
GD: Oh not that close the, the main place that we had to er miss if possible was Flensburg, that was a bit of a hot spot for flak, seven hours forty, and then we had er, we had a bad hydraulic leak, so when we came back, we were diverted to a place called Wymeswold in er Lincolnshire, we had to leave the aircraft there it was.
CB: Oh, did you.
GD: Yes, couldn’t fly it back.
CB: So you got the undercarriage down by winding it down did you?
GD: No, no we got the undercarriage down all right, we had no flaps.
CB: Oh I see.
GD: We didn’t have any flaps.
CB: Mmm, okay, so that was the most memorable event of your ops?
GD: The only other thing the, the nearest I suppose I got to getting the chop was um when I was instructing at er Worksop. I was in charge of night flying one night and I had a pupil by the name of Flying Officer Jennings, he was quite experienced, he’d come from flying training command, and he was down to do circuits and bumps, and the, it was a bit like this er, the weather was, it was a bit hazy, not bad not as bad as this, and I said to him, ‘well I’ll come with you on the first circuit, just to make sure that the weather conditions are okay for you to carry on.’ er and I’d arranged for, after we landed, for him to taxi round to the take off point where er transport, I got out, transport picked me up and he went off on his next circuit. When he came round and for some reason, he overshot. Now why he overshot I don’t know whether it was, whether he made an error on his approach or whatever I, I don’t know, anyway that was it, never saw him again. It turned out he crashed at er somewhere near Nottingham and at the, I had to go down to the, I had to go down to the Court of Enquiry and eventually it was found that a prop line had come off so -
CB: Was that the implication it destroyed the aircraft because of vibration or the blade hit the pilot?
GD: I don’t know, I didn’t get the full result, all I know a prop line had come off it would I mean er I don’t know whether he had a chance to feather it or so that was that was a bit of a near do [laughs].
CB: Yeah, How did you like being an instructor?
GD: Oh it was all right but it, it got a bit, it got a bit boring after a while, you know, when you were teaching somebody circuits and landings all that, and then you’d have to go on a cross country with them when they were doing there um, er navigation, they were doing their cross countries you had to er sort of sit there for four or five hours.
CB: Now what about the social life surrounding all of this, how did that work?
GD: Well squadron life was actually quite good because there was no er no bull at all, you know, we didn’t have, we didn’t have parades or anything like that. I mean a typical day would be, we’d go down to flights about nine, nine thirty, report to flight commander, have a look up when they decided whether there was ops on that night, you know, and look at the battle order and see whether you were on. And then er you might go and do an air test if er, there’d been something wrong with your aircraft might go and do an air test, or you might go down to the intelligence office, spend an hour down there, you might go on sometimes, we’d do what you call dry dinghy drill. We’d go out to the dispersal and practice, getting out if we had to ditch um, we might go and do a bit of aircraft recognition, go down the parachute section have a look at them packing parachutes. By lunchtime you were free to do what you want, I mean I played football, I played cricket, I played squash, tennis er it was quite um a sort of casual life apart from the er you know the operations and that the rest of it, was, was quite nice.
CB: Now the successful flight of an aircraft is partly based on ground crew, so how did they, what were they like.
GD: We had a smashing ground crew, you couldn’t, you couldn’t have done the job without them. I mean er we used to take them down to the pub for a beer every now and again, but er you know, you relied on them doing their job properly.
CB: And how many planes did they look after, one, two?
GD: Ooh. I would think, I mean the people that looked after our plane were, always looked after that one and they probably have another, maybe another one, another two.
CB: A topic that comes up occasionally is LMF. What experience did you have of that?
GD: Lack of moral fibre.
CB: Yes.
GD: Yeah we did have one chap that er got er turfed off, he was always turning back, flying officer, and always turning back for some reason or the other until they um they cottoned on to him er and he was shipped off to Sheffield, stripped of his rank.
CB: What did they do to make an example of him, at the station. Did they do anything?
GD: No, one minute they were, there the next minute they were gone, it was all very quick. That was the only, that was the only case that I remember that stood out er.
CB: But that was your squadron?
GD: Yeah.
CB: Was it, how many squadrons on the airfield?
GD: Only ours
CB: Only yours.
GD: Except for Linton.
CB: Yes.
GD: Before we split up with 78, 78 went to Breighton, we went to Holme on Spalding Moor.
CB: And how many aircraft would there be in the squadron?
GD: Er probably about thirty.
CB: So four flights?
GD: Three.
CB: Three flights.
GD: A, B, and C.
CB: Ok.
GD: Roughly ten aircraft a flight.
CB: Some of the raids were quite dicey, others were quiet. How many times did you get chased by fighters?
GD: We never got, we were lucky, we never got chased by a fighter. We got involved with flak quite a bit ‘cos the Ruhr, most of my er trips were to the Ruhr, and er that was pretty heavy for flak there.
CB: So on the run in, can you just talk us through how that worked, what was the timespan you had to settle down before on your way in, so how would that work?
GD: You tried, you tried to get on to your course, your final course for the run in, and then for say five minutes roughly, you were in the hands of the bomb aimer, completely in his hands, you know. He would say, ‘right, left, left, steady, steady, a bit more left,’ until he got to the stage when he would say, ‘bombs are gone,’ and then of course, you had to wait, you had to stay on course for your photo flash.
CB: So how was the, the time you had to stay on course depended on your height for the photo flash to drop, so who worked that out, was that prescribed before you set off?
GD: Yes I mean height, height didn’t really come into it because you knew you were going in at say er eighteen, nineteen thousand, I mean you knew that before you started.
CB: Yes that’s what I meant.
GD: That would be your bombing height so the er flash was er, would follow on from there, but you definitely, that was the worst part, making sure that you stayed until flash operated.
CB: So the bombs went, you were some way from the target when the bombs went?
GD: We were still, yes.
CB: Because of their parabola of the fall.
GD: Forward fall, yes.
CB: And photo flash went how soon after the bombs were released.
GD: Approximately half a minute.
CB: Right, so on balance, you’d have to be steady in order to take your picture, for how long roughly?
GD: About half a minute.
CB: Right, and who operated the camera the bomb aimer or -
GD: That was automatic.
CB: Oh automatic, and what did they do with that picture?
GD: Went to intelligence you might, I don’t think I’ve actually got any, any um somewhere, that’s the sort of picture, look that could be taken, that was probably, that was probably er er a flare.
CB: Yeah, blowing in the wind.
GD: Yeah, but you would, you would hopefully try and get ground detail if possible in the flash.
CB: So what about the smoke, to what extent was smoke over the target a problem for you?
GD: Well yeah, I mean basically, I mean, you bombed on the reds and greens put down by pathfinders.
CB: By pathfinders yeah.
GD: And it was, if it was um er, cloud of course, you did, they did air markings which was called whanganui, I think the air markers but of course, that wasn’t all that accurate.
CB: To what extent could you see other aircraft in the vicinity?
GD: You could see if they were close enough and of course, you did see aircraft being shot down as well.
CB: How did you feel about that?
GD: Hard luck.
CB: Yes.
GD: Not us, I mean my friend Dave at Balcombe we were talking about, they were involved in a mid-air collision.
CB: Were they?
GD: With another Lancaster, they lost six foot of their wing.
CB: And still kept flying?
GD: Managed to get back and land safely.
CB: What about the one that hit them?
GD: The what?
CB: What about the one that hit them?
GD: All went down, all killed.
CB: Oh were they.
GD: Yes.
CB: So effectively, the propeller sliced off the end of the wing but that completely jiggered the other aircraft?
GD: Yeah, well they’d got no aileron, you see.
CB: Right.
GD: The aileron went.
CB: Right.
GD: So he had a job, he had a job to er, I think they lost an engine as well I think on that, so they had yeah er, quite a job bringing it back.
CB: So as a pilot, how would you handle a three engine with bad damage?
GD: Well you’ve got, you’ve got trimming tabs which er would allow you to make sure that the aircraft would go the way you wanted it to, er the trimming tabs of course were actually on the ailerons, but of course on one side, they’d gone.
CB: Yes.
GD: Of course you could, you could feather the engine, you see, where the prop, where the prop blades turn, so you got the least wind resistance.
CB: Yes, so er your speed would normally be what?
GD: Halifax, about a hundred and sixty.
CB: Oh, was it knots or miles per hour?
GD: Knots.
CB: Right, so that’s a hundred and sixty, hundred and seventy five miles an hour. Now were the other bombers in the stream at different heights, so was there a level that the Halifaxes flew at, and a different one that the Lancasters flew at?
GD: Yes.
CB: Why was that?
GD: Well you obviously tried to er spread the raid out as much as you could, if you had everybody, if you had sort of six hundred aircraft, all flying at the same height, whereas Stirlings would be down here, Halifaxes would be there, Lancasters would be there, but er there was always a risk of course and it did happen, that er you would get hit by somebody else’s bomb.
CB: Yeah. Did you see any of that happening?
GD: No, well you saw an explosion but you wouldn’t know what caused it.
CB: No, and thinking of explosions, to what extent did you see aircraft shot down from underneath by Germans, German night fighters?
GD: They hadn’t got that when we on [unclear].
CB: Oh they hadn’t.
GD: No schlagermusic.
CB: Schlagermusic
GD: Yeah, no, that came a bit later.
CB: Okay, so I think we’ve covered a huge range of things but after you left the RAF, what did you do?
GD: I went back to Pickfords, I did my um er, B Licence in London and er went to London School of Air Navigation, but there were so many of us on the market and of course, I mean, in my digs alone, there were nineteen pilots and, and they had about five courses running at the same time, I mean the, the civil airlines hadn’t really got going, the people that scored were the RAF pilots that were seconded to British European Airways before they were demobbed, before the war finished perhaps, but er ‘cos they got in on the ground floor. I mean they’d, in fact I went into the gents, I think it was in was it in Malta, and I stood next to my flight commander at er Holme on Spalding Moor, he was with er British European Airways.
CB: Oh, was he, right.
GD: So, so I, I, I er, I tried one or two places to get a job, but er there was nothing doing, so I went back to Pickfords, because they had to keep your job open you see, all, all companies had to keep your job available for you and in any case, they were, they were half the people anyway, the company and I stayed with them until I retired.
CB: At sixty five.
GD: Sixty.
CB: Sixty. What was you doing at Pickfords then?
GD: I was a branch manager.
CB: Right.
GD: Mmm.
CB: Round here?
GD: And we had a travel business as well.
CB: So where were you operating from, from Pickfords?
GD: Well when I came out the RAF, I went back to Hearne Bay for a while um, for a couple of years, and then I was posted up to Lancashire, er stayed there for about six and a half years, and then down to Aldershot, where I was, I was there for eleven years, and then finally down to here, where I retired. I retired early because there was those were when the pressure started being put on people to produce more [laughs], I’d had enough of that, I did, I didn’t stop work, I, I found several, I used to work for other removal companies, doing estimating and er I went up to London, stood in for the training officer that suddenly went back to Australia. I was there for six months doing the, doing their training so er I didn’t actually pack up work.
CB: As far as associations concerned, was there a squadron association running for many years that you were associated with?
GD: No, not, not to start with, er 76 Squadron Association of course is still going today, um did go to one or two reunions and I also went to two Bomber Command reunions.
CB: Yes.
GD: Where the first one I think was run by the Evening Standard or it was at the Albert Hall.
CB: Oh the Albert Hall.
GD: And everyone was shouting, ‘we want butch, we want butch,’ [laughs].
CB: He’d gone to South Africa. So how do you feel about the, getting the position of getting the clasp now for Bomber Command but not having -
GD: Well I mean quite honestly, when you look at it and you see what it is, and it took all that time and all that argument and, and discussion, and when you finish up with not, I wasn’t bothered about it.
CB: Right, how did you feel about bombing?
GD: Oh I mean don’t forget that. What was I, was, I had my twenty first birthday two weeks after I’d finished my tour on Halifaxes and I mean in those days, an eighteen to twenty year old was a lot different to an eighteen twenty year old today. We were a lot more naïve and don’t forget, I’d seen a lot living at Whitstable, I’d seen all these hordes of German bombers going up to London, and of course places like Coventry and Plymouth and er Southampton, all those places got very badly bombed. And er er no I mean war is war, and women and children are going to get killed, it’s unavoidable. I mean if you take er factories, er take the Ruhr for example, if you’ve got factories, you are going to have people living near them, workers and er not all bombs are going to hit the factory. I, I’ve never felt any guilt about it and of course Bomber Command did get a bad press after the war, what with Dresden.
CB: So when the RAF memorial was unveiled, how did you feel about that?
GD: I thought that was something, it was well worthwhile, well worth waiting for.
CB: ‘Cos you were there?
GD: Yeah it was, it’s a marvellous monument, it’s a marvellous memorial. I mean the sculpture is beautiful. No I think it was, it should have happened a lot earlier, I mean not so much for the people that survived but for the fifty five and half thousand that didn’t.
CB: Yes.
GD: Was a lot you know I mean out of a hundred, what’s it, a hundred and twenty five?
CB: A hundred and twenty five thousand.
GD: Over five fifty five and half killed.
CB: Fifty five thousand five hundred.
GD: It’s a big percentage.
CB: Yes 44.4.
GD: Well take Peenemunde for example.
CB: Yes.
GD: You know fourteen aircraft, nearly three hundred men in one night, and that was only one raid in the war.
CB: Good. Thank you very much indeed, really interesting, fascinating actually.
CB: Just as a recap George, in your early days, when you were at OTU and then HCU and then on the squadron, er how did you go through training for evading fighters? Did you have fighter affiliation? How did that work?
GD: Well the only fighter affiliation we had was when we were at, not on the squadron. I didn’t do any on the squadron but on HCU, we’d just go off and then er we knew that somewhere, usually it was a spitfire who would er appear from nowhere, your gunners, your gunners would be on the alert and er give you the instruction you know, ‘corkscrew right, corkscrew left, dive,’ and er I think we only did about two when I was on HCU two fighter affiliations.
CB: But there would always be a corkscrew in the affiliation would there?
GD: Yes.
CB: And in earnest, how often did you have to use er, corkscrew?
GD: Only once, er I’m trying to think which raid it was, um we got, we got coned.
CB: Oh yes by searchlights.
GD: By one of the um, one of the radar patrolled searchlights, and of course, you were like a, like a, once you’re coned with the blue one, all the others come on and you’re like a fairy sitting on top of a Christmas tree and er straight away, you corkscrew out. We didn’t have to corkscrew because of a fighter but only because of the er getting coned.
CB: And that worked did it?
GD: That worked yeah, but um, er it’s not pleasant.
CB: No.
GD: You just sit sitting up there er, you know, as I say with a like a fairy on a Christmas tree [laughs], you know, you’re the focal point and you’ve gotta get out of it as soon as you can, but fortunately that was the only time we had to do it in combat. We, we were lucky on our tour, we had, I would say, I mean apart from the heavy flak which you got er most of the time um, we, we didn’t get attacked by a fighter and um we had probably a reasonably good tour.
CB: Much damage to the aircraft from flak?
GD: Yeah a few flak holes, yeah, nothing serious.
CB: Ground crew reaction to damaging their aeroplane?
GD: Yeah [laughs], what you bring it like that for [laughs], you ought to know better [laughs].
CB: Did it cost you a beer or two?
GD: Yes [laughs], yes.
CB: So with the ground crew, how did the liaison go?
GD: Oh very well, in fact I kept in touch with one of our ground crew after the war, er a fellow called Johnnie, Johnnie somebody, lived in Stoke Newington.
CB: Was he the chiefy?
GD: No, not the chiefy.
CB: And with the ground crew, who was the main, the person normally linking with them in the aircrew. Was it the pilot or would it be the engineer?
GD: Well both really er because you see, you had the engine fitter, the airframe fitter, the instrument fitter, the instrument man, the armourer, so er they were all they were all involved.
CB: Because you were on the fighting edge of technology in those days, so did you have Gee?
GD: Yeah.
CB: And how did you feel about the use of Gee?
GD: Very good, only trouble was you only got it to about five degrees east.
CB: And you didn’t have GH in those days?
GD: No of course, pathfinders of course came in with H2S and Oboe. I mean the marking the PFM marking was good, yes.
CB: And you’d know the colour of the markers before you set off, would you?
GD: Yes, I mean basically you bombed on the reds.
CB: Right.
GD: Or if not the reds, the green back ups.
CB: Would there always be a master bomber hovering?
GD: No the master bomber, there was a master bomber on Peenemunde, Group Captain Searby, and he directed the er he would say, you know, ‘ignore so and so, or bomb so and so, stop, stop the creepback,’ or whatever.
CB: Was the creep a problem?
GD: Pardon?
CB: Was, was creep much of a problem on targets?
GD: Well it wasn’t providing you stuck to bombing the indicators that you were supposed to, but of course there were some crews you know, that er got a bit hesitant, and er just get rid of them quick and of course if you’ve got fires showing up, you might have your red and green markers, but then you might have fires back coming back, but they weren’t marked so er yeah, there were, there was a bit of creepback sometimes.
CB: Did they have to remark sometimes?
GD: Well I don’t know because you see, you were once you’d done your bombing run.
CB: Yes.
GD: You don’t know what was going on other than that, but we didn’t have any, we didn’t have any master bomber, we didn’t have any master bombers apart from Peenemunde. On er the only other time I was involved with a master bomber was er when we went to er, I think it was Kiel er with a Mosquito, we had a, we had a [looking through book] a special camera.
CB: On the Mosquito?
GD: On that particular night we had a special camera, and we had to er report the um weather conditions to the er master bomber
CB: Right.
GD: On that I don’t know when that was, ‘46 [looking through book], and yeah must have been the last, must have been probably the last one, yeah, we were hit that one, there we were hit in, on both nose cones on er Mosquitos.
CB: By flak?
GD: On a Berlin, yeah, flak hits on both spillers.
CB: Oh, on the spillers.
GD: Yes.
CB: So you were lucky not to lose the engines?
GD: Well yeah because if they’d hit the, if they’d have hit the glycol tanks, that would have been it, there wouldn’t have been any time hardly to -
CB: Was there a particularly vulnerable point on the Mosquito?
GD: No not really, only the engines, ‘cos liquid cooled, so if you got hit with a, if your glycol got punctured, then that was it.
CB: So, you did thirty ops on your first tour.
GD: Yes.
CB: How many did you do on Mosquitos?
GD: Fourteen.
CB: And what stopped that?
GD: The war ended.
CB: Right, now you’ve got a DFC, when was that awarded?
GD: After the completion of the tour on the Halifaxes.
CB: On the Halifaxes, your first tour, do you have the citation for that?
GD: Mm somewhere [laughs].
CB: Only I’m just wondering how they worded it you see?
GD: Oh haven’t got it that I know of, it could be somewhere amongst the debris up in the loft [laughs].
CB: So when you were commissioned was that expected or unexpected?
GD: Unexpected I think, mind you, I think most pilots got commissioned round about halfway through their tour, I mean it was quite a, I was just told that I’d been recommended and went up before the group captain and that was it, it came through.
CB: What did he say?
GD: I can’t remember.
CB: You’re a jolly good.
GD: Funnily enough the next time I met him, he was a Group Captain Hodson, and er when I was at Ismailia, for my sins, I was Tennis Officer [laughs], and er the Group Captain there was a chap called Fletcher, and he called me in one day and he said, ‘I’ve got the Air Vice Marshall coming over from 205 Group in Cairo to play tennis with me, so I want you to make sure everything is tickety boo.’ You know, we had a, we had a pro, a pro, a civilian tennis chap there and he said, I want of course the AOC turned up, I don’t know what he came in, whether he came in an Oxford or not, turned up and Group Captain Fletcher introduced me and it was the same Group Captain that interviewed me for my commission.
CB: Small world. So he said?
GD: He did look at me and he said, ‘I’ve got an idea we might have met before.’ I said, ‘yes sir,’ I said, ‘you interviewed me for my commission,’ ‘that’s it,’ he said, ’76 Squadron.’ Air Vice Marshall Hodson.
CB: Thinking of senior officers and operations, how often did Group Captains and even Wing Commanders go on ops?
GD: It’s funny you should say that, we lost two fairly quickly.
CB: Two which?
GD: Two Group Captains, two Station Commanders.
CB: Did you?
GD: The first one was um er I can’t think of this name, I think his name was er, he got bombed in fact I think there might have been three There was one when the squadron was at Driffield and Driffield was bombed and the station commander was killed.
CB: Early in the war?
GD: Would be, yeah.
CB: Battle of Britain?
GD: And er Group Captain Whittley went as second pilot to a chap called um Jock, it’s in the, it’s in the [unclear] book, oops.
CB: The cups gone over, have you got a cloth.
GD: Group Captain Whittley.
CB: This is the squadron history, is it?
GD: Yeah, see the dawn breaking.
CB: Right.
GD: Er [looking through book] Group Captain John Whittley 1576, yeah, Group Captain Garaway was the one that lost his life in the um he was er
CB: In the bombing raid?
GD: Linton, Linton Station Commander, Group Captain Garaway OBE was struck and killed by fragments from an anti-personnel bomb whilst leading a team to extinguish a serious incendiary blade er blaze, and then of course Whittley followed him. Ah yes, another one 76 [looking through book], yes he flew with er a chap called Jock Cary er and er four were killed, Group Captain Whittley, Pilot Officer David and Sergeants’ Davis and Strange evaded capture and then there was a Wilson, just wondered what happened to him. I think there were three Group Captains in 76 who were lost.
CB: Who were Station Commanders?
GD: Yes.
CB: Were they were allowed to fly, encouraged to fly or how did it work?
GD: They were not encouraged to fly really, they would only do one trip, a trip every now and again.
CB: Yes.
GD: You see even the squadron commanders didn’t. I mean the squadron commander squadron leader, he could probably take up to a year to do his tour because he might only fly once a month.
CB: The wing commander.
GD: And the wing commander.
CB: He’d be the wing commander, the squadron commander.
GD: No that was the flight commander, the squadron commander again, he would only fly er our um, our er squadron commander was a chap called Don Smith, oh what’s a name, a squadron commander that left a week, a fortnight before I joined Cheshire, he was at 76 at Linton and he’d just gone when I joined, yeah.
CB: He had an American wife who used to play the piano in the mess.
GD: Yes, yes.
CB: That came from an earlier interview. Right I think we’ve done extraordinarily well.
GD: That was the code name for um, sky marking, nearly all the er code names for marking were New Zealand, you had Paramata um, what else Paramata.
CB: Oh right.
GD: Paramater.
WT: Betemangui here and how did you and I understand the pathfinders went in which were hugely Mosquitos?
CB: They were Lancasters.
GD: They were both.
WT: And they dropped flares?
GD: Yes
WT: On the bombing area on the area?
GD: Known as target indicators.
WT: How long before you, the bombers, followed them in to bomb, how soon after the flares or whatever it was that were dropped, did the bombers actually come in?
GD: Well I can’t answer that right, because er when we, every trip that I went on the target was nearly always alight when we got there, it would only be the people that were actually in the very first wave that would that would know that.
WT: Right.
GD: I wouldn’t think it wouldn’t be long because er you see once the indicators had gone down, the ground people would know that that was going to be a raid so they would want to get the bombs dropping er fairly quickly.
WT: But I mean were they actually flares that were dropped so they’d burn out fairly quickly?
GD: Oh no, no, they kept alight for a while.
WT: And when you couldn’t see the ground you mentioned sky marking.
GD: Sky marking. Whanganui.
WT: How does that work?
GD: Well they were coloured lights in the sky that would hover, which is why sky marking wasn’t all that accurate because you see they -
CB: They would drift.
GD: They would drift, a ground marker.
WT: Don’t flares drift ground markers?
GD: Oh no, because they’d be actually on the ground, they’d be burning.
WT: Yes.
GD: On the ground
WT: No I meant, sorry I’m being a bit pedantic, but if you’ve got quite a strong wind, and okay, they would allow for that, but I mean, they aren’t going to get it right all the time, you could find that the flares have moved away from the target but therefore?
GD: But that would only happen before they hit the ground,
WT: Right.
GD: Wouldn’t it? If you were dropping a target indicator.
WT: Yes.
GD: It could move before it hit the ground but they, they would know the wind and they would that would be allowed for.
WT: So the accuracy of the pathfinders, for what I’m really getting to, who dropped the flares not only was it critical, but they were very accurate.
GD: Yes because don’t forget, they had what they called Oboe which was er direction where the lines crossed and er they um, Oboe was quite accurate and they would, they would drop their target indicator according to the grat[unclear]
CB: This is transmitters sending out a signal in a line that would then converge in the point where the bomb was to be dropped, that was in the later part of the war.
WT: Very good.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with George Dunn
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Chris Brockbank
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-03-08
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Sound
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ADunnGC170308
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Pending review
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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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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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01:34:14 audio recording
Description
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George Dunn DFC joined the Royal Air Force in June 1941 and initially trained as a Wireless Operator/Air Gunner, before training in Canada as a Pilot. He flew aircraft such as Avro Ansons and Airspeed Oxford.
He tells of his experiences as ‘second dickey’ on trips to Essen and Kiel, before joining No. 76 Squadron at Linton-on-Ouse, flying Handley Page Halifaxes. He also spent time on 10 Squadron and was finally transferred to 608 Squadron based at Downham Market in Suffolk flying Mosquitos.
George tells of his trip to Malta, and flying Spitfires that were being renovated for the Greek Air Force.
George flew 30 operations flying Halifaxes and a further 14 flying the Mosquito.
After the war, George returned to his previous company, Pickfords, where he worked as a Branch Manager before retiring at the age of 60.
Contributor
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Vivienne Tincombe
10 Squadron
109 Squadron
608 Squadron
76 Squadron
Anson
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
ground crew
Halifax
lack of moral fibre
Master Bomber
memorial
mid-air collision
Mosquito
Oboe
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
perception of bombing war
RAF Chipping Norton
RAF Downham Market
RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor
RAF Linton on Ouse
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Melbourne
RAF Rufforth
RAF Upper Heyford
Spitfire
target indicator
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/552/8816/AMaddockLyonR160321.2.mp3
a595d15f2a53dcbc9fb8c503f4160890
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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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Maddock-Lyon, Roy
R Maddock-Lyon
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
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MaddockLyon, R
Description
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Seven items. An oral history interview with Roy Maddock-Lyon (- 2023, 2205669 Royal Air Force), his log book, service material, silk escape map and an album. He served as a flight engineer with 10 Squadron from RAF Melbourne until he was shot down on his 18th operation over Denmark 14 February 1945. Two of his crew were killed but he evaded with the help of the Danish resistance.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Roy Maddock-Lyon and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
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2016-03-21
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: Right. My name is Chris Brockbank and we are interviewing Roy Maddock-Lyon today which is the 21st of March 2016 at Lee House in Weedon near Aylesbury. And Roy was a flight engineer and he’s going to talk about his life and times. So, Roy how did it all start in your mind?
RML: Well when I was born I suppose. But yes, I was born. I was born more or less in the time of the Big Depression but my father continued, was working. He was an accountant and he’d served in the First World War. And from then on I went to Runcorn Grammar School. It was then called technical college but it became changed to a grammar school and I was educated there until the war broke out. And Runcorn was an evacuation town so all the young kids were evacuated to Blackpool. I was one of them. I didn’t like it there so I came home but my school up was at Blackpool so I went out to work and I took an engineering apprenticeship and I enjoyed that. And I wanted to be a chemist but there was no vacancies at ICI for a chemist apprentice so I went into engineering apprenticeship. That, I studied, got my Ordinary National and I started getting my Higher National but I’d, it had just developed that the RAF and I thought I’d like to join the RAF. I didn’t think of the army. In fact I didn’t think it was my sort of cup of tea. Neither was the navy. So I went in to the RAF but during that I had an interesting experience. I was with the Civil Service, as it was then called, and I was a messenger in the Civil Service. The role of the messenger you did one night a week and you were there in case of messages, an air raid, and you lost communication and then I had to know where to go. You know, the post office, the police and that. And the interesting case was because Liverpool had been badly bombed there was an organisation known as the Queen’s Messengers. Have you heard of it?
CB: No. Never.
RML: Well the Queen’s Messengers was a relief organisation run by the government and it was stationed in Birmingham and it was a fleet of coaches and lorries carrying relief to wherever there was a damaged area and it was called the Queen’s Messengers. And as the roads were all in blackout and the road signs had all been taken down the messengers had to know the area. So I had to go from the, well the relief convoy was coming up from Birmingham to go to Liverpool and I had to cycle to a place called Helsby outside Runcorn and to get in the front vehicle and guide it to Runcorn and then hand over to the next one because they knew the road and they went on. So it was an interesting exercise and not many people probably know about the Queen’s Messengers.
CB: No. No.
RML: And they was probably there for a couple of days and the next raid, where ever it was, they went off to there and it was a very good relief. So that was all I had to do was sit in the, in the front vehicle and put my bike in there and wait until they got to where I had to hand over and there was this continuous movement. There was about three or four Queen’s Messenger convoys going. All radiating from Birmingham. I think that’s something that could be developed you know because not many people, as you say, nobody knew about them and it was essential to get relief supplies because we carried medicine and doctors and things like that. And so after that I used to do one night a week and then I got a request calling up for an interview and they interviewed me for RAF ordinary and they said would I like to go into aircrew? And I said, ‘Of course I would.’ [laughs] And so they said, ‘Right. Well you’d better go home again,’ because they weren’t recruiting at that building for aircrew. So, I was then called up about a few weeks later. Had to go to Padgate and, where they assessed me for whatever. Pilot. Engineer. Gunner. And I passed with flight engineer and then I eventually was called up to go to Lord’s Cricket Ground and, where I had a fortnight’s equipping and getting into uniform. Inoculations and that. And that, once I passed that at Lord’s I was sent to [pause] yes, Sunderland. Just outside. In a place called Hetton le Hole and I did an amount of training there and then I went from there I went to Bridlington where I was, had other training including parachute dropping. How to get out and open a parachute and drop on the ground. How to fall and do the normal roll. And then I was sent home on leave. And after doing the square bashing and that at Bridlington I was then posted to St Athan where I did type engineering training and then I got type training. I couldn’t go into Lancasters because I was too short. You had to be five foot, over five foot six for an engineer. I don’t know why. But they offered me Flying Boats or the Halifax and so I took the Halifax and I did my type training on the Halifax and I passed that and then was allocated to a squadron. Oh no I wasn’t. I was sent to HCU and that’s where I eventually met my crew of five and then made it seven and whilst at Acaster Malbis I did commando training in case I was shot down and various other exercises and then I was squadroned. Yeah. No I wasn’t. I was sent, sent to HCU then to do my initial training. That was, they was using the very old Halifaxes which were flying coffins because they invariably crashed. So It was a mark ii. Mark i and Mark ii Halifax. I went on the Mark iii eventually and it was a good experience. I had one dust up with the police because I was cycling home. We’d gone out to a party and my navigator was on the cross bar and a policeman stopped me and that was not allowed. To have a crossbar. So, he took my name. I got called up and got prosecuted for that and the magistrate said had I got anything to say. I said, ‘Yes [time that blinking plod?] was in the air force. Not punishing us.’ ‘Right.’ He’d already given me a ten shilling fine. ‘Another ten shillings. [laughs] Have you anything more to say?’ I said, ‘No.’ Blinking — I said he should be in the army or the, yeah, instead of stopping — anyhow, so then I went. So that was my brush with the law. In fact, in the squadron they all thought it very funny. Including the CO. [I hope that bloke had] had some more disasters. Anyhow, I went to my squadron and I’ve written a book here on what I did including photographs. So you can borrow that.
CB: Thank you.
RML: I can get these back wont I?
CB: Yes. Absolutely.
RML: And there was lots of things. The Halifax was a good plane but as a — well fortunately I’d written to the Hercules who made the Bristols, who made the engines and they sent me a calculator how to measure your fuel consumption. So as a result, all the other engineers hadn’t got that. So as a result, I had a good fuel record.
CB: Oh.
RML: One raid I was on using that and we’d got hit with shrapnel and all and I’d had to do the necessary fuel change and we came back to the squadron and we said, have permission to land and we got a, we were damaged, and, ‘Can we have priority landing?’ ‘No, you can’t land here. Go to Carnaby.’ ‘No, we haven’t got enough fuel to go to Carnaby.’ ‘Well too bad. Go to Carnaby.’ And we turned from York on to Carnaby which is Bridlington and as we come in to land two engines cut out. We were just on the, we planted down on two engines. Out of fuel. Thinking I’d have a lot to say about that if it wasn’t recorded because we should have been able to land. But anyhow the two engines cut out and when we taxied around another one went. So, we lost three engines. It wasn’t, wasn’t funny and, you know, all the other planes were there and as we taxied around and we got nose to tail so we stopped our plane in front of another plane and were getting out and as we were getting out there was a heck of a noise and two planes farther back — they were doing the same. The engine of one went into the rear turret of another and just chewed the rear gunner up like spaghetti. It was terrible, and we were walking, you know, got our equipment back to the reception and we saw all this, you know, damage.
CB: Yeah. Frightening.
RML: If the pilot had kept the plane going straight it would have been ok. But no, he tried to accelerate to turn the plane away and that’s what happened.
CB: Dreadful.
RML: The engine, you know, the propeller just churned him up. It was a heck of a mess. It was a bit disheartening.
CB: I bet.
RML: But we, we had other raids to go on. And then one other raid. My pilot was a bit of devil. Having flown the Tiger and other, we came — we was out doing, we were training like Barnes Wallis wants. Low level flying. And we came over Bridlington beach and the holidaymakers dropped to the ground because they thought they was going to be cut up but we carried on from there over the Yorkshire Moors and I don’t know if you’ve been up that area.
CB: Not recently.
RML: Well they’ve got pylons there.
CB: Oh yes. Yeah.
RML: They’re quite high aren’t they?
CB: Yeah.
RML: Yeah. Well what do you do with a pilot that wants to go underneath the wires? At about fifty or a hundred feet. Which is what we did.
CB: Amazing.
RML: He had, he got a severe reprimand for that.
CB: Really.
RML: So, anyway, but yes we did low level. We was training for low level flying. You know a lot of people think that the Lancaster was the only group that could do low level flying. They weren’t. There was other squadrons that was capable of doing a low-level attack because they had to. There was lots of cases. And so when I, well I was eventually shot down. Done eighteen raids and on the eighteenth I was shot down in Denmark. It wasn’t very pleasant because it was February. It was a bit cold. So, when I landed I’d got the old fashioned flying boots which is a disaster because when my parachute opened my shoes decided to continue. You know the ones I mean. They were just sleeves –
CB: Fell off. Yeah.
RML: Oh, they went down so I landed in bare feet. When I didn’t, I looked around, blew my whistle and I couldn’t hear anything because I think I’d gone deaf, you know, with dropping from twenty thousand and so if anyone had blown their whistle I didn’t hear it. But I looked up and I could see there was a farmhouse there so I started walking in bare feet to go to the farmhouse and then I realised that going to the farmhouse I’d be leaving my trail because it was soft ground. So when I got to the farmhouse I walked, turned right at the farmhouse and walked down the road and I came to another farmhouse and it appears that the next day the Germans went to the farmhouse I’d been and there was nobody there. I wasn’t there. The farmer took me in and gave me ham and eggs and I’d got my escape kit and my escape money and I slept in his house that night and he was absolutely panic stricken because he’d got a young daughter and if the Germans had known I was there they, that would have been the end of their life. So anyhow the next morning when I got out of bed the milkman called and the woman was in tears apparently and she said she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to give me up but she was worried about her daughter. So, the milkman said, ‘Right. Put him in the hayloft,’ which is what I climbed up in to the hayloft. Burrowed down about two or three feet because the Germans, if they was looking for anybody they’d bayonet the holes to check. I was down deeper than that and at 6 o’clock at night when it was dark the milkman came and brought me some shoes. I take size seven and he took size ten or eleven [laughs]. Not funny. And so, I put those on. Went with him across the fields because he only lived about half a mile, a mile away and the house where I’d stayed the farmer there followed me with a rake levelling off the ground where my footprints had been and so that he was giving me cover and it turned out then this new bloke Johan Helms, he, it’s in the book, he thought, his wife got me clothes because I’d still got RAF uniform on. So, he got me some shirt and trousers, shoes and we went next morning. He said we’d got to get out quickly because there was a train coming and we had to get on the train. So he took me down. Instead of going down the road we went down field-ways because he knew the area, being a milkman. And we get to this station. I just forget the name of the place. [Toulouse?] that was the name of the town. And he — I’d got the money so I gave him my money. He got the railway ticket and to go on the train which we did but as we were waiting for the train there were a couple of SS officers come stalking up and they got on the train with me. In the same compartment. They were talking, yabbering to each other. They’d probably had a girl the night before and they weren’t interested in passengers on the train. So and the train was going from [Toulouse?] to Copenhagen but in Denmark they’ve got an underground system like London Underground and so, we got off at a place called Roskilde. Oh no. The SS officers got off at a place called Roskilde which was German headquarters and then we went on a little bit farther. A few miles. Ten, twenty miles and the train stopped again and we got off because it turned out that we, he put me on to, or we both got on to the Underground which was going around Copenhagen and so, we got on that. When it gets to Copenhagen the train which we’d been on was in the platform and the German troops were searching it and we were on another train and what they, we all thought, and I agree with that the Germans probably realised when they got off the train at Roskilde that what was sitting next to them was one of the RAF people that was escaping. So that was why the train was stopped and, but we didn’t need it. So, they never found me, and I went to a place called Charlottenlund which was, the owner of it was the warden of the equivalent of Kew gardens and it was called the [Forest Botanski Garden?] and this man, who was the brother of the milkman because he’d rung up his brother to say he’s got, got some nice chocolates and I was traded as a box of chocolates. And so, we got there and he er [pause] yes, his daughter, the owner didn’t want me around for obvious reasons so his daughter took me around the wooded area where the trees were and we were walking around there and suddenly two German soldiers come up and she put her arms around me and started kissing me. Not that it meant [laughs] and the Germans probably thought I was her boyfriend so they just walked on, and I was left, and I was then later that day handed over to Professor [Eyg?] I don’t know if his name is familiar. He was the leader of the Underground. The Danish Underground. So, he took me to a safe, a safe house where they took my identity, my photographs and gave me a false identity and, I’ve still got it here. And I just well yeah they gave me, and then again I became another box of chocolates because this group who interviewed me of Danish ladies handed me over to another bloke and his wife and I just went and I had a bath and had a good wash and a shave. And he took me for, he said, ‘I want to take you around Copenhagen in the morning,’ so he did and as we were going down one of the side streets there’s a German road block. So they were checking everybody for their identity. So there was a cinema next door there so we went into the cinema and saw some film which was — I don’t know what it was. And after about a half hour we came out and the road block had gone so we were free so he took me around Copenhagen, around Gestapo Headquarters and that was, and he didn’t tell me what he wanted me to see but he showed me what I could see and that was Gestapo Headquarters and also there was doing, the Germans were doing something. Do you know what Copenhagen looks like?
CB: I’ve been to Copenhagen. Yes.
RML: Well there’s four lakes coming down and at the end of the fourth one is Shell House and what they were doing they was putting trees down next to the lakes and he said, ‘Take a note of that,’ and I just did that. Apparently, when I got back, it’s skipping the order to tell this bit, Air Ministry made one terrific blunder because they were planning a Gestapo Headquarters raid which went a complete success but a disaster because one of the pilots on the Mosquito, I don’t know if you know it, missed the, went down the wrong lane and hit the school.
CB: I know about that.
RML: And wasn’t supposed to
CB: Right.
RML: Because I’d gone back to tell them that the Germans expected it and they hit the school because the pilot, that one pilot had gone sick when I did the briefing and he didn’t know about the alteration and as a result he went down what he was been told, trained for, which was the wrong direction and that was how a whole load of school children were killed.
CB: Yeah. Very tragic.
RML: About a hundred children. More. Killed because of a pilot who didn’t go to the training. Anyhow, I felt very angry to say the least. But because the Gestapo headquarters, they hit it as they wanted to. I don’t know if you remember what they did. They hit the ground floor with the rockets.
CB: Yeah.
RML: And all the Gestapo and SS who were on the ground floor were killed and all the Danish government officers who had been put on the top floor escaped. It was a wonderful success that. And anyhow eventually they decided that I had to get out because I’d got, I didn’t know I’d got this information because for obvious reasons they didn’t tell me. But they got me out and as I said it was February and they put me on a ship that was leaving Copenhagen that night to go to Bornholm and on to Germany and what it was doing it was taking German troops back to Germany. So I had to be on that boat before the German troops came on so and so they put me on the outside of the life boat which was just, the water was down there and when the ship started to sail I had to crawl from outside the lifeboat to the inside of the lifeboat. The lifeboat was sitting on the deck and they put the searchlight on and they couldn’t see me because I was on the inside now. Beforehand when they were searching the ship I was on the outside. And eventually when it had gone out of the port they came and dragged me because I was frozen. Very cold. And they took me down to the captain’s cabin and he was a double agent because as he pointed out to me on the last voyage he found a German revolver and he took it down to them and said, ‘Look. You must have left this.’ And he said it may have been a trick. But anyhow he was, he said, ‘I’ll have to leave you now.’ But he gave me [egg and ham?] lots of food and I was eating that all night and he was entertaining the Germans down below. And after the war I had to go to Denmark to identify that he had actually been a double agent.
CB: Yeah.
RML: Because he was under, the Danish people thought he’d been a traitor. So anyhow, I get off the boat and the Air Ministry or the government had sent somebody down from Stockholm because they were expecting me. They got a message across to say that I was on the boat and the Danes, the escape route — I think — I forget the name of the route, but it had to be closed down because it had been compromised but it was too risky not to take the chance because they had to get me back to Stockholm to Air Ministry urgently. So, the Danes took a terrific risk in getting me on a route which had been blown because the Germans insisted on identities of people going on. It’s in this book it’s described and so they got me off and it was and then in the morning as I say the Air Ministry, the air attaché had come down from Stockholm, met me, took me to his flat and I had a wash and a shave and one memorial episode. He said, and it was night time now, he said I’m going to give you a shock. I said, ‘Well what?’ He went to the window and drew the curtains back and I’ve never seen anything as — you can imagine when we’d had a blackout for four years. Nothing. No light. And Malmo, where we’d landed, was just like Piccadilly Circus. You — the lights were terrific. It was mind blowing. And so that was a shock to me. He then took me to the station and he didn’t come with me. I don’t know why but he put me on the train to Stockholm and I’d only been on, it was a sleeper, night sleeper. I’d only been on the ship er on the train about ten minutes and somebody else came to get in the top bunk and he spoke to me. He said something in German. ‘You’re not German.’ ‘No.’ ‘What are you? American?’ ‘No.’ ‘British?’ Well you couldn’t argue with the fact I could only speak blinking British, so he said, ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to give you up.’ He said, ‘I’m the German courier from Berlin and I’m going to the German Embassy.’ It’s nice that they have got some people that’s friendly. And so, we sat there and he said that Germany wasn’t so, this was February ‘45. Getting towards the end. And we had a little chat. In the morning he shook me out of sleep and he said, ‘Where are you going to now? British Embassy?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘I’ll get you a taxi.’ So, he got me a taxi, ordered, told him to take me to the British Embassy. This was a German courier. And I got to the German Embassy, er British Embassy and it was fine. So I’m there and then one of the staff at the Embassy said, ‘Do you smoke?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Here’s two hundred gold flakes from the British Red Cross.’ I said, ‘Oh thank you.’ So, I got those and I got sent to a hotel. The Grand Hotel in Stockholm which is quite a good one. It’s a big one. It’s like The Savoy. They put me in and when I’m, I decide to go out and I’d got some cigarettes in my pocket and I was in plain clothes now because they’d taken me to like Harrods or somewhere where they equipped me with a suit, tie, shirt, everything and so, and shoes, everything. I’d got everything I needed. So, I went downstairs and was sitting outside and a Swedish girl came up to me, a blonde and said, ‘Have you got a cigarette?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ ‘Can I have one?’ I said, ‘Yeah. Ok.’ I was naïve. Stupid little boy. So she said, ‘You haven’t got a spare packet have you?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ ‘Oh, I’ll see you in a minute.’ ‘I thought that’s the worst, you know, she’s taken my cigarettes and gone and buggered off. About ten minutes later she came back and said ‘It’s all fixed.’ I said, ‘What?’ ‘The room.’ The packet of cigarettes was getting you a room for the night. So anyhow to be honest it didn’t materialise. So, and so I didn’t take her up on her offer. I was only in Stockholm two or three nights, so I went to the Embassy and it was interesting. The air attaché had got two daughters...
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Roy Maddock-Lyon
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
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
2016-03-21
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AMaddockLyonR160321
Conforms To
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Pending review
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Denmark
Great Britain
Sweden
Denmark--Copenhagen
England--Yorkshire
Sweden--Stockholm
Description
An account of the resource
Roy Maddock-Lyon was born in Cheshire and when his school was evacuated at the start of the war he began an engineering apprenticeship. He was a part of the Queen’s Messengers, a relief organisation that travelled to bombed cities to take emergency medical and other supplies. He later volunteered for the Royal Air Force and was selected as a flight engineer. When he joined his squadron, he recalls a time when they were refused emergency landing at an airfield and had to fly on to RAF Carnaby. He then witnessed a tragic accident on the airfield. He was shot down over Denmark and evaded to Sweden with the aid of the Danish resistance. He discusses the operation to bomb the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen.
The interview is incomplete and ends abruptly.
Temporal Coverage
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1945-02
1945-03-21
Format
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00:40:07 audio recording
10 Squadron
aircrew
evacuation
evading
flight engineer
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
home front
RAF Carnaby
RAF Melbourne
recruitment
Resistance
shot down
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/576/8845/AGoughH150922.2.mp3
c57cda680fc05053c4ed864f4febb674
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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Gough, Harry
H Gough
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Gough, H
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Harry Gough (1925 - 2016, 1590911 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a rear gunner with 10 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-22
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AM: Ok so it’s Tuesday 22nd September 2015 and we are in Tingly near Wakefield and this is Annie Moody for the International Bomber Command Centre and I’m talking today to
HG: Harry Gough.
AM: Harry Gough. So if you would Harry would you just tell me a little bit about your childhood, and where you were born and what your parents did.
HG: I was born in Dewsbury, er Dewsbury Moor actually. My father at that time was er worked in the steel industry at Click Heaton up to me being probably six or seven and then he er decided to leave that and er go into the licensing trade being er, what is it, er steward at a working men’s club that would be when I was six or seven er.
AM: What was it like being a child working in a, er living near a working men’s club then, where you living there in it?
HG: No no we lived away from it
AM: Oh, Oh
HG: But er at that time, funnily enough we were only on about this a few days ago er the way families were brought up, I think it was when Victor was up er, I was the youngest of seven and the house we had a small terraced house (pause) you couldn’t say it was a one up and one down but that’s basically what it was one large bedroom and a small one at the top of the landing so that was the earliest I remember being there er.
AM: What about the bathroom and toilet, where were they?
HG: Oh no bathroom (laughs) there there were sink in the corner
AM: And a tin bath
HG: Tin bath yeah and a toilet way up the yard and er you prayed every day that it didn’t you didn’t have heavy rain (laughs) er but we moved into a council house at that time when I was seven and er there again seven of us and it was a three bedroomed council house you know people just wouldn’t have that today would they and er from there er went to the local school, broke my leg playing football er recovered from that and we moved into a public house then in Dewsbury the Great (unclear) Hotel in Dewsbury and we were there for two years transferred our interest to Leeds another pub, another two years, or less than two years, back to Morley (unclear) Morley and that another pub eventually er and that when my schooling finished that would be 1939
AM: So how old were you then?
HG: Fourteen
AM: Fourteen
HG: My eldest my second eldest brother he worked in the textiles and he had to work at Putsey and he had to go by bike from Morley to Putsey on the night shift his wage was twenty six bob a week so he’d had enough of that and he volunteered for the army me being the stupid lad, oh no I’m not stupid, er if he was having action I wanted it as well so I wanted to go in the boys army along with him er, my father agreed to it but er mother said no you’re not and that was the end of that up to er 41 and er I joined the air training corps local squadron at Morley and er in there until volunteering for the air force in 43 and er eventually accepted and I did the er air crew assessment at Doncaster and er they were full up with pilots and full up with navigators
AM: Everybody wanted to be a pilot
HG: (Laughs) that’s right (laughs) right well if you got to be a gunnery course that’s it well I wanted to fly anyway so it was August 43 when I eventually went and er signed on down at Lords cricket ground, lad at 18 years old and going to London you know, never been out of his home town I don’t think, occasional holiday but not many of those I kind of remember going on holiday with my parents more than once
AM: How did you get to London then did you go on the train?
HG: Train yeah yeah, I suppose you get on the train and follow the crowd (laughs) er when we were there our initial signing and initial whatever it is medicals and er up to er for a fortnight to three weeks and then back up into Yorkshire to Bridlington
AM: So in that three weeks what were you doing?
HG: er getting kitted out
AM: What sort of things?
HG: Medicals er several injections whatever they call them er but er my sister was stationed in London at the time she was in the WAFS and er we met up a few times at er I think it was just routine things er drills whatever marching to the London zoo for meals and er yeah and I met up with a gunner we met on the first day we were there
AM: What was he called?
HG: Bill Field from Chester we were about the same age and er we were together right the way through to finishing flying
AM: Really
HG: We did a gunnery course did our basic training in Bridlington over to Belfast or near Belfast for gunnery school
AM: What was the gunnery school like what sort of things were you doing there did you have to strip em and put em back together and all that sort of stuff
HG: No no you had to do theory work on the guns but er mainly it was er rifle shooting for the clay pigeon shooting er then up in the Avro Ansons for air to air gunnery
AM: So when you say air to air what were you shooting at
HG: A draw yeah there’d be another Emerson dragging a draw if you were lucky he ate it (laughs)
AM: Did you
HG: Well I got a percentage of it whether that’s true or not I don’t know I think they just put this percentage out to get you through and make sure you had a rear gunner or something.
AM: Mmm
HG: But er that was I finished there New Year’s Eve we left New Year’s Eve in 43 that was it so from August I’d done all the basic training air gunnery training and passed out as a Sergeant air gunner before I was nineteen
AM: Blimey
HG: When you think about that you know think about that lady how stupid can it be but er it wasn’t just me everybody was on it er and after a short period at home then oh we finished up in Scotland on New Year’s Eve at Stranraer bit frightening (laughs) as an eighteen year old a bit frightening
AM: Laughs
HG: But er nevertheless we caught the train early morning and er early morning made our way home. After a few days at home up to er Kinross forest in Kinross in Scotland
AM: Scotland again
HG: That was for er crewing up and er operational training
AM: So how did the crewing up go cos’ you’d already got your mate with you
HG: Yes we stuck together all the time did Bill and I and er I don’t remember er well
AM: Who chose who?
HG: (Pause) I think the pilot chose us (laughs) why he did I don’t know er
AM: Maybe he could see there were two mates together and he wanted…
HG: Yes I think that had a lot to do with it we’d been together as pals and Harry Harrison the pilot er then he’d already met the er navigator Johnny Hall from Bradford from there we all got together Scottish wireless operator Cockney lad for a flight engineer and er I don’t remember where he come from South Midlands somewhere… Leicester and er how long did that last probably January late February early March
AM: So that’s where you flew together as a crew then
HG: Crew yes flying Whitley’s doing all the basic things turning dinghy’s over in the bath (laughs) when you can’t swim it’s er a bit of a nightmare but we got through it er
AM: Why turning dinghy’s over in the bath, in case you got shot down
HG: Yeah in case you got shot down
AM: Or crash landed in the sea
HG: Yeah yeah and er flying Whitley’s er the flying coffin some of the cross countries that we did six hours in the rear turret of a Whitley not very nice but it was enjoyable because that’s what I wanted to do er from there we went to er Marston Moor er heavy conversion unit flying the Halifax Mk 2.
AM: Right
HG: Which you don’t get to know until later that was the worst period of your service flying in a Halifax Mk 2 you were safer flying in the Mk 3 and 4 going on operations
AM: Why was that?
HG: They were very unreliable er basically because of the engine I think er and the tail unit the tail unit of the Halifax changed a great deal and they put revised engines in then and they were a much sounder aircraft
AM: Right
HG: But er we didn’t get none (unclear) you were in a death trap really (laughs) but er we got through that and we floated about then in Yorkshire for some reason (unclear) and Maltby, Driffield just for nightly stays and things like until we got posted to a squadron which was Melbourne ten squadron
AM: And there was ten squadron
HG: Mmm from there well
AM: What was your first operation like then
HG: What was it like
AM: Well can you just, I can’t imagine how it must of felt
HG: (Pause)
AM: I bet you can’t remember (laughs)
HG: No I can’t remember, no I can’t remember (pause)
AM: Bacon and eggs
HG: (Laughs) oh aye coming back to bacon and eggs that’s what that’s what you looked forward to but never when they all went out on operations did I ever think that I wouldn’t get back never never entered my head that I would never get back
AM: Did you have any close shaves
HG: (Pause) I suppose there were one or two where er the fighters were about but er in the main there were I think the biggest (unclear) were the night operations which you know they were a bit backwards at coming forwards at coming up in the dark they’d wait till the Yanks went over in the day light and have a go at them
AM: Have a go at them
HG: But er anti-aircraft fire unnerving but even then never entered my head that er I wouldn’t get back
AM: And you were right
HG: Mmm
AM: What was it like ‘cos you were the rear gunner so as you’re coming away bombs have been dropped?
HG: That’s right
AM: And you can see
HG: Yeah
AM: What’s, what’s happened
HG: Oh the in most cases the place was ablaze down below and er I suppose you think at the time oh great we’ve done a good job
AM: Yeah
HG: It isn’t until later days you know was it all that good you know what damage did we do I mean innocent people were killed but this is years later you think about this
AM: I was gonna say that because at the time you were doing it
HG: We were doing what we would been trained to do and er got satisfaction out of doing it as well but er pub visits at the night when you weren’t on operation a little bit naughty at times but er
AM: I’m gonna have to ask you, in what way naughty
HG: Well I don’t know it er probably drink more than what you should really
AM: You’re still only twenty by this time nineteen
HG: Nineteen yes I finished flying before I was twenty so I were only well at that time you were what you called kids at eighteen you weren’t adults at all you were classed as kiddies really
AM: Did you fly with the same crew all the way through
HG: Yes yes stuck together all the way through thirty three operations
AM: Thirty three, blimey, I can see we’ve got your log book is there anything
HG: Laughs
GR: Well your first operation was a daylight
HG: Yeah it was
GR: According to this yeah Macer Owen
HG: Taverni was it
GR: Yeah Macer Owen…and your last op was Christmas Eve (Laughs)
HG: Yeah yeah fly from the 23rd (unclear) the 24th
AM: And you said to me before about the fact that it was Christmas Eve and that was your last one
HG: Yeah
AM: About your mum and dad
HG: Yeah at the time it never struck me at all that it was any different to any other operation or you know you feel a sense of relief that the operations are over but it was only oh much later that I thought about these things. I don’t know what my parents were really thought about me being in the Air Force and what I was doing what it meant to them but what a Christmas box it must have been if that’s the way they thought about that I wasn’t in danger of being shot down or losing my life or whatever er after that particular time I never mentioned it to them in fact it was after they’d both passed I think my dad thought about it but er
AM: Yeah so what did you do after you finished your operations
HG: Oh dear I got kicked about and er
AM: (Laughs) did you do any training or TU stuff
HG: No I went into air traffic control actually
AM: Ahh
HG: Er when they finally got me settled down at Shawbury which was the number one flying training school was it, that’s where the (unclear) flew from when we went over the North Pole wing commander Mcclurough I think it was er I did a few months there I was there up to er VE day which was in May wasn’t it
AM: Mmm
HG: 45 and on VE day I travelled to Valley on the Isle of Anglesey and I was there until after VJ Day, (pause) VJ day what a night
AM: (Laughs)
HG: There was a black and tan drink then wasn’t there Guinness and beer black and tan
GR: That’s right yeah
AM: Mmm
HG: Still only twenty and I’m drinking black and tans I didn’t eat anything for four days (laughs)
AM: Laughs
GR: Laughs
HG: That’s when I learnt how to drive er air traffic control there was a (unclear) out there are you alright, yes I’m alright, never driven a van in my life (laughs) and there was some…how do I start this thing, (laughs) and away I went, but er bit precarious but er
AM: On a road or
HG: No no on the air field on the air field
AM: Just as well
HG: Yeah (laughs) well from the mess to the er traffic control and whatever to the end of the runway and back and things like that but er and from there not long after VJ Day I went back to Shawbury again well just how long I was there I can’t remember can’t remember and by this time I’d er already got my Flight Sergeant that was late 44 I got my Officer late 45 when I was still at Shawbury and then went to various places then just two or three days stopping at one near Warrington I can’t remember I can’t remember what place it was
AM: I wonder why, why were they moving you about like that?
HG: To find getting a posting you just couldn’t get (unclear) to come out I did want to come out anyway because I had the chance to come out on was it class B release or something because I worked in the textiles before I went in and there was no way that I’m going back into textiles after being in the air force and the excitement that I’d had or the life that I’d had and they kick you about a bit until er they get you a posting and I finally got a posting to er Austria just outside Vienna (Schwechat) but in the meantime for some reason that I don’t know why and I always thought it was a bit unfair you had to re-muster and you lost your seniority rank you were taken down from Warrant Officer back down to sergeant in rank but not in pay you still got your Warrant officers pay and it always hit me that er you know you’ve done this, you’ve volunteered for this, you’ve done your flying you’ve done your duty and everything that’s been asked of you and you’ve been fortunate enough to get through and then they demote you which didn’t seem fair to me at all, er but as I say the money was still there you were a Sergeant with a Warrant Officer’s pay and er went to Vienna (pause) mid July 46 July 46 that’s right er (pause) yeah and I enjoyed that er in air traffic control again er the surrounding area you were in the Russian border so you had to be very careful what you were doing but you were allowed out of camp and there was woodlands and through the woodlands you got to the er river what is it in Vienna come on Clarice what river is it in Vienna
AM: I can’t think I should know and I can’t it’s not erm
HG: I’ll be dammed
AM: No it’s gone I can’t remember
GR: Could be the Rhine
HG: No
GR: The Rhone
HG: No
AM: I can’t remember either
HG: Crazy isn’t it, crazy
AM: I’ll find it after, the river in Vienna anyway
HG: Yeah er out of camp and through this woodland I actually walked on the river it was that cold it was frozen over it was really really cold but er the camp that’s about itas much as I can remember about it other than we often visited Vienna itself not nightly but certainly two or three nights a week and really enjoyable and er the diesel in the truck that took us down would often freeze up so you were stuck there in the middle of the night (laughs) trying to keep warm
AM: Laughs
HG: But er I suppose the most that I remember about that there were three of us myself a Geordie lad ex air crew and a Scotch lad ex air crew and we got to like our drinks a little bit I always remember one afternoon we were drinking in the bar and we drunk that bar absolutely dry
AM: There’s a there’s a thread running through this story isn’t there (laughs)
HG: (Laughs) we drank that bar absolutely dry we finished up drinking port of all things and we sat in this bar and an electric light, (pause) can’t be a fire can’t that and it was and er the electrics in upstairs room had caught fire and er everybody had to bail out of course and this Scots lad he went absolutely berserk and we were just across from the er guard room and er the three of us were taken into the guard room and this guy was given morphine to quieten him down he was really really bad so that was almost the end of my service in Vienna we got kitted out and put in with the airmen for the rest of our stay there but er came back to er Blackpool and we were de-mobbed
AM: You were de-mobbed so you did leave in the end
HG: Yes
AM: What did you do afterwards, not textiles?
HG: Oh dear er I did for a very short period my brother worked in the textiles then my elder brother er and I batted it out (unclear) while the money lasted you know (laughs) er eventually I had to get a job so I went there and er oh I think three or four week I’m not sticking this (laughs) and er what did I do from there oh cigarette people Ardath cigarette people they had er they were based in Leeds and I met Gladys then well we’d known each other years but we got together then and er I was there for quite a while months not years months and then we got married February 48 wasn’t it
GH: Mmm
HG: And er these people kind as they are you know oh yes you can have a week off it’s your summer holiday that’s fine as long as I can have a week off we got married had the week off and went down to Kent on our honeymoon and came back and gave my notice in (laughs) they can’t do that to Harry and er from there I went into engineering in Bradford not a very happy time because I was working with people who’d been er what do they call when they weren’t called up
AM: Erm not (unclear) to subject as if they’d been in a reserved occupation
HG: Like a reserved occupation and you’re working with these guys and (unclear) so that didn’t last very long either (laughs) er and from then I went to the Gas Board
AM: Right
HG: In 49 and er that’s been my life I suppose ever since
AM: You stayed there ever since
HG: The Gas Board er finished and had a period with the water authority and I had one spell in between the Gas Board and the water what was that er what do they call it fibre glass moulds making moulds out of fibre glass and it was the summer of 49 I don’t know if you remember it and it was absolutely scorching I think it was 49 48 48 49
GH: There weren’t many in 48
AM: Late forties must’ve been 48
HG: Yeah around 48 49 really scorching and a perspex roof and you could see all this fibre glass
AM: I was gonna say dust I would imagine it’s
HG: Floating about I though oooh Harry (laughs) get out
AM: You don’t want that on your lungs
HG: That was enough of that so from there I went to an outside job with the water authority and thankfully was able to stay there
AM: Stay there ever since
HG: Until I retired
AM: and you know you said just just going back to the bombing bit for a minute you said that at the time what everybody’s said to me we had to do it that’s what we were there for you did it
HG: That’s right
AM: But later on you did start to think about
HG: Yes you did yes you did
AM: The women and children and what have you
HG: And I think what brought that to my mind more than anything was er Munich ‘cos they really did we never went to Munich but er they really did flatten Munich and there must’ve been thousands of innocent people that died because of that and er (pause) were we doing the right thing that’s the way I thought of it later but er but at the time yes that’s what you joined up for that’s what you volunteered for they want you to do it get it done
AM: And that was to bring the war to an end
HG: That’s right yeah
AM: Excellent, I’m going to switch off now.
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 Harry Gough
Creator
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Annie Moody
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-22
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AGoughH150922
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
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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.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:30:08 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Harry Gough was born in Dewsbury, he finished school in 1939 aged fourteen, joined the Air Training Corps in 1941 and volunteered for the Air Force in 1943. He recounts his training as an air gunner and flying over the North Pole. After flying operations he was posted to Austria as an air traffic controller. He was demobbed and after the war he worked for the Gas Board and Water Authority.
Contributor
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Carron Moss
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Austria
Great Britain
Austria--Vienna
England--Shropshire
England--Yorkshire
Wales--Anglesey
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1941
1943
1944
1945
1946
10 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
crewing up
guard room
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Initial Training Wing
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
promotion
RAF Bridlington
RAF Kinloss
RAF Marston Moor
RAF Melbourne
RAF Shawbury
RAF Valley
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/602/8871/PMannionF1501.2.jpg
c22677c13690661250851232fca97513
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/602/8871/AMannionF150910.1.mp3
0f083b5239e43b2f309588500024a155
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
Mannion, Frank
F Mannion
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Mannion, F
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. Collection concerns Flight Sergeant Frank Mannion (1921 - 2016, Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a rear gunner with 10 Squadron before being shot down and becoming a prisoner of war. Includes an oral history interview, some details of forced march as a prisoner, notes on some of his operations and a photograph.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Frank Mannion and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AM: Ok. So, it’s Thursday the 10th of September and this is Annie Moody on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre and I’m talking today to Frank Mannion at his home in Glossop. So, Frank if we start off just tell me a little about where you born, your childhood, your parents.
FM: I was born in Manchester. I went to work at Metropolitan Vickers. I served my time as an electrical engineer. When the war started I was still serving my apprenticeship so after I served my apprenticeship I went in to the RAF.
AM: Can I wheel back a bit? Where you born, Frank?
FM: Gorton.
AM: You were born in Gorton.
FM: Yes.
AM: What did your parents do?
FM: My father’s an electrical engineer. My mother’s a dressmaker.
AM: Right.
FM: I had two brothers and four sisters. I’ve only one brother left now. A younger brother.
AM: Right. Where did you go to school, Frank?
FM: St Anne’s, Fairfields in Manchester for a start. And then the secondary school was St Gregory’s in Ardwick.
AM: Oh right. Yeah. How old were you when you left?
FM: Fifteen.
AM: You were. Did you do school certificate then? Or —
FM: I did but I couldn’t tell you where that is now [laughs] yeah.
AM: And then — so straight after school.
FM: Yeah.
AM: That was when you — what did you do straight after school.
FM: I went in to, went to work at Metropolitan Vickers.
AM: As you said.
FM: As an apprentice. Yeah.
AM: At Metropolitan Vickers. What did they do there then? At Metropolitan Vickers?
FM: Well it was what they called electrical scientific instrument maker. Well, basically I was an electrical engineer training in electrical engineering.
AM: So what sort of things did you do then?
FM: Now, you’re asking me.
AM: I’m going back a bit.
FM: All sorts of things electrically.
AM: Yeah.
FM: We were trained from the very basic parts of electrical circuits right through to what they did do. Well, as far as you can go now as you know. We didn’t do nuclear engineering. That wasn’t in the system then but we went through all the system as regards engineering in the electrical side.
AM: Right.
FM: Instrument making and all that sort of thing.
AM: Right. So, then what made you decide to join the RAF?
FM: Well, we were in the blitz a few times in Manchester. In the shelter. And I thought well one of these days I’m going to have a go at this lot myself. And when I finish serving my time I’m going to see about getting in to the RAF. Bomber Command. And train to be a pilot. And that’s what I did do.
AM: Right.
FM: But when I joined the air force they accepted me. I was creditable as regards training for a pilot. Physically and everything else. But then they told me they’d got a lot of young men waiting to be trained. They couldn’t cope with them all so they sent me back to work.
AM: Right.
FM: And after a while they got in touch with me and said they still had a lot of people, young fellas, waiting to be trained as pilots but they were short of air gunners. Was I interested? So, I joined the air force and became an air gunner.
AM: You became an air gunner.
FM: Yeah.
AM: Where did you, where did you go to join up? Can you remember? Would it have been nearby or did you have to travel to it?
FM: St Johns Wood was the place where I — in London.
AM: Right. So that was where you did the first —
FM: Yes.
AM: Training.
FM: Yes. And my brother, my older brother was down there. He was in the REME. Electrical engineers. Mechanical and electrical engineers and he also boxed for, boxed for Southern Command. And —this day or this evening he came across to St John’s Wood and with one or two of the big hefty boxers in his lot and asked the people there could they let me out to take, they wanted to take me to a show which they did do. So, there’s this little Frank and all these big fellas. I think it was Vera Lynn. I’m not sure.
AM: Yeah.
FM: But it was somebody. A well-known singer. Yeah.
AM: What was the food like? I’ve heard different reports about the food at St John’s Wood.
FM: Normal. I couldn’t see that it was any different than —
AM: So, it —
FM: Well food was different in those days as you know. You only got this — so much of this and so much of the other. I mean when you were at — well when I was at home and I got my chocolate or whatever it is — a certificate or whatever it was to get some food I dashed off to the shop and bought some chocolate and ate it. That’s what I did. And we were all the same. But I couldn’t tell you any more about food. It wasn’t very very good.
AM: No.
FM: It was very limited actually.
AM: Yeah. It’s just somebody said they actually went across the road to the zoo for their food and whatever it was he didn’t like it. Anyway, that’s another story. So then, so St Johns Wood. Then where did you go after St John’s Wood? Or what did you do? What — what came next?
FM: I was trained on the Isle of Man. Riccall.
AM: Right.
FM: No. Not Riccall.
JM: Jurby.
FM: Jurby. On the Isle of Man. And from there I think I went to Riccall from there after being trained. Went up to Lossiemouth. Did some more training up in there. Scotland. Came down and I —then I went to Riccall. And that’s where I met my pilot and the rest of the crew.
AM: So, what was that like? Crewing up. Who got hold of who?
FM: Well, we just all stood there looking at one another and, you know, blokes — fancy going with him there. And that’s what they did. And I just didn’t do anything. Waited until there was just myself and another chap left and the other two went with this Canadian pilot. George Kite. And he was a big fella. Smart. Strong looking fella. Never had a lot to say but a very nice chap. The navigator was also Canadian. He was a very nice quiet bloke he was but very nice. We had various wireless operators. Different ones so we had one or two left because they had enough of their operations. One or two were filling in because we were short of one. In the end we got Saunders. Alex Saunders. A Scotch lad. And he was the one that was with us when we were shot down.
AM: Right.
FM: And he was the one that got killed.
AM: Ok. So, when, so you’ve crewed up and then I think — I can never remember the order it comes in. You go for your heavy conversion.
FM: Yeah.
AM: Training after that.
FM: Yes. Yes.
AM: What was that like then?
FM: Well I think we did some of that — well Wellingtons I think. Lossiemouth. And then we went on to Halifaxes doing flying about the country in daytime. You know. In fact, I don’t want to tell too many things about it but —
AM: Oh, you can do.
FM: I’m all on my own at the back of the aircraft. In my turret there. Sat on my own there just doing nothing. At night time it was just horrible doing nothing. Just there. In the daytime you could have a good look around. But the pilot, George Kite, every now and again he’d call me up to the front. He wanted a smoke and I used to take charge of the aircraft. I used to fly the aircraft for a little while he was stood at the side of me.
AM: Is this in training or actually on operations?
FM: This is while we training. Yeah.
AM: While you were training.
FM: Yeah. But this wasn’t supposed to, this wasn’t the accepted thing. But that’s what we did anyway and I suppose lots more crews did similar things. Funny things like that.
AM: Yeah.
FM: We just wanted to make as much of the time we could do. It was very boring to be sat there on your own.
AM: Yeah.
FM: Doing nothing. Being frozen to death. So that’s what he did. He wanted a smoke and he asked, ‘Do you want to come to the front?’ Yeah.
AM: So where were you posted to ready for your first operation?
FM: Oh, that was Melbourne. 10th Squadron. Yorkshire. 4 Group.
AM: Yeah. Beautiful church there.
FM: Is there?
AM: Yes.
FM: Oh, now you’re telling me something.
AM: And can, can you remember the first operation? What it was like. What it felt like.
FM: Well, I’ve got a list of them actually. Well it wasn’t —
AM: But the actual feeling of the first one.
FM: Yeah. Well, we were a bit apprehensive but it was somewhere in France and after that, coming back, I thought well that wasn’t too bad. It was, you know, what’s all the fuss about? It wasn’t too bad. And that was what the first one was like and gradually I got to know why people were getting frightened of going on operations because it all started to come about because you could see aircraft being blown out of the sky. All sorts of things. Collisions. And all that. And it wasn’t very pleasant after that. Very dangerous. And you got to a point where you knew sometime you were going to get shot down. Went on and on and on. And eventually we were shot down on our thirty seventh operation.
AM: What can you remember? Can you describe that?
FM: Well if you want. Eighteen months or so ago. What’s — the Rotary, was it the Rotary love?
JM: Hmmn.
FM: They asked me if I’d go and talk to them about Bomber Command. I’ve never spoken to anybody about it. So, I said, ‘Well yes.’ I went and I had a chat with them. And at the first meeting it got to one point where I was trapped in the turret and I said, ‘That’s the end of my flying comments. That’s the end of my little chat to you tonight.’ And they were so impressed they asked me to go back and tell the rest of it. And I’ve got them both recorded there.
AM: Oh right. I’ll listen to them but tell me a little bit about it now then.
FM: In what way?
AM: Just, well you just said you got trapped in the turret. How come? How did you get, how were you trapped in the turret?
FM: Well, when, after we’d bombed the target, it was a place called Neuss. Next door to Dusseldorf in the Ruhr. A lot of our bombing went down, our crews there. And went through the target area as normal and took a wide turn to be out of the way of other aircraft approaching the target and I thought there was something very funny. There was no nothing. No ack ack. Nothing going on like that. Something queer going on here. And all of a sudden, a bang. It was all ablaze with bullets and things strafing all through. Some right through my turret. And the pilot screaming, ‘Here fellas —get out out out. And that was when we were supposed to get out. The escape hatch is in the very nose of the aircraft and in the tail of the aircraft. The turrets turned around to a point where I can’t get access. I can’t get back into the aircraft and there’s no power. It won’t go so I’m trapped in the turret. Now, the pilot, I didn’t know until after the war, but he obviously thought he could crash land that aircraft in the reoccupied part of Holland. So, this is what I learned after the war but what went on then he must have been under some sort of control. He knew the wireless operator, he could see him, he hadn’t got out. He knew I hadn’t come through the aircraft and so presumably he was trying to give a chance to both of us. And he crashed in Holland and they were both killed. That photograph there shows you where they did crash. There were some trees over a hill. As they approached, the US army there did all they could do to help them but they were both killed there. And that’s where the memorial is. For me — well I tried very hard to get out. I couldn’t get out. I couldn’t get into the aircraft to do anything and I thought the only way now is to get out of the aircraft by the turret but I couldn’t get the turret doors open. It was all damaged. And I tried and tried and tried. I couldn’t do anything about it and I gave up and I thought I hope it doesn’t hurt too much. Then another — what you might call an un operational movement by the aircraft, that the pilot corrected. He was doing all this funny thing and he’s flying trying to keep the aircraft airborne. I thought well come on Frank. You know. Come on. Come on. And I, this time I managed to get my fingers between the two half doors of the Boulton Paul turret and I broke a nail off in the process which is very very painful. And I wriggled my hand through a bit more and a bit more and instead of opening that turret door just fell away. The half fell away. Now, pushed at the other one. No response. So I thought, I’ve got a space. Must be — I think it’s a foot wide. To get out of. So, I had my parachute. I always had mine between me the turret doors. You were supposed to leave it in the aircraft. On the shelf there. I didn’t do that. I don’t think anybody did. And I had this on my shins and when I got to that position I wriggled. Brought the parachute up, put it on the ring and fixed the vest here and I wriggled and wriggled and wriggled until I was halfway out of the aircraft and in the turret and then realised the parachute was too wide to go through the space available. So, I had to wriggle back a bit. Take one half, only one half so the parachute was reverse with my body and then I striddled out again. Hanging and hanging on with everything. Managed to get it engaged on the other hook and I rolled out of the turret and that’s how, that’s how I got out of the aircraft. And by this time, I weren’t far from the front where the U.S. 1st Army were in Holland where they were fighting the Germans there. When I landed I could hear the gunfire. I think probably about fifteen twenty miles away or something like that. When I landed I didn’t expect to land just when I did and I landed very heavily. Not as you would normally land when you’re doing the parachute training. These do. People do. And my left leg was behind me. I’d badly twisted my knee. So, I got a nasty cut on my head. An injury to my shoulder and my back and I just thought — now what am I going to do? Getting myself together fully I heard this noise and I thought there’s something coming. I listen again. And this noise again. It was a bit closer this time. I thought somebody’s approaching. So like all, we were all trained to try and get back if we came down. Shot down. You probably know all about that. I got wriggled up. Got out. Up onto my feet, moved away and I fell into water up to my waist. And then I was stuck in this cold water there and this thing that had made the noise appeared. Big head came over mine. A big tongue came out of the cow. Came licking my head. Anyway, after that I managed to get out of there. I sat against a tree. Squeezed as much water off as I could. And the next day, which was Sunday, I tried to get — I didn’t know what to do. I moved a little. Well, perhaps about a hundred yards or so to a lane and the people — perhaps they were going to church. I don’t know. And nobody bothered about me if they saw me. So I couldn’t get any further so I went back to where I’d been the night before and I stayed there. And that’s where I was when two boys who came in the woods looking for something — that’s where they found me. And then of course I was taken a prisoner then.
AM: Two, two young boys.
FM: Yeah. Yeah. Frightened them to death when they saw me. I must have been a pretty sight to see. And about a quarter of an hour afterwards there were twelve people came to take me in. Nine of them were women. Three were men. One of the men had a pitchfork over his shoulder. I don’t know what he thought he was going to do. Another had a big club over his shoulder. But the women were, they were very good. One of them put my right arm over her shoulder and another one my left arm over her shoulder. And they more or less half carried me to the local jail which was in the square and just below the square. The level of the square. The grill, the roof, the top wall, of the wall of that cell was just level with the square. The square. And they looked after me very well and I was there for some time before I was moved to a place, another place near Dusseldorf airfield and I was put in a cell there. But the one in, the original cell I still had my escape pack inside my tunic so when it was just nobody about. This little space between the wall of the cell and the floor I took it out and I pushed it down there. And it’s probably still there. Anyway, after I’d been moved to this other place at this airfield at Dusseldorf that was a different cell altogether. It was all bare walls and stone bed. Stone floor. Sloping bed. Stone pillow and a little bit of a stone thing in the end to stop you from sliding off. And I thought this is probably the place where they put the bad boys, you know. And these two German Luftwaffe people came in. Now, all aircrew when I was flying had a big white sweater they wore between their flying suit and their tunic. And I was using mine as a bit of a pillow. Well they told me to get up. I got up. And one of these two men, the smallest one, about my size he picked this pullover up and put it under his arm. He was having that. And I thought well you’re not you know. So, I reached out and snatched it back. And he gave me such a good hiding.
AM: Really.
FM: Punched me all over the place. I couldn’t do a thing about it. Anyway, after a while the other one stopped him eventually. After that I was taken through Dusseldorf on the train. They took us to Frankfurt where we were questioned. On the way, it was daytime, on the way through Dusseldorf the air raid sirens went. Just the same as they’d got over here. Just the same sound. And all of a sudden they all scattered and all left for the shelters, and the two guard’s with pistol holders here they took me into the shelter with the others. Well they could see my brevet. My flight sergeant stripes and everything. And one of those soldiers, guards, he put his finger to his lips and he went like that and he said, ‘They don’t like you very much.’ In other words, don’t say anything. You know. Be as obscure as you can be because if they know who you are and what you are they might do something about it. And from then we went to Frankfurt and that’s where I met John Maling. Our navigator. From there we were taken to Bankau. Luft VII. On the way there went a long way on a train. I think to the Polish border and there we went in a truck. A big open truck and there were four armed guards to that truck as well. Apart from the driver. And two of the guards sat in the driver’s compartment with the driver. And two more sat on a bench with their back to the driver. And on the way there that driver did some — I don’t know, for some reason he did a very violent manoeuvre which threw someone off the truck. And well I don’t know if broken bones or whatever. It was the old the bumps and bruises. You went at speed. And when we got ourselves together one of the guards came, that guard came out with us as well and it was funny to see one of the POWs help the German guard up to his feet and then pick his rifle up and give him his rifle back. That’s what happened there. And then from there we went in to Bankau. Luft VII. That’s where it all started. That was when — the Long March from there, after we were there, what — till February I think.
AM: How long? When were you shot down Frank?
FM: September. September 1944.
AM: ’44. Right so you were there how many months? About?
FM: Well about –
AM: About four.
FM: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: Four months.
FM: Yeah.
AM: So, then, you’ve given me details here of your —
FM: Yes
AM: Forced trek.
FM: Yes. Yes.
AM: I’m going to give it you back and then you can just tell me a little about it from that. What it was actually like being on the Long March.
FM: Terrible. I had a [pause] I had great difficulty in walking because of my knee. When I was first taken into that first prison they brought a doctor to me and he was muttering and saying things to the guard and he, the guard got hold of me. He said, he got hold of me, me put his arms around me and that doctor took hold my leg and gave it a wrench and pull. I had dislocated my knee and that’s what he was doing. He was resetting my knee but it was very sore. It’s always been a problem since then. And I was having trouble walking, anyhow. I wasn’t fit to walk like that. And John Maling helped me along quite a lot. Like other people there were lots of lads falling down on the way and helping one another up and things. Some didn’t get up and there was nothing you could do about it. On part of that way I know a load of army lads joined us. Their guards had deserted them and they’d nowhere else to go. They didn’t know what to do and they came and joined us and they all ended up with us and eventually we ended up at this place and put in these cattle trucks. A long line of cattle trucks. Not the open type. The doors on the side. And there’d be fifty to sixty men in this truck put in there. Now, you couldn’t sit down. There was no room to sit. You just had to lean on one another. Dear. Our truck anyway. We weren’t allowed out for anything. We were in that truck for three days.
AM: And you weren’t allowed out for anything at all.
FM: No. No. And we were in a right mess as you can imagine. And eventually it did. That train kept moving one way and stopping and going and different things going on. And they apologised afterwards. The Germans. They said that they’d been waiting for an engine. Well, what I think they’d been doing keep taking the engine off our train. Using it for more important things as far as they were concerned. But eventually we did end at Luckenwalde —IIIa. That was a big camp. And in that camp, inside the main enclosure there were separate enclosures where they kept the different nationalities. I mean the USA had their own. The French had theirs. The Polish. The Dutch. They all had their own. We had. And when the big battle came on with the Germans and the Russians well the Russians pushed the Germans. We were in the middle of the battle there. And when the Russians pushed the Germans back westwards and pushed on and on and on they — in charge there. We were prisoners of the Russians. What they did they sent a tank into the camp and ran down some of these enclosures so that we could all mix freely then. Which we did, like. Nothing else to do. And we didn’t know what was going on and there was nothing going on but big space westward. Nothing there. All the armies had vanished. There was absolutely nothing. But we knew that the Americans were at Magdeburg. On the River Elbe. A few miles away. And after some time John Maling said to me, ‘Not much going on here, Frank,’ he said, ‘I’ve had enough of this. ’ He said, ‘What do you think about having a go and getting out of here?’ So that’s what we did. With lots of difficulty we got to Magdeburg, to the Americans and after that everyone looked after us as though we were royalty.
AM: So you just went. You just walked out.
FM: Oh no. No. No. I had to get out under the fence.
AM: Oh right.
FM: One of the big, one of the posts that was a part of the fencing of one of the enclosures. We used that at night. When it was dead of night, pushed it under the fence and levered it. Pulled and pulled and levered until we had a little gap. So we squirmed underneath that, each of us and then we got to this, we walked all the rest of that night and all the rest of the day in the wooded area. Or on the edge of the woods. Couldn’t see anything. We wondered what to do now? We knew that every now and again that the Americans sent patrols in this wide area from Magdeburg. From, you know, they had a base at Magdeburg. And all of a sudden we saw this cloud of dust. That’s what it was. And John Maling ran out waving and shouting. Well, they wouldn’t hear him of course, but they saw him. They came racing over and when they knew what we were well — they treated us like royalty there.
AM: Yeah.
FM: Just imagine what they were like with us. Everybody did after that. We moved from there. We were eventually taken to another place where a DC3 had been diverted to pick us up. That took us to Brussels. From Brussels we were taken to by train to France. Lille in France. And from Lille in France we were taken by another transport to an airfield and this big Lancasters there waiting for us and we flew over the Lancaster. So, I think I’m the only air gunner in the RAF who flew out in his last operation in the rear turret of a Boulton Paul Halifax bomber and came back in the Fraser Nash turret of a Lancaster.
AM: Of a Lancaster.
FM: I think so. I bet there’s not another one.
AM: What was it like when you, when you did get back? Because you, had you been deloused at that, by that time or were you still –?
FM: Oh. The Americans. They deloused us alright.
AM: Did they?
FM: They washed us, hosed us and everything. Squirted powder all over us and one thing and another and put the bits that were there, their clothing on us to cover us and then gave us a great big meal. It was a smasher. A great big plate full of —
AM: Could you eat it though?
FM: Oh well. Chicken. Everything you could think of. Vegetables. And peaches and cream all on the one plate. We ate it alright, yeah. And then we were both violently ill for a couple of days. And they were a bit worried about us but eventually we were alright.
AM: Yeah. Because if you’d not eaten properly for six months or whatever.
FM: No. No.
AM: You’re not going to be able to eat that are you?
FM: No. No.
AM: So, What happened when you got back?
FM: Well we were taken to [pause] name’s on there somewhere.
AM: Oh, I’ve given it to you back haven’t I?
[pause]
FM: I can’t remember the place.
JM: Cosford.
FM: Not Cosford? Not. No.
AM: It don’t matter because I’m just wondering because you’ve got back. So they’ve flown you back.
FM: Yeah. Then they debriefed us.
AM: Ok.
FM: And deloused us and more or less did some of what the Americans had done with us when they got hold of us. Then they sent us to London for the night.
AM: Right.
FM: Both in a hotel in London for the night. And after that we were sent to Cosford the next day. And that’s when we were re-kitted and everything and given a nice bit of back pay and sent home on leave.
AM: And what? How long after that were you demobbed?
FM: Well I wasn’t demobbed just like that. I was, at that time, there was some funny things going on. The Russians were misbehaving. Well they thought they were misbehaving. The allies did. And the, a lot of the Bomber Command boys had left. They were all volunteers and they left. But then they were appealing for them to go back on a, on a short engagement. Three years. And they had too, they had the aircraft, but they hadn’t got the people to fly them then. And they were flying food and all sorts of things over to Holland and Germany but they hadn’t got the people to do it. And that’s why they wanted the boys to go back and do. And with the Russians doing what they were doing what they were getting. They were getting very worried about the Russians. And I didn’t leave the RAF. I stayed in the RAF. And then I applied again and I wanted to be trained as a pilot which is what I was going to be. So, I went. Stayed in re-engagement but after a while I was — this complaint took over me and I had major surgery in the RAF. Then discharged as unfit for flying duties.
AM: Because of your knee.
FM: No. No. This Raynaud’s disease.
AM: Oh. Your other bits.
FM: Yeah.
AM: Right.
FM: So —
AM: Right. Tell me a little more about the memorial. You’ve shown me the picture. And the who — who organised the memorial where you’re plane had —
FM: It was a Dutch chap. I can’t think. Just —
AM: Just where —
FM: A letter.
AM: Where it had crash landed.
FM: Yes. Yes. That’s right. He’d been researching different things and what they wanted to do with this place in Holland they wanted to put a memorial there. Related to what had gone on in the war. And there had been another aircraft crashed there earlier in the war. A twin-engined aircraft. And the names of those two are on that memorial plaque. But they got my name, they got our name from somewhere. I don’t know how they got it. I got a letter through Canada actually. And this chap had got his information from Canada so it was perhaps the relatives of Chorley or something like that. I don’t know. But they invited me over to unveil the memorial. Well I got in touch with John Maling, our bomb aimer. He was living in Essex then. And Jean and I and John Maling and his wife Beryl all went over there and give those photographs to show what we did there.
AM: Yeah. What happened to the — he was the bomb aimer wasn’t he? John Maling.
FM: Yes.
AM: He was the one you ended up meeting in the prison.
FM: Yes. That’s right.
AM: In the prison camp and everything.
FM: Yeah.
AM: And I think you said the pilot was killed when he crash landed it.
FM: That’s right. Yes. And the wireless operator.
AM: And the wireless operator. So that’s four of you. What happened to the other?
FM: Well they got out.
AM: Did they?
FM: Yes.
AM: They got out.
FM: I didn’t, I didn’t meet any of them again. That was the Gordon Chorley, that was the navigator. The flight engineer. The mid-upper gunner. I didn’t meet any of those again.
AM: No.
FM: They were all POWs though.
AM: You’ve shown me the picture of the German pilot of the plane that shot you down.
FM: That’s — that’s what they said. Yeah.
AM: And would you have been happy to meet him?
FM: Oh yes. Yeah. Yeah.
AM: Yeah. What would you talk to him about?
FM: Well I don’t know. It would have been nice to chat to him about his job and my job and one thing and another. You know.
AM: Yeah.
FM: Compare things and it would have just have been nice. They asked me if I’d like, if I’d like to meet him and I said, ‘Yes I would. ’ But I didn’t meet him.
AM: No. That’s a shame. And what did, what did you after then. In later life. Back to electrical engineering.
FM: Yes. I became a maintenance electrician at one of the mills around here and that’s what I ended up doing.
AM: Yeah.
FM: Until I retired.
AM: Brill. What more can I say? I’m going to switch off now.
FM: And I used to think, I could see all this, it wasn’t always the case, but you see these big blazes going on below there and more bombs being thrown down there and I used to think — God. What about all the women and kids? And I still do that. And I still do at nights.
AM: Really.
FM: I have prostrate cancer. I have to get up quite a bit in the night and I don’t get a lot of sleep. I lie awake quite a lot and I think about it. Yes. I think about it a lot.
AM: So still.
FM: Oh yes. Yeah. That won’t go away. I mean they told us when I have mentioned to somebody — well very sad, but it was necessary.
GR: Yeah.
FM: If we hadn’t have done what we did millions more would probably have been killed.
AM: Yeah.
FM: So, I can’t argue about that but it still doesn’t make it better, does it? It’s very sad.
AM: And that’s pretty much what everybody says, isn’t it?
GR: I don’t know if you’ve watched it but they’ve been doing a programme this week —
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Frank Mannion
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Annie Moody
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-09-10
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Sound
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AMannionF150910
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Pending review
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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.
Format
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00:36:21 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Frank Mannion was born in Manchester. When he completed his electrical engineering apprenticeship at Metropolitan Vickers he volunteered for the RAF. Initially he was ready to train as a pilot but was told there was a shortage of air gunners so he volunteered for that role instead. After training Frank and his crew were posted to 10 Squadron at RAF Melbourne. He was shot down on his thirty seventh operation. Frank managed to finally free himself from his badly damaged turret and he baled out. He severely damaged his leg and he was found and taken prisoner. While he was being taken to prison there was an air raid and he had to share a shelter with the local population. He was sent to Stalag Luft VII at Bankau and then four months later was forced on the Long March. He and his navigator escaped from Luckenwalde and the Russians and were picked up by the Americans before he was repatriated home.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
Poland
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Luckenwalde
Poland--Tychowo
Temporal Coverage
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1944-09
10 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bale out
Dulag Luft
Halifax
Lancaster
memorial
prisoner of war
RAF Melbourne
shot down
Stalag 3A
Stalag Luft 7
the long march
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/609/8878/PMcNamaraL1502.2.jpg
1a52a0cc7a6a6bd8198d87fbb16b0d28
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/609/8878/AMcNamara150722.1.mp3
d96debe0280ffed1ce08c4e80939bcf2
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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McNamara, Len
L McNamara
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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McNamara, L
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with Len McNamara (1924 - 2020, 1814123, 185344 Royal Air Force) and a photograph. He flew operations as an air gunner with 10 and 75 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
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2015-07-22
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AM: Ok,so, this interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Annie Moody, and the interviewee is Len McNamara. And the interview is taking place at Len McNamara's home, in Southport, on the twenty second of July two thousand and fifteen. So Len, if you would just tell me a little bit about your childhood, background, and then how you came to join the RAF.
LM: I was born in Bristol in nineteen twenty four. My father was a chef, or cook as they called them in those days, and he worked at Fishponds, Bristol Mental Hospital, which is at Fishponds, on a very huge estate there, and my mother was a mental nurse. I was the eldest of three boys, I had a normal Elementary School education, went to night school, and when I was, left school at fourteen I was an apprentice plumber. Joined, as most lads I was associated with, joined the Air Training Corps, which had a very strong following in Bristol, and after going through, suffering, seeing the bombing of my home town, Bristol, I decided, if I could, I would like to join the Air Force, and be a member of the bomber squadrons. In December nineteen forty three I volunteered for air crew, and I went down to Euston House in London on a three day selection board, and was selected for air crew, and was told I would be called up later. Um, in March nineteen forty three, on the twenty first, the day I was exactly eighteen and a half years old, I reported to Lords Cricket Ground ACR-
AM: (interrupting) Nineteen forty four.
LM: Nineteen forty three.
AM: Forty three or forty four?
LM: Forty three.
AM: Ok.
LM: Um, after spending about three weeks in London, Earls Court Road, being kitted out and doing elementary field programmes, I went up to Bridlington to Air Gunners ITW. The course up there lasted approximately six weeks, and from there I went down to (pause) um, Elementary Gunnery School which was at Bridgenorth. Actually, did nothing at all there, cos they were just setting it all up and it was just hangers. From there I went to number one ATS at Pembrey, in Wales, did my gunnery course, and we were flying on, doing the gunnery on Blenheims, with Lysanders towing the drogues.
AM: So you, you were shooting at drogues.
LM: Yes, shooting at drogues. I passed out and was presented with merit honours in August of forty three, and from there I went to 10 OTU at Abingdon. At Abingdon it was crewed up, the skipper being Pete Catterswife, who was a Canyan, navigator was a-, from Taunton, and the wireless operator air gunner was an Australian, Bob Wright, and I can't think of anybody else who was crew at that time.
AM: How did you get together? Who approached who?
LM: We just all went into just a big room, and all I remember is being introduced to the crew. I don't know whether it was the navigator, or what, because (unclear), and he was West country, from Taunton. It could have been that. Anyhow, we crewed up there, that's right, navigator (pause), oh, and the bomb aimer, who was an ex Glasgow policeman, Bob McLuer. And I think we spent about two to three weeks at Abingdon, flying on Whitleys, and once the crew, skipper was solo on the Whitleys, we then went out to the satellite airfield at Stanton air, air, Stanton Harcourt. On completion of the OTU we then went up to Marston Moor, and did our conversion on to Halifax. Then they were flying Haliax ll's, which weren't all that clever, but nevertheless, the Halifax was a very well built aircraft, and more crew comfort than some of the others. On completion of the course at Marston Moor, we then went to Driffield on an escape and evasion course. I think it was about two weeks there, doing all sorts of things, getting over barbed wire, crawling through ditches, you name it, and we finished up with an escape and evasion exercise where we were dropped off in pairs on the North Yorkshire Moors, and then had to find our way back to Driffield. One, two of the Australians had a good experience, they got as far as (pause) oh, seaside town. Scarborough.
AM: Scarborough.
LM: And they found an army vehicle which was unattended, and drove back in that. I think the outcome was that it was some army Major's transport. Anyhow, they did that. And we, some of us got to Norton. We jumped on the train there, and when it got, not to Driffield station, to one of the minor stations before, we got out the wrong side and back in to Driffield without being stopped or caught. Um, after doing this escape and evasion, we were posted to the Shiny Ten Squadron in January nineteen forty four at Melbourne, just outside York. There were several crews went there, and we did two mine laying operations from Melbourne. On one of them the aircraft was shot up a bit by ack-ack, but the only comment was 'several holes in the aircraft, no member of crew hurt' (chuckles). From there, one five eight at Lissett were converting to the Halifax lll's, and also they'd lost one flight, C Flight, which went to Leconfield to form another squadron. So there were four of us, new crews of us at Shiny Ten who were then posted to Lissett. And we went there, and were on B Flight. Lissett was a very happy station. Everybody was very sociable, and a good atmosphere all round. While there I was having sinus problems, so I went up to the hospital at North Allerton, and had to go and have a minor sinus operation. As a result of that I was limited to flying below ten thousand feet. At that time I, with my own crew, had completed seven ops, and because of my sinus problems I was grounded from flying on operations, so they had a spare gunner in my place. On one of those trips to Tournai on (unclear) they got shot down. Three of the crew bailed out, the navigator and the flight engineer became prisoners of war. The rear gunner who had taken my place as a spare, he bailed out, but his chute failed to open, and he was found in a lady's, in France, in a lady's back garden, and his chute pack with him unopened. So it was quite a shock for the lady concerned. I have visited where the crew crashed, and also where everybody was found. I went with my son, er two of my sons and a grandson, and we found the local mayor was very cooperative, and showed us everything they could. The crew, the other ones who didn't survive, are buried in a small plot by the War Graves Commission in Meharicourt, and I have made a few visits there. There are quite a few members of 158 buried there, also the famous air gunner VC, Jan Mynarwski is buried there. From then I spent the rest of my time at Lissett as a spare gunner. Fortunately I was in the position of, I did fly with some crews for quite a period. One was Ted Strange. His air gunner, rear gunner had appendicitis, so I flew with them on their last seven ops, and they were a very fine crew, and I got on very well. I then was crewed up with Sam Weller, B Flight commander. Trips with him were few and far between, but I did, I then was crewed up with another Australian crew, and I did their last six ops with them. I did a couple of odd spare trips, and, but very quiet time really. I did fly with one crew, Canadian crew, which I wasn't happy with, and when I got back I said to the (unclear) that I didn't wish to fly with them any more because there was too much talking, and not enough attention paid to the job in hand. He assured me I wouldn't fly with them any more, and I didn't, and tragically, they did lose their lives on an operation not long after. In the October of, correction, in September of forty four I was then crewed up with a Canadian crew, and I flew with them for my last trips, my remaining trips of (unclear). I did, I think it was five or six with them, and then one day we came back form a daylight raid on Cologne, on thirtieth October, that was, and the Wing Commander, Wing Commander Dobson, came out to meet me, and said, 'congratulations, you've finished your tour now, and your commission is through'. The crew only had about three more ops to do to finish their tour, and I said, 'oh, I'll stay with you if you want', and the Wing Commander said, 'you've had enough, done enough. You've had nine months continuous operational flying, you've done your share, you're going to have a rest'.
AM: So that was that.
LM: From then I was posted to Langar, just outside Nottingham, as an instructor. Wasn't enjoying that very much , and a call went out for two second tour gunners, and Tony Dunster was an ex 4 Group gunner like myself, on Halifax's, we were posted, he volunteered, and we went down to Wolfarts Lodge to crew up, and we crewed up, the crew we crewed up with, the skipper was on his second tour, he was a New Zealander, and the rest of the crew, the wireless operator, the bomb aimer and the navigator, and flight engineer, had all been together on their first tour, flying Stirlings, as had the captain. And, I must admit, none of us were very enthusiastic about the Lancaster. Those of us on Halifax's said that the Lanc was a Woolworth's effort, and the Halifax was the Marks and Spencers, In all honesty, the Halifax was more favourable to the crews. It was easier to get around in, and easier to get out of in an emergency. Neither the Stirling boys, nor Tony and I liked the Lancasters at all. One incident we had with the Lancaster, was we were down at, way down in, er, Germany, I can't remember the target at the moment, this conversation, but it was way down, oh, Magdeberg, it was, and we were just doing the run in on the target, and we had an engine go up in flames. Nothing to do with any enemy action, it's just we had a glycol leak which caused a fire in the engine, and the engine couldn't be, it wouldn't feather, so we went all the way back to base with an engine, a prop just windmilling, and got back an hour after everybody else.
AM: Safely, though.
LM: Safely. One of the best jobs we ever did was the Manna Operations to Holland, dropping food. We loaded our crews ourselves, they had like a hammock in the bomb bay, and we loaded everything there, then we went over and dropped the food. And that was the most, the best thing we ever did.
AM: How many drops did you do on Operation Manna?
LM: Two.
AM: You did two.
LM: Yes
AM: How low were you flying?
LM: Oh, practically ground level. It was amazing because (pause)
AM: Could you actually see the people?
LM: Oh yes. As you were flying over there were people in their boats, and that, waving like mad to you, and some of them waving that enthusiastically they could tip over, but it was really fantastic to see it, and doing it.
AM: As a contrast to what you were doing before.
LM: Oh yes. Before, I mean before it was a question of destruction, but this question was saving lives. So, and (pause)
AM: Going back to the destruction, if you like, what, what, what did it actually feel like for you, there in the, as a, you were a rear gunner?
LM: Yeah, rear gunner. Well, actually it's amazing because being the rear gunner you never saw what you were going in to, you only saw it as you were coming out of it. And I was one of the gunners, there was loads of us, we never looked for trouble. Some, you had some people were gung-ho, drawing attention to themselves, but I was always taught, and others did, never draw attention to yourself. Just sit there quietly watching, and keeping your eyes open.
AM: Did you actually ever use the gun?
LM: Never.
AM: Never?
LM: No. I seen them, but you, just you sit there quietly, keeping an eye on what-
AM: But you could have done if you'd had to.
LM: Oh yeah.
AM: And what was it like in the suit, when you were all plugged in? Were you always warm, because it was really cold, wasn't it?
LM: Yes, but I really enjoyed it in the rear turret. You were in a world of your own there, you were your own companion. The only thing, it did get very cold, but then we had electric suits, and something we could never understand, ICW at Bridlington, you had to strip a Browning down, blindfolded. It's all laughable when you think of it, because in the turret it was minus forty, if you'd touched any metal you'd have frostbite, so why did we have to do all that?
AM: But you could, if you had to? With gloves on.
LM: Yes, if you had to. (laughs) But that was er-
AM: What, what do you think about the bombing now? You know, in retrospect.
LM: Well, it's more accurate, isn't it. I mean, you've got all the aids.
AM: No, sorry. I mean about when, when you were actually doing the bombing, dropping the bombs , what, what do you think about that now, in thinking about-
LM: I, I've still no regrets about it at all. Having lived and seen my own city destroyed, with no problems at all. And all I can say, it's like people are on about it all, what all the fuss and bother's about. There has been a book written since then, which I have. Written, I forget the name of the author, but he had, once the Communists had gone from Eastern Germany, and all the records came out, there was a lot going on there, all the equipment for submarines being manufactured there, it was a big staging post for the Eastern Front. There was loads of military there, and we were quite justified. I don't know what, all this outcry afterwards. It's easy to be wise after the event.
AM: And you got the DFC?
LM: Yeah, yeah.
AM: For the number of tours.
LM: Gary has got a letter that shows-
AM: Has he?
LM: Yeah. But there were, I mean, I had, I know I flew with numerous crews, but with the exception of the odd one or two, I was fortunate, I flew with very good, well experienced crews, and some of them had had an horrendous time. In fact, er, can we have just a (unclear).
AM: Yes, of course. (rustling noises)
LM: When Douggie Bancroft, Flying Officer Bancroft, who I did quite a few, they, they got badly shot up, and they landed at Hurn Airport, in, er, outside Bournemouth, and nobody ever understood how they managed to get the aircraft back there. In fact the instrument panel is in Canberra, in a museum in Australia, from that aircraft, and obviously the crew that survived, er two of the crew, they never found, never found their bodies. They reckon they must have fallen through the hole in the aircraft where it was badly burnt. And they all got immediate awards, DFMs and DFCs. They thoroughly deserved it. But they were a fantastic crew that I had the privilege to fly with for the remainder, the rest of their tour.
AM: Yes. So, I'm looking at all the different ones. So you had a Kenyan pilot, Canadian pilots, Australian pilots, New Zealand pilots, English pilot. You went through the lot.
LM: Yes, yes. I was lucky.
AM: Any difference? What were the differences of the nationalities? Other than the obvious ones about language.
LM: Yeah, there isn't no difference at all. They were all first class captains. Very happy crews, and, you can't explain the comradeship with your crew. You were closer than you were with your own brothers. I suppose the reason, you depended on each other for your lives. We had a good social life together, and that's it.
AM: Did you get down to Bridlington, from Lissett?
LM: Yeah, yeah. I've walked back from there many a time.
AM: You've walked? From Bridlington to Lissett?
LM: (laughs)
AM: How far's that?
LM: About eight miles. Eight, ten miles. Yep. Come back many a night in the crew bus, not on the seat, but on the floor (laughs).
AM: You enjoyed it, then?
LM: Oh yes. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
AM: And then, as, after that, you ended up with 75 squadron?
LM: Yeah.
AM: And then, I'm just looking at a sheet of paper here than Len has given me with all his pilots on. So, 75 New Zealand squadron, you were there 'til the end of the European war.
LM: Yes. Yes.
AM: So what was it like at the end, then? What was your last tour? Were they Operation Manna? Er, not tour, sorry, your last operation.
LM: I don't know.
AM: Because the Operation Manna ones would have been, May forty four?
LM: They were May time, weren't they. Because the war finished, I think it was in May. It was May, wasn't it?
AM: Yeah.
LM: I know because everything went mad on seven five squadron at Mepal, but (pause) that was fantastic, because when we come back off leave from seventy five New Zealand, all of us crew, we all used to come back, meet up in London, before coming back to Mepal, and have a night in London. But we used to go to Mepal village. Lovely, all the Kiwis getting to do their war dance in the bar. It was great.
AM: So what was it like at the end, then? What, how did it, for you, how did it end?
LM: It was just like a, really a bit of a let down. I thought we weren't treated very good. I know the New Zealanders were going to go out on, I forget what they call it, they were going to go out to India, and that. They went to Scampton, all the Kiwis, and all the English people, we were shipped up to Snaith, in Yorkshire, just to be selected to ground jobs, and I finished up at Ringway, on the parachute school, to initially, to be instructor. But I thought, 'no thank you'.
AM: No? You hadn't enjoyed it the first time round.
LM: So that was that.
AM: So what did you do.
LM: I can't, I'm trying to think, 'what did I do?' (Pause) Oh, yeah. I finished up, from there I went out to India, that's right, went out to Karachi, and we did nothing. Christmas, it was. Christmas of forty four, that's right. Arrived in Karachi, and there's four of us in a tent there, and we were just doing nothing. We used to go in to Kara-, it was Mauripur Airport. We used to go in to Karachi, and there was a club there, and that. We used to go in gharrys as they called them, the horse drawn taxi there, and we were told not to say anything as they went through some areas, let the driver sort I out, and that was that. But-
AM: How long were you there for? Was that forty four or forty five?
LM: That was forty four.
AM: Forty four. So that was before the Operation Manna, then?
LM: No, it was after everything.
AM: Oh, ok.
LM: Let's see. (pause) The war finished, I finished my tour and ops in October forty four, no, this was forty five, of course it was.
AM: So it was forty five.
LM: Forty five.
AM: I'm just trying to get my chronology right.
LM: No, forty five, it was. We went out to there, and then from there we went across to Ceylon, and then we went up to Kandy.
AM: What were you actually doing?
LM: Nothing!
AM: Oh, right.
LM: We were just shipped out the way. And we finished up at Kandy with a few more bomber, ex Bomber Command people, and then they decided to give us a three months Officers admin course. (chuckles) And then at the end of that we were shipped out to Singapore, we went on the Cape Town Castle, it was. Yeah. From Ceylon to Singapore, and I finished up on the embarkation unit there, working. But my sinus problems came out again, and I went in the hospital there. And the hospital was at Changi, which used to be, as I understand it, was a mental hospital, and of course all the Japanese were in (unclear) all around the beds, cleaning and that. And then I was sent home from there, repatriated.
AM: How did you get home?
LM: They flew me home.
AM: On what?
LM: A York. Flew me home, in stages, you know staging all the way through. Landed at Lyneham. Where did I go after that? Oh, then, (pause) that's right when I got back (pause), I missed that out, yeah, we went through Compton Bassett, and we did a code and cypher course, and we were all told when we went there, irrespective of what happens, you will pass the course, and we weren't, we were allowed to go to the Officer's Mess to collect our mail, and we had to pay the Officer's Mess bill, but all they did, they curtained part of the airman's dining hall off, and gave us that as a lounge with a field telephone to the Officer's Mess if you wanted any drinks. Obviously we never bothered, we always used to go into the local (unclear) and that. I'd forgotten about that, it'd all gone.
AM: I'm dragging it all back out.
LM: Yeah, I forgot all about that. 'Cos we, we went there before we went out to Ceylon, er, out to Karachi, and that.
AM: To go to Ceylon, and Karachi, and Singapore, to do nothing, just-. How many of you?
LM: Oh, there must have been hundreds of us. We were treated like dirt, at the end of the war, irrespective of your rank. We were just shipped out there out the road, out the way. The Navy got rid of all their surplus air crew. The RAF hung on to all of us.
AM: Why do you think they did?
LM: I don't know. I mean, I, because I'm a number, a (unclear) a number, I wasn't demobbed until forty seven. May forty seven.
AM: Could you have been, if you'd have wanted to go earlier?
LM: No. We weren't given the choice. We were all just shipped out, well we all thought personally we were just pushed out the way. They didn't know what to do with us.
AM: Was that RAF in general, or just Bomber Command?
LM: Well, I don't know, it was RAF, to do with RAF, not Bomber Command.
AM: They were still paying you?
LM: Oh yeah, yeah, but it was disgusting. That's right, I forgot about that. Yeah, that's right, I went-
AM: Seems a long way to go to do nothing.
LM: Well, it was, I mean, finished up at, in fact, the Officers Mess, embarkation Officer's Mess was out, Karikal House it was, and it was out by number ten dock gate, and in a beautiful big house and grounds. And a Japanese Admiral died there earlier, he's buried in the grounds of this big Karikal House, beautiful, and huge grounds. But, er, but, it's like the food we had there, it was all dehydrated stuff. And chicken, we used to see them coming in crates.
AM: And then they had to sort of wet it to cook it?
LM: Oh yeah. But, it was horrible.
AM: So what happened when you were eventually demobbed?
LM: I went, I was, we went up, I forget where it was, it was up Lancashire way somewhere, and just went up. A nights stop there. And just give the uniform in, and the suit, and that was it. It's a big laugh, because, because of the weather back here, there was a shortage of vegetables, and that, no potatoes, and all that jazz, but, I can't even remember the name of the camp where we were, when we were demobbed. Somewhere in the Lancashire area, I don't know where it was.
AM: What did you do afterwards, Len?
LM: I went back to finish my apprenticeship. I went back to finish my apprenticeship in plumbing. What happened, you went back and finished it, and you got full tradesman's rate, but the firm was compensated by the government for that. Got my indentures, and that was that. And then, I got fed up. I wished I hadn't of come out. The reason I come out was we were going to get married, and my wife wasn't keen on the service life, as she thought. So, I come out, and I thought, 'I'm fed up with this, I want to go back in'. So I went and they said, 'oh, you'll have to come back in as an airman, because your commission’s gone'. And I thought alright, I'll come back in the air traffic control branch.
AM: So this was after you'd finished your plumbing apprenticeship.
LM: Oh, yes. I was working as a tradesman.
AM: So you worked as a plumber?
LM: Yes, but I was getting fed up with it, and I was missing service life, and I wanted to get back into it. And the pity of it is, once I got back in, with the travel you did, and that, my wife thoroughly enjoyed it.
AM: Where did you meet your wife?
LM: Oh, I met, during the war we were at Bristol, we went out to Bath in the building business, working on bomb damage repairs, and we were doing work, just at the bottom of the road (unclear), and we were working on it, and that's how I come to meet her. She was fifteen and I was seventeen then.
AM: So that was before the RAF, even? You met her before you joined?
LM: Oh, yeah, oh yeah.
AM: And when did you get married? What year did you get married?
LM: Got married in forty seven, June forty seven. We were engaged, and that was that. Well, after I come out, I come out in May forty seven, and we got married in the June.
AM: When you went back in, then, so you did your plumbing, and then you went back in to the RAF, what did you do? What sort of things did you do?
LM: Air traffic control.
AM: You were in air traffic control.
LM: Yeah, air traffic control, straight on. And it was fantastic. Everybody was so kind to me. Don't matter what rank, station commanders, it was just what ribbons I had, and I was better treated then than we were at the end of the war, at Compton Bassett, and places like that. Because they were all wingless wonders there.
AM: So how long were you in air traffic control for? (pause) Ish.
LM: Oh, from fifty three to seventy one.
AM: Oh, right through.
LM: Yeah, I enjoyed it. Lovely. Yes, I trained on GC, ground control approach as a director, what they call a director, on that, and then became a local controller.
AM: Which airport were you based at?
LM: I was at, down at (pause) down at (pause), oh I can't think, it's where all the helicopters are down south, Chinooks and all that, I'll soon tell you.
AM: It's gone.
LM: Odiham! I was just going to pick the tankard up, because when I left there they presented me with a tankard. I was at Odiham, and, oh, that's right, because while we were at Odiham we had a mobile x-ray that come round, and they found Renee had TB. So she went into a sanatorium that way, and they transferred her to one outside Bath. Of course, we had young children, and mother, not, two of my sister in laws lived in Bath, one had the two girls, we had two girls then, and then there was two boys, and mother had the two boys in Bath. So I was then posted to, I'd been at Chivenor, that's right, I'd gone from Chivenor up to Colerne outside Bath, so that's it, they moved me to Colerne on compassionate grounds, because my children were in Bath, and they did that. And then from Colerne, when everything was, my wife was back and that, went up to Dishforth. Dishforth, Dishforth out to Germany, Wildenrath in Germany. So that was that. That's where I, and then I come home from Wildenrath in Germany, and, where did I go? Trying to think. (long pause). Oh God, no, I can't remember where I was when I came home.
AM: Oh well, it doesn't matter. What was it like being back in Germany?
LM: It was lovely. I was at Wildenrath, and the Dutch people we used to go on a roam on, and the German people were alright. In fact, on Wildenrath they had what they called GSO, German Service, and oh they were using what they had, huts and that, as married quarters. It was great. I enjoyed it. I can't think where I was. Oh, of course I was, I was down at Halton when I finished. Yeah, that's right, I went to Halton. I was the sole, all they had a Halton was a grass airfield, and Chipmonks for air experience for the cadets, you know, the apprentices, and I was the sole controller there. It was lovely. Had a fantastic time there.
AM: Brilliant. Well, thank you very much. That was really interesting.
LM: Sorry I couldn't remember names going through.
AM: Oh, don't you worry about that.
LM: But they're all down there, and Gary's got a copy of the recommendation for the DFC.
AM: Thanks, Len. I'll make sure we take a copy of that, then.
LM: Oh, I think I've got another spare copy.
AM: We'll find one. Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Len McNamara
Creator
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Annie Moody
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-22
Format
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00:40:20 audio recording
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AMcNamara150722
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Royal New Zealand Air Force
Royal Canadian Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
Len McNamara was born in Bristol in 1924. An apprentice plumber, he joined the Air Training Corps and volunteered for aircrew. Discusses his initial training at various stations, the gunnery course he passed with merit and honours, an escape and evasion course he attended, and crewing up with Pete Catterswife, a Kenyan. He flew Whitleys and then then converting to Halifaxes. Len was posted to 10 Squadron at RAF Melbourne. He discusses mine laying and bombing operations, aircraft damage, social and service life at RAF Lisset, military ethos and the award of the Distinguished Flying Cross. After sinus problems, he was a reserve gunner going on operations with various aircrews. Len was posted to RAf Langar as an instructor, but volunteered as second tour gunners and was posted to RAF Woolfox Lodge to crew up with a New Zealand pilot on Lancasters. Discusses engine problems, Kenyan, Canadian Australian, New Zealand and English pilots, talks about Operation Manna and discusses 75 New Zealand Squadron. At the end of the war he finished up at RAF Ringway as parachute instructor.
Len was then posted to various locations abroad, did a code and cipher course and was demobilised. He went back to his plumbing apprenticeship, got married, settled in Bath but wanted to get back to service life. He started back as an airman and went into the air traffic control branch serving at different stations in Great Britain and Germany until he retired in 1971. Len was into post war meetings and memorial visits.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Germany
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Yorkshire
England--Cheshire
England--Rutland
Sri Lanka
Singapore
Temporal Coverage
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1945
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
10 OTU
10 Squadron
75 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
crewing up
demobilisation
Distinguished Flying Cross
escaping
evading
final resting place
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
military ethos
military living conditions
military service conditions
mine laying
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
pilot
RAF Abingdon
RAF Langar
RAF Lissett
RAF Melbourne
RAF Ringway
RAF Woolfox Lodge
recruitment
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/648/8918/PTomlinR1503.2.jpg
5feeef4c71584185da2d1aebf6d7e5b7
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/648/8918/ATomlinR150818.1.mp3
109034737a77a609cefe84b0dd75762f
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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Tomlin, Ron
R Tomlin
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Tomlin, R
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. An oral history interview with Ron Tomlin (b. 1923) and three photographs. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 10 Squadron. Collection catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-08-19
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AM: Okay so, this interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, and the interviewer is Annie Moody, the interviewee is Ron Tomlin, and the interview is taking place at Mr Tomlin’s home in Streetly and it’s the 19th of August 2015. So, Ron, can we start with, can you just tell me a little bit about your family and where you were born, and your family background, what your parents did and school and stuff like that?
RT: Right, we was born in a place close to Shrewsbury, it’s called Ford, a little village, erm, I only lived there for a short while because my Father had come back from the First World War and he’d got himself a little van and he got a job with the post office, and then the post office got their own vans and er, so his little job dried up and we, and without his van he really didn’t have any trade apart from the fact he was a bit of a mechanic, he knew a bit about motor cars et cetera, and so they came back to Birmingham and they did their best. But, my Father had been gassed in the First World War and he couldn’t have a job inside because he was always spitting, and in those days people thought this was like a dirty habit, but modern information tells me, that spitting into the fire was the most hygienic way, they didn’t have paper hankies in, they couldn’t wash out, disinfect. We lived in a little back house, erm no garden, outside toilet that sort of thing and erm, this went on, my Mother tried to get her five children educated, my older brother went to grammar school, I went to grammar school but only on my second attempt because I didn’t pass high enough to get a grant for the books, and they couldn’t, my Father was unemployed, my Mother earned a living with washing and things like that, cleaning, and they, they couldn’t afford the extra grammar school fees, but because my older brother had gone, when he'd been there two years, I passed again, I could now go because I could have his books and his rugby shirt and things being passed down and so on, that went on until I was fourteen
[loud aircraft noise]
RT: When I ran away from home, I went to stay at my auntie’s house in, close to Shrewsbury, close to where I’d been born, on a farm, until my Mother bought me back, but I just didn’t want to go back to that grammar school, I didn’t want to learn French, I didn’t want to have a different life to all my friends, because nobody else I knew apart from my brother had gone to grammar school and in the end, erm and in the end that was accepted and I became apprenticed to a carpenter, and I say a carpenter, he was a big firm and he, he fitted out bars, Gaskell and Chambers, after a couple of years of that, I was fed up with that, and I wanted to get more money and the war had just started. I was sixteen, I was able to break the apprenticeship because I got a job doing war work at the BSA factory, and er, so I started working there and it wasn’t long afterwards, erm, one of the things that got me interested in the airforce was that the BSA had an ATC squadron, that’s the Air Defence Cadet Corp which became the ATC, and because this was the early days and because I was interested, I got a fair amount of promotion in that, and so when the BSA factory got bombed in nineteen forty one, I got fed up with clearing up after bombing and went with a couple of friends to join up. Now, we all wanted to be pilots
AM: Of course
RT: And they sent us away to Cardington for a three day test and I was accepted for pilot training, erm the other two, one was thrown out because he had flat feet
[loud aircraft noise]
AM: Because he had?
RT: Flat feet
AM: Flat feet
RT: Medical
AM: Yes
RT: And the other one, he was slightly older than us, he was accepted but into the RAF Regiment, so he didn’t come home with us, he was now in the airforce, he’d been thrown out and I’d been put on deferred service until I was old enough to start my pilot training, came back to Birmingham, I had to do evening institute work, navigation and things of that sort, until in nineteen forty two, late January, nineteen forty two, I was called up, I was now eighteen, erm eighteen and a little, and I went to Lords, the usual place for aircrew, I went to Scarborough, erm I had a problem with my feet, and when I’d finished my Scarborough breaking in, marching and all that, I was put into hospital to have toenails removed because they’d been bleeding, when that was finished and that took some time because I was eventually sent, it went wrong and I was sent back to Birmingham into Selly Oak hospital, I then went back to Carlisle, and I did my twelve hours pilot training
AM: Twelve hours? [emphasis]
RT: Yes, pilot training, at the end of twelve hours, the instructor said, ‘I’m not going to let you take off and land on your own, we haven’t got enough aircraft to let you crash,’ and so, I was placed into aircrew
AM: Right
RT: Sent away to the Isle of Man, and I eventually passed out with an observer brevvy, I’d done that, done navigation, bomb aiming, air gunnery and from the Isle of Man with my brevvy
[loud aircraft noise]
RT: I’d come back to Hastings in England, where I was being trained with advanced navigation, when the school got shot up by German planes, it was on the sea front and they shot out all the windows, and because we were now, some were needed to go, I got posted up to Lossiemouth and, to join a crew
AM: So, Hastings to Lossiemouth, how did you get from Hastings to Lossiemouth?
RT: By train
AM: Right
RT: By train with a warrant and a change of crew or whatever, and this and that or whatever, and from there, I joined up with five other people in what was known as Dibben’s crew, all the names are then, and for about three months we thought we were about to go out over Germany in a Wellington, we thought we were ready to go, we’d been doing a lot of flying particularly at night and we’d been, we’d had all sorts of mishaps, we’d had engine failure in Scotland, we’d had, we’d been shot by anti-aircraft guns over Oxford, we were ready to
AM: [laughs] Sorry to interrupt, what plane were you doing that training in then?
RT: It was in a Wellington
AM: You were in a Wellington, okay
RT: We were the Wellington crew ready to go, but then they said, you are going to be transferred to a Halifax
AM: Right, so at that time there were only five of you because you were a Wellington crew?
RT: There were only five of us, that’s right. So, we went back to Marston Moor in Yorkshire, under a CO who was Leonard Cheshire
AM: Right
RT: And we spent a few weeks learning to fly the Halifax
AM: Sort of, conversion training
RT: And we picked up an extra gunner called Agnew, and we picked up an engineer called Bob Hollinrake, but Bob Hollinrake is waiting for his cremation next Tuesday
AM: Yes, very sad
RT: That’s the last of the crew, yep, so erm, when we were then ready we were posted to 10 Squadron at Melbourne
AM: Right, okay
RT: And we got there in early July and we noticed, at the time I didn’t realise this was happening, but I know from records since, that most of my crew were being borrowed by other crews to go on missions. The pilot went twice, the navigator went twice, the engineer went twice, one of the gunners went once, and I was just sitting waiting for whatever
[loud aircraft noise]
AM: So, at that point, you hadn’t, had you done your first operation?
RT: No [inaudible]
AM: What was that like then, waiting while your mates were off doing operations?
RT: It’s one of the mysteries of life, because I and Louis Ure, the other man that didn’t go, have discussed this many times, we didn’t know, we were never waiting for them to come back, we were never asking them what it was like, we didn’t know, whether we would have been allowed to go if there was a raid on, we wouldn’t have been allowed off the station anyway, so we must have known, but for some reason it’s not in our minds now, so we don’t know
AM: Maybe, your just young and getting on with it
RT: That’s it, but then, late in July, probably the twenty second, twenty fourth of July, as a crew, we went to Hamburg
AM: The first one
RT: The first one
AM: So, what, what did, tell me about the day then, the bacon and eggs and then, did you have bacon and eggs?
RT: We, we always had a nice bacon and egg meal when we came back
AM: Right
RT: Yep, and we erm, I believe we had a good meal before we went, but the day of any operation is from lunchtime onwards, is being briefed, not only are you being briefed as a whole crew, each of your separate trades are being separately briefed about this, that and the other by the master bomber or the chief engineer or whatever, and then erm, in the early evening you are preparing for your trip, you are checked to see you are not carrying this, that and the other, you’re having your meal and eventually it’s time for you to be taken in your little van with the nice WAAF driver, and to your dispersal point, and there’s twenty aircraft almost surely being taking off and it takes a bit of time to get, it isn’t like, you see, twenty fighters taking off in the Battle of Britain, erm, all in dispersal places, they all have to assemble, they all have to fly off and gather on the coast before you set off in your wave
AM: And there’s a lot more men than there were in the fighters in the Battle of Britain, there’s seven of you in each plane
RT: That’s right, yep, and so erm, and then of course you don’t see much apart from the back end of other aeroplanes or something going wrong, because it’s all dark you know, nobody’s got lights on and the radio silence, but so, but when you go to a place like Hamburg which is already burning, you see it from a long way away, and our second big, [unclear] no serious incidents on our first trip to, our second trip was also to Hamburg, two or three nights later and we had a problem, we found that our oxygen system had failed, particularly there was none to the rear gunner who was singing as if he was drunk, and we made contact with our base and were ordered to get down low because of the oxygen, returned to base
[loud aircraft noise]
RT: Eject your bombs in the sea
AM: Why was he singing because he was drunk, from lack of oxygen?
RT: From lack of oxygen, yeah, and it wasn’t clear whether the whole oxygen system was failing or just his part, but without a rear gunner protecting us we were too vulnerable anyway and they wanted us to come back, so they bought us back, erm, that was in my memory as being one of the raids, not knowing what time or where it was, but the man who made the film, looked up all the records and assures me that it was on the second Hamburg one we went on, and we were not too far over the sea when it happened according to him, in something like an hour and three quarters we were back home, whereas we would have been six or seven hours across the sea to get back down
AM: What happened, what did you do with the bomb load when you were coming back?
RT: We dropped it in the sea, we ejected it, and we had trouble with that too, we reached the stage where we even considered chopping out the, the last of the bomb bay racks for which we had a chopper, we’d been briefed on that if you had to get rid of them, but it actual fact a lot of shaking about, eventually they all went but not all in one place, but seeing as you was over the sea it wasn’t too bad. Two or three nights later we went back out to Hamburg again, this time no problem, that was a good mission, and so two out of three Hamburg runs were okay, and then this squadron was stood down, they had been on a lot of operations in July and early August and we were given a three day pass, I think they shut the whole squadron down in order to try and bring the planes back up to
AM: Scratch
RT: Because, I mean, on our first two missions that we did see planes sink, we did see planes going down, and these, we did encounter searchlights but the drill was always the same, you know, left, left, [unclear] and whatever, we reckoned we did have a good pilot and no serious mishap. So, having had our three day’s we went back
AM: Where did you go on your three days?
RT: We didn’t
AM: Oh, you just stayed there
RT: We stayed there, we stayed there, we, Louis and I have discovered that whilst we stayed there, the
[loud aircraft noise]
RT: we, the skipper was entertained at the navigator’s house in Staffordshire, and we always ribbed them about this, ‘why did you take him and not us,’ and we always used to take the mickey and that sort of thing, but erm anyway, this has all come out later on
AM: Yes
RT: In those days, none of those things would have probably, so we, we then, soon after we got back off our three day break, we were sent to Mannheim, which is a long trip, not across the sea, down England, right across Paris, right across Germany to Mannheim, seven hours sort of trip, and on our way back one engine overheated and we were forced to shut it down, so when we got back to base, we assumed that we could happily go to bed and we wouldn’t go the next night, the same night we just got back, but around lunch time they woke us up, and said, your aircraft is now suitable and we are raiding Nuremberg tonight, right, and you are required to go, so two or three of the crew, Bob Hollinrake, I think, and the skipper and the engineer, took the plane up and came back and said, its ok, and so we got briefed, and that evening at about quarter past nine, we set off again, right down England, right across Paris, right across, a bit further this time, this was an eight hour, before we got to the target, the same engine packed up again, and so we dropped a little behind the bomber stream because, I think we were in, it was in five waves from memory, and we were in two, so the fact that we were going slower than the rest meant that we were still with them like, just at the end, but we were probably [unclear] it wasn’t too long after that when we’d lost a bit of height because we’d had to come down a little bit past three because a fighter had frightened us, and partly because we were gaining a bit of speed et cetera by coming down. We lost another engine
AM: Same side or?
RT: No, no, one on each side
AM: Oh, okay
RT: And, okay, you can still fly, you can still fly a Halifax on two engines, but we decided we would go back to engine number one that had failed and see if we could get it going again, because it had overheated again, we got it going again, not too long we had the same problem again, and they dabbled with trying to make it three out of four but we never really had more than two. We gradually lost height and when we came back over Paris, we were all on our own of course, we’d now lost the, the other, the shelter of the others
AM: No, you weren’t in the stream anymore
RT: And, technically we were a bit too low, we were around nine and a half thousand feet, that is well in the range of guns, but not hit, and we got out over Dieppe
AM: Yeah
RT: Heading for Beachy Head, which was our right route home because the mines had been swept in order to make a ditching area, but we got hit by something [emphasis] in the wing, we believe it was a German warship, and I’ll tell you why later, but we, the plane couldn’t fly straight and whatever had happened to the wing, and the pilot decided that the only, and we’re still in cloud
AM: Was it still dark at this point?
RT: Oh yeah, it was four o’clock in the morning
AM: Oh right, sorry
RT: And it, yeah, and we’d been going since quarter past nine, it would have been a night out if we’d got back to Yorkshire. It was actually quarter past four when we actually hit the sea, but erm because of his problems with the controls and his decision is he’s not going to make the English coast, he’s got to get himself a good ditching chance, you’ve got to have enough control, to control it when it hits the water, though he did his best, as I say, we believed we had a very good pilot, he did his best, and we got six out I was, stayed with the pilot because I used to fly the second [unclear] and about six hundred feet we came out the cloud, and I said, cheerio to him, and took up my position which is lying on the floor with my feet on the bulkheads, and one of my jobs was to just jettison the two escape hatches, which I did, went down to join the others down there, and it was fairly soon after that, although I think he probably only had one engine going when he hit the sea, he wanted to make sure he got absolutely control over what it, it had to be good, not anything that could suddenly alter, and because we had the perspex nose and the sea was rough, and it was in rain, the nose broke when it hit a wave, in theory, he tried to put the tail in first and fall into the sea, that’s the theory of it, but the nose went so we were suddenly flooded because it, and of course it isn’t just sea water we’ve got, its fuel
AM: Fuel, yeah [coughs]
RT: And the dye that it, the yellow dye the Fluorescein, that they, so we were
AM: Hang on, the yellow dye of?
RT: It’s called Fluorescein, and when the plane hits the water it releases a yellow dye so you can see over
AM: Right, okay
RT: It distinguishes where the plane went in, I mean for some weeks after in Germany we were all yellow, but so, we then get up as quickly as we can, my job was to be first out as bomb aimer, other people have got other duties to do, Louis is supposed to be sending his message and to, I mean now he’s in his ditching position, he’s done all that, the navigator’s supposed to be bringing the charts with him and
AM: Packing his bag
RT: I think he had a big bag which was supposed to be locked on his arms, he claims he got a bang on the head and he didn’t get all his stuff, not able in time, but anyway, I’m at the dinghy, the plane is flat on the sea, I was able to get into the, onto the wing, took the dinghy over because it was inflating the wrong way up, push it into the sea, get into it, and then the others are coming one at a time, the pilot of course is still in his own bit, he’s got to find his way to us, but the dinghy isn’t inflating as it should
AM: I was going to ask you, so the dinghy, who lets the dinghy go or does it do that automatically?
RT: I never thought about it
AM: And its auto, should automatically inflate
RT: It is definitely inflating
AM: Okay
RT: When I first saw it upside down and then I turned it over it was inflating, its only when we got inside and the others started to pile in, and seven of you in one of those dinghies is a bit of a squeeze
AM: You still got your flying boots and everything on at this point?
RT: I’m sorry
AM: You still got your flying boots on at this time? [inaudible]
RT: Oh yeah, all in that, and it’s starting to, it’s trying to float below the surface and it’s starting to fold up like a
AM: Yeah
RT: Air is escaping, it’s only then that we realise that its full of holes, shrapnel, a small piece of shrapnel had gone through when we were hit on the wing, it’s gone through the folded up dinghy, now part of our drill is to find all the items we drop attached to the dinghy by cords, one of which is a knife, one of which is a pair of bellows, one is some food, one is a Very gun, there’s a whole set of things, the first thing we want is the knife, because of our position folded up in the water, not sitting on the water and because we’ve got holes, not only in the air bit, but also in the bottom, the pilot says, we must find the knife otherwise we are going down with the plane, we were attached to the plane, it’s a strong cord, ‘stand up one at a time, because there’s holes in the bottom, take your flying boots off, I don’t want anybody’, and I’m the first one standing up, my job really was to be first in everything. I stand up, first thing is my flying boots are over the side, nobody’s ever admitted to it but if you look in my little museum upstairs, you’ll see most of the crew in later years have sent me cards of flying boots
AM/RT: [laughter]
RT: Because eventually of course I arrive in Germany in bare feet, and I’ve had bare feet for a fair little bit of this nonsense. So, we can’t find the knife, the new air gunner a man we’d never quite got to know as well as the five man crew, Sandy Agnew, he produces a sheath knife from down his flying boot, a thing which we’d always been told, ‘don’t arrive in Germany armed even with a knife, because if you’re armed they could kill you,’ whereas in the Geneva convention they’re not supposed to, he cuts us free. Very shortly after that we see the aircraft slide away, that’s right, so now we start to find these cords and find these things, we find the bellows, we find the bag full of corks, they’re like old fashioned spinning tops, little wooden things with threads on them, different sizes, with different size holes
AM: So, they’re for plugging all the holes?
RT: So, we start plugging the holes, we haven’t got enough for all the things, so people by holes have got fingers in, and things like that, but we’ve got the bellows and we start pumping, we kept that thing going for seventeen hours until we were rescued off the French coast. By then we’d found a little bit of Horlicks tablets, we found a Very cartridge gun, and we were you know, we were sailors now, we were but we couldn’t guide the dinghy
AM: So, you drifted back to the French coast then?
RT: Yeah. We got paddles but it’s a round thing and there’s no way two people can paddle a round thing and it, you know, eventually we’re off the French coast, we know we’re off the French coast at nine o’clock in the evening, it’s like twenty four hours since we left home, and there’s a ridiculous [emphasis] debate going on, can we, can we paddle all the way round to Spain? Shall we risk trying to go up towards all the twenty one miles, or if we get into the North Sea we’ll get lost, you know, et cetera, et cetera. When we see a Spitfire coming, two Spitfires actually, coming back over the coast, we fire our Very cartridge and the one Spitfire comes down, puts his canopy back, starts to wave to us and we’re now getting quite excited, it’s only a matter of minutes until they drop a flying, er flying lifeboat to us or whatever, or a flying boat will come and pick us up
AM: Yeah
RT: But, we were so close to the French coast, we didn’t realise how close we were, because the waves were high enough to hide it from us down there, but the Germans had seen the Very cartridge, and so they start to flash Aldis lamps, ‘identify, identify, identify’
AM: They’re actually [coughs] on the coast or were they [inaudible]?
RT: No on the coast
AM: Oh, okay
RT: And, eventually we flashed back because we also had a lamp, ‘RAF, RAF’ and they came out in a fishing boat with soldiers, armed soldiers, we all had to lie down, because of, we realised that there was a fair bit of risk with that sinking dinghy and we hadn’t got food or whatever, I think we were pleased to be picked up, to be saved as it were, you know
AM: At least you hadn’t drowned
RT: We weren’t drowned, yeah, and a boat came and they took us to a place called La Trémouille [?] which to me until recently is an unknown place in France, we’ve been back there a couple of times et cetera, I’ve had a holiday there. This last week or so, there’s a, a new series, series started on BBC and it’s all based on La Trémouille [?] [laughs] it’s a beautiful little town with all sorts of intrigue going on, you know, but anyway, we’re taken to Abbeville airfield and handed over to the Luftwaffe
AM: Are you still in your soaking wet clothes at this point?
RT: Oh, we are soaking wet, we were put in a little hut just to ourselves, in our wet clothes, we got a blanket each, still in our wet clothes, they locked us in and they gave us a saucepan full of hot potatoes in their jackets which were quite pleasant, and then the following day, a group of people who we believe to be two crews of German bombers, a party just bigger than us, we were seven they were probably nine, maybe ten. We were put on a train, still in our wet clothes and taken off to Germany, the journey took four days
AM: With the, with the German bomber crew
RT: Oh yes, they were in charge
AM: Is that right, okay, yeah
RT: One of those men loaned me his spare pair of boots, which I wore until I got to the first prison camp
AM: Did they fit you?
RT: Yes
[loud aircraft noise]
RT: We, when we arrived in Frankfurt, still with our dinghy, carrying our folded up dinghy, we were paraded on the station and the crowd came and spat at us, [unclear] bombers and all this sort of thing, which we thought was a bit unusual, we’ve found out since, that it was probably normal
AM: Did they try and get at you or were they just?
RT: No, nobody hurt any of us, no, et cetera, then they, the same nine people, they took us from the station to a tram car, one of these door tram cars, one behind the other, they shunted some people out, put us on and they took us to Gestapo headquarters, and outside Gestapo headquarters, the proper name is Dulag Luft
AM: Yeah
RT: Its well known as Dulag Luft now. The German had his boots back, they were his boots, they weren’t mine they were his, the, we didn’t need to explain, exchange, because I had no German, he had no English, he took me things and we went into there, and of course once we got in there, for about a week, we were then separated, we were in solitary confinement, interviewed most days by some German, sometimes we were put back in a cell with another airman
AM: But not your own crew?
RT: Not our own crew, sometimes we were put back with a member of our own crew, but we’d been briefed about all this, it was well known, we just don’t talk to one, if you don’t say anything, you know, but this went on for a week
AM: Did they do the nice guy, bad guy?
RT: Oh, all of that
AM: Cigarettes, all that stuff
RT: The officer with his gun in, gun out, until you’re proved to be, ‘I can shoot you,’ it’s all within, and ‘I don’t accept you’re a prisoner yet’, ‘you are not answering but I want you to’, ‘we are only allowed to give you rank name and number,’ ‘where you went to school’ and so, and so, ‘you attended Mary Street primary school,’ they got all the details, you know, so it, ‘that’s true, that’s a lie’, ‘I could shoot you for telling a lie’
[loud aircraft noise]
RT: [inaudible] but anyway, it went on for about a week and then we were all bought together again
AM: Were you scared, were you frightened, how did you feel about it?
RT: I think, I think I’m a young lad of nineteen, I must be, but the only time I can recall being really scared was while we were waiting to hit the water, you know, saying prayers and whatever, whatever comes into your mind, that’s a completely unknown situation you just don’t know what’s going to happen and, but I’m sure I’ve had a number of scares from Germans and things of that, but none of it is that I can recall in any detail, I’m sure, I’m not claiming to be brave or anything like that, so I think I must have been, but it’s not foremost in my mind. So, ooh, we are then in this Dulag Luft, which is, we were released by the Gestapo and we go into what it’s like, a little prison camp next door, there are English people in charge and they may be collaborators, they may be genuine people working on behalf of newly caught prisoners, I don’t know, but I still haven’t got my boots, and as I enter the compound somebody gives me a tin of condensed milk, and as soon as I got it opened, I scoffed it and I was violently sick, [laughs] but I can remember that in great detail
AM: It’s too rich for your stomach
RT: Well, I mean we hadn’t eaten for some time, you know, and on that train for four days, we’d had a little bit of German sausage and a little bit of bread, once a day, you know, the same as the Germans were having, that’s what they were having, they also [emphasis] didn’t have a bed for four days, you know, they were just in a wooden seated carriage, the same as we were, et cetera, so, okay, you’ve [unclear] then, you’re put on a train, bus carts and I’m taken to No 1 prison camp
AM: Were you still with your other six crew?
RT: Oh, we’re all together
AM: You’re all together
RT: We’re all together
AM: Yeah
RT: And we’re all together for some, that camp was organised into what we’ll call sixes, the food was shared out and you had to be in a combine of six, and so six of the crew were in the combine and one wasn’t, it was the little gunner, the man with the knife, he was in another combine with a Scotsman that he, because he was another Scotsman, so anyway, that was that. That was a nice prison camp, it was organised, it took all the people shot down since the start of the war, were all there, and they’d got a theatre and they’d got football teams with names like Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur, and I’m told that that one or two ex-professionals who’d become aircrew were playing in the teams, I didn’t know the people, and that was a nice enough place, and then somewhere along the line I acquired a pair of American army boots from the stores, the prison camp stores, but then a few months later we were, because it’s now getting very crowded, there were so many English and American prisoners coming in, its nineteen forty three, it’s all happening now and we were put on a train and we were taken to Lithuania. Four days again, same situation, we went to a reasonable camp, just started
AM: That was Lithuania, can you remember where it was?
RT: It was a place called Heydekrug
AM: Alright
RT: In Lithuania
AM: Yep
RT: Erm, we stayed there until, I think we went there in about November, remember I’d been shot down, its, its early September I’m in a prison camp
AM: Yeah
RT: So, I was not there too long in the good camp, then we go off to this very cold place in Lithuania, erm and nice place as I say, large place, four compounds, Americans in one, English there, English there and probably others in that one, and whilst we were there, five crew air gunner, Jock Finney, met his brother in law through the wire, he was in one of the other compounds, he knew he was there, and he persuaded the Germans to allow him to transfer to be with his brother in law and he took the little scotch lad with him, they all went together, and that was it, end, we never saw them again. They survived the war but not [unclear] we were involved in. Now, in about July or just after the invasion in June, we were overrun by the Russian front
AM: So, we are in nineteen forty-four?
RT: They were nowhere near us, but we’re in Lithuania and the Russian front is cutting off that whole section of Latvia and East Prussia, it’s all being, and so the Germans evacuated us by sea from the port of Memel and bought us back in to Swinemünde, a four day trip down in the hull
AM: All of you? How many?
RT: Eight hundred, down, we were on one boat, eight hundred, that was our compound. We know that on the day before, we only know now, on the day before in another boat, the American compound had also made the same route, and when we arrived back in Swinemünde, we were bombed by the American airforce, so we were lying on the truck, cattle trucks and there was a German pocket battle ship firing at them
AM: Would they have had any way of knowing who was on the boat, they just wouldn’t would they?
RT: No, no, no. So, eventually we were on a train, cattle trucks again, another four-day trip, this time back into Poland, at a place called [unclear] now, when we get it, this is known as the run off the road, this is the, which you all, one you must surely have heard about, when we get off the boat, where a lot of us have been manacled, we’re not manacled down in there because we couldn’t climb up the ladder
AM: So, hands rather than feet
RT: Yeah. But once we got off, some were pairs, some were fours, manacled together, and then, I call them the Hitler Youth, it was like a naval brigade of young soldiers with dogs and bayonets, start to chase us through the woods
AM: Yeah
RT: Wanting us to run, now we’re manacled together, and according to one lad, and we’ve each got a little haversack on our backs, which is an old shirt sewed up to make, to carry any bits and pieces that we’ve acquired in our nine months of captivity or whatever, and so, that runs down to your manacle and your stuck. I managed to get my hand out of my manacle because I was quite thin in those days and I’ve avoided any injury, and I’ve run on, I’ve left my other lad, whoever he was, I don’t know the name of who I was manacled to, I don’t think he was one of our group at all, not one of our crew certainly, and so eventually we arrived back in what we believed to be the prison camp, we now know it was a five kilometre run from when they attacked us, and we do know that the worst lad had sixty something bayonet wounds in his backside, prodded, not stabbed, prodded
AM: What where, what were the German guards doing, just letting them do it?
RT: No, they were the ones that were doing it
AM: Right, okay, so they were the guards who the young lads, were the ones, yeah
RT: They were the guards. The documents now say that they wanted us to escape and that on the edge of the woods was machine guns, that’s what the big books now record, we never saw any of that. We stuck together, not because we wanted to stick together, we were just following one another. Now, when we got to this camp, it wasn’t a camp, it was the outside of a camp, there was, we had to go in with a, what you get at a wedding, with a, soldiers, a guard of honour with the soldiers
AM: Oh, yeah, yeah
RT: Who bit you, prodded you, made sure that nobody had got anything, even a toothbrush, and then for some days, we were in this camp, with no huts, sleeping at night on the floor, and outside was a great pile of all our gear. Eventually that got shared out amongst us, toothbrushes, whatever, anything, and it took a few weeks before huts were made
AM: What month are we in now, is it, are we still in winter?
RT: No, this was July
AM: So, we’ve moved back through, yeah, with everything
RT: It was just after the invasion
AM: Of course, in forty-four, yeah
RT: So, the weather is much better, although there was a very nasty thunderstorm where one of, because before we got proper huts we had what we called dog kennels, they were like little sheds about five foot tall, four foot six tall, about ten people could lie on the floor, so at night we’d get into those. One night there was a terrible thunderstorm, two of the huts got struck by lightning, two or three prisoners got killed by the lightning, that must all be documented
[loud aircraft noise]
RT: Over a few more weeks, the Russian prisoners, they were like slaves, and they built a proper prison camp and we went into our compound and the facilities there were quite reasonable, a massive toilet block, seventy-two seat toilet block, and so on, and which the sludge of the toilets had to be moved everyday by the Russians
[unknown]: [background talking]
AM: [inaudible] yeah
RT: With their oxen carts, they used to suck it up with a little explosion that caused it to
AM: Okay we’re paused, hang on
RT: Have we stopped?
[unknown]: [inaudible] I just said
[unknown voices]
[unknown] Just a little nibble, its ready but we’re having it indoors
AM: Right
[unknown]: Not bringing it out here
AM: Oh, we’ll come in, can we come in when we’re done?
[unknown]: Do you want to finish all that and then come in?
AM: Yeah, can we?
[unknown]: Yeah okay, fair enough
AM: Alright, right then
[Unknown] [laughter] I hope you are not going into too much detail Ronald?
AM: No, you’re not its wonderful
[unknown] I’m sat here listening and
[unknown] [inaudible] [laughter]
AM: So, cut you off in your prime, off you go again
RT: Anyway, we were in [unclear] which becomes a very reasonable sort of camp, the main occupation, was the guards trying to count us, every day. Every day we’d be forced out of our, I mean at night time, the huts are all on legs, dogs are underneath them, to avoid escaping. You do your own cooking on a little bit of a stove in there with your ration of potatoes or your twenty eighth of a loaf every day, a slice of bread
AM: And if they’re on legs you can’t dig tunnels?
RT: Not easily, you, et cetera, et cetera, and so on, and then in the daytime, they would force us out while they searched the huts and then they would do a count, somebody would manage to sneak through there and spoil the count for them
[loud aircraft noise]
RT: This went on all the time. Is he a bomber? Oh no, he’s just a passenger thing, yes. Have you got him recorded?
AM: Yeah, be alright, as long as it doesn’t drop anything on us
RT: It isn’t too long now, and we coming to the end of January, this is now nineteen forty five
AM: Forty five
RT: And the Russian front comes again, and this time the same routine, but instead of the ship or the train, we just set off walking and it goes on from the sixth of February until I get liberated on about the sixteenth of April
AM: Okay, how did you get liberated?
RT: The British army. By then we’d walked back to [unclear] which is a big, nowadays well-known place, it was so crowded that our column were told they had to go back again, and our column did leave and went back the way they come, most of my crew went with them, but Dibben, the pilot and I, went into sick bay, lay on the floor and said we were too sick to move, and we just stayed there, two days later we were liberated by the British army. We knew the army was getting close because we could see the searchlights in the sky
AM: Who was it that sent the others back?
RT: Oh
AM: Germans or?
RT: Germans
AM: The Germans, right
RT: And, the people in charge of the camp, because the camp was run by Sergeant Major Lord who was a big disciplinarian who had been captured at Arnhem
AM: Right
RT: And whilst I was in [unclear] a British soldier took me into the town to show me the little village, first day out of the prison camp, [unclear] and who should I meet? But Ken Pugsley, the lad with flat feet, who’d been captured at Arnhem as a prisoner and was in the same prison camp. I met him in Germany [emphasis] [laughs]
AM: Five years later
RT: Absolutely. But, on the march, I developed frostbite, I just couldn’t walk [inaudible]
AM: In your feet?
RT: Yeah, I couldn’t keep a, shouldn’t, whether it was those army boots from
AM: Americans
RT: Americans, which were never going, the right size or whatever, but anyway, and so the Germans [unclear] took me on a work cart and with a soldier, put me on a train, took me to a Belgium workers camp, dropped me off, and for seven or eight days, I was fed by a little Belgium school master
[loud aircraft noise]
RT: Until he died last year, he corresponded [inaudible words] and a Serbo-Croat prisoner operated on my foot with his penknife which eventually, to release the pus, to allow the thing to get out. They put me on a dressing, on about the seventh, eighth day, we’re now into March, the German soldier arrives back, takes me on the train, puts me back with my crew on the march in a snowstorm with a cardboard box on my foot which lasted about
AM: About a day?
RT: No, not quite
AM: [inaudible]
RT: And so on, and so then, there we are back on the march again until we eventually
AM: It’s a strange mentality isn’t it, that they’d come, dropped you off, get you fixed up, bring you back
RT: Yep
AM: And get you to exactly where you’d been
RT: Now, when I recorded this in my film, I said, that the Germans with their efficiency, took me back to wherever the column had got to, but I now know from looking at my other documents, that for eight days the column stayed in th same place
AM: Oh
RT: Because all the roads ahead, were full up with other prisoners
AM: Right
RT: And, population escaping from the Russians, and so there was nowhere for us, so we are stuck
AM: Between a rock and a hard place
RT: Between the few farms. We had a prisoner on a bicycle, he was known as Percy Caruthers, he was allowed, and he spoke good German, he was a pilot, he was allowed to ride ahead contacting farmers to see if they would put up some prisoners overnight in their barns, provide food or hot water, and because no farm could take eight hundred, he would probably find about five farms in an area, and he would issue a document to say you helped British prisoners of war, and which would stand them in good stead with whoever liberated them, okay and so on, because we’re talking now about Poles and Germans, and all sorts of people because of the war and whatever, and that was the way it was, you know, so eventually I’m liberated
AM: So, you meet the British?
RT: Meet the British and within a few days I’d been fumigated, flown back home and then I was put for two years in Cosford Hospital because of, I was very [unclear] I had no nutrition and I was suffering from dysentery, you know, couldn’t hold food or whatever
AM: Two weeks, so you were two years in, two years did you say?
RT: No, two weeks
AM: Two weeks, I thought you said two years?
RT: No. And I left there on the seventh of May and was home for VE Day, whereas the rest of the crew
AM: They’d had to go backwards
RT: Gone back. They weren’t liberated until after VE Day
AM: Right
RT: And so on, they were, so we arrived back home, erm, even the little ambulance that took me from the airfield down in Hertfordshire to Cosford, called my Mother’s house to let her see me in the back of the, it wasn’t an ambulance, it was sort of a little canvas thing, you know and so on, that was in the middle of the night, because
AM: Did she have advanced warning that you were going to turn up?
RT: No, no, they knocked at the door
AM: [gasps]
RT: And said, ‘we’ve got your son out here’, you know, that would be the first she knew that we’d been liberated and of course it was before the end of the war, and so. And then we, I stayed in the airforce for about a year, the airforce didn’t want me to leave until my future was ascertained. Now, you know about my background of mucking about, this, that and the other, whilst I’d been apprenticed to the carpenter, the bit I fancied was the drawing office, so I’d arranged to get a training course to the draughtsman, and until that training course came through, the airforce kept me on
AM: Right
RT: I was a warrant officer, I got a good salary, I had a nice little flat in Scarborough, I only had to stay in Scarborough long enough to find some prizes for the spa dance every Saturday, and once I’d got my spot prizes I could go home and come back the next week, so
AM: Were you on your own?
RT: Yeah, on my own, yes me on my own with a little flat in Scarborough
AM: Not booking in anywhere or?
RT: No, no, eventually they transferred me to the drawing office at RAF Wittering, but nobody in that drawing office seemed to want, so I used to turn up there on a Monday morning and then catch the first lorry along the main road back to Birmingham for the rest of the week, you know, because they didn’t want me and the airforce were trying to help me. Eventually, my training came, I did my nine months of training and then, for the first job I went to, I was well trained, first job I went to was a good firm, I stayed with them for thirty-three years
AM: Blimey
RT: Yeah, changing jobs all the way through, as a sort of promotion, a good job, that’s where I met Freda
AM: That’s where you met Freda
RT: She worked there, yeah, so we’ve been together not for fourteen years, but for sixty-one years
AM: Sixty something
RT: And so, yeah. Now, when I retired my story vanishes then, I have nothing to do, not true, I met Louis Ure in London nine years after the war, but apart from that, apart from sending Christmas cards to the crew, I had no contact with the crew until I retired, when I retired I went up into Yorkshire to a place called the Rocking Horse shop, because I’d planned to make a rocking horse for my oldest, I was still using my apprenticeship with carpentry
AM: Carpentry
RT: I had always been a bit, you know, and all these little side tables you see there, all of this is, and sheds, fences, all these fences and green house, all that’s is stuff I’ve made, and so, I go to the rocking horse shop and it’s in a place called Holme-on-Spalding-Moor
AM: Yes
RT: Which was twinned to Melbourne. So, I go into the local pub which is called the Bombers Arms which we used to use from Melbourne, and on the wall, was a chart showing that 10 Squadron had just had the 10 Squadron Association dinner, and my pilots name and the bomb aimers name were on there, so I contact the publican and he said, there’s a man at Elvington air museum
[unknown background talking]
RT: Who does Tuesdays and Thursdays, whatever, he’ll be on tomorrow, the secretary to this association. So, I stayed the night in the pub with Freda, I’ve got me bits for my rocking horse, and I go to Elvington, the man on the door says, by the time you get back to Birmingham
[loud aircraft noise]
RT: Your crew will be in touch with you, and they was
AM: And they were
RT: And the first reunion was within three weeks, it was at the Prisoners of War Association called Creaky Corps at, who were the people who were in that boat down the Baltic
AM: Yeah
RT: And that became Creaky Corps, Percy Caruthers, the man with the bike, was the chairman, and so, they had, they had a reunion every year, as did 10 Squadron, so within three weeks, we were meeting up in Wellingborough, and we went to Sywell where Percy Caruthers had been trained as a pilot, we always went back there, to the Aviator, a big hotel, and for twenty years we went to those things and when Percy Caruthers was feeling, he’s going to pack up soon, I became the vice chairman because nobody else would take it on, and shortly afterwards, Percy died, and so we went to our first meeting, and the first job I did was to say, I’m not the right bloke to be this thing, I want somebody who really wants to be it, we found another bloke, he came the chairman and he continued, and it went on, you know, he did well, he did well, it didn’t last too many years because the people were dying off, and so, and because 10 Squadron kept going
[loud aircraft noise]
RT: And, Freda and I went to 10 Squadron’s hundredth anniversary this year, we won’t go again [unclear and inaudible words]
AM: How many of the original [inaudible] war veterans were there?
RT: There were one or two including, including ground crew
AM: Right
RT: But nobody that we knew, not one of the people that we used to see year in and year out, and so on, because 10 Squadron is still flying and because they’re still flying, they’ve still got old boys who were youngsters compared to us
AM: Yeah, they were old boys but not as old as you
RT: And, some of their sons and daughters are now, you know, they had to ballot to see who could go
AM: Right
RT: Freda and I, and the pilot’s widow wanted to go and we all got tickets, and we went and stayed in Burford, we did, all the years we used to go there, we used to stay in a pub in a little village called Broadwell, which had five bedrooms, and there were five of us with our ladies
AM: Brilliant
RT: And, for years, and then this publican retired himself, and the people buying it didn’t keep it open as a pub, they shut it down for two years then opened it up as a Swiss restaurant and it failed, so it’s probably derelict now, the house, we are still in touch with the publican who lives down in Devon, you know, et cetera. But that is the story
AM: Okay
RT: As far as the war goes, you know
AM: Wonderful
RT: But the, as I say, the big story is the twenty years that we met after retirement
AM: And enjoyed
RT: Twice a year
AM: Looked back and
RT: And we always went to the reunions and we always stayed another couple of days and we, ah
AM: [Laughs]
RT: And it’s amazing that the things that they, the pilot Dibben and the navigator, the navigator eventually became a publican
AM: Right
RT: And his pub was ever so close to Dibben’s house, so every Friday night, Dibben and the publican told all their audience, related the war
AM: Open the hangar doors [inaudible]
RT: And when Louis and Bob and I joined them, we had to correct all their stories
[laughter]
RT: Yeah
AM: That was wonderful, that was wonderful, I’m going to switch off
RT: Yeah
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Ron Tomlin
Creator
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Annie Moody
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-08-18
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ATomlinR150818, PTomlinR1503
Conforms To
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Pending review
Description
An account of the resource
Ron Tomlin grew up in Birmingham and was an apprentice carpenter before working in a munitions factory. He volunteered for the Air Force at 18, and after training, flew operations as a bomb aimer with 10 Squadron. His aircraft was forced to ditch in the English Channel and he became a prisoner of war. He discusses the conditions he endured before he was liberated. He became a draughtsman after the war and attended 10 Squadron reunions after his retirement.
Contributor
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Cathie Hewitt
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Lithuania
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
England--Yorkshire
Lithuania--Šilutė
Format
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01:08:31 audio recording
10 Squadron
aircrew
animal
bomb aimer
bombing
crash
ditching
Dulag Luft
Halifax
prisoner of war
RAF Melbourne
sanitation
shot down
Stalag Luft 6
the long march
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/673/9225/PAndrewsPF1701.1.jpg
f2ebdb590ad02e6bdbfb783df0b1cbcd
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/673/9225/AAndrewsPF170911.1.mp3
b75333e621a6c4095f4c7e868ae7b6f5
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
Andrews, Andy
Peter Frederick Andrews
P F Andrews
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with Andy Andrews (1924 - 2022, 1811552 Royal Air Force) and his log book. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 10 Squadron before he was shot down on a mine laying operation 14 February 1945 and became a prisoner of war.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by 'Andy' Andrews and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-09-11
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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Andrews, PF
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
SP: This is Susanne Pescott and I’m interviewing Peter Frederick Andrews known as Andy Andrews, today for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive. We’re at Andy’s home and it’s the 11th of September 2017. So, first of all, thank you Andy for agreeing to talk to me today.
AA: Quite alright. Yeah.
SP: So, Andy, tell me about life before the RAF.
AA: I left school at fourteen years of age which was the time that you left education in those days and I went to work as a, in a tailoring, a tailoring shop in Tunbridge High Street. And I was there until such time as I got an interest in flying and I joined the Air Training Corps and they brought my education up a bit by giving me more maths training than I’d had before. And I, in, in those days at seventeen and a quarter you could volunteer for the flying duties in the RAF because it, all air crew were volunteers during the war. And I was, I went into the RAF. As I say I was in a gent’s outfitters and I was there until such time as I went into the RAF at seventeen and a quarter which was the end of 1941, and started. Kitted out at Cardington. Went from there to Blackpool and at Blackpool we did Morse training in the Winter Gardens. And we were there in the winter period and if weather was too bad for physical training we did it in the Tower Ballroom which was quite an experience because the organist on the big organ was usually rehearsing and it was quite, quite an experience. And once we finished at Blackpool we, we went to Lossiemouth in Scotland which was the Operational Training Unit. And the method of crewing up in the RAF in those days sounds a bit chaotic really because you were all in a giant hangar. Air gunners, navigators, bomb aimers, air, wireless operators and pilots and a pilot somehow collected the people that he had spoken to and well, you knew briefly. And he knew one of the gunners because he had, he had been an instructor when the gunner was, James Petre when he was trying for his pilot’s licence which he didn’t manage. Hence the fact he ended up as an air gunner and he picked up him and his mate up as crew. And then they latched on to me and got me as a wireless op and the navigator, whose name was Berry he had red hair so he naturally got nicknamed Red. Plus the fact that the red beret, I mean it was quite obvious why he got the name but, and we formed a crew. We were flying in Wellingtons, training in Wellingtons and we completed, completed our OTU training and from there we went down to York and we went to a Conversion Unit just outside of York called Rufforth. 1663 Con Unit, and we converted on to the Halifax Mark 2 with, with the inlined engine and once we’d, we’d converted successfully on to the Halifax we were sent to a, the squadron which was 10 Squadron. A little village called Seaton Ross or Melbourne and we, we flew in the, they were equipped with the Halifax Mark 3 which was a marvellous aeroplane and we converted on to that. And we had one little hiccup. The bomb aimer that we’d picked up was, he got cold feet and he, he told our pilot Johnny that he wasn’t going to be able to go on ops. So, John told him to go to the medical officer and state his case which he did and he was classed as LMF which is lack of moral fibre and he had his insignia, RAF flying insignia and rank taken away and he was posted off the squadron. But we were very successful in his replacement which was, I’ll be eternally grateful that he came to us because he was so useful to me at a later date when we were prisoner of war. But he was, he come from Liverpool and his name was Stan and he was an ex-docker built quite solid. Again, which I was very grateful for at a later date and he had, he had done a tour in Wellingtons in the Middle East so he’d already done thirty operations when he came to us. He slotted into the crew quite well as one of the senior crews but he was senior to all of us as far as operations are concerned but we started our operating and we did German targets which consisted of the Ruhr which we did a couple of dozen operations. Well, no about twelve operations on the Ruhr which was known to aircrew as Happy Valley and the flak was quite extensive over those areas. Anyhow, we got through nineteen operations and we were feeling confident that we were going to be able to complete our tour without any bother. We’d done a couple of mine laying operations which was code named gardening and was given a, a code name. The one we were on, on, we were briefed to go on was, “Forget Me Nots.” And it was just off the coast of Denmark in the shipping lanes. We were due to drop mines and we took off about 5.30 on the February the 14th, St Valentine’s Day and headed over the coast of Yorkshire heading for, we flew out at five hundred foot to get a bit below the radar so the Germans didn’t pick us up too quick. The, the rest of the squadron, there were just three aircraft on the mine laying which we were one of and the rest of the squadron went to a target called Chemnitz on the 13th of February which was to drag some of the fighter opposition away from Dresden which was the target that night. And they were going to Chemnitz. We were going to drop mines. We took off, flew across to the mainland of Denmark and then climbed to a height of eighteen thousand feet. Headed towards Copenhagen which we were due to, is the island of Zealand and a little farther on we came to the, we would have come to the coast to drop the mines. The bomb aimer had come down to the front to prepare the mines for dropping but unfortunately a JU88 fitted with all the latest equipment had latched on to us. He’d been vectored on to us and once, the method of attack is once they’ve got visual contact with a bomber they flew to the rear of it and slightly underneath so it made the rear gunner couldn’t get a, couldn’t depress his guns far enough to reach them. And then he had a fixed firing .5 gun which actually targeted the front part of the plane. And the part that always fascinates me is the fact that his first burst caught the port wing which was fully alight and the flames were trailing out behind and he he he had another burst which must have killed the pilot because he was sitting immediately above me and I had blood on my battledress which must have been his. And the navigator who sat by my right knee almost within touching distance he had been caught by a cannon shell as well. So, they were both dead. I was in the middle and got away with it apart from superficial cuts and bruises. I stood up, clipped my parachute on and the aircraft was all over the place because the pilot was obviously dead or dying and there was no control and it was flying all over the place and as everybody knows if you’re all over the place in an aircraft it’s difficult to do anything. I was making to move forward to the escape hatch by which time the pilot and the navigator were dead. The mid-upper gunner, the flight engineer and the rear gunner got out of the main escape hatch or the one that you normally come, come in to the aircraft on and they’d gone out. They baled out and just after they had baled out the aircraft blew up and we figured that the nose must have separated from the main fuselage and Stan, who was the bomb aimer he was up in the nose and myself who was about six foot from him must have gone through a gap. And fortunately, as I say I was unconscious and I came to in a silent world because your ears have blacked out. You fall at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. And I looked up and saw the parachute pack but the parachute hadn’t been deployed so I reached up and pulled it. It appears to be in the nick of time because it was only seconds and I hit the deck and in the middle of a field in Denmark. And as I say the, the exiting from the aircraft the flight engineer and the mid-upper gunner got out without any problem at all. Jim, the rear gunner, Jim Petre he turned his guns to, to port because there was, the flames were, were streaming back on the port side and he jettisoned the back doors and fell out backwards. But unfortunately one of his flying boots got caught in the guns so he was trailing out the back and in, with his parachute pack and he realised that he’d got to get away from the aircraft because it was burning and so he pulled the ripcord which yanked him out like a cork out of a bottle and opened the chute. It took him a long while to get down because from sort of eighteen, sixteen thousand feet, whichever we were to the ground takes quite a, quite a number of minutes to get down whereas I was the last one out I reckon and Stan and I we were the first down. And as I say I approached some houses that were alongside the field where we were and I approached some people that were standing out at their gate. They had maps and torches and things to illuminate and whatever, and the first group that I got to said they didn’t want to know because obviously if the Germans, if, if you were a Danish citizen and you helped English aircrew or allied aircrew then you were shot. You were killed. So, they directed me over to another house and I went and knocked the window and that’s when I knew that my hands were quite badly cut and bruised and the blood was running down the window. And they, they took me in and sat me in the chair and dressed my head wounds with paper bandages and I got the escape kit out and the silk map and the currency and all the stuff that goes with it and they pointed, they pointed out where we were in Denmark. And whatever plans I’d got, I was forming in my mind was to get out. Anyhow, they sent for an ambulance and they came along and they picked me up and took me out in a stretcher. Put me in the back of the ambulance. We went down the road, hundred yards not much more I shouldn’t have thought and the back doors opened and Stan was wheeled in. He looked a shocking sight because he was, where Perspex is embedded into his face. It looked a lot worse than what it was. It looked like he was, his whole face was blooded and I suppose mine was must have been the same and I said, ‘You look a shocking sight.’ And he said, ‘Well, you don’t look much better.’ They took us to a hospital which they changed, they put us in an examination room with two benches where we’d laid there and the doctors were checking us over and doing what was necessary and they brought a couple of members of the Resistance in who the doctors interpreted for. One of the doctors could speak really good English and they had said that if we were fit to travel the next day they’d got, they would get us away and we’d get across to Sweden which the other three members of the crew managed to do and they got back to England quite quickly. But unfortunately, somebody in the hospital had blown the whistle on us and said there was two fliers and although they were changing us from ward to ward to keep us out of the way the Germans marched in and took us. And they took us both out on stretchers and they put us in some unbelievable dungeon like place and Stan was one, there was a couple of bunks in there and Stan was in one and I was in the other. And later on that night they brought their girlfriends down to have a laugh at our expense. And as I say Stan was a very forthright ex-docker and he gave them some Liverpool [laughs] swearing which if you, whether they recognised it but they must have known that he wasn’t very happy. And he’d got broken ribs and fortunately the next day the Luftwaffe who had heard that we’d been taken prisoner by the Wehrmacht came and claimed us as their own which they were in the habit of doing because, and they took us to an airfield in Denmark and put us in sick quarters where we were quite well looked after for a few days. I had [sunray] treatment to take the bruising which I was black from just below the thighs up to the chest where the harness was a bit slack and with my delayed drop it did cause quite a bit of damage. But, and Stan also with his broken ribs he had, he had quite a lot of attention and anti-tetanus and all kinds of things and the doctor who could speak, the Luftwaffe doctor who could speak good English, him and Stan had long conversations and argued against the merits of us fighting the Germans and we should never have got into a situation where we were at war with Germany and Stan was saying just how, giving his version of it and it got quite heated. At that particular time Stan had noted or we’d both noted that there was a JU52, one of their transport aircraft was parked not far from the window and they used to take it up for an air test every, every day. And Stan come out with the bright idea that if he could get out to it he’d get us off the ground which I thought might have been a good idea in, in boy’s books but it didn’t sound very convincing to me that he was going to do all that with him with two broken ribs and me strapped up with severe bruising. Anyhow, it came to nothing and we were transported by ship from [pause] from Denmark across the, going over the shipping lanes where the mines had been dropped by other aircraft and we were right in the bowels of this ship and we, but we got away with it. We got to Rostock on the north coast of Germany and then we entrained from there. I had a dodgy experience as we went in to Hamburg. The compartment was reserved just for us and two guards because we had two guards with us and, but the civilians had pushed their way in. In other words, they’d have probably done the same in this country, why should enemy aircrew have a reserved when they were standing in the [laughs] Anyhow, they got that they piled into there and one of them had got me against the door and we were looking out at a part of Hamburg where there wasn’t a stone on a stone. I mean it had been completely obliterated and he was saying, ‘Your comrades,’ and he was trying to undo the door to push me out. Fortunately, the guards with their guns forced them back and put Stan and I up in the corner out of the way and we didn’t have any more trouble from them. But we went from there down to Dulag Luft near Frankfurt which was the Interrogation Centre for all allied aircrew and we were immediately shoved in to solitary confinement and taken out. I think we were there for four days before they were convinced that we’d got no useful information to give us. But we were taken out and chatted to by, or interrogated by German officers who could speak perfect English and offered us cigarette and, ‘Would you like a sandwich?’ And were very nice to us but they had got so much information about 10 Squadron they even knew we’d got a new CO which we’d only had for three weeks, Wing Commander Shannon and they even knew about that. And once they realised that they knew more about 10 Squadron than what I did they released us on to the main camp where we were, I inherited a pair of GI boots which were quite comfortable and we were kitted out and the biggest tragedy as far as I’m concerned we were given a shower and they came along and said I’d got lice so they shaved my head right down to the bone which is the customary mode of hair cutting nowadays but it wasn’t in those days and I was very proud of my mane of hair. And being as we were only short-term prisoners we weren’t there that long. By the time we got back I still only had about half an inch of fuzz on my hair. So, I wore a glengarry all the time, indoors and outdoors. Anyhow, the whole point is that we marched from Dulag Luft down to Nuremberg and that’s where we, we had the unpleasant sight of a B17 had been hit and one of the crew had landed quite near our [pause] we were stopped at that particular time. There was thousands of us but there was also a lot of guards with guns. We couldn’t do anything about it but they’d, the civilians got this American and strung him up to a lamp post. And it’s something that I’ll never forget because I remember his feet twitching as he gave in to the rope and he was killed. But as I say we carried on down to Munich. A big prisoner of war camp called Moosburg and we, night after night if you were lucky you had some kind of accommodation that you stopped at where you had a roof over your head. Apart from that you just slept where you stopped. And we eventually got to the prisoner of war camp and there was far too many people. They were erecting tents, big marquees for people because they had run out of legitimate places. The huts to put us in. And I think there was more people there because they were funnelling in from all over Germany. There was some talk at the time that, the general gossip on the, on the march was that Hitler was going to use us as, as [pause] some kind of reckoning with the allies to get better terms for ending the war but it didn’t happen. But it was one of the things. The funniest thing I ever saw was we had people, guards approaching us with bits of paper saying they’d committed no atrocity. It was that near to the end of the war that they wanted us to sign. And we was, this was at the very end of the march and there was a group of Yanks had got what bits and pieces that they’d got and they’d found an old pram and they piled it all in the pram and they’d got the guard that was guarding their part of the march to put his rifle on the pram and push the pram. And as I say it was that near the end of the war you could get away with quite a lot although things weren’t that good because we were attacked. Fighter Command was sending the American’s Thunderbolts and Mosquitoes and they were having a go at, they were having a go at anything that moved in Germany in those days and when we were on the march they just attacked us and killed five people I believe and wounded quite a few before they realised that we were ex-POWs. But from there we [pause] we were liberated by General “blood and guts” Patton who came in on a jeep with his pearl handled revolvers and we were flown by, after a wait of two or three days at an airfield we managed to get aboard a Dakota and we were flown to Reims in France where Lancasters were coming in nose to tail and we were just piling aboard. We looked a disgusting sight because we were filthy dirty. We wore the same clothes that we were shot down in and I’d had dysentery and we weren’t very nice people to be near. But anyhow, I got aboard a Lancaster and I managed to climb in to the mid-upper turret and as he come over the Channel it was quite a sight to see the white cliffs of Dover. Although we hadn’t been prisoners of war more than three months it was three months that I could have done without. Anyhow, we landed at Cosford. They deloused us which sticking, which is sticking a gun of DDT powder down the front of your blouse and firing it off so that you got white DDT powder coming out of everywhere. And then we had showers, medical examinations, they, they had tables loaded with food which I’d got down to seven and a half stone in that short period and we weren’t able to eat a lot. But we did start to eat again and they gave us money to take on leave and also food coupons which we were told to take home to your family so they could fatten you up a bit and travel warrants and they just sent to the railway system and go home you know. We’ll contact you when you’re ready which was quite a few weeks. I think it was about five weeks and we, I got back to Tunbridge and by which time they hadn’t, they didn’t know that I’d made it and so when I walked down Priory Road, Tunbridge the last communication my father had got was a telegram saying that I was missing from night operations and there would be a letter to follow which he didn’t appear to have got. But they, they were quite convinced that I’d had it and then I put just put in an appearance. And it was the usual kind of festivities. My sister, two sisters were cooking and sitting me down and trying to stuff me with food that I couldn’t eat. Not that vast amount. But over a period of time I got back to normal and went back to the RAF and I ended up as understudy wing warrant officer at Cranwell College which was quite an experience. And that was it. From there I was demobbed and came back. There was no way that I was going to go back to being gentleman’s outfitters so I started doing, learning upholstery and started a business in Tonbridge which is still going to this day. As —
SP: What’s that called? What’s your business called? What was it?
AA: It’s called Botten and Andrews. I had a partner called Botten. Well, he, he’d, he’s died. His son is running the business now and he’s making quite a success of it and. Apart from the fact that I have no financial interests in it he still kept my name over the door. And that was the end of it.
[recording paused]
SP: Ok, Andy. Thanks for, for all that information there. So, you were talking about your base was Melbourne in Yorkshire. Do you want to tell me a little bit about —
AA: Well, yeah, we were a wartime airfield dispersed with huts all, all the way around the perimeter of the airfield and we as a crew had a small hut which we, our two gunners who were senior in age to me, I was the youngest in the crew and they used to forage for fuel for the stove. And the local farmers they bartered their way into getting some eggs and stuff like that and we could do a bit of toast on this tortoise stove and one way or the other where you, as young men we had quite big appetites and although we were fed quite well in the mess but anyhow, we subsidised it with whatever we could get from local farmers and what have you. But as I say Melbourne was one of the few airfields that had FIDO which was fog dispersal and we used it because the two previous mine laying expeditions that we’d been on we’d taken off with the aid of FIDO because it was quite foggy. And the other big experience we had with FIDO was in ’44 just before Christmas lieutenant colonel, the film star, James Stewart came in with a flight of B17s and they had quite a time in the mess with us which was primitive by their standards but they thoroughly enjoyed it. And we used to go out to, if we had a stand down we’d, and there was time there was transport provided to go in to York which was round about twelve and a half miles from Melbourne to the centre of York and we’d chat up the local girls. And we went to a place, we used to go to a place called De Grey Rooms which is still there and they had dances and you used to totter in there after drinking in the local hostelries all evening and subject the local girls to our drunken whatever. Anyhow, the point is that we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and at the end of the evening there was a small hut by York Station that used to keep open all night I think and you could get a mug of tea and a wad of, of roll with cheese in it and sit there and wait for members of your crew to turn up so that you could share a taxi to get back because you’d missed the last transport. The other thing was, talking of transport Wing Commander Shannon who was the CO of 10 Squadron he, somebody had picked up a bus from York and managed with their information which they must have gained through being either on the buses or mechanics they got it started and took everybody back to 10 Squadron which was quite good. But they parked it outside and he was, he had us in to the main briefing area and he said that he would get to the bottom of it and in the meantime he was going to smarten up the aircrew. No more would they be coming in to the mess for breakfast in their pyjamas underneath their battledress and he was going to have us trotting around the perimeter track to get fit. To make us a lot fitter than what we were. But anyhow, it didn’t really work and he had to give it up in the end. Hence the fact that one of the songs of 10 Squadron was a song that went to the best of my knowledge, “There’s A Flight and B Flight and C Flight you see. But the best of them all is the WT. Fly high. Fly low. Where every go, shiny 10 Squadron will give a good show. Now, old Wingco Shannon he raves and he shouts and he talks about things that he knows nothing about. Fly high. Fly low. Where ever you go, shiny 10 Squadron will give a good show.” And as I say, I think it goes on from there but that’s as much as I can remember and I can’t think of any more that I can tell you. I’m very glad that I got in to Bomber Command although I look back and think that we did a good job and it was great I won’t admit, I won’t admit to saying that I said a lot more religious prayers just before take-off on ops than what I’d ever thought that I would get around to and the feeling in the stomach before you got aboard was unbelievable. Anybody says that they flew over Germany and faced flak and night fighters and weren’t scared I don’t think they were ever there. But it was an experience that I wouldn’t have missed for the world. Well, I couldn’t have missed for the world. I was there and you did it. But I was very glad in hindsight that, that Bomber Command was the place where I’d like to be. So, thank you very much.
SP: Yeah. Well, Andy, thank you on behalf of International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archives. I’d like to thank you for your amazing story and also we got some singing on there.
AA: Yeah. Yeah.
SP: Some amazing singing as well.
AA: Yeah.
SP: Ok. Well, thank you very much.
AA: Yeah.
[recording paused]
SP: I’ll just check it rather retake it than drive all the way back down.
AA: Well, quite.
SP: But we’ll be fine, I’m sure.
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 Andy Andrews
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Susanne Pescott
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
2017-09-11
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AAndrewsPF170911, PAndrewsPF1701
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
License
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CC BY-NC 4.0 International license
Spatial Coverage
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Denmark
Germany
Great Britain
England--Lancashire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
Denmark--Copenhagen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Munich
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Oberursel
Germany--Rostock
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1944
1945-02-14
Description
An account of the resource
Andy Andrews worked in a gentleman's outfitters shop and volunteered for the Air Force in 1941. He trained at RAF Cardington and Blackpool and after crewing up he flew operations with 10 Squadron from RAF Melbourne. He discusses the members of his crew and describes being shot down by a Ju 88 on his 19th operation during a mine laying operation. His pilot and navigator were both killed and he discusses how he and the rest of the crew baled out before their aircraft exploded. He landed in a field in Denmark badly wounded to the face and hands and was taken to a hospital. He had met some members of the resistance and was preparing to evade when he was captured by the Germans and became a prisoner of war. He discusses his medical treatment and interrogation and witnessing the lynching an American airman during a forced march away from the advancing allied troops. After he was liberated he returned to Great Britain on board a Lancaster as part of Operation Exodus. His family had believed he was dead. After being demobilised he started his own business. Towards the end of the interview he talks about a visit to RAF Melbourne by the actor James Stewart, nights out in York, and Wing Commander Shannon, his Commanding Officer. He also sings a song about 'Shiny Ten Squadron'.
Format
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00:48:09 audio recording
Contributor
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Julie Williams
10 Squadron
1663 HCU
aircrew
B-17
bombing
crewing up
Dulag Luft
evading
FIDO
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Heavy Conversion Unit
Ju 52
Ju 88
lack of moral fibre
lynching
military living conditions
mine laying
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operational Training Unit
prisoner of war
RAF Cardington
RAF Cranwell
RAF Melbourne
RAF Rufforth
Resistance
shot down
training
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/699/9283/PBeardKC1701.2.jpg
be6bb63d3066c3ea13f44f9b05b78439
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/699/9283/ABeardKC170807.2.mp3
3c95bc1067de7aac5b387ae0f0692996
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
Beard, Ken
Ken C Beard
K C Beard
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. An oral history with Ken Beard (b. 1921, 1061851 Royal Air Force), his air gunners log book, and photographs of him, his wedding and his crew. He flew 31 operations as an air gunner on Halifax with 10 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Ken Beard and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-08-07
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
Beard, KC
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
KB: He’s very qualified.
SP: Yeah.
[recording paused]
SP: So, this is Susanne Pescott and I’m interviewing Ken Beard today for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive. We’re at Ken’s home and it’s the 7th of August 2017. Thank you first of all agreeing to talk to me today, Ken. So, just like to chat through first of all what you did before the war.
KB: Yeah. I went to, I was one of the few who went to Grammar School.
SP: Right.
KB: When we was, got then to Retford Grammar School there were very few of us because you went in by it was a fair, a fair fee but we didn’t pay because I got a scholarship.
SP: Right.
KB: There were only a tiny few of us from Worksop.
SP: Right.
KB: Ever got there at all. And so that’s, I made a good start in life. Yeah. So that that did make a difference starting with a Grammar School beginning. You know the beginning. Very well. Yeah. So, that I was very privileged about that. I had to work hard though and whatever.
SP: So, after Grammar School. What did you do after Grammar School?
KB: Well, one of the things about what’s it now, you don’t get it now we were, we were the last course to do Latin. Yeah. We were. Yeah. I got interested with it because we, they had sort of things about what in, all the terms of people, soldiers and what not from that period and whatever like Rome and everything about so that was, that was always interesting. Yeah. I enjoyed that like. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
SP: Did you go into a job after school or —
KB: Yeah. I, first of all, I was a privileged really because I’d passed all my examinations. I could have chosen pretty well lots of things but I I did advertise for a bit and I finished up which turned up very good, apprentice to a chemist shop. I started mixing medicine and everything else eventually. So that, that was quite a unique sort of thing to do. I enjoyed that. It was only because partly of my Grammar School background you know. Because, yeah it was obviously very, I learned a lot of things really. Yeah. Yeah. I enjoyed it there. Whatever. That was at Timothy, Timothy Taylor or, White and Taylor in Worksop. Yeah. A shop there. But then before when, when I went in to the war I lashed out a bit because I got a bit fed up and this was another unique job because I went to Shire. My dad was down the pit at Shireoaks Colliery and I got a job in the office. But I moved about a bit rather than the office. Whatever. I had a great freedom. I could wander anywhere in the pit yard. I got to know all the men. All the trades. Three times I went down the pit you know so they could, so I could have a look down. Down there. And so that’s I benefited very much by that really. It opened my eyes because I wanted, mind you when your dad had been a miner all his life I knew everything. I knew everything about the pit when I went down and yet when I got down to the bottom there it was all lit up and everything. Before you got further in to the place it was all quite big like that and that they used to send me down and bring me back up and so things like, all illegal I’m sure. I got to see people down the pit. They took me to the coal face where the hacking coal out. You probably don’t realise what it was like because coal grew up like that and then you broke through in to it. The men were broke you know to get it out and so that’s one of the things that I used to do. Very heavy going. Very heavy going really. What is more, little things about it in pits like it or not they got rats. They did. And often when, often I went down three times to see my dad. Not when I went down. I went down but dad wasn’t there then. I went down because I went down with the management and I always remember these right through odd ones were still running about here and there and when you talk about rats you’re not talking about little rats you’re talking about big rats. Yeah. And you got, you got to live like this. ‘Oh, I’ve seen the rat’s down there.’ ‘Oh, big deal. You’ll get on with the work but you see big rats.’ They were. They were frightening and my dad worked amongst them you see. And of course, for working on the, on the coal face the man was, my dad was getting the coal out and they virtually stripped off altogether it was so hot. Desperately hot I used to find it and sometimes I would. I immediately got a job in the pit yard and I got a bit of promotion because I got on to special duties. Recording all sorts of things about and having to move about through they all knew me on the pit top because I moved to pick up records and things. Yeah. It was a marvellous sight really. And then of course one of the real things was that I got, every month I got a ton of coal delivered to my house. Yeah. And that was great because we had three pits altogether and when I got started to get coal free I could, I could choose which pit I wanted to get the stuff from. And there was one particular one at Whitwell they had, they called it a hazel because it was shone It really shone. And that’s how I had that sort delivered. Delivered to home. Mind you the only trouble in those days they tipped it on the yard outside and off they went and I got a neighbour to do it. To put in to my door. I had a proper coal house. Yeah. I had to watch him though. I noted, he started, he only lived across the road, I caught him out once taking. I was intending giving him some but when he’d finished but I didn’t because he was, I found him taking this one. He only lived across the road but I caught him that day and I thought it’s bad isn’t it? You know, you trust people and you, sometimes I lose trust in people. I shouldn’t do as a Christian but I do because they exist don’t they? And I find them, I find them threatening.
[recording paused]
KB: Quite unique.
SP: So, Ken, what made you decide to join the RAF?
KB: Ah, I always wanted to join the RAF. Yeah. Always wanted to join the RAF so made no more about it. In fact, to do it my mum, my mum weren’t very pleased really because I went out one day. I went out to Sheffield and by a coincidence I used, in the Army we’re talking about. The Lord and I couldn’t believe about the [unclear] and the fact is that oh, I remember it well. I went to Sheffield. I don’t know why. I went to Sheffield and that’s I was, I was walking through the Sheffield and I saw the Recruiting Office so I went in and joined up. When I got back I was in trouble at home, I’ll tell you. I was. I just went up like that. ‘Where have you been?’ ‘I’ve been to —’ ‘What have you been to Sheffield for?’ ‘Well, I happened to going by the recruiting office. I went in.’ And it was as simple as that really. Well, it was to me. So, I made a start right at the bottom. Yeah. But because of my, rather strange but perhaps not slightly because I were one of the few who had been to Grammar School so I could get jobs. And I [unclear] I went to, have I already said I went in to a chemist shop as an apprentice. Yeah. And I was really getting up, working up because I started mixing. You know, when people brought what’s in I used to mix it and I had a, I had a supervisor though, whatever, obviously. But that’s how they made me work up there and eventually I would have gone through in that trade but then of course that’s, I’m trying to get towards the sort of when I joined up. It’s as simple as that. I was at Sheffield and no intent. Why I was at Sheffield. I never went to Sheffield. But I must have been there for something and that’s, that’s went at home, I just went. What, in Sheffield. Found the Recruiting Office. Somebody told me where to go and I signed up and went home. I didn’t dare tell my mam for two or three [laughs] two or three days and that’s, I started right at the bottom.
SP: Yeah.
KB: Yeah. So that, that the thing did get tedious after a while as I started. I say I did menial jobs in the RAF first of all and I quickly, very quickly I got my commission. Virtually straight because of my background at school. Retford. I got, I got my commission straight away and I commend and because of my background I never, in the Salvation Army we don’t, we don’t drink. Well, we can have water and tea but nothing else and that that’s never been a problem to me. Well, it was nice for me in the war. In fact, at times, I never had any trouble because usually now when I went to aerodromes there was always a Salvation Army Centre. Always for the men and that’s there. I used to go immediately. I was back in the Army again and that’s kept me going through life. But I never, I always remember, oh, I know. One, one nice thing about it was that often before take-off we’d all line, they were all waiting to take off. All kitted up ready to climb aboard and at the very first start I always remember right at the, when we first started we had an Irish pilot and they were talking awful filthy language and he was right on the ball. He was ignorant with them. He was. He really did fiercely with them. ‘Don’t,’ you know, he said, ‘If there’s ever cursing that there’s going to be some problem. You know Ken’s background and what he does and what he doesn’t do.’ And it worked out really so I didn’t have any more bother. You had to be like that sometimes, I think. If you wanted it you stuck your neck out and that’s what they did. There was never any scene about it but I never met it again. Yeah. That was nice.
SP: So what about your crew then? You’re talking about your crew there. What can, how did you crew up?
KB: Yeah. What happened, went first of all, you went to a Receiving Centre and strangely, now this was marvellous I thought like somebody had that sort of idea. You joined up Sheffield and went and then when we were called up to there sort of thing is that for the first day they just unleashed us. From everywhere they came. We all piled into this whatever. Little school I think it was for what and that’s all, that was how we met. And it was as simple as that because mind it’s surprising within a day how you can, you can work people out. I would never fly with him, you know. Language sometimes really. Yeah. So that you really chose. You went around and what it got rather amusing in a way because suddenly a pilot in front of you and, ‘Have you a rear gunner yet?’ And so it went on and I thought how lovely it was and very thoughtful I thought in a way because they could have done it in all sorts of ways couldn’t they? But that’s how we knew. And what it did occasionally somebody made a bad move or what. He was replaced. So, there were no bad feeling about it at all. So, you didn’t know what they had done or what they did and what they and gradually we got to be a family because we were going to be killed the next morning, you know. It was as simple as that. And that was a real family. To me I’ve always been ever so keen about looking through words and things to see what they mean and that he got a new, I set off at the bottom of this family thing and I built up a family. In my mind mostly but it worked there and so we were a family. You died, well in our case we could truthfully say we would die for each other and we did. I mean sometimes you use that loosely don’t you? I’m going to die. Big deal. But no. That was it. And it made a difference. You were fighting for each other as well as whatever. I enjoyed every minute and of course because of my, I know what I never applied to become an officer but one day I got a, a word in my billet. I’d got to go and see the top man and there he was. He was offering me a commission. It was so nice really and he knew about my background. Whatever. And that’s as quickly I became an officer that way. Yeah. So, you got very well-spoken people. You were doing the job. What’s that? But it did influence me that. The fact that. Mind you my Grammar School background. There weren’t many of us you know at that time went to Grammar School and that all came through. All my records and whatever. Yeah. So that’s how I got my commission and quickly worked up.
SP: What difference did it make getting your commission with the crew because [pause] did it make a difference?
KB: Well, with the crew.
SP: Yeah.
KB: There weren’t many of us with a commission, you know. They flew. They were all the tradesman what and that we flew as a gun and never was there any discrepancy or fighting because we’d got this, that and the other. You fought together. You did. And when people you can’t tell people whatever especially bad raids you know and we went seven times to Berlin and we that really got a hammering there because they soon found you coming in. Whatever. You were flying about twenty thousand feet. At no time at all the first searchlights. I’m in Germany by now. The first searchlight comes on and then the big ones. Oh, we were at thirty thousand feet and they suddenly shot out of the sky. This vast vast vast light and it was it. One of those. They really got you. You know, you couldn’t and in fact often to get out of it the pilot we were carrying bombs sometimes. We’d a full bomb load and just, the pilot just stuck the nose down and went down you know, and things like that. So we survived all these things. Yeah. Yeah. I never I never bothered. Most of us did. We were a good crew. No doubt about it. Yeah. And we bombed Berlin seven times. That was some record. It really was because it was hectic there. Oh dear. Long before you reached the target you could see anti-aircraft or the searchlights came and then these heavy guns could fire up to thirty thousand feet from the ground and you can imagine what shells were like and that. And you flew through it sometimes and you were just lucky. We did once get one hit our tailplane but it didn’t make much of a hole so that we got away with it but, but that’s how it was. I enjoyed every second. I shouldn’t say that but I did really.
SP: So obviously you talked about there was quite a lot of trips to Berlin but you also were involved in D-Day you said. So can you remember —
KB: Oh yes, that —
SP: Can you remember that from start to finish?
KB: I can. I can remember.
SP: From the first day.
KB: Every minute of it.
SP: Yeah.
KB: Every minute of it because we knew it was coming up anytime.
SP: Yeah.
KB: And how we came we were on an ordinary flight over the Channel and suddenly we realised, we’d read about it coming but we didn’t hear much more than anybody else and we, we flew over and you couldn’t see any water for ships. I’m not going to talk about ships I’m talking about us going to them to fight with well you know vast ships. Vast warships and whatever else about them scattered. You could hardly see any water in between. So we flew over them and we knew obviously that was the day. Yeah. Aye it was a marvellous experience really. I relive it at times. Never worries me really. No, it didn’t really. Good skipper. Good pilot. Makes a difference. Whatever yeah.
SP: So, can you remember what your trip was day on that day? On D-Day morning?
KB: Yeah, because we took off at I think half past, no. Half past two in the morning when we took off and that’s of course we saw, couldn’t believe our eyes when we saw the armada going out from this country. You know. Couldn’t believe it. We hadn’t been told it was. It was rather strange that because we’d been to a special whatever before we went and they never mentioned it. I think it was a device really to keep us away from whatever. Getting worked up beforehand. But so then I saw this. Oh, couldn’t see any, one harbour we were going by. Couldn’t see any water because it were full of warships. Ours. Yeah. Marvellous sight. Marvellous sight really to see and what and you knew about the third day of that there’d be millions of men dead. Dead. You know it were, you had to turn. In fact, there was one of the main things we used as a, sort of thing in Bomber Command it helps if you’re thick. I mean it didn’t sound comical but it wasn’t comical at all and, because it was true. You had, you had to be. You couldn’t worry. I mean, I climbed in my little turret and aside from being attacked no time at all and German fighters made to remove me if they could in the first place. Yeah. Mind you that it didn’t happen very often like that but of course we ran into German fighters all over the place. But a good luck amongst it I’m sure but a good pilot that made the difference yeah. Because he never hesitated. With a bomb, with us full of bombs just stick the nose down and I disappeared up in the air there still with all the bombs inside. Whatever. Yeah. You learned to live with it. I used to say it was like learning to live with marriage isn’t it, really. You soon recover sometimes. Oh, dear me. I’ve lived. I love life. The lord sent me a life and he’s kept me alive this long and whatever and so I liked it. I don’t like being here. I can’t say that but at the same time I live by the rules and I get on well with everybody here and whatever so that that’s it. And my dad not only was the band master of the Salvation Army band and I played under him. Mind you I were treated like everybody else because he was my dad and he wrote Salvation Army music. Yeah. So we played his music and my dad, I played in the band and my dad was bandmaster. I treated, he treated me like everybody else, you know. So there was no, there was no about that. Yeah. In fact, when I look back I’ve had a marvellous life really when I come to think about it. A lot of it I’ve made myself because my mother couldn’t [laughs] that day I always remember going to Sheffield for the day for no reason and passed that Recruiting Office. I thought I’ll pop in. Pop in there which I popped in. I I daren’t tell her for about two or three days. I didn’t know how to say it. But anyway she, she was a good support then. Yeah. Oh, dear me. Oh dear. ‘Where have you been today?’ ‘I’ve been joining up.’ Oh, big deal. But I’ve loved life always. Whatever. What a state. I always met, during the war with Bomber Command I met quite a nice lot of young ladies. WAAFs. Looked after me and we went out together. Nothing else to it at that. We got to know a bit about each other. Yeah. And so that was it. Made life a lot better. Especially when they, when they on the cookhouse they mostly they did all the cooking and everything and we got to know the oh pull their legs and all the time whatever. Everybody was happy I think. Never think about going later, later in the day and get shot down. I didn’t. I think some people did you know. I think they were terrified from the start but no. in fact, I went, once went and the Germans fighters were about, a lot of them that night. They did. And they wandered sometimes to pick you up. But I never, never saw one on top of me. You know. We never saw them so close as that. Whatever. Otherwise, we should have. We had a mid-upper gunner you know as well as me in the back. So that was my experience of the war.
SP: So, you went twice on D-Day you said. So, your first trip in the morning.
KB: Half past two in the morning.
SP: At half two in the morning. And then you, do do you know where you were? Obviously, you saw the armada of ships then. Do you know the final destination was on that day?
KB: No. First of all it was difficult but from where they first went. When I first went they were like a fog over them by and large. And then we saw them in their glory they were leaving you know working towards light and we actually saw them leaving. These great convoys. Yeah. Big ships and I used to, I used to get worried about I know a lot of them were going to be killed. Thousands and thousands and thousands. I thought about their mothers and their children whatever. It got to me some times but I still flew. The Salvation Army, we’re sensitive. It’s part of our religion really. Yeah. Yeah. But having said that and it was nice when I went for my final award for that. That’s the top one there. That’s quite, not a lot of us got that.
SP: So you’re talking about the Legion d’Honneur which is the special medal that you’re showing me there. Yeah.
KB: Yeah. Yeah. That’s what it is. Yeah.
SP: Yeah. So where did you get awarded that?
KB: Well, it was quite unique. Well, not unique but enough because to get, to get that I forget where it was. The French president. The French president presented me with that. So, it was in Britain or whatever. I can’t, I couldn’t if I thought enough I’d know where I went. I can’t quite remember where I went.
SP: So you’ve got Retford Town Hall.
KB: Aye.
SP: You got awarded it.
KB: That’s right yeah. Aye that’s it.
SP: Yeah.
KB: Yeah. I remember. Fancy I didn’t remember that. Yeah. That was quite, quite a ceremony really because it went, it went very well. Why? The president, French president he was very unique to what was happening and whatever because there was a lot of people there. And I always remember how well he handled it somehow because he came and had a little chat with you. In French of course. No. He was friendly but that’s he just did it so nicely. Not, because there was a lot there and so they, he did it so well. I I went, we had to go up and we had to bow before him. He bowed to us back and then that’s it. He presented me with that. ‘I’ll pin it on for you.’ Yeah.
SP: And it's fantastic.
KB: Yeah. Yeah.
SP: Awarded a medal. Yeah. So that was obviously for your services to support France during the war. And you were saying the D-Day raid and then on the second night was St Lȏ.
KB: Yeah. That’s right.
SP: Yeah.
KB: Yeah. That’s right. That’s where I was. Yeah. So, yeah, I never feared. I’m a God-fearing man and never, no. I didn’t. And with the, so nicely the WAAFs were very kind to us really because once I do remember this we took it, we were due to take off and we usually, you went early before you climbed in to your aircraft. You used to lie on the grass and what not and that’s, on that this particular night out of the blue we should be taking off at a certain time and suddenly we had to go early and so the girls they were amazing. We were actually taxiing out and suddenly racing from inside from the cookhouse was the girls. They’d made some, slapped some together and threw them firstly in to the turret. It was lovely of them really when you think about it. So, you were chewing your sandwiches as you were taking off. They were lovely people. Lovely girls. Yeah.
SP: That was at Melbourne Airfield. So, what can you remember about your airbase at Melbourne?
KB: I [pause] it was pretty orthodox. You, you lived to fly and that’s what your job was. Often of course you could get home and whatever a lot in between so that I can’t think any more than we did anything like. Oh, I always got to the nearest Salvation Army if it was on a Sunday. Always. And so that kept me in touch with what, what was happening. And then its rather strange but I’ve told you already that it was my crew, how sensitive they became. Because at first they were cursing and swearing most of the time. Not most of the time but they were bad. And I only had a word with the skipper and it were like magic. They were, mind you they were a new crew. Yeah. Yeah. The way they treated me and looked after me. Yeah. Dear me. I never regret. I shouldn’t say I loved it but I did really. To be a hero. Whatever. So that’s how it went through and of course to do all those. How many? Thirty one times. The, I got something ridiculous and survived. Yeah. And often of course we didn’t see any fighters. We just went to drop bombs and that was it. And of course, the thing about, well you don’t know about bombing but the fact is how it worked they put, the navigator was to get you, get completely get you there, you’ve got to be. And so the pilot had to fly straight and level and everything else to drop his bombs. And so that’s how it got you. You had to be very careful there because the Germans knew that that we were steady and they sometimes [unclear] really but that’s, that’s the pilot. That’s how we dropped our bombs. Yeah. Came away. A lot of men died. Thousands of men died I’m afraid but that’s warfare isn’t it? I never regret. People say, used to say to me about we’re peace loving in the Salvation Army. All over the world the Army is now. And the fact is that but we I felt we had a job to do. Why should I let other people you know, losing their lives or what for the same, for the same thing? And I got very settled about that. Yeah. And we got to be a very good crew. Well, we were a senior crew eventually because we had a squadron leader as pilot. Yeah. He was.
SP: Can you remember the names of your crew? Who was your, who was your pilot?
KB: Yes. Kennedy. Dick Kennedy was the pilot. Yeah. He came from Ireland by the way. Irish free state, I think. Whatever. And so that was, Dick. Dick Kennedy. Yeah. And we had a navigator. He was even more unique because he’d come into this country. I don’t know I don’t know how he came in to and he was a marvellous navigator. Unbelievable. To get you an, to get you within an inch of somewhere and that. He’d got a German background. Somewhere in the family it was a Germans bit. Whatever. I never found out much about it but we knew that. He’d say. He told me at times about it. Yeah. Yeah. So he had a sympathy with the Germans really I suppose in a way. Yeah. But that’s it. It was quite unique I think really. Yeah. A very fine navigator.
SP: Do you remember what he was called?
KB: That was Dick Rath. Dick Rath. Yeah. And the pilot was Kennedy. Yeah. He was a good navigator. In fact, he used to cut corners off sometimes because you got one set up for the journey from the office or whatever they did. And that’s they largely followed but he did quite a few times alter it a little bit really. He knew what he was doing. He was taking you, we knew for some areas that there were vast amounts of German anti-aircraft fire and he didn’t want to fly through it which we didn’t. He got round it. Hardly lost any time. So that was a bit of a, I think that was a bit of a benefit we had really to have Dick look after us. Never portrayed his partly German [unclear] We didn’t want to hear about it.
SP: Yeah. And your mid-upper gunner. Who was, where was he from?
KB: I were rear gunner.
SP: Your mid-upper gunner.
KB: I was rear gunner.
SP: You were rear gunner but your mid-upper gunner. Who was he?
KB: In the middle.
SP: Yeah.
KB: Yeah. That’s right.
SP: Do you know where he was from? Can you remember?
KB: Let me see now. Dick. It’s difficult really. I got them mixed up a bit. No.
SP: No. No worries.
KB: I can’t really. Oh, the one, I always remember this because he came from Manchester and he was always, he swore a lot and blah blah. And after the war, straight away after I’m going, I’m going to Manchester about something and I’ll pop in. But oh, I regret going. He was dirty and ugh. Lord above. I thought, fancy him flying with us. It was that bad really. And in a way I was sorry. Fortunately, there was nobody in. So when I saw it I knew what it must have been like. It must have been such a sight. The house and whatnot so that’s it. Still, he did his job. He did his job and that was it. In fact, when when I come to think about it being a Salvation Army officer and moving about everywhere that I was, my eye was open to how some of them lived. You know what I mean. I came from Salvation Army. Immaculate. Everybody came out the Army and we don’t, we abhor bad language of any sort. That sort of thing we live by and so sometimes I couldn’t believe what I saw. I’d never been in the slums before. I mean, they were in Manchester. I’m not being unkind but it was that bad at times really. Well, you know about places like Manchester and I felt sorry for them. Some of them. I did. I come back from, in the first place I didn’t have much. My dad was a miner but I got to Grammar School. The first one in my family. I traded on it. I did well in examinations. Yeah. So overall I think I’ve had a very rewarding life. I can’t ask for more that and in the Army, we talked in the Army we had a, in the Army we had this expression. Getting people saved. Now, rogues and vagabonds, anything that came in to the Army’s sphere eventually ever so many became top salvationists they were nothing and we made something of them. In fact, we we had a sort of system. It was a confession thing really and some of them were oh so down and filthy and I used to go and pray with them and as I say in no time at all we got them in to the Army some times. Got them washed and bought them new clothes. In fact, I got them into uniform and some of them learned to play and got them in the band. My dad was bandmaster for thirty years and I took over immediately when he retired. I was bandmaster for seventeen years. Had a good band at that time. Enjoyed. Took the band out a lot and that so I got that reward a little bit. Yeah. Couldn’t have done better. I’ve had a life that’s been marvellous really. I make what it is now, I think. I think I how I was saying I’m blessed about I’m blessed in here. But where could else could I have I have gone like this? You know it’s true. I’ve been such [unclear] really over the years being a probation officer I loved that but for the first time ever when I must be fair about he retired. I took over from him when he retired. And he’d got old and whatever and when I came and took over I couldn’t believe my ears, my eyes or anything how badly he’d, how badly he’d been. They’d got away with murder.
SP: So, this was your job after the war.
KB: Yeah.
SP: You went to be a probation officer.
KB: Yeah.
SP: Yeah.
KB: And they, yes I did a bit of training and I trained some of these people. They were getting away with murder. It were awful really in a way. They reckoned to be in charge or whatever. They didn’t last long when I took over. But I really, I got people, parents from Manton a lot of them I got them into court straightaway because I wasn’t prepared to mess about with them and they soon fell into line and I, because of my Salvation Army background I always felt I did well in Manton for all sort of reasons. They were all working people and they say what they mean [laughs] and I had to get used to a sort of collection of languages. I soon absorbed them. They had. I’ve got a million. I wish I could sit all day. I went to one house and I had a chap before me who was retired and he didn’t do anything they got away with murder. Hardly any of them went to school at Manton. And then I took it on I went for about a week. I thought there’s only one way here. Get them to court. Get their parents to court which I did. For a long time courts were opening for me. For my clients to go in and that, that worked really because I never stopped going to their homes, you know and I always dressed well when I went. And when [laughs] some, some of the houses I went to were not just filthy and I used to plonk down in a mucky settee with the springs coming through. I never bothered a scrap because I’d got a Salvation Army background and people are people aren’t they? Whatever. And so I loved, loved doing that job but they knew very well not to mess about with me. The parents. They knew better and that worked out. Yeah. Of course, it worked, I did it on a bike and then we got cars after then and made it easier for me. And there was, one [laughs] I’m not quoting names in Manton but they were notorious and I had one family. They were rough and ready and I got to liking them. They just needed a bit of help. Whatever. I could arrange for food to go and clothing for the kids. I was a big man for that immediately. Poor little things because I see the parents had no money. Except when I learned that they boozed as well so they didn’t get any more money. But that’s how I dealt with them and I got respected in Manton when some people weren’t because they knew what sort of person I was really. And one house that I did used to like to go because where as soon as I got to the gate usually the man, he was a miner and I seemed to click for that shift he was on that week and he were virtually naked when he came. Big man. Big man. He real, he were real tough. And that’s strange about that man. I thought, now how am I going to deal with them best. The best way for them? And so, what I did I suddenly thought I can manoeuvre this man because he used to come shouting and bawling at me. And when he came to the gate I think I know. I know can sort him out and oh I know he came [unclear] up and I pretended to faint on the, on the gate. And he said, oh it were amazing. ‘What’s, what’s wrong with him?’ He said, ‘Owt, owt wrong with thee mister?’ I says ‘Well, to tell you [laughs] to tell you the truth I’m not, I’m, I’m really not so very bright this morning. And it worked like that. Took they took me. I got going to that house afterwards and it were nasty. I got them money. I could get money for anybody from the education. They were marvellous the education command, whatever, you know. I could get money for any, for them. All of them. In fact, there is, in Worksop in the centre of the town the whatevers they were what was the firm? A firm called [unclear] or something like that. Now, they were very cooperative because what I would do I went to them. Told them I was going to the boss man and went in and take the mother of these lads and measured. Measured. She’d tarted herself up a bit and the like and went and she got quite a [unclear] she got, she broke out of her bad background and into a new one really because she saw me. I got to know [unclear] and I just went in. He said, ‘Are you alright Ken?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, who are you sending in?’ I said, ‘I’m sending this family in and I want them equipping.’ And that they were, just did that. I went and joined them when got. They were delighted really. The women couldn’t believe their eyes and with these kids. Mind you I’m afraid to say that often they didn’t last long these lads. No. No. they were [laughs] Yeah. I love life. I love life. I really do. And I, I’ve done so many things really. I’ve got relatives in Australia. I went twice to Australia. Flew there. I loved that. I got talking to the pilot one day while we were actually airborne and I sneaked behind him and had a little chat with him. He didn’t turn a hair. He was flying along to Australia and that was his job. And I did, I got, I met, I went for people they’d got something I want you know and they makes a difference. I’m not a paragon of virtue or anything like that but I’m a Salvation Army man and I had that background always where ever I went. Well, of course during the war I went to a lot of places and I would get, first thing I found where the Salvation Army was and I was fortunate because I was, went to some cities and the Army was big. Big band. Everything about them and I played I usually would be able to play with them for a while and that’s, that’s how I got through the war.
SP: Where was the one near to Melbourne where you were based? Where was that one? The Salvation Army.
KB: At Melbourne? I can’t quite remember.
SP: York was your big —
KB: York.
SP: Town that was near you.
KB: York. Yeah, things like. I did go to York, yeah. Seems like I did go to York. Somewhere else around that part of the war. It’s beyond me.
SP: Yeah.
KB: Mostly it was with the band and things like that and I enjoyed it.
SP: I was just wondering how you got there? How did you? You know, if you were on based on Melbourne and went to the Salvation Army on a Sunday. Did you have transport? Did you —
KB: Well, often from most aerodromes they had a Liberty body. Not a Liberty body. Oh dear. That’s given the [laughs] No. I don’t know about Liberty bodices [laughs] It’s just a phrase I use. Oh dear. Give over, Ken. You ought to be shot. They used to say. ‘Time he were shot really.’ I made a lot of good friends and my crew would have been far worse if immediately, immediately the skipper picked it up. He never allowed bad language yet he used plenty himself and he was Irish but he didn’t and it worked and they got to be much more sober. Whatever. Some of them drank heavily when they were not flying of course. When they were not flying. Yeah. But very little drunkenness I found began.
SP: So, they had a Liberty bus was it that went into York?
KB: Sorry?
SP: They had a little bus that went into York.
KB: Yes. Liberty. A Liberty bus. Yeah.
SP: So, you went on the bus into York sometimes did you? What was —
KB: There was one available every day from the aerodrome.
SP: Yeah. So, did you ever go in?
KB: Nearly all the time because I could get to the city and I could get to the Army and I could get, I even went to the pictures and things like that. Filled our lives really without any problem. So that, that, that’s worked out well really when I come to think but most places my first thought when I got to a new ‘drome was to get to find the Salvation Army, which I did and they were lovely people. They used to take me home quite often. They took me to sleep at home. Yeah. it was, the Army’s like that really and that’s how it worked out that during the war very much really for me the Army was a sanctuary really. Yeah. At Brid. At Brid, yeah.
SP: So, Brid was Bridlington where you did your air gunnery training. Yeah.
KB: Yeah. Parts of it.
SP: Yeah.
KB: Yeah, because the thing that whatever, you know a turret? Well, for the training ground I was, am I taking up your time love? The training ground was all laid out and thinking of my turret what it consisted of was a mock one that worked on lines what’s at side and that’s so he did so long in there. Now, the beauty of that place was that there was an RAF man. He was proper scruffy. Never, never put you on the spot because he was, he ran the place, a cookery thing so he had this big fire outside where he made fires for us and what. And he charged though. He charged and, and we paid gladly. But he never had uniform on and he had a big furnace thing he had to look after. He said it was like hell. That’s how he envisaged hell and that he was, he were a good lad though because he produced beautiful food. He really did. It was so nice. And we paid and in fairness he did use RAF stuff but he didn’t charge us and he, he spent it again within the set up because he never had uniform on. Proper scruffy and we loved him. We loved him. Yeah. When he, when he came the first time I went to his first meal. By gum. It didn’t cost him much. I mean, we could have done RAF food but he didn’t do that. He did it for us privately really. So that was nice. So, whatever. Dear me. Oh, the things I’ve seen. Nobody’s been better blessed than me. If I died tomorrow but the doctor says I’m not doing. No. I’ve got full health. It’s amazing isn’t it really? Immaculate blood pressure.
SP: Yeah. And how old are you now?
KB: Eight hundred thousand [laughs] Have a guess.
SP: Ninety.
KB: Ninety five.
SP: Ninety five. Wow.
KB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But age is a comparative thing. It’s what you make it. And of course, I broke away in some ways. In the Salvation Army we don’t drink. We don’t go to public houses but at the same time I, one or two people met me from one pub and said, ‘Why don’t you bring us —’ They knew something about Army, Salvation Army papers you know. He said, ‘Why don’t you come in the pub, Ken.’ I saw the boss man. Now, he said, ‘No, you come in Ken.’ And it got to be a big one. About five hundred people in and they waited for me to come to take my papers and they, and they paid. They paid generously and I never deplored it. I thought this is what, let me think there are so many things of these I could tell about the pubs actually. My brother. No, my son worked for a big firm and he could dispose at his own leisure, whatever he could dispose of. They only had a car for a year and they could, he disposed of them in any sort of way and I always remember him saying, ‘Hey ‘up dad,’ he said, ‘You’ll have to pop in.’ I said, ‘What for?’ He said, ‘Do you know that we’ve got that new —’ Oh what car was it? Oh, it was superb. I forget what it was. It’ll come later. And he said about these. What’s the name? He could dispose of them however he wants. He said, ‘Would you like one?’ And I said, ‘Well, if it’s —’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘It’s all above board,’ he said, ‘I could sell them to anybody.’ And it was a Princess. A Princess. Did you ever see the Princess cars? Oh, they were marvellous. Immaculate. Beautiful. And he got it. He could charge what he wanted really in some ways but I paid properly and everything and it was a Princess. You’ve probably seen pictures of them many a time and they were superb. Absolutely superb. I used to lie back in it and oh you could do ninety mile an hour before you moved and in that way I liked, because I liked speeding and that’s how I used to go in this Princess because my, my son worked for the place and he disposed of them whichever way they wanted to. And he always made sure I got this. He had, I’ve got, ‘Hey Ken —’ Oh, Ken, I’m dad, I’m Ken though. ‘I’ll tell you the truth. I’ve got some cars coming ready. You pop around if you like.’ And I did and that’s how I saw I saw it for the first time. This Princess. You’ve probably seen them. They were superb really. And so I got my Princess. He charged a reasonable price. He could charge what he liked but I paid like everybody else. And to drive them they were heaven. Oh, dear me. You could stop, oh you had, I don’t know what that side of the street was. I don’t know what you did by that. Perhaps I never got around to that but they were so beautiful to drive. Yes, they were. When I see. Am I rattling on? I went to this pub. I got, because I was a Salvationist I always had full uniform. Never drank or whatever. No trouble for me and the other men got to know it well. Straight away they knew me. My background. And when I got that Princess I wish you could have seen it. It were beautiful. To drive it oh it was luxury. And so when I went to, do you know I used to, Salvation Army officers we used to visit pubs to take Salvation Army papers. And the men liked something to, because some of them were comics that the kids, that they could take home for the kids and so, I went to that. And so this particular, when I got this new Princess I went to this pub and I knew about this pub because this bloke would shoot his mouth off. So, I’ll show him. So I parked it some way away from the pub. And oh, I know. Another man picked up on that from inside the pub and he said, I could tell you his very words. Educated British man said, ‘Hey up, skipper.’ He called me skipper. ‘Hey up skipper.’ That’s, that was the introduction. Stood up in the middle of the, eight hundred people in those pubs and he stood up in the mid of this, ‘I’ll tell thee something,’ these were his words, ‘I’ll tell thee something skip.’ ‘What’s that?’ He said, ‘I’ve seen thee.’ And this was this was in front of everyone. Eight hundred people in that pub. ‘I’ll tell, tell thee something skipper,’ he said, ‘I’ve seen thee. I’ve seen thee.’ He said, he said what, what did he say like this? That I’d parked it away. ‘I’ve seen thee.’ He said, ‘I’ve seen thee taking that blinking great —’ oh he called it a blinking great car or something like, abusive, abusive sometimes [laughs] ‘I’ve seen thee with the what sort of [unclear] car.’ He said, ‘Parking at the back there,’ he said. And he used a bit of swear words to complement. And they never worried me about swear words. You know, I’ve never sworn in my life but having said that I got used to it. I got on well with everybody in pubs. As an Army officer I went fully kitted with my Army uniform and I was, I went to, I went to one, it was in a village outside and it was a top class place that place was. And I was so busy that I had to get there at 11 o’clock and I thought they, because I’d been to others that it would be odd. No, it was very refined. All of it exactly refined. Beautiful people I talked to and that. They get so game and I didn’t, wasn’t prepared for it but I’m coming up towards Christmas and whatever. They were always good to me and I couldn’t believe that the last one before Christmas they’d set me up something very special for me. And I went in and it was marvellous really. They’d laid it all out. Oh, I knew what they’d done mine you I’d a job to get it home. I never knew this but they had this penny thing. You know if you got a copper they hadn’t had, it was mobile and great big what’s the name so they had to carry it out to my car and then I had to set off. When I got home later that week, it was nearly all coppers my hands were red, you know. Oh dear. But I loved them in that pub. They were very caring. In fact, my last visit to them the landlord had prepared a meal for me in his own home. Yeah. I did. It shows you if you did things right people responded don’t they? And they love the Army. Most people. Yeah. So that’s how it is.
SP: Just looking as well, you were showing me photos you met your wife during that.
KB: Oh, I met my wife.
SP: You met her during the war, didn’t you?
KB: I don’t know whether I’ll reveal all but I will reveal all. I normally don’t. Bit too louder mostly. No. Now, this is, now talk about this I mean I’d love you to record this because it’s superb really. What [pause] I know when I first got there at, I think Saturday night when we used to go somewhere but I’m thinking of the first time. Oh, I know how I met her that she took me too her house, whatever. Oh, by the way she worked in a big factory and she were not very big and when to move on I used to meet her. I used to take her every morning to work and mostly pick her up at night. She was so, she had a [laughs] she had a pair of overalls about ten sizes too big. I said, ‘Don’t you dare come any more.’ I used to meet her out. Yeah. I used to meet her out from work and take her home. But I said, ‘If ever you come, if I come to pick —’ Oh she had a bike so I had to push her. I went to her home straight. They accepted me in to the family. Marvellous. Straight away in to the family. So when I saw her with this bike and these overalls and I said, ‘If ever you come again like that I’ll forget. I shan’t be coming anymore.’ But she were lovely, lovely, lovely person. Well, you’ve seen my photograph. She was like that really, and beauty queen thing one year. Yeah. You can imagine what sort of person and what she was chased by a lot of airmen but I always stood my ground. What happened then? Oh, I know. She went to help in the [unclear] or something at that time and she, voluntarily and so she went there and I used to pick her up afterwards to take her home. Yeah. And, but you know I went Salvation Army and that sent, I went to homes everywhere in the country. Always. And if I was staying overnight in the church accommodation they just took it that, these didn’t even ask me if I was staying. Marvellous that you know because it means you’ve got unique, it’s unique absolutely in that way. Yeah. And with being, Brid a seaside and so one thing I did when I got to Brid I always remember, oh I know, she went to chapel and I’d seen her come out of chapel and so when I went to the Army I thought one night, one night I’m going to catch her when she comes out. And one day it was all over. It was. Just like that. Actually, just like that. She were a lovely person really. Very lovely. Well, you’ve seen her picture.
SP: So, you met her in Bridlington.
KB: At Brid. Yeah.
SP: Right. Where you did your training. Yeah.
KB: Yeah. Yeah, that’s the —
SP: And when did you get married? Was that during the war did you say?
KB: Well, did you want to hear my story about getting married? What happened was that I got to know the family. I went to everybody’s family. They always took me to bed. Or they’ve always got a bedroom spare. Can’t people believe it? It’s telling a story again. My family says so. No, I’m not. Honest. And so that was Brid. I loved Brid partly because I should have, I went for training. Part of it was to train but first of all when I got there the course hadn’t started so I had the first six weeks before it opened virtually living at their house and I used to go and meet her. She worked in this factory and I went to meet her each time. Mind you I had to walk her home because she had a bike and I hadn’t got a bike. I did later on and so I walked, she walked with me home or whatever and she always had [laughs] she always had overalls twenty sizes too big. She had. I says, ‘You’re [unclear].’ That’s me going off you so. She was lovely. She, I used to say how pretty she was. Always winning what’s the name or whatever but, and her parents were very gracious in those days you know. Somebody comes like me, goes to somebody’s house and they ask questions and they find you a bedroom. You know, it was, that’s wartime. One lovely thing about wartime I found it had got a lot going for it. Mind you, millions were being killed I know that and whatever but that was typical one. Mind you it was a big difference because she was chapel. And so I was Salvation Army and so initially that our times were different but I picked her up or whatever or when she’d been to chapel. Then gradually she fell in love with the Army and then eventually got into uniform and you know made the pattern nice for me. She got she loved the Army. As a lot of people do with the band and this choir and things that are going on and all sorts of things going, going on in the Army. Still do. So that was how, how we, I think [pause] I know we, but we had a lot of lovely walks. Lovely from the start. There was no question of anything about it or whatever and that’s, and her parents. In fact a lovely thing with am I holding you up because I went to her house all the time then and stayed and because do you know what, do you know what I stayed and not in a bed, I had a half bed because they in their big front room had a perfect one you could get during the war you know, steel things in the house. Yeah. And so I had my little bed in this steel because of air raids.
SP: Yeah.
KB: And so that I was, I was like that. So that’s how I added in to the family. People were like that in those days and that’s how I get used to that but I loved that girl. And well, she brought up a lovely family, you know.
SP: So how many children do you have?
KB: Five hundred [laughs] Do you mean around a morning or the ones that are real. You mean the ones that I met in a war? There used to be a line of them that.
SP: Your own family. Yeah. You and your wife. I know you had a huge family, didn’t you with all your friends.
KB: Well, you think yeah but think in a way she were lovely, knew how to handle children. The family. My lads, they really did and I had no problem about that. She was so thoughtful about anything and that’s how it came into the family and then well I’ve nearly got, don’t get worried about time. Is that yes I know what I want to tell you. That oh this came out. I was posted to the south of England out of the blue and I’d got to move within three days and we both cried ourselves to death. And then do, well do something sensible so she got my lifestyle right now. So do you know how we went? It was down south somewhere. We both jumped on the train. Both. And went. And do you know it was a little village we went to and when we, when we got there we were knocking on people’s doors. Too beautiful and no trouble at all. I could have had half of those houses to say, they loved it because it was a village setting. They were beauty. I could have had as many as we wanted and we had a lovely home. Yeah. Oh, and it was on a farm. That was beautiful because they I had a little dog at that time and my Jack Russell we took around with me and he loved that farm because the farmer was ever so good because he was a bit temperamental whatever. So, the farmer says, ‘Leave him with me, Ken. As long as you’re here leave him with me.’ So, he could go around the farm and he got real nifty. A little Jack Russell terrier yeah. I saw when the farmer he’d got him under his arm. ‘Leave him with me, Ken. He’ll be alright.’ So, I met these. So many people I met really in that. I mean for that I was on the farm and so he loved the farm because he let him run anywhere.
SP: Do you know where that was? What town or village. Where were you going down to, was that —
KB: Going down south aye. I’m going south again so I won’t be worried I went to some.
SP: Do know which RAF base you were going to? Is that where you were going down? Yeah.
KB: Yeah. Yeah.
SP: Yeah.
KB: Initially yeah. Yeah. That was it yeah that I went. Yeah. But when he got Jack under his arm at first and then he let him loose and off he went chasing the sheep and whatnot. Nearly getting shot. And a lovely dog. Lovely. I can’t tell you the story because I [pause] He died in my arms eventually. My family say I’m too soft but I’m not. Poor little thing I’d got it in my arms. I like to think that there’s a lot of God in me to know what to do in those sort of things and then of course only occasionally I’d got somebody in prison waiting to appear in court and I used to visit them. I went to prison. To Lincoln I went to twice to see two men that were coming up. I didn’t need to do that but I felt I got to know them a little bit and they were in the cell. I stayed in the cell with them nattering and what not. In fact, usually because of my influence as a probation officer I got the staff to bring him a cup of tea along with mine. Oh lord, I love life you know, love. And doctors, I’m going to live forever and that would be unique wouldn’t it? Life’s what you make it. I’ve got a marvellous family. Look how well they’ve all done really. I mean aye because I forgot to tell you, you perhaps know anyway that Jim went to Grammar School. The first one in my family. Then, then I went after that to Grammar School at Retford. So, we were a bit unique at that time. And it was, it was largely fee paying you know but I got the County paid everything for me.
SP: Yeah.
KB: So that made it handy. Yeah. I did. I had to get used to, you know cap and gown and everything and all the rest of it so I was a bit scruffy but the lads never bother do they? Lads don’t bother what you are. Yeah. I made some good friends. Quite rich some of them.
SP: So, lots of friends at school. Did you keep friends with your crew after the war at all?
KB: For a while.
SP: Yeah.
KB: For a while. Yeah. And then it became monotonous in a way because you’ve nothing else to talk about. You were going your own way and whatever so by and large not a lot I agree because you could say it wasn’t working out. You were going out to do your best for a while but it fizzled out peaceably. Quite peaceably. Yeah. And I tell you the navigator was part German. It was interesting really with the war on in this country. Marvellous. Marvellous navigator. Unbelievable. And sometimes coming back he’d take shortcuts to make it less for us. We had to do that but he’d say, ‘We’ll nip around the back —’ of such and such a city. I’d say, ‘All right, Dick. Carry on. You’re in charge.’ Did, how we broke the rules. Well, I don’t suppose it were rules really.
SP: Just looking at your logbook you were talking about you did a trip to Paris as well. So, I know you did Berlin seven times didn’t you but you actually you went to Paris on one of the trips as well.
KB: Yeah. I did.
SP: So yeah.
KB: I did go to Paris.
SP: Yeah.
KB: And I always because I did actually go to the presidential place. I got some lead for somebody who was in the palace and to get some conversation or what. So that, that made a difference really.
SP: Yeah. One of your flights here you’ve got a night operations at Paris.
KB: Yeah.
SP: And then you’ve got night operation at Essen.
KB: Yeah.
SP: As well there.
KB: We got shot at, you know. Shot at.
SP: So, were you ever under fire? I know you were under flak and that but were you ever shot at by fighters?
KB: Well, yeah but, yeah. No. Very rarely ever, you ever met a German fighter. But long range once. Never even saw him. Didn’t approach us anyway. When he saw what we were he didn’t approach. So, yeah that were no problem there. Yeah.
SP: Yeah. Because Essen, was quite, quite a main area wasn’t it? I think you were there —
KB: Yeah. Yeah.
SP: A couple of times.
KB: Yeah. Yeah. I don’t bother. Just climb in my turret. Well, we went for a briefing. Whatever.
SP: What happened at the briefing? What sort of thing happened when you went to the briefings?
KB: That was the important thing. First of all it was kept secret until the very last moment and when it suddenly appeared in the mess where it was. And that’s when we, when we started to go for briefings and things. Of course, the navigator, it was a big job for the navigator because he’s, he’s going to take us and bring us back and so that was quite demanding for him really. But for everything else we went, as gunners we went to this, our own little thing or whatever because sometimes we had new guns or all that sort of thing. Yeah. And I had a, I was very lucky a ground staff who lived for looking after my aeroplane and polishing windows all the time. All sorts of thing. I think it kept him from doing anything else perhaps he didn’t like. It was the ground staff. Yeah. And then of course they had DI inspection before take-off. Oh, I know, and we had carers who looked after us all the time. You know, every bit. What they came around and so I often go and used to join them while they were doing things what they did. Whatever they did. Except that once we got a new aircraft and they got me because I was little. You could get in to the belly of it but it’s only a little hole to get in. About that. Yeah. And they conned me of course obviously. I didn’t fly like that but that was when we was on the ground. Yeah. Some great fun really especially they knew we’d be shot down that night. In fact, once we landed away out of necessity. We were running out of fuel and some aerodrome, I don’t know where it was and we just we just landed and to get some petrol of all things. And that’s how we, we just flew out again afterwards or whatever so it’s not recorded anywhere. But that’s how we got fuel to get back. We wouldn’t have got back because we were quite running out of fuel eventually you know it’s a long way. A long way to Germany. Four engines especially. We had one, once we had an, one engine wasn’t very good and occasionally it misbehaved itself. When you’ve got four though you have to alter the trim when you’ve got only so many working. Yeah.
SP: What was the impact of that when there was one engine not working properly?
KB: Well, usually they could. They, we were inside, of course. We had a mechanic. Whatever. But he couldn’t do for anything outside but he often did things from inside sort of things connected with the aeroplane. Oh yeah, because they, we had, what was it now? I forget. But he, he had a monitor. The, the petrol tanks. Of course, they were spread about the aeroplane and his job was keeping a careful eye on because he had to redirect it from one that was going empty because he had to be careful because it altered the trim of the aircraft. Whatever. But yes, they got, they were fitters. They were very good.
SP: You got some photographs of you with your ground crew. Did you, did you get to know your ground crew quite well?
KB: Oh, very well. You were living with them.
SP: Yeah.
KB: Yeah. I mean you didn’t all go. The ones on the ground. Oh yes. They, they got very very attached to us.
SP: Can you remember any of them? Any of the names of any —
KB: Not really.
SP: Yeah.
KB: I expect they were with us a long time I know that.
SP: Yeah.
KB: But I can’t remember as much as that.
SP: Do you remember where your dispersal unit was at Melbourne?
KB: Sorry?
SP: Do you remember where your dispersal unit was at Melbourne where you had to go to to your plane? On the —
KB: Yeah. Yeah. For operations we trained a lot beforehand.
SP: Yeah.
KB: From different aerodromes.
SP: Yeah.
KB: Yeah. Quite a few different aerodromes when I did my flying business.
SP: And did you have to travel quite a long way to your plane before operations or were you quite close to the briefing area?
KB: Well, we were basically, basically on top of it.
SP: Right.
KB: Yeah. Because you were living there.
SP: Yeah. Some people say their dispersal unit where the plane was kept was quite a long way away and they had to cycle to it.
KB: A long way away.
SP: Or get on a little truck.
KB: A long way away.
SP: Yeah.
KB: I had to go around, right the way around the aerodrome.
SP: Right.
KB: And everywhere to get to it but we were lucky at that we were parked very near to the runway.
[recording paused]
SP: So, Ken I just want to thank you on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre for your time today and your stories. So, thank you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Ken Beard
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Susanne Pescott
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
2017-08-07
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ABeardKC170807, PBeardKC1701
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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01:20:10 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Ken Beard served as a rear gunner during the Second World War. He has been a member of The Salvation Army all his life and his faith played a huge role in helping him through the horrors of war. Awarded a scholarship at Retford Grammar School, he left it with the benefit of a first class education. He had several jobs before enrolling in the Royal Air Force. He was visiting Sheffield and upon seeing the recruitment office, walked in and enlisted. It took him several days to pluck up the courage to inform his mother what he had done. After enrolling, he was soon selected for a commission. Air gunnery training at RAF Bridlington followed, before being posted to RAF Melbourne where he served the majority of his Air Force career as a rear gunner on Halifax aircraft. He flew 31 operations, including seven to Berlin. He describes approaching Berlin at 30,000ft and being lit up by searchlights. He recalls only once being hit with anti-aircraft fire, when they received slight damage. At no time was his aircraft attacked directly by Luftwaffe fighters. On D-Day, Ken and his crew set off on an operation at 02:30 and were surprised to see the English Channel covered in a vast armada of vessels of all sizes. Nothing had been mentioned to them at the briefing before take-off. On his return to civilian life, Ken became a probation officer in the Worksop area. In November 2015, Ken attended a ceremony at Retford Town Hall where he was one of three recipients of Legion D’ Honneur.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
England--Sheffield
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Contributor
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Ian Whapplington
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
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1944-06
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
10 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
faith
Halifax
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Bridlington
RAF Melbourne
recruitment
searchlight
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/298/9934/MMcClementsR1796607-151021-030001.1.jpg
584fe70ac6329947e47ea66277ee3107
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/298/9934/MMcClementsR1796607-151021-030002.1.jpg
9189fdd1f5579980f65749337e57d168
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
McClements, Robert
Robert McClements
R McClements
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. Two oral history interviews with Robert McClements (-2022, 1796607 Royal Air Force) and one with his wife, Iris McClements (b. 1926). The collection also contains his log book, service documents, photographs and a model of his Halifax. He completed a tour of operations as a mid-upper gunner with 10 Squadron from RAF Melbourne. The log book belonging to L Kirrage, his flight engineer, is also included.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Robert McClements and catalogued by Barry Hunter and David Leitch.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-21
2015-10-21
2018-02-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
McClements, R
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
1943: Volunteered for the RAF
19 December 1943 -11 February 1944: RAF Pembrey, No.1 AGS, flying Anson aircraft
23 April 1944 - 20 May 1944: RAF Lossiemouth, No. 20 OTU, Flying Gunnery Flight, flying Wellington aircraft
8 July 1944 - 23 July 1944: 1658 RAF Ricall, 1658 HCU, flying Halifax aircraft
30 July 1944 - 18 February 1945: RAF Melbourne, 10 Squadron, flying Halifax aircraft
July 1944 - February 1945: served on 10 Sqn as a Flight Sergeant Air gunner.
3 March 1947: RAF Kirkham, Released from Service, having attained the rank of Temporary Warrant Officer
Chris Cann
Robert McClements was born on 6 December 1924, in Belfast. He left school at the age of 14 and worked various jobs to help support his family. While there was no conscription in Northern Ireland, in late 1943 while working at the Harland and Wolff shipyard he volunteered to join the RAF, as aircrew.
Following basic training at RAF Bridlington and then initial gunnery training at RAF Bridgnorth, he was posted to RAF Pembry to join No 1 AGS and train as an air gunner. Air gunners course · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
He completed the gunnery course in February 1944 and was posted to No 20 OTU at RAF Lossiemouth and then on to 1658 HCU, at RAF Ricall, to train on Halifax aircraft. In July 1944, with all training finally completed, he began his operational flying with 10 Squadron at RAF Melbourne flying Halifax aircraft.
His early operational trips passed without incident, but on one operation the aircraft experienced heavy icing, causing it to lose all lift and go into an uncontrolled descent. With the aircraft going straight down the order to ‘Bale out’ was given, Robert managed to get out of his gunner position, but then found himself forced to the floor unable to move. In the cockpit, the pilot engaged full power and he and his engineer battled with the control column to pull the aircraft out of its dive. The flight home passed uneventfully although the engineer reported that the aircraft never ever flew again.
Throughout the rest of his tour there were other eventful sorties. On one, two of the bombs ‘hung up’ and they had to release them from the carrier units using an axe. On another, the bomb aimer forgot to press the bomb-release button so they had to go around again. Luck was again on his side when, on a night raid, another aircraft on a turning point swung across the top of his Halifax, narrowly missing the top of his gun turret. Robert went on to complete a full operational flying tour of 38 operational sorties over Belgium, France and Germany amassing over 200 flying hours. PMcClementsR1503.2.jpg (1600×1299) (lincoln.ac.uk)
After his operational tour, Robert was released from flying duties. He remained at RAF Melbourne and trained as a Unit Fire Officer and he and his flight engineer took charge of the station warrant officer’s office. During a routine site inspection, he met a German prisoner of war who was making a wooden model of a Catalina aircraft for the officers’ mess. Robert asked him to make a model of his Halifax aircraft for him. The aircraft, remarkable in its detail, has been a treasured memento of his time served in the RAF. Robert McClements and his model of Halifax ZA-V · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
Robert met his future wife, Iris, on a visit to the Observer Corp HQ at York where she was a serving member. He left the RAF in 1947 having attained the rank of Temporary Warrant Officer. He and Iris settled in England where they worked with her father, in York. Latterly, he and Iris set up their own business in Wakefield selling motor vehicles.
Chris Cann
Iris McClements (nee Dobson) remembers, at the age of 11, being issued with a gas mask before the war had started. When she was about 13 years of age, her family moved to Eldwick to avoid the bombs.
She was a member of the Home Guard before joining the Women’s Junior Air Corp where she attained the rank of sergeant. She recalled wearing a grey uniform, being issued with a bucket, stirrup pump and helmet for fire watching and learning the theory of the internal combustion engine.
In 1944, she passed the entrance exam to join the Royal Observer Corps and was based in York, as a plotter. Her role was to listen to information from the spotters via headphones and place it on to the plotting table. This included the number of aircraft, direction of travel, height, and whether they were friendly or hostile. This was to give warning of enemy operations or to track operations heading to Germany. She worked eight-hour shifts which changed each week. The spotters in the outposts were also watching for aircraft that were going to crash-land, so that the crash sites could be identified. Iris visited a couple of these sites. She met her husband to be, Robert, on one of his visits to the Royal Observer Corp HQ in York.
She lived on an ex-World War One motor launch in York that the family had used for recreation. When off duty she would often travel into York to go dancing, swimming and to the cinema.
After the war she and Robert worked with her father in the motor trade. She then set up business with Robert in Wakefield.
Chris Cann
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
SECRET
[Underlined] No. 10 Squadron – Crew List for Operations [crossed out] 13th [/crossed out] [handwritten] 14th [/handwritten] Jan. 1945
[Underlined] OPERATION ‘G’ [/underlined]
[Underlined] MZ411 ‘A’ [underlined]
A423357FO.J.Tudberry.Cpt.
13880885Sgt.Baker.A.E.Nv.
1602722Sgt.Brown.D.S.A/B
A426947FS.Nattrass.O.W/O
1897840Sgt.Shotter.L.M/U
1825702Sgt.Brown.J. F/E
1258556Sgt.Rumble.A. T/G
[Underlined] MZ793 ‘X’ [/underlined]
187810 FO.J.Grayshan.Capt.
1800664Sgt.Berry.A.J.Nav.
187883 PO.Chaderton.S.A/B
1811552FS.Andrews.P. W/O
1579147FS.Mills.H.L. M/U
2205669Sgt.Maddock-Lyon.R.F/E
1090310FS.Petrie.J. T/G
[Underlined] MZ315 ‘G’ [/underlined]
J27190 FL.L.Murphy. Capt.
J36383 FO.C.Schoneck.Nv.
J35805 FO.W.Conlin. A/B
1602806Sgt.Adams.S. W/O
605564 Sgt.Bynce.E.A.M/U
1594079Sgt.Stokoe.W. F/E
1595913Sgt.Pepper.D.C.T/G
[Underlined] RG345 ‘Y’ [/underlined]
J26398 FL.J.Loffoley. Capt.
1548297FS.Hamilton.S. Nav.
J92417 PO.Thorndycraft.L.A/B
1390891Sgt.Field.P.H. W/Op
94 [missing numbers] 44Sgt.Kay.W.N. M/U
[missing numbers] Sgt. [indecipherable name] F/E
[missing numbers] Sgt.Bradshaw.E. T/G
[Underlined] LW167 ‘O’ [/underlined]
47485 FL.L.H.Wood.Capt.
1335655FS.Jennings.J. Nv.
1138896WO.Gibbon.J. A/B
178081 PO.Brookes.J. W/O
161748 FO.Phillips.E.M/U
1826086Sgt.Maxwell.J.F/E
1035034WO.Shallcross.A.T/G
[underlined] RG345 ‘I’ [/underlined]
18258 WC.U.Y.Shannon.Cpt.
162201 FO.S.Watson. Nav.
924285 FS.Camfield.R.A.A/B
R173525WO.Sendroff.A W/Op
1880643Sgt.Yates.R. M/U
54345 FO.Temperley.N. F/E
1595023Sgt.Graham.N. T/G
[underlined] NA237 ‘C’ [/underlined]
179566 FO.F.D.Moss.Capt.
1394974FS.Davenport.Nav.
R151294FS.Webster.L.A/B
1369742Sgt.Fowler.R. W/O
1594868Sgt.Fearnley.F.M/U
1890136Sgt.Tasker.H. F/E
1594027Sgt.Hodgson.S.T/G
[underlined] OPERATION ‘A’ [/underlined]
[underlined] NA228 ‘D’ [/underlined]
188409 FO.Marshall.A.J.Cpt.
1570391Sgt.Paxton.W. Nav.
1526238FS.Lawrence.K. A/B
1334428FS.Elsome.D. W/O
2225156Sgt.Thornley.J. M/U
2210474Sgt.Griffiths.A.F/E
2222265Sgt.Tuck.R.C. T/G
[underlined] MZ751 ‘J’ [/underlined]
J35338 FO.Jones.F.S.Cpt.
R180264FS.Turner.H.S.Nv.
R180136FS.Mason.L.W. A/B
R152305FS.Latner.D. W/O
R254175FS.Bressler.L. M/U
3021721Sgt.Fowler.A.F.F/E
R210774FS.Gam.A. T/G
[underlined] MZ948 ‘E’ (Non Y) [/underlined]
172780FO.F.Taylor. Capt.
A423199FS.Kerr.R. Nav.
A422343PO.Yates.W. A/B
1802361FS.Dade.A.W. W/O
1894699Sgt.Ulliett.G. M/U
648286 Sgt.Kennedy.H. F/E
1853742FS.Trenchard.C.T/G
[underlined] NP994 ‘K’ [/underlined]
142044 FO.Gibbs.R.A.Capt.
1582776 Sgt.Chell.L.H.Nav.
153652 FO.Cook.D. A/B
170480 PO.Parham.W. W/O
1596679 Sgt.Smith.T. M/U
1023844 Sgt.Ashton.W. F/E
942139 Sgt.Seabridge.W.T/G
[underlined] NA195 ‘F’ [/underlined]
102120 FL.G.G.Scott. Capt.
146299 FO.Drury.R. Nav.
1575662WO.Britland.E. A/B
995060 WO.Hamilton.A. W/O
177171 PO.Marshall.J. M/U
1608775FS.Sharley.T.D.T/G
[underlined] MZ919 ‘L’ [/underlined]
A426299 FL.Bridgett.J.Capt.
151611 FO.Rose.F. Nav.
1323355 FS.Warren.G. A/B
146096 FO.Biggs.J.D. W/O
A421126 WO.Rochford.L.M/U
1823553 Sgt.Davidson.H.F/E
2220056 Sgt.Brown.K.D. T/G
Continued Overlef [sic] /…………..
[page break]
[underlined] Crew List for Operations 13/1/45 [/underlined] Continued/…..
[crossed out ] [underlined] NR183 ‘M’ [/underlined]
177258 FO. [indecipherable name]. Capt.
1625895Sgt.Felts.M. Nav.
154[indecipherable number]73 FO.Adler.F. A/B
NZ413772FO.Muir.F W/O
1702041FS.Minnett.T.M/U
2210473Sgt.Stott.S.F/E
154751 FO.Barnard.E.T/G [/crossed out]
[underlined] NR175 ‘T’ [/underlined]
104582 SL.F.C.Janes.Capt.
185390 PO.Meadows.J. Nav.
153495 FO.Ireland.J.B. A/B
187791 PO.Williams.J. W/O
184143 PO.Griffiths.G. M/U
178230 PO.Hardman.J.D. F/E
1305889FS.Eastwood.H. T/G
[indecipherable name]
104586 FL.Stephens.A.Cpt.
591740 FS.Rees.K. Nav.
1601365Sgt.Robson.B. A/B
NZ414909FO.Maria.H. W/O
R132611 WO.Roberts.C.M/U
2218869Sgt.Elliott.T.F/E
54273 FO.Heap.R.E. T/G
[underlined] LK753 ‘U’ (Non Y) [/underlined]
1312904 FS.Parsons.R.L.Cpt.
1399750Sgt.Oakes.J. Nav.
1523091Sgt.Langstaff.W.A/B
1851549Sgt.Jones.H.T. W/Op
2210923Sgt.Colville.A.M/U
1700223Sgt.Palmer.R. F/E
1337129Sgt.Jarvis.R. T/G
[underlined] HX286 ‘R’ [/underlined]
183455 FO.Henderson.G.Cpt.
643209 Sgt.Anderson.R.Nv.
1603305Sgt.McNeil-Smith.A.A/B
1819141 Sgt.Bee.F.E. W/O
1894151 Sgt Stevens.J.M/U
1881001 Sgt.Rondeau.S.F/E
1567491 Sgt.Morrison.G.T/G
[underlined] MZ430 ‘V’ [/underlined]
J27189 FL.R.Grant. Capt.
R99937 FS.Holstead.C.Nav.
645731 Sgt.Hodkinson. A/B
1522843 FS.Melvin.J. W/O
1796607 Sgt.McClements.M/U
1869665 Sgt.Kirrage.L. F/E
638543 Sgt.Webb.R.A. T/G
[underlined] MZ746 ‘S’ (Non Y) [/underlined]
170132 FO.Halstead.R.G.Cpt.
A429666 FO.Munzt.J.B.Nav.
702584 FS.McMahon. A/B
169314 FO.Houghton.E.W/O
962522 Sgt.Kilroy.J. M/U
1592913 Sgt.Evans.R. F/E
1046295 Sgt Fryer.R.E T/G
[underlined] NA162 ‘W’ [/underlined]
161995 FO.Hurrell.Capt.
1297188 Sgt.Nickels.Nav.
1800994 Sgt.Summerfield.A/B
1600106 Sgt.Webb. W/Op
1576086 Sgt.Hyslop. M/U
1811202 Sgt.Stokes. F/E
1881251 Sgt.Whyles. T/G
[underlined] NR189 ‘Z’ [/underlined]
NZ414349 FO.Scott.J.Cpt.
A417609 FO.Warnes.J. Nav.
153807 FO.Hesketh.E. A/B
A429400 FO.Butcher.M.W/O
1852471 Sgt.Moore.P.M.M/U
1897010 Sgt.Bulpett.G.F/E
1383478 Sgt.Perry.E.R.T/G
[signed]
Wing Commander, Commanding,
[underlined] No. 10 Squadron, R.A.F [/underlined]
Briefing:- SL Bond and SL Allan
De-Briefing:- SL Lomax, FL Farrow D.S.O., F/E’s (to be detailed), A/G’s FO Haselock
Nav:- SL Lomax
A/B’s:- FL Farrow
Signals:- FL Newell
F/E’s:- FO Temperley
A/G’s:- FL Hodson
Security Officer:- F/O B.Davies
Window Crew:- F/O B.Davies’ crew.
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
No. 10 Squadron - Crew list for operations 13 Jan. 1945
Description
An account of the resource
Lists crews and aircraft for operations on 13 January 1945. The date was later corrected to read 14 January 1945.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-01-13
1945-01-14
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four typewritten sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Service material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MMcClementsR1796607-151021-030001,
MMcClementsR1796607-151021-030002
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-01-13
1945-01-14
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Angus Bustin
10 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
RAF Melbourne
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/298/9935/MMcClementsR1796607-151021-030005.1.jpg
e97b1fecdfb8d8f14c96a58c1ecdb8ff
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/298/9935/MMcClementsR1796607-151021-030006.1.jpg
b22b0be6142a7b4fee25532700e084b3
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/298/9935/PMcClementsR15010013.2.jpg
3291301458ab7e4b08380246282c59ae
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/298/9935/PMcClementsR15010014.2.jpg
1609ce8cba4743a2034a1c1d047d9416
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
McClements, Robert
Robert McClements
R McClements
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. Two oral history interviews with Robert McClements (-2022, 1796607 Royal Air Force) and one with his wife, Iris McClements (b. 1926). The collection also contains his log book, service documents, photographs and a model of his Halifax. He completed a tour of operations as a mid-upper gunner with 10 Squadron from RAF Melbourne. The log book belonging to L Kirrage, his flight engineer, is also included.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Robert McClements and catalogued by Barry Hunter and David Leitch.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-21
2015-10-21
2018-02-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
McClements, R
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
1943: Volunteered for the RAF
19 December 1943 -11 February 1944: RAF Pembrey, No.1 AGS, flying Anson aircraft
23 April 1944 - 20 May 1944: RAF Lossiemouth, No. 20 OTU, Flying Gunnery Flight, flying Wellington aircraft
8 July 1944 - 23 July 1944: 1658 RAF Ricall, 1658 HCU, flying Halifax aircraft
30 July 1944 - 18 February 1945: RAF Melbourne, 10 Squadron, flying Halifax aircraft
July 1944 - February 1945: served on 10 Sqn as a Flight Sergeant Air gunner.
3 March 1947: RAF Kirkham, Released from Service, having attained the rank of Temporary Warrant Officer
Chris Cann
Robert McClements was born on 6 December 1924, in Belfast. He left school at the age of 14 and worked various jobs to help support his family. While there was no conscription in Northern Ireland, in late 1943 while working at the Harland and Wolff shipyard he volunteered to join the RAF, as aircrew.
Following basic training at RAF Bridlington and then initial gunnery training at RAF Bridgnorth, he was posted to RAF Pembry to join No 1 AGS and train as an air gunner. Air gunners course · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
He completed the gunnery course in February 1944 and was posted to No 20 OTU at RAF Lossiemouth and then on to 1658 HCU, at RAF Ricall, to train on Halifax aircraft. In July 1944, with all training finally completed, he began his operational flying with 10 Squadron at RAF Melbourne flying Halifax aircraft.
His early operational trips passed without incident, but on one operation the aircraft experienced heavy icing, causing it to lose all lift and go into an uncontrolled descent. With the aircraft going straight down the order to ‘Bale out’ was given, Robert managed to get out of his gunner position, but then found himself forced to the floor unable to move. In the cockpit, the pilot engaged full power and he and his engineer battled with the control column to pull the aircraft out of its dive. The flight home passed uneventfully although the engineer reported that the aircraft never ever flew again.
Throughout the rest of his tour there were other eventful sorties. On one, two of the bombs ‘hung up’ and they had to release them from the carrier units using an axe. On another, the bomb aimer forgot to press the bomb-release button so they had to go around again. Luck was again on his side when, on a night raid, another aircraft on a turning point swung across the top of his Halifax, narrowly missing the top of his gun turret. Robert went on to complete a full operational flying tour of 38 operational sorties over Belgium, France and Germany amassing over 200 flying hours. PMcClementsR1503.2.jpg (1600×1299) (lincoln.ac.uk)
After his operational tour, Robert was released from flying duties. He remained at RAF Melbourne and trained as a Unit Fire Officer and he and his flight engineer took charge of the station warrant officer’s office. During a routine site inspection, he met a German prisoner of war who was making a wooden model of a Catalina aircraft for the officers’ mess. Robert asked him to make a model of his Halifax aircraft for him. The aircraft, remarkable in its detail, has been a treasured memento of his time served in the RAF. Robert McClements and his model of Halifax ZA-V · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
Robert met his future wife, Iris, on a visit to the Observer Corp HQ at York where she was a serving member. He left the RAF in 1947 having attained the rank of Temporary Warrant Officer. He and Iris settled in England where they worked with her father, in York. Latterly, he and Iris set up their own business in Wakefield selling motor vehicles.
Chris Cann
Iris McClements (nee Dobson) remembers, at the age of 11, being issued with a gas mask before the war had started. When she was about 13 years of age, her family moved to Eldwick to avoid the bombs.
She was a member of the Home Guard before joining the Women’s Junior Air Corp where she attained the rank of sergeant. She recalled wearing a grey uniform, being issued with a bucket, stirrup pump and helmet for fire watching and learning the theory of the internal combustion engine.
In 1944, she passed the entrance exam to join the Royal Observer Corps and was based in York, as a plotter. Her role was to listen to information from the spotters via headphones and place it on to the plotting table. This included the number of aircraft, direction of travel, height, and whether they were friendly or hostile. This was to give warning of enemy operations or to track operations heading to Germany. She worked eight-hour shifts which changed each week. The spotters in the outposts were also watching for aircraft that were going to crash-land, so that the crash sites could be identified. Iris visited a couple of these sites. She met her husband to be, Robert, on one of his visits to the Royal Observer Corp HQ in York.
She lived on an ex-World War One motor launch in York that the family had used for recreation. When off duty she would often travel into York to go dancing, swimming and to the cinema.
After the war she and Robert worked with her father in the motor trade. She then set up business with Robert in Wakefield.
Chris Cann
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
Essen
Description
An account of the resource
Target photograph of Essen partly obscured by clouds and explosions. Streets and buildings are partly visible. There are two Halifaxes flying at a lower level. It is annotated 'Essen 25 Oct'. Captioned '1578 MEL. 25-10-44//8” 18500 004T. 1535ESSEN E.1 1 HC 2000IN 10 CP14 1CP14X C.35 SECS. F/O GRANT V 10'.
On the reverse 'Volunteers Belfast Trained & [undecipherable] 10 Sqd Melbourne York 2 posts [undecipherable] on Halifax & [undecipherable] Bombing run'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-10-25
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two b/w photographs
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MMcClementsR1796607-151021-030005,
MMcClementsR1796607-151021-030006,
PMcClementsR15010013,
PMcClementsR15010014
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-10-25
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Essen
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
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.
10 Squadron
aerial photograph
bombing
Halifax
RAF Melbourne
target photograph
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/298/9936/OMcClementsR1796607-151021-01.2.pdf
37876773f884cee04f2b153d74f0c5cd
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
McClements, Robert
Robert McClements
R McClements
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. Two oral history interviews with Robert McClements (-2022, 1796607 Royal Air Force) and one with his wife, Iris McClements (b. 1926). The collection also contains his log book, service documents, photographs and a model of his Halifax. He completed a tour of operations as a mid-upper gunner with 10 Squadron from RAF Melbourne. The log book belonging to L Kirrage, his flight engineer, is also included.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Robert McClements and catalogued by Barry Hunter and David Leitch.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-21
2015-10-21
2018-02-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
McClements, R
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
1943: Volunteered for the RAF
19 December 1943 -11 February 1944: RAF Pembrey, No.1 AGS, flying Anson aircraft
23 April 1944 - 20 May 1944: RAF Lossiemouth, No. 20 OTU, Flying Gunnery Flight, flying Wellington aircraft
8 July 1944 - 23 July 1944: 1658 RAF Ricall, 1658 HCU, flying Halifax aircraft
30 July 1944 - 18 February 1945: RAF Melbourne, 10 Squadron, flying Halifax aircraft
July 1944 - February 1945: served on 10 Sqn as a Flight Sergeant Air gunner.
3 March 1947: RAF Kirkham, Released from Service, having attained the rank of Temporary Warrant Officer
Chris Cann
Robert McClements was born on 6 December 1924, in Belfast. He left school at the age of 14 and worked various jobs to help support his family. While there was no conscription in Northern Ireland, in late 1943 while working at the Harland and Wolff shipyard he volunteered to join the RAF, as aircrew.
Following basic training at RAF Bridlington and then initial gunnery training at RAF Bridgnorth, he was posted to RAF Pembry to join No 1 AGS and train as an air gunner. Air gunners course · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
He completed the gunnery course in February 1944 and was posted to No 20 OTU at RAF Lossiemouth and then on to 1658 HCU, at RAF Ricall, to train on Halifax aircraft. In July 1944, with all training finally completed, he began his operational flying with 10 Squadron at RAF Melbourne flying Halifax aircraft.
His early operational trips passed without incident, but on one operation the aircraft experienced heavy icing, causing it to lose all lift and go into an uncontrolled descent. With the aircraft going straight down the order to ‘Bale out’ was given, Robert managed to get out of his gunner position, but then found himself forced to the floor unable to move. In the cockpit, the pilot engaged full power and he and his engineer battled with the control column to pull the aircraft out of its dive. The flight home passed uneventfully although the engineer reported that the aircraft never ever flew again.
Throughout the rest of his tour there were other eventful sorties. On one, two of the bombs ‘hung up’ and they had to release them from the carrier units using an axe. On another, the bomb aimer forgot to press the bomb-release button so they had to go around again. Luck was again on his side when, on a night raid, another aircraft on a turning point swung across the top of his Halifax, narrowly missing the top of his gun turret. Robert went on to complete a full operational flying tour of 38 operational sorties over Belgium, France and Germany amassing over 200 flying hours. PMcClementsR1503.2.jpg (1600×1299) (lincoln.ac.uk)
After his operational tour, Robert was released from flying duties. He remained at RAF Melbourne and trained as a Unit Fire Officer and he and his flight engineer took charge of the station warrant officer’s office. During a routine site inspection, he met a German prisoner of war who was making a wooden model of a Catalina aircraft for the officers’ mess. Robert asked him to make a model of his Halifax aircraft for him. The aircraft, remarkable in its detail, has been a treasured memento of his time served in the RAF. Robert McClements and his model of Halifax ZA-V · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
Robert met his future wife, Iris, on a visit to the Observer Corp HQ at York where she was a serving member. He left the RAF in 1947 having attained the rank of Temporary Warrant Officer. He and Iris settled in England where they worked with her father, in York. Latterly, he and Iris set up their own business in Wakefield selling motor vehicles.
Chris Cann
Iris McClements (nee Dobson) remembers, at the age of 11, being issued with a gas mask before the war had started. When she was about 13 years of age, her family moved to Eldwick to avoid the bombs.
She was a member of the Home Guard before joining the Women’s Junior Air Corp where she attained the rank of sergeant. She recalled wearing a grey uniform, being issued with a bucket, stirrup pump and helmet for fire watching and learning the theory of the internal combustion engine.
In 1944, she passed the entrance exam to join the Royal Observer Corps and was based in York, as a plotter. Her role was to listen to information from the spotters via headphones and place it on to the plotting table. This included the number of aircraft, direction of travel, height, and whether they were friendly or hostile. This was to give warning of enemy operations or to track operations heading to Germany. She worked eight-hour shifts which changed each week. The spotters in the outposts were also watching for aircraft that were going to crash-land, so that the crash sites could be identified. Iris visited a couple of these sites. She met her husband to be, Robert, on one of his visits to the Royal Observer Corp HQ in York.
She lived on an ex-World War One motor launch in York that the family had used for recreation. When off duty she would often travel into York to go dancing, swimming and to the cinema.
After the war she and Robert worked with her father in the motor trade. She then set up business with Robert in Wakefield.
Chris Cann
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
Robert McClements' Service and Release Book
Description
An account of the resource
Service and release book of Robert McClements last day of service 3 March 1947.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1947-04-30
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One printed book with handwritten annotations
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Service material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
OMcClementsR1796607-151021-010001
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
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.
10 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/298/9938/PMcClementsR15010003.2.jpg
35e405950fc27a03632d68736e196970
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8e5aaff53c641ac8ce10a463a28ea5fb
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
McClements, Robert
Robert McClements
R McClements
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. Two oral history interviews with Robert McClements (-2022, 1796607 Royal Air Force) and one with his wife, Iris McClements (b. 1926). The collection also contains his log book, service documents, photographs and a model of his Halifax. He completed a tour of operations as a mid-upper gunner with 10 Squadron from RAF Melbourne. The log book belonging to L Kirrage, his flight engineer, is also included.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Robert McClements and catalogued by Barry Hunter and David Leitch.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-21
2015-10-21
2018-02-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
McClements, R
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
1943: Volunteered for the RAF
19 December 1943 -11 February 1944: RAF Pembrey, No.1 AGS, flying Anson aircraft
23 April 1944 - 20 May 1944: RAF Lossiemouth, No. 20 OTU, Flying Gunnery Flight, flying Wellington aircraft
8 July 1944 - 23 July 1944: 1658 RAF Ricall, 1658 HCU, flying Halifax aircraft
30 July 1944 - 18 February 1945: RAF Melbourne, 10 Squadron, flying Halifax aircraft
July 1944 - February 1945: served on 10 Sqn as a Flight Sergeant Air gunner.
3 March 1947: RAF Kirkham, Released from Service, having attained the rank of Temporary Warrant Officer
Chris Cann
Robert McClements was born on 6 December 1924, in Belfast. He left school at the age of 14 and worked various jobs to help support his family. While there was no conscription in Northern Ireland, in late 1943 while working at the Harland and Wolff shipyard he volunteered to join the RAF, as aircrew.
Following basic training at RAF Bridlington and then initial gunnery training at RAF Bridgnorth, he was posted to RAF Pembry to join No 1 AGS and train as an air gunner. Air gunners course · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
He completed the gunnery course in February 1944 and was posted to No 20 OTU at RAF Lossiemouth and then on to 1658 HCU, at RAF Ricall, to train on Halifax aircraft. In July 1944, with all training finally completed, he began his operational flying with 10 Squadron at RAF Melbourne flying Halifax aircraft.
His early operational trips passed without incident, but on one operation the aircraft experienced heavy icing, causing it to lose all lift and go into an uncontrolled descent. With the aircraft going straight down the order to ‘Bale out’ was given, Robert managed to get out of his gunner position, but then found himself forced to the floor unable to move. In the cockpit, the pilot engaged full power and he and his engineer battled with the control column to pull the aircraft out of its dive. The flight home passed uneventfully although the engineer reported that the aircraft never ever flew again.
Throughout the rest of his tour there were other eventful sorties. On one, two of the bombs ‘hung up’ and they had to release them from the carrier units using an axe. On another, the bomb aimer forgot to press the bomb-release button so they had to go around again. Luck was again on his side when, on a night raid, another aircraft on a turning point swung across the top of his Halifax, narrowly missing the top of his gun turret. Robert went on to complete a full operational flying tour of 38 operational sorties over Belgium, France and Germany amassing over 200 flying hours. PMcClementsR1503.2.jpg (1600×1299) (lincoln.ac.uk)
After his operational tour, Robert was released from flying duties. He remained at RAF Melbourne and trained as a Unit Fire Officer and he and his flight engineer took charge of the station warrant officer’s office. During a routine site inspection, he met a German prisoner of war who was making a wooden model of a Catalina aircraft for the officers’ mess. Robert asked him to make a model of his Halifax aircraft for him. The aircraft, remarkable in its detail, has been a treasured memento of his time served in the RAF. Robert McClements and his model of Halifax ZA-V · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
Robert met his future wife, Iris, on a visit to the Observer Corp HQ at York where she was a serving member. He left the RAF in 1947 having attained the rank of Temporary Warrant Officer. He and Iris settled in England where they worked with her father, in York. Latterly, he and Iris set up their own business in Wakefield selling motor vehicles.
Chris Cann
Iris McClements (nee Dobson) remembers, at the age of 11, being issued with a gas mask before the war had started. When she was about 13 years of age, her family moved to Eldwick to avoid the bombs.
She was a member of the Home Guard before joining the Women’s Junior Air Corp where she attained the rank of sergeant. She recalled wearing a grey uniform, being issued with a bucket, stirrup pump and helmet for fire watching and learning the theory of the internal combustion engine.
In 1944, she passed the entrance exam to join the Royal Observer Corps and was based in York, as a plotter. Her role was to listen to information from the spotters via headphones and place it on to the plotting table. This included the number of aircraft, direction of travel, height, and whether they were friendly or hostile. This was to give warning of enemy operations or to track operations heading to Germany. She worked eight-hour shifts which changed each week. The spotters in the outposts were also watching for aircraft that were going to crash-land, so that the crash sites could be identified. Iris visited a couple of these sites. She met her husband to be, Robert, on one of his visits to the Royal Observer Corp HQ in York.
She lived on an ex-World War One motor launch in York that the family had used for recreation. When off duty she would often travel into York to go dancing, swimming and to the cinema.
After the war she and Robert worked with her father in the motor trade. She then set up business with Robert in Wakefield.
Chris Cann
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
18 airmen
Description
An account of the resource
18 airmen are arranged in two rows, seated and standing. On the reverse 'Melbourne 10 Sqd Yorkshire 1944'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PMcClementsR15010003,
PMcClementsR15010004
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
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.
10 Squadron
aircrew
RAF Melbourne
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/298/9939/PMcClementsR15010007.1.jpg
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
McClements, Robert
Robert McClements
R McClements
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. Two oral history interviews with Robert McClements (-2022, 1796607 Royal Air Force) and one with his wife, Iris McClements (b. 1926). The collection also contains his log book, service documents, photographs and a model of his Halifax. He completed a tour of operations as a mid-upper gunner with 10 Squadron from RAF Melbourne. The log book belonging to L Kirrage, his flight engineer, is also included.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Robert McClements and catalogued by Barry Hunter and David Leitch.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-21
2015-10-21
2018-02-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
McClements, R
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
1943: Volunteered for the RAF
19 December 1943 -11 February 1944: RAF Pembrey, No.1 AGS, flying Anson aircraft
23 April 1944 - 20 May 1944: RAF Lossiemouth, No. 20 OTU, Flying Gunnery Flight, flying Wellington aircraft
8 July 1944 - 23 July 1944: 1658 RAF Ricall, 1658 HCU, flying Halifax aircraft
30 July 1944 - 18 February 1945: RAF Melbourne, 10 Squadron, flying Halifax aircraft
July 1944 - February 1945: served on 10 Sqn as a Flight Sergeant Air gunner.
3 March 1947: RAF Kirkham, Released from Service, having attained the rank of Temporary Warrant Officer
Chris Cann
Robert McClements was born on 6 December 1924, in Belfast. He left school at the age of 14 and worked various jobs to help support his family. While there was no conscription in Northern Ireland, in late 1943 while working at the Harland and Wolff shipyard he volunteered to join the RAF, as aircrew.
Following basic training at RAF Bridlington and then initial gunnery training at RAF Bridgnorth, he was posted to RAF Pembry to join No 1 AGS and train as an air gunner. Air gunners course · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
He completed the gunnery course in February 1944 and was posted to No 20 OTU at RAF Lossiemouth and then on to 1658 HCU, at RAF Ricall, to train on Halifax aircraft. In July 1944, with all training finally completed, he began his operational flying with 10 Squadron at RAF Melbourne flying Halifax aircraft.
His early operational trips passed without incident, but on one operation the aircraft experienced heavy icing, causing it to lose all lift and go into an uncontrolled descent. With the aircraft going straight down the order to ‘Bale out’ was given, Robert managed to get out of his gunner position, but then found himself forced to the floor unable to move. In the cockpit, the pilot engaged full power and he and his engineer battled with the control column to pull the aircraft out of its dive. The flight home passed uneventfully although the engineer reported that the aircraft never ever flew again.
Throughout the rest of his tour there were other eventful sorties. On one, two of the bombs ‘hung up’ and they had to release them from the carrier units using an axe. On another, the bomb aimer forgot to press the bomb-release button so they had to go around again. Luck was again on his side when, on a night raid, another aircraft on a turning point swung across the top of his Halifax, narrowly missing the top of his gun turret. Robert went on to complete a full operational flying tour of 38 operational sorties over Belgium, France and Germany amassing over 200 flying hours. PMcClementsR1503.2.jpg (1600×1299) (lincoln.ac.uk)
After his operational tour, Robert was released from flying duties. He remained at RAF Melbourne and trained as a Unit Fire Officer and he and his flight engineer took charge of the station warrant officer’s office. During a routine site inspection, he met a German prisoner of war who was making a wooden model of a Catalina aircraft for the officers’ mess. Robert asked him to make a model of his Halifax aircraft for him. The aircraft, remarkable in its detail, has been a treasured memento of his time served in the RAF. Robert McClements and his model of Halifax ZA-V · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
Robert met his future wife, Iris, on a visit to the Observer Corp HQ at York where she was a serving member. He left the RAF in 1947 having attained the rank of Temporary Warrant Officer. He and Iris settled in England where they worked with her father, in York. Latterly, he and Iris set up their own business in Wakefield selling motor vehicles.
Chris Cann
Iris McClements (nee Dobson) remembers, at the age of 11, being issued with a gas mask before the war had started. When she was about 13 years of age, her family moved to Eldwick to avoid the bombs.
She was a member of the Home Guard before joining the Women’s Junior Air Corp where she attained the rank of sergeant. She recalled wearing a grey uniform, being issued with a bucket, stirrup pump and helmet for fire watching and learning the theory of the internal combustion engine.
In 1944, she passed the entrance exam to join the Royal Observer Corps and was based in York, as a plotter. Her role was to listen to information from the spotters via headphones and place it on to the plotting table. This included the number of aircraft, direction of travel, height, and whether they were friendly or hostile. This was to give warning of enemy operations or to track operations heading to Germany. She worked eight-hour shifts which changed each week. The spotters in the outposts were also watching for aircraft that were going to crash-land, so that the crash sites could be identified. Iris visited a couple of these sites. She met her husband to be, Robert, on one of his visits to the Royal Observer Corp HQ in York.
She lived on an ex-World War One motor launch in York that the family had used for recreation. When off duty she would often travel into York to go dancing, swimming and to the cinema.
After the war she and Robert worked with her father in the motor trade. She then set up business with Robert in Wakefield.
Chris Cann
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
Flight Lieutenant Grant's crew
Description
An account of the resource
Seven airmen are standing under the nose of a Halifax. On the reverse 'Melbourne Nr York 1944 10 Sqd F/Lt Grant's Crew'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PMcClementsR15010007,
PMcClementsR15010008
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
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.
10 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
flight engineer
Halifax
navigator
pilot
RAF Melbourne
wireless operator
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
McClements, Robert
Robert McClements
R McClements
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. Two oral history interviews with Robert McClements (-2022, 1796607 Royal Air Force) and one with his wife, Iris McClements (b. 1926). The collection also contains his log book, service documents, photographs and a model of his Halifax. He completed a tour of operations as a mid-upper gunner with 10 Squadron from RAF Melbourne. The log book belonging to L Kirrage, his flight engineer, is also included.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Robert McClements and catalogued by Barry Hunter and David Leitch.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-21
2015-10-21
2018-02-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
McClements, R
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
1943: Volunteered for the RAF
19 December 1943 -11 February 1944: RAF Pembrey, No.1 AGS, flying Anson aircraft
23 April 1944 - 20 May 1944: RAF Lossiemouth, No. 20 OTU, Flying Gunnery Flight, flying Wellington aircraft
8 July 1944 - 23 July 1944: 1658 RAF Ricall, 1658 HCU, flying Halifax aircraft
30 July 1944 - 18 February 1945: RAF Melbourne, 10 Squadron, flying Halifax aircraft
July 1944 - February 1945: served on 10 Sqn as a Flight Sergeant Air gunner.
3 March 1947: RAF Kirkham, Released from Service, having attained the rank of Temporary Warrant Officer
Chris Cann
Robert McClements was born on 6 December 1924, in Belfast. He left school at the age of 14 and worked various jobs to help support his family. While there was no conscription in Northern Ireland, in late 1943 while working at the Harland and Wolff shipyard he volunteered to join the RAF, as aircrew.
Following basic training at RAF Bridlington and then initial gunnery training at RAF Bridgnorth, he was posted to RAF Pembry to join No 1 AGS and train as an air gunner. Air gunners course · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
He completed the gunnery course in February 1944 and was posted to No 20 OTU at RAF Lossiemouth and then on to 1658 HCU, at RAF Ricall, to train on Halifax aircraft. In July 1944, with all training finally completed, he began his operational flying with 10 Squadron at RAF Melbourne flying Halifax aircraft.
His early operational trips passed without incident, but on one operation the aircraft experienced heavy icing, causing it to lose all lift and go into an uncontrolled descent. With the aircraft going straight down the order to ‘Bale out’ was given, Robert managed to get out of his gunner position, but then found himself forced to the floor unable to move. In the cockpit, the pilot engaged full power and he and his engineer battled with the control column to pull the aircraft out of its dive. The flight home passed uneventfully although the engineer reported that the aircraft never ever flew again.
Throughout the rest of his tour there were other eventful sorties. On one, two of the bombs ‘hung up’ and they had to release them from the carrier units using an axe. On another, the bomb aimer forgot to press the bomb-release button so they had to go around again. Luck was again on his side when, on a night raid, another aircraft on a turning point swung across the top of his Halifax, narrowly missing the top of his gun turret. Robert went on to complete a full operational flying tour of 38 operational sorties over Belgium, France and Germany amassing over 200 flying hours. PMcClementsR1503.2.jpg (1600×1299) (lincoln.ac.uk)
After his operational tour, Robert was released from flying duties. He remained at RAF Melbourne and trained as a Unit Fire Officer and he and his flight engineer took charge of the station warrant officer’s office. During a routine site inspection, he met a German prisoner of war who was making a wooden model of a Catalina aircraft for the officers’ mess. Robert asked him to make a model of his Halifax aircraft for him. The aircraft, remarkable in its detail, has been a treasured memento of his time served in the RAF. Robert McClements and his model of Halifax ZA-V · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
Robert met his future wife, Iris, on a visit to the Observer Corp HQ at York where she was a serving member. He left the RAF in 1947 having attained the rank of Temporary Warrant Officer. He and Iris settled in England where they worked with her father, in York. Latterly, he and Iris set up their own business in Wakefield selling motor vehicles.
Chris Cann
Iris McClements (nee Dobson) remembers, at the age of 11, being issued with a gas mask before the war had started. When she was about 13 years of age, her family moved to Eldwick to avoid the bombs.
She was a member of the Home Guard before joining the Women’s Junior Air Corp where she attained the rank of sergeant. She recalled wearing a grey uniform, being issued with a bucket, stirrup pump and helmet for fire watching and learning the theory of the internal combustion engine.
In 1944, she passed the entrance exam to join the Royal Observer Corps and was based in York, as a plotter. Her role was to listen to information from the spotters via headphones and place it on to the plotting table. This included the number of aircraft, direction of travel, height, and whether they were friendly or hostile. This was to give warning of enemy operations or to track operations heading to Germany. She worked eight-hour shifts which changed each week. The spotters in the outposts were also watching for aircraft that were going to crash-land, so that the crash sites could be identified. Iris visited a couple of these sites. She met her husband to be, Robert, on one of his visits to the Royal Observer Corp HQ in York.
She lived on an ex-World War One motor launch in York that the family had used for recreation. When off duty she would often travel into York to go dancing, swimming and to the cinema.
After the war she and Robert worked with her father in the motor trade. She then set up business with Robert in Wakefield.
Chris Cann
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CREW of HALIFAX-V-VICTOR
FLT/LT. R. Grant – DFC Pilot
P/O C HOLSTEAD – DFC Nav
F/SGT A HODKINSON DFM B/A
F/SGT J MELVIN W/OP
SGT L KIRRAGE F/ENG
F/SGT R McCLEMENTS M/U/G
F/SGT B WEBB R/G
10 SQUADRON 4 GROUP
BOMBER COMMAND
RAF
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
Robert McClements and his model of Halifax ZA-V
Description
An account of the resource
Model of Rob McClement's Halifax ZA-V mounted on a stand with an engraved plaque. Under the base of the Halifax model is an inscription 'Made for R. McClements by German P.O.W. at Melbourne'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One hand made model mounted on stand with an engraved plaque.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Physical object
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PMcClementsR15020001
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
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.
10 Squadron
4 Group
air gunner
aircrew
arts and crafts
bomb aimer
flight engineer
Halifax
heirloom
navigator
pilot
prisoner of war
RAF Melbourne
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/298/9955/PMcClementsR1503.2.jpg
730d160d2d593aadf8c2e5083ec85a2f
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
McClements, Robert
Robert McClements
R McClements
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. Two oral history interviews with Robert McClements (-2022, 1796607 Royal Air Force) and one with his wife, Iris McClements (b. 1926). The collection also contains his log book, service documents, photographs and a model of his Halifax. He completed a tour of operations as a mid-upper gunner with 10 Squadron from RAF Melbourne. The log book belonging to L Kirrage, his flight engineer, is also included.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Robert McClements and catalogued by Barry Hunter and David Leitch.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-21
2015-10-21
2018-02-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
McClements, R
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
1943: Volunteered for the RAF
19 December 1943 -11 February 1944: RAF Pembrey, No.1 AGS, flying Anson aircraft
23 April 1944 - 20 May 1944: RAF Lossiemouth, No. 20 OTU, Flying Gunnery Flight, flying Wellington aircraft
8 July 1944 - 23 July 1944: 1658 RAF Ricall, 1658 HCU, flying Halifax aircraft
30 July 1944 - 18 February 1945: RAF Melbourne, 10 Squadron, flying Halifax aircraft
July 1944 - February 1945: served on 10 Sqn as a Flight Sergeant Air gunner.
3 March 1947: RAF Kirkham, Released from Service, having attained the rank of Temporary Warrant Officer
Chris Cann
Robert McClements was born on 6 December 1924, in Belfast. He left school at the age of 14 and worked various jobs to help support his family. While there was no conscription in Northern Ireland, in late 1943 while working at the Harland and Wolff shipyard he volunteered to join the RAF, as aircrew.
Following basic training at RAF Bridlington and then initial gunnery training at RAF Bridgnorth, he was posted to RAF Pembry to join No 1 AGS and train as an air gunner. Air gunners course · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
He completed the gunnery course in February 1944 and was posted to No 20 OTU at RAF Lossiemouth and then on to 1658 HCU, at RAF Ricall, to train on Halifax aircraft. In July 1944, with all training finally completed, he began his operational flying with 10 Squadron at RAF Melbourne flying Halifax aircraft.
His early operational trips passed without incident, but on one operation the aircraft experienced heavy icing, causing it to lose all lift and go into an uncontrolled descent. With the aircraft going straight down the order to ‘Bale out’ was given, Robert managed to get out of his gunner position, but then found himself forced to the floor unable to move. In the cockpit, the pilot engaged full power and he and his engineer battled with the control column to pull the aircraft out of its dive. The flight home passed uneventfully although the engineer reported that the aircraft never ever flew again.
Throughout the rest of his tour there were other eventful sorties. On one, two of the bombs ‘hung up’ and they had to release them from the carrier units using an axe. On another, the bomb aimer forgot to press the bomb-release button so they had to go around again. Luck was again on his side when, on a night raid, another aircraft on a turning point swung across the top of his Halifax, narrowly missing the top of his gun turret. Robert went on to complete a full operational flying tour of 38 operational sorties over Belgium, France and Germany amassing over 200 flying hours. PMcClementsR1503.2.jpg (1600×1299) (lincoln.ac.uk)
After his operational tour, Robert was released from flying duties. He remained at RAF Melbourne and trained as a Unit Fire Officer and he and his flight engineer took charge of the station warrant officer’s office. During a routine site inspection, he met a German prisoner of war who was making a wooden model of a Catalina aircraft for the officers’ mess. Robert asked him to make a model of his Halifax aircraft for him. The aircraft, remarkable in its detail, has been a treasured memento of his time served in the RAF. Robert McClements and his model of Halifax ZA-V · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
Robert met his future wife, Iris, on a visit to the Observer Corp HQ at York where she was a serving member. He left the RAF in 1947 having attained the rank of Temporary Warrant Officer. He and Iris settled in England where they worked with her father, in York. Latterly, he and Iris set up their own business in Wakefield selling motor vehicles.
Chris Cann
Iris McClements (nee Dobson) remembers, at the age of 11, being issued with a gas mask before the war had started. When she was about 13 years of age, her family moved to Eldwick to avoid the bombs.
She was a member of the Home Guard before joining the Women’s Junior Air Corp where she attained the rank of sergeant. She recalled wearing a grey uniform, being issued with a bucket, stirrup pump and helmet for fire watching and learning the theory of the internal combustion engine.
In 1944, she passed the entrance exam to join the Royal Observer Corps and was based in York, as a plotter. Her role was to listen to information from the spotters via headphones and place it on to the plotting table. This included the number of aircraft, direction of travel, height, and whether they were friendly or hostile. This was to give warning of enemy operations or to track operations heading to Germany. She worked eight-hour shifts which changed each week. The spotters in the outposts were also watching for aircraft that were going to crash-land, so that the crash sites could be identified. Iris visited a couple of these sites. She met her husband to be, Robert, on one of his visits to the Royal Observer Corp HQ in York.
She lived on an ex-World War One motor launch in York that the family had used for recreation. When off duty she would often travel into York to go dancing, swimming and to the cinema.
After the war she and Robert worked with her father in the motor trade. She then set up business with Robert in Wakefield.
Chris Cann
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Aircrew V – Victor Halifax Mark III
No. $ Group – Bomber Command
No. 10 Squadron
Royal Air Force
Melbourne Yorkshire
England
[photograph]
Completed 38 Operations – July 30, 1944 to Feb. 18, 1945 Photo: Feb. 20, 1945
Sgt. R. McClements
R.A.F.
Mid-Upper Gunner
Belfast, Ireland
Sgt. J. Melvin
R.A.F.
Wireless Operator
Glascow [sic], Scotland
Sgt. R.A. Webb
R.A.F.
Rear Gunner
London, England
Sgt. A. Hodkinson, D.F.M.
R.A.F.
Bomb Aimer
Manchester, England
F./Lt. R.B. Grant, D.F.C.
R.C.A.F.
Pilot
Stittsville, Ontario
P./O. C.W. Holstead, D.F.C.
R.C.A.F.
Navigator
London, Ontario
Sgt. L. Kirrage
R.A.F.
Flight Engineer
London, England
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
Aircrew V-Victor Halifax Mark III
Description
An account of the resource
The crew of V for Victor stand in a line under the nose of their Halifax 'ZA-V'. Captioned
'Aircrew V-Victor Halifax Mark III
No 10 Squadron No. 4 Group Royal Air Force- Bomber Command Melbourne Yorkshire England
Completed 38 Operations -July 30, 1944 to Feb 18, 1945 Photo: Feb 20, 1945'.
The aircrew, their roles and home town and country are detailed below.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-02-20
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One annotated b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PMcClementsR1503
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-02-20
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Steve Baldwin
10 Squadron
4 Group
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
flight engineer
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
navigator
pilot
RAF Melbourne
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/298/10067/LKirrageLG1869665v1.1.pdf
40fdceab62d6e3754a8b5c7930373995
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
McClements, Robert
Robert McClements
R McClements
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. Two oral history interviews with Robert McClements (-2022, 1796607 Royal Air Force) and one with his wife, Iris McClements (b. 1926). The collection also contains his log book, service documents, photographs and a model of his Halifax. He completed a tour of operations as a mid-upper gunner with 10 Squadron from RAF Melbourne. The log book belonging to L Kirrage, his flight engineer, is also included.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Robert McClements and catalogued by Barry Hunter and David Leitch.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-21
2015-10-21
2018-02-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
McClements, R
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
1943: Volunteered for the RAF
19 December 1943 -11 February 1944: RAF Pembrey, No.1 AGS, flying Anson aircraft
23 April 1944 - 20 May 1944: RAF Lossiemouth, No. 20 OTU, Flying Gunnery Flight, flying Wellington aircraft
8 July 1944 - 23 July 1944: 1658 RAF Ricall, 1658 HCU, flying Halifax aircraft
30 July 1944 - 18 February 1945: RAF Melbourne, 10 Squadron, flying Halifax aircraft
July 1944 - February 1945: served on 10 Sqn as a Flight Sergeant Air gunner.
3 March 1947: RAF Kirkham, Released from Service, having attained the rank of Temporary Warrant Officer
Chris Cann
Robert McClements was born on 6 December 1924, in Belfast. He left school at the age of 14 and worked various jobs to help support his family. While there was no conscription in Northern Ireland, in late 1943 while working at the Harland and Wolff shipyard he volunteered to join the RAF, as aircrew.
Following basic training at RAF Bridlington and then initial gunnery training at RAF Bridgnorth, he was posted to RAF Pembry to join No 1 AGS and train as an air gunner. Air gunners course · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
He completed the gunnery course in February 1944 and was posted to No 20 OTU at RAF Lossiemouth and then on to 1658 HCU, at RAF Ricall, to train on Halifax aircraft. In July 1944, with all training finally completed, he began his operational flying with 10 Squadron at RAF Melbourne flying Halifax aircraft.
His early operational trips passed without incident, but on one operation the aircraft experienced heavy icing, causing it to lose all lift and go into an uncontrolled descent. With the aircraft going straight down the order to ‘Bale out’ was given, Robert managed to get out of his gunner position, but then found himself forced to the floor unable to move. In the cockpit, the pilot engaged full power and he and his engineer battled with the control column to pull the aircraft out of its dive. The flight home passed uneventfully although the engineer reported that the aircraft never ever flew again.
Throughout the rest of his tour there were other eventful sorties. On one, two of the bombs ‘hung up’ and they had to release them from the carrier units using an axe. On another, the bomb aimer forgot to press the bomb-release button so they had to go around again. Luck was again on his side when, on a night raid, another aircraft on a turning point swung across the top of his Halifax, narrowly missing the top of his gun turret. Robert went on to complete a full operational flying tour of 38 operational sorties over Belgium, France and Germany amassing over 200 flying hours. PMcClementsR1503.2.jpg (1600×1299) (lincoln.ac.uk)
After his operational tour, Robert was released from flying duties. He remained at RAF Melbourne and trained as a Unit Fire Officer and he and his flight engineer took charge of the station warrant officer’s office. During a routine site inspection, he met a German prisoner of war who was making a wooden model of a Catalina aircraft for the officers’ mess. Robert asked him to make a model of his Halifax aircraft for him. The aircraft, remarkable in its detail, has been a treasured memento of his time served in the RAF. Robert McClements and his model of Halifax ZA-V · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
Robert met his future wife, Iris, on a visit to the Observer Corp HQ at York where she was a serving member. He left the RAF in 1947 having attained the rank of Temporary Warrant Officer. He and Iris settled in England where they worked with her father, in York. Latterly, he and Iris set up their own business in Wakefield selling motor vehicles.
Chris Cann
Iris McClements (nee Dobson) remembers, at the age of 11, being issued with a gas mask before the war had started. When she was about 13 years of age, her family moved to Eldwick to avoid the bombs.
She was a member of the Home Guard before joining the Women’s Junior Air Corp where she attained the rank of sergeant. She recalled wearing a grey uniform, being issued with a bucket, stirrup pump and helmet for fire watching and learning the theory of the internal combustion engine.
In 1944, she passed the entrance exam to join the Royal Observer Corps and was based in York, as a plotter. Her role was to listen to information from the spotters via headphones and place it on to the plotting table. This included the number of aircraft, direction of travel, height, and whether they were friendly or hostile. This was to give warning of enemy operations or to track operations heading to Germany. She worked eight-hour shifts which changed each week. The spotters in the outposts were also watching for aircraft that were going to crash-land, so that the crash sites could be identified. Iris visited a couple of these sites. She met her husband to be, Robert, on one of his visits to the Royal Observer Corp HQ in York.
She lived on an ex-World War One motor launch in York that the family had used for recreation. When off duty she would often travel into York to go dancing, swimming and to the cinema.
After the war she and Robert worked with her father in the motor trade. She then set up business with Robert in Wakefield.
Chris Cann
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
L Kirrage's flying log book for navigators, air bombers. air gunners and flight engineers
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text. Log book and record book
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LKirrageLG1869665v1
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
Description
An account of the resource
Flying log book for navigators, air bombers, air gunners and flight engineers for LG Kirrage, flight engineer, covering the period from 9 May 1944 to 5 July 1945. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF Ricall and RAF Melbourne. He flew a total of 36 operations with 10 squadron, 18 Daylight and 18 Night operations. Targets were, Foret-de-Nieppe, Tirlemont-Gossencourt, Brest, Homberg-Heerbeck, Le Havre, Scholven, Kelsenkirchen, Keil, Boulogne, Neuss, Calais, Cleve, Essen, Cologne, Bochum, Munster, Hagen, Soest, Osnabruck, Bingen, Mulheim, Hanau, Saarbrucken, Magdeburg, Stuttgart, Mainz, Bonn, Goch, Wanne Eickel, Chemnitz and Wesel. His pilot on operations was Flight Lieutenant Grant. L Kirrage was the flight engineer in Flight Lieutenant Grant's crew and flew with Robert McClements.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
England--Yorkshire
France--Brest
France--Calais
France--Le Havre
France--Nieppe Forest
Germany--Bingen (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Bonn
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Kleve (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Essen
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Goch
Germany--Hagen (Arnsberg)
Germany--Hanau
Germany--Homberg (Kassel)
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Germany--Mülheim an der Ruhr
Germany--Neuss
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Saarbrücken
Germany--Soest
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1944-08-05
1944-08-15
1944-08-17
1944-08-27
1944-09-10
1944-09-12
1944-09-13
1944-09-15
1944-09-16
1944-09-17
1944-09-23
1944-09-24
1944-09-26
1944-09-27
1944-10-16
1944-10-17
1944-10-23
1944-10-25
1944-10-28
1944-10-30
1944-11-04
1944-11-18
1944-11-29
1944-12-02
1944-12-03
1944-12-05
1944-12-06
1944-12-22
1944-12-24
1945-01-06
1945-01-14
1945-01-16
1945-01-17
1945-01-28
1945-01-29
1945-02-01
1945-02-04
1945-02-05
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-02-09
1945-02-14
1945-02-15
1945-02-17
1945-07-05
10 Squadron
1658 HCU
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Luftwaffe night-fighter airfields (15 August 1944)
Cook’s tour
flight engineer
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
Heavy Conversion Unit
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Melbourne
RAF Riccall
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/298/10070/LMcClementsR1796607v1.2.pdf
f8efc45259288361bfa45e77486a57ad
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
McClements, Robert
Robert McClements
R McClements
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. Two oral history interviews with Robert McClements (-2022, 1796607 Royal Air Force) and one with his wife, Iris McClements (b. 1926). The collection also contains his log book, service documents, photographs and a model of his Halifax. He completed a tour of operations as a mid-upper gunner with 10 Squadron from RAF Melbourne. The log book belonging to L Kirrage, his flight engineer, is also included.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Robert McClements and catalogued by Barry Hunter and David Leitch.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-21
2015-10-21
2018-02-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
McClements, R
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
1943: Volunteered for the RAF
19 December 1943 -11 February 1944: RAF Pembrey, No.1 AGS, flying Anson aircraft
23 April 1944 - 20 May 1944: RAF Lossiemouth, No. 20 OTU, Flying Gunnery Flight, flying Wellington aircraft
8 July 1944 - 23 July 1944: 1658 RAF Ricall, 1658 HCU, flying Halifax aircraft
30 July 1944 - 18 February 1945: RAF Melbourne, 10 Squadron, flying Halifax aircraft
July 1944 - February 1945: served on 10 Sqn as a Flight Sergeant Air gunner.
3 March 1947: RAF Kirkham, Released from Service, having attained the rank of Temporary Warrant Officer
Chris Cann
Robert McClements was born on 6 December 1924, in Belfast. He left school at the age of 14 and worked various jobs to help support his family. While there was no conscription in Northern Ireland, in late 1943 while working at the Harland and Wolff shipyard he volunteered to join the RAF, as aircrew.
Following basic training at RAF Bridlington and then initial gunnery training at RAF Bridgnorth, he was posted to RAF Pembry to join No 1 AGS and train as an air gunner. Air gunners course · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
He completed the gunnery course in February 1944 and was posted to No 20 OTU at RAF Lossiemouth and then on to 1658 HCU, at RAF Ricall, to train on Halifax aircraft. In July 1944, with all training finally completed, he began his operational flying with 10 Squadron at RAF Melbourne flying Halifax aircraft.
His early operational trips passed without incident, but on one operation the aircraft experienced heavy icing, causing it to lose all lift and go into an uncontrolled descent. With the aircraft going straight down the order to ‘Bale out’ was given, Robert managed to get out of his gunner position, but then found himself forced to the floor unable to move. In the cockpit, the pilot engaged full power and he and his engineer battled with the control column to pull the aircraft out of its dive. The flight home passed uneventfully although the engineer reported that the aircraft never ever flew again.
Throughout the rest of his tour there were other eventful sorties. On one, two of the bombs ‘hung up’ and they had to release them from the carrier units using an axe. On another, the bomb aimer forgot to press the bomb-release button so they had to go around again. Luck was again on his side when, on a night raid, another aircraft on a turning point swung across the top of his Halifax, narrowly missing the top of his gun turret. Robert went on to complete a full operational flying tour of 38 operational sorties over Belgium, France and Germany amassing over 200 flying hours. PMcClementsR1503.2.jpg (1600×1299) (lincoln.ac.uk)
After his operational tour, Robert was released from flying duties. He remained at RAF Melbourne and trained as a Unit Fire Officer and he and his flight engineer took charge of the station warrant officer’s office. During a routine site inspection, he met a German prisoner of war who was making a wooden model of a Catalina aircraft for the officers’ mess. Robert asked him to make a model of his Halifax aircraft for him. The aircraft, remarkable in its detail, has been a treasured memento of his time served in the RAF. Robert McClements and his model of Halifax ZA-V · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
Robert met his future wife, Iris, on a visit to the Observer Corp HQ at York where she was a serving member. He left the RAF in 1947 having attained the rank of Temporary Warrant Officer. He and Iris settled in England where they worked with her father, in York. Latterly, he and Iris set up their own business in Wakefield selling motor vehicles.
Chris Cann
Iris McClements (nee Dobson) remembers, at the age of 11, being issued with a gas mask before the war had started. When she was about 13 years of age, her family moved to Eldwick to avoid the bombs.
She was a member of the Home Guard before joining the Women’s Junior Air Corp where she attained the rank of sergeant. She recalled wearing a grey uniform, being issued with a bucket, stirrup pump and helmet for fire watching and learning the theory of the internal combustion engine.
In 1944, she passed the entrance exam to join the Royal Observer Corps and was based in York, as a plotter. Her role was to listen to information from the spotters via headphones and place it on to the plotting table. This included the number of aircraft, direction of travel, height, and whether they were friendly or hostile. This was to give warning of enemy operations or to track operations heading to Germany. She worked eight-hour shifts which changed each week. The spotters in the outposts were also watching for aircraft that were going to crash-land, so that the crash sites could be identified. Iris visited a couple of these sites. She met her husband to be, Robert, on one of his visits to the Royal Observer Corp HQ in York.
She lived on an ex-World War One motor launch in York that the family had used for recreation. When off duty she would often travel into York to go dancing, swimming and to the cinema.
After the war she and Robert worked with her father in the motor trade. She then set up business with Robert in Wakefield.
Chris Cann
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
Robert McClement's Flying Log Book for Navigators, Air Bombers, Air Gunners, Flight Engineers
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text. Log book and record book
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LMcClementsR1796607v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Description
An account of the resource
Robert McClement's Flying Log Book for Navigators, Air Bombers, Air Gunners, Flight Engineers’, from 2 January 1944 to 18 February 1945. Details training schedule and operations flown. He served at RAF Pembrey, RAF Lossiemouth, RAF Riccall and RAF Melbourne. Aircraft flown were Anson, Wellington, Halifax Mk 2 and Halifax Mk 3. He carried out a total of 38 operations in one tour with 10 Squadron as an air gunner on the following targets in Belgium, France and Germany: Bingen, Bochum, Bonn, Boulogne, Brest, Calais, Chemnitz, Cologne, Essen, Falaise, Gelsenkirchen, Goch, Hagen, Hanau, Homberg, Kiel, Kleve, Le Havre, Magdeburg, Mainz, Mülheim, Münster, Neuss, Nieppe Forest, Osnabrück, Saarbrücken, Scholven, Soest, Stuttgart, Tienen, Wanne-Eickel and Wesel. His pilots on operations were Flight Lieutenant Grant and Pilot Officer Moss. Remarks include notes on targets such as oil refineries, steel works, rail centres, marshalling yards, industrial areas, shipping, troop concentrations, airfields, V-1 sites, and dropping supplies. Notes include Operation Tractable, FIDO and one operation was carried out on only three engines. Robert McClement was assessed as 'a quiet and hardworking cadet' at 1 Air Gunnery School.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Atlantic Ocean
Belgium
England
France
Germany
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Moray
Wales--Carmarthenshire
Belgium--Tienen
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Brest
France--Calais
France--Falaise
France--Le Havre
France--Nieppe Forest
Germany--Bingen (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Bonn
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Essen
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Goch
Germany--Hagen (Arnsberg)
Germany--Hanau
Germany--Homberg (Kassel)
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Kleve (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Germany--Mülheim an der Ruhr
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Neuss
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Saarbrücken
Germany--Soest
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Great Britain
Great Britain
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1944-08-05
1944-08-14
1944-08-15
1944-08-17
1944-08-27
1944-09-10
1944-09-12
1944-09-13
1944-09-15
1944-09-16
1944-09-17
1944-09-23
1944-09-24
1944-09-26
1944-09-27
1944-10-16
1944-10-17
1944-10-23
1944-10-25
1944-10-28
1944-10-30
1944-11-04
1944-11-18
1944-11-29
1944-12-02
1944-12-03
1944-12-05
1944-12-06
1944-12-22
1944-12-24
1945-01-06
1945-01-14
1945-01-16
1945-01-17
1945-01-28
1945-01-29
1945-02-01
1945-02-02
1945-02-04
1945-02-05
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-02-14
1945-02-15
1945-02-17
10 Squadron
1658 HCU
20 OTU
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of Luftwaffe night-fighter airfields (15 August 1944)
FIDO
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Heavy Conversion Unit
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Melbourne
RAF Pembrey
RAF Riccall
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/298/10075/MMcClementsR1796607-151021-030003.1.jpg
7a30793b1034f3c35a35148f326633ca
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/298/10075/MMcClementsR1796607-151021-030004.1.jpg
5ddf8faea4663000e7ea0e4f4a20f562
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
McClements, Robert
Robert McClements
R McClements
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. Two oral history interviews with Robert McClements (-2022, 1796607 Royal Air Force) and one with his wife, Iris McClements (b. 1926). The collection also contains his log book, service documents, photographs and a model of his Halifax. He completed a tour of operations as a mid-upper gunner with 10 Squadron from RAF Melbourne. The log book belonging to L Kirrage, his flight engineer, is also included.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Robert McClements and catalogued by Barry Hunter and David Leitch.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-21
2015-10-21
2018-02-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
McClements, R
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
1943: Volunteered for the RAF
19 December 1943 -11 February 1944: RAF Pembrey, No.1 AGS, flying Anson aircraft
23 April 1944 - 20 May 1944: RAF Lossiemouth, No. 20 OTU, Flying Gunnery Flight, flying Wellington aircraft
8 July 1944 - 23 July 1944: 1658 RAF Ricall, 1658 HCU, flying Halifax aircraft
30 July 1944 - 18 February 1945: RAF Melbourne, 10 Squadron, flying Halifax aircraft
July 1944 - February 1945: served on 10 Sqn as a Flight Sergeant Air gunner.
3 March 1947: RAF Kirkham, Released from Service, having attained the rank of Temporary Warrant Officer
Chris Cann
Robert McClements was born on 6 December 1924, in Belfast. He left school at the age of 14 and worked various jobs to help support his family. While there was no conscription in Northern Ireland, in late 1943 while working at the Harland and Wolff shipyard he volunteered to join the RAF, as aircrew.
Following basic training at RAF Bridlington and then initial gunnery training at RAF Bridgnorth, he was posted to RAF Pembry to join No 1 AGS and train as an air gunner. Air gunners course · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
He completed the gunnery course in February 1944 and was posted to No 20 OTU at RAF Lossiemouth and then on to 1658 HCU, at RAF Ricall, to train on Halifax aircraft. In July 1944, with all training finally completed, he began his operational flying with 10 Squadron at RAF Melbourne flying Halifax aircraft.
His early operational trips passed without incident, but on one operation the aircraft experienced heavy icing, causing it to lose all lift and go into an uncontrolled descent. With the aircraft going straight down the order to ‘Bale out’ was given, Robert managed to get out of his gunner position, but then found himself forced to the floor unable to move. In the cockpit, the pilot engaged full power and he and his engineer battled with the control column to pull the aircraft out of its dive. The flight home passed uneventfully although the engineer reported that the aircraft never ever flew again.
Throughout the rest of his tour there were other eventful sorties. On one, two of the bombs ‘hung up’ and they had to release them from the carrier units using an axe. On another, the bomb aimer forgot to press the bomb-release button so they had to go around again. Luck was again on his side when, on a night raid, another aircraft on a turning point swung across the top of his Halifax, narrowly missing the top of his gun turret. Robert went on to complete a full operational flying tour of 38 operational sorties over Belgium, France and Germany amassing over 200 flying hours. PMcClementsR1503.2.jpg (1600×1299) (lincoln.ac.uk)
After his operational tour, Robert was released from flying duties. He remained at RAF Melbourne and trained as a Unit Fire Officer and he and his flight engineer took charge of the station warrant officer’s office. During a routine site inspection, he met a German prisoner of war who was making a wooden model of a Catalina aircraft for the officers’ mess. Robert asked him to make a model of his Halifax aircraft for him. The aircraft, remarkable in its detail, has been a treasured memento of his time served in the RAF. Robert McClements and his model of Halifax ZA-V · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
Robert met his future wife, Iris, on a visit to the Observer Corp HQ at York where she was a serving member. He left the RAF in 1947 having attained the rank of Temporary Warrant Officer. He and Iris settled in England where they worked with her father, in York. Latterly, he and Iris set up their own business in Wakefield selling motor vehicles.
Chris Cann
Iris McClements (nee Dobson) remembers, at the age of 11, being issued with a gas mask before the war had started. When she was about 13 years of age, her family moved to Eldwick to avoid the bombs.
She was a member of the Home Guard before joining the Women’s Junior Air Corp where she attained the rank of sergeant. She recalled wearing a grey uniform, being issued with a bucket, stirrup pump and helmet for fire watching and learning the theory of the internal combustion engine.
In 1944, she passed the entrance exam to join the Royal Observer Corps and was based in York, as a plotter. Her role was to listen to information from the spotters via headphones and place it on to the plotting table. This included the number of aircraft, direction of travel, height, and whether they were friendly or hostile. This was to give warning of enemy operations or to track operations heading to Germany. She worked eight-hour shifts which changed each week. The spotters in the outposts were also watching for aircraft that were going to crash-land, so that the crash sites could be identified. Iris visited a couple of these sites. She met her husband to be, Robert, on one of his visits to the Royal Observer Corp HQ in York.
She lived on an ex-World War One motor launch in York that the family had used for recreation. When off duty she would often travel into York to go dancing, swimming and to the cinema.
After the war she and Robert worked with her father in the motor trade. She then set up business with Robert in Wakefield.
Chris Cann
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
SECRET
[Underlined] No. 10 Squadron – Operational Crew List for 22nd Jan. 1945 [\underlined]
[Underlined] MZ413 ‘B’ [\underlined]
153042 FO. C.P. Snith. Capt.
156760 FO. G. Lucas. Nav.
154245 FO. H. Jeffs. A/B
1591444 Sgt. Davis. J. W/O
1235901 Sgt. Potton. M. M/U
3040628 Sgt. Burrill. K. F/E
1594680 Sgt. Bransby. J. T/G
[Underlined] MZ751 ‘J’ [\underlined]
186942 FO. B. Davies. Capt.
A431956 FS. Young. J.D. Nav.
A448279 FS. Just. F. A/B
A429594 FS. Malke. J. W/O
1899002 Sgt. Whitehead. A. M/U
1391121 Sgt. Blackman. S. F/E
1898230 Sgt. Weaver. L.J. T/G
[Underlined] [Deleted letters] NR245 ‘H’ [\underlined]
68127 FL. Ballantine. F. Cpt.
1604183 Sg. Ballard. R. Nav.
NZ427301 FO. Matheson. A/B
1208537 Sgt. Buttery. C. W/O
[Deleted name]
3000063 Sgt. Ransome. F/E
1592027 Sgt. Abbott. J. T/G
798794 FS. Caines. G. M/U
[Underlined] NP994 ‘K’ [\underlined]
J35338 FO. Jones. F.S. Capt.
R180264 FS. Turner. H.S. Nav.
R180136 FS. Mason. L.W. A/B
R152305 FS. Latner. D. W/O
R254175 FS. Bressler. L. M/U
3021621 Sgt. Fowler. A.F. F/E
R210774 FS. Gam. A. T/G
[Underlined] NA228 ‘D’ [\underlined]
J27190 FL. L. Murphy. Capt.
J36383 FO. O. Schoneck. Nv.
J35805 FO. W. Conlin. A/B
1602806 Sgt. Adams. S. W/O
605564 FS. Bynoe. E. M/U
1823889 Sgt. [indecipherable name] F. F/E
1595913 Sgt. Pepper. D. T/G
142581 FO. Bastard. L. 2ndP.
[Underlined] MZ919 ‘L’ [\underlined]
A426299 FL. J. Bridgett. Cpt.
151611 FO. Rose. F. Nav.
1323355 FS. Warren. G. A/B
141696 FO. Biggs. J.D. W/O
A421126 WO. Rochford. K. M/U
1823553 Sgt. Davidson. H. F/E
2220056 Sgt. Brown. K.D. T/G
[Underlined] MZ948 ‘E’ (Non Y) [\underlined]
179566 FO. F.D. Moss. Capt.
1394974 FS. Davenport. Nav.
R151294 WO. Webster L. A/B
1369742 FS. Fowler R. W/O
1594868 FS. Fearnley. M/U
[Deleted Line]
1594027 FS. Hodgson. S. T/G
1890136 Sgt. Tasker. H. F/E
146619 FO. Haselock. G. M/Undr.
[Underlined] NK[indecipherable number] ‘C’ (Non Y) [\underlined]
28258 W/C U.Y. Shannon.
162201 FO. Watson. S. Nav.
924285 FS. Camfield. R. A/B
R173525 WO. Senderoff. A. [missing letter]
1880643 Sgt. Yates. R. M/[missing letter]
54345 FO. Temperley. N. F/[missing letter]
1595023 Sgt. Graham. N. T/G
[Underlined] NA195 ‘F’ [\underlined]
A423357 FO. J. Tudberry. Cpt.
1388085 Sgt. Baker. A.E. Nv.
1602722 Sgt. Brown. D. A/B
A426947 FS. Nattrass. O. W/O
1897840 Sgt. Shotter. L. M/U
1825702 Sgt. Brown. J. F/E
1258556 Sgt. Rumble. A. T/G
A424793 PO. E. O’Ryan. 2nd P.
[Underlined] N [missing letters/numbers] ‘N’ [\underlined]
104586 FL. A.D. Stephens. Cpt.
591740 FS. Rees. K. Nav.
1601365 Sgt. Robson. B. A/B
NZ414909 FO. Maria. H.C. W/O
R132611 WO. Roberts. C. M/U
2218869 Sgt. Elliott. T. F/E
54273 FO. Heap. R.E. T/G
[Underlined] MZ315 ‘G’ [\underlined]
102120 FL. G.G. Scott. Cpt.
146299 FO. Drury. R. Nav.
113918 SL. G. Bond. A/B
995060 WO. Hamilton. A. W/O
177171 PO. Marshall. J. M/U
1595611 Sgt. Hurst. J. F/E
1608775 FS. Sharley. T. T/G
[Underlined] RG254 ‘O’ [\underlined]
135867 SL. W. Allan. Capt.
156440 FL. Newham. D.F. Nav.
188912 PO. Payne. R.V. A/B
187215 PO. Hobson. J. W/O
184154 PO. Collins. F. M/U
188198 PO. Gilling. R. F/E
183859 PO. Munnoch. J. T/G
161387 FO. Bladen. F.R. 2nd Pilot.
[Underlined] [deleted letters] NR175 ‘T’ [\underlined]
104582 SL. F.O. Janes. Cpt.
185390 PO. J. Meadows. Nav.
153495 FO. Ireland. J. A/B
187791 PO. Williams. J. W/O
184143 PO. Griffiths. G. M/U
178230 PO. Hardman. J. F/E
1305889 FS. Eastwood. H. T/G
[Underlined] MZ433 ‘P’ [\underlined]
62287 FO. Dade. J. Capt.
1511966 Sgt. Noble. P.H. Nav.
154373 FO. Thompson. F.N. A/B
168790 PO. Dennick. A. W/Op
538349 Sgt. Malone. W. M/U
1569078 Sgt. Russell. J. F/E
[Deleted name] T/G
R25196 [missing number] Sgt. Woolridge. A.R. T/G
Continued Overleaf / . . . . .
[Page break]
[Underlined] Crew List for 22/1/45 Continued [\underlined] / . . . . .
[Underlined] NP993 ‘Q’ [\underlined]
A417978 FO. Smith. P. Capt.
1800067 Sgt. Earl. D.J. Nav.
1670526 FS. Brown. J. A/B
A427178 FS. Witnish. K. W/O
2210377 Sgt. Houghton. J. M/U
1825951 Sgt. Johnstone. W. F/E
1880437 Sgt. King. D. T/G
[Underlined] MZ793 ‘X’ [\underlined]
137810 FO. J. Grayshan. Capt.
1800664 FS. Berry. A.J. Nav.
187883 PO. Chaderton. S. A/B
1811552 FS. Andrews. P. W/Op
1579147 FS. Mills. H.L. M/U
2205669 Sgt. Maddock/Lyon. R. F/E
1090310 FS. Petrie. J. T/G
[Underlined] MZ746 ‘S’ (Non Y) [\underlined]
138847 FO. E.E.H. Cook. Cpt.
1800813 FS. Gibson. D. Nav.
1585932 Sgt. Lamb. A/B
1802361 FS. Dade. A.W. W/O
1801347 FS. Dix. R.A. M/U
1594924 Sgt. Murray. G. F/E
1580529 FS. Baker. A.J. T/G
[Underlined] RG345 ‘Y’ [\underlined]
170132 FO. Halstead. R.G. Capt.
A429666 FO. Muntz. J.B. Nav.
702584 FS. McMahon. A/B
169314 FO. Houghton. E. W/Op
962522 Sgt. Kilroy. J. M/U
1592913 Sgt. Evans. R. F/E
1046295 Sgt. Fryer. R. T/G
[Underlined] MZ430 ‘V’ [\underlined]
J27189 FL. R. Grant. Capt.
J92749 PO. Holstead. C. Nv.
645731 Sgt. Hodkinson. A/B
1522843 FS. Melvin. J. W/O
1796607 F.S. McClements. M/U
1869665 Sgt. Kirrage. L. F/E
638543 Sgt. Webb. R.A. T/G
[Underlined] NR189 ‘Z’ [\underlined]
NZ414349 FO. J.A. Scott. Cpt.
A417609 FO. Warnes. J.F. Nv.
153807 FO. Hesketh. E.E. A/B
A429400 FO. Butcher. M.W. W/Op
1852471 Sgt. Moore. P.M. M/U
1897010 Sgt. Bulpett. G. F/E
1383478 Sgt. Perry. E.R. T/G
[Underlined] NA162 ‘W’ [\underlined]
161995 FO. Hurrell. Capt.
1297188 Sgt. Nickels. Nav.
1800994 Sgt. Summerfield. A/B
1600106 Sgt. Webb. W/Op
[Deleted line]
1811202 Sgt. Stokes. F/E
[Deleted line]
169866 FO. Larkins. A. M/U
1576086 Sgt. Hyslop. T/G
[Underlined] LK753 ‘C’ (Non [inserted] Q [\inserted]
A24376 FO. Thorne. R. Capt.
1604970 Sgt. Bunnell. F. Nv.
A424095 PO. Simson. J. A/B
A422280 WO. Marks, R. W/O
1738074 Sgt. Watford. W. M/
1592222 Sgt. McHugh. H. F/E
2221890 Sgt. McDonagh. W. T
[Signature] F/O
for Wing Commander, Commanding,
[Underlined] No. 10 Squadron. RAF. [\underlined]
Briefing: - W/C Shannon
Nav: - F/L Newham
A/B8s: - F/L Furrow
Signals: - F/L Newell
F/E’s: - F/L Hampson
Gunners: - F/L Hodson
De-Briefing: - SL Lomax & FO Beaman
FL Farrow
D.S.O.
FO Temperley
FO Haselock
Security Officer: - F/O BOLTON (Air Bomber)
Window Crew: - F/O Bastard’s crew less Captain and Air Bomber
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/.
Description
An account of the resource
Lists crews and aircraft for operations on 22 January 1945.
Title
A name given to the resource
No. 10 Squadron operational crew list for 22 Jan. 1945
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-01-22
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two-page typewritten document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Service material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MMcClementsR1796607-151021-030003, MMcClementsR1796607-151021-030004
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-01-22
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Anne-Marie Watson
10 Squadron
aircrew
RAF Melbourne