2
25
72
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1187/31549/LWatsonJR1605406v1.2.pdf
501f3aa015650de589fa38da68a1c63d
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
Watson, John Robert
J R Watson
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. An oral history interview with warrant Officer John 'Jack' Watson DFM (b. 1923 Royal Air Force) his log book and photographs. He flew three turs of operations as a flight engineer with 12 and 156 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Watson and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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
2015-08-25
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
Watson, JR
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
John Robert Watson’s observer’s and air gunner’s flying log book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LWatsonJR1605406v1
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Description
An account of the resource
Observer’s and air gunner’s flying log book for J R Watson, flight engineer, covering the period from 2 November 1943 to 30 March 1945. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF Faldingworth, RAF Wickenby, RAF Warboys, RAF Upwood and RAF Husbands Bosworth. Aircraft flown in were Halifax, Lancaster. Oxford and Wellington. He flew a total of 77 operations, 12 with 12 Squadron and 66 with 156 Squadron. Targets were Brunswick, Berlin, Magdeburg, Leipzig, Stuttgart, Schweinfurt, Augsburg, Essen, Nuremburg, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Karlsruhe, Friedrichshafen, Somain, Montdidier, Nantes, Boulogne, Duisburg, Dortmund, Aachen, Calais, Longues, Foret-de-Cerisy, Fougeres. Lens, Middlestraete, Oisemont-Neuville, Donges, Hamburg, Cassan, Trossy, Abbeville, Caen, Lille, Russelsheim, Kiel, Connantre, Moerdijk, Saarbrucken, Wilhelmshaven, Heinbach, Opladen, Hannover, Mainz, Wiesbaden, Politz, Bohlen, Wesel, Worms, Chemnitz, Hanau, Hildesheim, Harpenerweg and Munster. His pilots on operations were Flight Lieutenant Cleland and Wing Commander Scott.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Poland
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
France--Abbeville
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Caen
France--Calais
France--Donges
France--Fougères (Ille-et-Vilaine)
France--Lens
France--Lille
France--Longues-sur-Mer
France--Montdidier (Hauts-de-France)
France--Nantes
France--Neuville-aux-Bois
France--Normandy
France--Paris Region
France--Sézanne
France--Somain
Germany--Aachen
Germany--Augsburg
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Dortmund Region
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Euskirchen Region
Germany--Friedrichshafen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hanau
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Hildesheim
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Leipzig Region
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia)
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Rüsselsheim
Germany--Saarbrücken
Germany--Schweinfurt
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Wiesbaden
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Germany--Worms
Netherlands--Rotterdam Region
Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie)
France--Creil
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944-01-14
1944-01-20
1944-01-21
1944-01-22
1944-01-27
1944-01-28
1944-01-29
1944-01-30
1944-02-19
1944-02-20
1944-02-21
1944-02-24
1944-02-25
1944-02-26
1944-03-01
1944-03-26
1944-03-27
1944-03-30
1944-03-31
1944-04-20
1944-04-21
1944-04-22
1944-04-23
1944-04-24
1944-04-25
1944-04-26
1944-04-27
1944-04-28
1944-04-30
1944-05-01
1944-05-03
1944-05-04
1944-05-07
1944-05-19
1944-05-20
1944-05-21
1944-05-22
1944-05-23
1944-05-24
1944-05-25
1944-06-03
1944-06-05
1944-06-07
1944-06-08
1944-06-09
1944-06-15
1944-06-16
1944-06-17
1944-06-24
1944-06-27
1944-07-02
1944-07-23
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-26
1944-07-28
1944-07-29
1944-08-03
1944-08-04
1944-08-05
1944-08-07
1944-08-08
1944-08-09
1944-08-10
1944-08-12
1944-08-13
1944-08-16
1944-08-17
1944-08-18
1944-08-19
1944-08-25
1944-08-26
1944-08-27
1944-09-12
1944-09-13
1944-09-15
1944-09-16
1944-09-17
1944-09-20
1944-10-05
1944-10-06
1944-10-14
1944-10-15
1944-10-16
1944-12-03
1944-12-12
1944-12-17
1944-12-28
1944-12-29
1944-12-30
1945-01-02
1945-01-03
1945-01-05
1945-01-06
1945-01-14
1945-01-16
1945-01-17
1945-01-28
1945-01-29
1945-02-01
1945-02-02
1945-02-03
1945-02-08
1945-02-09
1945-02-13
1945-02-14
1945-02-17
1945-02-21
1945-02-22
1945-03-02
1945-03-05
1945-03-06
1945-03-18
1945-03-22
1945-03-24
1945-03-25
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
12 Squadron
156 Squadron
1667 HCU
85 OTU
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
flight engineer
Halifax
Halifax Mk 5
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Me 410
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Pathfinders
RAF Faldingworth
RAF Husbands Bosworth
RAF Upwood
RAF Warboys
RAF Wickenby
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1770/31047/BCleggPVLangAGv10016.1.jpg
ad8b2c6c0c3dbfa2947ee6659efc0f50
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1770/31047/BCleggPVLangAGv10017.1.jpg
e02f09e25243994a00ecf24d808c4281
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
Clegg, Peter Vernon. Lang, Alastair - folder
Description
An account of the resource
Fifteen items. Contains description of the terrible three, a biography of Squadron Leader Alastair Lang DFC, photographs, a portrait, details of his flight engineer, operational diary, correspondence, newspaper cuttings and extracts from his log book.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-02
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Clegg, PV
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Avro Lancaster III ED877 took off at 22.29hrs on the 4th May 1943 from RAF Warboys, Huntingdonshire tyo make a raid on Dortmund, Germany (by 596 aircraft, 42 lost). The aircraft, which was from No. 156 Squadron, was captained by Flt Lt A.G. Lang, DFC RAF.
Jack Leslie Clark “Nobby”, Flight Engineer
They were flying Lancaster Mark 3 Code Number ED877 while over the target at 19,000 feet anti aircraft fire caused severe damage to the tail section. Another Lancaster flying above reported seeing an aircraft below then explode and go into a shallow dive. The skipper, unable to control the aircraft, ordered the crew to abandon the aircraft. Sergeant Clark noticed Captain Lang having difficulty attaching his chute, and reach over to clip it on for him before attaching his own. He had no sooner done so when the aircraft shuddered and went into a steep dive. The tail section broke away, throwing both men forward holding them tightly within the spinning aircraft, unable to move. Exploding anti-aircraft shells momentarily straightened the plunging plane and threw it about, freeing the trapped men. Flight Lieutenant Lang parachuted safely to earth but sustained a broken ankle, and does not remember pulling the rip cord, and wireless operator Ridings was found dead near the crashed aircraft. His chute was open and most of his bones were broken.
[page break]
The bomber-aimer and both gunners were dead in the wreckage, while the body of Flight Lieutenant Gray could not be located. Sergeant Clark was found injured in a grass field nearby
Nobby also has no memory of pulling the rip cord of his chute, and sustained several broken bones and the loss of a piece of his skull. His head had struck a jagged edge of torn fuselage as he was thrown out. Fortunately, compassion prevailed among the German medical staff who attended my uncle, and they replaced his lost skull section with a silver plate. When he was well enough to be moved, he was transferred to a Prisoner-of-War camp, Stalag Luft #3 at Sagan some 60 miles south-east of Berlin, near the Czechoslovakia border. Here his captors, not knowing Nobby’s personality, thought he had become unstable due to his head injuries. During his incarceration the Royal Air Force, through a report provided by his skipper, became aware of Nobby’s action to save his captain’s life. Flight Lieutenant A.G. Lang, DFC was an officer of proven and respected stature, and the only one who could have known the circumstances to make such a report. It was for this unselfish act that, on September 24th 1943, Sergeant Jack Leslie Clark was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal, one of the most prestigious awards made to a non-commissioned officer of the Royal Air Force. The citation read:
Distinguished Flying Medal
125751 Sergeant Jack Leslie Clark, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, No. 156 Squadron. As Flight Engineer, Sergeant Clark has participated in numerous sorties and has displayed great skill and devotion to duty. On one occasion, during an operation against a target in the Ruhr area, his courage and coolness in circumstances of great peril set an example in keeping with the best traditions of the Royal Air Force. END OF CITATION.
There is considerable evidence that, during their lifetime, Nobby and Daisy possessed a strong belief in clairvoyance, premonition, and the spirit world. He would often reminisce about the times he was able to predict with considerable accuracy the cancellation of scheduled operational flights. He did not elaborate or discuss his uncanny ability, however, the instances where he proved accurate so impressed the squadron commander, Wing Commander Rivell Carnac, that often at briefings he would make a half joke of requesting for Nobby’s confirmation. Flight Lieutenant Lang DFC confirms that, one week prior to the ill-fated flight to Dortmund, Nobby took him to one side and said, “Skipper, our crew will shortly undergo a drastic change in environment”. Nobby refused to elaborate.
On the morning of May 4, 1943 when the crew asked their usual question of Nobby regarding going on ops that night, he replied, “I don’t know, but I hope not”.
Flight Lieutenant Lang later recalled that, “It was a measure of the credence we placed on his predictions that I rounded on him and told him not to talk like that”.
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
Jack Leslie Clark "Nobby" DFM flight engineer
Description
An account of the resource
Relates "Nobby" Clark's experiences after his aircraft was hit by anti aircraft fire and exploded. Initially trapped as the aircraft broke up an span with him eventually being thrown out along with the pilot and parachuted safely to earth despite injuries. Continues with description of fate of other crew members and his time as a prisoner of war and the award of Distinguished Flying Medal for saving his captain's life. Includes citation for DFM and some discussion on clairvoyance and premonition.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two b/w photocopied sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Personal research
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BCleggPVLangAGv10016, BCleggPVLangAGv10017
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.
Poland
Poland--Żagań
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-05-04
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
156 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
Distinguished Flying Medal
flight engineer
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 3
pilot
prisoner of war
RAF Warboys
shot down
Stalag Luft 3
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/295/3615/AWallerT151027.2.mp3
fabda2f9ca0e4a33deecf28b4415ef22
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
Waller, Tom
Tom Waller
T Waller
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. An oral history interview with Corporal Thomas Waller (- 2018, 1096366 Royal Air Force) a memoir and photographs. Tom Waller was a fitter/armourer with 138, 109 and 156 Squadrons and served at RAF Stradisall, RAF Wyton, RAF Warboys, and RAF Upward.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Thomas Waller 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
2015-10-27
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Waller, T
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DE: So this is an interview with Thomas Waller. It’s at his house in Swanland. It’s the 27th of the 10th 2015. Approximately 10 past 10. My name is Dan Ellin and this is an interview for the International Bomber Command Digital Archive. So Mr Waller could you please tell me what you did before the war and before you joined the RAF?
TW: I left school when I was fourteen. Worked on the fish docks. I left there when we came to Swanland in 1936. I went to work at the Blackburn’s which is now British Aerospace at Brough. I couldn’t stand being penned in there so I came and worked in the local village grocery shop. Wednesday was our half day so when I was in town one Wednesday I went in to the recruiting office and joined the RAF. I came home. Mother said, ‘Why did you do that for? You’ll not pass your medical.’ So I said, ‘Ah. Let’s see.’ So I went for my medical and passed A1. And she said, ‘Well you couldn’t have done.’ But I never found out why. So I joined up. Went in for MT driver but I’d joined up just at Dunkirk and they’d lost a lot of armourers in Fairey Battles so I became an armourer. Hadn’t the vaguest idea what it was – came home on leave, home and my brother he was a flight engineer. Ground crew. I said, ‘What’s an armourer?’ He said, ‘Oh guns and bombs.’ ‘Oh I don’t want to do that. I’m not doing that.’ He said, ‘It’s good pay. Good promotion.’ I said, ‘Money’s not everything.’ Anyhow, I went. Got on the course. And the lad next to me said, ‘Well, I don’t want to do this.’ So we filed up and down. Up and down. The tutor came around and said, ‘You two can stop messing about. Get on with it because we know you can do it.’ So we did. So we passed out flying colours so went out there in the armoury after it had finished. An officer come along and says, ‘Those whose names I call out please step forward.’ My name was called out. Go for fitter armourer to Credenhill in Hereford. So my mate said, ‘We didn’t want to do that, did we?’ I said, ‘No. But we’ll have to go won’t we?’ So we went and we enjoyed it and we got through that course alright and then I was posted to Stradishall. 138 Squadron. SOE Squadron. I wasn’t there very long because Tempsford was its main base and they decided to put all the SOE section together. So they transferred me to Wyton. But instead of Stradishall sending me to Wyton they sent me to Upper Heyford. So, when I got there they said, ‘Where have you come from?’ I said, ‘Stradishall.’ ‘Well you’re not supposed to be here mate.’ I said, ‘Well I have a railway warrant for here.’ ‘Well, we’ll fetch you up a bed for the night and feed you and see.’ I was there for a week and then they said, ‘We’ve found out where you should have been. You should be at Wyton.’ So they said, ‘Get your kit ready and come down to the orderly room tomorrow morning. Half past eight. We’re flying you over in an Anson.’ Oh, I thought lovely. My first flight. Here I go. I got to the orderly room. ‘You’re going by train.’ It’s got a snag. They took me to the station. Stood there. Thought got to get rid of him and make sure he gets on the train. So when I got to Wyton they said, ‘Where have you been?’ I said, ‘I’ve been at Upper Heyford.’ ‘Well what did you go there for?’ I said, ‘Well that’s my railway warrant.’ You know. So he said, ‘Well have you come through King’s Cross?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said. ‘Have you been stopped by the police?’ I said, ‘No.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘We’ve got them at your house looking for you.’ So I said, ‘No wonder my mother was agitated.’ So I settled down there and then, you know [pause] I eventually got to Wyton and the lads said, ‘Oh you’re our new armourer are you?’ So, I said, ‘Yes sir.’ They said, ‘Right.’ So we got settled in. Got working on the aircraft and then came home on leave. Got back off leave. Just got to the guard room and there was a terrific explosion. All the people came out the guardroom, the guard chaps. There’d been an explosion there, hadn’t there. Now had I been, not been on leave I wouldn’t be here now. So I’m one of the lucky ones and the billets at night with all the empty beds. It was really horrible to see it, you know. So we plodded on. Carried on. And then I was transferred from Wyton to [pause] from Stradishall. I went to Wyton and from Wyton I went to Warboys. To 156 Squadron. Start of Pathfinder force. And then they transferred over to Upwood and I went over to Upwood. And then I was there till 1946 and I was sent to a satellite drome near Stratford on Avon. With a dummy four pounder in the bomb dump, fifty rifles in the armoury. I was a corporal and there was me and another lad there with nothing to do. So when demob come I was glad to get out. But if I’d been on a proper station I would have stopped in because I really enjoyed the life. So I came home. Went back to my job in the village. And then at that time I was engaged to a WAAF in London so I got a job with Barclays Baking Machines. Went down to their factory in London and trained to be a mechanic. Service mechanic for the area. So we came back home again. But my lady friend said, ‘I’m not going to Swanland to live.’ So that brought that up. So I did it but I had to give it up because I didn’t have the money to buy a car or a motorbike and doing all the villages. And I walked from Holme on Spalding Moor to Easingwould carrying a wooden box with all my kit in. And I were going, and I went to one place, Newbold. And you’re allowed an hour and a half to service a machine and when I got there I had a new blade to put on. There were only a bus in the morning and one at night [laughs] so I panicked. I got it on. So I gave the manager my address. I said, ‘If anything happens send me a telegram and,’ I said, ‘I’ll come over,’ you know. Anyhow, everything was alright, thank goodness. So, but it was having walking from one village to another and buses it was that awkward so I gave it up. And I came back to the local shop again. Met a local girl and got married. And then I went to work for a local multiple store. Cousins. Down in Ferriby. And I used to go into the shop on the corner, a big shop on the corner where, down where we lived on a Sunday morning to do the bale machine for him and sort his yard out for him. So one day he said, ‘Would you like to come and work for me? I’ll give you a pound more than what you’d do down there.’ A pound in them days was a lot of money. And I had four children then. So I said, ‘Oh yes. Yeah.’ So I came and I was there for nineteen years. And then he brought his nephew into the business and of course he fell out with everybody. Fell out with me. It was horrible to work in. I was fifty five then and I thought where I go from here. Anyhow, Everthorpe Prison was advertising for a canteen manager’s assistant storeman. So I applied for the job. Went for the interview and then I got a letter saying no. The other man was there. He’d been a manager but I’d never been a manager. Anyhow, on the Monday they rang me up. Was I still interested in the job? I said why. Well the manager walked into the canteen on the Friday dinnertime and walked out. He said, ‘I’m not doing this.’ So he said, ‘The job is yours if you want.’ So I did nine and a half years there and took early retirement. So then my hobby was decorating. So I had a little business decorating.
DE: Right. I see. So you, going back to when you were working in, in the grocer’s shop and you had your early day off on Wednesday afternoon.
TW: Yeah.
DE: Why did you decide to join the RAF?
TW: I just did it on impulse. No real reason. I just, I just thought I’d go, you know. My brother was in the RAF so maybe that was one of the things as well, like, you know.
DE: Did you consider any of the other services?
TW: No. Never. If anything it was always going to be the RAF. So I got what I wanted but I didn’t get the job wanted.
DE: No. Because you wanted to drive.
TW: I wanted to drive. Yeah.
DE: Why. Why did you want to drive?
TW: I was always interested in driving and I learned to drive when I was at the village shop so. But I never passed a driving test. Because when the war came in 1939 just, just as I was taking mine and I’d only done driving down country roads and I did my test in the town. And I’d never been in front of a policeman before. And in Hull, there was a street in Hull where it was just a snake of people because when we had the ferry you’d see people going down , down the outside to the ferry. The policeman was waving me on you see and saying, ‘You’ve got to go hadn’t you?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, They’ve got to move for you,’ you know. He said, ‘Well, your driving’s alright but you need more experience in the town.’ Well the war came so I kept my licence going and it became a full licence after the war so –
DE: I see.
TW: So me being a clever man, I taught my eldest son to drive. So I said to him, ‘Well we’ll finish you off at a driving school because I’ve never passed a driving test.’ So I got these people to come. So I said, ‘No. I’ve never passed a driving test. But,’ I said, ‘I’ve done my best so will you take him and finish him off.’ So they went and they came back and they both got out the car and folded their arms. He said, ‘You taught him to drive.’ I thought – here it comes. He says, ‘We can’t fault him anywhere. We don’t know how he didn’t pass the test. He said, ‘We’re putting him for his test straight away because he’s brilliant.’
DE: Wonderful.
TW: I always say to him now, ‘Now you didn’t listen to what I said to you? Did you?’ He borrowed my car once. He said he wanted to follow the RAC rally. I said yes. It was in November and it was snowy and icy. I said, ‘Go to Harrogate and Howard House but whatever you do do no go on the moors.’ ‘Ok dad.’ 3 o’clock in the morning a neighbour came down, ‘They’ve had an accident.’ ‘I’ll kill him,’ I said, ‘I’ll kill him when he gets home.’ Looked out the window when I heard this wagon outside a few hours later. Looked out. I said, ‘Look at my car. I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him.’ ‘Calm down. Calm down. Calm down.’ I said, ‘What did I tell you?’ ‘Well.’ ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘But when you was driving the car you were in charge of the car. You should have done what I told you.’ So every time we go up on to the moors there’s an archway. ‘That’s where I had my crash dad.’ I said, ‘Don’t keep reminding me.’
DE: Oh dear. So the RAF didn’t want you to be a driver. They sent you on the armourer’s course.
TW: Sent me on the armoury course because at that time – Dunkirk and we’d lost a lot of armourers on Fairey Battles apparently. So, and they were short of armourers so that was it.
DE: So what did the course entail?
TW: Well, it entailed making little parts for guns and that and then you sort of went on to turrets and how to look after guns and how to sort the turrets out and that, then finished that armourers course, called out outside. Then this officer calls through, ‘These names please come forward.’ So we stepped forward. We all went to be fitter armourers. I went to be fitter armourer. Should have been general if I wanted to go on bombs but I was just fitter armourer but I ended up doing everything. You know. Bombing up and everything. So [pause]
DE: And what was it like on an, on an operational station?
TW: Oh it was fantastic. The spirit amongst the lads and that. Yeah. They were brilliant. And the aircrew were brilliant as well. Especially if they’d been in a hangar for a service. You saw the pilot, ‘Are you going up for a flight? Can I come with you?’ ‘Yeah.’ So, the first time I went up it was in a Wellington. Well that was by mistake because it had been in the hangar for a service and they took it out on to the airfield and revved the engines up and then they usually took the crew down to the dispersal points. So I thought well I can go down. Get a lift back. So I went and I thought he’s revving his engines up. Well it was running up. ‘I haven’t got a parachute.’ ‘Don’t worry. None of us,’ there were two other bods there, ‘None of us have parachutes. Don’t worry.’ So any chance after that I got. So the Lancaster was next. So I said to the pilot, ‘Are you going up?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ So I went with him. So I was felt real happy and light headed. I thought oh this is lovely you know. I got a tug on my leg and this chap said, ‘How long have you been up there mate?’ I said to ten. ‘My God,’ he said, ‘Plug this into the intercom. Plug this in to the oxygen because if we come down quickly it’ll blow your ears out.’ Got on to the pilot, this, told him I was up there. So, anyway and then we got out over The Wash. I thought – panic. Only one engine. I thought, what’s happening? What’s happening? So when we got back I said, I said to the pilot, ‘How did you manage to fly on one engine?’ ‘Oh don’t worry.’ He said, ‘That Lancaster can fly on one engine.’ He said, ‘Guy Gibson’s done it.’ I thought, I said, ‘Thank God for that.’ I said. But he said, ‘I’d forgotten you was up there mate. It’s a good job the chappie saw. Saw your legs hanging down. Because,’ he said, ‘It put me in a spin because I could have damaged your ears if I’d come down too quick.’
DE: Where were you? In the mid-upper turret?
TW: In the mid-upper turret. Yeah. Lovely. Lovely sight from out there. And then when D-day started we was called out because previous to D-day – well about six months before we took all the front turrets out of the Lancasters because it gave them twenty five miles an hour more speed. So when D- day started we was all called out of the aerodrome to put these turrets back in again. Drizzling with rain. Just getting, it was just getting light. So I was out of the nose of the Lancaster guiding this turret in and the sky turned black. And all these aircraft come over with the white markings on and I shouted, ‘D-day’s started, D-day’s started.’ The most fantastic sight. So, we got, we got all the turrets put back in again. We had to – the time I was in the pilot’s cockpit. No scaffolding. Health and safety today would go up the wall because the only scaffolding they had was for the engine people. So you had to climb out over the and crawl along a little but to the turret to guide it in and check if you wanted. If anything had happened inside. Check nothing loose. It was moving slow. Check that there were no oil leaks. So you had to take the cover off and check the oil pipes and that and put it back on. They’d grab you by your collar and turn you around and you’d go back in head first.
DE: That sounds like a really interesting job that.
TW: It was. It was really good. I really enjoyed it. As I say had I been on a proper ‘drome when the war finished I would have stopped in. I did really enjoy it.
DE: What other sort of things did they have you doing then?
TW: Being a gunner armourer I should never have been on bombs. But I was put on to a bombing up crew. I mean I didn’t know anything about the fuses or anything but I was putting fuses in and then we got – when we got Mosquitoes they couldn’t get four target indicator bombs on. So I had to shorten the tails till we could get four target indicator bombs on. So we got that sorted out.
DE: What were target indicator bombs like then?
TW: They were, well I think they were about two hundred and fifty pounds and that and they had about a hundred candles in. So when it dropped all the candles came out and should have burned but they didn’t. But we’d be, we got pressed for – Professor Cox came down and we helped him to perfect this so that when they dropped if they snapped everything burned. So we used to go to Thetford Forest. Got it on to a Lancaster. Go to Thetford Forest. Wait for it to be dropped. Go and see. Our fourth attempt was a successful attempt so we achieved something.
DE: So did you have four different prototypes then? Is that how it, how it worked?
TW: Yeah. You did one and put it to one side. Then marked it number one. Then number two, number three, number four. And of course when number four dropped it cracked but with having the metal rods down the cap it didn’t – it didn’t snap the rods. So it all burned when it fell.
DE: I see.
TW: Yeah. So, so we was coming back from Thetford when the war finished, one time, we said, ‘What’s everybody cheering for?’ You know. We stopped and asked somebody. ‘Well the war’s over.’ So that was nice surprise for us coming back again.
DE: So what were the conditions like on the stations that you were working on?
TW: The worst one was Stradishall because it wasn’t a proper ablutions. It was more open than that. Very basic. But the rest of them were fantastic. Beautiful toilets and showers and everything. And the barracks were good as well. There was, you used to get each station I’d been on after that there were the parade ground and then there was four blocks at each corner of the parade ground. Four blocks of houses. For people, for the crews. The airmen to be in. So then you went off to your, on to the ‘drome and then you went on to your armoury and did your business.
DE: Right. So could you describe a typical working day then for me?
TW: We’d have breakfast and then start about 8 o’clock and you’d sort of check your turrets over and then go and have your dinner and then come back. And if there ops on you would, I would be bombing up which I shouldn’t have been and then you stood there for them to go off and if you was conscientious you were there for when they came back again. But that was the worst part. Waiting for them to come back again. ‘Cause you would think if yours was the last one in and it hadn’t arrived. You’d say, well there was another one to come in yet? Another one to come in yet? And he’d come limping in. Probably be shot up a bit and a bit of damage on the wings and that. Our aircrew were good. They never made any bones or anything if they were hurt or anything. Because one day we had the Americans come in. The fighters shot the ‘drome up right down the runway. Then the B17 came in. Got out, ‘Where’s the blood wagon? Where’s the blood wagon?’ Kissing the ground. Pathetic, absolutely pathetic. My brother, my brother was all for, all for the Americans. I said, ‘Well, you can have them. You can go over there and live with them.’ I said, ‘From what I’ve seen of them I think they’re pathetic.’ Then we used to go to the pictures in Huntingdon. We was coming out one day and Clark Gable, the film star, was walking in. Oh there’s Clark Gable there. With it being Americans there you see. Huntingdon was the nearest with a cinema so they used to come there.
DE: So what other things did you do when you had an evening off then?
TW: Well, when I had an evening off we, sometimes my mate and I would go right around the villages and then we got to this little village of Benwick. So we stopped and went in to the pub and got a drink and went outside at the back because they had a lovely bowling green at the back. And we sat and there was a couple sat next to us. So they asked, ‘Are you from the local ‘drome?’ So I said, ‘Yes.’ They said, ‘Would you like a game of bowls?’ So I said, ‘Oh I’ve never played bowls.’ My mate said, ‘Oh come.’ We won them [laughs] and so they said, ‘Are you sure you’ve never played before?’ So I said, ‘No.’ I said. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘You’ve managed to get the right bias on the bowls because you managed to get them through, you know.’ So, anyhow they invited us over to, for supper. And we used to go over regular and they had two boys and a girl. Now, the girl she’s what, she’ll be in her seventies now. We’re still in contact with one another. I made her a doll’s bed. She had two boys. Her boys had boys but she’s still got the bed. She said, ‘I might get a great granddaughter one day so I’ll pass it on to her.’ So we were regularly in contact with her because the family were fantastic to go to. You come home on leave, ‘Are you going on leave?’ He said. ‘I’ll come around night before and we’ll give you some eggs.’ Come home with some eggs. And sometimes you’d come home with a chicken. My mother didn’t know she were born. When I was going with a WAAF in the telephone exchange and they used to cook for themselves so if they got kidneys and I was coming home on leave they‘d give me the kidneys because they never ate them.
DE: Right.
TW: So mother would have my kidneys which was a luxury in them days. Couldn’t get them from the butcher and that. So she did well did my mother with eggs and that. But my brother was a rogue. I came, on the first leave I came home on leave he was home on leave. So, I gave my mother my ration card and the money. She said, ‘What’s this?’ I said, ‘Well, my ration money.’ So she said, ‘Well Maurice never give me it.’ Give it me back. And do you know what he said? ‘It’s something that’s just started.’
DE: Oh. I see.
TW: I said, ‘No. It’s been going on since you’ve been in the forces so don’t talk daft.’ But her blue eyed boy could do no wrong could my eldest brother.
DE: And what was – what was he? Did you say he was –?
TW: He was an engineer but he had a painting and decorating business before the war.
DE: Right.
TW: But he was stupid. Get a lad to. Employed a lad to work when he should be working himself. And of course when the war started his business flopped because he had a load of credit. So after the war my mother said, ‘If anybody asks where Maurice is you don’t know.’ He went into partnership with a chap and I used to work with a chap at the bottom of the road here and his partner used to come to me for a box of matches and look at me because before the war I didn’t wear glasses. After the war I were wearing glasses. He’d look at me and he’d go outside and he’d be pondering. And he came every week. I thought well I know who you are mate but I’m not going to make myself known to you [laughs] Oh dear. So those were the days.
DE: You, you mentioned a bit earlier on about an, about an explosion.
TW: Yeah. That must, must have been when they were bombing up. Because I was coming back off leave so it had to be an evening one. And I just got through the gate and there was this terrific explosion. And the chap said, ‘By. Something’s gone up there.’ You know. So the next day we had to go out on to the drome. Looking in the crater. See if we could find anything. And three Lancasters looked like they’d been made of corrugated iron. All, every bit of them but I don’t know, as far as I can remember I don’t think the tyres had gone down. In the crater you couldn’t find a thing. And the only funeral from there was a WAAF driver. And she was stood at one of the Lancasters with a crew wagon and she was the only one that was killed. She was buried in Bransby churchyard.
DE: I see. And what had happened? Did you ever find out?
TW: All I can think of – it was a barometric fuse. ‘Cause they were very delicate and if they got knocked they could have gone off. And we had a lad from London and I don’t know how he became an armourer because he was thick. And he wasn’t in the billet at night so two of us said, ‘I wonder if it’s him.’ Tried to tighten it up and hit it with a hammer. ‘Cause if he had have done it would have gone off, you know. Because it was the only explanation we could think of ‘cause it couldn’t have gone up otherwise. But never did find out really. There was nothing to piece together to sort things out.
DE: Right. How did that make you feel when you were loading up the bombs?
TW: It didn’t bother me. You don’t. You don’t feel fear. I mean when you’re sat on top of the Lancaster you don’t think about falling off. In them days you didn’t have any fear in you. You was, you was bravado, you know. Fearless. No. It was a good job. I enjoyed it.
DE: How many people worked in the team that were bombing up these aircraft?
TW: It would be about four. It would be one upstairs winding the winch. Two or three downstairs. Especially if it’s putting the four thousand pounder on. To guide it so that it didn’t swing. Otherwise three could have done it because one upstairs doing the and the other two just guiding the bomb up till it got in to, as far as it could get. Until it go into its – I forget what they call it now. It’s anchorage.
DE: Right.
TW: Yeah. But Mosquitoes were the worst ones to do. Mosquitoes were the worst ones to do because you had to get in the back and wind the winch. Nearly crippled you.
DE: This was, this was by hand.
TW: All by hand. Yeah.
DE: Right.
TW: Everything was done by hand. Even the winches in the, winching them up in to the Lancasters. All hand winches. We weren’t modernised technically in them days.
DE: So it was quite hard physical work as well.
TW: It was. Yeah. But it didn’t bother you. You just took it as part of your – what you had to do and you just, you didn’t think about it. It was a job to do and you did it and enjoyed it. I enjoyed it anyhow so.
DE: Did you have any particular friends on any of the stations?
TW: One friend. But we lost contact after the war but we used to go out when we had time off on night time. We used to go out and cycle around the villages and as I say, going to Benwick. This couple. But that was the only one I had. But, I mean, in the group, the armourers, we were all friends and that. But you see you all go your separate ways and your lives change when you go into Civvy Street.
DE: Sure. Yeah.
TW: So you’ve got to adapt.
DE: What about the WAAF? Did you have anything to do with, with them?
TW: Well we’re still, we got engaged. We were still engaged when the war finished. And she came down for a holiday and she said [pause] I’d arranged for take her to see Richard Tauber in Old Chelsea. At the theatre. So we went there and when we came back there used to be an old man sat outside the Station Hotel. And I used to always give him a coin when I passed through. He was a really nice fella. And when, getting off the bus I wanted a halfpenny change but she wouldn’t get off the bus until the conductor come downstairs and give me a halfpenny. Then when we got home she said, ‘What did you waste money for? Going to the theatre.’ I said, ‘Hang on a minute,’ I said, ‘I didn’t waste money.’ I said, ‘I treated you.’ I said, ‘I haven’t seen you for months,’ you know. I said, ‘Well what about you? I didn’t complain about you when you said you’d been here, there and everywhere.’ I said, ‘I’ve sat at home knitting a rug. I haven’t been wasting my time. But you’ve been gallivanting. You blamed me because you lost a pen because you had to write to me.’ I said, I’ve stood in – the girl’s on the phone, ‘Ringing you and you weren’t there.’ ‘I was.’ I said, ‘No you weren’t,’ I said. On Edmonton Green apparently there were four telephones and the girls on the exchange used to know me. ‘I’m sorry Mr Waller but there’s nobody there. We’re trying them all.’
DE: Oh dear.
TW: So I said I’m wasting my time. So it fell through. So we had a friend who’d been engaged and she’d packed in so she had, when you got engaged you could get dockets and units if you were going to get married. So we got our dockets and units so I managed to get a bedroom suite and two fireside chairs. I bought them. So it’s just before I went down to Edmonton. So I went down to Edmonton. She stood outside the gates of the factory, followed me home to my lodgings and then knocked on my door. And then they said, ‘There’s a lady at the door for you.’ I said, ‘There can’t be.’ She said, ‘Well she’s asking for you.’ ‘What the devil do you want?’ ‘I wondered if you’d like to take me to the pictures tonight.’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘Clear off.’ I said, ‘I’m not taking you anywhere.’ She sent a great big Pickford’s van down to my, our house to pick some stuff up. I mean the fool. She must have been a fool because I mean, she didn’t know what she was going to send for. And my mother didn’t know anything about it. When this chap got to the front door. ‘What do you mean you –?’ He said, ‘You mean to tell me I’ve come all this way for nothing.’ ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I don’t know what you’re supposed to be collecting like.’ Anyhow, I wrote to her and said, “Why did you send a Pickford’s van down to our house for?” I said, “You didn’t want a Pickford van. A little pickup would have been done.” So she wrote back, “What do you mean?” I said, “Well, don’t forget I paid for the bedroom suite. I paid for two fireside chairs. I paid for the tea set we had.” I said the rest of the stuff will just go in a cardboard box.” I said, ‘Just send for a little pickup.’ But you see her father was a police inspector and she thought it might frighten me a bit but it didn’t. So the Pickford van come. He said, ‘This is all I’ve got to pick up is it?’ She said, ‘Yeah.’ It was the same man that came before.
DE: Right.
TW: So he said my God. I thought I was coming to fetch a great big mansion box but a little portmanteau thing, you know. But she was [pause] I don’t think I’d have ever married her if it had gone on. She was a bit a one for herself. You know. Yeah.
DE: Sounds like it.
TW: And I was always wrong. And there was me. I had sore fingers from knitting. ‘Cause you couldn’t get canvas in them days so you used to wrap wool around a wooden ruler. Cut it. And then you got the right set. So you knit, put it in, knit a stitch and turn it around. Made some lovely rugs. I was very good at knitting. I knitted my first son’s christening shawl when he was born. Yeah. My sister was useless but I’ve got, I’ve got my mother’s genes because she was court dressmaker was my mother. But she would never help me because when I was growing up I wanted to be a dress designer. Oh no. No. No. No. I’ve dressed dolls as brides and they’re all over the world. I can make them ever week. People wanting them but my mother wouldn’t help me one little bit.
DE: Oh.
TW: And my sister couldn’t even, couldn’t even knit. It took her all her time to sew a button on. I could do the lot. In fact up until my children starting school I made all their clothes for them.
DE: Ok.
TW: Yeah. I was an industrious little lad. Used to have a nice decorating business. Go out at night decorating. And then when I retired I was with the prison service. They said, ‘Are you going down to London for a retirement course? They’ll explain all the things to do for getting a job and that.’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘No. No. I’m not going.’ I said, ‘I know what I’m doing.’ ‘What do you mean?’ they said. ‘Well I’m going to do my decorating.’ ‘Oh, you’re going on this course.’ I said, ‘I’m not going on a course.’ I went on the course and I made twenty seven quid. I said, ‘What?’ Because I went to the cashiers. They said, ‘How did you get the tools?’ So I said, ‘I went on the bus.’ They said, ‘No. You went by taxi.’ ‘I didn’t,’ I said, ‘I went on the bus.’ ‘No. Taxi. You got a taxi back as well. When you go to London where do you get a taxi to?’ I said, ‘I didn’t. I walked.’ ‘No you didn’t.’ I said, ‘I walked.’ He said, ‘What hotel did you stay at?’ I said, ‘I didn’t stay at a hotel.’ I said, ‘My brother lived at Hatfield so,’ I said, ‘I commuted each day from there.’ ‘Oh no. You stayed at a hotel. Now that looks a good one. You stayed there’ And I thought, afterwards I thought well that’s all over the country happening. It’s an eye opener sometimes. And that was in the prison service. No. I don’t know.
DE: Strange.
[pause]
DE: I’m just having a look at my notes.
[pause]
DE: Was the, did the different stations feel particularly different? I mean you say you worked with an SOE squadron and you worked for Pathfinders.
TW: No. They’re all types sort of thing, you know. There was no sort of difference in it. The only difference was Wyton. The bomb dump was at the other side the main road.
DE: Right.
TW: But the rest of them were all on the ‘dromes.
DE: I see.
TW: No. But they were all the same, there was no difference in them. Just because they were different squadrons. There were no, the routine was more or less the same all the way through.
DE: Ok. And the target indicator bombs that you were experimenting with in Thetford. Were these the sky markers? Or the –
TW: The sky markers. Yeah.
DE: Yeah.
TW: Some some used to drop them in the cloud. A break in the clouds. And others used to drop down on the ground. And they were in different colours so there was a Master Bomber up above directing so if Jerry lit a decoy they’d change the colour. ‘Don’t bomb on red. Bomb on green.’ ‘Don’t bomb on green. Bomb on yellow.’ I wouldn’t like the Master Bombers job. To be up there all the time when the raid was on. Circling around.
DE: Yeah.
TW: No. I enjoyed it though.
[pause]
DE: And you say you, you chose to be demobbed because –
TW: I chose demob because I was on a satellite ‘drome. I had nothing to do and you just got bored. There was nothing you could do about it so you were glad to get out of it in the end. But that’s to say if I’d been on a proper ‘drome I would have stopped in.
DE: Right. I see.
TW: But I wasn’t so –
DE: What was the demob process like?
TW: Dead easy. Mind you I’ve always had a query with it. My demob. Because the medical officer examined me. Went and fetched another doctor. And I wondered why. So I’ve now developed an irregular heart beat so whether that was coming on then I don’t know but I’ve had this sepsis into regular rhythm.
DE: Right.
TW: When I was ninety two. Put me in the cubicle. ‘My God. We’re sorry. We shouldn’t have done that to you at your age.’ The cut off point’s ninety. I said, ‘Well it’s too late now isn’t it?’ He said, ‘Well you won’t get it done again. It’s back to normal. Its back to its regular beat again.’ Yeah. So they can’t do anything about it.
DE: Did you have much to do with the RAF medical services?
TW: No. Never.
DE: No.
TW: I’ve never bothered anybody. British Legion or anybody. I’ve bought my own wheelchair. Bought my own mobility scooter. I’ve a step son won’t part with a thing. He had a leg off. We’ve a wheelchair in there. We’ve a zimmer outside. We’ve two stools. I said, ‘You want to send those back.’ ‘Oh I might need them.’ I said, ‘You won’t need them.’ He won’t part with a thing.
DE: I see.
TW: They’re stood there. Brand new.
DE: Some people are like that though aren’t they?
TW: Yeah.
DE: Yeah. You were showing me before we started the interview this research that you’ve been doing.
TW: Yeah.
DE: About the Halifax bomber crash. Could you tell me a little about that?
TW: Well it happened. We lived in Swanland. We came to Swanland in 1936. My parents left in March 1944. So I came back and knew nothing about it and then and a guy in the village wrote a book and there was a bit about it in there. And we were out one day with the church on an outing and yon side of Gilberdyke there was this model of where Halifaxes had crashed and there was two sort of intertwined. So I said, ‘Something should have been done about those two chaps who were killed in our village. Anyhow, a week or two went by and nothing happened so I thought I’ll take it on myself you see. So I thought he’s buried in Bury so he’s got to be a local lad. Got on to the paper and that. No. Couldn’t find anything about him. There was nothing about him at the cemetery and nothing about him at the War Graves Commission. No address or anything. So I got on to the records office and they rang me up and said, ‘He comes from Nottingham.’ I said, ‘Well, its seventy years since it happened. Can you tell me where?’ ‘Oh no. He came from Nottingham.’ So I wrote to tourist the board in Nottingham and they gave me the address of the radio station and the paper. The local paper were like the Daily Mail in Hull. They were useless. Two little pieces at the bottom. One, the modern Nottingham paper was in the Bygones letters in back of the paper. Two lines at the bottom. And the radio station at Nottingham were brilliant. They did a magnificent programme. But they rang me up to say would I go on the station but I was away on holiday and my son took the call. They said, ‘Well, tell your dad we’ll read out his letter out he sent us. We’d have liked to have him on it but we can’t change a programme now.’ So they wrote to me to tell me what they’d done and then [pause] I’ve got a blockage [pause] So, I got on to the tourist board and they said he’d come from Nottingham. So Radio Nottingham put a programme out and I heard nothing. Now, the other pilot, he came from Tottenham and he’s buried and I knew he was buried near his parents. Now, the War Graves just had the address of the church where he was buried so London University took it over from me but they couldn’t trace any relatives at all then. And then about four months after I started investigating I got a telephone call one night. ‘When are you having the service? I said, ‘What service?’ ‘For the airmen you found.’ I said, ‘I’m not because I haven’t found anybody.’ ‘He said, ‘I’m a nephew.’ He said, ‘We’ve just found out from Australia.’ I said, ‘Australia?’ He said, ‘Yeah. Eastern Australia.’ So how it got over there. Whether he’d been on the internet and that I don’t know. So he said can you arrange it. So I arranged a new service and about fifteen came down. They said, ‘Oh we owe everything to you. We thought he’d been killed over Germany.’ And they said, ‘But we’re grateful to you for what you’ve done. We’ll keep in contact.’ So Christmas come. I got a Christmas card. I’ve written letters. I’ve never heard a thing from them. Now, on the Monday night after it was on television a cousin who knew him – she rang me up. She said, ‘Oh I wish I’d known. I would have been there. Can I come over and see you?’ So she came over and we took her over to show where it crashed and the plaque in the church. And we took her to the cemetery to his grave. And then she said, ‘When was you born? And we found out we were born on the same day so it seems as though fate decreed that I should find him you know. His relatives. And we were keeping in regular contact with her. And we found out that he was with the 1160 Heavy Conversion Unit from Blyton near Gainsborough where he was killed. And so he was killed just up the road from where we live now.
DE: I see. And what, what was it that made you think it was important to tell this story?
TW: Well I think everybody who was in the air force should be recognised if it can be. And being out on this car ride and seeing that I thought well something ought to be done so that’s when I set about doing it. But I didn’t think I’d come against so many brick walls. But you do but you get through in the end you know. But the point I can never understand why his wife had him buried in Beverley. Why she told his family he’d been killed over Germany. There’s something funny there.
DE: Yeah.
TW: And you see all those there was about fifteen came. None of them knew him. There was his sister in law and his brother. Well not his brother because his brother had been killed. But his sister in law there and his nephews and that. But none of them knew him. Even his sister in law didn’t know him. But this cousin she’s brilliant. She keeps in, there’s a photograph in there of her and she always readily comes. What I want now when this gets seed I don’t know how they’re going to work it at the spire. In the plaques. But he’s Cumberworth and so whether they’ll put 1160 Conversion Unit in or not or whether it will just be a plaque with C’s on. Names of C’s.
DE: It’s alphabetical. Yes. I mean –
TW: Yeah. Cause I know a lady in the village she’s been down and she’s found her father’s name. And hers is J so I thought C must be up if J’s. J’s there.
DE: What’s there at the moment is 1 Group and 5 Group.
TW: Oh he must have been in one of them. She’s got – they gave me their memory card to put on the computer and there’s a picture of her pointing to her dad’s name.
DE: Yeah.
TW: Yeah.
DE: Yeah. So I think this gentleman will be on –
TW: Cumberworth.
DE: Cumberworth will be on the next lot of names that go up. Yeah. Yeah. Leslie Cumberworth.
TW: So if I can manage to get a photograph sometime I’ll get one.
DE: Yeah.
TW: I can get and get a photograph and send it to his cousin. She’d be really grateful.
DE: Yeah. I’m sure we can arrange that when the names are up.
TW: Yeah.
DE: Yeah. So you said earlier you’ve never joined any squadron associations or any, any groups.
TW: I’ve joined the RAF Association.
DE: Right.
TW: Yeah. But Hull’s useless. Right from the very start, useless. They said they were short of money. So I did a mini market for them and I raised five hundred pound. And the lady who did the catering she did everything. Paid all her expenses like I do. Pay all expenses so everything you get is profits. I handed that money over to a flight lieutenant in cash and I’ve got a letter of thanks for a receipt. Where did that money go? I’m sure they’d have sent me a receipt if they’d got the money –
DE: Yeah.
TW: But I didn’t realise it at the time. It was afterwards I thought about it you know. And then I went down and I said I’d organise a competition. They said, ‘Oh you can’t do it because you’re not on the committee.’ I said, ‘I’m not joining the committee because I know what would happen. I’d end up doing everything.’ I said I like to everything. So, I said so I was working at Everthorpe then so I got a thousand copies done. So I said if you give every member ten copies you get a pound from every member. That’s a tenner each. If I give you a prize for the winner. So I gave them a lovely Parker, Parker pen and pencil set. That got pinched. ‘Cause they said I said to them when I went down I said, ‘Well you’ve got a prize to go with it so,’ I said, ‘Parker pen and pencil set.’ But it wasn’t there upstairs in the office.
DE: Oh dear.
TW: So I said, ‘Well have you started yet?’ So they said, ‘No. No. They said, so I started, ‘Oh you can’t start it. You’re not on the committee.’ So I said, ‘Have you started that?’ So she said, ‘No, not yet but,’ she said, ‘We’ll buy a prize out of what we make.’ I said, ‘No. I’ll give you another prize.’ When I do a thing I stand the expenses myself. I always have done. So I saw her a fortnight after. Four pound. I said, ‘You what? Four pound?’ I said, ‘I’ve done it twice and I’ve made over fifty pound each time.’ Then in 19 what 60s 70s fifty pound was a lot of money in them days. So I stopped going then ‘cause my son has joined as associate members.
DE: Yeah.
TW: And my daughter in law. Well the third time I went my daughter in law won the jackpot. You should have heard them. ‘You’ve only been here three weeks.’ I said, I went to the bar, I said, ‘Is this the way they go on?’ He said, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘Well, I said we’re supposed to be an air force group,’ I said esprit de corps, where is it?’
DE: Yeah.
TW: I said we’ve joined and paid our money. So I went in one night and I sat in this chair and this woman tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Excuse me, she said, ‘That’s my chair.’ I said, ‘I beg your pardon?’ She said, ‘That’s my chair.’ So I got up. ‘Well it hasn’t got your name on it.’ So I said, ‘I’m not moving.’ And this was how good our club was. We had a trip to [pause] the memorial down in London. Castleford invited us back for supper. And they did a fantastic spread. Absolutely brilliant. So we invited them down to our club. I went down on the Wednesday night when it was due. There was only me and another fella in the club. The chap behind the bar, he said ‘We don’t usually see you here on a Wednesday night Tom.’ So I said, ‘Well, where is everybody?’ ‘Why?’ he said. ‘Castleford are coming tonight.’ ‘No they’re not.’ ‘Yes they are.’ With that the door opened. They all walked in. So I said, ‘I do apologise but I said, ‘You’ve picked the wrong club to come to because this is useless. This club.’
DE: Oh dear.
TW: I said, ‘I’ve just come in,’ I said, ‘And it’s obvious they’ve forgotten.’ So they had to dash out and buy pie, pea and chips. No. I wouldn’t join no committee. I used to run a coffee morning every Wings week. We raised quite a lot of money. Got some good, one prize we had was a Hornby Double O train set. Folks said, ‘We like your coffee mornings because you always have a good raffle.’ I said it’s the people that you know they can get something from me. Where you go to you know.
DE: Yes.
TW: Very generous. You know.
DE: So apart from that Association what do you think about the way Bomber Command’s been remembered over the last.
TW: Very poor. Very poor. I mean the spire when it was opened. Did BBC do anything about it?
DE: I think –
TW: No. Only local stations. But BBC, I mean there’s all the people around the country in bomber command. BBC should have been doing that as well. I think their biased.
DE: Why do you think that is?
TW: Well, why weren’t they there? I mean you don’t seem to get much about the RAF or anything like that on the BBC.
[pause]
TW: I’m an old man. I do things differently. If I get a letter I answer it straight away. Anything that I’ve done I do it straight away but today it’s so lackadaisical. I mean this cousin of the airman. I sent some things about the Association and some photographs. A month ago. I’ve never had, I rang her up and said I’m sending you this parcel. I’ve never had a telephone call, an email or anything to say she’s got it. I just can’t understand folks.
[pause]
DE: Hello. I’ll just pause it there a moment.
[recording paused]
DE: That’s fine I’ve just started it recording again. Sorry about the interruption. Is there anything else? Any other stories that you think you’d like to tell us?
TW: I don’t think so because we covered it pretty well cause my memory is not as good as it was and I get, I’m talking and I go blank.
DE: I think you’ve done very very well.
TW: Yeah. So but I think no I think we’ve covered it really well.
DE: Just one other thing I think you covered it in the phone conversation when we were arranging this. What do you think about the stories of people like yourself and ground personnel have to tell?
TW: Pardon?
DE: What do you think about the stories of ground personnel? How well do you think they’ve been remembered?
TW: They haven’t. Because somebody was saying if it wasn’t for ground crew the bombs wouldn’t have gone off. But we haven’t been remembered. You never hear anybody talk about us. We’re just a forgotten crew. But I’m not worried because I did my best so. They rewarded me with a mention in dispatches so I can’t complain.
DE: Oh. How. What was the story behind that?
TW: I’ve no idea.
DE: No.
TW: All I can think it was because we helped Professor Cox design his target indicator bomb and alter the tail fins for [pause] to get the bombs on to Mosquitoes. I can’t think of anything else that I’ve done that’s deserving of it. Because getting out on D-day I mean that was just part of the job I think.
DE: Yeah.
TW: So [pause] and my grandson has my medals and my certificate because he’s a keen, very keen on what his granddad’s done. So he said, ‘Can I have your medals granddad.’ So I said, ‘Yeah. You can have that as well.’
DE: That’s wonderful.
TW: Because I know you’ll look after them.
DE: Yeah.
TW: So this is I’ll be able to tell my son. Show his photograph of his granddad and what he’s done. And he’s got my war memoir so he’s got that so. So I’ve got something to show him when he grows up.
DE: Wonderful. Right. So I’ll press pause there and thank you very very much.
TW: Pleasure.
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 Thomas Waller
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-25
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AWallerT151027
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Dan Ellin
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.hh:mm:ss
Format
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00:56:09 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Thomas Waller volunteered for the Royal Air Force and hoped to be a driver. However, he undertook training as an armourer and was based initially at the Special Operations Executive 138 Squadron. He was posted to RAF Stradishall, RAF Wyton and RAF Warboys. He returned from leave on one occasion and had just arrived back on the station when a massive explosion occured. He helped to develop and test target indicators with Professor Cox. He recently undertook research into the details of a Halifax crash to make sure the airmen were remembered.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Suffolk
England--Cambridgeshire
Contributor
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Julie Williams
138 Squadron
156 Squadron
bombing
bombing up
crash
final resting place
ground crew
ground personnel
Halifax
Lancaster
memorial
military living conditions
Mosquito
Pathfinders
RAF Stradishall
RAF Upwood
RAF Warboys
RAF Wyton
sanitation
Special Operations Executive
target indicator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/310/3467/PNoyeR1501.2.jpg
2653db561dc3c7ee26ea68bcaca8b1ef
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/310/3467/ANoyeR151022.1.mp3
be6dc302b639364c57f551e47bc43bba
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
Noye, Rupert
Rupert Newstead Noye
Rupert N Noye
Rupert Noye
R N Noye
R Noye
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history with Rupert Newstead Noye DFC (1923 -2021, 1332761 Royal Air Force).
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
2015-10-22
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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Noye, R
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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RN: My name is Rupert Noye. I was born in February 1923. When the war started I was, er, sixteen and in 1940, when Churchill formed the LDV, I volunteered for that. We were renamed later Home Guard and it came in useful when I eventually went into the Air Force because we had learned a lot of rifle drill, marching, things like that. And in, after just a few days after my eighteenth birthday I volunteered for the Air Force as a wireless operator air gunner. I was accepted in April ‘41 but then put on deferred service and eventually called up in September ‘41 and, er, went to Blackpool on a s— a radio course, failed it miserably and re-mustered to air gunner. We were posted to Hendon then and at Hendon for about six months and then I was posted onto Scotland to take the gunnery course. After gunnery course we did OTU on Whitleys at Abingdon. When that course was finished we were posted to St [unclear] attached to Coastal Command, where we were doing sweeps over the Atlantic and the Bay of Biscay, and one day we did actually see a submarine and attacked it but we never knew of any definite result. After that we were posted on to Wellingtons, went to Harwell to convert from Whitleys, and we were then to posted 166 Squadron at Kirmington and our pilot disappeared one day and we had another pilot, an Australian, starting his second tour. He was very, very good and, er, we finished our first tour at Kirmington when they converted to Lancasters in September ‘43 and I was posted to Operational Training Unit as an instructor. I was recalled in April ’44 to 12 Squadron at Wickenby to replace a rear gunner who had been injured and they, the crew, had already volunteered to join the Pathfinder Force so I went along with them. We went to Upwood and started operating with Pathfinder Force. You had to do so many marker trips before you got your Pathfinder badge and, er, but due to an incident of — we, the crew was broken up. I stayed at Upwood as a spare gunner and during that time I flew with quite a few different pilots and eventually finished up, er, in about September ‘44 with, er, Tony Hiscock. He was what we called a blind marker. He bombed on radar or dropped the flares on radar and we did quite a few, well we did about nineteen trips together, and the last one was over Hamburg, a big daylight raid just before the end of the — 31st March actually, 1945. After that we were all made redundant, went to various stations and different jobs and I volunteered to stay in the Air Force for another three years and eventually was posted back to Upwood on 148 squadron, again on Lancasters, and I stayed there until I was demobbed in 1949. That’s about it. I was very lucky during my time in Bomber Command. I did three tours of ops and was only once was attacked by a fighter. That was on the 5th of January 1945. We were coming back from Hanover and I saw [bell rings] a fighter, a single engine fighter, approaching from starboard side. I told the skipper and he started to corkscrew but the aircraft did fire at us and we were damaged in the tailplane and the wing. The damage to the wing disabled my turret completely because of the hydraulics were damaged and the — but there was no real serious damage. We got back to base quite happily but we did lose about three hundred-odd gallons of petrol. Then in March ‘45 I was again rather lucky and I was awarded the DFC and Tony Hiscock, the pilot I flew with, he was awarded a bar to his and, er, he was a very good pilot and we got on very well together as a crew, which was one of the biggest things you needed, to be a happy crew. I think that’s about enough. When you flew with Bomber Command you were in a crew and the crew — you were trained as crew and you got, generally speaking, you got on very well together and at times, er, when me as a rear gunner would have given instructions to the pilot, having seen possibly an enemy aircraft, instruct the pilot to dive or corkscrew and he would do that without any hesitatation, although I must say we were — that I was lucky in my time that we didn’t have many times when that was necessary but the crew, the crewing up system was a bit haphazard. When you reported to OTU you were all at one time, a varying number of pilots, wireless operators, navigators, bomb aimers and gunners were put in a big hangar or big room and told to crew up, which seemed very haphazard, but the system seemed to work. Later on, if you went on heavies as a crew, you went to a Heavy, Heavy Conversion Unit and got a mid-upper gunner and a flight engineer and, er, I never had that because as I joined from a place of rest to a place as a rear gunner. I think that’s about it. We got up to about to, er, on our training and we went into these Defiants and the — firstly you couldn’t, not allowed to work the turret until the pilot says so, and so he said, ‘OK.’ So, I turned the turret round and you have to raise the guns first, turn round and looked at the tailplane and there’s this little tiny tailplane behind you and you think, ‘That’s all that’s holding us up.’ [slight laugh] But it wasn’t, we had wings built the right way round and a good engine [slight laugh] but it was funny really because I mean that was the first time the vast majority of us had ever flown when we were on training because, I mean, you didn’t fly much in those days unless you paid five bob ride with Jack Cobham when he came round to a local airfield and you could go and have a short trip for five bob or seven and six or something. Alan Cobham that was. He started off doing refuelling in mid-air didn’t he, er, down in Dorset? But funny ‘cause when we were at Blackpool we went to the Pleasure Gardens there had they had what they used to call in those days the scenic railway and got on this thing and then down in almost vertical swoops and up the other side. And I think that was designed to put you off flying. [laugh]
MJ: Did it?
RN: It didn’t. No, Not really. Not when you got on a bit on bigger aircraft with the rest of the crew, you were alight, you were quite happy because you couldn’t do much with a Whitley [slight laugh]. It was quite good fun.
MJ: People don’t realise it was good fun.
RN: Well, it was as you steadily, as you, after you crewed up and got steadily got to know a bit more about the rest of the crew because, er, that pilot we lost when we got on the squadron because I think he went LMF. And — but he was married and had a young daughter. He was a Welshman and later on the wireless operator went LMF. There must have been something wrong with us because the navigator and the bomb aimer and myself finished the tour eventually on, on Wellingtons. But we had a nice picture of the Queen, didn’t we, for our 60th wedding anniversary? And I must get a frame for that. Put it up. But it’s a nice picture.
MJ: That’s the point. It’s — that’s how it works. That’s how you remember things.
RN: On Pathfinders, um, they were all volunteers from various squadrons but we used to have talks on the squadrons from, er, Hamish Mahaddie who was one of Don Bennett’s leading men and he used to come round trying to talk people into joining PFF and, um, he must have been very successful because they were never short of volunteers.
MJ: Did — what sort of training did you have to do for that?
RN: Well, when we went to PFF you went to Warboys because Warboys was the Navigation Training Unit for Pathfinders and you went there and you did so much, about a week or ten days’ course there, training, mainly training for navigators and then you were sent to the squadron and did the ops and marking as the time came [background noises]. You didn’t mark straight away because you were, weren’t considered experienced enough or trained up to the, the standard that they wanted.
MJ: Did you have to go with another crew then?
RN: No, you had instructor pilots that went with you mainly but, of course, all the navigators’ logs were sort of checked by the navigation officers after you came back from every trip whether it was training or an actual operation. [background noises throughout sentence]
MJ: On behalf of the International Bomber Command I’d like to thank Rupert Noye DFC for his recording on the date of — I forget what it is now, 26th? 27th, ah —
RN: 31st is Saturday.
MJ: I’ve got — I’ll see this is on and stays on. 27th of October 2015. Once again, I thank you again and even though I got the date wrong. Thank you.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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ANoyeR151022
Title
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Interview with Rupert Noye
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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00:12:40 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Creator
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Mick Jeffery
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-22
Description
An account of the resource
Rupert Noye completed two tours of operations as a rear gunner with 166 and 156 Squadrons.
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 Air Force. Coastal Command
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
Contributor
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Christine Kavanagh
12 Squadron
148 Squadron
156 Squadron
166 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
civil defence
crewing up
Defiant
Distinguished Flying Cross
Home Guard
Lancaster
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
RAF Abingdon
RAF Harwell
RAF Hendon
RAF Kirmington
RAF Upwood
RAF Warboys
RAF Wickenby
submarine
training
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/569/8837/AForsythR160214.2.mp3
8c957767bac5297ef7b0921f68b6b9c2
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
Forsyth, Robert
R Forsyth
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Forsyth, R
Description
An account of the resource
Three Items. An oral history interview with Robert Forsyth (1921 - 2018, 201802 Royal Air Force) and two photographs. He flew 13 operations as a navigator with 156 Pathfinders before the end of the war, Subsequently he served on 35 Squadron and flew on the victory flypast in 1945.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Robert Forsyth and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-02-16
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
JF: It was just at the beginning of the war, the war started and I did this three-month course, and he said if I go down every Saturday morning to Drem airport, and he’ll fly [unclear] and they had down there a Tiger Moth so I went down there on a Saturday afternoon. Drem was just a grass strip field, it wasn’t a major airfield.
I: No. Were you in the Sea Cadets?
RF: I was in the ATC Sea Cadets and I spoke to the pilot and he said, ‘Sure, up you come’. I climbed into this Tiger Moth, it was a two-seater thing you know, a bi-plane.
I: Yes.
RF: And we went off and flew around North Berwick, and I wasn’t interested in flying, we just flew it along, we run onto some cumulous. I can remember going to Harrogate anyway. Then we set off to er ‒, it won’t be in my file because ‒, how did I come to 156 Squadron?
I: You must have gone via an OTU.
JF: Yes.
I: Operational Training Unit?
JF: Yes. OTU at Warboys, I think it was called.
I: Warboys.
JF: And we did Pathfinder navigational training there and then I was sent to 156 Squadron at Upwood, which was an operational squadron doing pathfinding with the squadron over Germany usually, and that was of course an exciting time.
Q: How many ops did you do with 156 Squadron?
JF: I only did about thirteen I think, if I remember right. I marked them in this thing, and then the war came to an end.
I: That would have been late ’44, early ’45?
JF: Yes.
I: So, you did thirteen ops with 156 and then the war finished?
JF: Yes, from various places in Germany.
I: But then you might have been involved in flying back prisoners of war and all this sort of thing?
JF: I had written down the places that were marked. These were the operations; Gelsenkirchen and Potsdam and places like that, which was a long flight Potsdam. Then the war finished, it came to an end, and oh, just before it ended, we were used to fly food to Holland.
I: Operation Manna, yeah.
JF: Manna, that was it, and we had a BBC man with us and I did a report to the BBC for this Manna thing, which was very interesting because it was ‒, the war was ‒, it was the day before the war finished and we were flying at very low level and dropping this food and the people were all out on their roofs waving.
I: Waving, what a wonderful thing that was for the Dutch.
JF: Yes, I remember we got a sweet ration, when you were for so long, I made it into a kind of parachute with my hanky and dropped it out the plane, hoping some boy would get it in Holland [unclear], how nice that was. How much they enjoyed getting it. They were starving of course, the people, so that was that. Then there was an interim when we was in no man’s land.
I: Op Exodus.
JF: Exodus, yeah, and we did that for a wee while and so did flights with the crew to show them what ‒
I: That’s right, ground crews went on these Cook’s Tours.
JF: Cook’s Tours, that was it, these are in this book. We went round, just short flights, to let them see the ‒.
I: Then there was the Goodwood, wasn’t there? There was the raid on Caen?
JF: What?
I: There was the Operation Goodwood. The raid on Caen. You went on that as well, didn’t you?
JF: Yes, we went to quite a few places and then the war was coming to an end and they decided to reduce squadrons to a hundred, ‘cause we were in 156 and this started a very exciting time for me. We were sent to 35 Squadron, the whole unit was sent to 35 Squadron, which is that photograph there, Wing Commander Craig I remember, and we were fiddled about for a while. They got us doing formation flying, which was very difficult with Lancasters.
I: Especially when you were used to flying at night, not formatting or anything.
JF: This was through the day and we went down each day over Harris’s offices and we had to be there at a certain time and had to be in formation, and other squadrons were doing that of course, and all this was to do with a fly past on VE Day in London. And it was rather nerve-racking for a navigator in a big squadron, and you will see photographs of that flight over London. As a result of that success, and apparently, we seemed to be the best at it ‒
I: Oh, that’s a big fly past, isn’t it?
JF: Flying over London. That was on the way to Buckingham Palace on VE Day, I would be about here you see? Rather nerve-racking for the navigator. Although we had to get there at the right time and so on.
I: Right, of course.
JF: So we did that and I’m sure it was as a result of that the RAF got an invitation from America, American Air Force, to celebrate their 39th anniversary of the formation of the American Air Force, which American Army Air Force, which later became the Air Force and that’s ‒, I have a big book there and that was an amazing experience because we ‒, and the whole squadron went and we went all round America, stopped at various ‒.
I: Goodwill tour and showing off the Lancasters.
JF: That’s right, we stopped for a week at various places, we laid the aircraft open for inspection and a great deal of hospitality, and taken round until we got to Los Angeles, where the final ceremony was, and they took us about there and of course, we’d stayed a week at each place which was very interesting.
I: For a young man, it was a tremendous opportunity.
JF: Yes, the hospitality was very good I must say, in fact, I wrote a bit about that and also to an American. I’m a member of the Forsyth clan and it’s quite strong in America, and ‒
I: So, you got involved in all of that.
JF: And amongst the one who writes in their newsletter asked if I’d write something about this tour of America.
I: Oh right.
JF: Along the lines of all the good hospitality we had, so I did that and you’ll find that in there too. That was our squadron. That was the formation flying.
I: So, there you were at the end of the war, when were you actually demobilized and sent back to civvy life?
JF: It was in November of, is that ’46?
I: ’46. November ’46.
JF: ‘Because I remember coming up in a plane to Glasgow and going in that night to the university to see the professor, to see if I could start on the architect’s course.
I: And they said, OK?
JF: Although you had to have so many attendances by Christmas,’ If you do it, well, we’ll take you on all right’, and so I saved a year on others.
I: Oh excellent.
JF: At night and evening classes. The very day I came home, I was in the university.
I: Excellent.
JF: And got started and finally qualified or course as an architect.
I: Right, and that was your career?
JF: That was my RAF career finished. Now after that came the ‒, a Scottish air show, and I went down there to see that and I joined their club.
I: Is that the one at Prestwick?
JF: Yeah, they took part at Prestwick and they had aircraft there, and I’ve got a photograph of one of them too. After that, I joined the official club.
I: Right.
JF: You see? And there.
I: So, you’ve kept up an active interest.
JF: The official RAF Memorial Club and I joined that. That was just my crew.
I: So that was you, so you kept the interest in aviation and developed your career as an architect?
JF: That’s right, I did that ‘til I retired and as an architect ‒, I put it in here, one of the things I was proud of, the school I attended in Glasgow, that happened to be a circular school, a secondary school, a very large secondary school.
I: Smithycroft Secondary School 1968.
JF: Yes, I was very proud of that.
I: It’s a lovely building, very aesthetically pleasing. Is it still extant today?
JF: No. They knocked it down.
I: They knocked it down? Vandals.
JF: No, no [slight laugh].
I: It was getting a bit aged.
JF: Yes.
I: Still, it was pretty avant garde for its time, wasn’t it?
JF: It was, yes, it was well thought of at that time.
I: Excellent. You got an architectural award for that I hope.
JF: I enjoyed doing that and I was in my own profession I became President of the Glasgow Institute of Architects. That was our crew.
I: Yeah, tell me about your crew. At the OTU, at Warboys, sorry where you crewed up, when my uncle crewed up at the 11 OTU at Kinloss, sorry 1902 at Kinloss, they put them all in a big hangar, wireless operators, you know, gunners, pilots, navigators, bomb aimers and they just found people they liked, and they liked the look of them and did well on their course and they formed a crew from there.
JF: Well, that wasn’t what happened at ‒.
I: You were actually posted to Pathfinders?
JF: Posted to 156 Squadron and there was always one or two planes failed to return, it was rather sad really and ‒, or they had a need to piece together crews, which they did, they introduced us to various people and would you like to join the crew of this chap? And I did this.
I: OK, so it was more that you were selected to join certain crews.
JF: We got on well together.
I: It was a similar thing but more concentrated in your case.
JF: And we formed a crew and we stayed as a crew.
I: And were you all an officer crew?
JF: No, the pilot was, of course, I wasn’t at that time, I was a flight sergeant. The engineer was a flight sergeant, actually.
I: And there’s an officer there.
JF: That’s him, and there’s the mid upper gunner and the wireless operator, they were flight sergeants.
I: And you had a dog. Was that the mascot?
JF: That was the pilot’s dog. It was just a dog he had.
I: And they had a lot of dogs, didn’t they? Following Guy Gibson’s example.
JF: [Slight laugh] Yes that’s right so we stayed together as a crew and we did very well, and then we had this dramatic change to go to America and that formed another crew. I had a different pilot then.
I: So, when you came back in November ’46, you were demobbed.
JF: Yes, but the thing about America was, we had to fly to America.
I: Yes, of course, via Gander and all over that route. It would have been the old ferry route, wouldn’t it? It would have been the old air bridge ferry? Prestwick, Gander.
JF: Being navigator, we had to stop at the Azores on the way because of the petrol, and I had to find the Azores, which is a very small island.
I: Gosh.
JF: In the middle of the Atlantic. The Azores has a very high mountain in the middle.
I: Volcanic mountain.
JF: Called Pico and my pilot was getting very nervous about finding this.
I: There’s a lot of distance done and there’s a lot of sea down there and we haven’t found the Azores yet, come on nav.
JF: [Slight laugh] that’s right, didn’t like the look of it, but we got there all right, then to Gander in Newfoundland.
I: Was there, in those days there was no real navigational aids of any sort, a beacon and dead reckoning I suppose
JF: Yes, and using the compass.
I: The sextant.
JF: The sextant.
I: The astrodome a lot.
JF: I’ve got that among these papers, I’ve got the log that I used, filled it in as I used it, you know.
I: That’s fascinating.
JF: If you want to take that away with you.
I: Well, I’ll have a look now.
JF: You know what it is now, I’ve told you.
I: Well, I think that more or less finishes this, so we’ll stop that now.
JF: Right.
I: And I’ll play it back just to make sure it’s taken.
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 Robert Forsyth
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Bruce Blanche
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-02-14
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AForsythR160214
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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
Format
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00:15:17 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Robert was in the Air Training Corps (Sea Cadets). From the Operational Training Unit at RAF Warboys where he did pathfinder navigational training, Robert joined 156 Squadron at RAF Upwood. They did around 13 pathfinding operations, usually over Germany, including Gelsenkirchen and Potsdam. Robert participated in Operation Manna, Operation Exodus, Cook’s Tours, and Operation Goodwill.
His whole unit was sent to 35 Squadron to do formation flying in the Lancasters in preparation for a fly-past on VE Day. They were subsequently invited to America.
Robert demobilised in November 1946.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1945-05-08
1946-11
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--London
Germany
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Potsdam
United States
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sally Coulter
Vivienne Tincombe
156 Squadron
35 Squadron
aircrew
animal
Cook’s tour
crewing up
Goodwill tour of the United States (1946)
Lancaster
navigator
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Pathfinders
RAF Upwood
RAF Warboys
Tiger Moth
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1086/11544/ARaceR160204.2.mp3
54299c4c9b145c587092bdeea028a995
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
Race, Raymond
Raymond Gordon Race
R G Race
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Raymond Race (288870 Royal Air Force).
He served as a corporal in a communication Squadron at RAF Hendon. His eldest brother Sergeant George Albert Race flew operations as an air gunner in 103 Squadron at RAF Elsham Wolds and 156 Squadron Pathfinders at RAF Warbouys; he was killed in action 30/31 January 1944. His other brother flew as a gunner with Coastal Command.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-02-04
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Race, R
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
IL: It’s the fourth of February 2016. I’m interviewing Mr. Raymond Race. We are mainly talking about his older brother who was in Bomber Command and we are doing this at his home in Sutton in Hull. So, if you, just tell us about your early life, Raymond, yours and your brother’s early life.
RR: Right, yes. Well, so first of all, I told you, we’re a Wakefield family, my, it’s really, it’s the story of the industrial revolution [unclear] to put it that way because my family originated in Helmsley, they were all agricultural workers and gradually over the years they moved down from Helmsley to North Yorkshire, to West Yorkshire, Buckley and into Wakefield and they all worked in the textile industry so my father who was a [unclear] man in a woollen mill I think it was, no, I know it was, three uncles, four aunts and my mother all worked in the same mill, so we all lived basically within a half mile radius of the village so that’s the background to the family all we have is my father, as I showed you, was actually in the RFA, which is the Royal Field Artillery and we’re a family of six children [unclear] who is the brother, the eldest brother who was with Bomber Command as I say it was the oldest brother, my next to oldest brother actually he is still alive, was an air gunner with Coastal Command and I ended up just after the war, and basically I think it was the first of January ’46 I was conscripted as it were and I was on ground staff with, after the initial training with the what was then known as the metropolitan communications squadron in Hendon, which was, as the name implied, it was just a communication squadron flying the Proctors and aircraft like that for the some of the headquarters staff it was used to fly about during the business. Now I was a corporal in the squadron office, so that’s basically the background of the family, apart from the fact that my youngest brother when he was called up, he was a traitor, he went into the RAMC [laughs]
IL: What made three brothers all join the RAF?
RR: Don’t know.
IL: There was no, you didn’t have any
RR: No, nobody, I don’t know why [unclear] joined, he was my oldest brother, he was a [unclear] actually and initially when he joined for the first, he joined in May 1940 and he, it was in 19 and he was on maintenance work at various establishments, ground maintenance work not aircraft maintenance and he remustered as a, to become an air gunner in, I think it was, oh yes, it was December 1942 and then from that point of course he went through the training the acceptance [unclear], what do they call it, the aircraft, the, I think they call it the, anyway it was the process by they were accepted to become flying officers as it were and then they were trained at, he was trained obviously as an air gunner and then they moved on to training with the squadrons and he ended up with 103 Squadron which was in Elsham Wolds in, I think that was July 1943 was that, so that’s [unclear] I think there was another one somewhere
IL: So that’s a picture of his crew from Elsham Wolds, so when, how
RR: That’s the [unclear] the crew there, yeah.
IL: Yeah. So, how old was he when he first joined up?
RR: He was born in 1921 and he joined up in May ’40, so
IL: So he’d be nineteen.
RR: He’d be nineteen. I think initially it would be, I think he’d had gone exempt from service because he was in a building trade for some reason but eventually he just said, I am going to join up and did so, that’s the crew [unclear] was that, that’s in fact is quite unusual because if you read the back 103 squadron Peenemunde.
IL: Right.
RR: Now that is one of the famous air raids of the war. Peenemunde, it was the German rocket research establishment on the Baltic coast and the RAF raided the place, it was delayed the production of rockets actually, was after that raid they moved the establishment, the research establishment somewhere in Austria after the raid which just delayed the production of V1s and V2s otherwise we [unclear] enough to win war in the end. On that raid there is one of the various books on it and the air gunner, one of the air gunners shot down, actually shot down a Messerschmitt.
IL: On your brother’s plane?
RR: On my brother’s plane, yes [laughs]
IL: Gosh! Gosh! And so, is this, did your brother talk about it, did your brother talk about anything?
RR: Never.
IL: Ok. So this is stuff you found out subsequently
RR: Yes, yes. From various books. There’s a bit written about the war and the aircrew and thing
IL: Did you ever meet any other people in his crew?
RR: Never. No. He was very reluctant to talk about it at all because by the time after many years he just disappeared no one didn’t, no one actually was gone. I in fact, if you go a little bit further from that point about that was August 1943 I think it was somewhere about October ’43 the crew as a whole were transferred to the Pathfinder group
IL: Right.
RR: And that’s was when they moved over to RAF Warboys in that group, in number 8 Group it was at Bomber Command and strangely enough when the attack was made on Peenemunde the squadron they moved to 156 Squadron was in fact one of the leading squadrons [laughs] and so, as I say, the moved, they did several, from what I can gather, they did several flights from there until the 30th of January 1944, when they were shot down coming back from a raid over Berlin.
IL: Right.
RR: So he is in fact buried in a village called Vollenhove which
IL: Is it presumably in Holland?
RR: Holland, yes. The aircraft landed in what was then part of a polder, which is where the Dutch,
IL: Yeah.
RR: Yeah. And although they were in the nearest village, which is the village, as I say, Vollenhove
IL: Right.
RR: But the new village, where they actually crashed became, of course became land after the war by the Dutch and they created a village and the village is there in fact created a memorial to the, I think there was another aircraft had crashed nearby and they called it Marknesse and that’s a memorial the Dutch village themselves, the villagers themselves created that memorial to those two aircraft so they payed for those two aircraft.
IL: So, this is presumably a Commonwealth war grave that he’s now buried now.
RR: It is in fact.
IL: Was he reburied or was that a?
RR: [unclear] Commonwealth war graves commission.
IL: So what effect did that have on you and your family?
RR: My mother was distraught of course, she, was her eldest son, and she was even more distraught when, where is he? That was him, when my cousin eldest brother Donald, when he joined up and he followed a similar pattern because he, when he joined the air force he was in the RAF regiment which was [unclear] airfield and then again he volunteered to become an air gunner but he went to Coastal Command as an air gunner and he flew Liberators, is an American aircraft, so, but he did all, most of his training in, I think it was the Bahamas actually [laughs]
IL: Nice if you can get it.
RR: Apart from the fact that he had to go by ship from here to Canada and travel from Canada down through [unclear] and America to the Bahamas by train [laughs]
IL: That would be, that would be the difficult bit, wouldn’t it? [unclear] on the ship.
RR: Oh, there he is.
IL: So was your other brother, was your other brother actually in the RAF when your eldest brother died?
RR: No.
IL: Right. But it didn’t put him off?
RR: No. He was just about becoming of that age to join up but I think it was just having a bit of impetus [unclear] to join up, not to deter him, now that’s him, I think [unclear]
IL: Yes.
RR: [unclear]
IL: So your elder brother, how many missions did he fly?
RR: As far as I know he, when he flew from Elsham Wolds when he joined that aircraft which is a W registration number it was, I think he did with that crew, with that particular squadron, I think flew, ten I think it was, and then they were transferred to Warboys and the Pathfinder group. From what I can gather, from the information I was able to get I think he did about eight with that before they were shot down.
IL: Right.
RR: Yeah. Strangely enough there is a record that the aircraft, that of course they didn’t take the aircraft with them, they just, as a crew, the aircraft was still flying of course from Elsham Wolds as far as I can gather that particular aircraft was shot down in December 1943.
IL: Gosh! Ok.
RR: I forgot the number. There is a specific number on that, they are all numbered of course these aircraft, [unclear] interesting, sad actually [unclear] when they were shot down on the night of the 31st of January, in fact two of the crew survived and parachuted down.
IL: Right.
RR: And they were not immediately captured actually I believe, they were taken by the Dutch underground but eventually they were captured after about, I think about two months, they were captured and put into a, I think it was Stalag Luft something they called,
IL: Yeah.
RR: A prison camp it was, yeah, and they, one of them was, [unclear] somewhere, I can’t remember his name, Coin, that was it, Pat Coin, he was the radio operator, he in fact went to live in Canada. And there was another one, I forget his name now, I put it somewhere, but anyway the other one was a navigator who was not part of the regular crew because someone had been ill and he survived and he lived in Blackpool that gentleman.
IL: Right. So did you or your family ever see and meet these people?
RR: No. I wrote, I was in correspondence with the, Coin, Pat Coin his name was quite a long time actually and in fact he send some of the information through from the bits and pieces [unclear] and
IL: So did he, was he able to say how they were shot down?
RR: No, but there is a, a narrative in one of the books about these particular raids. Now apparently they were damaged over Berlin and as they were coming back, they were shot down by a German fighter.
IL: Right.
RR: As I say, two of them actually managed to parachute out but the rest of the crew were killed. Actually there is some, oh no, that’s, no, no, that’s another one, that’s another one of the same crew, that is in fact the church where they’re buried, local church [laughs].
IL: Gosh!
RR: [unclear] Oh, that’s the, that’s what I was looking for. That is our crew, but that is the war grave for an aircraft apparently they were shot down in 1942 is that one which is not, I don’t know where they came from, but that’s ours [unclear] the five.
IL: So was he buried immediately?
RR: As far as I know, yes.
IL: Yes. And then obviously [unclear] yeah.
RR: And then, they came in later.
IL: Have you ever managed to visit?
RR: Yes.
IL: Good.
RR: My parents, I believe again it was a bit easy as this but I believe they were taken on an escorted visit just after the war to see the graves, when they Commonwealth graves actually on the transfer and my wife and I went to, oh, I forget now [laughs], must be twenty years ago now, we actually went to on one of the weekends from [unclear] with a ferry and we went by train up Rotterdam to a place called Zwolle it was and which was the nearest rail end and then by bus from there to look at the grave, yeah.
IL: I can imagine that was quite emotional.
RR: Yeah. My mother and my older sister in fact they went, they were able to go to the opening ceremony for that memorial that the Dutch village had created for them. Do you need anything else? [unclear] Those are up there actually.
IL: Oh, those are his medals. Oh, the family. Your brother’s and your father’s.
RR: That’s, all much yes, those my father’s, yeah, and that’s his Lapel badge, ubique is the name of that logo [unclear] these days which is [unclear], that’s the Bomber Command clasp [unclear].
IL: Yeah. Is that the one that was only released fairly recently, yes.
RR: A couple of years ago, yeah.
IL: Yeah. How did that make you feel, that it took so long?
RR: Very annoyed, I think lots of people were very annoyed about it, yes, all down to Churchill of course, I shouldn’t have said that [laughs]
IL: You can say what, honestly, you can say what you like, Raymond [laughs].
RR: Oh dear [laughs].
IL: Yes, it was a sort of expediency, wasn’t it?
RR: It was political.
IL: Absolutely.
RR: Very political [unclear]
IL: So how long were you in the RAF for?
RR: I was in for two years and three months.
IL: Right.
RR: Cause I, [clears throat] another one of these quirks, I was still there [unclear] the wartime regulations
IL: Right.
RR: First of January ’46. Because after that of course we had, now what do they call it? National service but that didn’t start until the first of January, I think it was the first of January ’47. So they did exactly two years after that but I was a bit longer because the old wartime regulations [unclear]
IL: Oh, careful!
RR: [unclear] Oh there, that’s where [unclear] I think, oh yes, I am, that’s initial training [laughs], that’s me.
IL: Right. So what was your actual role?
RR: My particular role?
IL: Yeah.
RR: I was in the squadron office.
IL: Right.
RR: The corporal in the squadron, I’m dealing with the [unclear] of the squadron.
IL: So what did you do as a later career?
RR: Well I just carried on for what I had done before, I was, started up, you probably know, you remember the public assistance? I can’t think that far back [laughs]. 1939.
IL: No, not quite, not quite.
RR: Well, you know, you’ve heard of [unclear], you’ve heard of workhouses and things like that?
IL: Yeah.
RR: Well, under the old public assistance system, because the local authorities dealt with care of the elderly, the decrepit, provided hospitals and all sorts of things but then of course when the, I think it was the Beveridge report was made
IL: Yes. Well, I don’t remember it but I was, I am aware of it [laughs]
RR: I worked through it you see [laughs]
IL: Yeah, of course.
RR: And then of course the things split up, there was the national health service and there was the welfare service and the national assistance service which put a lot of the services started providing the residential accommodation and things like that and the welfare of the elderly, the national assistance provided cash, help and you did all national health service [unclear] and after five reorganisations I finally retired in [laughs] the 60s, no, I worked in the initially with the [unclear] county council as a duly authorised officer, do you know what that is?
IL: No.
RR: Well, sorry. [laughs]
IL: It’s alright, it’s lovely to hear you explain.
RR: Yes, well, [unclear] act I think was in 1989, 1890 I think it was, and the mental health act of 1930, I think it was, to commit a person to a lunatic asylum as it used to be called, on a public basis there had to be two medical opinions, one a GP and one a specialist. But the person who actually did the admin part of getting them there was a duly authorised officer of the local authority, that was me.
IL: Alright.
RR: You could also, under the mental health act, the duly authorised officer on the advice of a GP could arrange for the admission on a temporary basis I think it was for three days to a mental institution so in that sense I was the visitor [unclear] as it were.
IL: Gosh!
RR: And then eventually I moved from the West Riding I was an assistant divisional officer there to become the deputy director of welfare services in Holme city.
IL: Right.
RR: And then after another four, was it four? Four reorganisations, I eventually retired as an assistant director for [unclear] county council [laughs]
IL: Gosh! So, is there anything else you would like to tell me about Bomber Command, Raymond? We will take some, if it’s ok with you, I will take some photographs of [unclear] the fresh you got.
RR: [unclear] oh, it’s Marknesse [unclear] those are still there, oh, that’s the, those are the war graves there and the memorial there, that in fact is the memorial window in Warboys parish church.
IL: Alright.
RR: To the squadron. We light the way, is the 15, 456 Squadron motto.
IL: It’s lovely.
RR: Yeah. But there’s all sort of bits and pieces. I mean, there are, of course, well, you probably know that, various records in, I think there is certainly one in role of honour in Ely cathedral because that must be, I think people around the Cambridge area who were killed. [unclear] The 103 Squadron, I think their motto was, let me get [unclear], the official badge of 103 squadron was black swan.
IL: Right.
RR: Now, let me see if I got the pronunciation right. Noli mi tangere. Which I understand is ancient French and it means touch me not [laughs]. I know if you’ve seen that.
IL: I don’t think I have.
RR: [unclear] Canadian [unclear]
IL: Gosh! [unclear]
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 Raymond Race
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ian Locker
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-02-04
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ARaceR160204
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:29:12 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Description
An account of the resource
Raymond Race was born in a family working in the textile industry and joined the RAF in 1943, serving on the metropolitan communications squadron. Tells about his family’s military service: his father joined the Royal Field Artillery; his eldest brother who served on 103 Squadron in Bomber Command, flew an operation on Peenemunde and got shot down over Holland; another brother served as an air gunner in Coastal Command. Describes his elder brother’s military service and his burial place and the memorial built in Holland on the crash site. Tells of his life after the war, working as a civil servant.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Peter Schulze
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Peenemünde
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1940
1942
1943
1944-01-30
103 Squadron
156 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
final resting place
killed in action
memorial
Pathfinders
RAF Elsham Wolds
RAF Warboys
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/626/8896/PPeckP1602.2.jpg
d40544ebbcd36688545e4ec0e7c8af5d
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/626/8896/APeckP160425.1.mp3
8dcbbceb100e502cbad50269ec443267
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
Peck, Peter John
P J Peck
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Peck, PJ
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Peter Peck (1924 - 2019, 1805919 Royal Air Force), documents and photograph album. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 156 and 12 Squadrons. The collection also contains documents about the court martial of Thomas Hamilton White in India. Peter Peck acted as Defending Officer.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Peter Peck and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-25
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
GR: This is Gary Rushbrooke with Flight Lieutenant Peter Peck. We’re at Peter’s home in Spalding on the 25th of April for the International Bomber Command Centre. Peter, if you can just tell me a little bit about yourself. Where you were born.
PP: I was born in Bow, London. So they tell me that makes me a Cockney although I don’t, at those times I don’t cry about that. They thought I was a country boy when I moved to Kent.
GR: Within the sound of Bow Bells.
PP: That’s right and at a guess London was [pause] well we were, yes we lived in the London area until 1934. I was born in 1924. So ten. At the age of ten my — I had a younger brother and my father was one of those many people that sort of emigrated from north of the River Thames to south.
GR: Yeah.
PP: Kent. Where —
GR: You went to Kent.
PP: Yes. Houses were being built by Ideal Homes and houses were available. Six hundred and ninety six pounds for a house although my father was only on five pound ten a week as a bank, a bank messenger.
GR: Bank messenger. I was just going to say what did your father do.
PP: Yes.
GR: He was a bank messenger.
PP: He was a bank messenger. But that of course enabled a household to tick-by it seemed.
GR: Yeah.
PP: And I saw what it means to be on the edge of money with my parents. But we moved and in 1934 we moved to Welling in Kent and that’s where recently the London marathon’s just been tearing up and down.
GR: That’s just been doing. Yeah.
PP: Yeah. Shooter’s Hill Road.
GR: Yeah.
PP: And then from — I was ten year old and I had — my brother was five years old and I lived in Kent from then until — well many years. But of course —
GR: Yeah.
PP: At ten year old then that was in ‘34 but in ‘39 the war.
GR: Yeah.
PP: And we lived in Kent.
GR: So you witnessed the Battle of Britain at its height.
PP: We saw. Yes. To me. As a young boy just see aircraft fighting over — well that would be, I presume, Spitfires and Hurricanes.
GR: Yeah.
PP: Fighters over — over Kent. And, and things coming down.
GR: Yeah. Well that part of the country, Kent was protected by 11 Group which obviously was Spitfires and Hurricanes and it saw the main, the main battles of the Battle of Britain.
PP: Well it must have been. I gathered that later when —
GR: It must have been fascinating as a young man watching that.
PP: Oh well. It was fun I suppose. In fact I can remember when I started work. Started work when I was fifteen. Went to work. My first long pair of trousers were my father’s bank messenger’s suit. I could get into the trousers but the jacket made me look as if I’d got a Zoot suit on. Do you remember them?
GR: I do. I do. Yeah.
PP: Zoot suits.
GR: What was your first job? What was you?
PP: I was an office boy.
GR: Yeah.
PP: In the Leyland and Birmingham Rubber Company. An office boy was where I would be with the — didn’t have a chair. The office boy didn’t have a chair. We sat in a little quarter of the office and we looked after the post.
GR: Yeah.
PP: Or an older man. Happy man with a crippled hand. He was the post master. Post clerk I suppose. I would just take the big red bag. Post office bag. Round —end of the day over my shoulder and in the hot summertime I remember my father’s bank messenger’s blue serge suit. It was jolly hot.
GR: Jolly hot. Yeah.
PP: But it was a suit.
GR: Yeah.
PP: And it was fun to dash out of course when the bits of shrapnel were coming out and you heard pinging on. We had, ‘get out the way,’ but it was, it was to me it was an experience.
GR: Did you collect any? Did you collect any shrapnel?
PP: Little pieces. Yeah. Jagged.
GR: Yeah. I’ve heard that.
PP: Yeah. Take a piece home.
GR: Yeah.
PP: Yeah. So that was that and then some sixteen and we were living in Kent and I wanted to be a pilot. I joined the ATC.
GR: Yeah.
PP: It was ATC. There was the very old number 74 ADC. I think, the Air Defence Cadet Corps at a unit at Crayford which was about five miles from where I lived in Welling. We went down there. Sixteen, seventeen volunteered to join. I wanted to join —
GR: Join the RAF.
PP: Join the RAF.
GR: And seventeen.
PP: Yes.
GR: Was when you could volunteer. Yeah.
PP: But then you had to queue up. After a while went, I went to the recruiting centre. At Hither Green that was. And the stories that those that had been the week before drew up were quite horrific. They said you’d got this bit of mercury. You’ve got to hold your breath and hold it up otherwise you’ll fail and you blew into a tube and there was mercury to keep the pressure up.
GR: Yeah.
PP: And it was to see whether your lungs were any good. Oh it was scary. You didn’t want it to happen. You didn’t want to fail.
GR: No. Of course you didn’t. No.
PP: Fortunately passed and had then it was just waiting time.
GR: Yeah.
PP: Until what was that? Thirty. And then after that it was just similar for everybody of course but we went to Lord’s Cricket Ground which was a big thing to me.
GR: Yeah.
PP: We recruits recruited at Lord’s Cricket Ground in to the RAF.
GR: So you volunteered at seventeen.
PP: And I was still seventeen. 1943 I suppose in the end. So I still wasn’t.
GR: Yeah.
PP: No wait a minute. No. 1943.
GR: Yes. You’d have been called up.
PP: Called up.
GR: Having a quick look in the logbook. Yes. You would have got called up towards the end of 1943.
PP: ’43. So that would have been —
GR: Yeah.
PP: I would have been in my — coming up to my nineteenth year. Eighteen.
GR: Yes. Yeah.
PR: Eighteen.
GR: And did you say to them, ‘I want to be a pilot.’?
PP: Well. That’s what we wanted to do but of course.
GR: Yeah.
PP: Before that you had that. The corporal. We had a corporal who was in charge. He was, we held him in awe really. He showed you how to polish your boots. Blacken the toes of your boots so that they shone like anything with a back handle of a knife.
GR: Yeah.
PP: The bone handle of a knife. And always wanted to please. I always. I think I had two left feet when it come to marching and it came natural for some people.
GR: Yeah.
PP: But it’s a matter of wanting to achieve and —
GR: And this was your initial training.
PP: Yes.
GR: Doing sort of six weeks of marching and —
PP: And then of course we went down to, we went to the West Country. Newquay. Did our training just from when we were kitted out at Lord’s Cricket ground eventually.
GR: Yeah.
PP: We went to different places. We went to Newquay.
GR: Yeah.
PP: And then I did do — just do your best.
GR: Yeah. Where did they send you to do your main training?
PP: After that we went to Canada.
GR: Oh yeah. Right.
PP: Yes, and we went off to Canada. I was just reading it in my book. Went to Canada in November ’43 I think.
GR: ’43. Yeah.
PP: ’43.
GR: How did you feel about being sent to Canada for your training?
PP: Well it was so exciting. It is exciting.
GR: Exciting. Yeah. Yeah.
PP: Because at that time you know it was eerie because we left wherever it was. I’m not so sure if it wasn’t Manchester or somewhere we left and travelled up to Glasgow. And it was black out because the war was, the war was on wasn’t it in then? In ‘43. And this train, there were no lights on the trains and we boarded this ship. It was, it was the HMS. My friend looked it up. Andes.
GR: Yeah.
PP: It was a luxury liner.
GR: Yes.
PP: And so we travelled to Canada but the great event for me. All of us actually. We were in bunks. No. It was hammocks. On there.
GR: Yeah.
PP: All gathered together. But there was, there was a boy amongst us, a boy, a man amongst us — he was a great pianist. And they had — because it had been a luxury liner there was still a grand piano in one of the places and we all gathered or — and he played to me the Warsaw Concerto. I may have seen the film.
GR: Yeah.
PP: I don’t know if you’ve seen the film.
GR: I have.
PP: With Anton Walbrook
GR: Yeah.
PP: And Sally Gray I think. And it shows the blitz of Warsaw.
GR: Yeah.
PP: And he plays that —
GR: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah.
PP: As I say, I’m no great musical lover but it just did something for all those people leaving —
GR: Yes. Yeah.
PP: Leaving home and the music.
GR: Leaving home. Probably all of you for the first time. Never been abroad before
PP: Music just — just did something.
GR: Yeah.
PP: And later on I asked my son if he could get the film. He got it on Ebay years later.
GR: Very good.
PP: Anton Walbrook. And I played it. So that was then. And then we went to Canada. And then such luxury of course. Even on the boat we had a bit better food. When we got to, we went to, across to Halifax. That’s Northern Canada.
GR: Yeah. Nova Scotia.
PP: Over to Newfoundland I think.
GR: Yeah.
PP: And then we had this delight of four or five days on the Trans, on the railway.
GR: Yeah.
PP: All across Canada. Beautiful white sheets to sleep in and how do I say this? That there were lovely people that looked after us were very happy American.
GR: People.
PP: People.
GR: Yeah. Plenty of food.
PP: Plenty of food.
GR: Yeah.
PP: White bread.
GR: White bread. And of course no rationing.
PP: No.
GR: So you were —
PP: In Canada we went right across to Saskatchewan and Moose Jaw. That’s right. And —
GR: Yeah.
PP: Moose Jaw and Mossbank I was stationed at.
GR: That’s right. I’m just looking through your logbook.
PP: I don’t — It wouldn’t show it there.
GR: Yeah. It does. Yeah. It says January, February.
PP: That would have been ’44 I should think.
GR: March ‘44. Completion of gunnery school training at Mossbank.
PP: That’s it. Mossbank. Oh I’m right.
GR: Saskatchewan. Yeah. 25th of Feb 1944 and then —
PP: That would have been the gunnery.
GR: Yeah. You did some air gunnery duties on Blenheims.
PP: Blenheims.
GR: Yeah. And that was at Mossbank as well.
PP: I remember writing, “Gosh what old aircraft.” To me. A Blenheim then.
GR: Then on to Ansons for air bombing course.
PP: That was for, yes, air bombing and gunnery. Firing at the drogues and I did the bombing in Canada too.
GR: Yes.
PP: That’s where. I remember seeing somewhere in the book. Five thousand I think. Is it? At the back? Is there a —
GR: Yeah.
PP: Piece of paper somewhere? I saw something on here. What does this mean? This is, this says height doesn’t it?
GR: We’re just looking so bombing characterisation chart showing height, distance and this was while you was at.
PP: Twenty thousand.
GR: Yeah.
PP: And then was it fifteen thousand feet I was —?
GR: Yeah. It was showing your accuracy from certain bombing heights.
PP: Yeah. I got a qualification — a B category was it?
GR: Yeah.
PP: That’s better than C I suppose but not as good as A.
GR: Yeah. Bombing record.
PP: And then when we —
GR: We’ve got to the end of April 1944 where I think you finished your training in Canada.
PP: That’s right. And just looking in my memories book there I wrote that there were twenty two of us on the course and we had the exams and well it seemed to go quite well and I said that the twenty two of — and seven of us and I was one of them fortunately — we went from LAC to sergeant to pilot officer.
GR: From sergeant to pilot officer.
PP: From — well.
GR: Yeah.
PP: That would be — the LAC, some became sergeants.
GR: Yeah.
PP: And others got commissioned.
GR: Right.
PP: I suppose they needed.
GR: Yeah.
PP: A percentage of officers amongst them dare I say it.
GR: Among the workers. Yeah.
PP: For a, for a Cockney boy I thought — mum thought I’d done pretty well.
GR: Good. So how did you get back to England?
PP: Ah. We came back to England. That was on another —
GR: Cruise liner.
PP: Another vessel.
GR: Yeah.
PP: And, yeah. That’s written down.
GR: How did you find England when you got back? So you’d been away five months.
PP: Yeah. But I think. I’m sure I saw it but my own life seemed to have changed so —
GR: Yeah.
PP: So much. And I remember when we got back it was getting chits and sent to Harrogate to get kitted out and being measured up as if I was not a Cockney but a Saville Row man.
GR: A Saville Row.
PP: That was. And then of course to come home to, you know, to be, to come home and then that was only briefly of course to come home.
GR: Yeah.
PP: That’s right. It was only briefly to come home but then we were.
GR: Operational Training Unit.
PP: Yes. That was. We was — I was — still individuals. I was classified as a air bomber and then we must, we must have got together and crewed up somewhere.
GR: Yeah. I think, again, just checking with the logbook it was RAF.
PP: Staverton.
GR: Staverton. Where you had various pilots.
PP: Yes. That’s right.
GR: And you was doing an air bombing course. And July, August and then really picking up from October. Well the main of November you went to what they called 12 Operational Training Unit.
PP: I see.
GR: And I think that is where you will have crewed up.
PP: Yeah.
GR: Can you remember anything about that?
PP: No.
GR: No.
PP: I just can’t remember. I think I was —
GR: Because you all —
PP: I don’t know.
GR: The way training went they put you in a room and you all talked to each other and sort of said I’ll be —
PP: I’ve always had really a thing about — I was pleased to have got commissioned but I wondered whether I’d have been any happier if I’d still been one of the boys.
GR: Still been one of the boys.
PP: Can I still say that? Please. That doesn’t.
GR: Of course you can. Yeah.
PP: Because all the other, all the crew were great, great friends.
GR: Yeah.
PP: And we messed in different.
GR: Yeah.
PP: I found it a bit of a —
GR: You moved up to the officer’s mess as opposed to the sergeant’s mess.
PP: Yeah.
GR: And I know plenty of people who have turned down promotion because they wanted to stay. Yeah.
PP: Well yeah. You didn’t, you didn’t know what it would amount to when you, when you finished your course.
GR: Yeah.
PP: You were classified one or the other.
GR: And your pilot was —
PP: Flight Sergeant Williams.
GR: Yeah.
PP: A great man. A lovely chap from Wales.
GR: Welsh. There we are.
PP: And there was two gunners. And a navigator who was an older person but a Jack the lad. For me being a young, oh a young nineteen year old.
GR: Yeah.
PP: Lad, you know. You were you had to move amongst the great big world with it’s —
GR: The worldly wise men of the world.
PP: Which wasn’t easy. In fact I was in, I think I was in, when we went to when we went on Operational Manna.
GR: Yeah.
PP: That was in there and I realise now that I was in, I was in, that was Operation Manna was in May ‘45.
GR: That’s right. Yes.
PP: And yet the 8th of May was —
GR: VE day.
PP: VE day and VE day and night I was in Lincoln. A hostel. A hostel.
GR: Right.
PP: Not a hostel. A pub as were so many other and it was a big
GR: Yeah.
PP: A big night and I don’t —
GR: I mean. Yeah. Just backtracking again I noticed you went to Heavy Conversion Unit where you —
PP: We went down to Hereford. Hereford somewhere.
GR: Yes 1651 Heavy Conversion Unit which is to get you used to the four engine bombers.
PP: Yeah.
GR: And then posted to 12 Squadron.
PP: 12 Squadron. That says I wasn’t, I was there only from the 9th of April it says here. Was it?
GR: Yes. You arrived at 12 Squadron 9th of April. You did a couple of cross country training flights. You went on a diversionary operation to Pemberg.
PP: What was that?
GR: Yeah. Again just checking with the logbook.
PP: Oh.
GR: Me and Peter are looking at the logbook and on the 20th of April —
PP: Yeah.
GR: It was a spam operation.
PP: What’s spam?
GR: A diversionary.
PP: Oh I see.
GR: Like a diversionary operation. So you was in the air for just over three hours. And then you started doing the food supplies to the Dutch so — and even though you was a bomb aimer you weren’t dropping bombs.
PP: No. No.
GR: You know, so —
PP: No. No. Had to — well to me the — because we had to agree. They’d called this, the Germans said there would be a truce.
GR: Yeah.
PP: If we kept down to, came down to five hundred feet. And because I’ve seen the photographs since of pictures of the the German guns on the ground but all I can recall when we came over were the guns, the guns that were looking at us from big buildings.
GR: Yeah.
PP: And well it was they were real and we were real.
GR: That’s right.
PP: But everybody were well behaved you see.
GR: The Germans had said they would not open fire.
PP: They said —
GR: Yeah.
PP: Not fire. And of course they did. A Flying Fortress got shot down.
GR: Yeah.
PP: In the process.
GR: Yeah. Yeah.
PP: So there were —
GR: ‘Cause that was the American Operation Chowhound. So the Americans were doing it at the same time.
PP: Yeah. They was.
GR: As Bomber Command.
PP: But to see the Dutch people, you know, running with prams trying to catch something.
GR: Yeah.
PP: It was just an unbelievable sight.
GR: Yeah.
PP: I don’t know as I felt like a great benefactor or something like that but it just seemed —
GR: Well it is the way that the Dutch people have always thought of Bomber Command and you speak to anybody from Holland and they were so grateful because I think the build up to it was that when the allies stalled in the Autumn of ’44 there was the Arnhem bridgehead which never happened so unfortunately Holland was really cut off.
PP: It was isolated.
GR: And it was quite a bad winter in 1944. And for literally you were getting on for eight months. They were literally being starved.
PP: And even the Germans were getting short of supplies I read.
GR: Yeah. So when you first flew over.
PP: That would have been the 7th of May.
GR: 1st of May. 1st of May. 1st, 3rd, and 5th of May — you did three operations. Noordwijk and two to Rotterdam.
PP: Yeah.
GR: So that was a very — yeah.
PP: Just to see them ‘cause it was quite, it was quite low for our, my pilot. I think. You know. He had a heavy load and it was, it was just a great big — it wasn’t a dead, dead weight type to the aircraft.
GR: Yeah.
PP: It gave. They were just loaded on to the bomb bays weren’t they? It was just a five thousand pounds.
GR: Five thousand pounds of food and supplies. Yeah. Yeah.
PP: In different sacks.
GR: Yeah.
PP: And they would come down at a —
GR: And then you celebrated as you just told me VE day in Lincoln. In a pub.
PP: Yeah. So where was I?
GR: Well the next day.
PP: I mean I can’t figure out where. I can’t figure out where I would have been. It must have been somewhere in Lincoln.
GR: Yes. Yeah.
PP: Because I thought I was at Staverton. Was there a place at Staverton?
GR: There was.
PP: Or Waddington. Because at —
GR: I’m trying to remember where 12 Squadron was flying from at the time.
PP: It can’t be far.
GR: Yeah.
PP: Because we got in to Lincoln city.
GR: Yes. Yeah.
PP: And the times when, I must have been stationed in Lincoln quite a bit because when we got a day off, time off, even in my officer’s uniform trying to get a lift on a builder’s lorry going down the A1 to London to get home.
GR: Well you celebrated VE day on the 8th of May and then the following day at half past four in the afternoon you were picking prisoners of wars, prisoners of war up from Brussels.
PP: Brussels. Yeah.
GR: In Operation Exodus.
PP: That was it. The truce.
GR: Yeah.
PP: The truce had been signed.
GR: Yeah. Yeah.
PP: And we just —
GR: No hangover from the night before.
PP: I don’t know. I don’t. Actually, in all fairness I don’t. As a young, I was a young lad I suppose but not, not as hard bitten as —
GR: Yeah. Well it wouldn’t be so bad the bomb aimer having a hangover because in theory —
PP: The pilot.
GR: You know as long as the pilot was —
PP: He was very well behaved.
GR: Yeah. As long as the pilot was well behaved.
PP: It was quite a big ordeal I think —
GR: Yeah.
PP: For the pilots.
GR: Yeah.
PP: There because you was as I say your trust in somebody wasn’t going to —
GR: Yeah.
PP: Upset you and five hundred feet not a lot of room.
GR: For manoeuvre.
PP: For manoeuvre.
GR: No.
PP: They were wonderful.
GR: Yeah.
PP: The pilots were.
GR: And then you did a couple, like I say, a couple of bringing prisoners of war back and then some more training and then some time in late May you were transferred from 12 Squadron to 156 Squadron at RAF Wyton.
PP: Yes. That’s in Cambridgeshire isn’t it?
GR: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
PP: And I enquired the other day. It’s now housing centres. There’s no RAF unit.
GR: No.
PP: There at all now.
GR: No. No. There is. At RAF Wyton.
PP: Yeah.
GR: It is still a current RAF base.
PP: Is it?
GR: Yes.
PP: Oh.
GR: And 156 Squadron during the war was a Pathfinder squadron and the actual Pathfinder Museum is still there at RAF Wyton.
PP: It’s still at —
GR: Yes.
PP: I understood.
GR: Yeah. So they’re still there.
PP: That was quite a switch. We must have moved down from Lincoln. Not a great distance but —
GR: No. But can you remember was that probably getting ready to go out to India for —?
PP: It was a winding up because we were surplus to requirements.
GR: Yeah.
PP: And people with demob numbers which were much more beneficial than yours had to come home didn’t they?
GR: Yeah. They —
PP: So they, for me that was the fun part wasn’t it? All through the Suez Canal looking at olden times. Just like bible times alongside the canals.
GR: Yeah.
PP: And all the way to India through the gateway of India.
GR: And before you went out to India I can see you did a Cook’s Tour and I don’t know whether you took some ground crew with you but you flew over Antwerp, Duisburg, Essen, Dortmund, Osnabruck and Munster.
PP: Oh I didn’t know that.
GR: Yeah. You were, you were with Flight Sergeant Williams.
PP: Yeah.
GR: Yeah. Have a quick look at the Ruhr.
PP: Wonderful.
GR: Yeah.
PP: Yes. It must have been.
GR: Yeah. And obviously you made your way out to India.
PP: That’s right ‘cause —
GR: Yeah.
PP: Spoiled really having a —
GR: Yeah. Was India on board a ship? Or —
PP: Went through the Suez Canal.
GR: Yeah.
PP: By boat. And got to India. Was in first came to Bombay. Bombay. Gateway was India. Through there. And went to different places. First I went up to the headquarters in Delhi. New Delhi. Just had a bit of an office job. Oh it’s so silly isn’t it? Really. When you think.
GR: Yeah.
PP: Such a switch. Had an office, a desk.
GR: Yeah.
PP: And a pile of papers and a lovely —
GR: From Lancasters over Europe to sitting behind a desk in India.
PP: With a punkahwallah with a —
GR: Fanning you.
PP: It was tied to his toe. He dropped back on his foot keeping you.
GR: Oh gawd yeah.
PP: And then ‘cause that was in the flowing month wasn’t it? In August of [60 70 D-Day 48 48 wasn’t it? ‘48. ‘48 was VJ day.] August.
GR: Yeah.
PP: I was in Delhi then. And then I was sent to Calcutta. Dream of a job. I was put in charge of the RAF Cinema Unit for all the aerodromes in India.
GR: Yeah.
PP: And flight lieutenant dealing with 20th Century Fox and MGM films. Screening the films.
GR: Wonderful.
PP: And to my, dare I mention it, to my [laughs] I was able to film or distribute a very well known film by some people. Jane Russell in, “The Outlaw.” It’s well worth looking up.
GR: Oh right.
PP: Because it was a wonderful encouraging [laughs] film. It was a saucy film but a great cowboy film.
GR: Right.
PP: Very well known for people that day. And — but of course thinking back and then.
GR: When did demob come up?
PP: Demob. That was in ‘48. Early ’48.
GR: Yeah.
PP: ’48.
GR: Back to England on a boat again or —?
PP: I don’t —
GR: Yeah,
PP: You’ve got me beat.
GR: Well there was no flying hours. So I assume you got back.
PP: No. Yeah. Got back to England and that was the come down really although I thought on the basis of my in charge of cinemas in India I was given — got big entries by the film people there.
GR: Yeah.
PP: That came back. J Arthur Rank was in charge of big cinemas in India then.
GR: Yeah.
PP: In England.
GR: In England. Yeah. What did you end up doing?
PP: Well after I ended up assistant manager at The Regal, Gravesend. [laughs] Oh dear. What a come down. And that wasn’t hard. I came home and I didn’t find it easy.
GR: No.
PP: I didn’t. But then we settled. Settled in and life went on.
GR: Was you —
PP: Highlights.
GR: Was you, was you married by then?
PP: Yes. I [pause] yes I married home in ’48.
GR: Yeah.
PP: Was it ‘48? I was married in ‘48. A beautiful, a beautiful lady. A lovely wife.
GR: And so how many years did you spend as assistant cinema manager? Or did that not last long?
PP: Yes. Well, not, not too long.
GR: No.
PP: Because had difficulty in re-establishing my, I was — due to my circumstances I was one of the very early single parents —
GR: Right.
PP: In 1953.
GR: Ok right. Yeah. Yeah.
PP: But now I’m —
GR: So things moved on because I know you told me before this conversation started you ended up with a bible bookshop.
PP: Yes.
GR: Which I believe you are very proud of.
PP: More than that.
GR: And were very successful.
PP: Greatest event. A great upturn in my life. Converted to the Lord Jesus came into my heart and changed my life at that time.
GR: Yeah.
PP: Although I was still a single mum — single one.
GR: Yeah.
PP: And my son is now sixty and he has a lovely new mum. Has had for fifty odd years. And so out of the Billy Graham conversion changes come. You look back. Became very interested in Christian literature and the power of the printed page.
GR: Yeah.
PP: To change your life. Many of us take to the printed page for one thing or another.
GR: Yes. Yes. Yeah.
PP: A conversion experience in our life and [pause] but now we are — had a bible bookshop as I say if I repeated myself. I might have repeated myself.
GR: It doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. No.
PP: We had a bible bookshop and for twenty odd years became a very popular —
GR: Yeah.
PP: And successful because it’s the printed page going into people’s hands.
GR: Yeah. Which is great. And then —
PP: Thank you for this opportunity.
GR: And then graceful retirement up in Spalding.
PP: Well being ninety one and rejuvenated by the input from Bomber Command and people like yourself and —
GR: Well, that is very good of you to say and obviously —
PP: Well it has been. The effect. The recent visit to Coningsby.
GR: Yes.
PP: And the ability to —
GR: And the interest shown.
PP: You realise there’s something special.
GR: Yes.
PP: About the RAF.
GR: Yeah. The RAF and what you gentlemen did at the time. So —
PP: It’s the different people I met there.
GR: Yeah.
PP: You’re all one. People that, we came together and we were just great friends.
GR: Yes.
PP: I was amazed.
GR: Peter’s referring to a —
PP: Visit to —
GR: A visit and a get together at RAF Coningsby approximately three to four weeks ago.
PP: Yeah.
GR: Where there was ten Bomber Command veterans and we all got the chance to go in a Lancaster again.
PP: Oh. Tried to get in.
GR: Did you get in? You got in.
PP: Yeah. I did get in.
GR: Good. Good. Good.
PP: I still can’t quite believe that there was a time I got right up to the front. They must have been a time. It is a fantastic.
GR: Yeah.
PP: I’d like to try again when there’s more.
GR: That can be arranged. I shall now finish this and say, thank you Peter.
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 Peter John Peck
Creator
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Annie Moody
Gary Rushbrook
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-04-25
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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APeckP160425
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
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.
Format
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00:35:22 audio recording
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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Canada
Nova Scotia
Saskatchewan
Great Britain
England--Gloucestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Lincoln
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
India
Temporal Coverage
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1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1945-05-08
Description
An account of the resource
Peter joined the 74 Air Defence Cadet Corps at a unit at Crayford. He then volunteered to join the Royal Air Force. After a recruiting centre at Hither Green, he attended Lord’s Cricket Ground and was called up towards the end of 1943. He went to Newquay and then sailed to Nova Scotia in Canada. He completed air gunnery school training on Blenheims in Mossbank, Saskatchewan, followed by an air bombing course on Ansons. He was then commissioned.
Peter did an air bombing course at RAF Staverton and went to 12 Operational Training Unit. From 1651 Heavy Conversion Unit, he was posted to 12 Squadron near Lincoln, where he recalls spending VE Day. Peter was involved in Operation Manna, Operation Exodus and a Cook’s Tour over the Ruhr. He was transferred to 156 Squadron at RAF Wyton and spent some time in different Indian cities, ultimately in charge of the RAF cinema unit there. Peter was demobilised in early 1948.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sally Coulter
12 OTU
12 Squadron
156 Squadron
1651 HCU
aircrew
bomb aimer
Cook’s tour
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Staverton
RAF Wyton
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1187/11760/PWatsonJ1501.2.jpg
5e82adc2824b4bab6c98c732b381cc02
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1187/11760/AWatsonJR180202.1.mp3
f81235f23e0bc02c8249edb6f60394e4
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
Watson, John Robert
J R Watson
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. An oral history interview with warrant Officer John 'Jack' Watson DFM (b. 1923 Royal Air Force) his log book and photographs. He flew three turs of operations as a flight engineer with 12 and 156 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Watson and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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
2015-08-25
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
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Watson, JR
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: Right. My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 2nd of February 2018 and we’re in Eastbourne talking with John Watson, Jack Watson DFM about his times in the RAF and before and after. So, Jack what are your earliest recollections of life?
JW: It’s quite a strange one really. I had to go to Great Ormond Street when I was about three years old to have my tonsils out. And my father was in bus work all his life. He, he was in the First World War driving an ambulance. The [pause] I forget the name of the unit now but I’ve got a picture of him somewhere with his, standing by his ambulance. And he was at this time driving for a company called Fairways. They used to drive down to Worthing from London daily. And he came to collect me and my mum in his coach and I can remember the cab was just half the, the bonnet was just outside. He sat me on the bonnet, put his arm around me and drove off [laughs] And in the back of the coach was a little pedal car he’d bought for me. And the other recollection, I can remember that quite plainly the other recollection we were living in Acton although I was born in Putney at my grandmother’s house. All the family were born there except my dad but I can remember the R101. I was out in the street in Brouncker Road in Acton.
CB: The airship.
JW: And watched the R101 go over. And I can still marvel at the size of it because it wasn’t all that high and of course it went on to crash in France didn’t it?
CB: It did. Yeah.
JW: And, but then my father was the manager, manager of a coach company running coaches from High Wycombe to Oxford Circus to High Wycombe and Guildford. And when Mandelson’s grandfather Morrison decided he would nationalise because London was full of one man buses he’d nationalise it all. In those days it was a bit cut throat but they did. They put a coach to Guildford in front of my father’s coach. One behind it. And of course customer loyalty only goes so far. They see a coach comes along. And of course they ran him off the road. But they gave my father a job as a chief inspector at Dorking. We moved down there for two years. And after that we went to, he moved, took him to a bigger garage at Guildford which is where he stayed through the war. And then while we was, it was I’d just left school and I heard about the Air Defence of Great Britain Corps which was the forerunner of the ATC and they were at Brooklands Aerodrome. And I told my father that I wanted to join it and there was, I think that he could see the fact that the war was coming on. I think the war had just started actually. Yeah. And he’d seen what went on in the war, he didn’t want his son — we had arguments galore. Eventually he relented and I used to cycle over to Brooklands, about a twelve mile run on a Sunday morning and joined the ATC , the Air Defence of Great Britain Corps. And it was very much, me a working class boy in amongst, there were a lot of well-educated young men there and I must admit I felt a little bit out of place. But anyhow I stuck it out. But then of course they formed the ATC and I was able to transfer to Guildford. And I wanted to join the Air Force badly. I wanted to fly. I mean I’ve, as I said, I wanted to do my bit and save the world but that’s a lot of nonsense. I [laughs] I wanted to fly. And I, again because I was serving an apprenticeship my father, ‘No. You’re not going to join the Air Force. You’re not going to.’ I kept nagging nagging nagging. In the finish he said, ‘If Mr Biddle,’ who was the one of three brothers who owned the printing company where I was apprenticed, ‘If he says you can break your apprenticeship I’ll agree.’ ‘Fine.’ So immediately I went and saw Mr Biddle. I said, ‘Look, my father has given me permission to break my apprenticeship but I need your authority as well.’ Well, of course I forgot that dad being in charge of transport when his buses were late he used to phone around to the different companies so that the men didn’t lose money and they’d known each for some time. Of course it came that neither of them would give me permission [laughs] So the following Saturday at the top of Guildford High Street was an RAF Recruiting Office. I walked in there and joined up and then went back and said to dad, ‘I’ve joined the Air Force.’ I think if they’d have realised it they could have but I don’t think they, I presented them with a fait accompli. Anyhow, I then got about a week later to go to Abingdon for an interview. And I walked into this office and there was a whole range of high ranking Air Force officers sitting around and in front of them was a huge table with a map on it. They asked me very, and funnily enough they said, ‘Why do you want to? Why do you want to join in the Air Force?’ I said, ‘Well, firstly I want to fly and the other thing is I want to get my own back because in Guildford although it wasn’t badly bombed there was one night a bomber went over. A German bomber and just, I think there was a searchlight at Stag Hill by the Cathedral. He got caught in that and he just dropped his bombs. They came down and one of them hit the house next door. In a terrace. One fell opposite. And I was sleeping in that room downstairs but it was the curtains had been pulled across. It was rather like a bit of a bay and the curtains were back a bit but the bomb going off of course blew all the glass and shattered it and shredded the curtains which saved me. So anyhow I, they started asking questions and then one of them said, ‘Can you find Turkey on that map?’ Well, you know it’s a big place Turkey, isn’t it? And there’s a piece of Turkey below the Dardanelles. That’s the only bit I could find. I suppose it was nerves really. And anyhow, he said, ‘Any more?’ I said, ‘No.’ Anyhow, they said, ‘We think you’ll be better off as ground crew.’ So I went out and I thought, right. Ground crew. Wireless operator. I can transfer straight to air crew. So I went in and I sat in front of this corporal and he asked me some questions. He said, ‘Do you know the Morse Code?’ I said, ‘Oh yeah.’ But the rotten so and so bent down and picked up a Morse Code key and said, ‘Right. Take this down.’ [laughs] And of course the only thing I knew about Morse Code was how to spell it. So he said, ‘I think we’ll put you in as a flight mechanic.’ So which is what I went in to and I was called up in September or August. August of ’42. Went to Blackpool. Oh, Penarth first and although you considered yourself fit they gave us your kit you never had the strength to lift it. You dragged it back to your billet, got changed, put your kit into a little suitcase with your name and address on. Sent it off home. And then we started doing the square bashing in Blackpool. Well, the first morning we all lined up and we started a run to go to from Blackpool north to Bispham. Five mile run. I met them half way back. And I thought this is ridiculous. So the next morning as we used to start off there were some steps up to some public toilets. So the next morning I’d got a penny in my hand. And they all ran and I ran up because I’d sussed this out. You stood on the lavatory seat and looked through the little window and you could see them coming back. As they came back I came down joined then on the back and then I was fit enough to do all the exercises that they were going through. And this, I got away with this morning after morning and, but I just could not see the point. I’ve never been a runner or a sportsman of any kind and I certainly wasn’t at that stage. But the little Irishman sergeant we had in charge of our squad had got his stripe, his third stripe on the strength of the way he’d turned out his previous squad. So he had something to prove and he was a bit of a martinet. But when it was raining, I don’t know whether you know Blackpool.
CB: Yeah.
JW: But there’s the three promenades. He used to take us on to one of them and he’d lecture us on women. Quite an interesting character. But he didn’t ask us to do anything he wouldn’t do himself. When we went on the, so it was Stanley Park in Blackpool on the assault courses we were all in PT kit. He was in full uniform and he went with us and he ran the whole way there and back. I forget his name now but he was a real character. We went from there. When we left there we were put on a train. We had to go to Manchester and change. We weren’t allowed to take the kit bag and all the back pack off and we were, but when we changed there we then got on another train which took us to Wendover because we were going to Halton. And when they marched us from Wendover up to the camp with a kit bag on the back it was nothing. We were that, it really got us fit. And while we were there the, there was a chap there he’d been a drummer in a band and he said, ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’ve found a set of drums,’ he said ‘We can form a drum corps to march the people down to the workshops and back.’ So he said, ‘You’re excused other duties,’ like Home Guard type duties. So that was it. It was going to be a get out of that. We wouldn’t have to go out at night. So we joined up and we had a practice room in one of the cook houses. And of course you gave a load of seventeen eighteen year olds a set of drums it, it was half an hour before he could make himself heard [laughs] And anyhow, he did. He did make us into a reasonable drum, we used to play these drum tunes. March them down to the workshops. March them back at lunchtime. Of course the advantage was you were at the lead so you were the first one in the cookhouse for your meal. And we used to go to Battle of Britain weeks where they used to go around the towns with an RAF, an RAF band. We weren’t allowed to play with the band. He used to the drumming with the band but we used to do, when they had a break we’d do our bit for the raising money for Spitfires. And while I was on the course for the fitter, for the air training mechanics course suddenly a notice went up on the board they were looking for flight engineers because obviously they were trying to take people off the squadron. They didn’t want to take too many because they were depleting their ground staff but equally the ground crews were watching what was coming back and thought well I don’t want any of that. So they were, except they would lower the standards like they did it didn’t affect me in that way and I applied. Went to Euston. And the night before we went to Euston a crowd of us went out and we went to see Lou Preager at the Hammersmith Palais and we got knocking back beers and stuff. The next morning we go for a young, there was a young flight lieutenant and I stripped off, I got on the scales he said, ‘Get back on them scales.’ I was only nine stone. Then we come to the dreaded holding the mercury up and after, after the night before I was [pause] and suddenly I was halfway through. I suddenly, and he looked around whether by accident or not I don’t know so I was able to take another breath and hold it up again and ‘Alright,’ he said, ‘You’ve passed.’ And I had to go back on the fitter’s course and passed all that before going down to St Athan for the flight engineer’s course and passed that with, with I think about seventy five percent. It was quite a, I was quite pleased with that result. And then we went up to Lindholme. Oh the first thing was the, when we finished our course for a week they sent us up to Ringway. Ringway. Where they were building the Lancs. To show us what was going on. And it was incredible. They took us all to Pointon. We all got off these coaches and we were met by all these girls. We all paired off and I met a fair headed one. I’ll never forget her name. Yvonne. She taught me more in that week about the facts of life and I thought well this is better than sliced bread [laughs] And so yeah the obvious happened. And I should have kept in touch. Her father was a manager of a printing company in Manchester. But I don’t know whether it was we didn’t think it was a proposition for somebody going into aircrew to get involved in a serious relationship. But anyhow we left there and we were sent back to St Athan. Then we, from there a couple of days later we went up to Lindholme and got all our flying kit and everything and then because I was going down to Faldingworth which was south there was only me and another chap going south. The rest, all the other people. So we had to go to Faldingworth with all the kit and then make our way from there back which was a nightmare. But anyhow we had a week’s leave and got back to Faldingworth and all shoved in a big hangar because my crew had been a Wellington crew. They hadn’t been on ops at all but of course they needed a mid-upper gunner and a flight engineer. I walked in and I was just wandering aimlessly about. I hadn’t got a clue what I was looking for and this wireless operator come up and he said to me, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘We’re looking for a flight engineer,’ He said, ‘What’s your name?’ I said ‘John.’ ‘Right, Jack.’ And I became Jack. All the Air Force life and all my working life. And it’s only the family that call me John. And anyhow I was introduced to the crew. And it was, it was quite a strange thing really because we all took to each other straight away. The pilot was, he was a month, he was only nineteen anyway. I mean, we was all only nineteen. He was a month younger than me. And the first thing, we got to Faldingworth was two days later he said to me, ‘We’re going up on fighter affil, on familiarisation tomorrow. Only me and you.’ So we picked up the screened pilot and walked out to the aircraft [pause] and I looked and I said, ‘I’m trained on Lancasters. This is a Halifax.’ I said, ‘Not only don’t I know anything about this it’s the first time I’ve seen one.’ I said, ‘Where’s the screened, the screened engineer?’ ‘Oh, we haven’t got one. You’ll be alright. You’ll be ok. Just the three of us.’ Well, we took off and we were flying at about four thousand feet and he said, he called me up, ‘Engineer, I want you to change the fuel tanks,’ he said, ‘Listen carefully.’ I said, ‘Well, first of all where are they? The controls.’ ‘Under one of the rest beds in the fuselage.’ Because the Lancaster and the Halifax are two totally different aircraft. So he said, ‘Under the rest bed,’ he said, ‘There’s two levers each side,’ he said, ‘Now, listen carefully. Turn off the lever on number one on the port side. Turn off the number one on the starboard side. Turn on the number two on the port side. Turn on the number two on the starboard side.’ Well, something didn’t sound right there. But anyhow I thought well I’d better follow what he says. I don’t know how the system works. So I turned off the number one. By the time I’d got across to the other side the aircraft did a nose dive. I carried on and set the tanks and then it picked it up. Well, of course he told me he should have turned off number one turned on number two. He told me the wrong way. He apologised very profusely. I said, I said, ‘Apology would have been a bit late wouldn’t it if we’d been two thousand feet lower?’ And he couldn’t, he couldn’t have been more contrite. And as I say I cut the fuel but it soon picked up. Anyhow, from then on I never ever had a screened engineer go with me. I was always on, but when we landed I went to stores and got the manual for the Halifax. And I spent the whole, I never even go for any meal. I spent all that afternoon, all night going through that manual. The next morning when we went out to the Halifax again I knew what I wanted to know about it. But it was a stupid thing he did. And I should have had a screened engineer with me. Especially being a, a —
CB: A complete rookie.
JW: Complete. Yeah. I mean to, I can’t imagine what I was thinking to even agree to go. Because in the flight of the Lancaster you sit alongside the pilot. In a Halifax you sit with your back to the pilot. So the whole thing was completely different. But anyhow we got away with it. My guardian angel was sitting on my shoulder. But we, we went from there to, we got a posting to 12 Squadron at Wickenby. And it’s only about five miles so it was a crew bus to go, and as we drove in two Lancs were on the side of the perimeter track. One screwed into the back of the other. As they were taxiing around apparently one stopped, one didn’t. But luckily nobody got hurt from it. And then they took us to our billet. And I can see it now. Walked in the billet and it was as the crew had left. The beds were unmade. Sheets just drawn. And I looked over to the bed that I’d picked and it was the pilot’s name. Sergeant Twitching. And years later a chap, you’ve heard of Currie, the pilot who wrote one of the books, he phoned me up because I’d phoned him up about something else previous and he said, ‘Jack,’ he said, ‘I’ve been asked to write something about strange happenings to people who were flying.’ And I told him how I’d joined and I said to him, I said the, I never forgot the name of that man, Sergeant Twitching. He said, ‘What an unfortunate name for a bomber boy.’ And when I went years after the war, I’m digressing a bit I went to Lincoln Cathedral and saw the volume and I asked them if they could open that book at this man’s name. I said I felt as though I needed to make some sort of tribute to him. And they were all killed. I think it was either Leipzig or Stuttgart. One of those. And anyhow we started off. Went on our first op and when we were, you were convinced that going from what the instructor’s told you that you were never going to make your first op. And it was at Brunswick on the 17th of January ’44. And we took off and as we took off nothing happened. We got our, we were going past I think Hanover and I looked down and the whole of the cloud, it was all cloud but it was all lit up with the searchlights shining through and I called up and I said, ‘Bill there’s a Lanc down on the right hand, on the starboard side there,’ I said, ‘He’s about three thousand feet below us.’ ‘Oh, that’s good,’ He said, ‘They’ll be watching him and they won’t see us.’ And I thought, cor what a man. What a pilot. You know, we’re alright here. We went to Brunswick. Got back without any problems at all. And we did, it was the next thing was on the second trip was to Berlin. An eight and a half hour trip. We called up at Wickenby on the way back when we was coming for to permission to land and they said yeah ok. We were in the circuit and there was low cloud. As we broke cloud, it’s unbelievable to think they talk about near misses, Another Lanc alongside of us on our port side broke cloud at the same time with about six feet between the wing tips. And our pilot, we went that way, he went that way. So, you know. Anyhow, we carried on and landed. And Bill called out, and he said, oh. ‘Clear of runway.’ And there was a few minutes silence and then a voice said, ‘Where the bloody hell are you?’ And we had landed at Ludford Magna.
CB: Oh right.
JW: Which was an adjoining. In that sort of taking that evasive action thinking we were joining the circuit again we weren’t. Anyhow, they kept us for about four hours then before the let us fly back to, to Wickenby. And the next thing was that we did a trip to Stuttgart. And we had the most fantastic mid-upper gunner and he didn’t have a brain he had a computer. We were going in to, on the bombing run and he suddenly said , ‘Dive port, Go.’ Bill just went. And as we did I watched tracer go over the top of the aircraft. And we got, we got the, it dipped, it broke away and didn’t make another attack. We got back ok and our wireless operator said, ‘We owe our lives to Appy and Bill.’ And we, because we were so close a crew we didn’t have engineer and pilot it was Bill and Appy and Ollie. I was Watty. That’s how. But it worked for us because we all knew each other’s, as soon as we spoke we knew who it was talking. And we got back and the next thing we had was a raid, we were walking down to briefing and I was on my own and there was a spattering of [pause] this was in February, there was a spattering of snow on the ground. I was walking down to the briefing room on my own funnily enough. I don’t know why but I just, going through some trees and I suddenly stopped in my tracks. And it was the most strange feeling. I knew that if we didn’t leave Wickenby we wouldn’t survive. It was the most strange feeling. We went in and again the target was Stuttgart. And we got there and back without any problems. But two mornings later we were called into the flight commanders office and he’d got us all around standing in a row in front of him. I can see him now. He said, ‘You’ve got two options,’ he said, ‘You’re going to either volunteer for the Pathfinder force or we’ll send you.’ [laughs] Now, having experienced that strange feeling two nights previously that was the answer for me. The two navigators weren’t, the bomb aimer and the navigator weren’t all that keen but they decided to go along with it and we didn’t fly any more ops from there. We were sent down to Warboys for the Pathfinder Training Unit. And it was going to be straight, the bomb aimer was going to become the second navigator. The flight engineer was going to be the bomb aimer and also I had to learn some navigation. So we did all these necessary courses. About nine days I think we were there. Nine, ten days something like that. And we went in to see the navigation officer and he said to me, ‘Ask me some questions.’ I had to learn to take an astro shot with a sextant. I did that. And he said to me, ‘What’s the difference between a planet and a star?’ As, yeah a planet and a star. And I thought I don’t know. All I could think, going through my mind was, “Twinkle twinkle little star,” and I thought what an idiot. And I said to him, and I thought this is going to get [pause] I said, ‘A star twinkles.’ He said, ‘That’s correct. A planet is a steady light.’ And I thought it was [laughs] and I didn’t let him know that it was the nursery rhyme that got me out of trouble but it did. Anyhow, when was, we’d done all the courses we had to do the practice bombing with the triangle and the fuel and and you had to get to within about a yard of that. We did. But of course at two thousand feet having got it and hit it we then, this is, we was doing a bit of low level flying we came across a field and there was a load of sheep. Well they nearly beat us. As the aircraft suddenly came, all these sheep suddenly [unclear] from shock. But one of the instructions when, when they said after we’d finished when I was sitting chatting to one of them and he said what squadron are you going to?’ I said, ‘156.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘The rebel squadron.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘They’ll fly ‘til the cows come home but,’ he said, ‘Lectures or anything like that they can never get them in to them.’ He said, ‘As soon as there’s a stand down they’re off. And it was like that. It was like that. It was. They were all really, years later a friend of mine, I was sitting chatting to him he was, he was the same as the rear gunner. He flew with about ten different crews. One of the bravest men I knew as a rear gunner and I said to him, ‘How did you manage to do all that with all those different — ?’ He said, ‘All the crews on 156 were good.’ And they were. And the number of them who got killed because they didn’t finish when they could have done. Just went on like we did. You know. And but anyhow [pause] he said, ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘They can’t seem to do anything [unclear],’ he said, ‘But they’ll fly night and day,’ he said, ‘All week.’ But anyhow at that point they, because they’d transferred 156 from Warboys to Upwood, and Upwood which was to be a, in to a Warboys and we got to Warboys just as they changed. But we did quite a few. We never did any more Berlin trips. The first one we did from Upwood was to Essen and the next one, our thirteenth trip and it was, it was only a little sometime later that I realised this, we were flying in M-Mother. Thirteenth. That was the alphabet. Our thirteenth trip. It was Nuremberg [pause] and we noticed we were giving off contrails so we decided to lose height until we found a height where it wasn’t affecting us. But a lot of crews just carried on. I mean it’s not surprising that so many of them got caught. Some probably didn’t have a chance to, there was another crew of course Tony Hiscock was the skipper and he was, he was talking to me. He said. ‘Yeah, we had those contrails. We just, when the rear gunner told me we was leaving them,’ he said, ‘We just changed height until we realised we were stopping.’ But we never saw anything on that trip other than other than other aircraft going down which our gunners were reporting to us. But it was — oh, hello love. This is my daughter Suzanne.
CB: We’ll stop there for a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: Getting out of them.
JW: Yeah. And we, we had some [pause] a couple of trips where we were, on one trip we were coned.
CB: With searchlights.
JW: Searchlights. And I was actually on the bombing run. I was, ‘Left. Left. Steady.’ And suddenly the lights caught us. But Bill never hesitated. We were at eighteen thousand feet and he just went down in a dive and of course I shot up into the front turret. I was fixed. I couldn’t move with the gravity. He pulled out at six thousand feet and I come crashing down over the bombsight again. And ten minutes but he got us out of us. He got us out of the, out of the, those searchlights. And we then finished up,. We bombed. We went around again and bombed at twelve thousand feet. But it was another one we did was to Lens, and this was the night when the flying bombs were coming over. The V-1s. We could see all these lights coming below us and hadn’t a clue what they were but it was not ‘til we got back the next day but it was, it was in France. But going down we were going down at, going through at seven thousand feet. We came on the target so quick.
[recording paused]
CB: Right.
JW: As we were going I was giving him the instructions. Suddenly —
CB: As the bomb aimer at that time.
JW: As the bomb aimer.
CB: Yeah.
JW: Suddenly realised that we got on the target before we realised it and I said to him, ‘Dummy run, Bill. Go around again.’ But it was, it was years later before I realised what had happened. Came back. Coming on to the target and I could see all these black shapes going past me in the corner of my eye. Anyhow, that time I got the target on the marker. The target markers. Dropped the bombs and when I looked I thought to myself [unclear] the operational record books, one of the sheets I’ve got and when I looked I realised he didn’t go around again he did a u-turn and we were flying into the bomber stream. And I thought strange. How did we do that? Then I looked. In that turn he lost two thousand feet. We bombed from five thousand feet. Everybody else was coming over at seven but how we flew through all that lot. All the bombs going. I don’t know. But [pause] I’m just trying to find it. As I say it was the number of times. Three times at least on the bomb aiming run I called dummy run.
CB: We’ll just stop again. Hang on.
[recording paused]
CB: You bombed at five thousand feet.
JW: Yeah.
CB: And everybody else did it at seven.
JW: Yeah.
CB: Which was what you were briefed to do.
JW: Yeah.
CB: So this is part of your lucky escape —
JW: It is. Yeah.
CB: Series, isn’t it? Extraordinary.
JW: But, as I say on at least three occasions on the German trips I called dummy run, and not once did I hear one murmur of dissent from any of the crew. You read reports from people, ‘Oh, get rid of it,’ you know. But none of our crew did that. We had complete faith and trust in each other. But, yeah on at least three occasions we did a, we did a dummy run to go around. On one occasion when we were at Wickenby and I think that this is when we came to be on Pathfinders, because Hamish Mahaddie used to go around picking crews and he must have looked at this particular order and it was this. On debriefing it said we were six minutes early so we put the flaps down and did dog legs to lose six minutes. And this was on Stuttgart. I mean [laughs] but it was, we were told to get there and our pilot he always said there was a lot of talk about some of the crews were throwing their bombs in and either banking and then so that they didn’t actually fly over the target. And I know that when that happened Bill said, ‘What the hell’s the point of going all that way without going over and doing it properly?’ But he was, he was a fantastic pilot. He was a fantastic. He was the only man I have ever known apart from people like Alex [pause] Grimshaw? What was his name? The test pilot at Ringway. He did —
CB: Oh, Henshaw.
JW: Henshaw.
CB: Yeah.
JW: Well, I think he did it. He did a rate four turn on a —
CB: On a Lancaster.
JW: On a Lancaster.
CB: Crikey.
JW: And he did it to come up, we were on fighter affiliation and we were being attacked by a Spitfire but instead of doing the normal corkscrew he did this rate four. We came up behind the Spitfire. And unbelievably —
CB: In the Lancaster.
JW: Unbelievably the Spitfire pilot complained and he called, our CO called Bill in and he said, ‘You’ve got to stick to the rules.’ And he had, I think he had a grin on his face as he was saying it. Bill said if that had been a Messerschmitt we could have shot it down. Yeah. But he, and it was the most I can see it now. You’re standing there and you are horizontal but you’re not falling. Yeah. But he was, he was, we loved him. And when, when I looked to see that I think that report as I say going around to Hamish Mahaddie I think that he read that and thought well we need crews who are going to be there on time and this is what, this is what we’ve been looking for.
CB: Yeah. Extraordinary experiences. Yes.
JW: The, but then of course when we got to, I did one spare bod trip. I got caught. I think it was the flight commander. Wing Commander Scott. He was a New Zealander. His engineer went sick and two SPs came down and saw me. Engineer. Right. I had to fly with him. It was to Stuttgart again. But on the run in did the bomb aiming, came out of the target and I looked at the inspections bit and the cookie had held up.
CB: Oh.
JW: So I said to him, ‘Skip, go around again. We’ve got the cookie.’ Well, our own pilot would have been natural enough just to go round but what he called me. He was questioning my sanity as well apart from insulting my mother and father but you didn’t take any notice of that. So I said, ‘I’ll go around and try and release it manually.’ And there used to be a little flap above the cookie that you could pull back. A little slide and release the bolt that held it. And I’d got a, made a little sort of little light there. I was just, I suddenly saw the bolt start to shudder and pulled my hand back just as this thing shot across. He pulled the toggle on the instrument panel and dropped the carrier, the lot. Didn’t look to see where we were. He just opened the bomb doors. And he started weaving as we took off and he was still weaving until we landed. Oh, he was complete nerves. And —
Other 1: Gosh.
JW: Yeah. Wing Commander Scott. He was posted shortly after that. But I made sure I didn’t do any more of those. There was one occasion when they, knew they, what they were looking for a flight engineer. So I went up in the loft and [laughs] ‘Flight Sergeant Watson here?’ ‘No. He’s gone out. He’s gone into Peterborough.’ ‘Oh alright.’ And I was up in the loft like this. I lifted it up just to listen [laughs] because we had arranged we weren’t flying. I was going out. But I wasn’t going to do another, and I’d already done halfway through my third tour so I was well away to saying no. But the other —
CB: Would you class him as a dangerous pilot then?
JW: Who?
CB: Because of his nerves.
JW: Well, I didn’t. I didn’t have any confidence in him. I wasn’t, I wasn’t frightened at all but I thought to myself, no. I didn’t like flying with a strange crew anyway. None of us did. But that’s what made me admire my friend in Southampton. He was, the number of times he went with strange crews. But we’d done that lot and I thought well half way through a third tour because we finished a second tour, we was all in the Red Lion in Ramsey, and we were all celebrating and Bill came in and it was, there were never enough seats and we were all sitting around on the floor with pints of beer. And he said, Bill said, ‘How about carrying on?’ ‘Yes.’ So the next morning he said, ‘Don’t forget,’ he said, ‘We’re going to carry on.’ ‘Oh alright.’ But we wouldn’t have let him flown with anybody else anyway. So that was the mid-upper gunner, the wireless operator, myself and Bill. As I say the two navs packed up and we had a range of rear gunners after he’d done forty one trips. And we finished the third tour and he pulled the same stroke again. So we was in a [laughs] we was on, the last trip was the master bomber trip to [pause] Munster. And it was a day like this. Really beautiful sunshine and we were just lying round and we got, this is a twenty second trip with these two Canadian navigators and there was an anti-aircraft gun. Obviously you could tell who the master bomber gunner was because brilliant daylight. Not a cloud in the sky. And the shell went off alongside of us. And I said to Bill [unclear] we went down five hundred feet and they put a shell in the same place. So when he did that we went back up. And they put one where we were. And this went on. It was [laughs] it was ridiculous really. But anyhow we got away with it but when, when we were sort of circling around doing, Bill was directing the raid one of the navigators came out from behind the curtain. He took one look. We were surrounded by shell bursts. And he said, ‘Jeez, let’s get out of here.’ And Bill said, it was the only time I ever heard him raise his voice, ‘Get back inside.’ And he scuttled back in behind the curtain. I mean, navigators never came out and if you came out like that and you see. Because it is a bit of a shock seeing those shell bursts. The first daylight we did got to the target and you could have walked on the shell bursts there was that many. And I thought we can never fly through that. But we did. Got away with it.
CB: How many times did you actually get hit by flak?
JW: About four times I think. Five times. But none of us ever got a scratch.
CB: What sort of damage did the aircraft —
JW: Holes in the bomb, in the bomb bay doors and some in the fuselage, but not enough to [pause] There was one that we did get hit and I think it took a bit out of the engine. It was on the raid Trossy St Maximin when Bazalgette got his VC. It was on that raid. It was such a heavily defended target. It was a bomb bay, V-1 bomb dump and as we went in we dropped. I think we just dropped the bombs. There was suddenly this hell of a bang. A tremendous noise and we just went into a dive and I thought we’d been hit but anyhow, I looked. We had a clear blister on the nose of our Lancs. You could put you head in and I could look through and I could see that the, both engines, all four engines were still in sync so there was obviously nothing wrong with them. So I called up and said, ‘Engines are ok. I’ll check Bill.’ I went up and he was ok as it turned out but he’d just, when that and they knew they’d got the range he just went into a dive but that took a piece out the side of one of the engines. But the engines still worked.
Other 1: Extraordinary.
JW: We didn’t even know there was anything wrong with it. But that was, going back to the Nuremberg raid when we landed we landed at Marham and on the way back as we left the target I noticed one of the oil instruments wasn’t working. Now, that could mean you’ve lost power. Anyhow, the engine, I didn’t say anything because I kept a check on it and noticed that there was no, the engine was not giving any reports of any failures so it was obviously the instrument that was at fault. So when we landed the next morning when we were going to take off again and the number of Lancs at Marham was unbelievable. It was just everywhere and it was a grass drome as well, the [pause] I said to Bill, ‘There’s no point in reporting this fault because they’ll never get anybody to —’ I said, ‘I’ll go out and check the oil to make sure there’s no lost oil.’ Because sitting on the engine that’s been going for eight hours I was covered in oil when I got back. Sitting on the engine dipping the tank. And it was, there was no loss of oil so I said to Bill, ‘No. There’s no point. We can take, we’ll never get away if we report that.’ And we took off. Got back and reported it when we got back. But the other thing was we had to take up on the flight from Upwood, we were going up on a night flying test and we were asked to take up a senior RAF [pause] I forget what rank he was now. Quite a high rank. Anyhow, suddenly one the port inners started. The starboard inner started playing up and I couldn’t control the pitch of the propellers so I said to Bill, ‘We need to feather it.’ He said, ‘Ok.’ When we landed he said, ‘What’s wrong?’ Now, I can’t tell you the name now but it was one of three things it could have been inside the nose, the hub of the propeller and there was one main one and I said, and one thing that they taught you when you went on Pathfinders, you’ve got to think quick and you’ve got to act. You can’t dither. You make a decision. Right or wrong you make a decision. And that way. And I said to Bill, oh it’s the so and so. So when we landed chiefy come around. The sergeant in charge of the ground crew and he said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Why is the engine feathered, skip?’ Bill said, well because this [laughs] he named the part that was broken. And the chiefy looked at him in amazement and said, ‘With respect, sir,’ he said, ‘How do you know that?’ And I could have wanted the ground to open up. ‘Because my engineer told me.’ But luckily I was right. I got it right. And it was at [pause] we had to abort one. We got they gave us the trip because we got within fifty miles of the target. We had boost surge. We just could not cure it. And when we got back I said, ‘I think there’s something wrong with the camshaft.’ Ha ha ha — that was the laugh I got from the engineering officer. But they couldn’t find it either. So they sent the engine back to Derby and they found a cracked valve which was obviously after the cam shaft.
CB: We’ll stop there for a mo so you can have a bit of your coffee.
JW: Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: On the Munster trip. Yeah.
JW: Yeah. We got —
CB: Yeah.
JW: Back from there. Landed. And we were walking back to debriefing and one of the rear gunners saw another crew came running up. He said, A signal’s come through to say that Cleland’s crew are to be taken off operations immediately and not allowed to fly on any more ops.’ We never knew why. Because we didn’t have one abortive trip. We’d always bombed the target. Everything. And yet the only thing I could think was that we’d been flying for fifteen months without any break.
CB: That’s extraordinary.
JW: And I think they thought that we were [pause] and I’ve often thought that they saved our lives. The next trip could have been.
Other 1: Easily.
JW: The one that we would have — [pause]
CB: How did you feel about that?
JW: Well, we were choked because we knew they were going to split the crew up. But we thought we might be able to carry on as a crew for a little while but within a week they posted us all off. They sent me as an instructor to a Wellington OTU. A flight engineer. They don’t fly flight engineers on Wellingtons. And that was really a case of I was there for a little while. Then they decided to post me to a Maintenance Unit. 56 MU. Except it should have been 58 MU. 58 MU was at Coventry. About twenty miles away. 56 MU was at Inverness. So I went all the way up to Inverness and I had an aircrew sergeant with me. He’d never done any ops because the war had finished as he finished training. He was going with me and he lived in Edinburgh and so he said, ‘Right. We can go to Edinburgh.’ We had three days in Edinburgh where he lived. Went off up to Inverness and we got out from the station and I can see it now. As we went through Perth and that area. Beautiful scenery because by this, it was an overnight trip. Anyhow, we found, couldn’t find what we were looking for. We couldn’t find the unit at all. We suddenly spotted an airman and I said to him, called him over and I said, ‘Tell me where — ’ ‘Oh yeah,’ he said, ‘It’s in a garage down here.’ Which is what it was. A garage. And he said, and he said to me, ‘Watch the station warrant officer,’ he said, ‘He’s a bit of a martinet. He’ll find something for you to do.’ Anyway, we had to report to him so he said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘We’re closing down.’ He said, ‘I don’t know why they sent you here.’ Somebody had misread [laughs] Anyhow, he said, well he said, ‘I’ll put you in charge of the police for a week.’ Well, they had about a half dozen coppers there. RAF police. And I walked in. I said to them, ‘What are you all doing here?’ Well, they said ‘There’s nothing to do.’ So I said, ‘Right, you three have three days off. You three cover the whole lot. Three days later you go on three days leave.’ They thought I was the best thing since sliced bread [laughs] But we got back from there and as I say I got to this other MU and it was at [pause] on the mainline.
CB: Near Coventry was it?
JW: No. This was, it started with an N. Not Northampton. Anyhow, I called up. Phoned up the unit and said, ‘Is there any transport to, out to unit?’ She said, ‘Where are you?’ I said, ‘On the station.’ She said, ‘On the up or down line?’ She said, ‘Well come out,’ she wouldn’t have known that which part.’ She said, ‘Look to your left. Can you see a black building about four hundred yards?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ She said, ‘That’s us.’ And it was where they made the lawnmowers. They made, well it wasn’t making them then but as we used to have to go in private billets as we were going down to them their lot was coming away and it was just a track. But all on bikes of course. But yeah that was quite a, and what I had to do there it was the Queen Mary’s there. The long low loaders. And I had to work out the next week how many were going to be off and with what fault. And I thought bloody silly. How the hell can anybody work that out? But it quite surprising. It worked. The system they’d got. So that so many would be off with flat tyres. So many would be off with this. And I had all these sheets that I had to fill in with all the, one for each of the loader. A lot of them were a way out in different places on locations. But then from there they sent me to Skellingthorpe and there it was, it was ridiculous. It was as though they’d forgotten you. In fact, you were just milling around. I did take over the, they couldn’t find anybody to take the sergeant’s mess over and I knew that you can’t run a pub which was what it was and lose money. And I discovered that they were getting five pounds to go to the NAAFI at Waddington to stock up from the [pause] So I said to the, saw the officer in charge of the mess and I said to him, ‘Can I have twenty pounds?’ ‘Twenty pound. What do you want twenty pound for?’ I said, ‘Well, people want to buy toothpaste.’ I said, ‘There’s none of that in there or domestic things.’ So got in the van, went over to Waddington and I spent this money and I thought the ration was Players cigarettes and I thought no. They’re going to be Churchills. So I bought a load of Churchill fags. When I got back I said to them, I said, ‘Sorry lads. The ration’s Churchill fags but I have managed to buy some Players. But I had to pay over the odds for them.’ [laughs] I made a fortune. I came home. After a week I came home. I had managed to pay somebody to look after the mess bar for me, and I came home with a suitcase with a little attache̕ case with two bottles of whisky and two bottles of rum in it and, oh yeah I made quite a bit out of that. In fact one night one of the ground staff, he’d been in the Air Force years and years. Before the war. He came in. He’d been in to Lincoln and he was, well he’d had quite a skinful. And he coolly asked for a pint and he held it up. He said, ‘That’s off. That’s cloudy.’ So I said, ‘Oh, ok sir. I’ll get you another one out of a different barrel.’ ‘Ah that’s better.’ So when the, the officer in charge of the mess came in the next morning I said to him, it was the, he was a warrant officer ground staff and I said to him, ‘Warrant officer,’ so and so, ‘He’s complained and said that barrel’s off.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘We can’t have that, he said. We’ll write it off.’ But it was half full. I think there was about nine gallons in it. And the next night I knew there was nothing wrong with it. The same warrant officer came in. He was sober this time. Poured him a pint from the same one. Now, that’s lovely,’ he said, ‘That’s great.’ So I had nine gallons and I had three days of my demob leave on that barrel with some of the mates I’d met. Oh dear. Yes. It was, it was quite a, but because of the way it went I decided to come home on leave. I was milling around. I went and saw my governor and I said to him, ‘Can I come back to work?’ So, ‘Oh yeah,’ he said, ‘You can come back.’ So I went back to work. And got paid for it. Not a lot but it was because it was only apprentice’s wage and, but about a fortnight one of my mates phoned up and he said, ‘Come back quick he said. They’re sending everybody home.’ So I went back, got demobbed to come home. But I had a couple of, a couple of near squeaks with the CO there. But the mess was just a hut and the bar was a cabinet which stood about that high. About that wide. And 12 o’clock at night I’m in there with a couple of other sergeants and we got bass sitting on our knees and the orderly officer walked in. ‘I said, ‘Do you want a drink, sir.’ Silly thing to say wasn’t it? I was under open arrest and in front of the CO the next morning. But I went round and managed to say, ‘You saw the bar was locked, the cupboard was all locked up, didn’t you?’ They said, ‘Yeah.’ Well, because it was all locked up I got away with it. But another time I went home on I used to go on the pay parade on Thursday, special pay parade and go home. And I used to catch the quarter past ten from Lincoln because pay parade was about, no it was a bit later than that. The pay parade was at 9 o’clock. I had time to get paid because it was only a short pay parade, walk into Lincoln and get the train down to Kings Cross and then across to Waterloo and home. Now, I did this this particular week and then on this particular Thursday I’d just got in and a telegram arrived at the door. “Report back to base camp immediately.” I thought that’s funny. So I phoned up one of my mates there and I said, ‘What’s happening?’ ‘Oh, you’re in dead trouble. You were the witnessing officer at pay parade.’ He said, ‘Half the camp stayed for food that they weren’t prepared for. The other half went home and left the pay, the witnessing the officer with the money with all that money he didn’t know what to do with.’ Anyhow, I got back. I went round and I reported, saw the RTO at Guildford station. Reported to him and told him that I was allowed to go back and I’d, I said, ‘I’ve only just got home.’ This was the Friday of course. The day after. And got —
[doorbell and knocking]
[recording paused]
CB: We’re talking about the pay parade. The fact you’d gone home.
JW: Yeah. I got back. I got back on Friday night. Reported to the orderly officer and was put under open arrest. The next morning we went in to see the CO and he said, ‘You went home on Thursday, Watson.’ And he was a wing commander ground staff. Been in the Air Force about forty years. I said, ‘No sir,’ I said, ‘I went home on Friday morning.’ ‘Why did you go on the pay parade on Thursday then?’ I said, ‘Well, I knew that I wanted to get away on Friday, sir.’ He said, ‘But didn’t you read the DROs?’ Well, I knew that it was a crime not to read them but looking through the King’s Rules and Regulations the night before I discovered that it’s not a crime if you read them and forget them. So I said, ‘I did read them, sir.’ I said, ‘And it went right out of my mind.’ I said, ‘I just forgot it completely.’ And of course he went through and he said, ‘Watson, I know you went home on Thursday.’ ‘No. Sir.’ I said, ‘I left here and,’ I told him the times. ‘I caught the train down to — ’ and because I was in a billet which was just on the edge of camp, had my own room there nobody could see me leave. And I said, ‘I caught that train just after ten. I got to Guildford,’ I said, ‘And the telegram arrived as I got home,’ I said, ‘I turned straight around and came back,’ I said. ‘In fact, I reported to the — ’ Anyhow, we went on and he said, asked me another. In the finish he said, ‘Right. Watson, you stay here. Everybody else go out.’ And he said to me, ‘Watson, I know you’re lying.’ He said, ‘I know you went home on Thursday but,’ he said, ‘I can’t prove it.’ He said, ‘But you’re not going to get away with it.’ He said, ‘You’re going to do three weeks of orderly officer.’ He said, ‘If you go out of camp I will know.’ And I knew he would do as well. I said, ‘Well, I’m sorry sir but,’ I said, ‘You’re wrong. I did go home on Friday.’ [laughs] But it was complete bluff. If he’d have said to me, ‘Swear on the bible,’ I don’t know what I would have done. But, yeah. I did discover that, you know. You can read. If you can’t, if you don’t read them it’s a crime. But read —
Other 1: And forget.
JW: And forget. You can’t, you know the loss of memory, it’s [laughs] but, and I got away with it. But he never held it against me because he gave me quite a good report when I left. He signed my release book. The next —
CB: But you did have to do the orderly officer.
JW: I did, yeah. Religiously did and the funny, it was quite funny really because I went in the mess one night and they’d just had a delivery come in. I said, ‘You got any Guinness?’ They said, ‘Yeah. We got a crate in today.’ ‘Right,’ I said, ‘I’ll buy the lot.’ ‘You can’t do that.’ I said, ‘Yes I can.’ And of course as a warrant officer and he’s a sergeant he’s not going to argue is he? I bought the lot. And then a chap came in. He played football for one of the Division One teams. Blackburn Rovers was it? And he sat down. I said to him, ‘Do you want a Guinness?’ ‘Oh yes please.’ So we sat there and but he was as wide a boys as me. He had got hold of you know the Lindholme dinghies that they used to drop the crew in? They had, they had the big main dinghy and then either side you had four flotation units. Two that side. They used to drop it so that it would spread and drift down to the crews that were ditched. He’d got hold of one of these and we sold it off. We even had the dinghy. I don’t know where he got it from but he got the dinghy. But our nerve failed us when we tried to get rid of that because we didn’t realise that all the surplus was going to be sold off after the war otherwise we’d have sold that and all. But —
CB: Who were the people who wanted to buy these things?
JW: All people in the camp.
CB: Oh right.
JW: Yeah. Other sergeants and other aircrew. And there I finished up there with twenty three German prisoners of war under my charge.
CB: On the airfield.
JW: Yeah. And they were quite clever. They used to make light bulbs and put ships and, and cliffs and lights inside the bulb. I don’t know how they did it. Built it up with the cliffs and the lighthouses in there and a little ship. Fantastic. And one of them made it, I bought it off him. It was a crocodile and in front was a little bird. And as you pulled it along the crocodile opens up and came like that and as it did the bird shot forward. I should have had enough sense to realise it was a money maker. I bought it for one of my friend’s little kiddies.
Other 1: Dear.
CB: What was their role? What did they do as prisoners?
JW: Cleaning and doing odd jobs you know around the camp. The American. The, their sergeant in charge of them he’d been, spent time in America and he spoke, spoke like an American. And I shall never forget he said to me we were talking one day and he was quite an educated chap and he must have been about a year or so older than me and he said, ‘I can’t understand the swear words,’ He said, ‘You talk about using the F word. F table,’ he said, ‘You know. It’s ridiculous.’ And I said to him, ‘Yeah. I agree with you.’ You know. He was always saying about language. The way it’s used. But, but he was, he was quite educated and he spoke without any German accent at all, and he was a [pause] I know that one of them one night somebody had taken some stuff out of the mess. And I just warned them. I said, ‘I don’t know which one of you it is but you’re in dead trouble if it happens again.’ It didn’t happen again. They did, they learned their lesson. But no it’s, as I say when it came to getting demobbed I was so disillusioned with the discipline and everything else that, and I knew I’d got an apprenticeship when we were on the, at Faldingworth taxiing round. Because aircraft were going off the end Faldingworth was a mud bath. If an aircraft went off the edge it would go down in to the mud to its axles and it would take days to get it out. So what they did they were fining crews a half a crown each which was half a day’s pay. So as we were taxiing around on the perimeter track I’m watching the wheel. I suddenly looked up and we were coming up against, it was, it turned out to be the engineering officer. He’d parked on the perimeter track and gone into one of the huts. And of course by then I said to Bill, but you can’t stop a thirty ton aircraft and the outside prop and it was one of those Hillman Tilts with the framework and the canvas and the outside was going over. It went right through all the canvas and ripped it and I thought I hope no one is in there. There wasn’t fortunately but Bill was on, he was pulled up for it. And I said to him, I said, ‘Tell them I was the one that was at fault,’ I said, ‘You couldn’t see from your side anyway and he shouldn’t have been parked there.’ ‘No.’ he said, ‘I’m the skipper. It’s my fault.’ And he got a mild reprimand. But that was the sort of bloke he was, you know. And as I say but it was [pause] we would have, well we’d have done anything for him really. We certainly wouldn’t have let him fly with anybody else if it had meant we had to carry on flying. Which is the reason we carried on. And it was years that we couldn’t find him after the war. Years later we tried to find him. And then my Appy, the mid-upper gunner phoned me up one day and he said, ‘Jack,’ he said, ‘I’ve been told that Bill lives at a place called Hilmarton near Calne in Wiltshire. So I said, ‘Well, the next time I go down to see my sister I’ll go down that way. Well, Hilmarton is, it’s, it’s a funny little place. You go through and there’s just a little turning to the church. I didn’t realise we go down that turning. There’s a school and then houses, part of the village. I went into the pub and I said, ‘Do you know anybody called Cleland?’ I said, ‘He was, he was with BOAC.’ ‘No.’ Turns out, Bill said, ‘I don’t know how they didn’t know that,’ he said, because Frances, his daughter used to go and help out in the bar.’ Anyhow, I went into the little garage on the main road and they didn’t know. But they said, ‘I’ll tell you what, he said. In the little bungalow next door but one there’s a chap there. He knows everybody in the village,’ he said, ‘He can probably tell you.’ Knocked on his door. ‘Oh yeah,’ he said, ‘He lives just around the back here. The other side of the church.’ So we drove around and I knocked on the door and Bill’s wife answered and I said, ‘Does Bill Cleland live here?’ She said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Is he in?’ She said, ‘Yeah.’ ‘I said will you tell him his flight engineer’s here.’ She went in. He was, he was going, supposed to be going out to a meeting. But he said we’ll go and have some lunch. He was so pleased. And of course from then on we kept in touch and, but he’d gone on to, he’d been seconded. In fact we were both demobbed the same day. I met up at Uxbridge. And he’d been seconded to BOAC. He’d actually, he got the King’s, yeah the Kings Commendation while he was with, or the Queen I can’t remember which one it was. He got it for his efforts in flying. Because I know he said to me, he said, ‘You just sit there. Press the button. It takes you to that point. Press another button it takes you to the next point. ‘He said. Oh that’s when he told me he met the wing commander that I flew with as he was. He met him in Canada. He said, ‘We were both going through,’ He said, ‘I know that he recognised me. ‘He said he was a, he wasn’t a nice bloke at all. When they were on the squadron when you looked to see in 156 there was a little number of people who were doing all the master bomber trips. Who had been the master bombers and the, we eventually got on to them but, and Bill went in one day and he said they were all pilots because you had a room each of pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, engineers, wireless operators, air gunners and he said to this wing commander, he said ‘Is it fair that Cocky’s doing all the master bombing?’ He said, ‘Can somebody else take a turn?’ And I think he thought Bill was saying he ought to do it. He wasn’t. He was saying look, you know, some of the others can do it because it’s amazing that the same few were doing them and a lot of them were on dodgy mostly French trips. And anyhow he said, ‘Everybody out.’ He said, ‘Bill, not you.’ He said, ‘I’ll decide who does the master bombers, and their deputies not you.’ and Bill, ‘I wasn’t suggesting that.’ ‘Shut up. Get out.’ He said, ‘I know he recognised me but,’ he said, ‘He completely ignored me.’ And he didn’t do any master bombers himself because it wasn’t a very nice job to do. You know. You’re putting yourself, sticking your head over the parapet. But if you were briefed to do it. We did a couple of deputies and I know one of them we was doing it was on Frankfurt, we was the deputy master bomber. Daylight raid. And our mid-upper gunner suddenly spotted an aircraft in trouble above us. He called up to our skipper and we went up alongside of him. It used to be, it turned out to be one of our own. And they’d been hit by flak in the bomb bay and the engineer’s leg was hanging off and [unclear] hole in the bottom of the fuselage. The mid-upper gunner got out of his turret and stepped straight through the hole. They found his parachute, handed it in when they landed back so obviously, he was, he was obviously killed. The mid-upper err the engineer had been a medical orderly in the previous so he was able to show them to put morphine into him to stop the pain. He got the CGM for that. And after the war another one of the, of our Association lives in Southampton his father was killed on 156 but he collided with another aircraft. And he went, this pilot was in a home alongside them and they came in, knew him. They went to see him and he mentioned that and he said, ‘Yeah. I remember that when he came up alongside of us.’ He mentioned the fact that our, we went up alongside of him. We were the master, deputy master bombers.
CB: Could you describe what, how the master bomber, what his role is and how it works please?
JW: He, he was very often either he or the deputy would do the marking. They’d decide that first. Usually the master bomber would do the, he had a special like we did. You had an eight man crew if you were a deputy or a master. He would then go and mark the target having originally, you would have supporters dropping flares to illuminate the target providing of course down to the weather. And then that would light up, the master bomber would then go in low and find out the target, mark the target and then he’d circle around and he’d watch the way the bombs were falling. And if they were falling short he’d tell them to overshoot the markers and he’d call in the deputy visual centrerers which were following through the raid to keep those markers backed up. And we had backers up and visual centrerers, and he’d call them up and tell them where to drop the, if his markers were a bit off and then he’d direct the raid and tell main force. He called main force up, overshoot to the markers by two seconds to stop the creep back because you always got creep back. People always dropped their bombs short. As one, as Bill used to say, ‘If you’re going over for God’s sake do it properly.’ And you were there the whole of the raid.
[doorbell and knocking]
CB: Just stopping a mo.
[recording paused]
JW: He could, the bomb aimers were pretty good at it and the bombsight we had was really good. And he would then call up [pause] We had backers up, visual centrerers, backers up that would drop flares too because obviously they would gradually go out.
Other 1: Yes.
JW: You know, so he’d call up these people. Their bomb aimers were also good and they would be then bombing on, dropping their flares on the original flares. But if they were slightly off the master bomber would then tell main force. Sometimes they’d put a dummy one up about ten miles away but he’d tell them to ignore that and then he would call them up and say, ‘Overshoot by two seconds,’ to stop as I said the creep back. You always got the creep back. The newer crews used to be at the back of the [unclear] through the raid.
CB: Of the stream. The back of the stream.
JW: Always dropped their bombs short and you could see. You could see that by the way they were falling. So he would tell and they would adjust that and keep the raid going. When we went to the one at Munster, when we got there they was bombing and Bill really called it up and really coated the life out of them. Called them all sorts of things. Concentrate on where the bombers were going and brought the raid back to make it a successful raid.
CB: Why was there bombing creep?
JW: Probably inexperience of the bomb aimers. Nervousness. Perhaps when they were coming along they suddenly, I think it was a natural reaction that they dropped. They got the bombsight coming up to the target and if they think that it’s there but you had to get that, it was a [pause] The gradual was like a red cross on plastic about four inches by two inches that looked.
CB: On the bomb sight.
JW: On the bomb sight as you looked through that and that arrow had to go straight the way through and if it was, this was why sometimes you get thrown off course by slipstream or different things and if, if that happened I used to call dummy run. And then go around the target and come back again. As I say I think that happened about three times and this was on German raids but it was so concentrated and you were oblivious of everything that was going.
Other 1: Yes.
JW: It was quite incredible really. You know. But if you’re not concentrating that much it’s easy enough to press the bomb tit.
CB: So as the bomb aimer you effectively are in control in the last how long? Two minutes or —
JW: Yeah.
CB: Something like that.
JW: Yeah.
CB: And the master bomber you said goes down to make his mark.
JW: Sometimes they would go down. Sometimes they would bomb from the same height.
CB: Right. But then to control the raid.
JW: They’d fly around.
CB: They’d fly above it, would they?
JW: Yeah.
CB: Fly over above everybody else.
JW: They’d fly, they’re coming back at the same height, and they’re usually on the edge of the target and circling around.
CB: Right.
JW: And I mean it was a pretty dangerous job because there was quite a lot of master bombers got shot down because obviously they could pick them up on radar. They’ve got one aircraft going around and around and around.
Other 1: Yes.
CB: Now the master bomber marked in red did he?
JW: It depended. Mainly in red.
CB: And the follow ups would mark in green.
JW: Green. Yeah.
CB: Any other colours?
JW: Yeah. The reds and greens. Sometimes red and greens. Reds. But I don’t think there was any other colours.
CB: So how far back would the green be for doing the marking because this was for the re-energising of the marking wasn’t it?
JW: Well, the master bomber would call that up when he see the, if he sees his flares beginning to fade.
CB: Yeah.
JW: He’d call up and some of them were briefed to go in anyway.
CB: Yeah.
JW: But he would, he would control it from that.
CB: Now, when you did call dummy run what was the actual procedure for getting out and then rejoining the bomber stream?
JW: You just went. We just carried on. Bill, Bill would pull the, close the bomb bay doors. Go on, circle around and come back and join the bomber stream and then do another run on the —
CB: Would it be a standard procedure? You’d always turn left or always turn right or what would it be?
JW: I don’t know. I think we always turn left.
CB: Right. And you’d go out how far because the bomber stream’s quite wide?
JW: I couldn’t tell you that. I don’t know. That would be up to the pilot.
CB: I’m thinking on seconds. So, a minute or — to get out of the stream.
JW: Well, it’s difficult to measure or think about the time. We’d just do it until we get back in.
CB: Yeah.
JW: I don’t think it took that long.
CB: Because you can’t see the other aircraft.
JW: Oh no. occasionally you would see them if you come up. On one occasion I I looked out. I was down in the nose of the aircraft looking and I suddenly see this face in front of me. And I was looking at the rear gunner of another Lancaster. I called Bill up and we were so close to him it was, I could see him. See his face.
CB: What was his reaction?
JW: I don’t know.
CB: He didn’t wave?
JW: No [laughs]
CB: Hello mum.
JW: I think he was clenching his buttocks [laughs]
CB: Can we just go back to, because you’re a flight engineer but you’re effectively changed to do bombing.
JW: Yes.
CB: Because you’re trained as supplementary.
JW: Yeah.
CB: To a bomber, bomb aimer. Your lying prone and you’ve got your head straight down effectively with the bomb sight and the the —
JW: You’re oblivious to everything else.
CB: Yes. And you’ve got the blister that you’re lying in effectively. You’ve got your head in.
JW: Yeah. No. You only put that in afterwards.
CB: Right. So what is, what’s the pattern and what are you seeing and how do you react to what you see because you’re looking at the inferno?
JW: Yeah. You’re looking at, you’re looking at the marker, the indicators, target indicators.
CB: Right.
JW: And you’re getting your cross going through that, those markers and you’re concentrating on that, ‘Left. Left. Steady. Steady. Right. Steady,’ until you get that cross on there and then you press the button. Bombs gone.
CB: So, on your run in you’ve got two minutes effectively when you’re as it were in charge. The navigator is giving you the drift is he? How do you, how do you —
JW: It’s purely and simply, you either, the way the aircraft’s flying. The pilot is just keeping it if he knows you’re steady he’s going to keep that line.
CB: He knows what the drift is.
JW: Yeah.
CB: So —
JW: But you’re telling him that.
CB: Right.
JW: But when we went to, we went and did a raid on Nantes in France we did five. Five dummy runs.
CB: Did you really?
JW: Yeah. Because it was so difficult to see with cloud and everything else. And I think that’s in there.
CB: Is this daylight? Or —
JW: Night flight. Night.
CB: Night. Yeah.
JW: It would be.
CB: What I was trying to get at was there’s the, what you might call the professional aspect of this, of lining up and then calling, ‘Bombs gone.’
JW: Yeah.
CB: But what’s your feeling as you look down into this. Are you busy concentrating on the markers —
JW: You’re oblivious of everything else. I used to be concentrating so much that I didn’t even realise what was going on outside.
CB: So in practical terms there’s a huge barrage of flak bursting all around. Above, below and the side. You’re oblivious to that are you?
JW: Yeah. Yeah. If you’re doing your job properly. Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
JW: Yes. And this is my, perhaps the feedback if suddenly a shell bursts near somebody and get rid of the bombs but —
CB: Because the navigators are actually sitting in a cubicle with a blanket hanging down so they can’t see anything.
JW: No.
CB: That’s what you meant earlier isn’t it?
JW: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: So it’s a bit of a shock to them to see what’s happening around them.
JW: Our other two navigators never came out. And it was the last trip that we were fated to do although we didn’t know it at the time when this, this Canadian navigator came out. I mean it’s a bit of a shock if you’ve not seen anything and then you see the shell bursts around you and know that one of those too close is curtains. I suppose yeah it did shake you.
CB: What was the main difference between flying daylight and flying in the night?
JW: Well, flying at night you couldn’t see other aircraft normally. Daylight you can see what’s going on. You can see the shell bursts. You can see fighters coming in. I know that my friend in, on his, it was on his last raid at Hamburg and he watched one of our aircraft go down. Funnily enough his brother lives in, when he’d seen that picture in the paper he got in touch with the paper and said, ‘My brother was on 156.’
CB: Really?
JW: ‘Can you give me that man’s name?’
CB: Yeah.
JW: They said no. They gave me his number. But he watched him go down and they were then attacked by a German jet fighter. And he said he watched it come in. He’d never seen anything move so quick in all his life. He was, the jet fighter opened up with cannons, It shot bits of the tailplane off and never touched Rupert.
CB: That’s the tail gunner.
JW: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Extraordinary. So you had a huge variety of raids that you went on. The normal standard was thirty ops and then when you get on to Pathfinders what is the, what is a tour?
JW: When you went on Pathfinders, because of the extended training that you’d had you had to do two tours straight off.
CB: Right.
JW: And because on main force it was thirty trips then you had six months rest and sometimes they called you back sometimes they didn’t. You did another twenty. But on Pathfinders you had to do forty five. But like all of it they were the goalposts. You see I did fifty [pause] fifty two I think to do my two tours because they suddenly brought in a points system. You got five points for a German trip, three points for a French trip and then you had to do [pause] you had to get a hundred and fifty points to finish your first tour. So if it was all French trips it would be more than if it was all French err all German trips. But the, yeah it was, I know there was joke going around about it. If you get shot down over France is it only three fifths dead? Which is, some wag came out with that.
CB: In your case you got the DFM. When did you get that?
JW: It was first promulgated I think in November ’44. I got it in February. 1st of February when I was first noticed it, first notified.
CB: Yeah. ’45. And what about the rest of the crew? What did they get?
JW: The pilot got the DSO and the DFC.
CB: The DSO. At the same time?
JW: No. Different times. DSO, DFC. The two navigators both got the DFC. [pause] The mid-upper gunner got the DFM and the Belgian Croix de Guerre.
CB: Yeah.
JW: I got the DFM and the Croix de Guerre err the Legion of Honour.
CB: Did you get the Croix de Guerre as well?
JW: No.
CB: Oh, right.
JW: And, and of course the Pathfinder award. We all got the Pathfinder award.
CB: Yes. When did that come out?
JW: After you had, when we finished on the squadron.
CB: Right. And as well as getting the scroll what did you get as far as the medal part? There is, there is a, you get a separate badge for Pathfinder.
JW: Yeah. You got that. When you’d done six marker trips you got the temporary award of the Pathfinder badge. You were allowed to wear it on your, you weren’t allowed to wear it on your battledress.
CB: No.
JW: Because if you got shot down and they could see even the holes where [pause] that was your lot.
CB: Yeah.
JW: So, but that’s, as I say that’s the Pathfinder badge. That’s, after the war people were wearing it and some of the jumped up people in the offices said in the higher ranks, ‘You can’t wear that. You can’t wear that anymore.’ But Bennett was a lot cleverer than they thought because when he promulgated it it was promulgated as an award. Not as a badge. It’s an actual award. So they couldn’t stop them wearing it.
CB: This is Air Marshall Bennett.
JW: Yeah.
CB: The CO CNC Pathfinders.
JW: Yeah.
CB: Did you meet him many times?
JW: I never met him. You met him if you went, if you applied for a commission. Then you met him. But I wasn’t interested in a commission. A, it meant a drop in pay for six months and I didn’t fancy that [laughs]
CB: And then you changed messes.
JW: Yeah.
CB: You had to change messes.
JW: Yeah.
CB: We’ve talked a lot about the action but what about in the time off? What did you do then? Did you, did you go out as a crew?
JW: With the —
CB: Socially.
JW: The mid-upper gunner, the wireless operator, myself from the time we met we used to go. We were never out of each other’s company. We even arranged our leave passes. They lived in Newcastle. I lived in Guildford. But we managed to get our leave passes that worked when you, when you looked at it it went from Burradon which was just outside Newcastle to Guildford. So we’d get, when we had leave every six weeks we’d go to Newcastle for three days. We’d get out at Newcastle and say, ‘Oh, we’re going on to Burradon later.’ So you kept your ticket. When we got to, going back there after three days we’d go back to Guildford. We’d get down to Kings Cross and of course you’ve got, you’ve got to go over to Waterloo to get to Guildford. But we used to buy a ticket from Waterloo. It was only about a shilling. Something like that. And so we used to be able to go three days in one place. Three days in the other and —
CB: Overnight travel.
JW: Yeah [laughs] it was, but we used to, all used to go and so our leave was together. Going out we’d be out as a crew. We’d usually meet girls as well. So the only time we were apart is when you were in one corner they were in another [laughs] But we used to go out. We used to go out and drink. You never used, sometimes you did get a bit tipsy. You never went out to get drunk which is what seems to be the norm today. But you went out, you got drunk but because of what you were drinking. You didn’t sit there swilling it to get as much down you as you could.
CB: No. But was the social aspect of life on a squadron partly an antidote to the experiences of raids?
JW: Well, it’s, it’s like I say you used to go out every night you could. We were getting around about seven guineas a week I think at that time which was a lot of money. Beer at a penny err a shilling a pint you know. And —
Other 1: Chris.
CB: Right. We’ll turn off a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: Seven guineas a week.
JW: Yeah. That’s what I was getting then.
CB: And beer was a shilling a pint.
JW: A shilling a pint. Yeah. But it was, some days you’d have do in the mess. Perhaps a dance or something like that but mainly we used to go out if we could. I know when I spoke about the discipline on 156, they decided, they had a group captain Airey there who was a station commander and he’d lost three court martials in a row. So that meant he had to be posted but they put in charge a man for discip. A disciplinarian. A man called Menaul. Menaul. And group captain Airey, he was an elderly man but he used to go out on ops occasionally and, but Menaul, I don’t think he ever did. One thing he did do I found out afterwards was when they were bringing prisoners of war back he’d do those trips all right. But on one occasion there was the mid-upper, Bert, Appy, Bert and myself and the rear gunner of another squadron, another crew. A chap called Ron Smith and we going up to Ramsey. To the camp. To the aerodrome. The first entrance you got to was the officer’s entrance what went past the station commanders house. And then you went on another couple of hundred yards to come to the main gate. But this particular night we’d been down, we weren’t drunk we’d been and had a couple of pints each. We decided to go in through the officer’s entrance and we were quite a way along it and suddenly a car pulled up behind us and a voice yelled out, ‘Airmen.’ We knew at once who it was so we scarpered. I went over a fence. The other, I don’t know where the other two went. And then the car, he was looking around. He couldn’t see anybody because it was dark. And the car drove off and then I heard a voice say, ‘Where the bloody hell has he gone to?’ And of course I was on the other side of the fence and walked up and frightened the life out of them. But then we carried on walking and we had to go past the airmen’s billets because this was a peacetime ‘drome so it was all brick buildings. But every time a car came in the main gate we were in open ground. So we had to go down on the flat. We knew what was going to happen. The next morning he had all the squadron into this room and bearing in mind his, his war record was I think one tour as a fighter pilot towards the end of the war and he insulted, he called us all the names under the sun. Now, at this time we’d got something like sixty trips in between each. Appy was fuming. But everybody on the unit knew who the people were except him. Even the adjutant knew. And two of Appy’s mates are sitting on either side of him holding him down. And if we’d have owned up God knows what he would have done. But he couldn’t do the whole squadron so, but do you know what? After the war that man, somebody was writing a book about [pause] I’ve not been able to find a copy of it. I had a copy but I leant it to somebody and I never had it back. It was, they were talking about the airfields in Lincolnshire and round in Cambridgeshire and he had, they’d, they’d interviewed him and he said in there that on that occasion we had gone up to his front door, frightened his wife, urinated against his front door. I wanted the book back because I was going to take the author something about, for libel. Slander. Whatever it is. But anyhow I never got the book back so I could never see it. But they’d actually quoted him verbatim in there. Saying that we’d frightened the wife, his wife and daughter and urinated against his front door. Now, what idiot could do that sort of thing? But that’s in the book. So if he had known who we were, this was written after the war our names would have been there.
CB: Extraordinary.
JW: But funnily enough a friend of mine who was on the squadron with me he lived in Brighton and he lived near Hamish Mahaddie and he went to see Hamish and he was talking about Menaul to Hamish. ‘Don’t talk to me about that — ’ so and so, he said. So he was not only liked, disliked by the rank and file he was utterly disliked by his peers.
CB: There are occasions when very, when senior officers, group captains did fly.
JW: Yeah.
CB: And that’s how they got them in the prison camps.
JW: Yeah.
CB: In some cases. So under what circumstances would they do it, and what would they do?
JW: It was up to them. They decided what they’d do, where they’d go and what they —
CB: And would they be the pilot, the captain or would they just be there for the ride?
JW: If they took over the crew they were the captain. But if they went as the supernumery the pilot is always the captain.
CB: Yes.
JW: Even if he’s a sergeant and he’s got flight lieutenants in his crew he is still the captain.
CB: Yeah. So these people would be flying as the pilot normally would they? The group captains.
JW: No. Not necessarily. They’d go along, you know.
CB: Just to get the experience.
JW: Yeah. Just to get to [pause] but I know that Group Captain Airey went on at least two or three. They weren’t supposed to so it was done surreptitiously.
CB: Might have been a good defence in the court martial.
JW: Yeah [laughs]
CB: What would you say was your most memorable recollection of being in the RAF in the war?
JW: Just the odd occasion when, to get away with as many trips as we did you had to fly a lot of trips where there was nothing happening. There was no, you know, you got away with it. You dropped your bombs you got back, and [pause] But of the probably eight or nine instances when we were attacked by fighters or got hit by flak [unclear] [pause] Probably the time when I looked up and see that bloody aircraft above us with his bomb doors open.
CB: Yeah. Yeah. You talked about the Nuremberg raid a lot of which was in bright moonlight. What did you see in terms of aircraft exploding?
JW: Well, we were, it was our second trip on the Pathfinder squadron so we were acting as supporters, which meant we were right at the front of the — with the master bomber.
CB: Right.
JW: And we were following three Mosquitoes that were doing a spoof raid up to Hamburg I think. Somewhere up there. And we were right behind them so we think we got that through before they realised where the raid was going to go. So what was happening was behind us. I mean the gunners were calling out and saying that they could see aircraft going down but where we were we, we thought it was dangerous because I think the last two hundred miles was a straight leg, straight down to Nuremberg and there were searchlights nearly all the way down there, but so, from our point of view being at the front of the wave of bombers meant that the fighters only took off when they were behind us before they realised where we were going.
CB: Yeah.
JW: And when we got down to come back, lower down in Germany by that time they were down on the floor refuelling. So probably that’s the reason why we got through again.
CB: What was your understanding of the term scarecrow?
JW: Well, they said they were sending up these huge it was like a big dustbin if you like coming up, and they were explaining but in actual fact what they never told us was though they must have known about it was upward firing, the up firing guns and we didn’t know about them. they weren’t, we weren’t told about it.
CB: The Schrage Musik.
JW: Yeah. It was [pause] I know on one occasion on, it was, I think it was on the Nuremberg raid, our mid-upper gunner told me this there was a, the wireless operator had Fishpond. What was called Fishpond. It was an offshoot of H2S and it would pick up fighters.
CB: Trailing behind you.
JW: But the fighter, the fighter disappeared when it got within a hundred and fifty feet, and the wireless operator and the mid-upper gunner were, he was telling him where it was. That he could see it. And then suddenly it disappeared and then Appy said that as we were flying along another Lanc alongside of us, and it used to go over about that sort of speed as you were going over. As it got underneath us it suddenly blew up. And what we think was that that fighter was beneath us firing at us and this other Lanc came in underneath and got blown up instead of us. That’s what, that’s what our mid-upper was thinking, you know. That’s what he thought. He said, it was the fact it disappeared from the Fishpond meant it was within a closer range to come off where it wasn’t showing up and he said this other Lanc, it was, it used to be ok, you used to see it going very slowly underneath you but as it did, as it went underneath suddenly it went up.
CB: Did you feel the blast?
JW: No. No. I don’t know what sort of, you know, I didn’t see the aircraft going under us.
CB: No.
JW: But him being the mid-upper gunner he was, he was up at the top. He could see quite a lot.
CB: You talked about the wing commander who flew in a weave. To what extent were you aware of LMF?
JW: I don’t know of anybody who was accused of it. All I know is that any aircrew never condemned anybody as LMF. It was only some little jumped up merchant in an office sitting behind a desk who’d never even seen a gun let along had one fired who decided this. But I can understand at the top stating it, because they said that if it was easy enough to just pack up the threat of LMF was [pause] but the way they treated them when they were. I mean people had done two or three trips. But not everybody’s the same, and some people just couldn’t. You know, it’s quite, it was quite terrifying really at times. Obviously. I don’t know what we’d have done if it, we were lucky enough not to get hit but, but even so you were quite aware of the fact that you could easily get killed if, you know. You put it out of your mind but you knew really deep down that that was, that was an option. You’ll have to excuse me.
CB: Yeah. We’ll stop for a mo.
[recording paused]
JW: Well —
CB: Now, you you also relied on the ground crew and you talked about the chiefy earlier. What was the relationship between the aircrew and the groundcrew?
JW: Well, that was, well funnily enough I don’t know any of their names. because we had [pages turning]
CB: The ground crew would often look after two aircraft.
JW: That is in, that picture is in quite a few places. And that’s the ground crew. I tried to find out the names of them and I couldn’t. I hoped somebody would be able to find them by publishing it but they couldn’t.
CB: And how did the, how did you get on or did you not talk to them much?
JW: Oh you, we didn’t socialise with them. As I said we didn’t socialise with anybody except our own crew.
CB: Quite.
JW: And it was only the three of us.
CB: Who did it. Yes. But the officers would tend to socialise separately from the airmen wouldn’t they?
JW: Yeah.
CB: Anyway.
JW: Anyhow, there’s [pause] When we were getting dressed we’d get our flying kit on.
CB: Yeah.
JW: We used to sing [pause] it was, I forget the artist who sing it. “My mother done told me when I was in knee pants.” [laughs] We used to sing that as we were getting ready.
CB: And then when you got to the aircraft what rituals were there there? Like watering the rear wheel.
JW: No. We never did that. I don’t think there were any. We used to, I know that with all the checks that we used to have to make, about seventy checks but all the ones outside I never used to let the ground crew see me doing them because I always thought they would think I wasn’t trusting them. So I used to walk round and you could, you could check them yourself without which let them see that you trusted them to do their checks as well. The ones inside the aircraft of course were ok.
Other 1: Was there a very close relationship between the ground crew and the flying crew?
JW: Not as close as you would think.
Other 1: Because there’s a huge amount of reliance or —
JW: Oh yeah. You trusted them completely.
Other 1: You’d have to.
JW: Yeah. I’ll tell you what though. One thing that was happening when we, we were going. A we were taking, got around, suddenly Bill said, ‘We’ve got no brake pressure.’ So he said, ‘Do we need it in the air?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Well we can carry on then.’ I said, ‘Yeah’ You don’t use your brakes in the air do you? So the only thing we had to be careful of was taxiing around behind other aircraft. And we took off and when was it that [pause] it meant that when we got back they wouldn’t let us land there. They sent us over to Woodbridge. But on another occasion we were on the short runway and this is when I, you heard say, Bill flew the aircraft by feel as well. On the short runway and there was something wrong with the speed.
CB: Airspeed indicator. Yeah.
JW: Because it was showing a completely different reading on the, on the instrument to what was and he could feel that according to the reading you could take but he didn’t, he flew it without and by the feel and when he felt it could take off on the short runway and I knew that the airspeed cover had been taken off because I’d checked that myself.
CB: Yeah.
JW: And I said to him, ‘There might be an insect in there or something.’ Anyhow, I said, ‘Right. We’ll go through all the checks. Every check that we normally do inside.’ And one of them just in front of the door at the back was it was about that size. A rubber thing with a hole in and there used to be plugs put in that. So you had to check to make sure the plugs were out and I knew that if one was out they’d both be out. The only way I could check it was to sit with the door open and reach along the side of the fuselage and I could just reach it. I knew I could. So what I did I put my parachute on because I realised I could get sucked out. I had Bert hanging on my legs in the fuselage. Opened the door. And when I told Ed Straw who used to fly the Lanc that we’ve got now he said, ‘You bloody idiot,’ he said, ‘You could have been killed. If you’d have got sucked out,’ he said, ‘The tailplane would have hit you.’ I said, ‘I know. That’s why I — ’ Anyhow, I did try that and went on and did all the rest but I couldn’t see the other side. I said to Bill. I don’t know what I was going to do. He didn’t say anything so I thought good. But yeah it was quite funny really.
CB: And the result was?
JW: It was, it was, it was as I knew it would be. The plug wasn’t in there. But this was at ten thousand feet over Guildford.
CB: Oh right [laughs]
JW: And I thought if I fall out I could go home.
CB: Go home. Yeah. Ideal. Yeah. Did people fly with lucky charms?
JW: Yeah. I think they did. I used to have a white scarf I used to carry with me. A silk scarf. Because you couldn’t wear your tie because if you came down in the water it could shrink and choke you. But —
Other 1: Yes.
CB: And did you have any weapon on you?
JW: They issued us just after D-Day. They issued us all with revolvers.
CB: 38s.
JW: Yeah. The aircrew NCOs could only wear, they had to carry them in camp. But officers had to carry them at all times because they thought that the Germans might drop parachutists on to the aerodromes
CB: Oh.
JW: And, but the other thing that I had was a six inch bowie knife. I had them both tucked in me, in me flying boots because I always thought, it never occurred to me if we got shot down that I’d get killed. Didn’t occur to me that. And I thought, and afterwards we used to go on these three day weeks and I thought, I looked, we went out on a trip on the Rhine and I thought, you thought you were going to get across. You can’t bloody swim and you were going to get across there. What sort of daydream were you in? I mean it goes on forever. The width of it. Doesn’t it?
CB: Yeah.
Other 1: It does.
CB: When the war finished did you do any Cook’s Tours?
JW: No. No. We’d been slung off. We were taken off. In April posted away from the unit and never got near an aircraft after that. Oh. I went up. I went up once with, when I was posted, first posted to the Wellington OTU. And they wanted you to go up and they wanted somebody, you need somebody sitting in the tail of a Wellington. I said, ‘I’ll go with you.’ With the pilot and the navigator. We came down and had a look around over where I lived. But —
CB: Not in Germany.
JW: No.
CB: Where did you meet your wife?
JW: Oh, this was, we were working. Both working in the same firm. Works outing actually. We went. They took us all down for Brighton for the day. Two coaches. And we went in to, I didn’t even know she was working there, went in to lunch and suddenly this girl looked around and she had the most beautiful blue eyes. And I thought cor, you lovely blue eyes. Anyhow, I didn’t expect to ever see her again. But in those days the coaches used to go and park somewhere, then they’d come along the front, creep along very slowly and you picked your bus, your coach out and got on as it was going along. And when I got on she was sitting on the front seat. I said, ‘Anybody sitting with you?’ ‘No.’ It was a right curt. I thought I’ll sit down anyway. Got chatting and halfway back we stopped at a pub and had a drink. A couple of drinks. And we got the bottom of Waterloo Road, the factory was. We stopped outside there. We all got off the coach. And she said, ‘You’re not leaving me here on my own are you?’ I said, ‘No. Where do you live?’ She lived just around the corner from the Elephant and Castle. Anyhow, she said, ‘Come and have a cup of tea.’ So I was in there when all the family came back. They’d all been at the pub at the top of the road. Met the family. That was quite strange because when it comes time to say cheerio she went down and presented her sister and her husband had the bottom flat and they had the flat above. And I shall never forget, I said to her, ‘Can I kiss you goodnight?’ She said, ‘I’d have hit you if you hadn’t.’ [laughs] By this time although she was very curt to start with by this time we’d sort of got some rapport and I arranged to meet her again in a week. But when I got outside there was a rail strike on and so I couldn’t get back to Guildford but I was staying with my grandmother at Putney. I got outside and I thought bloody hell how the hell do I get to Putney? All I’d got in my pocket was a half a crown. And I hadn’t got a clue where I was. Anyhow, I walked up to the main road and I see a taxi. I hailed him. He said, ‘I’ve finished mate.’ I said, ‘Oh I’m in trouble, trouble here,’ I said, ‘I’m trying to get back to Putney and I don’t know where it is,’ I said, ‘I’ve only got a half — ’ ‘Get in,’ he said, ‘I’ll take you to Putney Bridge which was, I knew where I was then. And he did. And it was ever so good of him. But then we went out and then later on we decided to get married.
CB: When did you get married?
JW: In September the 1st on 1956.
CB: What was the company you were working for then?
JW: It was Cockayne and Company.
CB: Who?
JW: Cockayne’s.
CB: Oh Cockayne.
JW: C O C K A Y N E. The chap who owned it used to drive around. He used to have a chauffeur with a Rolls Royce and his chauffeur wore a peak cap, gaters, polished gaters. And occasionally he would come around. At Christmas usually he would come around and say hello to everybody. I forget his name now. But they had a factory in Eastleigh in Southampton. And we went down once to play football with them. A football match. Clever they were. Treated us all to a bloody great lunch. And then their team arrived didn’t it? We were playing football on a full stomach.
CB: Different people. Yes. Gamesmanship they call it.
JW: Yeah. Yeah. We were married for [pause] She died in 2013.
CB: Oh dear. Was she younger than you or —
JW: She was five years younger than me.
CB: Well, Jack Watson. A really interesting conversation. Thank you so much.
JW: I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with John Robert Watson
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
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
2018-02-02
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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AWatsonJR180202, PWatsonJR1501
Format
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02:04:35 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
John Robert Watson joined RAF Bomber Command in 1943, volunteering after he witnessed his next-door neighbour's house being destroyed by a bomb. Against his father's wishes, John joined Bomber Command initially as a wireless operator, before transferring to a flight engineer course. Travelling to RAF Ouston, John flew in Lancasters and Halifaxes. His first operation took place on the 17th of January 1944, which he believed he would not survive. His second operation was to Berlin and featured another close call, in which he almost crashed into another Lancaster. He remembers his crew fondly, stating that they did well throughout the war because they trusted one another so much. Joining the Pathfinders force, John travelled from RAF Wickenby to RAF Warboys, changing crews and being put through extra training. Completing over 40 operations John recalls several operations, including one over Nuremberg which featured another close call. John was then moved again and became a flight instructor for Wellingtons. He also gives information regarding his crew, being a flight instructor, his scariest moment whilst flying, the impact of lack of morale fibre, and master bombers' role. He also gives several humorous stories of his time at RAF stations and his run-ins with higher-ranking service members. During his service as a Pathfinder, John received the Distinguished Flying Medal, the Legion of Honour and the Pathfinder badge. When he was demobilized, he became disillusioned with discipline within the RAF and continued his apprenticeship, meeting and marrying his wife in 1956 and living with her until she passed away in 2013.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Huntingdonshire
England--Northumberland
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Nuremberg
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944-01-17
1956
Contributor
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Sam Harper-Coulson
Julie Williams
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
12 Squadron
156 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
crash
Distinguished Flying Medal
fear
flight engineer
Halifax
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Master Bomber
mid-air collision
military ethos
Pathfinders
RAF Faldingworth
RAF Ouston
RAF Warboys
RAF Wickenby
recruitment
searchlight
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/910/11152/AKilbeyJ171111.2.mp3
28aecfa076b0b40da4273e7ad42ac656
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
Kilbey, Jean
J Kilbey
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Jean Kilbey (b. 1924).
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-11
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
Kilbey, J
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
SJ: Have a chat.
JK: Sorry. And I don’t hold it.
SJ: No.
JK: You do the holding.
SJ: So if you just want to have a chat.
JK: Right.
SJ: Then I can see if it needs to go any nearer.
JK: Well, it’s very very nice to meet you, Sandra and Peter. And for you to meet my two very good friends who have come to be with us because my friend Francis Trevor Stephens was her uncle.
SJ: Ok. Thank you.
JK: Anything else? No.
[recording paused]
JK: And my being able to tell them how Trevor Stephens, DFM was a childhood friend of mine from the age of two. I knew him and he once said, we used to fight though when we were children and he once said he didn’t know why God made me [laughs] But we were such good friends. And I can’t really go in to how we met. His grandparents were [pause] what were Nellie and Charlie? His grandparents or parents? His parents.
JM: They were his parents.
FM: His parents.
JK: Well, they had a building company, a big one and they got a contract to build the school that I went to. But before they built it his father built the caretaker’s house. In those days they did that sort of thing. And he brought the family from Sutton Coldfield to Rugby to live in that house which was virtually at the bottom of my parent’s garden. And that was how we met when we were two or three, or three and four. And my friend Francis who is here with me, her father was about six. So, that’s how long the friendship [pause] how long ago it started and it’s been there ever since. Always they’ve been there. And Fran’s granny, her nanna was my Auntie Nell, the mother of Trevor. Always included in everything for our family and Trevor was. And when Dennis, Francis’s father was twenty one, just before the war they, was it just — I think it was well anyhow his parents bought him a little MG car. And then Trevor took it over when Den went in the army. I think my friend might be able to say yes or no but Dennis got a medal. Didn’t he get a medal in Italy?
FM: Yes. He did. Yes.
JK: He did didn’t he?
FM: They both —
JM: Yes.
FM: Got medals. Yes.
JK: He did.
FM: Yes. Yeah.
JK: Yes. I don’t know how Auntie Nellie coped with two sons who were away fighting.
FM: No.
JK: No. And dad did. Yes. So that’s how long our friendship goes back and we had wonderful times together. Where had we used to — oh, do you remember Francis when it was the Scout or the Guide Jamboree?
FM: Oh, yes.
JK: In Sutton Park?
FM: Yes. I remember that. Yes. Yes.
JK: And it rained and rained and rained. How long ago was that?
FM: Gosh.
JM: ’53.
JK: Was it John?
FM: The Coronation year was it?
JM: Was it?
JK: Yes. I think it was.
JM: Yeah.
JK: Yeah. I think it was. Yes. And we, because we lived in Solihull for quite a long time which is about what fifteen miles from Sutton Coldfield so we were often over there. Oh, I don’t know. I’ve got so many memories of the Stephens and the Stewarts it would be in those days. My maiden name. My married name is Kilbey. But, oh no. So many memories. Lovely things. I just loved my Auntie Nell. And Fran’s grandfather, my uncle Charlie he was gassed in the First World War and he never really recovered from it, did he? All through his life.
FM: He died early. Quite early didn’t he? He was just sixty two wasn’t he?
JK: Yes. Yes. But dad was in the Royal Engineers I think.
SJ: Yes. He was. Yeah.
JK: Yeah. My father went to Russia at the end of the war for a year with the Royal Warwicks and I bet they weren’t clothed then like they would be now. I used to love him telling me stories of Russia. What they did. And he was only a little man. They’re my parents in that photograph there. That was when it was, I think that was taken for their golden wedding but I’m not a hundred percent certain. They might have been. They didn’t live to see their sixtieth both of them. No. So, is there anything more you feel I might be able to, that I haven’t dwelt on?
JM: Do you remember the actual time when Trevor never came back from the last mission?
JK: Oh yes.
FM: Yes. She does remember.
JK: Oh, I do remember it well because I don’t know who phoned mum. Phoned through to Rugby. And mum phoned for a taxi, went down to Rugby station, got the train to Birmingham and then I take it, probably a bus out to Sutton to be with Auntie Nell. Oh yes. Mum went to her that day. Yeah. And of course he was missing at first. And while he was missing his commission came through and they’d made him pilot officer. And then they did go to Buckingham Palace, didn’t they? To get their medal.
JM: Did they? I don’t know.
JK: I think they did because there was a film made with Dirk Bogarde in, called, “Appointment in London,” and that was the story of an airman going to Buckingham Palace for his investiture. Some years ago but I always said that was Trevor’s film. Always did.
FM: Yeah.
JK: But he, it says in Trevor Smith’s he was mad about flying always. And my husband’s father got his wings in the First World War. And Graham, he was, you probably don’t know but I think Fran and John might know the BTH company in Rugby which was the British Thomson Houston they, you could have an apprenticeship there for five years combined with a university course at the local, what was it called? The Rugby College of Technology. And dad was, he was [pause] what do you call it when you didn’t have to join up but you could volunteer for submarines or air? To be a pilot. So, Grah went. We weren’t even engaged then and Grah went to Coventry, to the headquarters for that. To volunteer for aircrew. And they found he was colour blind. They didn’t want to know him. Thank God for that. But he joined the Home Guard and what those boys did. They’re college work, working from 7.30 in the morning ‘til 7.30at night and then they used to be in the evening and Sunday training with the Home Guard because they were called a mobile unit and if we’d been invaded anywhere in England they were all young men. They would have gone. And they used to go on exercises with live ammunition. But we used to take it in our stride, you know. Is that tea all right, John because if it’s old?
JM: It’s alright. It’s fine. Thank you.
JK: And [pause] oh yes. They really had to train hard. I, I before I had to have this room all disorganised I’d got all the information of Graham when he was in the Home Guard. And it was very interesting but I think I’ve lost it. Unless. I don’t think it’s in here. No. That’s the Memorial Flight. I’ve got the —
SJ: Going back to —
JK: Trevor.
SJ: Trevor Stephens.
JK: Yes.
SJ: Did he volunteer or —
JK: Yes. He volun —
SJ: Was he conscripted?
JK: No. He volunteered. He joined the, what did they used to call them? The? Well, it tells you in that. Who’s got the [pause] it tells you there dear. Yes. It tells you here that he [pause] well it is in this. I know because I’ve been reading it today before you came.
JM: Well. I seem to remember that Dennis, Francis’ dad —
JK: Yes.
JM: And Trevor’s brother.
JK: Yeah.
JM: He told me that Trevor was never interested at school.
JK: No.
JM: In anything.
JK: No. No. Flying.
JM: He just didn’t want to know.
JK: No.
JM: But all of a sudden, he was absolutely mad keen on flying.
JK: Absolutely.
JM: And because he wanted to fly he then had to get his head down and start studying.
JK: Yes.
JM: And within no time at all he’d qualified.
JK: Well, the —
JM: Passed all the exams.
JK: Yes.
JM: And was able to then go into flying school or whatever they did.
JK: Well, somewhere, and I don’t know where they are now I’ve got all the letters he used to write to me from Canada when he went. You know, when they were training there.
FM: Yeah.
JK: No, he —
FM: Because he sent mum and dad a wedding present from Canada.
JK: Did he? Yeah.
FM: A silver tray. I was going to bring it to show you.
JK: Oh. I’d have loved to have seen it.
FM: A silver jug and a sugar bowl and it was engraved on the occasion of their wedding. I think August ’42.
JK: No. Wait a minute. Oh yes. Wait a minute. He joined the Sutton Coldfield squadron of the Air Training Corps at the age of seventeen and a volunteer at the age of seventeen and a half before enlisting in the RAF Volunteer Reserve. He was, he was commissioned as a pilot officer during the month in which he died. While he was still missing his commission came through. I knew I had seen it on this but you’ve got the photographs I took of him from your dad’s car when they came over to Rugby.
FM: Yes.
JK: Oh yes.
JM: We do. Yeah.
JK: He’s, oh yes. But that was your father’s but old Trevor took it over.
SJ: Do you know anything about Trevor’s training?
JK: Oh, well it was in Canada. Oh God. Yeah. I wish. I don’t know where those letters are, dear. Oh yes. He used to write to me regularly. You know, as a brother to a sister. I think this is lovely that this Trevor Smith says, “I remember well my late father telling me in my early teens in the 50s that I had been named in the memory of a decorated wartime RAF bomber pilot — Trevor Stephens DFM.” I’m going to cry now. “The son of the owners of Stephens Builders who ran their business in Boldmere, Sutton Coldfield. I did nothing with the information at the time even though it fitted well with my popular reading of the day, “The Cruel Sea.” “The Colditz Story.” “Reach for the Sky.” That was a wonderful film and a friend of mine didn’t want to go and see it because she thought it was all going to be about film stars. I said, ‘You fool. It was — ’ [laughs] “There it remained in the mental filing cabinet until last year on retirement when I joined — ” do you know anything about U3A?
SJ: Yes.
JK: Right. I used to me. I’m not in it anymore. I can’t go. I was in it for what? Thirty years I suppose. On the committee and everything. There it remained until I joined the creative writing group of the U3A and the chap with Margaret Emery nee Stephens of the writing group established that we had both lived in Boldmere.” And that was it was his cousin.
JM: It’s Margaret who you’re in touch with at the moment.
JK: Yeah.
FM: Yes. Yeah.
JK: Yes. And that was not, what was his name? Noel.
FM: Yes.
JK: The father.
FM: Yes. Noel.
JK: Yes.
FM: Who was my dad’s uncle.
JK: Yes. Yes. Charlie’s brother.
FM: Yes, that’s right.
JK: Yes. “The story of the link with Steven’s Builders and their son revealed that Trevor Stephens was Margaret’s cousin and that the family held not only newspaper cutting but,” I think I did have a newspaper cutting of him but I don’t know where it is. Because I know in one thing they wrote about him when he landed the plane and got the DFM it said, “But Flight Sergeant Stephens held his nerve and brought the plane down.”
FM: Yes. That’s so interesting. Have you read this article because —
JK: Haven’t you read that? I thought you did dear. I’m so sorry.
FM: Last, last but one flight.
JK: Yes.
FM: Where his rear gunner was injured.
JK: Yes.
FM: And half, some of the plane was missing and he managed to, he was losing height and managed. He thought he was going to land in France.
JK: Yes.
FM: But he struggled on with I think one engine working.
JK: Yes. Yeah.
FM: Losing height all the time and then he managed to land in, back in England.
JK: And then Fran’s brother who lives in Kenya doesn’t he, now? Paul.
FM: Yeah.
JK: He said to his father, how many years ago would it be? Fifteen? Twelve? He said, ‘You know, dad we really ought to go Berlin to the graves and see Uncle Trevor’s grave.’ So, Dennis got, they got in touch with the War Graves Commission only to be told that there was no cemetery there. It had all been bombed by our own bombers later on in the war. But he’s on Runnymede Memorial and I suppose on the one in London. Yes.
FM: Yes.
JK: Poor dear. I’m not crying. I won’t. No. I won’t.
FM: No.
JM: No.
JK: Because we’ll both start if I do.
FM: Yes.
JK: Oh dear.
SJ: What else can you tell us about Trevor’s life?
JK: Oh dear. What else can I tell her? Oh, well he used to write to me if ever he met a girl. What was, when he was I don’t know where he could have been but once or twice he wrote to me asking if I could find out anything more about certain girls. He’d met one who lived in Rugby and did I know her? Could I tell him anything? I can remember that letter very clearly. Well, this little tray Judy’s brought me for this, am I still recording? Oh my God.
JM: It’s alright. It’s just natural. Just carry on.
FM: [laughs] Oh dear.
JK: Well, you know on a Thursday Nigel drives for ITA. You know what that is? Independent Transport. And they request lifts to take them to hospitals, these people, you see. And he meets some very interesting people and they say, and they say to Nigel, ‘Is your mother Jean Kilbey?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Oh, well I know her through the Conservatives,’ or this that and the other. It’s ever so funny and so they do a scheme at this Citizen’s Advice Centre if anybody’s lonely, oh have your coffee dear. Or tea. Would you like it warmed up because Francis will make you another one.
JM: It’s alright.
JK: Go make him another one, Francis. If you’re lonely they can arrange for people to come to see you. Well, the two people who organise it, ‘Oh, go and see mum. She’ll talk you to death but go and see her.’ So, two people came to see me. Two very nice people. I said, ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’ve always got somebody to talk to on the phone. I’ve got so many friends. So many family,’ I said, ‘I’m never alone like that,’ you know. So they rang me up the other day. About two days ago and said, ‘This is Pam from Citizen’s Advice.’
[phone ringing]
JK: Excuse me. It might be for you. You never know.
[recording paused]
JK: Peter. Well, then you know we were always very sad that we never heard again from who did he [pause] who used to come with him? He flew Lancs and he went right out of our lives as soon as war was over. He got through the war. Then of course there was Dick.
FM: I was going to say —
JK: Not Dick.
FM: Not Dick in Canada.
JK: Not Wilshire. No.
FM: No.
JK: What was his name? Frank somebody.
FM: No. I don’t remember that.
JK: But he just, well he got through the war.
FM: Yes.
JK: But he just went out of our [unclear] but the other friend that we’ve just mentioned they, they emigrated Canada, then to America and he, well I stayed with them in America for a couple of days and he had a heart transplant. While I was staying with them, what would it be fifteen, I don’t know. Years ago. He said, ‘Have you got your passport with you, Jean?’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘It never leaves me.’ He said, ‘Right. We’re going to Mexico tomorrow.’
FM: Fantastic.
JK: And what it was he used to go into Mexico. You left your car in a car park and you walked in to Mexico. And there he could buy much cheaper the tablets for his heart condition. I’ve done some very interesting things through Trevor in a way.
FM: Yes. Yeah.
JK: That is another story about Trevor. Did you know that John?
JM: No.
JK: You’ve learned something. Do you know so many friends have said you ought to have written a book.
FM: Yes. Yeah.
JK: I can’t now. I’m too old. And you see that picture up there? Well you were there when — do you know what it is?
FM: This here.
JK: This one.
FM: No.
JK: Have a guess what that is.
FM: Is it the Sahara?
JK: No. It’s a picture taken on Mars by the American cameras.
FM: Good heavens.
JK: When our camera, it didn’t do it and there my American friends whom I’ve had so many wonderful holidays with they brought it over for me when I was eighty. And I met Gale. He used to come to, do you know the Rutherford Laboratories here? Well, he used to come. He was the American team for the infra red. What’s the astronomy, satellite or something. I used to know it all dear. You think I’ve got a good memory. I have but some things get a bit misty. And he used to come to our restaurant. You know, for meals. And then he brought his first wife over. Well, then they divorced and then he married Lee. Oh, they’ve given me wonderful holidays in California and New England. Absolutely wonderful. They really have. And now I just sit here and think.
SJ: Yes. Lots of memories.
JK: Memories.
SJ: Going back to Trevor. What else can you think of?
JK: Of Trevor. Well, I know we used to go down if we came over we would only come over for the day. When we had lunch at Nan’s big oval table.
FM: Yeah.
JK: And Trevor, I don’t think Dennis came we walked to the park. To Sutton Park.
FM: Oh lovely.
JK: They got it out the way. I’ll tell you a funny story about Trevor. It’s a bit rude but it’s very Trevor. Uncle Charlie was absolutely super man. He was a devil but he was a lovely and when to begin with when they finally left building my school which became my school in Rugby, it’s all been knocked down, every bit of it now. But of course I’ve still got the [pause] I gave you one, didn’t I?
FM: Oh. The, yes. The —
JK: The Minerva. Yes. Where is she? She’s there somewhere. Uncle Charlie lived with us for about three weeks I think when the family had gone home to tidy everything up. And he used to say to people years later if I was at their house, ‘Well, I used to change her nappies. I knew her very well.’ But the occasion about Trevor was he hadn’t been very well and it was the days when the doctor came to see you and he did his own medicines. So, oh he said, ‘Send Trevor down in about two hours.’ It was all in Sutton Coldfield, in Boldmere I suppose to get it. So Trevor goes down, gets his bottle, brings it back, gives it to his dad. You know this, don’t you?
JM: Yes.
FM: You told me the other day.
JK: Well, it’s absolutely true and so Charlie said, ‘God,’ he said, ‘That’s like, like gnat’s water.’ And at that moment the phone rang and I don’t know who answered it. It would have been in the hall. It wouldn’t have been in the room. And the doctor, and there had had been a Mrs Stephens had taken in a sample in to be tested and Trevor had taken it because he had seen Stephens on it. I mean, I think that is absolutely lovely. I said to somebody [laughs] Oh dear. He was always prone to little things like that.
FM: Yes.
JK: But, oh dear. When he went missing. Mummy went straight over to be with her friend, Nellie. My dad adored Nellie and Uncle Charlie adored my mum. Both of them, didn’t they?
SJ: How old was Trevor when he was shot down?
JK: Twenty. Well, it says twenty one but I don’t think he would have been twenty one ‘til the following June.
FM: No.
JK: He was no more than twenty one.
FM: No. No.
JK: Was he shot, was he shot down with a fighter or was it [pause] do you know Peter?
PJ: According to this. Yeah.
JK: A fighter got them.
PJ: Yeah.
FM: Over Berlin wasn’t it?
JK: Yes. But I think that was dreadful when Paul said to his dad, ‘I think we ought to go and see Trevor’s grave,’ and there wasn’t one because we’d bombed it all. And you see that grandson there? You see that picture of him? Not a big one. The little one. That’s when he was fighting in Afghanistan. He’s a major in Number 42 Commando. Oh, it was dreadful while he was there. His mother, his wife and I then they married. They came home and married and then they had the twins who were born so premature. And when little, and she lived to be five months old. The little girl. And all at once Judy rang me, ‘Mum, we’ve just had terrible news. Celia isn’t expected to live tonight.’ Something had happened to her heart because she was so premature but she’d been gaining weight. And now look at him. Isn’t he gorgeous?
FM: Yes. He is, isn’t he?
JK: He really is. Absolutely gorgeous. And as I say that’s his father beside him. Who is, that was his wedding photograph. When he passed out of Sandhurst, not Sand, yes Sandhurst I suppose it was. He gave us all a photograph of him in that frame. But it wasn’t a smiling photograph. It wasn’t Sandhurst. Lympstone, the Marines. Sandhurst is the Army. Lympstone is Marines. But I’ve taken that wedding photograph and put in there. I love it.
FM: Yeah.
JK: And there’s a little, his name is Harrison but I call him Prince Harry. I wonder what, now you, what’s June’s daughter name?
FM: Megan.
JK: Yes. Megan Merk.
FM: Yes.
JK: I know.
FM: Yes.
JK: Yeah. Well, that Meghan Merkhal.
FM: Yeah.
JK: And she’s been divorced.
FM: Yes. Yeah.
JK: But I love the Cambridges. Oh, I think their lovely. I really do.
FM: Yeah. So, no more news of Trevor then? You can’t think of anything else?
JK: No. Not really. Well, I suppose —
FM: Do you remember him having any girlfriends?
JK: No, he didn’t.
FM: No.
JK: No. His life was flying.
FM: Yes.
JK: But when he was, when joined up and that was where he met Dick. They went to Paignton. To the Hotel de Paris.
FM: In Devon.
JK: When they joined. When he joined up that’s where he went. That’s where he met Dick Wilsher. Yeah. It’s coming back a bit.
JM: Yeah.
JK: Yes. That’s where he met Dick. Spelled W I L S H E R, isn’t it? Wilsher. Stayed with them in America when I was there with those other friends. It was wonderful. I was, they were staying, oh God where was it? I had to go on the train and have my lunch on the train. It was a long journey. I was staying in [pause] God where was I? I’ve done so much travelling, dear. Australia, New Zealand, America, South Africa. Anyhow, I went. What was the name of the place they were? Oh. Anyhow, I went down and Dick met me at the station and oh I had a lovely, oh we went on a ride. We went on, I want to say Golden Gate but I don’t think it was. We had a lovely ride out on a big boat. While I was with them we did all sort of things.
FM: Lovely.
JK: You see I can’t easily get upstairs now to get all my albums out.
FM: No.
JK: They’re all in there. I’ve got a stairlift but and I’ve got another zimmer upstairs but it would be a bit tricky. So, no. Dick. It was the Cafe de Paris in Paignton where they went when they joined up and you see Dick although he’s dead now because he had this new heart he was on, Trevor went on Pathfinders. Dick went on general duties. But what he did, which I’m sure you’ll find interesting he was the back-up planes after the Dambusters. He was in 617 Squadron. Yeah. He was. And I had, I well, you see unfortunately I had everything I could have just put my finger on. My albums were all together. I don’t know where it is now. God, I think it’s out in the garage and I could have said, ‘Well, here’s a photograph of them.’ And the neighbour has given me that big set for the end of my bedroom. The end of my room. The big one there and the big one there. I watch it at night you see. And so I said, he said I think it was a wedding anniversary, not sixtieth, might have been the golden wedding he said, ‘We’ve got everything so we bought a much bigger telly. He said, ‘And we’d like to give, if you’ll have it we’d like to give you one that’s the same as I’ve got.’ So I didn’t say, ‘No, thank you.’ I bought him a bottle of whisky for it. Then I had my Macmillan Coffee Morning at the Cornerstone and made eighty, nearly eighty pounds for them.
JM: Good.
JK: Seventy five.
FM: Lovely. Wonderful.
JK: Yeah. You see you’re supposed to have it in your house. That’s the idea.
FM: Yes. Yes.
JK: But I can’t.
FM: No.
JK: So, I go to my Cornerstone. They were so lovely. I can’t go very often now because I can’t drive and friends came there and they send you a special [pause] you open it up to put the money in. You don’t see what they’re putting in. And they send, and they send you balloons if you’re in your own house. They send you all sorts of things. And flags.
FM: It’s a fundraising pack isn’t it?
JK: Oh yes. Have you seen it? Yes. Oh yes. It’s lovely. All for free. And I’ve already said if I’m alive I’ll do it next year [laughs] Oh I love doing things like that.
FM: Yeah.
JK: Well, I used to. So much. And don’t forget for twelve years, six of those were without Graham we had the restaurant in [unclear] and I was used to doing so much there. Do you remember coming there? Did you?
FM: Yes.
JK: No. Where were you living when you came with your eldest daughter and —
FM: I don’t remember.
JK: And Auntie Nell. You brought them to see us.
FM: Yes.
JK: It must have been in the Vintage.
FM: You were living above the Vintage. Yes.
JK: Yes. Well, it was the Vintage then.
FM: Yes.
JK: We had the lovely flat upstairs. Yeah.
FM: Yes. Yes.
JK: Yeah. Oh dear. I’ve been around. Done some things.
FM: Yes.
JK: And now I’ve met you two nice people. So —
PJ: Finished?
SJ: Sorry?
PJ: I’ll just finish then.
JK: Yeah. Alright. Are you coming to speak in to this?
PJ: Yeah. It is Saturday the 11th of November 2017. Interviewer Pete Jones. We were here today at Mrs Kilbey’s home in Wantage, Oxfordshire. On behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre to interview Mrs Jean Kilbey who was telling us about her very good friend Pilot Officer Trevor Stephens DFM. Also present are Sandra Jones representing the IBCC and Pilot Officer Steven’s niece and her husband Fran and John Mole. Mrs Kilbey, thank you for agreeing to be interviewed for the IBCC. Please tell us about oh, I messed that bit out. On behalf of the IBCC we would like to thank you all for taking part in this interview. That can be edited.
JK: Anything I could do for them I would do, dear
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 Jean Kilbey
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sandra Jones
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
2017-11-11
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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AKilbeyJ171111
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:32:58 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Civilian
Description
An account of the resource
Interview with Jean Kilby about Trevor Stephens DFM. He wasn’t interested in school until he discovered a love of flying. In order to fulfil his dream to fly he worked hard on his education and volunteered for aircrew. He trained as a pilot and was posted to 156 Squadron. On the 22nd of November 1943 he and his crew left RAF Warboys for their final operation. They were shot down by a night fighter and are buried in Germany. He was twenty years old.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
156 Squadron
aircrew
pilot
RAF Warboys
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/246/3392/PDenverI1704.2.jpg
333052530a5ff31f1299a9657b634587
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/246/3392/ADenverI170221.2.mp3
9763d77aca3da4289606b069f644e294
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
Denver, Ian
Ian Denver
I Denver
Description
An account of the resource
Five items, Collection concerns Ian Denver (422844 Royal Australian Air Force) and contains an oral history interview, extracts from his log book and photographs.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Ian Denver and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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
2017-02-21
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. 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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Denver, I
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JP: We’ll just start the interview now. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer — myself. Miss Jean MacCartney.
ID: Is this the one that they’re building out at Louth.
JP: Lincoln.
ID: Lincoln.
JP: Yes.
ID: Well — near Louth.
JP: Yes. That’s right. And the interviewee is Mr Ian Denver. The interview is taking place at Mr Denver’s home in Robina in Queensland on the 21st of February 2017.
ID: Yeah.
JP: Also present is Mr Denver’s daughter — Louise. Ok. Ian. We’ll start right back at the beginning. July 1923. And I believe you were born in Maitland.
ID: That’s right.
JP: And you spent most of your early years up until the intermediate certificate in Maitland. Is that right?
ID: I went to high school in Maitland ‘til I then did my leaving certificate.
JP: Leaving certificate.
ID: But then I finished early. Right.
JP: Yes.
ID: In [pause] I said finished early. I wasn’t allowed to go into the air force ‘til I was eighteen.
JP: No.
ID: And I did my leaving at seventeen.
JP: Seventeen. Yes. Well just tell me a little bit about your time in Maitland because without being too personal I believe you were actually born as Ian Deramore - Denver.
ID: That’s true.
JP: And you’ve, you’ve dropped the —
ID: Yeah.
JP: The first part of —
ID: I think my father just adopted the word Deramore because he liked it. Also, he, he was very badly wounded Gallipoli and he spent a lot of time in hospital in London and he met a lady who was very kind to him and she lived just off the edge of the estate that was Lord Deramore’s estate which is at a place called Acomb in York. Just out of York itself and [pause] well that was it. After the war of course he did all sorts of things. And he was, initially he was constantly in and out of hospital because he was hit here. Went in there and out the other side and his bleeding internally was very bad.
JP: Right. And so —
ID: Louise. Get me my hearing aids and I’ll see if —
LD: That would be a very good idea. Well done dad.
JP: Dad. Ok. Well we’ll pause for a minute while you —
ID: They should be in there.
[recording paused]
JP: Ok. We’re resuming now. Ian’s now got his hearing aids in so that makes it a little bit easier for him. So, we were just talking about your father and his war injuries and your time when you were at Maitland and I think I’ve seen something that when you, when you were a young boy or in your, at school and that you were involved in a lot of sports and competition. Would you like to tell me a little bit about those? You were in diving and —
ID: Well I did —
JP: Athletics.
ID: On the swimming, diving side there was a fellow named Ron Tubman whom was called —my son Michael that was killed in an accident. We named him after Ron Tubman. Ok. Who came from Maitland. Went to the same school same as me. The other pilot Geoff Jones who was called Michael Geoffrey then, but Geoff was from Pymble. Came out of Sydney. Nothing much to tell you about as far as sports are concerned.
JP: Did you compete in a lot of competitions?
ID: Well, yes and no. Yes, in that I competed a lot but I didn’t win that much, you know. I was a bit too small to compete for some of the things. But in the diving for example Ron and I were always competing against each other to see who would, well to see who would win the school diving championship. That sort of thing. As far as cricket and football was concerned rugby league it was. We played that. And I suppose my most exciting period was the last game I had with the school. We played the combined Newcastle High Schools. And, in the process I scored all the points which happened to be —I can’t to remember the numbers. Two tries and four, four goals and it came to about sixteen points or so. But the teacher didn’t like my dad so instead of covering it in the school magazine or anywhere he just ignored it. Bill Bates was his name.
JP: That’s unfortunate.
ID: Yeah. I thought so too because I didn’t really — I worked hard.
JP: Yes.
ID: And I tried hard and did well.
JP: That’s right and that’s an outstanding result
ID: Yeah.
JP: To beat the other team.
ID: And we won —
JP: That’s right. That’s right.
ID: The Newcastle area which in those days included [unclear ] and everywhere and we competed against them.
JP: Yes. And —
LD: And the reason that Ron is important is that dad went to the war with Ron.
JP: With Ron. Yes. I know. That’s right. Yes. And your father, I know he was not well but is —he was doing some editing of the local paper at that time as well. Is that right?
ID: Yes. He —he was the sports editor for the Maitland Mercury and was the editor of a magazine called Golfing Australia.
JP: Oh right.
ID: So, he did a fair amount of writing. He was a very good writer, my father. And I can see him today sitting at a butcher’s table we used to call it. He’d sit at the butchers table and rip of this bunch of paper and word after word and it was given to me. I would get it typed.
JP: That’s and and so did he write up that? Your match in the local paper then so that you at least had some coverage.
ID: Yeah. Well he would then send it to the local paper but then he would edit it himself too. So he wasn’t only writing it. He was editing it.
JP: Yes. That’s right.
ID: But a big problem was that his wounding. There was a hospital at Sydney, a slight royal, Randwick anyhow and it was a Repat hospital at Randwick.
JP: Yep.
ID: And we’d go down there and see him occasionally. But he’d often be two or three months at a time in hospital. So, we had a fair period without a father.
JP: Father.
ID: Supervising and [lying up?] so everything was left to my mother.
JP: Mother.
ID: And we had three boys and a girl.
JP: Goodness. And she, she wasn’t working, was she? She was —
ID: Well in those days women really didn’t work.
JP: Really didn’t work. No. That’s right.
ID: And she had four kids to look after anyway.
JP: Look after.
ID: And the only income a lot of the time was a pension that he got from his war wound. Which we lived on. Sometimes for years.
LD: So, we’re talking 1920s. The end of the twenties and early thirties here.
ID: About 1930 there.
JP: Yeah.
ID: I was seven then.
JP: Yes. That’s right. And then of course then the Depression came, years came along. So you had, you as a family had to go through that. So, you were still in Maitland during the Depression years.
ID: Well, my father and mother and my sister June —they all moved to Sydney. Mainly for dad to get a job. He was offered a good job down at Sydney. And because I had two years or so to go to do my leaving certificate I stayed on in Maitland. Living with my grandparents and went to school there.
JP: Right. And so, then they were living in Sydney. You were in Maitland. You finished your leaving certificate and then at the end of that I think you then went because you was too young to go in the air force at that stage.
ID: That’s right. Yeah.
JP: You went into the bank.
ID: You had to be eighteen.
JP: Eighteen. That’s right. But you also I think were in Air Training Corps. Had you joined the air training corps?
ID: Yes.
JP: Yes.
ID: The ATC.
JP: And what, what age did you join the Air Training Corps?
ID: Quite young. You know. Maybe I was only about thirteen or something like that. I was always interested in flying. The first time I saw a plane fly was a Lockheed Electra that came out to Australia and came up to Newcastle and was putting on exhibitions at Newcastle. And so, we went to Newcastle Airport and had a look at that.
JP: Good.
ID: But not my dad or my mum or anybody in the family didn’t particularly encouraged me to go into the services.
JP: No.
ID: My elder brother Peter had already been through the initial campaigns in Libya. In Benghazi. And fought the rear — guard action in Greece and Crete and so on. And then as soon as I turned eighteen the bank had been opposing it but as soon as I turned eighteen I said, ‘I’m going.’
JP: Going. And what, what did you learn? Any skills in the Air Training Corps that gave you, you felt an advantage of initial training for the air force when you came into that?
ID: I — when I [pause] when I was in the ATC.
JP: C .
ID: We went through things like the theory of flight at that time so that by the time I actually did get in to the air force I was fairly well off. You know, what went on in aeroplanes and engines and hydraulics and so on.
JP: And did you actually get taken up in a flight at all when you were in the ATC? Did you do any flights whatsoever? Or they just left you on the ground and got you to do all the theory.
ID: I did have a flight. But I think it was a Rapide or something. But it was, you know, as a passenger, it wasn’t –
JP: Oh yes. Yes. Just as a sort of a joy flight type thing. Yeah.
ID: Just to have a look and see what goes on.
LD: How old were you when you went up in the Rapide?
ID: How old was I? Well I’d been really keen when I was about sixteen.
JP: Right.
ID: And from then on it was just a matter of waiting ‘til I got eighteen because the war started and I wasn’t allowed to go into the war until I turned eighteen.
JP: Eighteen.
LD: So, this was 1941.
JP: Well he enlisted, he enlisted in May 1942. In Sydney. You went down to Sydney because obviously your parents were still there in Sydney so —
ID: Yeah, they went down to Sydney and stayed there.
JP: Yes. That’s right.
ID: And lived in Potts Point.
JP: Potts Point. Yes. Now, one thing one other thing before we move into what was your initial training were you — when the Japanese mini subs came into Sydney harbour were you in Sydney with your parents at that stage or were you up in Maitland still?
ID: When the submarines — the Japanese submarines came in?
JP: Yeah.
ID: No. As a matter of fact I was in Sydney.
JP: You were in Sydney.
ID: They went up and we lived only a hundred yards or so from where the bombing took place.
JP: So, did you, were you at home at the time? Did you feel the —any, you know. Reverberations.
ID: You didn’t give you any news in those days.
JP: No. But I just —
ID: You found out in the newspaper what happened.
JP: Yes. But you — but you didn’t feel, there was no vibration from the bombs.
ID: No.
JP: No. No. No. Or any noise. You didn’t hear any noise.
ID: No. It was night time.
JP: Night time.
ID: And also, I don’t, I don’t think they bombed as such.
JP: No.
ID: They just fired a few guns and went off. It was a submarine.
JP: Submarines.
ID: Japanese submarines.
JP: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Ok well we’ll move along now to your enlistment and you did your initial. Where did you do your initial training?
ID: In Bradfield Park.
JP: Bradfield Park. Right. And then when when did you start your flying?
ID: Not [pause] about three or four months later. What actually happened was that they enrolled too many people and they couldn’t place them all, so we had no choice but to — you either get out of the air force or you wait ‘til we can find room for you. And then I was made, as was quite a few other people who were with me, made an aircrew guards they were called. And I was placed in Richmond. So, I spent about four months or so out at Richmond. Which suited me because Richmond was, you know, in Sydney and I could get into town without any real trouble. But —
JP: So, if you —
ID: My father was very much involved in the war activities as such. He started, or helped to start the Gallipoli Legion of Anzacs which was a club that was formed under the Harbour Bridge at Milson’s Point there. That’s gone. Since gone. But he was the founding secretary.
JP: Secretary.
ID: And I think president. Ran about two or three jobs.
JP: Right.
ID: But he was a very good bloke my father.
JP: Sounds like it. To be so —
ID: And he was very very proud of any kind of service that we’d done.
JP: Done. Yes.
ID: And my elder brother had a very tough time, you know. And yet he got out and went up to Darwin and he was bombed in Darwin and then they sent him from there to train in Queensland and on to New Guinea.
JP: Gosh.
ID: And he fought hand to hand battles against the Japanese.
JP: Japanese. Up on Kokoda.
ID: Yeah and my younger brother joined the navy. And he was in the [pause] I don’t know [ASDE?] it was called. Anti—submarine warfare. He was in that section. He was an able seaman.
JP: Right.
ID: And he did a good job.
JP: Job.
ID: And they liked him, and he was earmarked for future promotion but the war ended before they got around to —
JP: Ended.
ID: He was younger than me.
JP: Ok. Let’s go back to your that your first flying and when you were getting your wings and that time. Were — you were doing some flying down around Urana. The Rock. And there was —
ID: The rock near Uranquinty.
JP: Uranquinty yes because you were doing your flying. That was where you were doing your —
ID: That was where I got my wings.
JP: Your wings. Yeah.
ID: In Nerrandera on Tiger Moths.
JP: Yes.
ID: And then when I did that initial flying training then switched to Uranquinty.
JP: Uranquinty.
ID: To Wirraways which —
JP: Wirraways. Yes.
ID: I used to land. That’s all we had as far as fighters, or fighter bombers were concerned.
JP: Yeah.
ID: So, I was getting ready to go on those and then all of a sudden there was a demand for pilots in England and so I was allowed to transfer and went across to the UK.
JP: Yeah. Did you have some little near miss at one time?
ID: Some bit of what?
JP: A bit of a near miss when you were doing one of your training flights down near The Rock.
ID: Well I had one experience which I’ve not forgotten was that The Rock sticks up. Not like Ayers Rock. Not nearly as big.
JP: Not as big but it still sticks up. That’s right.
ID: Sticks up and gets in the way and also a wind came across from the south west and it made a wave and I remember very well even to this day as you were climbing towards The Rock instead of going up you weren’t. You were coming down and you had no control. So, I was able to very luckily to well luckily and I suppose well trained and —
JP: Skilled.
ID: To do a hard turn and get away out of that wave.
JP: And so —
ID: That was one of the few experiences I had at the time in Australia. I had many more in the UK.
JP: In the UK. Which we’ll come to very shortly. In fact, yes, we’ll go then. We’ll start getting there. So, you then — you got — they said they needed pilots over in the UK so you went up to Brisbane and you sailed out of Brisbane. Is that right?
ID: Yes. We sailed out of Brisbane.
JP: When was — when?
ID: Through the Panama Canal.
JP: Yes. When did you leave Brisbane? Do you remember?
ID: Well not the day but —
JP: No. But roughly.
ID: Roughly it would have been I went in to the air force 1942.
JP: Two.
ID: I was being trained in 1943.
JP: So it was in —
ID: So somewhere around Christmas 1942.
JP: Ok. And so you went through to the, through the Panama which would have been an interesting experience.
ID: It was very exciting. I’ve never seen anything so green.
JP: Yeah.
ID: I remember it today. You look out there and it’s not this type of green which is tinges of brown. This was pure green. Jungle green. And it was very interesting. Very exciting. I enjoyed it. And then we sailed through steam through the Caribbean. We didn’t stop in any particular place but we did pull over outside Havana.
JP: Right.
ID: And for a very short period.
JP: Were you able to disembark at all or you had to stay on board all the time?
ID: On there we stayed on board. And then when we went up to New York and when I got to New York we were only supposed to be there about two weeks or so and what in actual fact happened was we instead of going straight across the Atlantic the ship we were supposed to be going on was sunk. So, we were told that you’d better stay here and —do you know New York at all?
JP: No. I’ve not, not been to New York.
ID: Yeah well —
JP: I’ve only been to the west coast. Not the east coast.
ID: North of New York was an HMS British navy base and they used that to house us until a ship would be available to take us across the Atlantic and then when that ship became available because I’d trained as a pilot, as a fighter pilot, they presumed that I had good eyesight and so we stood, we did a period all the way across the Atlantic on submarine watch.
JP: Up on the bridge.
ID: Up on the bridge.
JP: Oh, my goodness.
LD: Wow.
ID: It was very interesting. Very exciting. We landed in Glasgow. The Clyde. On the Clyde and then from Glasgow we hopped on a train.
JP: Train.
ID: The train took us. We were on our way to Bournemouth.
JP: Right.
ID: But Bournemouth was bombed.
JP: Bombed. Yeah.
ID: So instead of switching us, leaving us at Bournemouth they switched us across to Brighton.
JP: Brighton.
ID: And it was at Brighton then that I was chosen to do multi engine training. And I was good to go on Oxfords. Airspeed Oxfords. And the first place I went to was at [pause] I’m not sure if I can remember the names and getting them correct. Anyhow, we went up around the Doncaster area.
JP: Yeah.
ID: And Doncaster then. This was a satellite. A training satellite. And we were sent out to [unclear] and I was based at a satellite station called Snitterfield which was really only about ten miles from Shakespeare’s country.
JP: Oh, right yes.
ID: Near Stratford on Avon.
JP: Yes.
ID: So we were there and when this was — by now it was winter and it was very very hard to get any training done because of weather conditions.
JP: Weather conditions were —
ID: Weather conditions. And I had one or two frights there. Ran into barrage balloon there one time. found out how easy that was. I didn’t. Thank God.
JP: And so this is what? Only a two, this is a two engine plane at this stage or four?
ID: Two engine.
JP: Two engines. And how many crew were — you hadn’t, you were all just, were you just pilot and one other or —
ID: We were just training to be pilots.
JP: Pilots. Yeah. Pilot and instructor basically.
ID: I was, I would have been the trainee pilot.
JP: Pilot.
ID: And there would be an instructor. And he was a fully qualified pilot.
JP: Fully qualified. Yeah. Ok and was that what a couple or three or four weeks. A couple of months. What? Roughly. Just roughly what time frame do you think?
ID: Well I would say roughly about three to four months.
JP: Three or four months.
ID: Simply because it was so —
JP: Because the weather conditions were slowing the training down.
ID: It was bad. It wasn’t good for training.
LD: What was the flight? What was the plane?
ID: It was an Airspeed Oxford is was called.
JP: Oh the Oxford. Yeah. Yeah. And ok so from there where — is that when where did you go from that? Did you then go to 625 or did you do another — oh you probably did another conversion in between that.
ID: No I —
JP: Or an OTU. An OTU.
ID: We went from —this was initial training.
JP: Training yeah. So you had to go, you had to do an OTU.
ID: An OTU.
JP: Yeah.
ID: And the OTU I went to was near Doncaster.
JP: Yeah.
ID: Finningley.
JP: Right.
ID: And then they put us into a base at Finningley just along the road from the Robin Hood’s trees.
JP: Trees [laughs] Shakespeare. Robin Hood. Yeah.
ID: So we did our training there with Wimpies we called them. Wellington was a difficult aircraft. It was a geotetic aircraft which was the design of the fuselage but it meant the control was hard. You know you put the flap down and you get power. Respond much more radically then you would think it would. Anyhow, the point is we went to OTU and I got through OTU ok. And went then, went from there to Halifaxes.
JP: Right.
ID: The Halifaxes were at the Doncaster area.
JP: Right.
ID: A place called Sandtoft. We called —
JP: Right. So this is like a conversion course then.
ID: Yeah. We called it Prangtoft.
JP: Oh I see. Right. Right. Obviously there’s a story or two here. Yes.
ID: The engines were underpowered for the aircraft so it wasn’t —
JP: Particularly the earlier. I assume this was an earlier Halifax. The later Halifaxes were a bit better but the early Halifaxes were, yeah.
ID: But the Halifax, later on Halifaxes with Hercules engines was a good aircraft. Very good aircraft.
JP: So what sort of little stories come to light at this time? When you’re doing this early Halifax training.
ID: You were really concentrating on your RAF training. What you wanted to do was be the best pilot in the air force so I spent all my spare time studying the aircraft. Getting to know it completely only to be posted away from them. Which was good because the Lancaster was unbeatable as an aircraft.
LD: But I thought you wanted to be a fighter pilot when you first started.
ID: Well I did. Yeah. But we all did and when we left Australia they told us, ‘Sorry, there’s no room for you. We don’t need you as a fighter pilot. There’s plenty of fighter pilots available in England. There are no bomber pilots. So we switched to bomber training. And then I went from there to what’s called a Lancaster Finishing School and I was at Hemswell which is just next to Lincoln. And [pause] what happened there was exciting.
LD: Were you with Ron and Geoffrey still?
JP: Were you with Ron and —?
ID: I was with Ron and Geoffrey until we finished Operational Training Unit and Heavy Conversion. But we separated from then. Ron, I believe, was killed on return from a flight. And Geoff was shot down on his sixth mission.
JP: Sixth mission.
ID: On the sixth. And it was at a place called Gelsenkirchen which, in German I think probably means many churches. The point was that we were there. We, we’d separated by this stage because they’d posted us to different directions.
JP: Directions. That’s right.
ID: They didn’t like us all to stick together. Form an Australian clique or something.
JP: Yeah.
ID: So we were switched around.
JP: Switched around. Yeah.
LD: You did tell me that you had done some, you had to do night flying and you heard there was good surf in Cornwall.
ID: Say that again.
LD: You told me once that you, being a few Aussies that you had to practice your training and your night flying and you heard there was some good surf in Cornwall.
ID: Well, I went down to Cornwall to surf but it was freezing. I’ll never forget going in. The first time I decided to put my toe on the water.
JP: Toe in the water.
ID: It went numb.
JP: Numb. That’s right. Yes. That’s, that’s exactly right. And so you finished this training and that’s when you went to 625. You were posted to 625.
ID: 625 yeah.
JP: And was that, when you went to 625 is that when you did your crewing up? Or did you do the crewing up before you went to 625?
ID: Most of it was done before we went. At the end of OTU.
JP: OT.
ID: When we went to Wellingtons. We only had one pilot of course but we had our gunners..
JP: Yeah.
ID: We had a radio operator.
JP: Right.
ID: We had a navigator.
JP: Right. Ok. So that, so that, you got that crew together.
ID: Yeah.
JP: Back then. At OTU.
ID: I remember —
JP: Yeah. So who did you have then?
ID: By this time there was only one pilot at a time to plane.
JP: Right. Yeah.
ID: Geoff and Ron had gone off in their own directions.
JP: Direction. Yeah. So who was your navigator?
ID: His name was Carpenter. Stanley Carpenter.
JP: Stanley Carpenter. He was an Australian.
ID: He was a bank manager out of Durham.
JP: Oh an Englishman.
ID: Yeah.
JP: Right. Ok. What about the other chaps?
ID: Well, the radio operator I think I mentioned who came from Toowoomba.
JP: Yeah.
ID: And then I had a bomb aimer named Ron Jacobs who came from Sydney but he was quiet and quiet after. I never really got to him after the war. He just kept quiet. Disappeared.
JP: Ok. And he was your bomb aimer you said?
ID: They were called bomb aimer navigator.
JP: Right.
ID: And they were called an Observer.
JP: Yeah. Ok.
ID: And they would stand by in case something happened to the navigator. Also, I had, in my case, I gave mine special training so that if anything happened to me he’d be able to fly the aeroplane back.
JP: Plane. Yeah. Ok and what about your gunners? Did you have some gunners at that stage?
ID: One came from the Newcastle area. Do you know the northeast of England?
JP: Roughly. A bit further up around Aldwick and yeah.
ID: Yeah. Around. Well one of them came from the area that was known as —they have a special name for it and [unclear] anyhow it was near on Newcastle and the other gunner came from Scotland.
JP: Oh ok. Whereabouts? Do you remember roughly where in Scotland?
ID: No. And not only that there was no way to track him after the war.
JP: After right.
ID: He just disappeared.
JP: Ok. So the –
ID: But the mid upper gunner [McClowsky?] migrated to Australia and died only just recently at a, at a home down in the south coast at Sydney.
JP: Oh really.
ID: Yeah.
JP: Goodness. Ok. Ok so this is your crew and you’ve been together basically since OTU and so now you’ve been posted to 625.
ID: Yeah.
JP: And you start your ops. That’s right. So I think you did about eighteen ops with this crew at 625.
ID: That’s right.
JP: What particular, any –
ID: In actual fact nineteen.
JP: Nineteen yeah.
ID: You see the first, the first two you flew as what’s called second dickey and in my particular case one was an American pilot. The other was an English pilot. And they had I thought rather mild problems with it. Enough so turned back. So we didn’t really count them yet they were over German.
JP: Territory.
ID: Territory. So they really did count. But —
JP: So, what — what stands out in in those various ops? Any particular near misses or little events that, stories that you can tell me about from any of those ops?
ID: Well, they were particular times. I was I suppose you could say poetic. Sorry for what but I was fascinated by Robin Hood, England and, you know. The Sherwood Oaks. So I did lots of exploration.
JP: Yes, but in —
ID: Every chance I got.
JP: Yeah.
ID: I went and had a look at some new place.
JP: Ok.
LD: Did you fly there dad. Did you do extra training or did you go —
ID: No. No. I was fine in training.
JP: Yeah. But with, when you — with the op [pause] in the raids that you were doing when you were at 625 —those eighteen, nineteen, twenty raids.
ID: They were very scary raids.
JP: Scary raids. Why were they scary?
ID: That was a very rough time flying. We lost more aircraft at that particular period than at any other period. And it was just that, well the Germans had enough aircraft to put in the air.
JP: Yeah.
ID: To shoot you down.
JP: Yeah.
ID: So we were you trying to dodge them all the while.
JP: Were you flying always more or less to the same area? Were you flying in to the Ruhr? Was that the main or were you flying elsewhere?
ID: The Ruhr Valley as it was called or Happy Valley. We used to get it. Was our main target area because it was Germany’s main industrial area. So, most of our raids were on places like Dusseldorf, Duisburg, Cologne, Essen. And then on the edges of there. Places like Frankfurt and Stuttgart which wasn’t too far from the Ruhr.
JP: Ruhr. Yeah.
ID: But they were on the River Rhine.
JP: Yeah.
LD: How was it when you were flying dad. Was it very loud. How long did it take you? How many hours. Was it really cold?
ID: Well that depended on where. Which particular target you were on. But it could go from about four hours to about six hours. That’s the length. The duration of the flight.
JP: Yeah. But always you were dealing with a lot of German fighter planes.
ID: Yeah.
JP: Sort of up there creating trouble.
ID: I wasn’t. I wasn’t doing much dealing with them because it seemed somehow or other they dodged me and let me get on with the job of bombing [laughs]
JP: So, you were able to successfully drop quite a lot of bombs in those.
ID: Yeah. I always. I never turned back, and you know I did some very fine raids I thought at the time. Particularly some with winds that hadn’t been forecast. You turned around and come back and you had a howling headwind and you wondered if you were going to get back.
JP: Get back and have enough juice in the tank to get you home.
ID: This was, this was where I met Pat. When she — and what happened there was that we tried to get back into our base . The whole of the south of England was fogged in and we were given a diversionary. Numbers like three or four figures. That meant it was a certain base. I was given a base. And the navigator got the base and they said, ‘You’re going to Wymeswold.’ We got to Wymeswold and that was fogged in. We were running low on gas. There is only one other place for you to go to and that was Fort Ellen. Which was a little island off the coast of Scotland. And I said, ‘We’ve got no choice we’ve got to get in there.’ So, we waited will we landed at Fort Ellen. I was reported missing. Pat was at that stage we were starting to get fond of each other. So, we came back the next day and we carried on.
JP: And did they — the senior officers have anything to say about you having to divert so far or or –
ID: No. Not really.
JP: Not really.
ID: The closest I got, I got what? A DFC. And that was an award for fighting.
JP: Yeah. Well we’ll come, we’ll come back to that.
ID: I also was told by the wing commander I myself when the war ended we were going to go out to Japan. If I stayed and not get married that he would make sure I got the DSO. I’d done sixty missions by this time and some of the [unclear ] squadron leader but you know by that stage I think starry eyes take over and I was too fond of Pat to think of giving her up to go and fight. So —
JP: You didn’t.
ID: So, I thought about it for a while and then I decided, well, what am I going to do when I got back? I didn’t like the bank, but I worked in a bank so —
JP: Ok. Well we’ll come to that bit later because we need to go from 625 to 156.
ID: Yeah.
JP: To the Pathfinder. So how did you persuade your crew to —
ID: With great difficulty.
JP: With great difficulty. What special —
ID: No. No.
JP: Charms did you exert?
ID: None of them wanted to go.
JP: No.
ID: We’d done our tour and then they, you know, by rights they could then take at least six months without having to operate again. But in actual fact I said I’m going to stay on for forty five. Do forty five trips until ’45 at that stage and stay on until ‘45 and [unclear] put it to them. I said, ‘Well I’m going to go to Pathfinders. If you want to come with me you come. If you don’t want to come, I’ll go off on my own and pick up another crew,’ because there were crews available and places for good pilots like me if I wanted. So, every one of them volunteered to stay.
JP: Volunteered.
ID: So, the whole crew continued on and by the time I’d done nineteen operations and also it was a very difficult period as far as getting shot at was concerned. But well I think [unclear] Although we got [unclear] somewhere that there was two hundred and seventy two holes in the aircraft and it didn’t come down.
JP: Amazing.
ID: Yeah.
JP: So, when did you actually start with Bomber —Bomber Command — with Pathfinders? Do you remember roughly what month that you —?
ID: By this stage it was’44. In the, out in the middle of 1944.
JP: Right.
ID: I switched to Pathfinders.
JP: Yeah. Ok.
ID: And then we had to do further training.
JP: Right.
ID: It was called a Pathfinder night training unit where we had to do a lot of day time training and a lot of low level flying. We did all sorts of training.
JP: Yes. Because of training.
ID: The flying programme was specialised. In case you were called upon to do it.
JP: Do it.
LD: And all on Lancaster.
ID: We were lucky. We were lucky and we worked hard.
JP: Yes.
ID: We planned.
JP: Planned. Yes.
ID: And I think I would say that I was a good pilot and I was able to dodge incoming but I could still today do that [sniff] and still smell the cordite of shells exploding around the aeroplane.
JP: That’s right.
ID: So, I was very very close.
JP: Close. Yes.
ID: I think I was on the raid Geoff Jones was shot down.
JP: Right. And the raids, the ops that you did as part of the Pathfinders. What, what particular raids — do they stand out to you that you can tell me about?
ID: Raids.
JP: Yeah. What. You know— the missions that you did. Any. Any. I mean I know, I know there is a bit of —
ID: Well right at the end of the war when I was, I’d been made a Master Bomber.
JP: Right.
ID: Which meant you took control of the whole of the bomber force. But you do a period as deputy master first and I’d completed two of those and then I was given my call sign. That was not very romantic. Plate Rack it was called.
JP: Plate Racket.
ID: Plate Rack.
JP: Oh my goodness.
ID: I was Plate Rack 1.
JP: Plate Rack 1. Right. Ok.
ID: Plate Rack 1 would be telling the, you know, the main force on what they had to do.
Other: With his crew.
ID: Bomb forward and so on and so forth.
JP: And you say they were scary because of the amount of the combination of factors being low level flying, lots of German aircraft. What would you say was the most scary factor?
Other: [unclear]
ID: Being shot down by the fighters. Because they’d creep in from behind you and you didn’t know they were there. We had no way of establishing.
JP: Establishing.
Other: Yes. He’s not in this one.
ID: Am I in that picture?
JP: Yeah. That’s right.
Other: Eight of them.
ID: That’s me.
JP: Yeah. And the operation. When you were — you mentioned and I said I’d come back to. You were awarded the DFC. Can you tell me about which operation?
ID: It wasn’t anything —
JP: No one operation. It was an accumulation of —
ID: It was over a period of time.
JP: Time.
ID: A number of very hairy operations that I did but you know I had —
JP: Was this in Pathfinder? As part of the Pathfinder ops or —
ID: Well, I was in Pathfinders by this time.
JP: Yes, right, yeah.
ID: And what actually happened was that when I went down to Pathfinders they just said forget what you’ve done up till now. So, I had to start all over again. And it was a bit, well it wasn’t scary [unclear ] because I was well trained for it. It was frightening. And as long as you planned well and trained well you had as good a chance as anybody. You know, we lost at that particular stage, we lost about half the, half of the people that took place in the raids.
JP: Yes. That’s a very, a very significant loss ratio. It’s, it is quite amazing.
ID: The raids on the Ruhr were always difficult because every one of those places I’ve mentioned had their own particular ack-ack batteries of flak and they were constantly shooting at you. So, dodging that was always scary. I mean there’s nothing much you can do about it.
JP: Except stick together and follow and do —
ID: Yeah.
JP: Follow all your planning and make use of all your preparation.
ID: Yeah but you know you didn’t fly in formation like the Yanks did.
JP: Oh no. No. No.
ID: We went independently. Navigated independently.
JP: Independently.
ID: To the target and that way, we were able to adjust. And I think it’s probably one of the reasons why they accepted me in the Pathfinders. That I was able to make decisions. Life affecting decisions that always worked out right.
JP: And I mean, and the flying conditions were never easy anyway with, with your own squadron members because there, there were so many if you needed to take quick evasive action there was always one of your own planes not that far away that you were trying to avoid as well. Is the situation.
ID: Always was that fact. Normally was no problem.
JP: Right.
ID: But if you got weather fogged in which you can get. Particularly during that Christmas of 1944 was a very very difficult period weather wise.
JP: Wise.
ID: Yeah. Had to be able to get in. Get landed.
JP: Yes. And so —
LD: This photo is at the end of March 1944.
JP: ‘44. ok right. We’ll come back to that one then. That’s good. And so all of these forty two ops take you through to forty —
ID: Sixty if you count. If I counted those two as one.
JP: Yeah. One. Ah yes.
ID: Do you know what I mean?
JP: By the time you add in the 625 yeah. The sixty.
ID: Of which thirty nine were with Pathfinders.
JP: Path. Yeah. Yeah. And —
ID: And remember you worked your way through. I had a very good navigator so the navigator wanted him to be chosen to do what we called sky marking. It was operating, marking in the blind, in the cloud because his work on radar was good. He was able to give me directions which meant I always got through.
JP: So, your navigator was doing this blind sky marking.
ID: Yes.
JP: Yes.
ID: He was, he, you know you’d fly the aeroplane but as you got nearer the target was under his direction for ten miles to the left and so on and so forth because as we got further into the Ruhr there was nowhere to go, you know. Because when you went to Duisburg or Dusseldorf one flak battery was shooting at you. As was the other one.
JP: And were you taking photographs as well during the —
ID: No. I did have a camera which I got in New York which was stolen in Cornwall of all places. Newton Abbot. All my baggage disappeared.
JP: Oh dear. Right. And so —
ID: And I bought a leather jacket in New York. And a camera.
JP: Right.
ID: But I’ve never been like my younger brother. Spent his life taking pictures. I never bothered that much.
JP: No. Right.
ID: Still don’t. I can remember it pretty well.
JP: Yeah. You can. You can remember it very well. And with the — so the crew then. You mentioned your navigator, so your entire crew was still all the same. You hadn’t changed any of your personnel at this stage. So, all your crew —
ID: No. I never lost any crew members.
JP: No.
ID: They all stayed with me until —
JP: The end .
ID: The end of their tour.
JP: Stayed until the end of the operation. The end of that tour, that’s —
ID: With the exception of the rear gunner who stayed on.
JP: Who stayed on.
ID: And I stayed on to go on my third tour.
JP: Oh, my goodness.
ID: He stayed on with me.
JP: Right.
ID: So, we could have very easily been shot down but we weren’t.
JP: You weren’t. No.
ID: That’s the way it goes.
JP: Well as we say there’s, that’s —
ID: And when you do it sixty times you know, you get your frights from time to time.
JP: And what — obviously you had a very close crew at this point because you’d been together for so long.
ID: Yes.
JP: Did any of them have any particular good luck charms or anything like that? Or superstitions that they always —
ID: Well let me just say one thing here. That our crew — we stuck together as a group even though I was an officer and the others were all other ranks or flight sergeants more or less. We went out together. We went to the local pub together. That sort of thing. And we just didn’t separate out and go off in different directions. It was only when I definitely decided to get married that we started to spend a bit of time occasionally with ourselves.
JP: So, when you did —
ID: What I used to do, for instance, we used to go to Cambridge. We were based near Cambridge. And in Cambridge there was a swimming pool and you could practice your dinghy drop. So, we were, this was where we signed up. I’d sign and they’d provide a dinghy for me and then I’d take the whole crew along and we would do a dinghy drill which was good because if we got shot down we’d get some practice.
JP: Practice.
ID: We’d be in the water.
JP: Yeah.
ID: So, we did that and then after we’d done the dinghy drill Pat and I would go off to explore Cambridge for example.
JP: Right. So, when you had periods of leave you would have sort of gone your own separate ways a little bit then from the rest of your crew. Or even when you were on leave did you all stay together?
ID: No. When I met Pat — when we decided to become engaged after we’d done our training then we’d go our own way and then most of the crew accepted that I was with Pat so we did our own thing. And the pictures that you see of my wife in the canoe there. She — I’ve got a picture of her there.
JP: That’s good. And —
LD: Because my mother used to interpret the photos.
JP: Oh ok.
ID: So, she would debrief the crews.
JP: Debrief. That’s right.
LD: So dad got his crew to wait so that he could be specifically debriefed by Pat.
JP: Very good. Very well done. But this was while you were at 625 so I presume she stayed at — around with the 625 base to do the debrief. The intelligence work there. She didn’t —
ID: No. No.
JP: She moved did she? When you moved to Pathfinders.
ID: When I moved to Pathfinders.
JP: Did she move?
ID: She got —
JP: She got herself another job did she?
ID: She tried to get down. She was the senior female officer in intelligence. Female officer that is. And so she tried to pull a few strings.
JP: Pull a few strings.
ID: And get as close to me as she could. And she was fairly successful. She was based at Wing and she was based at Wratting Common. And when she was at Wratting Common I was able to take the Oxford on beam training and I’d called in to Ratting Common for tea.
LD: You told me you couldn’t drive a car, but you could fly a plane. Drove over for tea and took mum out on a bicycle made for two.
ID: That’s true. I was flying an aeroplane before I —
JP: Got your licence.
ID: Drove a car.
JP: Well that’s, that’s good. And —
ID: And of course, people like Pat, in those days they didn’t have cars. They were allowed to have cars.
JP: No. No. So what would you say your best experiences were from — what would you say were the best I mean there’s an awful lot of bad parts associated with all of those ops and all the rest of it. Are there any, would you say there were some good parts to come out of that? Can you identify any good parts?
ID: Well —
JP: Apart from Pat I mean. I’m not talking about your —
ID: No. No, I know that.
JP: Yeah.
ID: One thing I’ll still — I’ll often go to bed and fall asleep thinking about or reeling about it. And that’s when I was deputy master bomber. Right. That meant that I had to orbit the target the same as the master bomber in case he was shot down. I had to take over. And we were doing a raid on a place called Plauen which is a between Berlin and Leipzig. And I’ll never forget the next day. I suppose it were really a freighter carrying ammunition or something but we hit it and it jack-knifed and you could see in the air the train coming together. The front and the back and the rest of it up in the sky like that. That was a scary period.
LD: You mustn’t have been very high up.
JP: No. They were never high up.
ID: No. No. Not on that one. It was a strange one because the master bomber had said to me there was too much cloud there, ‘Go down and find a level we can bomb at.’ So, you did as you were told so I went eighteen thousand where I was at and had to get down to ten thousand and then eventually eight thousand. I was underneath the cloud base and able to direct the raid and saw this go on.
JM: Amazing. And so, when you decided not to go — go on with the flying and you got you then sort of went in to discharge mode. You got that you were married in England.
ID: Yeah.
JM: First in what about —?
ID: Well remember the first thing was the wing commander offered me a job.
JM: Yeah.
ID: As a flight commander with the Tiger Force which was coming out to fight the Japanese. I had that choice, or I could get married.
JM: And you chose to get married.
ID: Chose to get married.
JM: Yes.
ID: And Pat and I was quite close as far as bases were concerned at that particular time.
LD: You also helped drop some of the provisions in Holland didn’t you? I seem to remember.
ID: Yes. Well that was after that.
JM: After VE day. After —
ID: It wasn’t after the war so much. It was after the area where we were operating. And I know I had to mark the target.
JM: Target.
ID: That was a field. And we had a field that — in the middle. It was Rotterdam.
JM: Right.
ID: And we went to Rotterdam and you found the field and you put markers. These are very powerful lights that shine and allow the Pathfinders to see it. So, we did that, and I controlled that particular [unclear] it was done properly and we were very successful.
JM: So how?
ID: And the Dutch were very happy about it.
JM: Yes. How many trips did you do for that?
ID: Two. I think.
JM: Two. Ok. So, when did you and Pat get married?
ID: On June the [pause] June the 20th I think it was. 1944.
JM: ‘44 or ’45?
ID: ‘45 sorry.
JM: Yeah. And that was up in Scotland was it?
ID: We were married actually in Scotland but it was, was a bit unusual. The wing commander as I told you wanted to [pause] me to go and be his flight commander but I chose to stay and then I had to do something. But Pat had some influence and she introduced me to a wing commander in London that controlled the postings and I told him that QANTAS had just got Lancastrians and that if I wanted to get a job with a Lancastrian it would be a good idea to to do the initial training in England and go back to Australia with a licence. And so what happened — I did the pilot’s training initially and to do that I had to go special course on hydraulics and a special course on electrics because they were different on the Lancastrian than they were on the Lancaster.
JM: Right.
ID: So, what actually happened was that I went to — I’ll never forget it to this day. I went to — I think it was called Woodford. Woodford and Chatterton. I went to both of them. And he said, ‘What do you want?’ — the fellow in charge of security at the gate. And I said, I’ve come — ‘I want to see Roy Derbeau‘ ‘Who?’ ‘Roy Derbeau.’ I don’t think we have anybody named that but I’ll have a look. So, he had a look and then a message came down from headquarters. They sent him up to see me and so I went up to see him and then —
LD: Because, Do you mean Sir Roy.’
ID: Secretary that I saw and he said, ‘You couldn’t possibly mean Sir Roy [laughs] I’ll never forget it. ‘You couldn’t possibly mean Sir Roy.’ I said, ‘Is he the fellow in charge of Avro’s production?’ Which he was and he said, ‘Yeah. That’s the bloke.’ The next thing I knew they had provided me with a Humber car.
JM: Oh.
ID: And put me up in the Midland Hotel where they kept some spare room and I stayed in that room for three weeks doing these two courses.
JM: Marvellous.
ID: I showed that I had the necessary equipment now and knowledge to get a first class — first class licence.
JM: First class licence.
ID: Air transport licence.
JM: Licence. Yeah.
ID: And then because nothing was happening we didn’t really know whether Tiger Force was going to get away.
JM: Get away.
ID: So, what I did was go went down to Southampton University and told them what my problem was. They said, ‘Well, you’ll have to learn about the tides. And I said, ‘What do you mean the tides? I’m flying an aeroplane. Landing a plane.’ ‘It doesn’t matter. The rules say you’ve got to have a knowledge of the tides around the shores of England.’
JM: Right.
ID: So, they put me on a special course for that.
JM: Right.
ID: So I got out of that and I’d now a first class pilot’s licence. Now, I got a second class navigator’s licence and then a radio operator’s licence that I went and did in between.
JM: Goodness.
ID: So I thought that’s fine ,and that’s basically where I was.
JM: Basically was. Yes.
ID: Until I came back.
JM: Back to Australia.
ID: To Australia.
JM: Ok. Well we’ll —
ID: I convinced them that I’d done enough.
JM: You’d done enough. Ok. Well we’ll follow that up in a moment. We’ll pause there so you can have your pills. Ok.
[recording paused]
JM: I was obviously lucky because I got shot at many many times.
ID: Many times. That’s right. As somebody else said to me it’s the luck of the draw.
JM: Yeah.
ID: Yeah. If you were in the wrong position at the wrong time you got shot down.
JM: That’s right. Very hard. So, you’re doing this training. You’ve got married to Pat and so then you — what about your return to Australia at this point? When? Where? When did you leave?
ID: Well when I came back —
JM: When did you leave because you and Pat came back separately didn’t you?
ID: Yeah.
JM: Yeah so —
ID: I came back on the Aquitania via Cape Town.
JM: Right. When did you leave? What —
ID: When I got here about two months. Three months later Pat arrived. Very, very pregnant at this stage. But she was — everything was above board.
JM: Yeah.
ID: We were brought up, well I was brought up the old fashioned way. You didn’t go flirting around with your wife to be. You waited. In our case we waited and we got married. We got married in Ely.
JM: In —
ID: Ely Cathedral.
JM: Ely. Oh right.
ID: Yeah.
JM: Right. Lovely.
ID: And the thing with that was that the crew that was supposed to be bringing up the best man. You know, my close friend —
JM: Yes. I was going to say were most of your crew at the wedding?
ID: Yeah and they didn’t come.
JM: They couldn’t come.
ID: No. They couldn’t come. Couldn’t.
JM: They had to go off and —
ID: Well I think what actually happened was that they, they’d been on a raid and they’d got back and they didn’t have enough time.
JM: Time.
ID: To get ready to come up to Glasgow. It was a bit of distance to do that so I remember walking along. I didn’t know because I had a phone call. I was staying at a hotel that and it was Pat’s mother saying, ‘Where are you?’ I said, ‘I’m having a shower.’ And she said, ‘You’re supposed to be getting married in a few minutes.’ ‘Don’t be silly our wedding’s at 11 o’clock and its only about half past eight.’ She said, ‘The priest changed the time.’ And I said, ‘Why?’ She said, ‘Oh he wanted a bottle of whisky.’ So, I had to find this bottle of whisky for him and then he put the wedding off.
JM: Oh dear.
ID: Fella on the street that I got and there was a sergeant in the RAF. ‘Sergeant. You’re under orders. You are to attend this church.’ It was about twenty minutes by then. ‘In about twenty minutes you are to be the best man at my wedding.’ He said, ‘I don’t know you.’ What does that matter?’ I said, ‘I’m going off in a different direction.’ So that’s what happened.
JM: That’s what happened.
ID: I never, I never even knew his name.
JM: Name. So, Pat’s mother was there at the wedding. Was there any other family there or not?
ID: Yes. Pat’s sister. Sister [pause] And this was us just leaving on our honeymoon.
JM: Right. Ok. And where did you go for your honeymoon?
ID: A place called the Trossachs.
JM: Oh yes up in the middle there —
ID: In Scotland.
JM: Yes. There’s an old castle with — yes, I know the Trossachs very well.
ID: Do you?
JM: Yes. Yes, I do.
ID: Well, in those days that hotel was put aside especially for people who had had a very risky life in the war and particularly submarines. They seemed to go there. Anyhow, somehow or other I got through Pat. We got a room at this hotel. I’ll never forget to this day because we decided to go for a swim in that area. And there’s three lakes. Loch Venachar, Loch Katrine and Loch Achray. And there’s a great song that goes, “The copsewood grey that swept the banks of Loch Achray.” And we went for a swim and so I was last to go. And it was second last, she dived in and she didn’t really have a proper bathing suit. She’d tied some sort of bandage around her top and of course she came over the top of the water, I saw her and I thought oh God she’s drowning so I dived in. I’ll never forget it. I got her out of the water and we went in to — we had separate rooms at this stage and a basement and we warmed ourselves up there.
JM: So I guess Pat then went back and finished up work when you were on the boat coming out to Australia. Is that right?
ID: I didn’t work coming back to Australia. No.
JM: Sorry?
ID: I was just a passenger.
JM: No. No. Yes. I said Pat finished work.
ID: Yeah. Pat
JM: Finished work.
ID: What she did was she spent whatever time she had as near to me as she could.
JM: Could. Yeah. Yeah.
ID: But you very quickly ran out of money in those days.
JM: No.
ID: I had the paybook and didn’t have too much in it.
JM: No.
ID: Then we ended up at the, it was called the Abbot or something hotel at Brighton and we between us had about four or five pounds left and had about two weeks leave left to use up at that time as well. So I said, ‘Let’s go up and watch the races at Palace Court.’ And there was a horse there called The Reel and we put the whole our money on The Reel that won and we got fifty pounds out of that.
JM: Wow. Oh, that was good.
ID: For fifty pounds then we had a lovely last week or so in England.
JM: Yeah.
ID: And then of course I came home.
JM: Yeah.
ID: From Southampton.
JM: Southampton and you came back. Did you come back to Sydney or Brisbane? Where did you — or did you have to —
ID: On the way back, we came back through Cape Town. Stopped over in Cape Town for a couple of days and then we just dropped off troops in Perth and then the train. I think the plane or a train The ship stopped in Melbourne.
JM: Melbourne. And you had to come up by train from Melbourne.
ID: Up by train. I’ll never forget it because Pat had made herself a dress and it was big polka dots and she [unclear ] the polka dots. it looked really quite weird and out of place and she was pregnant by this time.
JM: But you, but she didn’t come out, but she came out after you didn’t she?
ID: Yeah.
JM: So, you came in to Melbourne, came up to Sydney. Met up —
ID: We came up together.
JM: Oh. You oh she was not that far behind you. You stayed in Melbourne did you, till she came?
ID: I was lucky in that things were and still are, you know, I’m ninety three, ninety four now they fall my way and this was what actually happened. We were able to get tickets on the Spirit of Progress, and it was [unclear] black something or other the temperature was about a hundred and ten at Melbourne. And we came up through the heat and then the air conditioning broke down. We had to change train at Wagga. Not Wagga.
JM: At Wagga Aubrey wasn’t it?
ID: Aubrey.
LD: So, dad you actually came before mum though didn’t you?
ID: Yes. Sure.
LD: How long before mum did you arrive?
ID: About two months.
LD: Yeah.
JM: Two months. Yeah. So you came up to Sydney but then you went back down, and you caught up with your parents in Sydney. And then —
ID: No, I came straight back, and I was staying at my parents’ house.
JM: Yeah. Ok. So, you were staying at your parent’s house and then Pat landed in Melbourne so you went back down to Melbourne to meet her.
ID: We came back by train.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
ID: And then we both stayed.
JM: Yeah.
ID: And it was at that stage my sister was just about to get married or had just got married and Jack, it was, had won the military medal in the Solomons. He moved out and June moved out to make sure there was a nice big room for Pat and I.
JM: That’s good. So, so now we’re in to right, right. Ok so this is, which into January ‘46 by this stage. So you then set about getting into your working life I guess. At this point.
ID: Well, what happened was obviously after I’d done this study in England, to get a licence so I could get a job with QANTAS. I went to see the QANTAS people and they said, ‘No way. We’ve got twenty thousand pilots all looking for jobs.
JM: Jobs.
ID: All of them wing commanders. and I said, ‘Well I’ve got licences they don’t have.’ ‘Well sorry.’ When I went down to Melbourne strangely enough and I managed to get a flight out with the air force and I went to see the A&A people ‘cause they were —
JM: Yes.
ID: And they offered me a job straightaway. So when I went home again I had a call from QANTAS to say we’re still a little bit interested in. Yeah. And I said well interested back. And I said well interested had better harden straightaway because I’ve just accepted an offer for a job for A&A. Within an hour they phoned me and asked, ‘If you’re here at 9 o’clock tomorrow morning we’ll put you in your uniform.’
LD: Pretty good. There’s the Aquitania arriving in Woolloomooloo.
JM: Right.
LD: In 1945.
JM: Oh ok.
LD: And that’s taken from your mum dad’s, parent’s house. Flat.
JM: Oh, my goodness. Goodness. Right. Right. Ok. So, so, then you actually started with QUANTAS then and how many years were you with QANTAS?
ID: I joined QUANTAS on the [pause] January 19 –
JM: 1946.
ID: ’46, it was back then.
JM: Yeah.
ID: And I stayed with them until the April 1st 1954.
JM: Right. Ok. So, eight years. A bit over eight years. Yeah.
ID: Yeah. I — at the age of twenty four I was a captain with QANTAS.
JM: Gosh.
ID: And I think the youngest international captain in Australia.
JM: Youngest. Australia. So, you were doing international flights then. You –
ID: Yeah. Oh yes. Straight away.
JM: Did you do the Kangaroo Route or —
ID: Straight into international flying.
JM: Flying.
ID: On the Lancastrians.
JM: Yeah.
ID: And true to this day, and main reason was that they didn’t have anybody to fly in an aircraft. And there was a Liberator had lost an engine. They had to get an engine across to Learmonth of all places.
JM: Right.
ID: So I now had a licence. It was easier in those days just to switch it over and have — endorsed to fly Liberators. They took me up in an afternoon. Put me through like four hours flying. They said right you go and fly the Lancaster. So didn’t go as captain of course but as first officer.
JM: No but at least that meant they then had a crew to be able to solve their engine problem.
ID: They did.
JM The replacement engine problem
ID: Of course, they had the Lanc engine fixed up and that took off, going to the Cocos Island I think it was.
JM: Right. Right.
ID: And left me abandoned if you like at Port [unclear], they used to call it.
JM: Right. So, any particular experiences that stand out for you during your time at QANTAS? Your eight years at QANTAS? Any particular trips or particular important people that you might have carried.
ID: Well, one thing but I don’t want to put it in print. One of the first officers, you see, we only had two pilots and a flight time of nine to ten hours and we were coming back from Hong Kong. Trying to get in to Darwin and then there was a cyclone. And the cyclone forced us to dodge trying to land in Darwin. So we were sent to Cloncurry and I couldn’t get the plane down on the ground it was so hot. It started fluttering along there. That was one scary time.
JM: That must have been one scary experience. So, what did you do? Did you get it. Did you have to give up and go somewhere else. Or where else did you go?
ID: There was nowhere else to go.
JM: There was nowhere else, you just had to get it down.
ID: What actually happened to it was [unclear] Cloncurry I went back to Darwin. I was still on the outskirts. [unclear] We couldn’t land at Darwin, so we went back to a place called [unclear]
JM: Right.
ID: We went on to and the [unclear] I loaded up with gas. Headed back towards Darwin. By this time I was getting pretty tired so I thought I’d have a rest. I had to have a rest. Anyhow, I got up after my very brief rest to look out and see mountain peaks just there. By that house. As close as that. And it was all part of the ranges that went through. [unclear] Papua New Guinea. And the first officer who was supposed to fly in the aircraft had fallen asleep and they had a special recording compass which would — you put the thing in George and George followed the thing around on one, and I looked up and we seemed to be heading in the wrong direction. And I looked again and sure enough we were. We were very very lucky. We could have gone straight into that mountain. He quit inside a week.
LD: Golly gosh. You also told me that you helped to open up the air route to Christchurch.
ID: Yes. I did a lot of flights.
JM: Yeah.
ID: I did the [pause] Melbourne to Christchurch. That was on DC4s.
JM: Right. And so, moving along. Just summarising after you finished up at QANTAS you decided — did you have an approach to move to your next job or did you decide you wanted to give up QANTAS.
ID: Firstly, QANTAS paid very poorly in those days and I had a bunch of kids at home always looking for Christmas presents. Anyhow, I had the opportunity. I was in Singapore. I was introduced to the head of Caltex in Singapore and he said, ‘We’re looking for a chief pilot who’ll take on the job of training the Indonesians and then hand over to them.’ And they were willing to pay more than twice what I was getting.
JM: Gosh.
ID: So I said yes please. I went back and on the 1st of April 1954 I left QANTAS and joined Caltex.
JM: Caltex.
ID: And it was Caltex Pacific Petroleum it was called. And I’ll never forget it. Because when I got there, you know they put all this panic on, ‘You’ve got to be there tomorrow.’ So and so [pause] when I got there, they put me up in the Captain’s Room in the Raffles Hotel where I stayed for six weeks. Doing nothing.
JM: How nice.
ID: Except playing golf.
JM: Oh, my goodness me. Oh goodness. That must have been a tough life. But still, I mean, apart from the fact that your away from your family or had any of your family come up at that point or you were up there by yourself at that —
LD: When did we all go to Indonesia dad?
JM: In that six weeks at — when you were in Raffles Hotel were you by yourself?
ID: I was by myself.
JM: Self. Right. Yeah.
ID: I was staying at the Raffles.
JM: Yeah.
ID: But Pat and Louise and Mary came up by ship.
JM: Right.
ID: Norwegian ship. And they flew them in and then I had two or three days staying in a place not far from the actual airport itself in Singapore [unclear] The fact we were being based in Jakarta.
JM: Right.
ID: Because they reckoned that would be the best place to do their training from.
JM: Right.
ID: So I went to Jakarta to pick them up. One thing mind you was though I had no training on DC3 at this stage. I hadn’t really flown the aircraft at all and all of a sudden I’m the chief pilot.
JM: Pilot.
ID: I’m the chief training captain.
JM: Right. So, you had some, had to do some reading up quick smart then I guess to just be able to do the bit of pick up the bits and pieces you needed for the different plane.
ID: Well, flying is like riding a bicycle. You don’t forget how to do it.
JM: No but there would have been. Each plane has its own idiosyncrasies doesn’t it?
ID: As long as everything goes alright you have no trouble.
JM: Yeah.
ID: If something goes wrong then you’re in trouble.
JM: Yeah. That’s true.
ID: So I flew off and picked them up and went to Jakarta and we stayed in a place called [unclear] and then we moved out to [unclear] which a very nice house actually we had. Had up to eleven servants.
JM: Gosh.
ID: What actually happened was I was a pretty good golfer and the president of the golf club was the British Ambassador.
JM: Oh ok.
ID: And the club captain was an Australian. The Australian ambassador and when they said to me, ‘You fly pretty well. Do you want a job?’ I told them what I was doing. You leave tomorrow. Tomorrow I was on the way to Jakarta.
JM: Gosh.
ID: In those days it was, you know, who you knew.
JM: That’s right.
ID: [unclear]
JM: Well I don’t know as it’s all that different today quite frankly but yes, so you had six, six years in Indonesia.
ID: Well I was.
JM: Roundabout.
ID: I was there from April 1st again. 19—
JM: 1960.
ID: 1960.
JM: Yeah. And then from there you had a big change of scenery. You went off to Bahrain.
ID: I went there. What actually happened was that I decided that once I was going to go away from QUANTAS. I mean I was already doing very very well in QANTAS. I’d better get something worthwhile. So I was offered this job as chief training captain which I took up but then part of the job was to train the Indonesians to take over. And it took six years, but remember we had full crews and needed pilots or radio operators and whatnot, so I stayed there as supervisor. So that was done and then I got Type B Hepatitis and I remember I was pretty ill. Down in Melbourne. Royal Prince Albert Hospital.
JM: Hospital. That would have knocked you around a bit.
ID: Yes. It was a bit scary because I was in constant fever there for a while. But whatever.
LD: We used to go and visit him in hospital and there was the man next to him and he was always [flailing about?] for water.
ID: And the deputy chief of Caltex Petroleum was [unclear] who came down to Melbourne to see me. [unclear] coming to visit me. [unclear] and he said what do you want? And I said well I left QANTAS to try and further myself. I wish to go at marketing. I wish I did have, probably still have, to a degree. Anyway, the point is that they decided that they’d send me to Bahrain to do some brief training in marketing because in Bahrain we had marketing as shipping producing exploration and a full gamut of the oil business and they thought that was a good place for me to learn. So, I was sent there. Well basically to be there for six weeks. But the chap was superintendent of transport operations and remember we had a big transport operation was [pause] he was, I forget his name. A British major. You know One of the old fashioned types.
JM: Right. Right.
ID: So, I went in there and met [unclear] and he said, ‘Sorry. There’s no place for you.’
JM: Oh yeah.
ID: And I said, ‘Come on.’ Anyhow, a couple of days later HH Arnold Junior descended on them. He was President of them, and he said, ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘I’m playing golf.’ He said, ‘Why aren’t you learning?’ And I said, ‘What’s to learn’ Not that I know anything immediately. So he said, ‘Leave it with me.’ And within an hour I’d had a call to say to come up to the President’s office. The local president’s office saying that, ‘We want you to go to Bahrain and to train in Bahrain for six weeks and then we’ll see where we’ll place you. We have in mind the head of marketing in Beirut.’ But in actual fact the fella that was in charge of transport got there ahead of me, being British and being very pompous. He took advantage and they sent him off to Beirut and left me. And I had to fight my way through.
JM: Through.
ID: But I did every job I could get. Every time they gave me a job they said you take this fella and you learn about it. So everybody they gave me I learned his job. Could do it in a week or so because it was fairly simple jobs basically. It was just a matter of following up.
JM: Well, being used to organising yourself as a pilot and being responsible and organising others I mean, you know, you’ve got the basic skills there for any management role that you would need to do so I mean.
ID: Yeah. It came quite easily to me to be a manager. And so I was, apparently, I had and still have at ninety four a gift for working with people and I was able to [noise on microphone] oh I wondered what that was —
Others: Just loosening them up.
JM: So, you ended up with ten years all up.
ID: Ten years in Bahrain.
JM: Bahrain.
ID: And then in Bahrain I did all kinds of jobs but most were with maintenance planning of major shut downs. Many millions of dollars being spent and I was in planning. That was well before the days of computers and laptops.
JM: Yeah. That’s right. A very different work environment.
ID: You had to be able to do it. Worked out this is what will happen if you do this. So —
JM: Yeah. So then from Bahrain you went to New York. You had fifteen years in America.
ID: Hang on. I went to New York. I was in Bahrain for ten years.
JM: Ten years and then from there to —
ID: From there I’m sure I went to [pause] oh I know what happened. I won the first two Bahrain Opens at golf.
JM: You won the —
ID: What’s called the Bahrain Open it was then.
JM: Oh ok.
ID: That was the Bahrain open golf champion.
JM: Oh yeah. Yeah.
ID: And because I won them I think I got to know the president better.
JM: Yeah.
ID: And he called me up and said, ‘What are your plans?’ And I said, here it is what I’d done so far, ‘And really, I expected to be long since to be marketing somewhere.’ And then you know in a matter of days the call came forward to ask would I like to be head of training and development for Caltex Worldwide.
JM: Right. Gosh.
ID: Based in New York.
JM: New York.
ID: And I was there in New York for I think it was about ten years. Give or take six months or so. In which time I did a lot of travelling for Caltex. And I ran maintenance courses. Management training. Mostly as a organiser really and doing it but in many cases the organisation ones I liked. I used to do them myself.
JM: Yes, well that —
ID: That was just a small part. Right. Then they came with up a — when I was in New York I decided to come away with a golden handshake to cut back on everyone and I said I’ll take that and they said, ‘No we don’t mean you.’
JM: Oh ok.
ID: I said, ‘Well this is what it says. It’s all written down there anybody and everybody is allowed to apply.’ So that’s what actually happened, I applied and they said, ‘Well, you can’t go.’ And I said, ‘Well you shouldn’t have put it on paper like that.’
JM: Yeah.
ID: Because everybody else sees that I was turned down for being too good rather than I’d got a right.’ So, I did that.
JM: You did that and as you say you did a lot of travelling and a lot of courses.
ID: I’d done quite a few organisational development programmes as such.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
ID: Training enroute in different countries.
JM: Countries yeah.
ID: And I ended up going to Kenya for the best part of a year.
JM: Yeah.
ID: And I was at Nairobi.
JM: That would have been a very different experience because I mean.
ID: It was indeed.
JM: We’re talking about you know mid to late [pause] mid–eighties. I mean it was a very different.
ID: Well it was most unusual in the firstly I was in the jungles in Sumatra and then I was in the desert of Bahrain and then I went to New York and then from New York. Well I obviously did well, or I wouldn’t have been selected to —
JM: To go to Kenya to –. Do, to run the.
LD: I remember as a little girl flying with you in the DC3 to Sumatra dad. Along the line. And then we went down into the oil caps high in Sumatra. Down that, on a small punt through the river and then there had been this — because you guys had gone shooting tigers.
ID: We had to go by boat from the airport where the plane landed to a terminal along the river. Siak River it was called. Along the Siak. I’ll never forget it because the river was the same colour as tea.
JM: Oh, my goodness.
ID: Funny that. That was stained. The water was stained.
JM: Stained.
ID: Run off the mountains and that. Anyhow, the point was I was trying to make that after that I was offered this, not offered. I took this golden handshake. Wasn’t much money in those days but I took it and I hadn’t been away from there for more than six weeks and I was down here in Sydney. And a phone call came and they said they want you to go to Indonesia for a year.’ I said how long?’ A year. What will they want for a year? Oh you’ll find out there. You’ll go there for a year. Your job is basically to train the Indonesians to take over completely. So, it took me six years, but I got it done. And [pause]
JM: So that was in Malaysia. Indonesia. Then from there you got another call and had to go off to Oman for twelve — for about a year. Is that right?
ID: Yeah. Well what actually happened was we were going to go and build a refinery in Bangkok. But if you remember back there was a big fire in a place called Bhopal in India.
JM: Oh yes. Yes. Yes.
ID: Ok. And the insurers withdrew the money that they’d put up for us to build that refinery.
JM: Yeah.
ID: So, I was suddenly without a job.
JM: Right.
ID: So, they said they were establishing a Tiger Force and would I be part of the Tiger Force? And the first place to go would be Oman for six months.
JM: Two months.
ID: Which turned out to be two and a half years. Which turned out to be very nice. I enjoyed Oman. We both liked it.
JM: Right. Right. Because I guess at this stage it would just be you and Pat. The children would be off doing their own things well and truly by this stage.
ID: Yeah.
JM: And then so you had the time in Oman and then a short break again and then Thailand.
ID: Well a short break. I can’t remember the exact time but certainly I’d already done the job.
JM: Yeah.
ID: In Oman and I’d come home. I think I was home for about six months and the phone goes. New York. New York wants you.
JM: Yeah.
ID: What for [unclear] and I’ll tell you and then they turned around and said we want you to go to Thailand to open up training manager.
JM: Right.
ID: Whilst in charge of development. All levels of people who wanted, who knew, and it was what we called a star petroleum refining company.
JM: Right.
ID: And the actual — the actual running of the place was done by a couple of engineers, a managing director and his vice president but I was responsible for human aspects of it.
JM: Right. Right. And then finally you went to Japan.
ID: In between I did quite a few.
JM: A few bits. Yes.
ID: Specialised trips.
JM: Specialised short trips. Yeah.
ID: Trained on.
JM: Sort something out.
ID: We were the first people who engineered simulated management programme and because it was so successful they decided I could stay on doing that and I had one computer specialist who was very good and myself and we were the mainstays behind this Tiger Force and somewhere between Oman and Thailand. Yeah. Oman to Thailand. And then Thailand we built a new refinery completely and I had the responsibility of manpower training and providing the man power and basically trying to stop Shell who had been there for quite a bit longer from stealing the only trained people in the country. And we did, and I got that job done and went home and I thought it was all over because by this time I was about seventy six or so. And —
JM: Amazing.
ID: I got a call again and, ‘We want you to go to Japan.’ And I said, because I liked Japan, and I looked forward to that, ‘Can my wife come?’ ‘Cause I took Pat out to all these places.
JM: Places. Yeah.
ID: Yeah. Well, they said, ‘Yeah. Alright.’ I said, ‘When do we go?’ ‘Tomorrow.’
JM: Nothing like a bit of notice.
ID: Yeah. So, I went off with — with [pause]
LD: [unclear]
ID: Having done the job in Thailand I then was involved in this Tiger Force group and was busy trying to downsize the way the Japanese run their refineries and what was happening was they were buying you know twice as much as they should have done and they had far too, far too many people for what work there was. And the men would stay back till 8 o’clock at night shuffling paperwork from one to the other. But Pat and I were there for — oh I don’t know — fourteen months. Something like that. We thoroughly enjoyed it. We like japan very much.
JM: That’s good.
ID: Of course the men aren’t nearly as nice as the women. And the women helped Pat a lot.
JM: You’ve had an incredible life and it’s just amazing to think you continued to work in such influential positions for so long. it’s just a tribute to your whole —
ID: Well an attitude to work. And of course —
JM: Well attitude to work but it’s the skills. It’s the ability to relate to people. It’s the ability to deliver. It’s the ability to manage. It’s all of those things and I think that comes back.
ID: Well they all —
JM: And explains why you survived. You know, I mean, it’s the people —
ID: They came all together again and well I was successful was I wouldn’t have been working till I was seventy eight.
JM: That’s right. Amazing. So there’s just one other thing that I would ask out of an interest in your golf. So, you when did you first start to play golf? When you were a boy back in Maitland or —?
ID: My father was a very good golfer.
JM: Right. So —
ID: Played [off scratch?]. ]
JM: Right.
ID: Back in Maitland
JM: Right.
ID: But he wouldn’t let us you know play because he didn’t want us around when he was having his booze and God knows what. But the point was I did get a few hits in so I knew which end of the club to hold kind of thing.
JM: Yeah. Did you caddy for him at any time? Did you caddy for him at any time?
ID: No. I don’t think so.
JM: So, you didn’t get a chance to see him.
ID: I played with him.
JM: You played with him but —
ID: But not against him.
JM: Not against him. Yeah. Yeah.
ID: The last time we played together was in Avalon in Sydney.
JM: Oh ok.
ID: A course there.
JM: Yeah. A little public course yeah. Yeah. Because again being a good golfer often works very well in the corporate world. And I think that’s evidenced by the fact that –
ID: That corporate role as such but the fact that you could go to a place and then meet with the managing director of the company.
JM: That’s right. Yes.
ID: And talk about golf.
JM: That’s right.
ID: And not about anything else.
JM: Exactly.
ID: That was enough to get you through the front door. Put it that way.
JM: That’s right. Well as I say and the perfect example is when you were saying about Bahrain.
ID: Yeah.
JM: That’s right.
ID: You kind of soon found that you were capable. What you were capable of.
JM: Yes.
ID: And you concentrated on that.
JM: That’s right. Well I think we’ve covered an enormous amount of territory today and I appreciate so much the effort that you’ve made because I know you’ve not been well. And it’s just to put –
ID: My main problem is just sitting down.
JM: To sit down for too long. That’s right. That’s why I want you to be able to have a little time —
ID: They tell me I’ve got –
JM: To finish up. So, I think we’ll conclude there and as I say thank you very very much Ian for all.
ID: Jean. It’s been a pleasure to have you here.
JM: Thank you.
ID: And feel welcome to call by any time.
JM: Thank you very much.
ID: And ask any questions you want and I’ll give the right answer.
JM: I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Thank you. So, we’ll finish it off there now. Ok.
ID: Ok.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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ADenverI170221
PDenverI1704
Title
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Interview with Ian Denver
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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
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:59:04 audio recording
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Pending review
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Jean Macartney
Date
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2017-02-21
Description
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Ian Denver grew up in Australia and joined the Royal Australian Air Force as soon as he was old enough. After training he completed 60 operations with 625 Squadron and 156 Squadron. He met and married his wife, Pat who was an intelligence officer at 625 Squadron and returned to Australia after the war. He joined QANTAS and became the youngest international captain with the company.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Kenya
Kenya--Nairobi
Temporal Coverage
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1942
1943
1944
1945
Contributor
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Julie Williams
156 Squadron
625 Squadron
aircrew
Halifax
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lancastrian
love and romance
Master Bomber
military ethos
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Pathfinders
pilot
sport
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/286/3442/PKirbyH1511.1.jpg
f2f26de792cac70f6b6c69e353b3a563
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/286/3442/AKirbyHVA160611.2.mp3
77fbbeda6cb538a1fc8c3a042b4c080b
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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Kirby, Harold
Harold V A Kirby
H V A Kirby
Harold Kirby
H Kirby
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. Two oral history interviews with Warrant Officer Harold Kirby (1923 - 2022, 1637087 Royal Air Force), his log book, photographs and documents. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 467, 97 and 156 Squadrons.
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
2015-07-10
2015-09-21
2016-06-11
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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Kirby, H
Requires
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Warrant Officer Harold Kirby 1637087 was born in Kilbourne, Loncon in 1923, his job after leaving school was in the accounting department at London Electric Supplies. He initially tried to volunteer for the RAF but failed the medical, at that time. He was subsequently drafted in 1942. Skill training started with training as a Flight Mechanic, but during this was asked to volunteer to rain as a Flight Engineer. His first posting was as an Aircraft Fitter at No.460 Squadron, RAF Binbrook, although only for 6 months.
After Flight Engineer training at St Athan and then training on the Short Stirling and then the Lancaster with 1661 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Winthorpe, the first solo flight for the crew, the port landing gear would not lock, during the landing the gear collapsed, although there were no injuries.
First operational unit was No.467 Squadron at RAF Waddington a mainly Australian Squadron, the crew were here for July and August 1944, One operation 3/4th August 1944, to the V1 storage site at Trossy Saint Maximin had another bomber flying above their aircraft and dropping their bombs, one going through the wing, narrowly missing vital structures, this resulted in a gear up landing, due to hydraulic loss, but again there were no injuries resulting.
He was then posted along with the crew to No 97 Squadron, based at RAF Coningsby a pathfinder squadron, tasked to mark the targets for other aircraft,
In total two tours were completed before the end of the European war, after finishing as a Flight Engineer, Harold trained as a RADAR mechanic, before leaving the RAF.
Andy St.Denis
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
TO: This recording was recorded for the International Bomber Command Centre digital archive which owns the copyright for this performance. OK, so what year were you born in?
HK: 1923.
TO: And, er, where were you born?
HK: In Kilburn. Kingsgate Road, Kilburn.
TO: I live near there. I live near there at the moment. I’m in West Hampstead.
HK: Oh, right. OK.
TO: And, er, when were you a child were you interested in aircraft?
HK: Not particularly no, although we did go to the Hendon Air Mus— display on occasions, um, but not, not particularly interested when I was young.
TO: What, what kind of aircraft did they have at the display?
HK: I think they were, er, sort of two-winged planes, yes. I can’t really remember much about it.
TO: Right and were your parents in the First World War?
HK: Yes, my fa— yes, my father was in the Army but he managed to survive.
TO: Did you, er, did he ever talk about his time in the war?
HK: Very rarely. We did go to the, er, an Army museum somewhere and he did explain a bit what he did but not very much.
TO: Is that on? And, er, when did you leave school?
HK: When did I leave school? At sixteen. We had moved to Kingsbury by then and I went to Kingsbury County School.
TO: And, er, what were your favourite subjects at school?
HK: Maths.
TO: And, er, did you use maths in your first job?
HK: No, not really, no. My first job was in the accounts department of London Electrics Supply. That was in Waterloo but, er, maths didn’t really come into it much.
TO: And, er, in the 1930s did they, did the papers talk about what Hitler was doing in Europe?
HK: I think they must have done but I wasn’t really interested at that time.
TO: And did you go to the cinema much?
HK: Yes, quite often, yes. I usually went with my mother and brother. My father wasn’t terribly interested.
TO: Do you remember any specific films you saw? Are there any films you remember seeing?
HK: Not really, no. I remember seeing some silent films early on but, er, I remember a film called “Rin Tin Tin” about a dog but I can’t really remember much about it.
TO: I have heard about that film but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it but my grandmother mentioned it to me once. And, er, do remember hearing about the Munich Agreement?
HK: Oh, yes, yes. That was 1938 was it? Yes, oh yes. I was a bit older by then.
TO: And what did you think of Chamberlain appeasing Hitler?
HK: I’m not sure whether it was just to delay things or not or whether he really thought it would be appeasement. But, er, I just don’t know.
TO: And after the agreement were people making preparations for war?
HK: Yes. Oh, definitely, yes. They seemed to think it was definitely coming by then.
TO: Was there any preparations you were involved in?
HK: No, not until the war started and then we dug the garden for allotments but nothing much at the time.
TO: And do you think Britain could have made better preparations?
HK: I don’t think so, no. Oh, possibly got in a better store of food [slight laugh]. I don’t know.
TO: But were you surprised though when you heard that war had started?
HK: I think we knew it was coming. Yes. Yes. I heard the, um, broadcast by Neville Chamberlain.
TO: Do you remember how you felt when you heard it?
HK: I really felt that, er, we’d have to — well, I don’t really know at that time. I was only about sixteen so — but apprehensive probably.
TO: And did you have any relatives who were in the armed forces?
HK: I had some uncles in the First World War. Oh, a younger uncle, um, was in the fire service and then he went in the Army. Yes. That was all at the time.
TO: And, er, did, how did you feel when you heard that France had been defeated?
HK: Well, I thought we had our backs to the wall by then, yes. So, er, had to get down and try and preserve ourselves.
TO: Do you think France let Britain down?
HK: I don’t really think there was much they could do at the time. Germany was too powerful.
TO: And, er, when war had started did you think it would be a short war or a long war?
HK: Well, I had hoped it would be a short one but I, I really don’t know. I didn’t really have an opinion then.
TO: Were you living in London when the Luftwaffe started their bombing?
HK: In Kingsbury, yeah.
TO: And can you remember any specific occasions?
HK: We did have a, a bomb came down in the road but it didn’t explode but, er, it damaged houses, they — I think the toilets cracked or something and there was a house about three doors away that was more damaged and they had to leave it. But no, no explosions took place.
TO: Did you witness any aerial battles at that time?
HK: Oh yes, at the time, yes. I was quite interested.
TO: Were you worried that the Luftwaffe might win?
HK: What, what’s that?
TO: The Luftwaffe might defeat the RAF. Were you worried?
HK: Well, I suppose I was worried but, er, we seemed to have the upper hand at the end of the Battle of Britain.
TO: What did you think of RAF leaders at the time, like, er, Dowding?
HK: Well, I can’t say I had much opinion at that age, no.
TO: OK. Do you remember what kind of rations you had? [sound of rustling papers]
HK: I couldn’t say definitely but I knew we had rations. Things were in short supply, yes?
TO: Did you have better rations though when you were in the Air Force?
HK: Yes, definitely.
TO: And did you, did you have an air raid shelter where you lived?
HK: We had the indoor one, the Morrison shelter, yes. I don’t think we ever used it really.
TO: Would the Morrison have been much use do you think?
HK: The shelter?
TO: Yes.
HK: Well, it, it would have been but as I said I don’t think we really used it much.
TO: And as there much bomb damage near where you worked?
HK: Where I worked? Quite a bit, yes. This was up in Waterloo.
TO: And were you worried that Britain might surrender?
HK: I don’t think I was. No, I don’t think I was, no. I, if I thought about I thought we’d probably succeed which we did eventually.
TO: And did you ever see anyone behaving badly during the Blitz?
HK: I can’t that say I did. No.
TO: Do you think people pulled together?
HK: Yes.
TO: So, when exactly did you come to join the Air Force then? [sound of rustling papers]
HK: This is a bit of a long story. Two school friends and myself tried to get in early on flying duties. They got in, eventually became navigators, but I was turned down. I wasn’t fit for flying duties at the time but I was called up in ’42, initially trained as a, a flight mechanic, er, went on to do a training as a fitter and, um, while I was doing the courses they were calling for volunteers to become flight engineers. This time I passed the medical and eventually became a flight engineer.
TO: Do you remember what kind of medical tests they gave you?
HK: Well, I remember sort of blowing in a tube and holding the mercury up and the colour blindness test. I don’t really remember much else.
TO: Was there a certain, was there a certain kind of educational test you had to do?
HK: I’m pretty certain there was but I can’t remember it.
TO: And did your maths play a role with you being selected as a flight engineer?
HK: I think it helped, yes. [sound of rustling papers]
TO: And would you — did you ever consider trying to be a pilot or navigator?
HK: I did but, um, eventually when I was called for the medical, um, I did explain I had originally applied and they said at that time I was quite fit to become a navigator but as that was going to take longer I thought I’d persevere with being flight engineer.
TO: Once you got into a certain role, like flight engineer, could you reapply to be something else?
HK: Yes, certainly. Yes.
TO: And what did you relatives think of you being in the Air Force?
HK: My mother was very apprehensive, yes. But I don’t know what else, no.
TO: And so, er, can you describe a bit more about your training for being air crew?
HK: Yes, well after I’d become a fitter I was posted up to Binbrook and did six months, mainly repairing airplanes, and after the six months I was posted to St Athan to do my training as a flight engineer. Eventually I passed out, went to the heavy engineering, er, heavy aircraft place at Winthorpe where I crewed-up. The rest of the crew were all Australian. So, er, then we went to Waddington on 467 Squadron initially and later, after about sixteen operations we were transferred to, um, 97 Squadron, a Pathfinders squadron.
TO: And do you remember the first time you went up in a plane?
HK: Yes. That, that was when we had the old Stirling planes for training. That was the first time I went up, yeah, but I don’t really remember much about that.
TO: What did you, er, think of the Stirling?
HK: I think they were really clapped out by then. This was in, yes, early ’44. Actually, on the — my pilot’s first, um, solo on the Stirlings he couldn’t get the wheels down. I had to wind them down by hand which was a long job but then the, um, port one wouldn’t lock so we were advised to go to, um, one of the air, air stations that were — had damaged aircraft. That was in Suffolk somewhere. I forget the name and, er, we went there and the undercarriage collapsed on that, collapsed on that side. We spun round but no-one was hurt. Then the instructor came down with another aircraft and made my pilot fly it back. That was all the excitement we had on that station.
TO: Were most bombers, did most bombers have the same layout inside?
HK: No, not at all, no. They were quite different. The flight engineer on a Stirling was way back. I’m not sure what it was on the Halifax now but, er, with the Lancaster it was next to the pilot.
TO: I, a couple of years ago I spoke to a chap who had been a navigator in Lancasters and he said in the Halifax you had, the navigator had a separate office downstairs or something.
HK: I believe so, yes.
TO: Did you have a particular favourite aircraft of the war?
HK: A favourite one. Well that was the Lancaster. No doubt about it.
TO: Was it, was it, was it, did it feel different flying a Lancaster, flying in a Lancaster to other planes?
HK: What?
TO: You said you were flying in a Lancaster. Did it feel different on board a Stirling?
HK: Yes, yes, it was much better, yes. I can’t really remember much about the Stirling.
TO: Were you ever aboard a Halifax?
HK: No.
TO: Or a Wellington?
HK: No. No.
TO: OK. OK. So, er, when you were sent to the squadrons what, what did — were they mainly Lancasters?
HK: Yeah. They were all Lancasters where we were, at Waddington and then Coningsby.
TO: And as the flight engineer what would your duties be aboard the plane?
HK: Well, to assist the pilot in taking off, um, keeping an eye on the engine temperatures and oil pressures all the time, um, keeping a lookout on the starboard side, um, and doing any repairs which were possible on board. That was about it I think.
TO: Could you please describe the procedure for taking off in a Lancaster?
HK: Well [clears throat] initially we had to check, um, go round the aircraft and check the outside, then inside we had to run up the engines in turn to see how they were, watch there no significant [unclear] as they called it and, er, then we taxied to the start off point, run up the engines with the brakes on until we got the green light and then we were away. The only trouble was on one occasion, as we were going round the runway, um, the brakes failed and the pilot managed to guide it by the engines and at the start off point we couldn’t run up against the brakes as was normal. We just got to the start and pushed the throttle forwards and went off. But we got off OK then coming back we went — I’m trying to remember the name of the place where we first went with the, er, the Stirling, but they’d got a long runway so we flew there and so they repaired the brakes and we flew back.
TO: How reliable was the Lancaster?
HK: Very reliable generally, yes. We did have a bit of trouble with the intercom now and again but no, generally very reliable.
TO: And were you quite friendly with the ground crew?
HK: Yes, quite, quite friendly yes but, er, I think I ought to have been more friendly at the time but I was young, young and they were older people so, er, I, I don’t think I got as friendly as I should have done.
TO: How old were the people you were with?
HK: The, the ground crew? Oh, I reckon in their thirties, um, most, most of them I think were regulars. [beep sound]
TO: And what about the crew aboard the bomber. How old were they?
HK: Well, I was the youngest. The pilot was twenty-eight. I was just, just turned twenty-one. The bomb aimer was also early thirties and, um, the mid upper gunner and the wireless operator were quite young, um, mid mid-twenties I suppose but I got on very well with them.
TO: Did, were you, were you allowed to be friends with the — sorry, what was your rank?
HK: Rank? At the time I was just a sergeant, then flight sergeant and eventually warrant officer.
TO: Were there any rules about who you could be friends with?
HK: No, not, not really. I went about with some of the crew, yes. Of course though we were kept separate at the station, the officers and the NCOs separate.
TO: Was there ever any friction between the crew of the bomber?
HK: Not as far as I was concerned no. Never heard any.
TO: What did you think of Arthur Harris?
HK: I think he was just the man for the job at the time, yes.
TO: And, er, what did you think of the German aircraft of the war?
HK: Oh well, they — fortunately we didn’t have much of a contact with them. On our first, very first operation we were coming back and the rear gunner suddenly shouted to corkscrew and there was a plane. It was a twin-engine plane coming up behind and it let off a burst, and one bullet went through the rear turret and went through the rear gunner’s clothing and cut off his heating supply, which he was very aggrieved because it got very cold but we got back safely. The attacking aircraft I saw over— overtook us as we dived on the corkscrew and we never saw it again. So that was really a sort of a foretaste of what could have come but we were quite fortunate. We never saw any single or twin-engine aircraft again.
TO: And how do you feel about the Churchill deciding to order the bombing of Germany?
HK: How about —
TO: Churchill ordering Germany to be bombed?
HK: Well, I think it was war-time. I must say that in all our briefing we were all briefed to bomb military targets, um, not just towns, but at the time the accuracy of bombing was such that towns were destroyed, um, acc— well, not accidently, but I think the powers that be knew what was going on but, um, as I said we, we were briefed to bomb targets.
TO: I’ve, I’ve, er, I read, listened to an interview with Harris where he defended the tactics he used and he says that anyone who wants to criticise him for ordering the bombing of towns has never looked out of a window because if they had done they would know the cloud conditions over Europe means you can’t hit individual targets.
HK: That’s right, yeah.
TO: And were there ever any occasions where aircraft were damaged by the weather?
HK: By the weather?
TO: Like snow or thunderstorms?
HK: No, I don’t think so. Well, not as far as I was concerned, no.
TO: And, er, you just mentioned briefings. How did the briefings work?
HK: In what way?
TO: Well, how many people would you have in the room? Were you shown maps or photos?
HK: Yeah, well there was a big map at the front and with the target route marked. The pilot and the navigator had a separate briefing initially and then we all went together to the main briefing. I suppose, depending on the number of planes that were going, about seven crew, um, there must have been sort of getting on for seventy, possibly, in the main briefing, yeah. [clears throat] The commander got up and gave a brief talk and then the chief navigator and bomb— bomb— bombing instructor all gave a brief talk and we went for a pre-operational meal and got ready.
TO: What did you do to prepare yourselves for the mission?
HK: Well, just went, um, to the equipment room and got our parachutes and got dressed and waited around for the time to, to go off.
TO: And as you got on board the plane were you feeling nervous?
HK: Tiredness more than nervous, yes.
TO: And was there anyone who was actually showing any fear or were they all keeping it, keeping it to themselves?
HK: I think they were all keeping to themselves, yes.
TO: Do you know of anyone who during the war who wasn’t able — who just felt too nervous to get on board the plane?
HK: I don’t know of anyone, no. I knew there were people who decided they couldn’t go on but they were got off the stations as quickly as they could.
TO: So, if you can please could you describe your first ever mission over German?
HK: Well, as I said the first ever mission was the one in which we got shot at but survived that. The, er, worst trip was on the VI storage sites in France. This was a daylight raid and the mid upper gunner said, ‘There’s a Lanc immediately above us just opened his bomb doors.’ But before we could do anything we felt two thumps and one of the bombs went through the port wing and took away the port undercarriage and so I shut down the engine on that side because it was immediately behind the engine and, er, we came home on three engines and landed but our pilot decided to land on the grass runway, which we did, and again no one was hurt.
TO: Were you worried the plane would crash when the —
HK: Oh yes, yes. It came down. Our pilot was very successful in landing it. We did a belly landing because we lost all the hydraulics. We couldn’t get the other undercarriage down, couldn’t use the flaps on it. We just had to come in but, um, yeah, we were quite fortunate.
TO: And incidents like that ever — after that incident, were you reluctant to go on more missions?
HK: No, no, no. It was just a job.
TO: So, you mentioned that — was it VIs you were bombing?
HK: Yes, the VI storage sites, yes.
TO: Sorry can you describe what they are? I’m not familiar with them.
HK: The VI, the Doodlebugs, yes. They had storage places for them. This was at Trossy Saint Maximin. I don’t know where that is now but it’s in France somewhere.
TO: And what kind of pay load would the, would your Lancaster carry?
HK: Well, initially it was, er, thousand pounders and the incendiaries and then when we went to Pathfinders it was — we dropped flares initially to light up the target area as well as high explosives.
TO: Do you remember what kind of military targets you were generally after?
HK: What, um — the canal, Dortmund-Ems [?] canal, railway sidings, bridges, harbours, all sorts of things.
TO: And did you ever hear how, how successful your missions had been?
HK: Well, they did display photographs afterwards so we could see. I — definitely some of them were definitely successful. But, um, I don’t remember a lot about it, no.
TO: OK. So, was your first raid over Germany in 1943?
HK: No. ’44.
TO: OK and had you heard about the thousand bomber raids that —
HK: Yes. I had, had read about them, yes.
TO: And how many planes would generally accompany your Lancaster?
HK: I think it depended a lot, um, possibly upwards twenty, fifty, possibly a hundred. I, I don’t really know.
TO: Was there, were there any points on board a mission where you could relax to a degree?
HK: Well, we relaxed to a degree once we were on the North Sea on the way home but, um, we still had to keep a look-out. But, er, we didn’t really relax until we’d landed.
TO: And what was the procedure for coming into land?
HK: We had to call up the station and were given directions as to what height to circle and sort of gradually come down and then told we could go into land.
TO: Were landings scary at all?
HK: No, I don’t think so. I don’t recall.
TO: So, the incident where you mentioned with the — where had to shut down the engines, could, did you have control, does that mean you had control over the engines as you were the engineer?
HK: Yeah, it was, yes. I, I’m not sure I got the order to shut it down but I did it anyway because as the bomber had sort of taken all the bits behind the engine I thought there was a danger of petrol coming and catching fire and so that’s why I shut it down.
TO: But was the rest of the aircraft still working fine?
HK: It was, yes, yes. As I said we’d lost all the hydraulics. We couldn’t operate the flaps or what was left of the undercarriage but, um, the pilot did a good job.
TO: So, how many people would you normally have aboard the bomber?
HK: Seven altogether.
TO: And can you describe the conditions in general aboard the bomber?
HK: There wasn’t a lot of room I know that. Yes, well we had to get from the door up to the front of the aircraft, over the main spar and, er, but once we were in position it was quite OK.
TO: And how was morale in general amongst the crew?
HK: Generally pretty good, yes, yeah.
TO: And did your squadron suffer heavy losses?
HK: Occasionally yes, yes. I can’t recall any particular case but we did lose certainly some.
TO: Did you hear much about the American bombing of Germany?
HK: I didn’t hear much about it, no.
TO: And did the, your friends in the plane, did they talk much about their lives at home?
HK: Which, the friends?
TO: Your fellow crew members on the plane?
HK: Not a lot, no, no.
TO: And did the Lancasters get new bombs as the war went on?
HK: Sorry, did —
TO: Did the Lancasters get new bombs as the war went on?
HK: I suppose so. I don’t really know.
TO: And, er, were there any — do you remember any occasions where you were over major German cities?
HK: I remember going to Munich and Hamburg a number of times. We never went to Berlin but, er, yes. I don’t really remember much about that.
TO: Was there heavy anti-aircraft fire?
HK: Oh, plenty, yes. We could see them exploding in the air, yes.
TO: Did they ever come near the plane?
HK: We were fortunate. We didn’t have a lot of damage. We did have some shrapnel damage but not a lot, no.
TO: You mentioned was it the tail gunner who got the heating supply cut off? Did he seem traumatised at all by that?
HK: I don’t think he was traumatised but, er, he certainly remembered it because, um, when my wife and I went to Perth in Australia where he lived, we managed to meet him, he was telling my wife about it. He was most aggrieved about the heating supply going off [laugh].
TO: Was his reaction to it pretty normal?
HK: I think so, yes.
TO: And I’m sorry to ask this but do you know of anyone who died during the raids?
HK: During the Blitz, yes, distant, well, distant friends of my parents moved to a place. I lived in Kilburn initially and then moved to, um, a place near Barking and then one of the girls who was my age, um, was out doing fire watching or something but she was killed and, er, the others, one of the other sisters was wounded but I don’t know anyone else really close.
TO: Did you know anyone who, anyone in RAF who died on raids over Germany?
HK: Yes, yes, quite a number from the squadron we were on, yes.
TO: Did you ever talk about them?
HK: Not a lot, no. I remember we had two people from Ireland. One was a young chap, probably my age, and the other was a bit older and the older man was on his last mission, got shot down and killed, and this young chap was really upset about that. But, um, I don’t remember much about anyone else.
TO: And did you hear about the attack on the Ruhr dams?
HK: Heard about them, yes, yes.
TO: Did that have much effect on morale?
HK: I think it probably did but we were quite, um, happy that they had done it but we didn’t know a lot about it at the time.
TO: Do you think the raid was successful? [bleep sound]
HK: It was successful I think, yes.
TO: And were there any occasions when your squadron dropped leaflets?
HK: I can’t recall dropping actual leaflets, no. We did drop the window over — you’ve heard about that. Yes, but I don’t remember about leaflets, no.
TO: Can you please describe what the procedure was for deploying window.
HK: Well, there was the chutes near where I was and it was just unpacking the, er, packets and dropping them sort of shortly before went into Germany. But, er, I don’t think we had them all that much.
TO: Do you think window was effective?
HK: I think it probably was, well initially anyway. Later on I don’t know. There was a chute next to my position where I could drop them through.
TO: So it was your duty and not the bomb aimer?
HK: Yes.
TO: Can you explain how, what impact window had on the Germans?
HK: Well, initially it upset their radar quite a bit but then eventually they got used to it and I think that was probably why we stopped.
TO: I’m not sure if you’re aware but I think that just before Hamburg when they first used window Germany actually had developed the same thing but didn’t want to used it on Britain in case Britain used it on Germany. So both sides had window but both sides didn’t want to use it. [slight laughter] And you mentioned you only saw that twin-engine plane on that one occasion, did you ever see other German planes?
HK: In the distance, yes, yes, or near a target we saw a couple way below us. I don’t remember seeing any, any more, no.
TO: When you saw them were you worried that they would come near you?
HK: Was I what?
TO: When you saw the planes below you were you worried that they would come and attack?
HK: Well, they were well below us. I, I don’t know what they were doing but they were coming cross-wise but, um, two of them together, but whether they were after a particular target or not I don’t know.
TO: And were you sat in the cockpit the whole time?
HK: Yes, well mainly, yes.
TO: What would you do if you had to move around the bomber?
HK: Well, we had portable oxygen bottles we had to take. I did have to go back to the rear gunner once because his, um, the fluid was leaking from his supply line that operated the turret. I managed to put one of these circuits round because it, it had come off the supply, but he had to be very careful ultimate.
TO: Can you describe what kind of equipment you — sorry, what kind of clothes would you wear on board the bomber?
HK: A very thick jumper, um, some form of outer coat of some sort. I don’t really remember. Then a Mae West. I remember it was very bulky getting through the aircraft at the time.
TO: And did you wear an oxygen mask at all times?
HK: Yes. Pretty well all the time, yes. [cough]
TO: And where did you keep the parachutes?
HK: The parachutes. Well, my parachute was stored just behind me. The pilot had a, er, sit-on one as did the rear gunner I think. The rest of the crew had the parachutes as near as they could get them.
TO: And did the Lancaster have escape hatches?
HK: Yes, yes. There was one by the bomb aimer down in the front and then there was the door at the back and hatches in the roof.
TO: Were you ever told what to do it you ever had to bail out?
HK: Well, yes. We had to practice getting out.
TO: How did that practice work?
HK: Well it wasn’t in the air. It was on the ground, just getting through the front hatch.
TO: Were you ever worried about being shot down?
HK: I can’t say that I was particularly worried, no?
TO: And what kind of instruments did you have in front of you when you were sat in the cockpit?
HK: Well, the instruments at the side were the oil pressures and temperatures etcetera. In the front you had the normal — you know, I can’t really remember. I know we had the, um, all the knobs for pressing to cut off the engines but I wasn’t so much concerned with the flight controls as the engine temperatures and pressures that was at the side.
TO: Can you remember what would happen aboard the plane when you reached the targets and had to drop the bombs?
HK: Well, the bomb aimer gave directions and, er, and had to fly straight and level for a certain length of time and then he said, ‘Bombs gone.’ And immediately closed the bomb doors and got off as quickly as we could.
TO: Did your Lancaster ever carry a cookie?
HK: That’s the four thousand pound. Yes, I think it did on occasions but I can’t really remember now.
TO: Could you actually feel the bombs leaving the plane?
HK: Did —
TO: Could you feel the bombs leaving the plane?
HK: Oh, well when they were dropped yes. We did sort of go up quite suddenly.
TO: And were there any times when engines, when, not when damaged but when the engines just malfunctioned without warning?
HK: No, no. The engines were pretty good on the whole, yes.
TO: Merlins weren’t they?
HK: Merlins yes.
TO: [unclear] And did you ever go on — were your missions mainly at night?
HK: Mainly at night although we did do some daylight ones. These were mainly, as I said, over the storage sites of — in France.
TO: Did you prefer daylight or night missions?
HK: I think night because we couldn’t see what was going on.
TO: Could you ever see the cities below you?
HK: Yes, we could especially when we were doing dropping the flares, yes.
TO: And can you explain, can you explain what the, how the other Pathfinder missions worked?
HK: Yes, there was Flare Force 1, which was — went out early when the bombing was due to start and we dropped flares then, er, if necessary, the master bomber called out for more flares and then there was the Flare Force 2 which was sort of circling around and then came in and dropped the other flares, and that’s really mainly what I can remember.
TO: When did they actually invent the Pathfinders, if you like?
HK: I think it came into force in 1942 because, um, they were worried about the, er, the bombing wasn’t very accurate at the time and, er, I think it did improve with the Pathfinders.
TO: So just to make sure I’ve got this right, the Pathfinders dropped the flares and the other main bombers would follow the flares?
HK: That’s right, yes.
TO: And was Pathfinding just as dangerous as other bombing?
HK: I think it was but we didn’t know much about it at the time.
TO: I don’t know if you can answer this question but how long did the missions tend to last, usually?
HK: From about five hours up to about ten depending on where the target was.
TO: How far into Germany would you tend to go?
HK: I think the furthest was a place called — I’ve got the, er, name of the place here.
TO: Do you want me to get it? Shall I get it? [background noises]
HK: No. [background noises] Yes, Trondheim in Norway but I don’t remember what the target was? That was ten hours.
TO: Would that have been the Tirpitz? The Tirpitz?
HK: Sorry?
TO: Would that have been the battleship, Tirpitz?
HK: Yes. Yes.
TO: Because that was around Trondheim or Tromso or something when it was sunk by 617 Squadron I think when they were dropping Barnes Wallis’s tallboys.
HK: Yes, yes. I think that was the longest one, ten hours.
TO: So, so were you on a pathfinding mission for the Tirpitz do you think?
HK: Yes. I, I don’t really remember what we were doing over Trondheim.
TO: I could be entirely wrong when I say the Tirpitz but I know that the RAF did go after it and finally got it in November 1944 so, so I don’t know if that’s adds up or — did you hear about the sinking of the Tirpitz though?
HK: Yes, I heard about it, yes.
TO: And do you feel glad to have had a role in it be destroyed?
HK: I, I don’t remember much about that raid, no. I think we had to go to Scotland and refuel before we took off but I don’t, don’t remember much about it.
TO: And what do you think about the bombing of Hamburg in 1943?
HK: We didn’t hear much about it at the time, no, so I can’t really say.
TO: And what about the bombing of Berlin?
HK: Well, there again I said we never went to Berlin so there again I can’t really say.
TO: And what about Dresden?
HK: Well, Dresden we were briefed to bomb the railway sidings. There, there was supposed to be a lot of German concentrations ready to go to the Eastern Front, er, which was what we did. We didn’t really know at the time how the town was devastated.
TO: Were you still on Pathfinders at that point?
HK: Sorry?
TO: Were you still on Pathfinders at that point?
HK: Oh yes, yes.
TO: So did Pathfinders actually carry bombs or just flares?
HK: We did carry bombs as well, yes.
TO: And were some cities more heavily defended than others?
HK: Yes. Those in the Ruhr were quite heavily defended, yes. Others not so much.
TO: Was Dresden heavily defended?
HK: That I can’t remember. I don’t think it was, no.
TO: When, was the, was the, was the AK 88 the main anti-aircraft weapon the Germans have?
HK: Yes.
TO: Were the crews afraid of it or was the firing generally inaccurate?
HK: I don’t know that we thought about it all that much and just hoped it didn’t get too close.
TO: Did you ever — I know you were at night but could you ever actually make out other RAF bombers nearby?
HK: Not usually, now and again, yes, we saw — yes. Some got very close.
TO: Was that — you probably don’t know but was the, the bomb aimer or pilot of that was above you when it bumped into the wing, do you think they would have been reprimanded for what happened?
HK: I don’t think they would have known because the bomb aimer would have been looking forward. I don’t suppose they realised what was happening but we never found out who it was.
TO: Would you hold it against them if you found out then?
HK: It was just one of those things. I don’t think they — well they obviously didn’t do it on purpose.
TO: How much do you think a Lancaster could take and still get home?
HK: Quite a bit, yes. I have pictures of the hole in the Lancaster the bomb went through if you would like to see it?
TO: We can see that later. Can we see that later? I’d love to see that. And ss the war went on did you, did you think the bombing campaign was being successful.
HK: I think, as far as I was concerned I thought it was, yes.
TO: And was there anyone claiming that the tactics weren’t working?
HK: I didn’t hear any, no.
TO: And, this is a strange question probably but when you’re, or not when you’re on missions but when you’re just sitting in the cockpit of the aircraft, did you ever get the chance just to admire the view down below?
HK: Yes, um, on one of the missions to Munich we were briefed to fly over the Alps and it was moonlight and that was a sight to see I must admit and, er, when we went to some of the eastern European count— towns we had to fly over Sweden, which was all lit up, and that was a sight to see as well. They did, well, we were told they would shoot at us but not to be too near. I don’t think anyone was shot down over Sweden.
TO: My, the navigator I mentioned earlier he mentioned that there was a crew of his that used to fly over Switzerland and said the Swiss would fire anti-aircraft guns but they would deliberately fire them too far away so —
HK: I think that was the same with Sweden, yeah.
TO: Was that strange to see towns that were lit rather than in black-out?
HK: Yes, it was certainly a sight to see [laugh].
TO: And did your plane, did the navigator, or not necessarily the navigator, but did your plane ever get lost, as in not sure where they were going?
HK: No, I don’t think so, no. I don’t recall that.
TO: So, again there was a pilot whose plane got lost because the navigation equipment got broken or something. Was it quite cold on board the plane?
HK: It wasn’t too bad where we were up near the front but it got cold further back but the mid gunner and the rear gunner had a heated suit but yes it was pretty cold back there.
TO: Do you know any Lancaster gunners who successfully shot down fighters?
HK: No, I don’t know any definitely, no.
TO: Do you think they were much use against fighters?
HK: I think so, probably helpful in, in keeping the fighters away, even if they were just looking out.
TO: Did you carry any food aboard the plane with you?
HK: Yes we had some rations. On the long, long operations but I don’t remember much about what we had except they were — we did have tins of juice, er, vacuum flask of coffee, some food of some sort but I don’t remember what it was.
TO: Do you remember if anyone had a firearm aboard the plane?
HK: No.
TO: And were you ever given instruction on how to evade capture if you were shot down?
HK: Oh, we did had some instruction, yes. Try and keep low and if we were over a country other than Germany trying to get hold of some local people if we could.
TO: Did anyone on board the plane actually speak German?
HK: Not as far as I know, no.
TO: How many missions did you go on during the war?
HK: Forty-four altogether.
TO: Was that a lot by RAF standards?
HK: Well, with the Pathfinders the normal tour was forty-four. You did the normal thirty and then there was another fifteen so we were one short of the total.
TO: How often would you go on a mission would you say?
HK: Sometimes it might be two or three times in a week. Other times it might be sort of a few weeks before we went on an operation, depending possibly on the weather or the targets, I don’t know.
TO: When you were on bombing raids could you ever see the fires below?
HK: I remember seeing when we were over some sort of harbour. I don’t know where it was. I saw one of the ships that appeared to be burning but it might have been a smokescreen. But apart from that I, I don’t remember because, er, we were usually the first in and then away.
TO: So, when, when you did go on missions were you told to — were you generally aiming as you said earlier only for certain targets, like the railways?
HK: Yes, we were always, um, given a briefing like that, not just a town, but definitely some sort of target.
TO: And was there anyone in the crew who just deliberately didn’t pay attention in the briefings?
HK: I can’t say that I know, no.
TO: Because I was just thinking well that if a gunner was at a briefing they probably thought it doesn’t matter what I’m doing. I’ve just got to shoot at the planes.
HK: I suppose they were.
TO: I don’t know.
HK: I suppose the gunners were at the briefings. I can’t remember.
TO: That’s just speculation by me. They might have been very interested but, sorry, it’s just that I think that’s what I would have done if I was a gunner. And what kind of entertainment did you have in the squadron?
HK: In the squadron? I can’t say that I remember much about any entertainment [slight laugh] at all, no. I suppose there must have been some but, no, it’s not something I remember.
TO: Did you ever go out to pubs or dances?
HK: The crew weren’t very, er, pub-minded and neither was I. We did go on some outings, um, some of the crew together. When we were doing the training for Pathfinders we went into Cambridge and out there. In truth there we had more interest in museums, which suited me, yes.
TO: Which museums did you like?
HK: I don’t remember now [laugh] but I remember going to some and — yes.
TO: I was recently in a few museums myself and looking round the Lancaster they have, or rather the Lancaster cabin, that they have at the, in the Imperial War Museum. I think they put it back as far as the navigator’s positon so you can, you can see into where everyone was sitting, sort of thing.
HK: Oh yeah.
TO: And other than the other ones you’ve mentioned to me already were there other missions that you remember very clearly?
HK: I think I’ve told you the ones that, er, I really remember but, um, I can’t say that I remember any others. We were quite fortunate really over all.
TO: You mentioned earlier on that — was it a gunner? One of the gunners shouted, ‘Corkscrew,’ when the plane, the fighter arrived. What kind of basic manoeuvres did the planes have?
HK: Well, we immediately dived and up and around and that’s why it’s called a corkscrew and, anyway we dived in one direction and up in another and so on but, er, we didn’t have to do that much and, as I said, the plane overshot us and —
TO: I remember reading I think that even though the Stirling wasn’t as good as a Lancaster it was decent at turning or something when it came to manoeuvres.
HK: It was too heavy I think.
TO: It was quite good at climbing but wasn’t good at turning or something.
HK: Oh yeah.
TO: Were you ever — was there any time when they brought in new equipment and you were confused by it?
HK: Yes. We had some new equipment, some cathode ray tubes, um, which the bomb aimer used to sit next to the navigator and assist him with the navigating and, er, that was towards the end of the war and, um, I was doing the bomb aiming then.
TO: So, what did you do as a bomb aimer?
HK: Well, the — I merely had to go down into the bay and press the tips when the graticule showed the marker but the bombs were all pre-set to go off at a particular time, um, but that was all done by the bomb aimer. He set up the equipment initially and all I had to do was press the tip when the target came into view.
TO: Was that to drop, release the bombs then?
HK: Yes.
TO: OK and did you do that often?
HK: I did about four or five times towards the end of the war, yes.
TO: And did you find out roughly how much damage the raids were causing?
HK: No, not really, no. We did have pictures taken by the later aircraft going over but I can’t say that I recall.
TO: And was there ever any occasions where your plane had to return early before it reached the target?
HK: No, apart from the fact that once we were all recalled because the target had been overrun by our troops so, um, but no, we, we carried on although I said once when we had the intercom equipment went the — we were told not to use it because the, the rear gunner, pilot were in contact but it was too weak to let anyone else but we decided to carry on anyway.
TO: So, how did the, er, communication work aboard the aircraft?
HK: Well, we had the speakers in the, er, speakers in the helmets plus microphones and you had to switch on the microphone if you wanted to speak. That’s all, pretty well.
TO: Was it very noisy aboard those planes?
HK: It was very noisy, yes, yes. So when we didn’t have the intercom it meant really shouting at the pilot.
TO: Was the noise mainly from the engines?
HK: Yeah.
TO: Were there any other occasions when you went to a target and found it was too cloudy to see the city?
HK: That I can’t really recall now, no.
TO: So, just going back, I’m keen to go back this one, the one over France with the VIs, did you actually get the chance to drop your [emphasis] bombs at the time?
HK: Yes. We did drop them, yep.
TO: So, so if I get this right. So even though you had a hole in the wing you were still able to go on with the mission or had you already dropped them?
HK: No, we hadn’t already dropped them. We were on the bombing run and we did actually drop them but, er, I don’t remember much about it, no.
TO: That’s fine, fine.
HK: I know we had to and I was watching out of the — because in case the wing was moving up and down more than it should but, er, fortunately we didn’t have to — if it had gone [laugh] we wouldn’t have done anything about it anyway.
TO: Would the, er, the pilot of the plane, would he ever be speaking to other aircraft in the squadron?
HK: Would he be?
TO: On the radio, would he ever speak to other aircraft?
HK: I don’t think so. Not generally no, no, I wouldn’t think so, no?
TO: Was it possible to communicate with them?
HK: It would be possible I think [unclear] had the necessary permission to do so. I don’t think it was normal, no.
TO: And did you ever attack coastal targets?
HK: Yes but I don’t remember where but I know we did have some, er, harbours and shipping there.
TO: What did you think of the — I know you weren’t on it — but what did you think of bombers like the Halifax?
HK: Well, some people that, er, flew the Halifax thought they were OK but I, I don’t think they had the — I don’t think they were as good as the Lancaster anyway but it is a matter of opinion.
TO: I do remember reading that a Lanc, a Halifax couldn’t carry a cookie because they didn’t have the space.
HK: Couldn’t carry them because of the load, no.
TO: So, er, did you hear about how — other events of the war, like the invasion of Normandy?
HK: Only on the radio I think. I don’t think we heard a lot internally about what went on.
TO: But when you heard that Normandy had been invaded did you think the war was in its final stages?
HK: Well, certainly thought so. We hadn’t actually started operations then. We were still at the Heavy Conversion Unit when we heard all the planes going over one night and, er, we realised what it was, yes.
TO: So, did you ever drop bombs around Normandy?
HK: Drop bombs?
TO: Around Normandy to help with the invasion?
HK: Oh yes, yes, yes.
TO: Was that area less heavily defended than Germany? Was there less anti-aircraft fire in Normandy than Germany?
HK: Oh yes, less, definitely less.
TO: And did you hear of events like Japan attacking Pearl Harbour?
HK: Heard about it only on the news.
TO: And do, did you ever hear about other cases that happened where, where planes got damaged by overhead bombs?
HK: Not at the time. Although I believe it did happen on occasions.
TO: I know it happened to William Read, one of the VCs in Bomber Command, I think on a Norway mission or something.
HK: Yeah.
TO: And were there, was there anyone you know in your squadron who was shot down and became a prisoner?
HK: I didn’t know of anyone, no.
TO: And at the time of the war were you aware that Bomber Command had a fifty per cent casualty rate?
HK: Bomber Command?
TO: Had a fifty per cent casualty rate?
HK: No. We didn’t know at the time, no.
TO: This is a slightly odd question but if had you known at the time would you have volunteered for the Air Force?
HK: Maybe not but, er, once I was in — yes, it, it became just a job. I didn’t really didn’t take much notice. We didn’t hear of the, the losses at the time. I didn’t realise they were so great.
TO: Do you think they might have been keeping it quiet deliberately?
HK: I think they would, yes. I think that was definitely.
TO: Did you hear about, er, certain stories about the war and just dismissed them as propaganda?
HK: Yes, I’m not sure. I don’t remember any, no.
TO: And was there, was there a, a certain type of single-engine German fighter that was very feared by the crew?
HK: Oh, the Messerschmitt but, um, I didn’t think we were worried one way or the other, no.
TO: [background noise] So I’m just seeing which ones are nice. I’m just seeing which ones are nicer.
HK: [slight laugh] Thanks.
TO: Did you ever regret joining the Air Force?
HK: No. No. It was, in a way it was a university to me.
TO: And when, when you joined the Air Force was it possible, did you get a choice as to what duty, whether you went to Bomber Command or Fighter Command?
HK: It would have been Bomber Command, yes. As I say, when I was called up initially I was trained as a flight mechanic and, er, it was mainly for the Bomber Command.
TO: Do you remember when you receiv— received your call-up papers?
HK: Well, I only vaguely remember, yeah.
TO: And do you think there was a reason why, do you think there might have been a certain reason why you were put in the RAF and not the Army?
HK: I don’t know whether it was the education at the time. I don’t know. It may have had something to do with it, yes.
TO: Do you think you were properly trained enough before you were sent on missions?
HK: I think so. We had quite a good training, yes.
TO: And did you feel ready for war when it finished?
HK: Yes, I think so, yes.
TO: And were you ever stationed anywhere other than Britain?
HK: No, no.
TO: Do you know of anyone who was sent abroad?
HK: I know that some in [beep noise] [unclear] Association Branch were abroad. I didn’t know at the time but heard about it afterwards.
TO: And were you ever escorted by allied fighters?
HK: Only, only once I remember. That was when we were coming back on three engines. The rear gunner said, ‘There’s two single-engine aircraft approaching from the starboard quarter.’ But only a couple of seconds later he said, ‘It’s alright, they’re Spitfires.’ And one of them did escort us back to the coast.
TO: Do you think maybe the pilot of that Spitfire could see the damage on your plane?
HK: Probably. Well, could see we’d only three engines going, yeah.
TO: I think there was one time, I was reading about it recently, during the war a German fighter actually saw a damaged American bomber and deliberately decided not to attack it because he could see how damaged it was and let it fly back. How did you actually feel about Germany during the war?
HK: Well, we knew it was the enemy and we had to do what we were instructed to do. I didn’t really think much about it at the time.
TO: Did you ever feel animosity against the German people?
HK: No. I can’t say that I did.
TO: Were any of your airfields ever attacked by German bombers?
HK: Not while I was there, no.
TO: And did any of the airfields ever run short of bombs or fuel?
HK: I don’t know, no.
TO: Sorry, I’m asking difficult questions here. And how many squadrons were you in during the war?
HK: Well, operational squadrons, two. That was 467 Squadron at Waddington and then 97 Squadron at Coningsby.
TO: Were there any times when actually your bombers were asked to attack German armies?
HK: The armies, German armies?
TO: Yeah.
HK: No, I don’t think so, no.
TO: And do you remember if the airfields you were stationed at had anti-aircraft defences?
HK: I think they must have done but I can’t say definitely.
TO: After Dunkirk were people in Britain afraid that Hitler would invade?
HK: I think they were yes, yes. Yes, we were very fortunate with the, er, the Battle of Britain fighters.
TO: Do you actually feel glad that you’d been put in the RAF?
HK: I what?
TO: Glad you were called up for the RAF?
HK: Glad it wasn’t the Army. Yes, certainly.
TO: Do you know anyone who was in or have any friends who were in the Army?
HK: I didn’t know anyone though definitely there were some from school who were in the Army, yes, joined the Army. Also at the time I think quite a few of them were called up for the RAF but I didn’t keep in contact.
TO: And what do you think was the most important battle of the war?
HK: Possibly what was known as the Battle of the Bulge was quite important at the time but I can’t say that I knew much about it at that time. I only read about it later.
TO: Was there heavy snow in Britain at that time?
HK: There was quite a lot of snow. We had to clear the aircraft and the runways.
TO: Did that ever effect operations much?
HK: I think it must have done to a certain extent but I don’t know details.
TO: OK. So what do you think was the best plane that the RAF had, in general?
HK: Well, as far as the Bomber Command was concerned the Lancaster but of course during the early part of the war the Hurricanes and Spitfires were the best.
TO: Did you know much about Wellington bombers?
HK: I didn’t know much about them, no.
TO: Was there ever any bullying in the Air Force?
HK: What?
TO: Bullying.
HK: What? Sorry I’m not with you.
TO: Was there any bullying in the Air force?
HK: Bullying? I didn’t know of any. No, I can’t say that I did.
TO: And were there particular songs the crew liked to sing at all?
HK: There was one that the bomb-aimer came out with. It was an Australian one presumably. I don’t know if you’ve heard it. It was about a — yes, something like “I put my finger in a woodpecker’s hole. The woodpecker said, ‘God bless my soul, take it out, take it out, remove it.’”And then it was, “Put it back, put it back, replace it” and it went on like that but I’ve never heard it before or since.
TO: I’m afraid I’ve never heard of it. [slight laugh] I guess I was lucky. Was most of your, was anyone else in the crew Australian?
HK: They were all Australian, yes.
TO: And did they, did anyone bring any kind of souvenirs aboard the plane, like personal possessions?
HK: I don’t know of any, no.
TO: Were you allowed to, I don’t know, decorate your own plane at all, that you could bring, I don’t know, if you wanted to bring an ornament with you could you bring that onto the plane?
HK: We could have done, yes, yes. The only things we were not allowed to take was money or things that could, um, easily tell the captors if we had to bail out where we’d come from, in case we had to try and have an identity of some other country.
TO: Were you ever told what you — did the RAF ever tell you how much information you could give if you were ever captured?
HK: Yeah. Name, rank and number. That was all we were supposed to say. [pause]
TO: So, when did the Lancaster actually become the main bomber of the RAF?
HK: It started in 1942 and it gradually built up from there so it was definitely the main plane of Bomber Command by the end of the war.
TO: What did you think of the bombers the Americans were using?
HK: Well, they — I think they did quite a good job but the aircraft weren’t any patch on the Lancasters. They couldn’t carry the, the load but, er, going as they did all alone at daytime I think they were very brave to do it.
TO: Did, er, did your squadron ever try and fly in formation when you were on missions?
HK: No, no formation. I know that when we went on to the daylight raids we were just more or less in a gaggle, not as a formation.
TO: Were there any ever any times when a bomb you were carrying failed to be released?
HK: Yes, there was one, which unfortunately got stuck up and we brought it back. We didn’t realise it at the time but no, no damage was done.
TO: So, what did they do with that bomb then?
HK: Oh, released it. It was up to the armourers. I think they released it and took it away. I don’t know what happened to it. It was a five hundred pounder apparently.
TO: Did you ever attack ships at all while they were at sea?
HK: Not at sea, no.
TO: [background noise] Sorry, you’ve answered a lot of my questions. I’m just trying to find some other ones. Did anyone, did the pilot try and tell anyone what would happen if he ever happened to get killed?
HK: Well, I was the one that had to take over it as necessary and I on training flights I was able to take over the controls and keep the plane more or less straight and level although the rear gunner said when I did it was more like a switchback [slight laugh]. But that was all.
TO: So, did the Lancaster have two steering columns or just one?
HK: No, we just had the one so I would have had to get the pilot out of the, his seat and get in myself.
TO: Was he allowed to teach you to do that?
HK: Yes.
TO: And would you have been able to land it at all?
HK: I don’t know [laugh]. I wasn’t taught how to do that.
TO: So, I’m just a bit puzzled why, why wouldn’t they teach you to land if you ever happened take over. It seems to kind of defeat the object of teaching —
HK: I think it was just that I had to try and keep it in the air while the rest of the crew got out.
TO: How did it feel to be in control of the plane though when you had it?
HK: I quite enjoyed it.
TO: Did you get a sense of pride doing that?
HK: Yes.
TO: What’s your best memory of your time during the war?
HK: I suppose the best memory was, um, when I heard that I was medically fit to fly.
TO: So, er, do you remember why they turned you down during your first medical test?
HK: I was slightly short sighted in one eye. At the time, um, that was quite important but it ceased to be important when I wanted to be a flight engineer, although as I ended up doing bomb aiming I don’t know. [laugh]
TO: Well did it ever, did your eyesight ever effect your performance?
HK: No, no. It wasn’t bad enough.
TO: Do you know whether the gunners had to have the same education as the other members of the aircraft?
HK: I don’t think they did, no. I’m sure they didn’t.
TO: Did you ever meet any famous people during the war as in senior commanders or leaders?
HK: I don’t remember, no.
TO: Did you listen to the radio very much?
HK: Quite a bit, yeah.
TO: And again, sorry for asking you this, but was the scariest thing that happened to you during the war?
HK: I think it was when the bombs came through the wing, yes.
TO: Did you think the plane was going to crash or did you think it could survive?
HK: I wasn’t sure whether the wing was going to fall off or not [slight laugh] but, er, so we were fortunate. Another few inches one way or the other it would have hit the front or rear spar.
TO: So, how far, how close to the fuselage was the hole?
HK: Well, it wasn’t very far away. It was the inner engine that got hit or just behind the inner engine. No, it couldn’t happen at a better place actually [slight laugh].
TO: And did it send a big shock wave through the aircraft when that happened?
HK: Well, certainly, yes. There was a big thump, yes.
TO: And when they said the Lancaster was overhead was everyone expecting a bomb?
HK: Well, we were expecting it but we didn’t have any time to do any manoeuvres. As soon as the mid-upper called out we heard the bumps. That was it.
TO: Did you think for a minute you might have to bail out?
HK: I thought that might be a possibility, yeah.
TO: And what about when you saw the German night fighter?
HK: Well, we were glad to see it disappear but, er, yes —
TO: Is there anything else you can add about that mission, about where you were going at the time?
HK: No. I can’t really remember.
TO: That’s fine. So, when — you mentioned as the flight engineer you might have to take over from the plane sometimes. Was it hard to learn how to take over or was it quite easy?
HK: No. We had training on the Link trainer so I knew what to do.
TO: So, did you volunteer for the Pathfinders or were you assigned?
HK: I heard after the war that the pilot, my pilot, had volunteered because he got extra pay for being — but whether that was true or not I don’t know but yes he volunteered first and we all agreed to go.
TO: Did you get extra pay for that?
HK: I think we did but I can’t remember that but I think we did.
TO: What was the average pay in the RAF?
HK: It was a few shillings a day I think. I don’t remember that, no. I know some people can remember these details but I don’t.
TO: That’s fine. And how do you feel about Japan and Germany today for the war?
HK: I think we should have lost the war [laugh] and we would have been better off than — yes. I don’t know.
TO: And why do you think that?
HK: Well, Germany and Japan seem to have done very well but—
TO: And do you think the war was worth the price?
HK: Sorry?
TO: Do you think the war was worth the price?
HK: Probably wasn’t but I don’t know how things would have turned out if it —
TO: And what did you think of the memorial that they built in Green Park a few years ago?
HK: It’s a very good memorial, certainly. I wasn’t able to go up to the unveiling.
TO: They’re having a service in a couple of weekends there and going to be recording that as well. Did you hear about the holocaust?
HK: I can’t say I did during the war, no.
TO: And do you think Bomber Command was treated unfairly after the war?
HK: I certainly think so, yes. I think Harris was given a bad, was bad, er, treated badly. That was — everyone thought Dresden was his idea but in fact it came direct from Churchill originally.
TO: Did you ever happen to meet Harris after the war?
HK: No, no.
TO: And do you think the RAF played a critical role in Britain’s victory?
HK: Oh, definitely, yes.
TO: And do you think there was anything that happened to you during the war which affected you later in your life? [beeping sound]
HK: Oh, yes. I think the fact that, um, I did some technical training during my life in the RAF was — before I was called up I was working at the, er, an accounts department in Electrics Supply but after the war I wanted to do something more technical and the GEC were advertising for people in their, um, research laboratories in Wembley and I applied and joined and came a patent agent so, yes, it made quite a bit of difference.
TO: And what did you do in your career after that?
HK: Well I trained as — initially I got a science degree and did the patent office, patent agent examination and I actually stayed with the research laboratories, um, until I, my official retirement and then I went on a couple of days a week after that until they moved the whole thing to Chelmsford and I decided that was enough.
TO: And, sorry to ask this, but what, what was the saddest thing you’d say that happened during the war?
HK: During the war? That I can’t really say. I suppose the saddest thing was, um, losing a very close cousin, who I was sort of brought up with, and caught diabetes and there wasn’t so much they could do about it at the time and she died. But that was during the war. It wasn’t anything to do with the war itself. I don’t know of anything connected with the war but it was so sad.
TO: And do you remember what you were doing the day the war ended?
HK: Yes. I was at, stationed at Coningsby, um, then we were sent home on leave, um, but the rest of the crew as they were all Australian were called back before me to be sent back to Australia, so I never really got a chance to say a proper goodbye, and it was only after the war when I went to Perth and saw the rear gunner’s name in the telephone directory that I got in touch with him. So, I don’t know if there’s anything else.
TO: So did everyone who were on that bomber meet again would you say?
HK: No, no.
TO: Did you get involved in any of the VE Day celebrations?
HK: No. I don’t remember any, no.
TO: Or did you listen to Churchill’s victory speech?
HK: I’m sure I did, yes, but I can’t remember it.
TO: Were you bothered by the fact that he didn’t mention Bomber Command?
HK: He what, sorry?
TO: In Churchill’s victory speech he didn’t mention Bomber Command.
HK: Oh yeah. I read about that afterwards, yes.
TO: But did that bother you when you heard the speech?
HK: Well, I can’t say I remember if I heard the speech. I must have missed it. I don’t know.
TO: And how do you feel today about your war-time service?
HK: Well, my particular service, I think I was quite fortunate and overall I had quite a reasonable time.
TO: Have you ever watched any films about the war?
HK: Some, certainly, yes.
TO: And what do you think of them?
HK: Some of them are quite good otherwise some aren’t.
TO: Any ones in particular that you liked?
HK: I think the one, the first one about “The Dambusters” was excellent, yes.
TO: And, er, do you think the atomic bombs were necessary against Japan?
HK: I think overall probably, yes, but if it had gone on we would have lost many more people, both Japanese and American and our country, so I suppose it, it was necessary. I think in a way it was a pity because it really put a shadow on nuclear reactors. I think if it hadn’t happened there wouldn’t have been quite an outcry on reactors that there is today.
TO: Were you involved in nuclear reactors after the war?
HK: Not directly but, um, the — our department was involved in patents for nuclear reactors and they did quite a bit of work.
TO: And, er, how do you feel about Britain’s involvement in events like Iraq and Afghanistan?
HK: In?
TO: In Afghanistan and Iraq?
HK: I think we probably should have kept out. I don’t think it really helps in any way. I just think it’s just made things worse.
TO: Is there anything you want to add at all about you war-time service?
HK: No, I don’t think so. I was quite fortunate overall and had quite a reasonable time.
TO: OK. Or is there anything you want to add which was important to you at the time which you‘ve not mentioned?
HK: No, I don’t think so, no.
TO: OK. Well, er, thank you very much for telling me about your experiences. It was really fascinating.
HK: I hope it’s not been a bit too boring. I couldn’t remember lots of things.
TO: It’s not boring at all. It’s amazing. No, no. What you could remember is amazing. Can I just, er, there is something I showed to another RAF veteran and you can either read yourself or if you want I can read it out for you now. This is a speech that Arthur Harris gave at an RAF reunion in 1977.
HK: Oh right.
TO: And he just basically talks about the role, basically pointing out, explaining what Bomber Command did and why it was so important now. If you like I can read it out but if you’d rather read it yourself out in your own time you can, whichever you prefer.
HK: Can I?
TO: Yes. You can read it out now if you want.
HK: Well, can I keep this?
TO: Of course. That’s why I bought it for you.
HK: Right, thank you.
TO: If you want to read it now you can or if you want me to read it out I can, whichever.
HK: Yeah. Well, I’d like to read it later.
TO: OK. OK. Right, thank you very much.
HK: Not at all.
TO: Sorry, I should have explained at the start, er, as an introduction that I’m supposed to do but because I was, because I was getting so many interviews done I forgot it. I just wanted to end by saying that we’ve recorded this interview for the International Bomber Command Centre. My name’s Thomas Ozel and we were interviewing Mr Harold Kirby in London on the 10th of June 2016. Sorry, that’s the 11th of June. Thank you for this.
Dublin Core
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AKirbyHVA160611
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Interview with Harold Kirby. 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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02:04:49 audio recording
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Pending review
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Tom Ozel
Date
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2016-06-11
Description
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Harold Kirby grew up in London and worked in an accounts department before joining the Royal Air Force. He served as a fitter with 460 Squadron at RAF Binbrook before remustering as a flight engineer. He flew two tours of operations with 467, 97 and 156 Squadrons. He describes the Stirling that was used for training and also the Lancaster in which he flew on operations. He also describes the preparations before an operation and the procedure for landing. He explains how window and how flares were used by the Pathfinders. Harold gives an account of an incident where his Lancaster was damaged by another Lancaster dropping its bombs from above but otherwise says his crew were very fortunate. After the war, he worked as a patent agent until he retired.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Contributor
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Christine Kavanagh
156 Squadron
460 Squadron
467 Squadron
97 Squadron
aircrew
bomb struck
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
briefing
flight engineer
ground crew
ground personnel
Lancaster
military ethos
Pathfinders
RAF Binbrook
RAF Coningsby
RAF Waddington
Stirling
target indicator
training
V-1
V-weapon
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/322/3478/AReedD151015.1.mp3
3a2e4cbfe06a01d1f1b16fe159e1d6ac
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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Reed, Douglas
D Reed
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Douglas Reed (1620813 Royal Air Force). He flew operations with 166 Squadron from RAF Kirmington and with 156 Squadron, Pathfinders, from RAF Upwood.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-10-15
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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Reed, D
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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HD: This is an interview being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Hugh Donnelly and the interviewee is, is Doug Reed. The interview is taking place at his home at [deleted] Wolverhampton on the 15th of October. Interview commenced.
DR: Yes. When I left school, like many of my school mates I was going to be apprenticed in Goole Shipyard. Because apprentices from the shipyard would go on to Trinity House in Hull to be trained as Merchant Navy officers. So, if you were apprenticed in the joinery shop in the shipyard you went off to Trinity House to be trained as a Merchant Navy deck officer. If you went in to the coppersmith’s shop as an apprentice in the shipyard you went off to Trinity House to be trained as an engineering Merchant Navy officer. And so that was my planned movement until, out of the blue my history master sent, ‘Would you please come and see me?’ So I trotted off to see the history master and he said, ‘There’s a vacancy in the Town Clerk’s Department at Goole and I want you to apply for it.’ So I’m saying to him, ‘Sorry. No can do. I’m going to be apprenticed in the shipyard to be a deck officer in the Merchant Navy,’ and so on. ‘Just to please me,’ he said, ‘Go and apply for it.’ So all nonchalantly and uncaring I go in to the Town Clerk’s department and say to them, ‘I understand you’ve got a vacancy. I’ve come along to apply for it,’ in a couldn’t care less attitude. And so they sit me down and they give me a few maths to work on and write, write a letter applying for the job. Being fresh from school that didn’t take very long. And they saw me sitting there and said, ‘Are you stuck?’ I said, ‘No. I’ve finished.’ So they gathered up the papers and the next thing I know I’m ushered into a large room with a big bay window and walls lined with all kinds of books. A big open fire. And, to me, was an old gentleman wearing pince nez spectacles sitting behind this desk who I later found out was the town clerk. He looked at the papers and said, ‘Very pleased with these. I want you to start in my office.’ So I said, ‘No can do I’m afraid.’ And told him the story. All about being apprenticed etcetera. And he says, ‘Well, I understand what you say but I want you to start in my office on Monday. So go home and speak to your parents about it.’ So, I did that and my parents listened to me and didn’t say anything and said, ‘Well, it’s up to you. You want to go into the shipyard or do you want to go into the Town Hall?’ Neither of them offered anything. But I looked closely at my mum and I thought I could detect a sort of a look that she didn’t fancy the idea of her son eventually going off to sea. And she didn’t, couldn’t look into the future of course because this was about ’37, ’38 and of course the war broke out in ‘39. And a lot of my school friends who had been apprenticed and gone off into the Merchant Navy they were killed and lost through enemy action. But she wasn’t to know that. And I thought I detected she didn’t like the idea of her son going to sea. So in the end my father said, ‘Look, if you want to take up the Town Hall job I will square the apprentice thing with the shipyard.’ So, in the end I decided yes, that’s what I would do. And therefore I started working in the Town Clerk’s Department at Goole. And so time wore on and war was declared in September ’39 . And I just carried on working but I realised I was of the age when I would have to go into one of the services as soon as I was old enough. And I worked it out in my mind that I didn’t fancy the army. I’d taken my father as an example of that. He’d been badly wounded in the First World War through his army service. I wasn’t too keen on the navy. And by process of elimination I decided that yes I would like to go into the air force. Particularly if I was flying at least I would get a parachute to look after myself with. So, off I went to the Hull Recruiting Office in Jameson Street in Hull. And there a rather beefy flight sergeant says to me, ‘So you want to join the air force.’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ And he said, ‘Hmmn hmmn. So you want to fly do you?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Right. You want to fly and fight in the air.’ I said, ‘Oh I don’t know so much about that.’ [laughs] He didn’t say much but in the fullness of time I was called up to go to the, the, not the Aircrew Reception Centre but where they give you a three day examination and so on and so forth before you’re accepted for the aircrew training. And after the three days yes, I was. I was going to be aircrew. And that’s how come I, I started. Eventually I was called up and went off to Initial Training Wing etcetera like most air crew had to do. And that’s how eventually I finished up as aircrew doing flying duties. But in, in those days it all seemed to be very adventurous and perhaps even satisfying but it’s because people like me were naïve really. Just had a vague idea that flying, especially the operational flying something might happen to you. You might get killed. But that’s all it meant really. You didn’t know any details. We had no experience. And so it transpired that having been through all my training and finished up with a good pal of mine Pete le Guard and one or two others. We were all in the same crew and off we went doing our bits and pieces. We went to Operational Training Unit at RAF Peplow in Shropshire. And after OTU we went off and converted off twin-engine Wellingtons on to four-engined Halifaxes. And then having converted we went off to Lancaster Finishing School at RAF Hemswell. And having completed that we were ready to be assigned to a squadron. And I looked at my RAF records afterwards, at the end of the war and I saw that we were being posted to 12 Squadron, and I’d no idea where 12 Squadron was. I knew it was in Lincolnshire somewhere. But then they said, ‘Sorry. Not 12 Squadron. You’re going to 166 Squadron at RAF Kirmington.’ So, off we went and we arrived at Kirmington on the 30th of March 1944. And we’d hardly booked ourselves in when they said to Pete, who was my pilot, that he was going to go as second dickie on a, on an operation that night. That operation proved to be Nuremberg where we lost eighty or ninety aircraft. And unfortunately Pete, as second dickie with a so-called experienced crew who had done at least five ops — they never came back. And so the first day on a squadron I needed another crew. And eventually yes, I was. I joined another crew skippered by Bill Biddell who was a bit of a character himself. Having been in the Kings Royal Rifles and been evacuated from Dunkirk he’d remustered in to the Air Force and become a pilot. So I was to fly with Bill. By the time I’d done three ops with Bill he’d done about seven. And it was quite, quite an educational, if that’s the right word, experience. He began to fill in some of the details that you hadn’t been aware of when you were glorifying what it would be like to be aircrew. I, in my first op from Kirmington, which I think from memory was [unclear] somewhere in Germany there I bombed my first target Turned for home and away on the starboard side there was a sudden explosion which drilled into my mind what it was like seeing an aircraft explode. But just accepted it as one of those things that happens. And that was my first op. The, the second op was on my twenty first birthday. And I spent the evening of my twenty first birthday bombing Essen in the Ruhr. Which I found out subsequently was the most heavily defended place in the Ruhr. So, and then my third op from 166 Squadron was to Frederikshavn on Lake Constance. And as we were, I think we were the fourth to take off and as we took off the fifth one behind us blew up on the runway. It swerved off the runway and blew up. Anyway, we carried on with our task and went to the target which was on the shore of Lake Constance. And having got there it was ablaze. But one had to be careful to locate the target because half of the blaze was reflected in the water of the lake and it would have been so easy to bomb the edge of the lake. And so we, we did that target and when we came back to Kirmington a WAAF — we called up, we were flying L-Love as, as it was called then. We were flying that and we called up to land and this female voice said. ‘Hello Love. Land left.’ And we’d never had an instruction like that before. We said, ‘What does land left mean?’ Do they want us to land left of the runway? Could be a bit dodgy on a grassy airfield in a Lancaster. But if that’s what they want us to do we will do. Perhaps the runway got damaged in that aircraft that blew up as we took off. Anyway, we lined up to land left of the runway which triggered off all kinds of sort of red verey lights from the caravan and from the control tower. So we realised that wasn’t correct. So we called them up again. We said, ‘What’s this land left?’ And she said, ‘I want you to land on the runway and turn left at the end.’ And we thought to ourselves why the hell didn’t she say so? And, however, having gone around again and landed safely we turned left at the end and said, ‘L-Love clear.’ And this female voice said, ‘Goodnight Love.’ And all the crew in chorus, not, not wireless protocol at all, in chorus we said sarcastically, ‘Good night, darling.’ And that was that. And that proved to be my last op at Kirmington. And I was rather sorry because the funny thing about Kirmington it was such a spread out large aerodrome that everybody but everybody was issued with a bicycle so you could get from A to B quicker than walking. That’s an outstanding memory I have. Anyway, Bill, having done seven trips by then, the squadron commander called us into his office and sort of invited us to think that we might like to go on Pathfinders. And sort of, if you know what those invitations were like [laughs] they were coupled with the idea of — pick up your travel warrant as you go out of the door. And that’s how we came to be eventually on 156 Pathfinder Squadron at 8 Group. Having attended the Pathfinder Training Unit in the first instance. And it was with 156 Squadron that I did the rest of, of my operational flying duties and which I, I’d completed and I was still twenty one. But having done my tours with the Pathfinder force I was, I was quite unceremoniously [pause] well, stood down I suppose. But nobody ever said that to me. I was just getting on with the job as usual and someone said, ‘I think you’re posted.’ So I said, ‘What?’ And they said, ‘Yes. We think you are.’ So I thought I’d better go and find out. So I go up to station headquarters at Upwood and I say, ‘Am I posted?’ And they looked it up and said, ‘Yes. I’m afraid you are.’ Which was the unceremonious way of saying you’ve been stood down. And I said, ‘What’s the posting?’ And they said, ‘Oh, it’s an Air Ministry posting.’ Which shattered me because if it was a squadron or a station posting it left room for you to negotiate a little bit but with an Air Ministry posting no negotiation. You just had to do it. And that’s how my operational flying came to an end. As I say you couldn’t argue with an Air Ministry posting. But during that time the initial experience that I’d picked up at Kirmington developed with the Pathfinder squadron. And if people didn’t know about what we did at Pathfinders it’s because Air Vice Marshall Don Bennett who was the CO of 8 Group — he didn’t like publicity. In fact, he refused to appoint a public relations officer. So we just used to get on with the job. It’s only afterwards when you’d finished operational flying that the realisation of what might have happened to you through the experience you’ve gained on the way more than suggested that you had been very lucky indeed to get through a couple of tours with the Pathfinders. We did some very long trips. When I first started flying with 156 I didn’t do many German trips before it was D-Day. That was kept very secret. We as aircrew had no idea it was D-Day but we were out at the dispersal point. We’d already been briefed to bomb a coastal battery and we thought this was an unusual target but ok if that was what they wanted us to do we’d do it. And we were out there at the dispersal point long before midnight. Time went by and it got around to 3 am in the morning. We’d never taken off so late for a night operation. Anyway, we, they let us go at about 3 am. And we located Fougeres where the coastal battery was and did our stuff. And as we climbed to come away, flying home, through a break in the clouds I saw dozens of ships heading in the direction from which we were coming. And it suddenly dawned on me this is, this is the invasion of Europe. It, it’s D-Day. But that’s the first indication we had of D-Day. And then after that we got several trips backing up the army. Strategic bombing trips. If the army had got bogged down somewhere we had to go and, I think they used to be called totalised targets. And on one of the occasions because the Germany forces and our forces were so close together and they wanted the German forces loosened up a bit we asked them to fire from their Bofors guns red star shells over the position that they wanted us to bomb. And this they did. We were able to pick out these red star shells bursting and we bombed accordingly. I hope we did a bit of good but that was a, an unusual Pathfinder job. And it brought home to you that although in the briefing you were given a route to follow sometimes a deviation route to throw off the enemy defences and leaving until the last minute almost for you to line up on your target. To fool the enemy defences. Oh incidentally that’s one of the things that didn’t happen on the Nuremberg raid. I learned afterwards that AVM Bennett argued with the people who’d set the course, which was direct to Nuremberg. He wanted a variation but he was overruled and hence I’m afraid we paid the price. But anyway, we used to follow the route that we’d asked to. But it was up to you how you got to the target and indeed how you got back because you might be diverted because of the enemy defences or you might be chased by a fighter or the, you might meet headwind which was slowing you down. You might have a wind up your tail which was making you early. So you had to alter course to suit your own navigation. That’s what I mean by saying it was up to you how you got there. And as long as you got there on time to do the Pathfinder job you’d been given to do because there were several different jobs you could do with the Pathfinder force. You started with the easiest and you worked your way through to finish up as master bomber. You probably start off as an, as an illuminator. Dropping about twenty, twenty odd flares straight and level every eight seconds. And you’d work your way through the more advanced jobs until you finished up as the top job which, which involved supervising. Staying in the target area all the time and supervising how the raid was going. And principally we were, you could either be a visual marker or a blind marker. Blind marker was on radar but if you got to the target and it was visual ok the visual markers marked it and you backed them up. If it was obscured you, as blind marker marked it and the visual boys backed you up. And then somewhere halfway during the raid you could pick up a job as a visual centre where you would go and see how the raid was going and perhaps in conjunction with the master bomber you decided that the, the target needed centering which you would mark and then tell main force or VHF for example to ignore reds and bomb greens. And as I say you did these different jobs and you picked up some, some long targets. And eventually, well in no time at all, perhaps cheekily we were doing more daylight bombing then night bombing and that’s on German targets too. Cheekily going into the Ruhr in daylight. And one time we did this, I think the target again was Essen and main force, we were there on time, main force was late. There was no sign of them. So there was about five, five Pathfinder aircraft circling in daylight over the Ruhr. And I think all the towns in the Ruhr were saying, ‘We’ll pick him. You pick him. You pick up.’ And we were getting flak all around us. Right, left and centre. And then on the distance main force came into view. Straggling along towards us. And when they were near enough we marked the target. It’s no good doing it too early because the flares would probably wear away before they got there. Anyway, we marked correctly. By which time our aeroplane was in a bit of a sorry state. We’d had one right close to the nose which had blown the front off the aeroplane and made it extremely cool with a two hundred plus knot wind whistling through, apart from other damage. We used to pick up quite a bit of damage. Flying home on three engines instead of four. One time when we limped home that way our ground crew, God bless them it was their aeroplane really. They only lent us the aeroplane so we could do the operation. But we used to return it them to them sometimes in a very sorry state. But God bless those aircrew they did us, those ground crew, they did us a good job. But one time we got back there and they told us afterwards they’d had to patch up forty four holes in the aeroplane and that there was a piece of shrapnel about the size of half a beaker if you know what a beaker is. A mug. About a half split down the middle. A piece of flak about half that size lodged in the petrol tank. On the, on the starboard wing. And they’d said if that had come loose we would have lost all the fuel out of the tank. But it acted as a cork for which I was duly thankful. Another time was unusual. We were ordered, a daylight job as well, way down ooh in sight of the Pyrenees. Well, this was an oil refinery. So we were ordered, as I say it was daylight, we had to be down at five hundred feet and we flew out over Looe in Cornwall. You could see people on the beach enjoying themselves at five hundred feet. And we were down there crossing Biscay at five hundred feet and lo and behold we came across a German mine sweeping flotilla doing its stuff. So lat and long was radio’d back to base and afterwards when we got back we, we were told that they’d notified Coastal Command and Coastal Command had gone out and, and dealt with the mine sweeping flotilla. Anyway, at five hundred feet we were over Biscay and then we had to climb to bombing height. Up to about eighteen thousand. And it were pretty cold after that. Most of us were just in shirt sleeves and it was a bit cool. Anyway, we did our stuff on the oil refinery and just in the bargain there had been a tanker alongside the refinery at the time. And as we cleared the target and looked back through the smoke and what not I don’t know what we’d done to the oil refinery but we couldn’t see the tanker any more. And so that’s how we, we came back. But we got quite a few, quite a few jobs of a different kind of nature as I say. Most cheekily in Germany in daylight. And, as I say, we, we copped it once or twice. I do remember an early morning daylight on Duisburg. The same night, Duisburg again. And we lost an engine to come home. And then again Willhelmshaven. We did three German trips in thirty six hours. So we got very little time for a kip but we made sure that the aeroplane was serviceable and so on to do it’s stuff and we managed even to get something to eat in between times as well. Oh incidentally I do remember that when you were going off on an operation the mess always dished up egg and chips. This was your aircrew meal before you went off. But egg and chips was a godsend in those days. It was another manna from heaven job because eggs were scarce, if not rationed. But to us that was a good meal. And also for a sweet [laughs] we had, week after week, day in day out stewed prunes. And oh dear. You got so tired of stewed prunes. So we said we’ll alter this. So we go in to the kitchen. We said, ‘Have you got some bread? A slice of bread?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Have you got some jam?’ ‘Yes.’ Put the jam on the bread. ‘Now, have you got some batter that you use when you’re doing the chips?’ They’d got some batter. So you dipped your jammed bread in the batter, put it in the, in to the deep fryer and lo and behold you’ve got another sweet. A lot, a lot better than the stewed prunes [laughs]
MR: Apricots. Were they apricots? Not prunes.
DR: Oh, I beg your pardon. Yeah. Apricots. Stewed apricots. Yes. Yes. Stewed apricots. Yeah. Yes. And as I say Bennett appeared to be a hard man. And indeed he was only hard because he’d got a job to do and he was to make sure that you helped him to do that job. And I’m sure that when he was losing his crews he was as heartfelt as anybody else. But as I say he had a job to do and he gave all the appearance of being strict. Which of course he was. If you couldn’t do your job there were examples where people had been told, ‘You’re not Pathfinders,’ and sent back to wherever they’d came from. So he used to make sure that we knew what we were doing. But there was one incident where a German target, we must have been going in mid-way in the raid because the target was well ablaze. Lots of fires, lots of smoke, lots of flak. And on the, our bombing run I always used to make sure that there was none of our boys up above us dropping his load. And so it was that in the target area I was searching up above as well as below and there was a Junkers 88 about a couple of thousand feet below us flying on a reciprocal. But it wasn’t bothering us so didn’t bother the rest of the crew. Just let them get on with the job. However, when we got back to Upwood, whenever we came back from an op on the table waiting for us in the debriefing room there used to be Walters’ cigarettes, navy rum and hot coffee. So you sat back there with hot coffee and rum to thaw the chill out of your bones and, and a Walters’ fag. And there was a delay in debriefing during which time leisurely we’d consumed three rum and coffees. Sank back and enjoyed them. So, anyway, when we were called in for the debriefing we told the intelligence officer all he wanted to know. And as we finished he said, ‘Was there enemy fighter activity in the target area?’ And I said, ‘Yeah. I saw a Junkers 88.’ And a voice behind me, over my shoulder said, ‘How do you know it was a Junkers 88?’ And the rum answered, ‘I know a bloody Junkers 88 when I see one.’ And looking over my shoulder there’s the two steely eyes of Air Vice Marshall Bennett looking at me. Oh dear. I thought that’s it. And he looked at me and he said, ‘That’s alright lad,’ he said, ‘But we had Mosquitoes on that target tonight.’ And the rum wanted to say, ‘I know a bloody Mosquito when I see one.’ But I restrained. But as I say AVM Bennett often used to be around in, in the debriefing. Many a time. But I thought I was going to get the chop then for being rude [laughs] Anyway, as I say probably if I flicked through my logbook I could see other, other things that had happened to us. But it was quite a full, a full time because in addition to operational flying you were airborne every day without fail. Sometimes two or three times a day. If not operational you were on air tests or practice bombing raids. Fighter affiliation. Navigation cross country trip. You were kept on tip toe all the time. So that you were, you were aware of course that you were part of Bomber Command but not impressively so. You were more impressed with the fact that you were on 156 Squadron. But moreso with your own crew because you, you slept, you ate, you flew, you went on leave with the same people. The crew. So that you built up this strong bond and you hoped that they relied on you as much as you relied on them. And you were vaguely aware that there were other crews on the squadron doing the same job more or less as you were doing. But life was so busy that — and sometimes unfortunately because crews went missing you didn’t get any time to make friends or acquaintances. As I say you just, you just knew one or two here and there. Possibly because you’d been at OTU with one or two of them. But otherwise you were so busy. But there were two other, two gunners who had been at Operational Training Unit with me and they’d both, they’d both [pause] Barclay Felgate was a Rhodesian and he was in my first crew. And he appeared at 156 Squadron, Pathfinder Squadron with another crew. And Bob Heatrick, an Irishman, he also flew with me and he was on 156 Squadron Pathfinders. And I’d known them previously from OTUs so you did pick these up. But you did get a giggle from time to time. It depends how things struck you. Sometimes and seriously some people were stricken religiously almost. And there was one pilot who was like that but he was conscientious. And the guys used to call him Dinghy Dan because sometimes when it was reasonable he used to have the crew practicing dinghy ditching positions. Which of course was, was a good idea in case you needed it for real. But on one particular occasion they had a chap, another Irishman with a hell of a sense of humour and they were getting knocked about a bit in the target area and this Irishman said, ‘Come on skip. Let’s get out of here.’ And Dinghy Dan said, ‘It’s alright. The stick is in the hands of the Lord.’ And quick as a flash the Irishman says, ‘Well give him a hand then. He can’t do it all by himself.’ [laughs] As I say we used to pick up the odd, the odd giggle now and again. And my flight engineer Baz, Baz Butterfield, bless him. We were twenty, twenty one as I say. I’d finished operational flying and I was still twenty one. He’d got a son twelve years of age and we used to look at Baz as Uncle Baz and we used to go out to the aeroplane ready for an op and climbing on board Baz, usually he used to say, ‘We’re going to have a good trip tonight.’ ‘Oh do you reckon so Baz?’ ‘Yeah. I’ve got a feeling in my water,’ he used to say. He was a good lad was Baz. Nearly lost him as I say when we, when we lost the nose of the aeroplane that time. He was very close. Yes. As I say if I was to going to fish out my logbook I’d probably think of other incidents. But mostly the German trips. But as you got experience you were trained to do, do your job in the air. You were given an aeroplane that was the best that could be provided. You were trained but they couldn’t give you operational experience. You had to earn that the hard way. And it was a hard way. Sometimes it was quite devastating. It brought home reality. Not only what could happen to you in a flash but what might happen to you. For example if you baled out. You only had what you stood up in. If you’d landed in a German urban area God knows what might happen to you. There were stories of aircrew being lynched. And certainly you wouldn’t have been received very kindly once they found out you were RAF aircrew. You could have landed by parachute in the water, in the sea and hope to God you could rescue yourself. Or the aeroplane itself might have to ditch. All these realities came home to you through realisation after. Afterwards. It was afterthoughts really. And made, made you realise as good as your training had been and as good as your equipment had been you had been very lucky. Because people of the same experience of you and higher rank than you, rank didn’t count for anything. The chopper chopped when it needed to be. That’s at RAF Kirmington. There was a pub there called the Hand and Cleaver and to the aircrew it was called The Chopper. Hence a crew that didn’t come back had got the chop. Yes. Yes, they, you didn’t write off the German defences. The urban targets were well defended. Flak and fighters. You’d got to watch out for fighters. They knew what they were doing. They got very wise. Operating in pairs at times. One would fly on a beam and deliberately show a light and hoped you would focus on him so the other one could come in from the blind side and knock spots of you. But fortunately we were wise to that little trick. Sometimes they would follow you home to your home aerodrome and as you were coming in to land, in the most vulnerable situation, flaps and undercarriage down they would nip in behind you and shoot you down over your own airfield. So you didn’t write them off lightly. Indeed I remember coming back one evening. Well, it was still dark coming back. And as we came across the English coast there was a light. And I thought it was an aircraft showing a light. And we immediately thought it was the German fighters trying the old duo trick. But this light seemed in a steady position and I watched it go astern of us. Anyway, in the debriefing I mentioned this. That it was an apparent fighter showing. And the intelligence officer was highly interested in this. Wanted to know all about it. Where, where we’d seen it first of all and that. How we’d lost sight of it and was it a steady light? Yeah. And in no time at all, within a day or two we’d seen one of the first of the buzz bombs coming across. And that, that was the flames from its tail that we’d seen. And, and then afterwards they were coming over frequently and everybody knew about the buzz bombs. But we therefore got the job of trying to put paid to some of the buzz bomb sites. And later on the V-2 rocket sights. We got the job of trying to put paid to them. And the job was twelve Lancasters flying in pairs. Two, two — six pairs flying astern with the wing, tucked in wing. As close as we could. And we had a Mosquito who was on the Oboe beam or supposed to be on the Oboe beam flying ahead of us and when he picked up the beam and picked the target up he would open his bomb doors and drop a red, a red flare and then we twelve would open our bomb doors and twelve lots of bomb loads used to go down. Hopefully in the one position. But more often than not the Oboe beam wasn’t working so the Mossie was no good. So we had to do it ourselves and as I said drop twelve bomb loads all together. And we did this several times on the buzz bomb or rocket sites. So some of our daylight flying at home was tucking a wing in to the wing space of another Lancaster. So, we got some pretty interesting jobs to do. I’m running out of things to tell you. As I say without picking up a logbook [laughs]
HD: Lovely. Thank you Doug. We’ll call that an end to the interview. Thank you very much.
[recording paused]
HD: Doug’s wife Margaret would like to tell you a little story of what happened in Goole. Here you are Margaret.
[pause]
MR: [unclear] This is Margaret Reed. I have known Doug since we were three and a half. We went right through school together. And he went away in to the air force. I went away to college. And we got married when we were both free. I don’t mean, mean free. When we were both able to get together and be in the same part of the country. I was sitting with my parents on the outskirts of Goole. In the bungalow that we had there with my two brothers and my mother and father. And we were sitting in the evening, a beautiful evening. It was April. And just one of those evenings you get sometimes. And we had deckchairs. The old striped deckchairs. And in the back garden we had chickens. I had white doves. One of my brothers had guinea pigs and my mother had chinchilla rabbits which we ate. One a week. So we kept having, on having young ones to make sure we had enough for one rabbit a week and they are fairly big. So she, after the war she had the most beautiful chinchilla coat made.
DR: Say Goole was surrounded by airfields.
MR: Goole was surrounded by airfields. And as we sat there we watched the planes going out on a raid. All the same way. And quite close together. And suddenly my father said, ‘Oh. One’s touched wings with another.’ And we said, ‘Where?’ And we stood up and in the distance there were like two very very small aeroplanes circling down. One coming towards Goole and us and the other going in the opposite direction. And we watched and we watched as it circled around. And we counted out seven crew so we knew there was nobody in it but it was coming in our direction. And suddenly my father said, ‘It’s getting too close. Run in the house.’ We all ran in the house and dropped under the kitchen table. We all scrambled in there. And then there was the most terrific bang and everything shuddered and peculiar noises. And we rushed around into the back garden again and there was a hole where the lawn had been and water filling up in this massive hole. It was the width of the garden. And there wasn’t a feather from the chickens, my doves had gone. Everything had gone. The chinchillas. And we, we then wondered what would happen next. And an RAF kind of lorry with men in it were there within ten minutes and told us to get out of the house. The bungalow. The bungalow at the back was covered with mud out of this hole. There was about six inches of mud over the brickwork. The roof. Really it was just a grand mess at the back. And these men came and shoved us out of the way. They said they didn’t know whether there would be any other bombs that had gone off. And the one near the back, towards the back door was the tail fin, was just across the door. We had to step over it. And I went back in to the bungalow because I knew in my bedroom I’d got a bag of those tiny little silver threepenny bits and I’d got a bit of jewellery. I mean at that age you don’t have jewellery but an aunt had left me a pair of diamond earrings and they were in the, in the paper bag with the threepenny bits. And as I climbed over this bomb, the tail of the bomb near the back door so of course the bag, the paper bag burst and they were all over the drive. And they wouldn’t give me any time to pick them up. They just said, ‘Get out. Get out.’ And we went down to our grandmas. And instead of her little two bedroomed, well not a town house even, a small house. We had to live with her for a week. You can imagine what it was like. Five of us going to live with her. Anyway, the funny story about it was my mother had had new false teeth that, that she’d collected them the day before and of course they were on the, what was the bathroom window ledge. But the glass had blown out and the teeth, the new teeth, top and bottom were on the floor. But the next day we retrieved them. So her Yorkshire instinct of not having to pay a penny more than she should and collecting them well she won in the end.
HD: Lovely. Thank you Margaret.
MR: Well that was that.
HD: That was super. Thank you very much.
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Interview with Douglas Reed
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eng
Format
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01:08:23 audio recording
Creator
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Hugh Donnelly
Date
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2015-10-15
Description
An account of the resource
Flight Lieutenant Douglas Reed worked for the council before he joined the Royal Air Force. He flew operations with 166 Squadron from RAF Kirmington and with 156 Squadron, Pathfinders, from RAF Upwood. His aircraft often suffered damage. On one occasion the ground crew reported they had patched forty four holes in the aircraft and a piece of shrapnel had been lodged in the fuel tank.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Nuremberg
Temporal Coverage
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1944-03-30
1944-03-31
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
Contributor
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Julie Williams
156 Squadron
166 Squadron
8 Group
aircrew
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bombing
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
crash
ground crew
Halifax
Ju 88
Lancaster Finishing School
Master Bomber
mess
military ethos
Mosquito
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Oboe
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
RAF Hemswell
RAF Kirmington
RAF Peplow
RAF Upwood
take-off crash
target indicator
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1049/11427/ANewhamDF170727.2.mp3
4317e63f3920f92373f45d230b14638c
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Title
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Newham, Douglas Frank
D F Newham
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Douglas Newham DFC (1921 - 2022, 1337797, 156440 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as an observer with 156, 150, 10 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-07-27
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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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Newham, DF
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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GT: Now, I’m with Mr Douglas F Newham LVO DFC and Doug welcome and thank you for agreeing to be interviewed for your history and for the history of what you did with Bomber Command to be put forward for the Digital Archives. So, please tell us your story.
DN: Right. My name is Douglas Newham. I was born 13th of November 1921. Consequently, ninety five years of age at the moment. I started my life in, in the RAF by volunteering in 1940/41 and did my first operational tour as a sergeant with a serial number of 1337797. I did my training in the UK. I consider I was very fortunate to do, to do that because right from the word go I got used to flying in weather such as we have over here rather than in the blue skies of South Africa or Canada. So right from the word go I got used to crap weather. Any rate, I did my training in the UK as a navigator observer which was what I always wanted to do. I had no wish to be a pilot. I saw the duties of a navigator as more challenging. Any rate, I did my flying first of all on the dreaded Botha. The Blackburn Botha. And then very quickly they were grounded and we were on Blenheims. The short nosed Blenheim and the long nosed Blenheim for navigation. And my navigation training was from Jurby on the Isle of Man. And most of our navigational exercises were all up and down the Irish Sea and off the west coast of Scotland in glorious, glorious scenery and quite challenging from a navigational point of view. Having finished my navigation, bombing and gunnery training at Jurby, we were then moved up to Kinloss in Scotland, near Inverness. This time flying Whitleys. The old Armstrong Whitworth Flying coffin which looked like a coffin at least. And we finished there our navigation training up there prior to being posted to a Wellington Squadron and that would have been in the tail end of 1941 the beginning of ’42. Strangely enough we were first posted to 156 Squadron which was then still on Wellingtons. And it was the forerunner of one of the Pathfinder Squadrons. As a result of that at a very early stage I was given excellent training on the navigational aid Gee which I loved for the rest of my career. However, that was just as Pathfinder course. 8 Group was being formed and as a consequence of that our crew were posted from 156 to 150 Squadron down in North Lincolnshire. Again on Wellington 3.
GT: Ok.
DN: We stop.
GT: Yeah. Doug, where did you crew up? And who was your skipper and crew please? Could you, can you remember?
DN: Right. We crewed up at our Operational Training Unit at Kinloss in Scotland and I crewed up with a Canadian pilot, Bill Harris. Several years older than, than I was. As a mild diversion at the moment several years after the war I met his sister and married her. So I married my pilot’s kid sister from Vancouver. But that is another long story. Any rate Bill and I and our crew we started our first tour of operations on Wellingtons operating from Kirmington. I remember the first couple of trips were down the north west coast of France. Mining. Dropping sea mines in the channels used by the U-boats. And we dropped mines at probably something like oh five or six hundred feet and encountered a few flak ships. They were very very steep learning curves. I do recall that my [pause] somebody, somebody had suggested to my pilot that unbeknownst to me that it would be safer to do an asymmetric weave. Never to do a regular weave because that could be predicted but to do little bit one way a little bit more that way and then perhaps back. But nothing regular. Well, unbeknownst to me Bill tried this on our first operation. Suffice to say that I think we toured the whole of northwest France but we did find exactly where we wanted to drop mines. Did so and found our way back by which time they thought we were, we were gone because we were about two and a half hours later than we should have been and we were getting a bit short on fuel. Any rate, we carried on. Proceeded with our first tour with further mining operations and then bomber operations over western Germany. Still on the dear old Wellington. Our maximum load was four thousand pounds and we, we had one aircraft that did carry a four thousand pounder. It didn’t even have any bomb doors. It just had an open space and the four thousand pounder was pulled just, just up inside. Any rate, all was going reasonably well there and then there was the allied invasion of north west Africa. Of Algeria. And to our great surprise half the Squadron was sent on this invasion. So we, we flew down to Cornwall. And then from Cornwall down to Gibraltar. And then Gibraltar to an ex-French Air Force airstrip about thirty miles from Algiers. And we had, I think it was twelve aircraft. And our targets were mostly the German ports of Tunis and Ferryville. Then bounced back down the Tunisian coast or over to Sicily. Maybe up to Sardinia. But in the central Mediterranean we were fortunate on one of those operations that we were carrying our four thousand pounder and I did manage to get a direct hit on one of the lock gates at a German port called Ferryville which put the port out of action. Which was rather fortunate. Anyway —
GT: So from that point Doug you’d moved from Bomber Command through to the Mediterranean Command.
DN: Yes. To the North West African Strategic Air Force which consisted of, I think twelve aircraft. Yeah. And our command, commander in chief down there was Jimmy Doolittle who did the Tokyo raids off the carriers. Anyway, so we had started our tour in Bomber Command and then towards the end we went over to, well went down to, posted at away from the UK down to Algiers and moved in to the North West African Strategic. Anyway, came home. Finished there by which time we had lost, well our aircraft was the last remaining aircraft of the twelve that went out there. Most of them I must admit were either accidents or bad weather. Some being shot down. The casualty rate was considerably, considerably less than it would have been had we stayed in Europe. Very much. I mean, we were operating mostly between five and ten thousand feet. We were subject to a lot of light flak but compared to what it was like over Europe in those early days we were extremely fortunate. And recognised it. Germany had a few night fighters out there. Nothing like subsequently developed in Europe. Anyway.
GT: Yeah.
DN: Back to the UK where the crew were dispersed. I was dispersed to Abingdon which was an Operational Training Unit with Whitleys and I was in a Navigation School doing, trying to convert the navigators from their, their early theoretical navigation practices into more realistic operations. Training. Training flights and then more realistic of what it was like over the other side. Now, for some reason, and I have no idea why I was selected to go to the Central Navigation School for a staff navigator’s course. I have no idea why I was picked out. I get to this school and I find that I am the only NCO on the, on the course. They were mostly flight lieutenants and there was one wing commander and I was the lonely sergeant. As a result of that my social life was nil because they were all in the officer’s mess. I was in the sergeant’s mess. So I had, really had nothing else to do but study and I was absolute. I mean I I loved the course. I had, had always hoped as a youth that maybe I might get to university but that was not on in those days. But here I was on what was virtually a university course on navigation and everything to do with it. Astronomy, compasses, radio, tides, astronomy, huge amount of mathematics. And I loved it. I had got nothing else to do. Then I became an absolute bookworm and a swat and it got a bit embarrassing when the only sergeant on the course came out top and I was not very popular with my other course mates. But anyway my commission came through just as I finished that course and I went back to my Operational Training Unit only to find out that one of the conditions of such a course, the staff navigator’s course was that you were obliged to stay in a training position or a staff position for at least a year before you could go back on operations. Any rate I tried to wriggle my way around that and I very nearly got to the Mosquito Met Reconnaissance Flight but it was cancelled at the last moment and I was obliged to stay for that year. However, on the three hundredth and sixty fifth day after finishing the course I was called down to Group Headquarters and offered a job of navigation leader on a Squadron of Halifax aircraft up in 4 Group. So I grabbed that and from, from Abingdon, from my Operational Training Unit went up to Melbourne, just outside York on Halifax 3s. Initially I was not a member of 8 Group and I could only put myself on operations if somebody, somebody went sick. But then one of the flight commanders lost his navigator and he and I then lined up together. That was Squadron Leader Bill Allen who was on his second tour. And Bill and I hit it off precisely. We both had the same view on flying duties. We both trusted one another implicitly and equally the rest. Trusted the rest of our crew. He was a flight commander. I was the nav leader. We both had similar views on our administrative and leadership duties. Bill, for example would always ensure that if there was a new pilot he would never send a new crew up on a long distance difficult flight as their first operation. Whereas some of the other, other flight commanders would take a brand new crew and stick them on anything. I mean I’ve had a little bit of a tussle with one flight commander and indeed with my Squadron commander because we had a brand new crew and they put them on Leipzig which was a ten hour flight. And I objected to this for a new crew. I got overruled and they operated and the crew concerned did a bloody good job but that was, that was lucky. But any rate my own skipper he and I had very similar views and we would not infrequently take lame ducks with us. And any rate we Bill would too, too frequently choose the rough targets rather than the easy targets. But he, he believed in leadership in its, in its true sense. We did, on one occasion towards the end of the war lead a three hundred. I think it was three hundred and fifty or four hundred raid of Halifax aircraft. We were the lead aircraft on a German oil target north of the Ruhr. But in the end we got separated because we were operating more frequently then Group thought we should. They wanted us to stay so that we would remain in our admin capacity for a longer period. Frankly we didn’t give a damn about that. We operated when we wanted to. As a result of which Bill was promoted to a wing commander and moved elsewhere and I was disciplined. However, Bill, I’d say he was a bloody good pilot. He ended up with a and DFC. And any rate I then finished my spell with 10 Squadron during the ’39/45 European war. I would fly with anybody who needed a navigator and chalked up my operations. Anyway, the end of the European war came and the Squadron was immediately, I think it was the second day after the, after the European war was declared over if I remember correctly we converted to Dakotas for glider towing and paratroop dropping for the Malaysian invasion. Well, they wanted to put me in a staff post somewhere but the Squadron was going out on operational duties so I managed to pitch it that I stay with the Squadron. And we went out with, well we converted to paratrooping and glider towing down in Oxfordshire. That was quite entertaining too. We were towing gliders. Let’s see what it’s like to fly in one. These troop carrying gliders that have, I mean they had a descent angle like a brick. They had flaps as big as barn doors. You came down at a hell of an angle. And on the flight I was doing in a glider and we, we disconnected from the tug and the glider pilot stuck the nose down. I was standing behind. I lost all sight of the sky. All you could see was the patch of ground where eventually you hoped you were going to land and he’d get each flap as I say like two bloody great barn doors and very low altitude pull the stick back into his stomach and you’re down. I tried to have a go at seeing what it was like to join with the paratroopers who were, we were dropping. But I got down to the dropping zone and unfortunately the surface wind was too strong so we had to call that operation off. Otherwise I would have had a go at that. Anyway —
GT: Doug, before we leave the European theatre for you just quickly going back to the Halifax. It seemed to be always the third cousin of the four engine heavies. To you guys and where you flew it was she as good as the Lancaster? How did you guys feel?
DN: We on, on the Halifax, we frankly loved the aircraft and thought it was better than the Lanc. We believed it was tougher. It could take more damage than the Lancaster. It couldn’t, it’s true it couldn’t carry the same load and it couldn’t fly at the same altitude but we certainly in the last, the last few months of the war until the Halifax 3 came in with the uprated Hercules engine we were certainly below the Lancasters and we couldn’t as I say we couldn’t carry the same bomb load. Later however in the later marks of Halifax we were damn nearly as good as the Lanc in those respects. It wasn’t as convenient an aircraft for a crew. I mean the wireless operator was sitting almost underneath the pilot’s seat. Feet. In the nose of the aircraft. And the navigator was sitting in front of him. So, to get, if you wanted to get back or even get up towards the pilot’s compartment I had to get out of my seat, walk past the wireless operator and up a couple of steps. So as I say you were way down below the pilot’s feet. It wasn’t as sociable shall we say but I think those of us who were operating on Halifaxes had every much as faith in our aircraft as a Lancaster. There was always rivalry between Lancs and Halifaxes. I still say I’d just as soon fly in a Halibag as I would in a Lanc. Sadly, I never flew in a Lancaster. In fact I never even, no I’ve never even been on board a Lancaster. You know. On the deck. But a Halifax yes. I enjoyed that and had great faith in it. Yeah.
GT: Many of the crews I’ve talked with have talked of how corkscrewing with the Lancaster or the Stirling was was a special art and and most pilots managed it. Some did not. How did the Halifax deal and did your pilot master the art of corkscrewing?
DN: Yes. The early Halifaxes had significant problems in that they, they could get in deep trouble by stalling the rudders. That was when the Halifax had a kind of defect. A fin. And then later, it was in the later Halifaxes it was made into a rectangular fin which overcame the problem of stalling of the rudders. But Bill could certainly corkscrew the Halifax and throw it around the sky like nobody’s business. And he did [laughs] No. I say the Halifax did not have as good a reputation. Bomber Harris for example disliked the Halifax and would have, all his memoirs and books about him indicate that he would, he would have sacrificed a year of production of Halifax aircraft if the factories could have been turned over to Lancasters. But that was not agreed and the Halifax did not, never did have the same reputation. I think a bit unjustified but it was based primarily I think on the fact of it had less bomb load and less range than the Lancaster did. But as far as the attitude of the crews and the confidence in the crews in their aircraft it was certainly equal. Equal to the Lancaster.
GT: Now, Doug it has been made mention that if they lended total production to the Mosquito that having thousands more Mosquitoes and not the four engine seven man bombers they could have saved a lot more air crew but still achieved the bombing of Germany. What’s your opinion on that?
DN: It, I mean statistically it’s true. You’d have had to have had a lot more. A lot more Mossies. It was questionable whether we’d got, whether we got enough airfields because obviously you’d have to have three or four Mosquitoes for every Lancaster or every Halifax. You might not have had some of the precision of the mass bombing that the Lancs and the Halifaxes achieved although with [pause] with Oboe and some of the other navigational aids the Lanc — the Mossies were capable of accurate bombing but I can’t see the big mass raids being conducted by what would achieve the same bomb load per raid as the, as the Lancasters and the Halifaxes. I mean a raid comprising just of Mosquitoes would have been at most six seven of four thousand or five thousand pounds so you’d have had to have had two or two and a half times as many aircraft. And then there would have been the problems of concentration and mid-air collisions and the density of traffic. Have you got enough runways and aircrews in the UK to do that? So no. I think we probably had it about right. Although the Mosquito, Mosquito was a very fine aircraft. Again, I would have loved, I would have loved to have gone in those. But no. My own job as a navigator in a heavy bomber I I really loved it. I think I was good at it. My navigation aids of Gee and H2S and Air Position Indicator. I was paranoid about accuracy. Way over the top and quite unrealistic. I admit that. But I used to fix my position either by Gee or by H2S every six minutes. I had my Air Position Indicator and I was working to the nearest decimal of a minute. So I was working to the nearest six seconds and I was fixing every, every [pause] every six minutes. The reason being if I did it every six minutes I didn’t have to work out how many miles or knots I was doing in an hour. Just moved the decimal point. So I had a, a very very strict navigation procedure and discipline for myself which a number of others on the Squadron followed. I mean if you did a ten hour, a ten hour trip and you were fixing every six minutes, you know. That, you’d be doing ten fixes, ten calculations of ETA and track and distance of track I’d say every six minutes. They’d do that ten times in an hour. If you’re on a ten hour flight you got a hundred. It was a bloody high workload. However, I loved it. That was my job and I loved it. Yeah.
GT: Yeah. Yet the Americans obviously were pretty thick to the last couple of years of the war in the air during the day and I was also made aware that most of the flights of the American bombers only had a navigator aircraft. And so most of the aircraft didn’t actually have a navigator.
DN: Yeah.
GT: Did you have contact with the Americans in any way? And what’s your thought on the fact that they went in with one aircraft with one navigator for a bunch? With your experience on the Halifax there.
DN: I think that was probably misguided. But their whole technique was very different from ours. I mean, we were operating at night because, well we had to. We could not defend ourselves by day against the Germans fighters. We had difficulty doing so at night. I mean we were very near, I believe Bomber Command was very nearly overwhelmed by the German night fighters. Witness Nuremberg. The number we lost there. But the only way we could operate during most of the war was certainly at night where obviously you had to have one navigator per aircraft. When we were operating by day once we got air superiority and I mentioned the occasion that we led a three hundred and fifty or four hundred aircraft on on this oil target it’s true that the others could have followed us. I think it would be, it would be foolish to do so because you had no, no insurance policy. If that one aircraft got clobbered the others would be in trouble. I, I was of the opinion that most of the American aircraft had at least a second pilot was able to to have a fair bit of expertise at navigation but to be honest I’m, I’m not adequately familiar with what the Americans could do. We certainly had, well, to me navigation was an art and I loved it. Yeah. Very different for tactical if you were on tactical target by shall we say smaller aircraft like the Boston or the North American. That would have been a lot, a lot different from my type of navigation. It would have been a lot more map reading than. I mean I was doing mostly, would be by Gee and H2S and traditional DR navigation. Occasionally, very occasionally you’d resort to a bit of astro but Gee and H2S were my, my two main nav aids.
GT: And were they cutting technology for the time? Was, was that, was that really awesome designs and futuristic equipment that they gave you to work with?
DN: I think so. I mean there was other stuff coming along later. The Americans used Loran and I believe some of, some of 8 Group and 5 Group used Loran. They also used GH which I didn’t use. But certainly H2S was, I believe pretty cutting, cutting edge stuff. And they, I mean even in my time they, they got working to shorter and shorter wavelength. They, we had introduced gyro stabilised standards so the aerial scanner was, was stabilised. So you could move the aircraft and the, the Gee pitch, the H2S picture on your screen didn’t change because the scanner itself, the rotating scanner was gyro stabilised. We had variable rates of scan so you could change the speed of scan to take better definition or better accuracy. So we were getting better accuracy because the frequency reduction has got shorter wavelength. We had various variable speed scan and gyro stabiliser and those, those modifications were being introduced while we were operating. So I think that, I mean much of that stuff went on at Malvern which was a kind of centre of, one of the centres of research. And I think they did a bloody good job of keeping up to date. I mean there’s been a lot of criticism about navigational ability and bombing inaccuracy in the early part of the war and there was a government, government inspired survey of this. And results were pretty horrible. I can’t remember the details now but it was less than a fraction of our bombs were getting within kind of five or twenty miles. And I think that was justified but they were in the early days of the war and then at the same time there was a lot of development work going on with new compasses, gyro stabilisers, distance reading compasses, with H2S, with Gee, with the Air Position Indicator. There were lots of developments that were coming along in those early days of the war and kept coming along. And I think the development guys were doing, you know a brilliant job all the time in trying to improve things. Perhaps we in 4 Group didn’t see as many of those clever things that perhaps 5 Group or 8 Group but I think there was a lot. A huge amount of credit due to those guys who were in the development. Equally, on the, some of the radar counter measure stuff which is another one of my interests on how we, how we tried to fox the German radar and the German night fighters. Ok. They, they out foxed us with their upward pointing cannon and Schrage Musik and it was on, but it was on a programme with the BBC some years ago about the see-saw activity that was going on. The Germans would introduce something. We would either counter that or better it. And it didn’t matter whether it was radar or weaponry or tactics it was, it was a swings and roundabouts, see-saw developing, changing all the time. And if you look at some of the, I’d say the German radar and the systems of Fighter Control while they were changing that we were introducing new measures to detect their fighters to make life difficult for them. I mean, we, you probably know we had, we had microphones in the engine nacelles of our aircraft. So if we were over the other side our wireless operators would tune in to the frequencies used by the German fighter controllers. Then blast the noise of the engines on that frequency to drown out. The most brilliant thoughts of all were the Germans realised that we were doing our damndest to mess up their radar and their fighter control system and they suddenly introduced women controllers. So the German night fighters only took notice of a woman controller because they didn’t whether it was a German controller or a British controller. And at one stage we were carrying German speaking radio operators in 100 Group aircraft who would come up on the same frequency and German speaking Brits who would direct them to return to base. The weather was closing in. Or don’t take this vector take another vector. And they were, putting it bluntly they were trying to bugger up the fighter control system by using German speaking Brits. So the Germans overcame that by suddenly introducing women controllers. So the German night fighters only took notice of a woman controller. And within forty eight hours we had British German speaking women who were taking over and issuing conflicting instructions to the night fighters. I think the brilliant thinking that our own people had thought this was what they might do so we’ll be ready for it. And that kind of see-saw of activity and counter activity went on. Well, it wouldn’t have been just in aviation it would have been in anything else. But I found it fascinating.
GT: The crashed aircraft must have fallen into German hands. Do you think that, that Oboe and H2S and similar equipment the Germans managed to analyse that and better their own from it?
DN: Unquestionably. I mean all of those equipment had explosive devices in them with crash switches so that if the aircraft did crash there was an inertia switch inside which would set off the explosives and destroy the critical part of those bits of equipment. But inevitably that didn’t always work and the Germans did get at our stuff and were trying to, well they got certainly got into H2S and discovered, you know the frequencies in use and produced Naxos. I don’t know whether you know they was a, they had a session with the BBC some years ago. There was a German night fighter operating, operating out of Denmark, got itself lost. It hadn’t, it flew south west rather than north east and landed at Woodbridge, one of our emergency airfields down in Suffolk which was virtually running out of fuel. The German pilot and observer radio guy had got themselves completely lost. Our scientists got at it and found that it had got an equipment which was code named Naxos which could home onto our H2S. So the German night fighter could be directed by his ground controller in the general vicinity of the bomber stream and with this Naxos equipment he could home right in on our H2S. And anyway we then developed equipment to home on to Naxos. So some of our night fighters could home onto their night fighters. And it was this, and it’s a fascinating topic this see-saw in technical developments. Fascinating. Yeah.
GT: Now, the, the Schrage Musik.
DN: Yeah.
GT: The upward firing cannons —
DN: Yes.
GT: Of the German night fighters to, to, because the Halifax, Lancaster and Stirling didn’t have a, well —
DN: Yeah.
GT: Ball turrets.
DN: Yeah.
GT: As the B17s, and I’ve been made aware that some Lancasters had belly guns. Did any of the Halifaxes ever been modified with such?
DN: Yes. Yes, but you couldn’t have an H2S at the same time. And they were called Y aircraft. And they had, they, the blister with the rotating scanner that of course was removed and there was a half inch, a single half inch calibre gun on a hand mount with a gunner sitting there freezing his whatsits off. Just looking down.
GT: So, so there was an eighth member of the crew then. Deliberately.
DN: Yeah.
GT: An eighth member.
DN: Yeah. Yeah. And in fact one of my books over there on 10 Squadron operations and I’ve got one or two sample crew lists of before an operation and you’ll find here and there will be a Y aircraft with an extra crew member known as an under-gunner. But it’s not a power operated turret. I never operated on one of those. We always had upper turret, rear turret and H2S. Not that we had a choice. That was allocated by somebody I don’t know. But what my skipper used to do was he would every so often he would drop a wing one way and then drop a wing the other way so particularly the mid-upper could peer over the side and get a better view. And with the rear gunner and the upper gunner cooperating with one another and knowing that the Schrage Musik was around and they could come up from underneath you and with the wireless operator looking at Fishpond and some of the other devices which could detect other aircraft coming towards you. What with that and a bit of extra vigilance as I say. Rolling the aircraft. Somehow we managed it. But it was a very deadly weapon was Schrage Musik. Two bloody great cannons and right underneath you.
GT: With the aircraft and the streams did you ever encounter any aircraft above you that you managed to avoid?
DN: Yeah.
GT: Bombs dropping on you?
DN: Yes. I’ve been underneath an aircraft and looking up into his bomb bay where he probably wasn’t more than twenty feet above us. And you look up there and you could see everything but the kitchen sink up and he’s got his bomb doors open. Edging in to get on to target. And your bomb aimer was down in the nose telling the skipper left left or right and you’d be looking up and seeing a Lanc or another Halifax above you with his bomb door open and everything but the kitchen sink in there. The navigator. The bomb aimer would be saying, ‘Left. Left.’ And you’d tap the skipper on the shoulder and say [laughs] No. And there were, there were a number of occasions of course and the operational research people had worked out what the expected rate of bombs dropping on our own aircraft. In fact, do you know, have you ever heard of Bill Reid? Bill Reid was the last Victoria Cross and a good friend of mine. And Bill got his Victoria Cross on on an early operation and then went back later on a second tour. And he was hit by bombs being dropped from a Lancaster above him and managed to bail out and spent the rest of the war in a POW camp. So I mean it did happen. We knew it. We knew it would happen inevitably. The flight engineer and, and the mid-upper gunner and occasionally the pilot but certainly as a navigator once I had handed over to the bomb aimer I would be up there looking. Adding another pair of eyes. Trying to keep out of the way.
GT: So, in the bomber streams did you, you were in formations of Halifaxes and Lancasters?
DN: No. No.
GT: No. You were just all a mix.
DN: No. You [pause] you had each, each Squadron, each flight, almost each aircraft, not quite, you had a time span when you were, it was your turn to be on target. The raid might be forty minutes in length shall we say? Thirty to forty five minutes depending on the number of aircraft. And each Squadron had its own height band and its own duration on target. So it would have perhaps eight minutes on target out of a total of forty five. And each Squadron would have that. And each Squadron would have its own height band. So you knew darned well and of course the Halifax not having the performance of the Lanc it was generally the Halifax who would be at a lower level. Which would prompt you to keep a good look out. But I mean there were occasions when the aircraft, there might be an aircraft two thousand feet above you and you wouldn’t have a hope in hell of seeing anything coming down. But yes not only mid-air collisions but being bombed by your own aircraft was a known and anticipated factor but again the operational research people, the whizz kids with their mathematics and probabilities way beyond the Squadron activity did work out what was an acceptable risk and consequently worked out what was an acceptable density of a bomber stream. If you got it too dense then yes you’d be increasing the chance of mid-air collision. You’d be increasing the chance of being bombed by somebody above you. And they would adjust the density of the bomber stream to meet those parameters.
GT: What, what was the likelihood of you getting out of the Halifax if it was going down?
DN: Well, I had an escape hatch immediately under my seat. So if I had to get out in a hurry I had to stand up, lift up my, fold up my seat, get my parachute pack and clip it on my chest and kick open the door and just go straight out. Unless, which I’m sure would have happened you were checking. I mean there were four of us in the front end. There was the bomb aimer, the navigator, the radio man. Well, the flight engineer into there. And the pilot. And we were all in a pretty, pretty congested area. And then we, there was an escape hatch above the pilot and this one which was underneath my seat. I don’t know.
GT: Now, Doug, you mentioned earlier about the actual accuracy of the bombing raids. And you likened it with the navigational equipment you had. But the bomb aimer’s role was to direct the aircraft to drop their bombs on target. So was there a correlation of equipment between the navigational and the bomb aiming equipment? Did they combine together or were they totally separate items?
DN: On the actual bombing it was either one or the other. In the early days it was entirely visual and that was from a relatively, relatively rudimentary bombsight where you would, where the bomb aimer would make adjustments for the height of the aircraft and, and the anticipated wind. And then he would look down and get two pointers in line with whatever the target was. Now, later on later developments of the bombsight had gyro stabilised bombsights where much of that mattered. Many of the parameters that were essential for bomb aiming were undertaken automatically. The height would be fed in from a, from an altimeter computer. The speed would be fed in by the same system as would register on the airspeed indicator. And as I say some of those parameters would be fed in automatically. Nevertheless, you would be the bomb aimer and this is what one hoped for pretty well every time was that the bomb aimer could see the target markers, target indicators on the ground and would be instructing the pilot which way to turn in order to get that cross right on that player and then push the tit. Now, if the weather was crap and there was no direct vision then it would be the navigator who would do so either through Gee or more likely and preferably through H2S. And I had my H2S set here and I could, I could, for example if there were a lake or an open space, a known open space in the centre of the city and you, your aiming point you would have calculated back to what was given you at briefing. If you can’t see, get a direct visual sight on the markers then aim for, for one five four degrees, three and a half miles from this park. And if you could identify that park on your H2S which frequently you could do if you were a good H2S operator then you could. You could get yourself to that position in the right direction and then you, the navigator would push the tit. And then it would probably come up, that method probably twenty thirty percent of occasions because so frequently you get over land the bomb aimer couldn’t see the markers. So we had, we had the means of dropping on either H2S or on Gee. Gee was a bit different. But the navigator would, I’d say swap over with him. The bomb aimer ideally, and this would happen in a good crew the navigator would train the bomb aimer to be able to operate the Gee or the H2S as accurately as he could himself. So the navigator could, well could supervise the thing and, and refine it whilst the, whilst the bomb aimer would be following it on on the radar.
GT: Now, you’re initial navigation training. What was that like compared to when you went back as an instructor yourself? Had, had they progressed in those years? Did they move forward with the new equipment? And, and how did you feel then becoming the instructor?
DN: Well, when I trained in the early days it was, it was pretty basic. We were flying Blenheims and you were doing ninety percent of it by visual pinpoints or by bearings or a bit by radio. Perhaps, not very much, by astro. When I went back as an instructor by then Gee had come in. H2S was just coming in. The Air Position Indicator was just coming in. So your techniques were changing. And one of the things I, I did when I was an instructor down at Abingdon was to devise exercises that were, as I saw it, much much more realistic. That reflected the kind of situations and procedures that one would encounter in the nav, in the real. You take, you take a crew or a crowd of navigators through and then you’d say and now you have H2S has gone u/s. What do you do? You know. And [they didn’t really know] [laughs]
GT: And what was the, what was the result? Did they come up with the right —
DN: Well I, I’m pretty damned sure that, that I ended up as an instructor exposing my pupils to a much more realistic situation. In fact, two or three of my my old pupils had said and I’m not trying to spread my own bullshit, did say that, you know, ‘You introduced us to practical navigation.’ I mean, I did, I did love navigation in every aspect and if I wasn’t operating I I think I became a good instructor because I enjoyed it.
GT: So your instructing role actually made, made you a far better navigator then you would have if you’d have just done one tour and then gone away.
DN: I think so. Yes. I say I, my, my period as an instructor was not in the final stages of training of a crew but in a fairly advanced. Advanced stage of their training. And I tried to make that as realistic to the real thing as I could.
GT: So how long did you actually serve with Bomber Command?
DN: How?
GT: How long did you actually serve with Bomber Command in the end?
DN: Well, that would have been nineteen [pause] 1941 until ’45 with, with a break of a few months when I was down in North Africa. But in that period I was still, as an instructor I was still in Bomber Command. Yeah. And I didn’t really come out of Bomber Command until I went out to to India to do glider towing and supply dropping and other silly things. Yeah.
GT: And by the end of your Bomber Command time you had accrued operations. Forty odd. Thereabouts.
DN: I did thirty on my first tour. Then I did my second tour. We had, with my skipper a number that didn’t necessarily go in the logbook. Yeah. My eyesight without going through my logbook over there I can’t tell you exactly how many. But I guess it was somewhere around about sixty five.
GT: And the Squadrons you flew on in Bomber Command?
DN: 156, 150 and shiny 10.
GT: And where were they based at that time please?
DN: 156 was at Warboys. W A R B O Y S that’s in what became 8 Group. 150 Squadron was in Kirmington which is in North Lincolnshire. And then out in a place called Blida in Algiers. Then 10 Squadron was at Melbourne. Just outside York. And then, and then out to India. India and Burma. Yeah.
GT: So —
DN: Oh, and Abingdon was where I did most of my instruction. Yeah.
GT: So your Bomber Command time was up and you received new posting orders. Did you seek something new or was that just the next thing on the rack for you? Where did you move to from there?
DN: Mostly accepted that that’s what was on, you know. In later years I got to get bloody awkward and would challenge it. When I, when I finished on the Halifax they wanted to, because I got my staff navigators qualification when I went to the staff nav school I mentioned earlier they wanted me to go to some unspecified staff post. And for some crazy reason I said, ‘No. I want to stay with the Squadron on operational duties.’ A bit bloody stupid in retrospect but [laughs] one was like that occasionally. Yeah.
GT: So you headed off to Burma then. Was that the next step after Bomber Command?
DN: Yeah. Yeah. Well, we were in India on general transport duties because although you went out there to participate in the invasion of Malaysia and we, we knew all about or knew some about glider towing and supply dropping and paratrooping that was off the cards then. But we, we did have a period up in northern Burma where we were supply dropping to some Burmese tribes. When the Japanese, I mentioned where I went with Bomber Command when the Japs were in northern Burma to a large extent they lived off the land and they stole their food, or requisitioned it from the locals. And a number of the British political, political agents who had been in the Burma Civil Service were parachuted into northern Burma and persuaded the locals to burn their stocks of rice which made, made life difficult for the Japanese who then had of course to provide their own food for their troops. So when the war was over the Burmese tribes concerned having burned much of their stocks of rice including their seed rice were on the point of starvation. So obviously the Brits were morally obliged to re-supply them. Well, the army did a lot of this with trucks but in some of the high mountain regions in the extreme north of Burma where the Kachin tribes lived, K A C H I N, it was way beyond the ability to get trucks and there were no railways. So the decision was made to supply them, supply, re-supply them with rice by air which is where we came in. And the terrain up there is very very difficult terrain. The mountains. Some of the mountains go up way over eighteen, twenty thousand feet. But the lower ranges you still had to if you want to get into some of these areas you’ve got to get up to about eleven thousand, twelve thousand feet. And the villages are generally built on the ridges. On the spine of the ridges. They had to go over, go down, spiral down, do your supply drops, climb up and out. And we were flying in Dakotas and we had the rice in sacks. No parachutes. Rice in sacks. In three sacks. One inside another so that we chucked them out of the door, or toppled them out of the door. And when they hit of course the inner sack might burst and the outer sack might tear. The chances of all three going were pretty remote. So we would, we would fly to the area, circle down and then we would stack the sacks of rice up in the — no door. Take the door off the Dakota. Put the sacks up. My favourite position was to stick a sack of rice on the floor on the starboard side and get my shoulders against it and feet against these sacks of rice. And while the co-pilot and the pilot and co-pilot would bring the aircraft down, normally you would come along the ridge. Never go across it because you could never judge the, judge the approach altitude accurately enough, so you would come along the ridge, getting lower and lower and honestly you’d only be twenty or thirty feet above the trees until you came over to the, the centre of the nominated village and a light would change above the door and you’d heave and pop the sacks of rice out and then go around again and do this. And we were engaged in that for about a month. Living in tents on an old Japanese airstrip at Meiktila. And then one particular sortie to a new, new grid, never been there before. There were four of us. Four aircraft and we were number one. So we flew, let down, did our drop and climbed up again and then went back to an advanced base to pick up some more rice and we saw number two aircraft starting to circle down. Any rate, to cut a long story short number four aircraft, we don’t know what happened to him. He never came back. And numbers two and three didn’t come back from their second drop. So out of the four aircraft who was the lucky one? Yes.
GT: And that was 10 Squadron you were with.
DN: Yeah.
GT: And they converted to C47s to go out.
DN: Yeah. Yeah.
GT: To the Burma time.
DN: Yeah.
GT: Ok.
DN: And that, details of that is in the latest 10 Squadron booklet.
GT: Marvellous. So, how long were you in that area for? In Burma.
DN: Came back in ’46. Yeah.
GT: And you carried on in the RAF?
DN: No. No. I would have carried on in the RAF but they would only offer me a short period and I wanted to go. If I was going to go in I wanted to go in for a career and they were hanging up on me. I think it was something like four years. And I said no thank you. So I then applied as a navigator with BOAC. The forerunner of British Airways. And they said, ‘Ok. But wait ‘til you get — ’ I applied while I was in India. So when I came back I applied and they said , ‘We don’t need any more navigators.’ However, I did stay with BA. With BOAC, BA for the next thirty five years in operational posts on the ground out in, oh Cairo, Khartoum, Basra, Kuwait. And then back to this new airport called Heathrow. And then from a series of luck and luck believe you me from what I’ve already told you luck played an extremely important part in my life in the RAF and my survival. Anyway, luck played a bloody big part in post-war and I stayed in British Airways, BOAC, British Airways for the rest of my career and ended up as general manager operations control in charge of minute to minute operations worldwide. If everything went alright I didn’t have a job. If anything went wrong I did have a job. So it didn’t matter if it was crew sickness, aircraft unserviceability, somebody digging up a runway running short of fuel, a war, a bomb warning, a hijacking then that was mine. Which was very exciting. It called on all of my experience and all I knew and I loved the job and I stayed there for the rest of my career. Wonderful job. Best job in the airline. Very exciting. All, if anything went wrong it was mine and I enjoyed it.
GT: What were the airliners that were about at that time when you were? The airliners that they were flying for BOAC at the time.
DN: Well, we had Concorde and we had the Jumbo. I mean when I started it was the flying, the old Flying Boats and the Lancastrians and converted York which was a development of the Lancaster. I mean, by, by agreement during the war the Americans took on the development of civil aviation and a definite agreement that Britain would not do that. So when the war ended we did not have a civil aviation industry. So we adapted the Lancaster to the Lancastrian. We modified it to make a York. We had the Halton which was a development of the Halifax. But the Lancastrian would take, I think it was nine passengers. And we did a cannonball service from Sydney to London and it landed, I think nine times. With nine passengers. And that was the crème de la crème of British civil aviation. I mean we had Flying Boats. Well, you had TEAL. TEAL had Flying Boats down, down under. And we had those when I was in Basra. But it took a, took a long time. And, and Britain didn’t have the money. Didn’t have the dollars to buy American aircraft. Quite a long time before we managed to get ourselves on our feet with, with decent aircraft. But when I left we, certainly we had the, we’d gone through the Britannia. We’d had that. We’d gone through the VC10 and we had by then the Jumbo which was after 707 and then the Jumbo and then Concorde. But that was before we had any of the [pause] what do you call it? The French manufacturer. Anglo French manufacturer.
GT: Aerospatiale.
DN: Yeah. Yeah. Before that had really got, got in to many of the civilian aircraft like the Airbus.
GT: Did you have anything to do with the Berlin Airlift? Being involved.
DN: No. No. No.
GT: Not with the airlines you had there.
DN: No.
GT: What about family then Doug? How did you get on with family? You got married. Did you have children?
DN: Yes. Two sons. One who you spoke to and an elder one who lives in London. The younger one he’s lived a very unconventional life [laughs] Has spent more time in the Antarctic than anywhere else with the British Antarctic Survey. More in the Arctic. And the elder one much more conventional. He’s an accountant. Or was an accountant and he now is a senior executive with a manufacturing company. And I mentioned that I had married the kid sister of my, the first pilot I had. So, so we had a [pause] I’ve had a bloody marvellous life. Luck has played a huge, huge amount. Opportunities that have arisen. Sheer luck.
GT: I understand you had some time with the royal family.
DN: Yeah. One of my jobs in BA was any time royalty was travelling for example if the Queen was coming out to New Zealand then I would get a phone call saying now we’ve got a flight coming up for the Queen to wherever. Give me the date. ‘How many?’ ‘Oh, about the usual crowd.’ [laughs] Allow for seventy five and seven and a half tons of baggage. Which way do you want — well for example going to New Zealand, ‘Which way do you want to go? Do you want to go east about or west about? ‘ ‘Well, you know a bloody sight more about that than I do so come up with some suggestions.’ And I, I had, I’ve got a list of over two hundred and fifty flights that I did for members of the royal family. I mean if it was the Queen then [pause] then I would decide which way. What kind of range do we want? Do we want a long range aircraft to do it in a minimum number or perhaps a smaller aircraft? And then gut the inside of the aircraft and divide it up with bulkheads to provide a lounge area, a dining area, a sleeping area and what have you. And all of the arrangements. I mean, it was good fun. And I had a fairly small team who who would get involved in that and we all took it as a challenge. So we had a lot of those.
GT: These were BOAC aircraft that you would do that to —
DN: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
GT: The queen did not have a Queen’s Flight at that time.
DN: No.
GT: Of her own aircraft?
DN: No. She had a number of small aircraft. They were mostly, well in the latter years they were Vickers or, anyway twin engines. Small. I can’t remember it. The old mind. But they weren’t, their own aircraft on the Queen’s Flight were essentially for use within the UK or within Europe. Or if they were going to do a big tour we would position them out there. I mean, I remember we did one where we took the Queen out to New Zealand and then she went from New Zealand to Oz and then up through the Solomon’s and what have you. And the Queen’s Flight I think positioned some of their smaller aircraft for flights between the islands. And then we went then and brought her back. That was, that was quite amusing. Before they went I said to the captain of the Queen’s Flight, ‘Well, what happens if while you’re away there’s an election?’ Because we were in a ghastly political uncertainty at the time. He said, ‘Oh, don’t worry.’ Queen Elizabeth, err Princess, ‘Princess Margaret is authorised to dissolve parliament.’ I said, ‘I’m not worried about that but if while you’re away there’s an election we’ve got to get the Queen back in time to appoint the new prime minister.’ And I remember Archie, Sir Archie Winskill who was captain of the Queen’s Flight, ‘Good thinking, my boy.’ [laughs] So I said, ‘If the election is on the Thursday as it always is you let me know where you’re going to be every Wednesday,’ which included the Cook Islands and Solomons and what have you. I said, ‘You let me know where you’re going to be every Wednesday and I will develop a plan to get home.’ So, anyway I developed these plans. Labelled each one of them with an identification letter. I said, ‘You have a copy in your briefcase and I’ll have a copy in my briefcase so at least we’re ready for it.’ And it was, oh it was a long tour. I remember it was a couple of weeks later I get a phone call. I was at home at the time but I was working on my wife’s rust bucket of a Morris Mini and my wife came and said, ‘There’s Buckingham Palace on the phone.’ And the message merely said, ‘Plan Sierra.’ And Sierra being the identity of when we were going to get her back. And we didn’t exchange another word but on the day there was our aircraft waiting for her and brought her home. And that was the kind of [pause] if you like it was good fun and everything was different. Yes. It was important and you get in trouble if you got it wrong. But no. I’m, it was a very nice simple airline job wasn’t it? Rewarding and it was exciting in a different way as my RAF time. I mean, I was extremely, extremely lucky.
GT: How long, how long were you working with the Queen’s Flight for? Or for the royal family.
DN: For really twenty four years.
GT: And I understand you received an award for your time.
DN: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
GT: And that award is?
DN: That was the Royal Victorian Order. I’m a lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order.
GT: And the letters are?
DN: Does it do me any good? No.
GT: And I understand also you were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
DN: Yeah.
GT: Can you please describe what that was for? And when?
DN: Well, that was for really for my second tour. Not for, not for any specific operation. For whether the citation refers to the standard of the whole Squadron. Navigation standard. The whole Squadron. And gives me credit for that. And and for leading. Leading the whole of the group on one or two operations like the one when we went for the oil target and I do, I can assure you that we were going over the Channel and my skipper said, ‘Doug, come back here.’ So I come from my little compartment in the nose. He said, ‘Put your head up in the astrodome and have a, have a look behind.’ And of course there’s three hundred and fifty bloody aircraft following me. I said, ‘I don’t want to know. Don’t remind me [laughs] Just shut up.’ [laughs] Oh well. No. I was extremely fortunate. I had lots of, lots of good friends. Lots of excitement. But the, I’d say one of which experiences was the way, the way these challenges seem to come out of nowhere and I enjoyed them.
GT: Bomber Harris, your boss at the time came in for a lot of criticism.
DN: Yeah.
GT: Specifically for carpet bombing and for that of bombing major cities.
DN: Yeah.
GT: That’s potentially weren’t strategic targets.
DN: Yeah.
GT: What’s your take on that? From, from being with it.
DN: We were in a situation of total war. It wasn’t a question of tit for tat. We were [pause] it was either them or us. And by then it was obvious that as far as Hitler was concerned he didn’t give a damn about what was right and what was wrong. Whether you should bomb civilians or not. And we were in total war and I for one accepted that. I know that there were times when I pushed the bomb tit and there would be grandma and grandad and the kids down below. Ok. Sorry. We were at war. I have, I regret having to do that kind of thing. I’m not ashamed of it. And if it happened again I’d do it again. I think towards the end Harris, what Harris did think he could do he could do it on his own. And it went, proved that he couldn’t. Nuremberg for example. The Nuremberg raid demonstrated very clearly that we were [pause] that German night fighters got their act together and we were, we were up against it so. But in the, in the perhaps slightly earlier days when we were really clobbering Germany city after city after city yeah. ok. War had descended in to that and I, I have no regrets. No conscience. And I think under the circumstances Harris was right. It cost many many many many of my mates. And others as well. But sorry. That’s war.
GT: Could they have done it any other way?
DN: I don’t think so. No. I don’t think so. We couldn’t, we, the army couldn’t have done it. And we didn’t have the capability of being that precise that we could pick out targets.
GT: Some have said that without the war happening and the methods and the designs of many things in aviation aircraft and your navigation equipment that that the world actually paced forward five years.
DN: Oh.
GT: Very quickly.
DN: Unquestionably. Certainly electronics, communications, navigation aids. A lot of, oh mechanical things must have developed at a hell of a pace. Plastics. Zips. You know, you can think of a billion things that came about through war. Stimulate. It did stimulate development. God, you’re up, you’re up against it. I mean, before I, before I joined the RAF I was in a UK government research, communications research laboratory, and funnily enough developing part of the radar. The ground. Ground defences radar that we had. So as a, as a youth I was exposed to that kind of development stuff pretty well soon after I left school. Yeah.
GT: In your later years you’ve been involved with Air Force Associations. Can you tell me something about the ones that you were associated with and the titles you’ve, you’ve ended up with?
DN: Well, I was very busy with the Bomber Command Association when I was living down near London and near Oxford and I was on the Executive Committee and we were very involved in the, in the Bomber Command Memorial in London. But then when we moved up here that was impractical and I joined, well I was in the RAF Association. So I joined the local branch where we have about [pause] we had I think twenty nine members when I joined the branch. And we now have sixteen. And [pause] we don’t do very much. That’s probably Brian. Is that you Brian?
Other: Yeah.
[recording paused]
DN: When I came up here I joined the RAF Association up here where we had a very small number of members and saw even fewer. And we’re, we’re now up to about seventy members. We, we rarely see more than about a dozen of them. So we’re not able to provide much in the way of social activity and as a result most of, most of our activity is connecting, collecting for the RAF charity. The RAF charity or the RAF Benevolent Fund. So I’ve done my stint of tin rattling. And as I say we have a very small band of loyal, very loyal volunteers. And we’re trying to, desperately trying to make it more active. To get ex-RAF people up here to participate more. We’re, we’ve got a website that will be up and going in the next few weeks. We’re on Facebook. And as I say one of, one of my problems is we collect money for RAF charity. We have problems in finding local people who need it or who will accept help. And it’s a pleasure if we’re, if we can, we can find somebody who, whom we can help. So much of the money goes into an overall pot and yet up here I’m sure there must be ex-RAF people who need help. And one of my ambitions has been to try and get those people to come out of the wood work and let us know they need a bit of help. I’ve found one or two but the number of, out of our seventy members we don’t have more than about ten or twelve people who between you and me get off their backsides to do much. So there we are. Anyway, that’s it.
GT: So currently you’re the president of the Royal Air Forces Association Cockermouth Branch.
DN: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Correct. Yeah.
GT: And I believe thank you for your services.
DN: You’re welcome. Yeah.
GT: Is in order. Doug, it has been a pleasure talking with you today. Thank you very much for allowing me to add to the IBCC’s Digital Archive. Specifically of your Bomber Command history and experience, and, and no less at all your experiences before and your time after. And so thank you very much for that.
DN: You’re welcome.
GT: And this —
DN: It has been a crazy life you must admit. Yeah.
GT: And you’ve obviously had a time and your, your willingness to sit and chat with me is —
DN: Yeah,
GT: Is very special. Thank you. On the 27th of July 2017 I’ve been talking with Doug Newham and he, from his house here in Upton Caldbeck in Cumbria this is Glen Turner from the IBCC Archives in Lincoln and the New Zealand 75 Squadron Association secretary. And we’re signing off now. Thank you very much, Doug.
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 Douglas Frank Newham
Creator
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Glen Turner
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-07-27
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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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ANewhamDF170727
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
Format
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01:33:33 audio recording
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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Burma
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
Description
An account of the resource
Douglas Newham enjoyed his career as a navigator. Over his career he saw the development of technology in his chosen field. He and his crew spent some of their time as part of North West African Strategic Air Force. Following time as an instructor at an Operational Training Unit he started a second tour in Europe. He then went on to operations over Burma dropping supplies. Post war he enjoyed a very interesting career in aviation working for BOAC and BA.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
10 Squadron
150 Squadron
156 Squadron
aircrew
Blenheim
bombing
Botha
C-47
Elizabeth II, Queen of Great Britain (1926 - 2022)
Gee
H2S
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
Lancaster
Lancastrian
military service conditions
mine laying
navigator
observer
Operational Training Unit
RAF Abingdon
RAF Kinloss
RAF Kirmington
RAF Melbourne
RAF Warboys
rivalry
training
Wellington
Whitley
York
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/106/1564/PBriggsDW1701.1.jpg
0ddb6a37aec4aa568c806c57545b57bd
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/106/1564/ABriggsDW170327.1.mp3
154ae8a60c9fc85e03bb0d4e30404e55
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
Briggs, Donald
Donald W Briggs
D W Briggs
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2017-03-27
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Briggs, DW
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21 items. The collection consists of one oral history interview with flight engineer Donald Ward Briggs (1924 - 2018), his logbook, memoirs and 16 wartime and post war photographs. He completed 62 operations with 156 Squadron Pathfinders flying from RAF Upwood. Post war, Donald Briggs retrained as a pilot flying Meteors and Canberras. He eventually joined the V-Force on Valiants and was the co-pilot for the third British hydrogen bomb test at Malden Island in 1957.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Donald Briggs and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Transcribed audio recording
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PJ: My name is Pete Jones. I’m interviewing Flight Lieutenant Donald Briggs DFC. Other people attending are Sandra Jones, Pete Jones and Ann Kershaw. It is Monday the 27th of March 2017 and we are in Mr Briggs’ home in Freeland, Oxfordshire. Thank you Donald for agreeing to be interviewed for the IBCC. Donald, now tell me about your early years before you joined up Bomber Command.
DB: Right. Thank you Peter. Well, I was brought up in a small village called Lealholm which was about ten miles from Whitby on the north east coast and my parents ran the village post office and general stores and I, I used to help out while I was a teenager and that sort of thing and then I went to, I went to Whitby County School, a good grammar school and I did five years there but I decided that having seen some advertising literature for the air force and apprenticeships at RAF Halton, and so I applied and then I sat the entrance exam and got through all right, and this was as things were building up towards World War Two. And so the Royal Air Force were recruiting ground servicing personnel in pretty large numbers. At this time I was a fifteen year old and so I saw my chance to learn all about aircraft and what, how you put them together and so on and so I applied for the examination as I said. And I joined at Halton on two days after the war was declared. And that was on the 5th of September 1939. And so there is little doubt that the harsh discipline at Halton coupled with excellent theoretical lessons in schools, and the schools were known as Kermode Hall after the well-known Kermode, the aerodynamicist and he used to teach there actually, and many hours filing pieces of metal in workshops. And it turned boys into men and later in the course we worked in teams stripping down and re-assembling many types of aero engines and at the end of the training which was reduced a bit because of being wartime, and there was a great demand for fitters out in the units, in the fighting units. So my first posting was at RAF Finningley which is about ten miles from Doncaster. And I worked there on the engines of Wellington bombers and Hampden bombers and the Rolls Royce Vulture engines in the Avro Manchester and they, they gave a lot of trouble and er, which meant there were several engine changes that I assisted in. And the next posting was to RAF Upper Heyford where I was promoted to corporal at the age of eighteen. Now there I worked on the Wellington Mark 3 with more powerful Hercules engines and after carrying out rectification on an aircraft if an air test was necessary I usually asked if I could accompany the pilot. Which I did on several occasions and after approximately two and a half years I decided that more excitement was needed so I volunteered for air crew. The president of the selection board said that I had passed all the tests to become a pilot, but the waiting list for pilots was pretty lengthy and also there was a little demand, this was mid-1943 and the commanding officer of the board interviewing, the selection board er he, he said, ‘Now look you’re already a technician, a fitter 2E,’ he said, ‘And what we need is flight engineers,’ and so he said, ‘You want to, you’ll be on operations within six months. You do want to fight don’t you?’ And of course I had to say, ‘Yes. Of course I do,’ and that’s how I became a flight engineer, by passing the course at Royal Air Force St Athan in Wales. Now, during this crewing up procedure when I finished my training I was sent to Lindholme near Doncaster. I was fortunate in meeting the captain of the crew that I was to fly with. He was Flying Officer Bill Neal with his crew and they had already completed a tour of operations on Wellingtons. Now Bill explained that they had been selected to join the Pathfinder force and what our duties would entail. Our first step was to convert on to the Halifax Mark 1 because these were ex beaten up old war, operational aircraft that had seen better days, and so we had to train on them and during our training sorties, Bill Neal gave me a potted flying lesson so that the very, very first aircraft I flew was the Halifax. And that flew alright and I got the hang of how to fly straight and level and do gentle turns and so on, but we completed the course of thirty hours and went on to convert on to the Lancaster at RAF Hemswell, north of Lincoln. Or nearer to Gainsborough actually. I did the night conversion on to the Lancaster on my twentieth birthday, would you believe? And after attending a short course to learn the Pathfinder procedures we joined number 156 squadron Pathfinders at RAF Upwood near Peterborough. And as a new crew we had two weeks of training to complete during which time I took on the additional role of bomb aimer. I was taught how to run up on the, set the bomb sight up to start with and, and then how to run up and give corrections to the pilot, running up to the dropping point, aiming point. And we dropped practice bombs at a nearby bombing range which I seemed to get the hang of quite, quite well. And also during this time Bill Neal vacated his seat. There were no dual control Lancasters on squadrons you see, just a single set of controls in the left hand seat for the captain, but he allowed me to fly this superb aircraft, the Lancaster. And on completion of this training we were declared operational and on the 11th of June 1944, we saw that our crew was on the battle order. All a bit, a bit terrifying for a new chap like myself. The target was vast marshalling yards at Tours in the south of France. The Germans were routing most of their reinforcements through here to the Normandy battlefront. Now, on this particular trip we had a couple of night fighter sightings and attacks and Bill Neal being a terrific pilot he corkscrewed and got rid of them. The whole secret was if you had a rear gunner with such good night vision and if he saw the night fighter before he saw you, then you stood a fairly decent chance of getting away without, without disaster. Well, firstly I volunteered for aircrew and I was fully committed now. There was no turning back. Anybody that did turn back were, were called lack of moral fibre and they were, they were given the most terrible mucky jobs that you could ever imagine. And so, but anyway I stuck with it and destiny would decide whether or not I survived. And secondly I was fortunate in joining a very experienced crew and they all made me a welcome addition to the crew. They had not flown previously with a flight engineer because the Wellington didn’t need one and so on. I should explain that in Pathfinder crews the reason the flight engineers took on the extra duty of visual bomb aimer was that the primary bomb aimer operated the H2S radar, and a lot of our targets relied on this for identification and running up and so on. Now 156 Squadron were primarily a blind marker squadron which meant that if no target indicator flares were seen by the master bomber, he would call for blind markers to be dropped and they were reds which is where we came in. And they would be seen cascading and so on, and give an initial aiming point for the main force of bombers running in. The master bomber would then know that the markers were dropped blind and the target had not been visually identified. But on the very first operation we were about to fly we were part of the illuminating force, and we carried twelve rather large hooded parachute flares. And you drop all twelve together and that was like turning the target into a daylight. The visually illuminated target so they were able to, to identify the aiming point, the master bomber. We had a master bomber and his deputy and he had a dicey job. He used to go right down to about four thousand feet and circle around and a very dangerous job. Some of them didn’t make it and were shot down. And on the first ten operations mostly dropping flares, and on — I was mentioning earlier about the run in to the Tours marshalling yards we had two night fighter attacks and we thought actually that — we heard later that these were night fighter pilots that were training down in France so they weren’t sort of fully, fully operational like their counterparts in, up in Germany and Holland and so on. And so it was a great feeling to be safely on the ground back at our Upwood base and I often used to say to my colleagues, my — well between us we’ve said we climbed up that ladder of the Lancaster at the back end where you board the aircraft, not knowing whether we’d ever be in the position to come back, climb down it again on to terra firma so — but happily I did that sixty-two times. Gratefully rather, I survived those to, climb down that ladder again. And I, our crew was sent on Allied support for the ground forces on the Normandy battlefront and we dropped sticks of one thousand pounders, fourteen bombs in a rapid stick of bombs from only four thousand feet. And the aircraft shook very badly with the blast as you’d expect at that height, and we could see the blast rings coming up from other people’s bombs as well. And we also attacked the V1 launch sights in the Pas-de-Calais area. And the, we formation, six Lancasters formatted on a Mosquito aircraft which was equipped with this very accurate blind bombing system called Oboe. They, they used that for, some of the Pathfinder squadrons used it for marking targets as well. So that when his bomb doors opened we opened ours and when we saw the bombs leave his bomb bay we hit our bomb release button and, as you can imagine that was a lot of bombs going down, usually finishing up in rendering the buzz bombs site unusable. And that must have saved a lot of lives in the, around London. And my first German target was Hamburg, and that was our thirteenth op. And it was quite a, quite a dicey town. Very heavily defended of course as always was Hamburg, being a major port and ship building and that. But we came through the barrage unscathed. My skipper always used to say, ‘What you see in the sky is what’s been, the flak bursts and they’re not going to do us any harm. It’s the ones you can’t see that er.’ But anyway, night fighters were of course were in the area, and we saw several bombers going down in flames, and erm, it was a sickening sight and we, er, sort of sympathised with our colleagues and comrades. They would meet their end in a fireball from bombs and fuel when they hit the ground. It was a sickening sight but we made a note of its position and we got on with our own job. And there wasn’t much else you could do. [pause] Bill Neal, my skipper, always said to me, ‘Don,’ he said, ‘when we’ve finished our tour of operations,’ not if but when, he said, ‘I’m going to put you up for commissioning and,’ he said, ‘Then you can join the rest of us in the officer’s mess.’ So I said, ‘Oh well that’s good. Pleased to hear that,’ and sure enough that’s what happened. After I’d done forty operations and about the end of my first tour and I had an interview with Air Vice Marshall, Don Bennett up at Pathfinder headquarters and he was satisfied and so I became Pilot Officer Don Briggs. And erm, so the — I carried on with Bill because he was awarded the DFC because he’d already, that completed two tours of operations having done one before I met him. So what one more tour and of course usually, certainly a skipper got the DFC. And, but I’ll just tell you during a daylight operation to a target called Kleve in October ’44, we had a flak burst right on the port wing tip. And it, we thought it was really the end, you know, because it was that close. And it damaged the aileron quite badly on the port side, but we still had, skipper had control of the aircraft well and with his amazing piloting skill brought us back to a safe landing back at Upwood. But there was substantial damage, the aileron was, was in a terrible mess. And I pressed on in to my second tour with Bill apart from one operation with another crew as their flight engineer had completed his tour of operations. And one of which was with the squadron commander, one of these battlefront operations, and I had the gunnery leader, the squadron leader was — I was on the bomb sight at the front, and he was in the front turret with his legs, and one of his legs was in plaster. He’d, he’d broken a leg or done something, and in plaster, and this was rubbing on my ear as I was trying to aim bombs and he was swivelling around the front turret which normally wasn’t manned at all. And so that was about it. I’m happy to say that despite several very close shaves, I came through sixty two operations unscathed. Lady Luck was certainly on my side. Bill Neal pressed on with another flight engineer and notched up just short of a hundred ops and he was awarded the DSO and he’d already got the DFC. And the French awarded him the Croix de Guerre, and I’m eternally grateful to Bill for getting me through the most dangerous period of my life. He made sure that my operational record was recognised resulting in the award of the DFC in July 1945. I’ve got a few statistics here which are, to save boring everybody, the number of French targets that we did was twenty-four but German targets exceeded that. Thirty-eight we did to German targets. Forty-one of those were night operations and we did twenty-one daylight operations some of which were daylight ops on Ruhr targets in the hell’s, what do they call it? Hell’s valley or something? Happy valley. That was it. And forty-one of those operations we had our own Lancaster which was GT J-Johnny. And so we flew that and of course that meant our own ground crew and we got to know them pretty well. Of those ops we did three raids on oil refineries, because the Germans were desperately short of fuel towards the end of the war and you can’t run a war machine without fuel. And the V1 sights we did, five of those attacks I was telling you about and five on the battlefront and, and then four on marshalling yards. Ruhr targets. Yes ten. We did ten of those and four in daylight, and my last thirty operations were all German targets. Now, it was a massive relief as you can imagine to have survived all those ops and great to be able to enjoy end of second tour leave with my parents and four younger brothers. I’m the eldest of five. So that ended my wartime contribution to the, to the war effort and I, after the war I was selected for Transport Command and flew on Yorks as a flight engineer going out to India and the Far East. And did that for a couple of years and then was posted to the Empire Test Pilot School at Farnborough and I got some valuable experience there. Only the very, very best of pilots were selected and of course we had exchange officers from America, from the United States Air Force and also the US navy. They sent a representative to the, representative to the empire test pilots course. And a lot of those test pilots that I flew with under training they became, you know, top test pilots for the different companies. And so a very interesting three years out, flying Lincolns and things mostly. And after that I was posted to Manby in Lincolnshire where I met an ex-Pathfinder wing commander and he advised me if I wanted to take pilot training, re-train as a pilot, I should write him a letter which I did. And he must have found it fairly satisfactory ‘cause he, he had me to London, to Hornchurch for a selection board and I passed everything there, all the aptitude tests and so on. And very soon in the summer of ’51, late summer, I started training as a pilot at RAF Ternhill in Shropshire and that was — I enjoyed every minute, every minute of that. It was wonderful. And so er, I passed out from there, graduated and awarded those prestigious pilot’s wings that, all RAF pilots remember being presented with their wings. And so I’ll lead on later to describe my, what, what the, what my path through the peacetime air force was. Right. Now. In the August of 1951, I was allowed to start my conversion to retrain as a pilot. And so I promptly, having got furnished accommodation for Edith and we had two children then and, in Louth, and I used to travel across to Ternhill in Shropshire. So the first two weeks of the course naturally was ground school and exams and all the rest of it. And then we started flying, and the aircraft then for training was the Percival Prentice which was a lumbering old thing, but you could do, you could do sort of basic aerobatics with it and so I went solo on that. My instructor sent me off on my own after about four or five hours. Something like that. And then I did sixty hours on the jet, Percival Provost and then I went on to Harvards and that was a wonderful machine to fly. A very big powerful five hundred and fifty horsepower engine in front of you and not easy to see when you’re flowing out for landing. The engine gets in the way, you’ve got to sort of look over the side a little bit. Anyway, I loved flying the Harvard and completed the course and did my final handling test and so on and graduated for my pilot’s wings presented by some air vice marshall and so I’ve still got the photograph. I trained with a lot of chaps that were engineering officers and they were sort of doing a seconded tour in the general duties flying branch just before going back on to engineering. And so from there it was a question of advanced training over at Oakington in Cambridgeshire, and the Meteor was the standard trainer for jet conversion. I had a French instructor of the French Armee de L’air, and George Golee [?]sent me on my first solo in a Meteor Mark 7 and that was enjoyable and went very well. And the, then working my way through the course — the one thing that I didn’t enjoy too much was at night climbing above thirty thousand feet unpressurised and I had a pretty bad attack of the bends. And ask anybody what the, what that’s like and all your joints, it’s the nitrogen that comes out in the joints of your, everywhere knees, ankles the whole lot, so you can only spend a few minutes above thirty. However, and down we came, and the one thing about the Meteor was when you’d been up high everything used to mist up on the inside so you’re sort of rubbing frantically to be able to see out for the landing. However, that was ok and I passed my final handling test with the wing commander, chief instructor and he seemed quite pleased with my performance and he, on landing, after landing offered me the chance of going straight back to Central Flying School to become a flying instructor. Like what we would call in the service creamed off. Creamed off CFS. Now I politely declined and said I was flattered and so on, but I would like to proceed to a Canberra squadron. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Yes, that’s fine just I was giving you the chance, you know.’ So that’s what I did, and I proceeded to Bassingbourn to convert on to Canberras, and in those days there was no dual controlled Canberra. You just had to ride alongside someone on the, what we used to call the rumble seat, and er, see what he did and make a note of the speeds and everything, and then on the second trip he would climb out and look up through the hatch and raise his thumb and say are you happy, and all the rest of it and off I went. Well I think somebody else had control, namely the almighty I think had control of that Canberra on take-off. They er, it was so steep, but anyway. I enjoyed my first, first solo and certainly strange having to fly an aircraft where you’d never handled the controls previously, anyway. And so from there I was posted right up to Lincolnshire to, to join 10 Squadron. We were just forming the first Canberra squadron at Scampton. And we, straightaway I was made a flight commander and in charge of all the servicing and so on, on the eight Canberras. And so we, we got on pretty well and the Canberra’s a wonderful aircraft to fly. Quite light on the controls and plenty of power there and so on. And we did lots of exercises, and I always remember on my first early night flying we were, couldn’t land back at Scampton because of bad weather and we were diverted down in to Cornwall to then St Eval which is just near, just north of Newquay. And the trouble with St Eval is that the runway is up high on the cliffs and you come, you come right in on the approach and this was at night and remember, and I hadn’t flown at night for quite some time and coming in over these cliffs and the runway itself had a great big hump in the middle so you could only see half of it when you touched down. And then happily the final half of the runway came into view as you went over the hump. But I got away with it alright, and so and then of course we spent the night and went back to Scampton the following day. My, my time at Scampton involved quite a lot of diversions. There was once we were diverted up to Kinloss in Scotland. And the Canberra had a fairly good performance for, for the time in the air, endurance as we called it. And so during that time on Canberras my boss was, he was an ex-flight commander over at Binbrook on Canberras, and he was promoted and took over 10 Squadron. And Punch Howard [?] was a great Mosquito night fighter ace and he used to go over these German night fighter airfields and fire off the colours of the day and join in the circuit and shoot down two or three night fighters by doing so. And for this he got the DFC and the DFC and bar as well. And so he set up a formation display team and he gave me a check for my formation flying, and he was happy so I joined his team. And we used to give displays up and down the country and there was one in particular when the National Air Races were on at Coventry airport. And so we gave this display and they gave us a good write up in the flight magazine and also a very congratulatory letter from the president of the Royal Aero Club, which I’ve still got a copy. And so that was, that was my forte if you like on 10 Squadron and from there I, we were actually moved over to East Anglia to, to 3 Group at Honington, RAF Honington near Bury St Edmunds actually. And so I spent about three or four months there before they suddenly came up with a posting and I was to be one of the first pilots to join the new V bomber force on Valiants. The, the courses were starting at RAF Gaydon near Leamington Spa, and so I joined as a co-pilot for Squadron Leader Arthur Steele, who later became air commodore. And so we were posted initially to 138 Squadron at Wittering and Edith was — we actually couldn’t get married quarters, they hadn’t built, they hadn’t finished building them so we lived in an old country hall called Rushington Hall. And so the, it was a wonderful old place, and we had one wing of the place to ourselves and it had a lounge half the size of a hangar. And the boys used to ride around on their tricycles up and down the corridors in this thing, this place. But it was, it was good and then by the time we’d spent three or four months there we were given a married quarter at Wittering and we, there we stayed in that for a good five or six years. Then 138 Squadron was the first squadron to form on Valiants of course but then they were forming a new squadron, 49, 49 Squadron to do the Grapple operation. That was the H bomb trials in the pacific from Christmas Island and our crew, Arthur Steele that is, and myself and the rest of the crew, were selected and in the April, sorry in the March of 1957 we all flew out to Christmas Island via Canada. Goose Bay first and then Edmonton, Alberta and then down to San Francisco where we spent a couple of days, and were able to do some sightseeing and exploring in the good old San Francisco. And then the big leg from there to Honolulu was against headwinds normally and we could work out that providing that the headwinds weren’t greater than sixty knots we were ok. We had enough fuel to get there and a little bit to spare. But and as it happened on the day the winds were lighter than that so we were fine. So it was, Arthur Steele was a good skipper. He used to share the landings with me and if it was my turn come hell or high water I would do it and the one at Honolulu was at Hickam air force base and you come right in over Pearl Harbour on the final approach. So that was, I couldn’t look for very, very long I’m afraid, just a quick glance. And so we had a lovely time and it happened to fall on St Patrick’s Day when we were in and of course there was a big, the Americans celebrate that pretty well and we had, they entertained us very well in the officer’s club. And a couple of days later we flew down the thousand mile leg to the south of Christmas Island. Now, the runway had been built by the army, The Royal Engineers and they’d made a good job of it. It was quite a, not a tremendously long runway, but it was long enough just over two thousand yards. And that’s where we prepared for our H bomb drop. So we saw the first one, Squadron Commander Ken Hubbard he dropped the first and Dave Roberts the flight commander he dropped number two and it was our turn for number three. So we’d all prepared and done the drills and so on, the dropping drills. Now, I want to emphasise that we didn’t drop these H bombs and they went into the sea. They burst at eight thousand feet. So there was no, no fallout like some of the previous tests had done by well, say the Americans perhaps or the Japanese they, well, no the Japanese didn’t have it in those days. However, the, there was no fallout and the, but we took ours, it was on June the 19th ‘57 and the yield wasn’t quite as much as the scientists wanted but it was good enough and they were, the British government were then able to specify, say, Britain now can become the, have the facility of nuclear deterrent. The nuclear fallout, nuclear bomb. And so there was to be a fourth, but that was cancelled and we all came the reverse route and flew home. And flew back to Wittering and so that was, that was Operation Grapple. And so we, we settled down and then I, after that, shortly, short time after that I became a captain on the Valiant and posted back to 138 Squadron. [pause] After completing my tour as a Valiant captain which I enjoyed very much, I used to get trips out to Nairobi and did Salisbury which is now called Harare, I think. And er, Germany. I did several trips there with the Valiant and my co-pilot was an ex-fighter pilot, been stationed in Germany so he was able to show us how to get on there in our leisure time. We then, I was posted to Gaydon, as I said and became a ground school instructor on the Victor mark two. Wonderful aircraft, well built and it had all the then high tech, what was high tech in those days, you wouldn’t call it that now. And I used to teach that, and for doing that they allowed me to do first of all the pressured breathing course, because the Victor two would go up to fifty-two, fifty- three thousand feet and if you had an explosive decompression there you were, you were automatically on pressure breathing to get down to forty thousand as quick as possible. So having completed that which, which, which was a bit rigorous, I was able to do the flight simulator on the Victor two and then fly with the OCU instructors. OCU being Operational Conversion Unit which was at Cottesmore. So I, I enjoyed about six flights from either the captain’s seat or the co-pilot’s seat and enjoyed very much flying the Victor and streaming the great big parachute on landing. And you’d swear that somebody had clamped the brakes hard on when you streamed that, fantastic thing and I was later to come across it of course on the Vulcan. So that was the Victor two. Now, from there I was decided to do the central flying school course at Little Rissington. Near Bourton on the Water that was and so I did the course and qualified and became a flying instructor and was posted to Syerston, which was a flying training school near Newark in Nottinghamshire. And there I, I was checked out by the standards people, and allowed to instruct on the aircraft. And my first bunch of students, there was one of them who was particularly good material and tremendous potential and I could tell the way he was flying I only had to show him something once and he had it off pat, absolutely as good as I could show him. And that gentleman was called Brian Hoskins and he later, in later years joined the Red Arrows. He was a member of the team to start with when they were flying the Gnat and then he became leader, and converted them from the Gnat on to the Hawk which they use now of course. And so he led the Red Arrows for, for a couple of years so I’m rather proud of the fact that I helped train him and taught him his first aerobatics and formation flying, which was pretty essential for being in the Red Arrows as you can imagine. So, anyway I enjoyed my tour and I was promised to have a double tour on instructing on the Jet Provost, and I was just enjoying every minute. However, that was not to be. Because I, because I had previous V bomber experience they posted me up to Finningley, where I was to do the Vulcan course. The Vulcan Mark two and so once, once I was trained and finished the course as a Vulcan captain and I went to, you say, call it solo if you like but strangely enough I had an American colonel for my co-pilot on my first trip in a Vulcan. And first trip as captain anyway and he he’d done a tour in Vietnam had this chap, so a very accomplished pilot. And so after that I had to do a short spell of a year or so in the flight simulator, because having an instructor rating of course you need to establish familiarity and the checklist and emergencies in the flight simulator before they actually did the flying. However, they said, ‘Well don’t get too downhearted about it,’ he said, ‘When you’ve done this short spell in the simulator we’ll groom you for stardom Donald and you’ll be given the flying instructor course on Vulcans.’ And that’s how I became a Vulcan flying instructor initially, and they cut, I had to cut my teeth on some young co-pilots who were converting from the right hand seat to the left hand seat just for, they were from squadrons of course. And it meant that they were fairly flexible and they could, providing their captain could, could fly from the right hand seat they would, they would do that. And so and then I went on to take a whole crew, a full crew. And I trained some fairly senior officers, the odd wing commander that was taking over a squadron or a station, a group captain who would be taking over a Vulcan station and so give them the course and and I had some, I had some nasty experiences at night particularly with training, training co-pilots. And they failed to recognise that in a Vulcan once you allowed the speed to fall the Vulcan was, became a high drag machine and it dropped out of the sky very quickly. And so of course being instructors we could recognise this fairly quickly to take control and save the situation as it were. And I had to do this on more than one occasion. At night particularly. Sorry. [recording paused] After completing my tour on the Vulcan OCU as an instructor, I was given my own crew. And we were posted out to Cyprus on to Number nine squadron and I was to become the squadron QFI and then carry out normal duties of a squadron crew as well. So that was wonderful. Edith and I flew out on a VC10 from Brize Norton and the rest of my crew found their way out there somehow. And one of my crew, his wife played the piano, and I’ll just tell you this. You can have a good laugh. She, they managed to even to fly this piano out to Cyprus on some transport aircraft, a Belfast or something. And so anyway, we settled down and we had a very nice hiring in Limassol itself and that was until a married quarter came up and, which it did. After about three months we moved up on to the base into a very nice married quarter and there I continued my, my tour on the squadron and it was very enjoyable. We were able to — if we weren’t flying in the morning we were free to go at about one o’clock and after lunch we were on the beach taking in the sunshine and the nice, in the lagoons swimming. Swimming by the rocks and so on, in the crystal clear water. It was lovely really. It was like a paid holiday. And so that’s how I finished my air force service. I came out in 1973 and I was given a nice send off in the, in the officers mess, dining in night. And so we, Edith and I we’d bought a Volvo car and I was hoping to get it in duty free, but to get a car in from overseas duty free you’d got to have it over a year and I’d only had this Volvo about six months so I knew I was going to have to pay duty on it. However, we drove home. Got the ferry to Athens and then we drove, various little ferries from a place on the mainland to Corfu. And we spent three nice days in Corfu and then on to Brindisi and we drove up the east coast of Italy to, past Venice and up to almost before you cross the St Bernard’s, St Bernard’s pass. There was no tunnels in those days. And that’s how we got home for a series of ferries and arriving home and we still had our place in Doncaster and we sort of tried to settle down as civilians, which was rather strange because when you become a civilian after thirty-five years of air force service you, you feel you’ve lacked that sort of cushion, that cocoon. You’re cocooned in a, in a sort of safe situation in the services and you’ve got to, you’re out in to the big, big world out there to try and make a living. Well I started off by trying to sell insurance from door to door and I got blown out of many a place and without selling anything. And so that turned out to be a dead loss and we tried looking around for a post office and we found one in York. We actually had bought a property now, a new bungalow in York which was very nice. And we ran this post office for, oh I guess about three or four months, and we were going to buy it from the present owner and he must have fallen foul of the head post master of York because he said that, ‘If you sell that,’ he said, ‘I’ll close it down.’ And so we couldn’t, we couldn’t have that and I settled into an insurance office job which wasn’t very exciting. Now, some member of the family was doing a course at Kidlington Airport near Oxford and he said, ‘Donald, why don’t you get yourself down there and get a commercial licence and they want you as a flying instructor,’ and I did just that. It took me about three months and I finished up as a commercial flying instructor on the Oxford Air Training School. And there I did fourteen years and trained many pilots for the commercial airlines, British Airways included, Aer Lingus, British Midland, Singapore Airlines and many others. And it was very enjoyable and rewarding. The, the ones I didn’t have much joy with were the Algerians. They were a bit of a peculiar lot but, however I retired then after fourteen years and I still went on flying at RAF Halton, where my service life started of course in 1939. So I joined the Microlight Flying Club and they immediately enrolled me as their chief flying instructor so I did a bit more instructing on microlights, and not the weight shift, I wouldn’t fly those. These microlights were proper stick and rudder aircraft and so on. And so I was happy with that, and it just so happened I trained a couple of air marshals. They came through and wanted checking out on microlights so, so I flew with them and a very nice situation. And I went on flying those until I was eighty four and then I thought well I’ve just about had enough. I think I’ll. I’ll give it up now, the flying, and so I haven’t flown since and we are now in 2017. So, so, [laughs] right. However I’ve had a very, very enjoyable flying career and I’ve got a lot, a lot to be thankful for. So that’s the end of my little broadcast. Thank you.
SJ: So did you have any, in all the times you were flying, did you have any lucky mascots or superstitions.
DB: Oh well no, not really. I tend, you tend to sort of get into a habit so that you know if you do something — I can’t give you a quote somehow I can’t sort of think of much that, that would, would do it. But I think you know you make preparations. It doesn’t matter what sort of flight you do you’ve got to prepare for it and otherwise you know if you just go leaping off without checking anything. Now, you see some of the material I could give the people who are coming after this. I’ve got one that the BBC did on me. They came out to Halton and checked. I mean I don’t want to waste time now showing it to you. I could, it only runs for about three minutes anyway but it was on BBC South Today and Geraldine Peers have you, do you remember her?
SJ: Yeah. Know her.
DB: She started, she introduced it and there was Jeremy Stern did the interview.
PJ: You’re quite a celebrity then Donald.
DB: Oh yeah. Well, I was at the time.
PJ: Yeah.
DB: I don’t think many people would remember it but the, and then they edited it and Frank Sinatra, “Come Fly With Me,” you know, it sounds, it sounds quite good and you see me take off in the latest microlight. It was a lovely craft called the Sky Ranger.
PJ: Yeah.
DB: And I mean we, my brother Malcolm helped to build it. He did all the instrument layout of that. You’ve flown in that with me haven’t you?
AK: Yes.
DB: No, you flew in -
AK: I flew with my head down.
DB: I’ve forgotten. That was the Thruster we flew in.
AK: Oh right.
DB: I don’t think you ever flew in that Sky Ranger. No.
AK: And never again.
DB: Oh I taught you. I gave you a potted flying lesson Ann.
AK: Yes. For free.
DB: Yeah. All for free. So -
PJ: When you were in the Pathfinders.
DB: Right.
PJ: To get in to the Pathfinders were you told that you were going in the Pathfinders? Were you transferred or did you volunteer because I’m not sure?
DB: No. The way it worked, Peter is that I, like a bunch of other guys that had passed out from St Athan as flight engineers we all had to obviously go on to bombers or transport. Some of them even went on to Sunderland Flying Boats and Coastal Command and so on. However, I, we all went on parade and there was the crews, crews that were going to do the course were six people. There was the pilot, navigator and bomb aimer, the wireless operator and two gunners. Six people. All we were shirt of, short of was a flight engineer. So Bill Neal strode up and down, and I don’t know what it was but he just caught my attention and I sort of nodded and he said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Tell me about yourself.’ So I said, he said, ‘Have you done any flying?’ I said, ‘Well yeah a few with air tests, you know, flying in Wellingtons and that sort of thing on air tests but not, not all that many hours,’ but so, and he said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘You’re probably just the chap we’re looking for. Do you want to come and fly with us?’ So I said, ‘Well, yeah. Thank you,’ and he said, ‘We’ve all done a tour of ops so experienced crew and he, ‘cause he’d been instructing down at Harwell. There was an OCU at Harwell and Hampstead Norris was their satellite and so on. Bill Neal this was. So anyway and he said, ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘We’re not going to the main force.’ That would have been 1 Group or 3 Group. He said, ‘We’re going to Pathfinders.’ 8 Group and he said, so I said, ‘I don’t know. I’m not the wiser,’ I said, ‘Tell me about it,’ ‘Well,’ he said, and then he went on to describe, you know we, we will be doing this that and the other and helping to mark, find the targets. Good navigator and we did have a good navigator and find targets first and then mark them or help the master bomber to mark them. But when that first crew had done a tour they all left and we got, not all of them, sorry, the two gunners left and the navigator, that’s the first, what we would call the plotter, not the H2S operator, George Hodges, he stayed with us. Johnny Carrod, the radio, the wireless operator, he stayed, and so we had to find two gunners and a new navigator. Now, the gunners we were lucky, because there was a guy called Eric Chamberlain and he had hawk eyes. He could see in the dark this guy. He could honestly. His night vision was amazing. He could, he would see the night fighter before the night fighter saw us. And then, but the Canadian, the navigator was a Canadian flight sergeant and he was thrown in at the deep end. He had no operational experience at all and the first, he got us lost on the first trip! And I had to get them out, Bill Neal thrust a map in my hands and I said, I said, ‘I’m not,’ it was at night I said, ‘I’m not ruddy good at map reading,’ [laughs] But it so happened that we were running up on the, what they called the Frisian islands, the Dutch islands and there was one in particular that I recognised that was the shape on the map. And I was able to give him a pinpoint on that and actually the target was up in Northern Denmark. Well it was German occupied of course as you know but, and that’s how he, but he improved and he wasn’t bad, you know later on. His name was Archer, and I can never remember his first name but he was a young Canadian. Yeah.
PJ: Did you stay in touch with the crew after the war? Any of your crew members?
DB: Just, just Bill Neal I’m afraid. Johnny Carrod died fairly young and his house was burgled and he lost his DFC. That was stolen. And you know you can buy the odd whatever it is like theatre replica or something.
PJ: Yeah.
DB: But -
PJ: No.
DB: It’s not the same as the original. I was going to get mine to show you.
PJ: Yeah.
DB: And [coughs] excuse me. But George Hodges, he, he, er, I spoke to him on the phone but I never actually saw him because he never attended our reunions did George so, and that was it really. I lost touch with all of them really.
PJ: Did you -
DB: Except Bill Neal.
PJ: Yeah.
DB: Bill Neal and I met at the Hendon museum. At the RAF Museum at Hendon and we had a full day touring around. Pictures taken near that Lancaster which says, “No enemy aircraft -
PJ: Yeah. Yeah.
DB: Shall penetrate German airspace.”
PJ: Yeah.
DB: Old Goering you see.
PJ: Yeah.
DB: And we had our pictures taken with that.
PJ: Yeah.
DB: And all the hundred odd bombs on the side, you know, painted on.
PJ: Is it, is it a fallacy you all, that the whole crew stuck together and when you went out you all went together to the pub? Is that - ?
DB: More or less oh -
PJ: A fallacy? Because -
DB: Somewhere I’ve got a picture of my first car which was a little Austin seven tourer and I bought that from a Canadian who was finished his ops and was off back to Canada. And I bought that car for thirty-five quid and it was a tiny little two seater really but people used to sort of get, we had the whole crew on that [laughs]. Can you imagine the springs [laughs].
PJ: Brilliant.
DB: And to start it all you had was just a blade. You could start it with a screwdriver.
PJ: Yeah.
DB: And I had the keys in my pocket and I parked outside the pub and when I went outside it was gone. Somebody had stolen it and they’d obviously had a blade of some sort, a knife maybe and just turned the thing and started the engine and away and they stole it. But it was found abandoned up near the airfield, near Upwood main gates or somewhere. Rotten devils.
SJ: You said that the red markers were blind markers. They had green markers as well.
DB: Oh yes.
SJ: What were green markers for?
DB: Yeah. The green markers were what we called backers up and we dropped some of those but you dropped them on mixed reds and greens. Mixed reds and greens were dropped by the master bomber and the primary visual marker. And they actually had identified the target visually by this time but TIs didn’t last forever. They needed backing up you see and so we, we were able to back them up by dropping just the greens on their own. Now 156 were basically a blind marker squadron so if that master bomber had got to the target but he wasn’t happy with the actual identifying the aiming point, he would call for blind marking. And this is where George Hodges on his H2S would drop the reds, red TIs. But when I was down the front on the bomb sight if mixed reds and greens were going down then I would go click, click, click, click and deselect the markers and just drop HE. We became really like main force and I would just, just drop the bombs on, on the markers that were already, but that was, that was what the three things and they called this a Parramatta. Bennett had his own various names for the -
PJ: Yeah.
DB: And the, we even had sky markers. Where the, if the, if the target was obscured by a thin layer of cloud or something like that they used to drop what they called sky marker flares. They would go off more or less the same or just a couple of thousand feet below the height of the bomber stream but there was one thing about an air, an air, a sky marker and that is if that’s the target and let’s say this is the blind marker, you had to bomb on an exact heading because if you didn’t, if you came in on a heading like that, and you dropped there you would, you might have this in your sights but the bombs would fall over that side, over there. So you had to be, you had to run in on an actual precise heading when you bombed on sky markers. And that was another thing that, but we only had to drop them a couple of times that I can remember. George Hodges having to drop sky markers. But they had, I know that Bennett, he went around his office and he said something about, he was asking various people what they would call a certain attack you see. I think the Parramatta one that he decided was by a New Zealander. It sounded a little bit New Zealandish that. And there was another one. What was the other one? That — he asked this young WAAF clerk, and she gave him a name and that’s what he called, what was it? That was the overall sort of marking plan. I can’t remember the name. It’s so long ago now but yeah that’s that was what Bennett did. And he used to come around and visit you know after, not every, but he used to get around a lot of the bomber stations and he came to Upwood to the debriefing, he was there for debriefing. And he always used to ask you, you know, ‘Who dropped the bombs?’ And, ‘Did you see the target?’ And did you do this, that and the other? And I used to try and give him the best idea that, that I could. He was always quite approachable you know. Bennett. And then another night he’d be down at Graveley, you see, debriefing them from 35 Squadron and all these other path — Oakington was a Pathfinder station you see. Little Staughton, that was another one, and as I say I’ve got a list of them upstairs. Can you think of anything else?
SJ: No I think you’ve covered it.
DB: Have I?
PJ: Yeah.
DB: Well I hope I haven’t bored you stiff and just before you go come and look at this big picture I was telling you about and you’re welcome to come out.
PJ: Anyway, Donald.
DB: Sorry.
PJ: On behalf of the IBCC -
DB: Yes.
PJ: I’d like to thank you for allowing us to interview you. Thank you.
DB: Alright. Right. Right. Ok. Did you want, have you recorded that?
PJ: Yes.
DB: Oh.
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 Donald Briggs
Description
An account of the resource
Donald Briggs was born in Lealholm near Whitby in Yorkshire. After school, he became an apprentice with the Royal Air Force. He trained at RAF Halton in 1939 and became an engine fitter working on Wellingtons and Manchesters. He volunteered for air crew in 1943, qualified as a flight engineer and completed 62 operations with 156 Squadron Pathfinders at RAF Upwood. After the war he retrained as a pilot and took part in the H bomb tests at Christmas Island. Later he became a flying instructor and trained aircrew to fly Vulcans. After he retired from the Royal Air Force he became a commercial flying instructor. He continued to instruct and fly microlights until he was eighty-four years of age.
Creator
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Pete Jones
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Format
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01:08:42 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ABriggsDW170327
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-27
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
France
Germany
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Lincolnshire
Christmas Island
United States
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1943
1944
1945
1957-06-19
156 Squadron
8 Group
aircrew
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bombing
Distinguished Flying Cross
fear
fitter engine
flight engineer
ground crew
ground personnel
H2S
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Harvard
Lancaster
Lincoln
Manchester
Master Bomber
Meteor
Mosquito
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Pathfinders
pilot
promotion
RAF Halton
RAF Upwood
target indicator
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2054/33664/PBarnettA2101.2.jpg
0ad8c8274bbf442f0f22fa06619c1755
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2054/33664/ABarnettA210811.2.mp3
4f633204fcd2bf40ed3bc381344fca36
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
Barnett, Alfred
A Barnett
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-08-11
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Barnett, A
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Alfred 'Barney' Barnett (b. 1922, 1390286 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as an air gunner with 100 and 156 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
RP: This interview is being conducted on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre in Lincoln. The interviewer is Rod Pickles. The interviewee is Alfred Barnett. Also present is a friend of Mr Barnetts’, Brian Leveridge. The interview is taking place on the 11th of August 2021 at Mr Barnett’s home near Bodmin in Cornwall. Good afternoon, Mr Barnett. May I call you Barnie?
AB: Certainly.
RP: Right. Our first, our first question is the usual one. Could you just tell me a little bit about your early days, and your childhood and what prompted you to join the RAF?
AB: Well, at the beginning of the war I was in Kent and I got rather annoyed with the Germans bombing London. Bombing. And the only way to hit back was to join the Air Force. That’s how I came. So, I joined. I don’t regret it. I went to Padgate to start with. Then I thought the easiest way, well I hadn’t got a lot of brains, I thought the easiest way would be an air gunner because don’t forget the air gunner, the rear gunner defends the aircraft and so I became and I think within a matter of a few months I went to 100 Squadron at Waltham. That’s Grimsby. I think I did six trips there and then with Len Overton we volunteered to go to Pathfinders under DCT Bennett, and I went to 156 Squadron. And I think I did, we were just coming on my third tour. I got put off because I got involved in low flying at Skegness. We forgot the clock tower. We missed it but only by just. And then I went to, to an OTU. I didn’t care much on some of the fellas there because all they wanted was to keep off operations so I went over to see Air Marshall Bennett at Huntingdon, and before I finished the conversation I was back on the squadron.
RP: What rank were you at this time?
AB: Flight lieutenant.
RP: A flight lieu. Yeah.
AB: I went through the ranks and I got commissioned. Well, it was Bennett that gave me my commission and how he gave that, I was rather keen of looking after my guns because we had a Fraser Nash FN-4 before the Browning 303s and I was out working on them one day and a character came along in an old Irvin jacket and he said, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘Cutting the Perspex off the turret.’ He said that’s going to be so and so cold. I said, ‘Yes, but Perspex stops a lot of your vision.’ So, we took out all the Perspex off, and just sit in the open. I know it sounds daft. And also with my guns it had Palmer firing gear which is a stupid ruddy thing because of the hydraulic firing gear and if the temperature was about minus fifteen the hydraulic fluid used to freeze. So I did away with that, and I put bowden cables through so I could push down and get at least two guns working at the same time. And then the next thing I was told to go to Huntingdon, 8 Group Headquarters. When I went there the character sitting there was Air Marshall Bennett. So, he gave me a commission and I was quite happy. I linked up with Len Overton and —
RP: Len Overton was the pilot, yes?
AB: He was the pilot.
RP: He was the pilot.
AB: Funny thing I was flying as well, because Bennett liked all the crews to be able to do the other person’s job and —
RP: So, what aircraft were you flying at this time?
AB: Lancasters.
RP: You were flying Lancasters. Yes.
AB: Yes. I was at Warboys. And so I got put off. I think I’d just done my third tour then. I went on. I went to an OTU and I’ve never met so many bloody stupid people trying to keep off flying and I was ruddy daft wanting to go on it. And I’m afraid I’m a bit more loud-mouthed but I say what I think.
RP: So where was the OTU? What station was this at? The OTU.
AB: At, oh it would be in my book.
RP: Yeah. Ok.
AB: And by the time I finished having a word at 8 Group Headquarters, by the time I got back everybody thought I was I was going to be court martialled but I was posted straight back to the squadron and I was quite happy then.
RP: Because you were actually working on the OTU. You weren’t a trainee. You were actually part of the trainers.
AB: Yes. I was doing the training.
RP: Right. Right.
AB: I’ll tell you one fellow. I went back. You may have heard of him, Ken Letford [pause] He flew F-Freddy when they did that broadcast over Berlin.
RP: Oh right.
AB: We was old school friends together and I always remember that. Meeting him. He’s still on, I think, I think he’s still alive at Wyton, and and that’s where it all came. So, I did my time there. Then I got sent, when the war was ending I got sent out to Germany on the British Bombing Survey at Bad Nenndorf. Then I got mixed up with CSDIC, Combined Services Detailed Interrogations. Messed with Colonel Stevens, Major Warden, Lieutenant Langham. Do you remember that case? They were, they were doing interrogations at CSDIC, and people were saying you know, that they was ill-treated. Well, if someone, you’re doing an interrogation and he throws a hot coffee in you face it kicks you in the crutch you get awfully annoyed. You know that.
RP: You would. Yes.
AB: Yeah. So there. Then I came back and went, was out in Germany on British Bombing, then I got to war crimes Nuremburg in CSDIC. Then I came back. The only funny thing is I had a Boxer dog. I got it for a Group Captain Ford but he couldn’t get it back to this country so I kept it and we landed at Croydon. The Veterinary Unit in Hanover knew all about it. Unfortunately, the bloody dog went and bit the customs officer there [laughs]
RP: Oh dear. That’s not going to get you into the country, is it?
AB: It did. The dog went into quarantine.
RP: Right.
AB: At Hag Bridge. That cost me a lot of money but he became a champion in this country.
RP: Oh right.
AB: [unclear]
RP: Crikey.
AB: It was a lovely dog.
RP: Yeah. So, so going back to your flying was the Lancaster the only aircraft you flew then?
AB: No. I was in, look in my logbook.
RP: Yeah.
AB: Wellingtons. Whitleys.
RP: So, would, would a Whitley be the first one before the Wellington or —
AB: Yes.
RP: Because they were quite an early type.
AB: I think the first ones were the Bothas, I think.
RP: What did, what did you do your training on then? What was the aircraft?
AB: On a Botha.
RP: Oh, it was a Botha. Yeah.
AB: Yeah.
RP: Of course, they weren’t, they weren’t really any good for warfare but they were good for training.
AB: No. No. No. Polish characters, which don’t forget, the Poles did a lot of good work in this kind of country.
RP: Yes. Yes.
AB: And I met some very nice Polish people. I know a lot of them are condemned but don’t forget if they got shot down in Germany that was their end. Then I got sent out to Germany on British Bombing Survey at Bad Nenndorf, and while I was there I went to War Crimes Nuremberg. To the trials there. And then I had a funny job of picking people up. Now, my German is almost nil but there were so many displaced persons floating around Germany, and if you sit and keep quiet, and you’ve got a job for me I could get away with it.
RP: Right.
AB: And as you were travelling in an old car, our old Hannomag with this Boxer dog picking people up from say Hamburg right down to Munich.
RP: What? These were displaced people.
AB: Yes.
RP: Yeah. Ok.
AB: And it’s amazing. I never realised the Germans were so meticulous in keeping records of people.
RP: Oh yes.
AB: And you say go to one place, and say [unclear] oh that’s so and so. He went to so and so, and I used to travel Germany going from one to another and picking up and I never had any trouble at all. I only had one character who tried to pull out a small automatic. Fortunately, I had one before him, so he was all right.
RP: So —
AB: Then I came back to this country and Air Commodore Wynter-Morgan, Air Marshall Combe. I ended up living with Air Marshall Combe at the Woodpeckers at Brockenhurst. Then I went to the Ordnance. I went to 12 Group Headquarters. Became their group armament officer. Then I went back to the Ordnance Board. That was formed in 1414. That was in Kensington. That was organised the year before the Battle of Agincourt. Then I became secretary to the Pyrotechnic Panel. That’s anything from say a small hand-held signal to a bloody great rocket. Then I went from there. Where did I go from there?
RP: Can you, when, when did, you obviously stopped flying by the time you’d been sent to Germany.
AB: Yes.
RP: So, when, your last flight was a sort of a wartime thing.
AB: Yes at [unclear]
RP: It did. Yeah.
AB: Yeah. But then I used to fly from different places.
RP: Yeah. But your actual career as a flyer ended with the war. Yeah.
AB: Yeah. More or less as a transport from A to B.
RP: Yeah. Just looking at this 1942, you’ve got a Botha here on air to sea exercise and that. So, between the time you left school and joined the RAF what were you doing then as an option?
AB: I was hoping to become a vet.
RP: Oh right.
AB: Slightly different.
RP: Yeah.
AB: And that’s what I was working on then so, but when the war came along I joined up.
RP: Where did you join? Where were you living when you joined then?
AB: I was living in a place called Blackheath.
RP: Yes.
AB: It was Kidbrooke at one time. Then London expanded.
RP: Yes.
AB: There was an airfield there at Kidbrooke. That’s the start of the old M2. Remember it?
RP: Yeah.
AB: Do you know London at all?
RP: Not very. Not that well. I know it.
AB: Oh.
RP: But I never lived there.
AB: They turned there. Then what was it? When I went to 12 Group Headquarters as a Group Armament Officer I met a bloody twit called Donaldson. You may remember him. He flew hundreds of aircraft at six hundred and six miles an hour.
RP: Oh right.
AB: But he had a brother and his brother was a very nice fellow but Donaldson, the one that did that was a complete bloody twit. Excuse me. Now then —
RP: I think you’re allowed to say that.
AB: There was a court martial going on for low flying. So, what does he do? There’s a place called Newton. He was beating the airfield up. He thought that was funny. There’s a poor blighter there losing his, well his rank and everything for doing a bit of —
RP: Doing a bit of that. Yeah.
AB: It was only a bit of low flying.
RP: And he gets, he gets away with it.
AB: Yeah.
RP: Ok. So, so did you finish the war as a flight lieutenant then?
AB: Pardon?
RP: Did you finish the war as a flight lieutenant?
AB: Yes.
RP: Was that your rank when you finished?
AB: Yeah.
RP: Yeah.
AB: So, there it is. I had quite an interesting little job.
AB: Oh yes.
RP: Wandering around the continent picking people up. I’ll tell you something funny. Brian, can you pull that box over there please. That plastic box.
AB: The people you were picking up were they suspicious people then? Were you, were you thinking of —
RP: The plastic box on the floor.
[recording paused]
RP: Ok, Barney. If we could go back to your training days.
AB: Yeah.
RP: In the RAF. What was your first training base and what did you do there?
AB: Padgate was my first base.
RP: And what, what were you doing there?
AB: Well, that was when I joined the Air Force. And I went from there to Blackpool to do more or less the square bashing. And then from there I went to a place called Morpeth.
RP: Oh yeah.
AB: Flying in Bothas to do air gunnery.
RP: So that was the air gunnery training.
AB: It’s the training. Yeah. Then from there I went to 100 Squadron at Grimsby called Waltham. I did six trips there with a fellow called Overton. Len Overton and —
RP: So, what aircraft were you on now?
AB: That was on, started off on Lincolns. Not Lincolns. No. What was the one before?
RP: Manchester was the one before.
AB: Manchester. That’s it.
RP: Yeah.
AB: I got rather put off there because when I went there I looked up at the sky and one was coming down in flames and I didn’t like that.
RP: They were a bit under powered were they?
AB: Yes. Then we got converted on to Halifaxes and went to a Lancaster squadron. That’s typical, isn’t it?
RP: So where did your Halifax, where did you do your Halifax training?
AB: That was a place called Lindholme, I think.
RP: Oh yes. Yeah. Yeah.
AB: It was Lindholme. Then I went to Waltham. Did six trips there. From there we got sent down to Warboys in Huntingdon to more or less NFU training for Pathfinders with Bennett. Rivett-Camac was the CO at the time. He was an excellent fellow. Then they brought this fellow, Collings in which was a complete twit. And I did, I did two tours and we was due —
RP: How long was a tour? How many?
AB: Well, it was supposed to be thirty trips.
RP: Right.
AB: Or if we’d done a double tour it was forty odd.
RP: Right.
AB: But I’d done I think it was getting on for fifty trips, and then we got court martialled for low flying over Skegness. JB921. Everybody saw that bloody number and I still remember it.
RP: So what was the result of the court martial then?
AB: Well, they couldn’t do much with us all because we were all nutty as a fruit cake and I got sent off and I got sent to an OTU, and I rather fell out. Maybe I’ve got a big mouth but I fell out because they, they didn’t want, no they, these people working there they thought they had a safe little job and I wanted to get back on flying.
RP: So, you, this is where you were doing the training.
AB: Yes.
RP: You weren’t a trainee.
AB: No, I was instructing.
RP: You were instructing. So what was the aircraft on the OTU then?
AB: That was Wellingtons. Whitleys and Wellingtons. And so, I took myself off and went to see Air Commodore Ayres. Well, first of all I went to 8 Group Headquarters in Huntingdon and asked could I see the big chief. And it was Air Commodore Ayres said, ‘What the hell are you doing now?’ I said, ‘Well, I’m wasting my time because I’m not going to be instructing.’ So, he said, ‘Right.’ So, I went in to see Bennett. Air Marshall Bennett. He was an Australian. Very much down to earth. He said, ‘You’re wanting to come back?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ So, of course he commissioned me because it was him that saw me cutting the Perspex out of a turret and joining up the guns so they would fire if the hydraulics froze. I could still fire the guns.
RP: So, what rank were you when you got your commission then? What rank?
AB: Flight sergeant.
RP: You were a flight sergeant. Ok.
AB: That was the rate I was on and I was quite happy. Then I was flying away. We dropped food over into Belgium. Holland rather as you saw in the logbook. Then I got sent to London to go to British Bombing Survey Unit at a place Bad Nenndorf.
RP: To come back to the Operation Manna. Were you flying, flying Lancasters then?
AB: Lancasters. Yeah.
RP: So, but that was, this was just dropping food.
AB: Yeah.
RP: So how many sorties did you do on Manna then?
AB: I think [pause] look in my book. I think I —
RP: Yeah.
AB: That little blue book.
RP: Yeah. Yeah. I can do that but —
AB: I did, I think it was eighty. It was either seventy eight or eighty trips.
RP: Crikey.
AB: You were supposed to have done twenty five or I think thirty five. Then there were two tours. You’d no need to fly again.
RP: No.
AB: But I think I’d done eighty. I was trying to do a hundred. For some reason I was a bloody nutcase. I was trying to count, I suppose.
RP: So, how many sorties do you think you flew during the war then? If you —
AB: I think I did eighty.
RP: That’s a lot isn’t it? And you were never, and you were never injured or shot down.
AB: Oh yes. We got, we came back in a bit of a heap a couple of times and up on the Norfolk coast there’s called, a place called Woodbridge.
RP: Oh yes. Yeah. I’ve heard of it.
AB: You may have heard of it.
RP: I’ve heard of Woodbridge.
AB: But it’s a bloody great big concrete slab.
RP: I think. I think, yeah. Yeah —
AB: And if you landed there the bulldozers used to just sweep you off the runway into a big heap.
RP: If you crash landed.
AB: Yes.
RP: Right.
AB: Because you usually, you come back there. I met some very nice people. One of the best characters d ever met was a fellow called Rivett–Carnac. His brother was Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire but he was a wonderful leader but he was as crazy as they come. Then they had Group Captain Collings. Well, we couldn’t create a mutiny but, so actually it was Bennett told us to write a little note saying we wanted to transfer and he came in. I remember he came in. He took his coat off. He said, ‘We’re all equal now.’ He said, ‘What’s the trouble?’ I said, ‘Well, the CO’s a bloody twit.’
RP: This is Bennett you’re talking to.
AB: Yes.
RP: Yeah. Right.
AB: You could talk to him.
RP: Right.
AB: I’m not kidding you.
RP: Yeah. Yeah.
AB: Before we finished our conversation the character Collings was off the station.
RP: And what, what happened to him then? Do you know?
AB: I don’t know. I’ve got a photograph of him somewhere walking along with the queen.
RP: Oh right.
AB: Was. But he was. No. What I found, I found there were some people who like to get themselves the cosy little jobs, shut the window and say, ‘Blow you chap. I’m all right.’
RP: Right. So, they had a comfortable war.
AB: Yes.
RP: Yeah.
AB: Well, the funny thing was I was more of a nervous wreck, you may think I’m a nutcase now, when I wasn’t flying then when I was flying.
RP: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you mentioned Len Overton. Did you tend to stay with the same crew on your various posts?
AB: Well, part of the time I stayed.
RP: Yeah.
AB: With Len Overton.
RP: Yeah.
AB: The funny thing is for some reason. I don’t know how because I’m not up with the signals to know all this sort of thing. Computers.
RP: Yeah.
AB: But someone sent me a photograph and I’ve got it there because I was his best man but somehow I got this photograph and it’s over on the side there and, but Len Overton, he didn’t want to come back. I think, I think his nerves were a bit shattered. But I always thought it’s a challenge and besides the ruddy Germans knocked my old mums house down.
RP: Oh right.
AB: With two bombs.
RP: Yeah. Which was why, which was what persuaded you to —
AB: Yeah. And I saw what happened to London.
RP: Yeah.
AB: I remember that Saturday seeing all these aircraft when the big fire was in London.
RP: Yeah.
AB: And maybe it’s just me.
RP: Right. Of the, of the aircraft that you were in. The Lancasters. The Wellingtons.
AB: Yeah.
RP: What was your favourite then? Which one did you —
AB: Lancasters.
RP: You liked the Lancaster.
AB: Yes.
RP: Yeah.
AB: You could really throw a Lanc around. You could. It could take a hell of a lot of punishment. I remember we was over Hamburg. If you remember [unclear] history we did, I did I think it was five nights and seven days of bombing Hamburg and one of the funny things is we dropped the marker bombs which was Pathfinders, we dropped the marker bombs, and one of them got hit by one of the German rockets underneath and blew it back through the bomb doors. And a fellow called Tommy Cable got the immediate award of the DFM because he hacked this marker out of the aircraft because it was back inside the aircraft.
RP: Yeah.
AB: It was a little bit uncomfortable.
RP: Crikey.
AB: But he had, Tommy Cable came from Grimsby. But no, I I found it alright. I wasn’t really interested because for some funny reason I was a technical officer. I wasn’t a general duty for flying. I was, do you know the general duties? They do the flying.
RP: Yes.
AB: Technical officers. I was a technical armament officer. How I got in there I don’t know but I was. I went to the Number 1 Air Armaments School at Manby. I did specialist armament.
RP: What year was this then? How far in?
AB: Oh, this would be the beginning of ’44.
RP: Oh right. So, you’d, you’d done a lot of flying before then.
AB: And I went back to, I went back to Manby and I qualified as an armament officer and I was supposed to have gone to Warnborough and Christmas Island. Thanks very much to a horse that broke my arm because I used to ride young horses.
RP: Right.
AB: So I used to go, if you look around here like that over there. The wife had a, ended up about seventy horses. Well, you know that don’t you, Brian?
BL: Ahum.
RP: Crikey.
AB: Fabius was one of the famous horses she had.
RP: I see there’s a few up there.
AB: Oh yes. Now, my little wife she died of actually diabetes. She smashed her skull. She had a mark on her face where a horse stepped on her face. Are you married?
RP: Well, I was. My wife died in January.
AB: Oh. Women are not always easy to live with are they? But what, you know but she was a wonderful little thing.
RP: Yeah.
AB: Brian may have met her. But the big trouble she had bad diabetes.
RP: Oh right.
AB: She was on sixteen injections a day
RP: Oh, my goodness
AB: And they can play hell with them.
RP: Yeah.
AB: It can. It’s not them. It’s their complaint that you had to live with and quite often you fall out being bloody war declared. You would sit down and think where the hell did that start? Some stupid little thing.
RP: So, what year, were you married? During the war or after the war?
AB: After the war.
RP: So, you were single. You were single during the war then so you —
AB: Yes.
RP: You were fancy free during the war.
AB: I didn’t have time for anything else.
RP: Well, that was my next question but obviously you’ve answered it.
AB: Yeah. No. I met little Thelma. Actually, I’ll tell you how I met her. I brought a horse down from Leicester. It was a thoroughbred I brought down, and how I got that horse, it was a Mr Skinner, and I used to buy these horse because when I used to take off I used to fly around and see who had got horses.
RP: Right.
AB: The next job, where’s the nearest pub? So, that night I’d be in the pub, keep chatting. People used to be very suspicious but when they found you’d put old clothes on and were working with the horses, not just for something to sit on I found that I got along fine.
RP: Yeah.
AB: Different parts whether I was Leicester, Lincoln, there, and this here horse, and I was having a meal with them and I was speaking about this horse. Course he had a very good, must have been about three thousand acres. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘You can’t catch that bloody thing.’ I said, ‘Yes you can.’ He said, ‘Well, if you can catch it,’ he said, ‘How much will I give you?’ I said, ‘Ten pound.’ He said, ‘Right.’ He said, ‘I’ve won ten pounds.’ I went out with a bit of string and I learned from an old gypsy how to catch horses. Now, it may sound strange. This old gypsy. I thought, ‘How does he do that?’ What he always used to carry was a little bit of the afterbirth. I know it sounds crude but it was just like a little piece of dried up —
RP: Yeah.
AB: Crinkly paper. Now, if you have that on your hand horses are very inquisitive animal. If you walk and turn your back on a horse he’s saying well, what’s he up to? Walk away. A horse will follow you.
RP: Right.
AB: So, I’ve had a rather odd life.
RP: You have.
AB: Do you think I’m an odd person?
RP: Well, can we go back to your technical officer days then? So, having been a technical officer.
AB: Yeah.
RP: In 1944 but you still went back to flying from that. Yeah.
AB: Yes. Yes.
RP: So you had a dual role basically then.
AB: Right. Because I was a technical officer. I wasn’t a general duties.
RP: Right.
AB: And I went to Newton up near Nottingham.
RP: Yeah. I know where Newton.
AB: To 12 Group Headquarters that was. Donaldson was there. Do you remember Donaldson? He flew at six hundred feet.
RP: Yeah. You said. Yeah.
AB: But he is the biggest stupid show off. His brother was a very nice fellow and I went there, and I went there and as group armament officer for 12 Group. And then I fell out with Donaldson because he, there was another character court martialled, a fellow, a very nice fellow for low flying and Donaldson was beating the airfield up and because I told him about it he made it so I phoned up Air Commodore Wynter Morgan. He was at the Ordnance Board in London. I told him what had happened. He said, ‘Right, pack your bags. You’re down here.’ And I went in and then I joined up with Air Marshall Combe. Now, Combe, Air Marshall Combe he lived at the Woodpeckers at Brockenhurst. He was the Combe out of Watney Combe Brewers. His wife was a Mitchell and Butler Brewery, so money married money and I got on fine. I travelled all over the place with him and we lived, in fact I lived with them. And I, I got on alright, and he got on alright and he put up with me.
RP: So, where were you stationed when the war ended then? Where, where did it all come through —
AB: I was in Germany.
RP: When the war ended.
AB: Yeah. But he was [unclear]
RP: Because you were still. But the war had, had the war ended or was it about to end?
AB: No. It had more or less ended.
RP: Yeah.
AB: It ended when I was out there.
RP: Oh right.
AB: I got suddenly sent out there. I was at [pause] wait a minute. I was at Upwood in Huntingdon.
RP: Because you were still flying up to the —
AB: I was flying but then I more or less stopped flying and I suddenly got sent out to British Bombing Survey.
RP: Did they explain why they’d stopped you flying then? Why did they pick you for that then? Did they explain?
AB: They kept putting me on these other jobs.
RP: Yeah.
AB: So, I found it alright. I used to travel around all over the place. I was my own little boss and I got flying pay and technical pay so I didn’t complain.
RP: Even though you weren’t flying.
AB: Yeah.
RP: Yeah. Because of your qualifications. Yeah. Yeah.
AB: Yes. You see, if I stayed, if I stayed as a flight lieutenant. If I became a squadron leader I’d lose my flying pay.
RP: Oh right. I see.
AB: And my technical pay.
RP: Were you ever offered promotion then?
AB: Yes.
RP: You were.
AB: So, as a flight lieutenant I had all the perks and none of the —
RP: None of the aggro.
AB: Ugly bits.
RP: Ok. Very good. So, what, if you had to pick one then of your of your sorties that you did are there any memorable sorties that were a close run things that you can remember?
AB: Yes, there is one. You look in the book. It’s at Hamburg. I think we’d done about the third night we’d been over Hamburg. The bomb doors opened, bombs away, and we had what they called markers. TI markers. Target Indicator markers, and as they went down we got hit by one of the Prince of Wales feathers they called them. These here big rocket things, and it blew the bomb back in to the nose of the aircraft and it hadn’t exploded which is a bit off putting and we were spinning down because a couple of the engines had been knocked out. We were spinning down. We couldn’t jump out because of the centrifugal force.
RP: This was in a Lancaster. Yeah.
AB: Yes.
RP: Yeah.
AB: Then the aircraft pulled itself out. And after the war I met a character that remembered seeing this aircraft come down because the flare was still burning in the bomb bay.
RP: Goodness me.
AB: It was a bit uncomfortable but he pulled out and we got back to this country.
RP: So, you flew back from Germany in that condition then.
AB: Yes, and we landed at a place called Woodbridge which you know.
RP: Yeah. Yeah. Right.
AB: We put the aircraft down there.
RP: So —
AB: Thought thank God for that one.
RP: So, one, one final question for you then Barney. Would you do it all again?
AB: Not for this country. No. I’m sorry.
RP: No.
AB: Not for this country. They buggered around. I spent five and a half years in hospital. Halton, Wroughton, Headley Court, Ely, Stoke Mandeville.
RP: Crikey.
AB: Thanks to Mr Robbins. He’s dead now.
RP: Why was that?
AB: You may have heard of him in Truro. He took two sections out of my spine. I’ve got the reports in the, in the other room there somewhere.
RP: Was this from an injury? A wartime injury.
AB: Yes.
RP: Oh right.
AB: And some of the bloody twits you met, because let’s face it sometimes you feel you get around, sometimes you can’t, and it’s not for, just for me. How about some of these other poor devils? Sorry.
RP: No. No. You’re entitled to say that and it’s been fascinating. I’d really —
AB: Yes. It is.
RP: I’d like to say thank you for —
AB: But no. This country. Let’s face it. Churchill. Don’t forget Churchill ordered a raid on Nuremburg because, and we lost ninety four, ninety six aircraft, not counting those that were damaged coming back because he dictated beyond. Bennett was against it. Harris, Air Marshall Harris or Air Chief Marshall Harris was against it. He ordered it. It was either ninety four or ninety six. You can look up your records that we lost and that’s not counting those aircraft that came back, ‘cause Churchill was a big blabbermouth. Now, if you follow through Churchill never let the RAF Bomber Command go on any victory parade.
RP: Yes. I know that. Yeah.
AB: You know that don’t you? What I’m saying.
RP: Oh yes. I know.
AB: And we were complete outcasts to him. He was a soapbox orator Churchill. I suppose he did do a good job because he more or less took over from, after Eden wasn’t it? And —
RP: Chamberlain.
AB: Chamberlain, Neville.
RP: Chamberlain. Yeah.
AB: No, Eden —
RP: Eden was he was his foreign secretary.
AB: That’s right. The foreign one.
RP: Yeah. Yeah.
AB: Chamberlain was, “Peace in our time,” at Croydon airfield.
RP: That’s the one.
AB: Yeah.
RP: Ok. Well, I’d just like to say thank you. It’s been fascinating, and I do appreciate your time so thank you very much. That’s lovely.
AB: It’s all over is it?
RP: That’s, thank you. Yes. Thank you very much.
AB: Oh, I’m sorry if I’ve —
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 Alfred Barnett
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rod Pickles
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-08-11
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
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00:33:21 Audio Recording
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ABarnettA210811, PBarnettA2101
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Bad Nenndorf
Germany--Nuremberg
Description
An account of the resource
When Alfred’s mother’s house was destroyed during Luftwaffe bombing, he was determined to join the RAF and fight back. He trained as a gunner and completed two tours and a spell as an instructor. After his final tour of operations, he joined the British Bombing Survey and CSDIC (Combined Services Detailed Interrogations) based at Bad Nenndorf in Germany. He was also involved in the Nuremberg War Trials.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1944
100 Squadron
156 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bombing
Botha
crash
Lancaster
Manchester
military discipline
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
RAF Grimsby
RAF Warboys
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1950/39395/SWhittakerH186316v10003.1.pdf
b3f0cef5bd351194a37240f6696e6218
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
Whittaker, Harry
H Whittaker
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
2017-09-24
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Whittacker, H
Description
An account of the resource
26 items. The collection concerns Sergeant Harry Whittaker (Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents and photographs. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 158 and 635 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Simon Whittaker and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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
Harry Whittaker's flying log book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SWhittakerH186316v10003
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Flying log book for Harry Whitaker, bomb aimer and navigator, covering the period from 21 May 1942 to 22 November 1946. Detailing his flying training, operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at 10 Advanced flying Unit RAF Dumfries, 19 operational training Unit RAF Kinloss, 1652 Conversion Unit RAF Marston, 9 squadron RAF Waddington, 158 Squadron RAF Lissett, 635 Squadron RAF Downham Market, 17 Operational Training Unit RAF Silverstone, 156 Squadron RAF Whitton, 35 Squadron RAF Graveley and RAF Stradishall and 148 Squadron RAF Upwood. Aircraft flown in were Tiger Moth, Anson, Botha, Hampden, Blenheim, Magister, Lancaster, Whitley, Halifax, Wellington, York and Dakota. He flew a total of 59 operations, one night operation with 9 squadron, 13 night operations with 158 squadron, 19 Daylight and 26 night operations with 635 squadron. Targets were Pilsen, Berlin, Leipzig, Stuttgart, Schweinfurt, Augsburg, Le Mans, Frankfurt, Essen, Nantes, Haines St Pierre, Calais, Duisburg, Dortmund, Aachen, Rennes, Angers, Foret de Cerise, Cambrai, Lens, Renescure, Wizernes, Coquereaux, Nucourt, Vaires, Cagney, Courtrai, Fervay, Falaise, Tirlemont, Stettin, Russelsheim, Kiel, Soesterburg, Le Havre, Domburg, Gelsenkirchen, Cap Gris Nez, Sterkrade, Bergen, Saarbrucken, and Bari. He also flew 6 operation Dodge and a goodwill tour of the USA with 35 squadron. His pilots on operations were Flying Officer Hale, Flight Lieutenant Johnson, Flying Officer Catlin, Flight Lieutenant Hardy and Flight Lieutenant Stockwell.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943-04-16
1943-04-17
1944-01-28
1944-01-29
1944-01-30
1944-01-31
1944-02-15
1944-02-16
1944-02-19
1944-02-20
1944-02-21
1944-02-24
1944-02-25
1944-02-26
1944-03-01
1944-03-02
1944-03-13
1944-03-14
1944-03-18
1944-03-19
1944-03-23
1944-03-24
1944-03-25
1944-03-26
1944-03-27
1944-05-07
1944-05-07
1944-05-09
1944-05-10
1944-05-19
1944-05-20
1944-05-21
1944-05-22
1944-05-23
1944-05-24
1944-05-25
1944-05-27
1944-05-28
1944-05-29
1944-06-03
1944-06-04
1944-06-07
1944-06-08
1944-06-09
1944-06-11
1944-06-12
1944-06-13
1944-06-15
1944-06-16
1944-06-17
1944-07-05
1944-07-06
1944-07-10
1944-07-12
1944-07-15
1944-07-16
1944-07-18
1944-07-20
1944-07-21
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-26
1944-08-15
1944-08-16
1944-08-17
1944-08-18
1944-08-25
1944-08-26
1944-08-27
1944-08-29
1944-08-30
1944-09-03
1944-09-05
1944-09-06
1944-09-08
1944-09-10
1944-09-23
1944-09-24
1944-09-25
1944-09-26
1944-09-27
1944-09-28
1944-09-30
1944-10-04
1944-10-05
1944-10-06
1944-10-19
1944-10-20
1944-10-23
1944-10-24
1945-07-05
1945-08-11
1945-08-13
1945-08-28
1945-08-30
1945-09-18
1945-09-21
1945-11-08
1945-11-10
1945-11-27
1945-11-29
1946
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
Czech Republic
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Belgium--Haine-Saint-Pierre
Belgium--Kortrijk
Belgium--Tienen
Czech Republic--Plzeň
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Northamptonshire
England--Suffolk
England--Yorkshire
France--Angers
France--Aumale
France--Bayeux Region
France--Caen Region
France--Calais
France--Cambrai
France--Falaise
France--Le Havre
France--Le Mans
France--Lens
France--Nantes
France--Nucourt
France--Pas-de-Calais
France--Rennes
France--Saint-Omer Region (Pas-de-Calais)
France--Vaires-sur-Marne
Germany--Aachen
Germany--Augsburg
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Germany--Rüsselsheim
Germany--Saarbrücken
Germany--Schweinfurt
Germany--Stuttgart
Italy--Bari
Netherlands--Domburg
Netherlands--Soesterberg
Norway--Bergen
Poland--Szczecin
Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway
Scotland--Moray Firth
France--Coquereaux
France--Cap Gris Nez
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
148 Squadron
156 Squadron
158 Squadron
1652 HCU
17 OTU
19 OTU
35 Squadron
635 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
air gunner
aircrew
Anson
Blenheim
bomb aimer
bombing
Botha
crash
Goodwill tour of the United States (1946)
Halifax
Hampden
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Magister
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
RAF Downham Market
RAF Dumfries
RAF Graveley
RAF Kinloss
RAF Lissett
RAF Marston Moor
RAF Silverstone
RAF Stradishall
RAF Upwood
RAF Warboys
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2072/34205/LBabbageG1613415v1.1.pdf
f14ffb7085b2bf98bec5144b8f54c979
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
Babbage, Gordon
Babbage, G
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. The collection concerns Gordon Babbage (b. 1922, 1613415 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, Pathfinder awards and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 100 Squadron from RAF Grimsby and 156 Squadron from RAF Upwood.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Lesley Morley and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-08-31
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Babbage, G
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
Gordon Babbage's navigator's air bomber's and air gunner's flying log book
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LBabbageG1613415v1
Description
An account of the resource
Navigator’s, air gunner’s and air bomber’s flying log book for G Babbage, air gunner, covering the period from 15 December 1942 to 8 April 1945. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF Stormey Down, RAF Riccall, RAF Pocklington, RAF Rufforth, RAF Faldingworth, RAF Sandtoft, RAF Driffield, RAF Grimsby, RAF Warboys and RAF Upwood. Aircraft flown in were Defiant, Whitley, Halifax, and Lancaster. He flew a total of 51 operations, 26 with 102 Squadron, 2 with 100 Squadron and 23 with 156 Squadron. Targets were St Nazaire, Essen, Kiel, Frankfurt, Duisburg, Dortmund, Bochum, Dusseldorf, Le Cruseot, Gelsenkirchen, Montbelliard, Hamburg, Nurnberg, Berlin, Kassel, Cannes, Neuss, Bonn, Opladen, Cologne, Osterfeld, Munich, Goch, Politz, Dresden, Pforzheim, Homburg, Misburg, Hanau, Heide and Harburg. His pilots on operations were Flight Lieutenant Carey, Warrant Officer Brooks, Flying Officer Parkinson and Flying Officer Edge.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943-03-28
1943-03-29
1943-04-03
1943-04-04
1943-04-05
1943-04-10
1943-04-11
1943-04-27
1943-04-28
1943-04-29
1943-04-30
1943-05-01
1943-05-04
1943-05-05
1943-05-12
1943-05-13
1943-05-14
1943-05-23
1943-05-24
1943-05-25
1943-05-26
1943-05-27
1943-05-28
1943-06-11
1943-06-12
1943-06-13
1943-06-19
1943-06-20
1943-07-09
1943-07-10
1943-07-15
1943-07-16
1943-07-24
1943-07-25
1943-07-27
1943-07-28
1943-08-10
1943-08-11
1943-08-31
1943-09-01
1943-10-03
1943-10-04
1943-10-05
1943-11-03
1943-11-04
1943-11-11
1943-11-12
1944-10-23
1944-10-24
1944-10-25
1944-11-27
1944-11-28
1944-11-29
1944-11-30
1944-12-01
1944-12-12
1944-12-13
1944-12-21
1944-12-22
1944-12-27
1944-12-28
1944-12-30
1944-12-31
1945-01-01
1945-01-07
1945-01-08
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-02-09
1945-02-13
1945-02-14
1945-02-20
1945-02-21
1945-02-23
1945-02-24
1945-03-11
1945-03-14
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-03-17
1945-03-18
1945-03-19
1945-03-20
1945-03-21
1945-03-31
1945-04-04
1945-04-05
1945-04-08
1945-04-09
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Poland
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
France--Cannes
France--Le Creusot
France--Montbéliard
France--Saint-Nazaire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Bonn
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Goch
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hanau
Germany--Hannover Region
Germany--Harburg (Landkreis)
Germany--Heide (Schleswig-Holstein)
Germany--Homberg (Kassel)
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Munich
Germany--Neuss
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Osterfeld
Germany--Pforzheim
Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie)
Wales--Bridgend
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
100 Squadron
102 Squadron
156 Squadron
1658 HCU
1667 HCU
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
Defiant
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Halifax Mk 2
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
mine laying
Pathfinders
RAF Driffield
RAF Faldingworth
RAF Grimsby
RAF Pocklington
RAF Riccall
RAF Rufforth
RAF Sandtoft
RAF Stormy Down
RAF Upwood
RAF Warboys
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2047/33336/LBiltonGHA175723v1.1.pdf
16f63e7fb0b27a19684d3564ed2f2c0a
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
Bilton, George Henry Albert
G H A Bilton
Description
An account of the resource
Nineteen items. The collection concerns George Henry Albert Bilton (b. 1923, 175723 Royal Air Force) and contains an oral history interview, his log book, correspondence and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 428 and 434 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anthony Bilton 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
2018-09-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
Bilton, GHA
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
George Bilton - observers and air gunners log book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LBiltonGHA175723v1
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
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending temporal coverage. Allocated
Pending review
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Observer's and Air Gunner's Flying log book for George Bilton, flight engineer, covering the period from 18 August 1943 to 1 August 1946. Detailing his final flying training, operations flown, instructional postings and flying in transports. He was stationed at RAF Croft, RAF Topcliffe, RAF Middleton St George, RAF Woolfox Lodge, RAF Warboys, RAF Upwood and RAF Wyton. Aircraft flown in were Halifax, Lancaster, Anson, Wellington and C-47. He flew a total of 34 operations with 428 and 434 Squadrons. Targets were Dusseldorf, Ludwigshaven, Stuttgart, Berlin, Kiel, La Rochelle, Copenhagen, minelaying, Trappes, Aulnoye, Lille, Villeneuve, St Ghislian, Le Crepiet, Disemont, Boulogne, Beinnies, Caen, Hamburg, Acquet, Foret de Nieppe, Paris, St Leu d'Esserent, Foret de Chantilly, La Breteque, Brunswick, Falaise and Brest. His pilot on operations was Wing Commander Watkins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Terry Hancock
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06
1944-07
1944-08
1943-11-03
1943-11-18
1943-11-26
1943-11-27
1944-01-20
1944-01-21
1944-02-03
1944-02-04
1944-02-15
1944-02-16
1944-02-21
1944-02-22
1944-02-25
1944-02-26
1944-03-03
1944-03-04
1944-03-06
1944-03-07
1944-03-22
1944-03-23
1944-03-25
1944-03-26
1944-04-09
1944-04-10
1944-04-26
1944-04-27
1944-04-29
1944-04-30
1944-05-01
1944-05-02
1944-05-07
1944-05-08
1944-05-27
1944-05-28
1944-06-15
1944-06-16
1944-06-21
1944-07-01
1944-07-06
1944-07-18
1944-07-28
1944-07-29
1944-08-01
1944-08-03
1944-08-04
1944-08-05
1944-08-08
1944-08-09
1944-08-10
1944-08-12
1944-08-13
1944-08-14
1944-08-25
1944-08-26
1945-06-05
1945-06-08
1945-06-23
1945-06-29
1945-08-17
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Denmark
France
Germany
Great Britain
Denmark--Copenhagen
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Yorkshire
France--Aulnoye-Aymeries
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Brest
France--Caen
France--Creil
France--Falaise
France--La Rochelle
France--Lille
France--Nieppe
France--Paris
France--Soligny-la-Trappe
France--Villeneuve-lès-Avignon
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
156 Squadron
1651 HCU
1659 HCU
1664 HCU
29 OTU
428 Squadron
434 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of the Boulogne E-boats (15/16 June 1944)
C-47
Cook’s tour
flight engineer
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Halifax Mk 5
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
mine laying
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Croft
RAF Middleton St George
RAF Topcliffe
RAF Upwood
RAF Warboys
RAF Woolfox Lodge
RAF Wyton
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/986/10536/MWhybrowFHT170690-160926-22.2.jpg
896ee0917d52d0e6981f765e830adff6
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
Whybrow, Frederick
F H T Whybrow
Description
An account of the resource
49 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Fred Whybrow DFC (1921 - 2005, 1321870, 170690 Royal Air Force) and consists of service documents, photographs and correspondence. After training in the United States, he completed two tours of operations as a navigator with 156 Squadron Pathfinders. After the war he served in Japan and Southeast Asia. He was demobbed in 1947.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anne Roberts and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-09-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Whybrow, FHT
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Very Draft texts for Eulogy and Obits
Short Obit
The death is announced of Frederick Thomas Whybrow DFC (Fred) of Pwllmeyric, Monmouthshire after a short illness.
Varied and Distinguished War Record
Auxillary [sic] Fire Service 1940/41 during Blitz fighting fires around his family home in Greenwich.
Called up 1941, selected for Aircrew Training (he’d rather have joined the Navy)
Training in US in 1942. Passed as pilot but qualified as Observer (2nd Pilot and Navigator) as the training programmes had produced excess pilots but too few navigators. Troopship breakdown on return
Operational Flying in Europe 1943-44 all in Pathfinder Force (PFF) 8 Group Bomber Command
- Two full Tours of Operations with the same crew comprising 105 combat sorties
- 156 Squadron
- Formed 582 Squadron
Participated throughout the Battle of Berlin (156 Sqdn suffered highest lost rate in PFF or Bomber Command – check)
Attacks against French transport infrastructure pre and post Normandy Invasion Direct operational support of allied ground forces leading to breakout from beachhead. Operations against V1 sites.
Damaged by British AA fire on way to raid. Claimed one German Nightfighter Hit by bombs from other aircraft over Berlin or Leipzig, (I reckon Leipzig if so, his cousin killed on the same raid). Aircraft extensively damaged, nose destroyed and cockpit glazing shattered, all charts and instruments lost. Journey back to UK made with crew members in turn laying in front of pilot to shield him from the 180 mph wind. All crew hospitalised with frostbite. Crew already had DFCs and award of another medal to this all NCO crew was not made a point made later in book ………………………
Following completion of second tour appointed as aircrew trainer. Met Isobel in Blackpool whilst in transit. Subsequently selected for RAF Tiger Force intended to bomb Japan in 1945/46. Celebrated VE and VJ Days on Troopships, the former in the Indian Ocean the latter as a member of UK Occupation Forces in Japan 1945-46. Landed at Hiroshima early in September 1945 immediately following surrender. Put in charge of re-conversion of an aircraft engine plant to rayon production. Left Japan once production restarted and began a sequence of postings around British possessions and SE Asia where he accumulated a number of valuable items unobtainable in the UK. Finally demobbed in 1947.
Long career in local government in Kensington where he became well known
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
Fred Whybrow draft Obituary
Description
An account of the resource
The Obituary describes his service and civilian career from training in the United States to his 105 operations. Awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. He met his future wife, Isobel in Blackpool. Served in the Far East and demobbed in 1947.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One typewritten sheet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MWhybrowFHT170690-160926-22
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
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Japan
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Leipzig
Japan--Hiroshima-shi
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
Sue Smith
David Bloomfield
156 Squadron
582 Squadron
8 Group
aircrew
Distinguished Flying Cross
firefighting
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
observer
Pathfinders
Tiger force
training
V-1
V-weapon
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1531/46053/BLaydonMKeatingRv2.1.pdf
6d86df26f03425eed14dfebced13f24a
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
Keating, Raymond
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-22
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.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Keating, R
Description
An account of the resource
10 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant Raymond Keating (1338063 Royal Air Force) and contains documents and photographs He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 156 Squadron and was killed 22 May 1944. <br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Marie Laydon and catalogued by Barry Hunter. <br /><br />Additional information on Raymond Keating is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/215249/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Flight Sergeant Raymond Keating
Description
An account of the resource
A brief biography of Raymond by his sister, Marie Laydon.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Marie Laydon
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Netherlands
Germany
Germany--Duisburg
Great Britain
Wales--Ebbw Vale
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One printed sheet
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BLaydonMKeatingRv2
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-05
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
156 Squadron
bombing
killed in action
Lancaster
Pathfinders
sport
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/246/31394/LDenverI422844v1.2.pdf
ee6771b3f9282a13181a67a1a36ad1f0
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
Denver, Ian
Ian Denver
I Denver
Description
An account of the resource
Five items, Collection concerns Ian Denver (422844 Royal Australian Air Force) and contains an oral history interview, extracts from his log book and photographs.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Ian Denver 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
2017-02-21
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
Denver, I
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
Extracts from Ian Denver's log book
Description
An account of the resource
Extracts from log book from July 1944 on No 1 LFS and 625 Squadron on operations flying Lancasters and Oxfords on beam approach training, and then onto 156 Squadron in September 1944 until May 1945. There is also a summary of operations flown on 156 Squadron, a list of the stations he served at, a Tiger Moth endorsement and Link trainer sessions. His first or second pilots on operations were Pilot Officer Maxwell, Flight Lieutenant Marvin, Pilot Officer Kelsey, Pilot Officer Pollard and Flying Officer Lambert. Completed 60 Operations plus Operation Manna and Operation Exodus. Operations 4-18 missing from logbook. This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
22 photocopied pages
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LDenverI422844v1
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--Lincolnshire
France
Germany
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Germany--Kiel
France--Calais
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Germany--Bottrop
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Essen
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Düren (Cologne)
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Osterfeld
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Germany--Wiesbaden
Germany--Goch
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Worms
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Halle an der Saale
Germany--Plauen
Germany--Potsdam
Netherlands
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
Belgium
Belgium--Brussels
Germany--Lübeck
Netherlands--Walcheren
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Germany--Hamm (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Herford
Germany--Bielefeld
Germany--Bad Oeynhausen
Germany--Hildesheim
Germany--Kleve (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Netherlands--Arnhem
Netherlands--Hague
France--Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine)
France--Douai
Germany--Braunschweig
Netherlands--Uden
Poland
Poland--Szczecin
England--Yorkshire
England--Cambridgeshire
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1944-07-18
1944-07-19
1944-07-20
1944-07-28
1944-07-29
1944-09-15
1944-09-16
1944-09-20
1944-09-27
1944-10-12
1944-10-20
1944-10-21
1944-10-23
1944-10-24
1944-10-28
1944-10-30
1944-10-31
1944-11-02
1944-11-03
1944-11-06
1944-11-16
1944-11-27
1944-11-28
1944-11-30
1944-12-01
1944-12-04
1944-12-05
1944-12-06
1944-12-07
1944-12-17
1944-12-18
1944-12-28
1944-12-29
1944-12-30
1944-12-31
1945-01-01
1945-01-02
1945-01-03
1945-01-22
1945-01-23
1945-01-28
1945-01-29
1945-02-01
1945-02-02
1945-02-03
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-02-13
1945-02-14
1945-02-15
1945-02-17
1945-02-21
1945-02-22
1945-03-05
1945-03-06
1945-03-08
1945-03-09
1945-03-11
1945-03-16
1945-03-17
1945-03-21
1945-03-22
1945-03-24
1945-03-25
1945-04-04
1945-04-05
1945-04-09
1945-04-10
1945-04-11
1945-04-13
1945-04-14
1945-04-15
1945-04-29
1945-05-02
1945-05-07
1945-05-10
1945-05-25
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
156 Squadron
1667 HCU
18 OTU
625 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Cook’s tour
Flying Training School
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Pathfinders
RAF Hemswell
RAF Kelstern
RAF Lindholme
RAF Sandtoft
RAF Warboys
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1770/31055/BCleggPVLangAGv1.1.pdf
2c05ba1be620d88127344d317bed4e35
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
Clegg, Peter Vernon. Lang, Alastair - folder
Description
An account of the resource
Fifteen items. Contains description of the terrible three, a biography of Squadron Leader Alastair Lang DFC, photographs, a portrait, details of his flight engineer, operational diary, correspondence, newspaper cuttings and extracts from his log book.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-02
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Clegg, PV
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
Extracts from Alastair Lang's pilot's flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Covers from April 1941 on 150 Squadron flying Wellington, then on 21 Operational Training Unit and finally on 156 Squadron with Wellington and then Lancaster until operation to Dortmund 4 May 1943 when his aircraft was hit and target indicator bomb exploded in bomb bay and he was reported missing. A second pilot on operations was Flying Officer Skinner.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
21 b/w photocopied sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BCleggPVLangAGv1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Mannheim
France
France--Saint-Nazaire
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Hamburg
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Bielefeld
Italy
Italy--Turin
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Munich
France--Lorient
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Essen
Czech Republic
Czech Republic--Plzeň
Italy--La Spezia
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1943
1941-04-15
1941-04-16
1941-04-17
1941-04-18
1941-04-30
1941-05-01
1941-05-03
1941-05-04
1941-05-05
1941-05-06
1941-05-07
1941-05-08
1941-05-09
1941-05-10
1941-05-11
1941-05-12
1941-05-13
1941-06-11
1941-06-12
1941-06-13
1941-06-16
1941-06-17
1941-06-26
1941-06-27
1941-07-03
1941-07-04
1941-07-05
1941-07-06
1941-07-07
1941-07-08
1941-07-09
1941-07-10
1941-07-11
1941-09-13
1941-09-14
1941-10-15
1941-10-16
1941-11-09
1941-11-10
1941-11-20
1941-11-21
1941-11-22
1941-11-23
1941-11-29
1941-11-30
1941-12-08
1941-12-09
1941-12-10
1941-12-11
1941-12-12
1941-12-20
1941-12-21
1941-12-22
1942-01-26
1942-01-27
1942-01-28
1942-01-30
1942-01-31
1942-02-02
1942-02-03
1942-02-04
1942-02-09
1942-02-10
1942-02-24
1942-02-25
1942-02-26
1942-02-28
1942-03-01
1942-03-02
1942-03-08
1942-03-09
1942-03-10
1942-03-12
1942-03-13
1942-03-22
1942-03-23
1942-04-16
1942-04-17
1942-04-18
1942-04-19
1942-04-26
1942-04-27
1942-05-04
1942-05-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
12 Squadron
150 Squadron
156 Squadron
20 OTU
21 OTU
23 OTU
aircrew
bombing
Flying Training School
Harvard
Lancaster
Lincoln
missing in action
Mosquito
Operational Training Unit
pilot
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Waddington
RAF Warboys
shot down
Spitfire
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2004/43653/LSharlandRG138832v10001.1.jpg
ec3a05cfe20b3ac0c9eaf2ff6e626e81
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2004/43653/LSharlandRG138832v10002.1.jpg
282e8846d9b6b6c425ec92fde7376f75
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2004/43653/LSharlandRG138832v10003.1.jpg
6b6f2e5bf522bbb2fe0aad0ebf537d00
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2004/43653/LSharlandRG138832v10004.1.jpg
9263ce4297e2eef5f8f7c08f632fdd73
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
Sharland, Robert George
R G Sharland
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
2017-12-15
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
Sharland, RG
Description
An account of the resource
20 items. The collection concerns Flying Officer Robert George Sharland DFC (1921 - 1944, 138832 Royal Air Force) and contains documents and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 156 Squadron and was killed 28 April 1944. <br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Miriam Sharland and catalogued by Benjamin Turner. <br /><br />Additional information on Robert George Sharland is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/225238/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Excerpt from Robert George Sharland’s Log book
Description
An account of the resource
Four pages with dates recorded from 2nd August 1943 to 27th April 1944. In this excerpt, Robert George Sharland is recorded to have undertaken 27 flights, 18 being in the day and 9 being at night. The first page details Sharland’s training and first tour with 51 Squadron flying a Halifax. The logbook later moves to 1944, where Sharland serving with 156 Squadron flying a Lancaster. It is detailed that Sharland undertook various roles with 51 Squadron, such as second pilot, air gunner and navigator. The majority of flights records Sharland being a rear- air gunner, flying with Flying Officer Gilmore and Wing Commander Eaton. Operations over Frankfurt, Berlin, Cologne, Stuttgart, Friedrichshafen, Laon, Rouen and various training and test flights at home are recorded. The last flight detailed, is recorded as “failed to return”.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-08-02
1943-08-10
1943-08-11
1944-03-15
1944-03-16
1944-03-17
1944-03-18
1944-03-19
1944-03-20
1944-03-22
1944-03-23
1944-03-24
1944-03-25
1944-03-26
1944-03-28
1944-03-29
1944-03-30
1944-04-05
1944-04-13
1944-04-18
1944-04-19
1944-04-20
1944-04-21
1944-04-22
1944-04-24
1944-04-25
1944-04-26
1944-04-27
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Cambridgeshire
Germany
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Friedrichshafen
Germany--Nuremberg
France
France--Laon
France--Rouen
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four page excerpt of a logbook
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LSharlandRG138832v1, LSharlandRG138832v10001, LSharlandRG138832v10002, LSharlandRG138832v10003, LSharlandRG138832v10004
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Benjamin Turner
156 Squadron
51 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Distinguished Flying Cross
Halifax
Lancaster
missing in action
navigator
pilot
RAF Upwood
RAF Waddington
RAF Warboys
shot down
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/106/2232/LBriggsDW56124v1.1.pdf
bd80d29b93944ac5a20236df4e418bc8
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
Briggs, Donald
Donald W Briggs
D W Briggs
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-27
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Briggs, DW
Description
An account of the resource
21 items. The collection consists of one oral history interview with flight engineer Donald Ward Briggs (1924 - 2018), his logbook, memoirs and 16 wartime and post war photographs. He completed 62 operations with 156 Squadron Pathfinders flying from RAF Upwood. Post war, Donald Briggs retrained as a pilot flying Meteors and Canberras. He eventually joined the V-Force on Valiants and was the co-pilot for the third British hydrogen bomb test at Malden Island in 1957.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Donald Briggs and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LBriggsDW56124v1
Title
A name given to the resource
Donald Briggs' log book
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One handwritten booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1944-06-11
1944-06-12
1944-06-15
1944-06-16
1944-06-17
1944-06-24
1944-06-27
1944-06-28
1944-07-02
1944-07-07
1944-07-08
1944-07-10
1944-07-12
1944-07-13
1944-07-14
1944-07-18
1944-07-28
1944-07-29
1944-07-30
1944-08-03
1944-08-05
1944-08-07
1944-08-08
1944-08-09
1944-08-10
1944-08-12
1944-08-13
1944-08-15
1944-08-16
1944-08-17
1944-08-18
1944-08-19
1944-08-25
1944-08-26
1944-08-29
1944-08-30
1944-08-31
1944-09-15
1944-09-16
1944-09-17
1944-09-20
1944-09-23
1944-09-25
1944-09-26
1944-09-27
1944-10-05
1944-10-06
1944-10-07
1944-10-14
1944-10-15
1944-11-18
1944-11-28
1944-11-30
1944-12-05
1944-12-06
1944-12-07
1944-12-29
1945-01-02
1945-01-03
1945-01-04
1945-01-05
1945-01-06
1945-01-14
1945-01-15
1945-01-16
1945-01-17
1945-01-28
1945-01-29
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-02-09
1945-02-13
1945-02-14
1945-03-01
1945-03-05
1945-03-06
1945-03-07
1945-03-08
1945-03-09
1945-03-12
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-03-17
1945-03-19
1945-03-20
1945-03-22
1945-03-24
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
England--Cambridgeshire
France--Bayeux
France--Caen
France--Calais
France--Lens
France--Royan
France--Saint-Lô
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Dessau (Dessau)
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Essen
Germany--Goch
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hanau
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Kleve (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Koblenz
Germany--Leuna
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Neuss
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Soest
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Zeitz
Netherlands--Eindhoven
Poland--Szczecin
Germany
Netherlands
France
Poland
England--Sussex
Germany--Mannheim
France--Montdidier (Hauts-de-France)
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Cap Gris Nez
France--Nucourt
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
Donald Briggs served as a flight engineer with 156 Squadron Pathfinders flying Lancasters from RAF Upwood between 27 May 1944 and 31 March 1945. The incomplete log book includes 62 daylight and night time operations to French, German, Dutch and Polish targets: battle fronts, Bayeux, Bois de Cassin, Chemnitz, Coblenz, Caen, Cagny, Calais, Cannantre, Cap Gris Nez (Calais), Disemont, Eindohven, Foret de Nieppe, Fort d’Englos, Harpenerweg, Hemmingstadt, Hildersheim, Lens, Lumbacs, Middel Straete, Miseburg oil refinery, Moerdish bridges, Montdidier, Nucourt, Nurnburg, Pollitz, Royan, Royen, Saint-Lô, St Philbert, Bochum, Chemnitz, Dessau, Dortmund, Dresden, Duisburg, Essen, Goch, Hamburg, Hanau, Hannover, Kiel, Kleve, Koblenz, Leuna, Mannheim, Münster, Neuss, Osnabrück, Renescure, Russleheim, Saarbrucken, Soest, Stuttgart, Szczecin, Vaires near Paris and Zeitz. His pilots on operations were Flight Lieutenant Neal, Wing Commander Bingham-Hall and Flight Lieutenant Williams.
156 Squadron
8 Group
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
bombing of Luftwaffe night-fighter airfields (15 August 1944)
flight engineer
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 3
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Pathfinders
RAF Upwood
tactical support for Normandy troops
V-1
V-weapon
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/106/1010/BBriggsDWBriggDWv1.1.pdf
4ed57d765e8a8fd48923aeec0ce8532a
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
Briggs, Donald
Donald W Briggs
D W Briggs
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Date
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2017-03-27
Identifier
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Briggs, DW
Description
An account of the resource
21 items. The collection consists of one oral history interview with flight engineer Donald Ward Briggs (1924 - 2018), his logbook, memoirs and 16 wartime and post war photographs. He completed 62 operations with 156 Squadron Pathfinders flying from RAF Upwood. Post war, Donald Briggs retrained as a pilot flying Meteors and Canberras. He eventually joined the V-Force on Valiants and was the co-pilot for the third British hydrogen bomb test at Malden Island in 1957.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Donald Briggs and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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Don Briggs A brief description of Wartime service
How it all began
1939 saw a rapid build up of the armed forces. The Royal Air Force were recruiting ground servicing personnel in large numbers. I was a 15 year old schoolboy and saw my chance to learn Aircraft engineering so applied to take the Aircraft Apprentice entrance examination. I passed OK and two days after World War 2 was declared I was on my way to RAF Halton No. 1 School of Technical Training. There is little doubt that the harsh discipline coupled with excellent theoretical lessons in Schools (known as Kermode Hall after the well known aerodynamicist) and many hours filing pieces of metal in workshops, turned boys into men. Later in the course we worked in teams stripping down and reassembling many types of aero engines. At the end of training (which was reduced in length due to the demand for Engine fitters) I passed out as a Fitter 2E.
My first posting was to RAF Finningley where I worked on the engines of Wellington and Hampden bombers. The Rolls Royce Vulture engines in the Avro Manchester were giving trouble which meant I assisted with several engine changes.
My next posting was to RAF Upper Heyford where I was promoted to Corporal at the age of 18. There I worked on The Wellington MK3 with more powerful Hercules engines. After carrying out rectification on an aircraft if an air test was necessary I usually asked if I could accompany the pilot.
After approximately two and a half years I decided that more excitement was needed so I volunteered for Aircrew. The President of the selection board said I had passed all the aptitude
[page break]
tests for pilot training. However there was little demand for pilots at that time (Mid 1943) and in view of the fact that I was already a Non Commissioned Officer aero engine fitter all I needed was the three months Flight Engineer’s course and I could be operational in less than six months. So I became a flight engineer by passing the course at RAF St. Athan.
During the crewing up procedure I was fortunate in meeting the captain of the crew that I was to fly with. He was Flying Officer Bill Neal with his crew and they had already completed a tour of operations on Wellingtons. Bill explained that they had been selected to join the Pathfinder Force and what our duties would entail. Our first step was to convert onto the Halifax Mk1 at RAF Lindhome[sic]. During our training sorties Bill Neal gave me a “potted” flying lesson and I handled the controls of an aircraft for the first time! We completed the course of 30 hours then went on to convert onto the Lancaster at RAF Hemswell. I did the night convertion [sic] on my 20th birthday. After attending a short course to learn the Pathfinder procedures we joined No. 156 Squadron at RAF Upwood near Peterborough.
As a new crew we had about two weeks of training to complete during which time I took on the additional role of bomb aimer and dropped practice bombs at a nearby bombing range. Also during this time Bill Neal vacated his seat (there were no dual control Lancasters on the squadron) and allowed me to fly this superb aircraft.
On completion of this training we were declared Operational and 11th June 1944 saw our crew on the Battle Order. The target was the vast marshalling yards at Tours in the South of France. The Germans were routing most of their reinforcements through here to the Normandy battle front.
[page break]
What were my feelings about starting operational flying? Well firstly I volunteered for aircrew and I was fully committed now – there was no turning back. Destiny would decide whether or not I survived. Secondly I was fortunate in joining a very experienced crew and they all made me a welcome addition to the crew. They had not flown with a flight engineer previously. I should explain that in Pathfinder crews the reason the flight engineer took on the extra duty of visual bomb aimer was that the primary bomb aimer operated the H2S radar. No. 156 Squadron were primarily a Blind Marker Squadron which meant that if no target indicator flares were seen cascading the radar operator would release Red T1’s. The Master Bomber would then know that the markers were dropped blind and the target had not been visually identified. On this first operation we were about to fly, we were part of The Illuminating Force and carried twelve hooded parachute flares. The master bomber or his deputy would then be able to identify the aiming point visually. Our first ten operations would be mostly dropping flares. On this first operation to Tours I received my baptism alright as we had two night fighter attacks just before the target which Bill Neal corkscrewed to shake them off. Also the Marshalling yards were well defended by heavy predicted flak and searchlights. So it was a great feeling to be safely back on the ground at our Upwood base.
Our crew flew several sorties in support of allied ground forces on the battle front where we dropped sticks of 14 X 1000lb from only 400ft! Needless to say the aircraft shook with the blast. We also attacked V1 launch sites in the Pas de Calais area. They were well camourflaged [sic] so the technique was that six Lancasters formated[sic] on a Mosquito Bomber equipped with “OBOE” a very accurate blind bombing system. When his bomb doors opened the Lancs also did so, followed by bomb release by all the Lancs when we saw the bomb leave the Mosquito. Thus we achieved a bombing
[page break]
pattern which should have rendered the buzz bomb site unusable. This must have saved many lives in and around London! My first German target was Hamburg (13th OP!) which was heavily defended but we came through the barrage unscathed. Night fighters were in the area and although we saw several bombers going down in flames we were left alone. A sickening sight knowing our comrades would meet their end in a fireball from bombs and fuel. We made a note of the position and got on with our own job.
I gradually became used to flying on operations but there was always that nagging thought that the worst might happen and I may not be climbing down the ladder again. Most of our operations from August 1944 were German – we were even sent to Rhur targets in daylight! Several oil refineries were on our list of targets – the German war machine became more ineffective during the final months of the war mainly due to fuel shortage. Our longest flight in the Lancaster was to Stettin (8hrs 30 mins.) and we landed back at base with barely enough fuel for a diversion!
After completing 40 operations (end of my first tour) I became Pilot Officer Don Briggs and was able to join the rest of my crew in the officers mess. I was given a couple of weeks end of tour leave then pressed on with Skipper Bill Neal for a second tour who had now flown two tours and was awarded the DFC. We flew deep into the heart of Germany attacking oil targets at Stettin, Leipzig, Mersburg, Chemnitz and Dessau. In March 1945 we attacked Nurnburg for the second time and were lucky to survive three night fighter attacks. Our rear gunner had amazing night vision and saw the enemy first thus enabling Bill Neal to take evasive action successfully. We were told at debriefing after a safe return to base that the Germans were using jets at night for the first time.
[page break]
During a daylight operation to Kleve in October 1944 we had a flak burst on the port wingtip which damaged the aileron quite badly. Our skipper with his amazing piloting skill brought us back to a safe landing back at Upwood!
I pressed on into my second tour with Bill Neal apart from one operation with another crew, as their flight engineer had completed his tours of operations.
I’m happy to say that despite several very close shaves I came through 62 operations unscathed. Lady luck was certainly on my side!! Bill Neal pressed on with another flight engineer and notched up just short of a hundred ops! He was awarded the DSO, DFC, and the French awarded him the Croix de Guerre. I am eternally gratefull [sic] to Bill for getting me through the most dangerous period of my life. He made sure that my operational record was recognized resulting in the award of the DFC in July 1945.
A few statistics
French Targets 24
German Targets 38
Night Operations 41
Daylight Operations 21
41 operations in “our own” Lancaster GT – J (NE 120)
Oil refineries 3
V1 Sites 5
Battle Front 5
Marshalling Yards 4
[page break]
Rhur Targets 10 (4 in daylight)
My last 30 operations were all German targets
It was a massive relief to have survived and great to be able to enjoy end of second tour leave with my parents and four brothers.
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Don Briggs, a brief description of wartime service
Description
An account of the resource
Describes wartime service from 1939 to 1945. Joined as Halton apprentice in September 1939. Posted as fitter engine to RAF Wittering working on Wellington Hampden and Manchester aircraft. Followed by tour at RAF Upper Heyford working on Wellington where he often accompanied pilots on air test. Volunteered for aircrew in 1943 and trained as flight engineer at RAF St Athan. Crewed with then Flying Office Bill Neal and his crew who had completed their first tour. Joined 156 Squadron Pathfinders and declared operational on 11 June 1944 flying operations to support Normandy invasion forces. Describes pathfinder blind marking operations and mentions engagement by two night fighters. Describes operations against V-1 bomb sites formatting on oboe equipped Mosquito. Explains that most operation after August 1944 were day and night operations to Germany. Completed 40 operations and volunteered to go onto a further tour with his crew. Awarded Distinguished Flying Cross and commissioned. Completed 62 operations. Memoir ends with a statistical breakdown of operations.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Donald Briggs
Format
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Six typewritten pages
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BBriggsDWBriggDWv1
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.
1939
1943
1944
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
France
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Contributor
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Sue Smith
David Bloomfield
156 Squadron
aircrew
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
fitter engine
flight engineer
ground crew
ground personnel
H2S
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Hampden
Lancaster
Manchester
Master Bomber
military service conditions
Mosquito
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Oboe
Pathfinders
promotion
RAF Finningley
RAF Halton
RAF Hemswell
RAF St Athan
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Upwood
RAF Wittering
target indicator
training
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington