1
25
55
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/501/22508/MCurnockRM1815605-171114-005.2.pdf
5ed5184d548c691254d5bd0fa7c7778b
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
Curnock, Richard
Richard Murdock Curnock
R M Curnock
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Curnock, RM
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-18
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
92 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Richard Curnock (1924, 1915605 Royal Air Force), his log book, letters, photographs and prisoner of war magazines. He flew operations with 425 Squadron before being shot down and becoming a prisoner of war.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Richard Curnock 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
The Kriegie August 1988
Description
An account of the resource
The News Sheet of the RAF ex-POW Association. Inside are articles about reunions and attendances, the annual dinner at Henlow, Massed Bands Spectacular, request for information about the POW camp newspaper - Daily Recco, the 1997 Remembrance Day Parade, Branch activities, Far-Eastern Campaigns Memorial, Obituaries, Friends and Sisters, the Barth Memorial, the Shuttleworth Collection, Reunions in Halifax and Ottawa, the Annual dinner, Books about POW life, a visit to RAF Elvington's new Canadian Memorial Hangar and a visit to the Caterpillar Club at Irvin Aeropspace.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
The RAF ex-POW Association
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1998-08
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
16 printed sheets
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
MCurnockRM1815605-171114-005
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
South African Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Birmingham
England--Stafford
England--Croydon
Canada
Ontario--Thunder Bay
Germany--Barth
Ontario--Ottawa
Nova Scotia--Halifax
Italy--Sicily
Gibraltar
Malta
England--Letchworth
Italy
Ontario
Germany
Nova Scotia
England--Herefordshire
England--Staffordshire
England--Warwickshire
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.
107 Squadron
158 Squadron
38 Squadron
50 Squadron
619 Squadron
70 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
B-17
bale out
Battle
Blenheim
Boston
C-47
Catalina
Caterpillar Club
Conspicuous Gallantry Medal
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Flying Medal
Dulag Luft
entertainment
Goldfish Club
ground personnel
Halifax
Hampden
Harvard
Horsa
Hurricane
Ju 88
Me 109
Me 110
memorial
mess
Mosquito
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
prisoner of war
RAF Dunholme Lodge
RAF Elvington
RAF Hendon
RAF Leeming
RAF Lissett
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Shipdham
RAF Ternhill
Red Cross
shot down
Spitfire
Stalag 8B
Stalag Luft 1
Stalag Luft 3
Stirling
the long march
training
Typhoon
Wellington
Whitley
wireless operator
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/501/22570/MCurnockRM1815605-171114-017.1.pdf
71c89cd5622fbbb2f0ce3a1b16012534
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
Curnock, Richard
Richard Murdock Curnock
R M Curnock
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Curnock, RM
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-18
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
92 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Richard Curnock (1924, 1915605 Royal Air Force), his log book, letters, photographs and prisoner of war magazines. He flew operations with 425 Squadron before being shot down and becoming a prisoner of war.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Richard Curnock 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
The Kriegie August 1986
Description
An account of the resource
News-sheet of the RAF ex-POW Association. This edition covers the large Canadian reunion of 1985 at Calgary, the Annual Dinner at Lords, Recco report of ex-POW activities, requests for help, Alan Bryett's lectures, the Association's AGM and annual reunion, Book reviews, advance notice of the Southampton reunion, two donations from the Larry Slattery Memorial Fund to a County Primary School band and to Merida - a 17 year old from Wiltshire, a reunion at RAF Hendon, news and photograph of the Blenheim restoration, the newly formed RAF Historical Society, the Dedication Parade and Service held at Windsor, a story about a German girl from Heydekrug who had moved to Brazil and a cartoon exhorting members to pay their subs.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
The RAF ex-POW Association
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1986-08
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
12 printed sheets
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
MCurnockRM1815605-171114-017
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 Canadian Air Force
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Alberta--Calgary
Alberta--Banff
Alberta--Lake Louise
England--London
Australia
Victoria--Melbourne
Queensland
England--Manchester
England--Great Yarmouth
England--Taunton
Ontario--Cornwall
Lithuania--Šilutė
England--Doncaster
England--Brighton
England--Pulborough
England--Kingston upon Thames
Scotland--Aberdeen
England--Fordingbridge
England--Bristol
England--Nottingham
England--Princes Risborough
England--Olney
England--Southampton
England--Cheshire
United States
Texas
Poland--Żagań
Germany--Bad Fallingbostel
Victoria
England--Windsor (Windsor and Maidenhead)
Poland
Great Britain
Ontario
Alberta
Germany
Lithuania
England--Berkshire
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Gloucestershire
England--Hampshire
England--Norfolk
England--Somerset
England--Surrey
England--Sussex
England--Lancashire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Yorkshire
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
10 Squadron
158 Squadron
7 Squadron
aircrew
arts and crafts
bale out
Blenheim
entertainment
Halifax
Lancaster
memorial
mess
navigator
Pathfinders
prisoner of war
RAF Duxford
RAF Hendon
RAF Melbourne
shot down
Stalag 8B
Stalag Luft 3
Stalag Luft 4
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2029/32639/PWellsRG17010027.2.jpg
f4b1b16ff80c30040881de2e70be16c4
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
Wells, Ray. Album
Description
An account of the resource
26 items. Photographs of Ray's service including pictures of post war Germany.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-03
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
Wells, RG
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Squadron Reunion at Lisset
Description
An account of the resource
A large group of 158 Squadron veterans at St James Church, Lisset.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PWellsRG17010027
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Driffield (East Riding of Yorkshire)
England--Yorkshire
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
158 Squadron
RAF Lissett
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1950/39385/PWhittakerH1724.2.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1950/39385/PWhittakerH17010001.1.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1950/39385/PWhittakerH17010002.1.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1950/39385/SWhittakerH186316v10017.1.jpg
4b9fef9b9ddce0104d5e6920a8fb822f
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
Seven Seated Airmen
Description
An account of the resource
Seven airmen seated in a tent. Bob "Cat's Eye" Benton and J Blackshaw have signed the reverse. Information supplied with the collection states 158 Squadron, Lissett, Johnny Johnson crew.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three b/w photographs
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PWhittakerH17010001, PWhittakerH17010002, SWhittakerH186316v10017
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
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
158 Squadron
aircrew
RAF Lissett
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1950/39387/PWhittakerH17010004.1.jpg
f5b5e065b80be5ba1faef555ce6114a8
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1950/39387/SWhittakerH186316v10002.2.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1950/39387/SWhittakerH186316v10018.2.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1950/39387/PWhittakerH1705.1.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1950/39387/PWhittakerH1706.1.jpg
95ec7d561e1625ff1ad2367523aa6203
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
Seven Airmen
Description
An account of the resource
Seven airmen in flying kit, standing at the rear of their Halifax. 158 Squadron, Lissett, Johnny Johnson crew. A second copy is annotated '158 Sqdn RAF Lissett 4 Group 1944' and each man is identified with their crew position. Another copy has each man and home town named.<br /><br /><span data-contrast="auto" xml:lang="EN-GB" lang="EN-GB" class="TextRun SCXW138699371 BCX0"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW138699371 BCX0">Additional information about this item has been kindly provided by the donor</span></span><span data-contrast="auto" xml:lang="EN-GB" lang="EN-GB" class="TextRun SCXW138699371 BCX0"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW138699371 BCX0">.</span></span>
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
Australia
New South Wales--Parramatta
England--Bexley
England--Wolverhampton
England--Stourbridge
Scotland--Aberdeen
England--Peacehaven (East Sussex)
England--Sussex
England--Worcestershire
England--Bolton (Greater Manchester)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four b/w photographs
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PWhittakerH17010004, SWhittakerH186316v10002, SWhittakerH186316v10018, PWhittakerH1705, PWhittakerH1706
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
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
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
158 Squadron
4 Group
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
flight engineer
Halifax
navigator
pilot
RAF Lissett
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/591/31596/PJonesF1507.1.jpg
85d03269479909b584f13cee5dce143a
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
Jones, Frank
F Jones
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Jones, F
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Derek Jones, Frank Jones's son. Frank Jones flew operations as a bomb aimer with 158 Squadron. Includes photographs of aircrew.
The collection was catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-31
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Frank and Crew
F Jones
Marcus Harris
Alf Shorter
Ray Wells
Ron Evans
Dave Lockyer
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Seven aircrew and a Halifax
Alfred Meaden and crew
Description
An account of the resource
Seven airmen wearing battledress and side caps standing in line in front of the rear turret of a Halifax. Annotated 'Frank and crew' and signatures.
The crew have been identified as:
182868 - MEADEN, ALFRED WILLIAM (pilot)
1650129 - EVANS, RONALD L
1074431 - HARRIS, MARCUS ARTHUR
1546913 - JONES, FRANK
1577161 - LOCKYER, DAVID G
184380 - SHORTER, ALFRED JOHN
1686349 - WELLS, RAYMOND GEORGE
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
One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PJonesF1507
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Stephen McKendry-Smith
158 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
flight engineer
Halifax
navigator
pilot
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1567/32531/LWindmillSA174076v1.1.pdf
f7e1440a94dc84904a6c133f0cf5a1af
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
Windmill, Stan
Stanley A Windmill
S A Windmill
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
2016-12-02
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
Windmill, SA
Description
An account of the resource
Eight items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Stanley 'Stan' Windmill DFC (Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, photographs, metal brevet badges and a record of service document. He flew operations as a pilot with 158 squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Peter Windmill and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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
S A Windmill’s Royal Canadian Air Force pilots flying log book. One
Description
An account of the resource
Royal Canadian Air Force pilots flying log book for S A Windmill, covering the period from 4 January 1942 to 29 May 1945. Detailing his flying training, operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Cambridge, USAF Lakeland, USAF Gunter Field, USAF Craig Field, RAF Shawbury, RAF Condover, RAF Kinloss, RAF Riccall, RAF Lissett and RAF Upavon. Aircraft flown in were Tiger Moth, Stearman, Vultee BT13, Harvard, Oxford, Whitley, and Halifax. He flew a total of 40 operation with 158 Squadron, 6 daylight and 34 night. Targets were Mannheim, Leverkusen, Frankfurt. Stuttgart, Trappes, le Mans, Essen, Nurnberg, Villeneuve, Tergnier, Otignes, Dusseldorf, Karlsruhe, Aulnoye, Acheres, Malines, Aachen, Bourg Leopold, Ferme D’Urville, Maisy, Chateaudun, Laval, Versailles, Evercy, Sterkrade, St Martin L’Hortier, Siracourt, Mimoyeques, Wizernes, Villers Bocage, Oisemont, Domleger, Ferme Le Forestal, Le Landes and Le Cateliers. His pilots for his first 'second dickie' operations were Flight Lieutenant Reavill and Pilot Officer Cameron.
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
LWindmillSA174076v1
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.
Belgium
France
Germany
Great Britain
United States
Alabama--Montgomery
Alabama--Selma
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Belgium--Ottignies
Belgium--Leopoldsburg
Belgium--Mechelen
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Shropshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
Florida--Lakeland
France--Amiens Region
France--Arras
France--Avesnes (Nord)
France--Caen Region
France--Cherbourg Region
France--Dieppe (Arrondissement)
France--Laval (Mayenne)
France--Le Mans
France--Neufchâtel-en-Bray
France--Normandy
France--Oisemont (Canton)
France--Paris Region
France--Pas-de-Calais
France--Saint-Germain-en-Laye
France--Saint-Omer Region (Pas-de-Calais)
France--Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines
France--Tergnier (Canton)
France--Versailles
France--Villers-Bocage (Calvados)
Germany--Aachen
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Stuttgart
Scotland--Moray Firth
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Florida
Alabama
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Châteaudun
France--Domléger-Longvillers
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
1944-03-30
1944-03-31
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
1944-06-25
1944-06
1944-07
1944-06-14
1944-06-15
1944-06-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
158 Squadron
1658 HCU
19 OTU
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
bombing of the Siracourt V-weapon site (25 June 1944)
Flying Training School
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
Harvard
Heavy Conversion Unit
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Kinloss
RAF Lissett
RAF Riccall
RAF Shawbury
RAF Upavon
Stearman
tactical support for Normandy troops
Tiger Moth
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1215/11943/LBaileyRH1588481v1.1.pdf
54ec521f6ee8e4d7409cbed35bffaeb6
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
Bailey, Ronald Hartley
R H Bailey
Description
An account of the resource
14 Items. The collection concerns Ronald Hartley Bailey (b.1925) and includes his log book, photographs including three of aircrew working inside a Stirling, two service caps and an unofficial Bomber Command Medal. He flew a tour of 35 operations as a flight engineer with 425 Squadron from RAF Tholthorpe.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Amanda Berry 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
2018-10-05
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. 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
Bailey, RH
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
Ronald Bailey's flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Flying log book for Ronald Bailey, flight engineer, covering the period from 5 May 1944 to 26 October 1946. Detailing his flying training operations flown and post war flying. He was stationed at RAF Wombelton, RAF Tholthorpe, RAF Lissett, RAF Stradishall and RAF Tuddenham. Aircraft flown in were, Halifax, Stirling and Lancaster. He flew 34 operations with 425 squadron, 22 daylight and 12 night operations. Targets were, Foret de Eawy, Biennais, Caen, Thiverny, Nucourt, Hamburg, Amay sur Seulles, Œuf-en-Ternois, Foret de Nieppe, Bois de Cassan, St Leu D’Esserent, Foret de Chantilly, La Pallice, Brussels, Kiel, Brest, Mimoyecques, Cezaimbre, Volkel, Le Havre, Castrop Rauxel, Wanne Eickel, Calais, Bottrop, Cap Gris Nez, Sterkrade and Dortmund. His pilot on operations was Pilot Officer Poirier.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
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
LBaileyRH1588481v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
France
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Belgium--Brussels
England--Suffolk
England--Yorkshire
France--Audinghen
France--Brest
France--Caen
France--Calais
France--Calvados
France--Cézembre Island
France--Dieppe (Arrondissement)
France--La Pallice
France--Le Havre
France--L'Isle-Adam
France--Nucourt
France--Oise
France--Pas-de-Calais
Germany--Castrop-Rauxel
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Netherlands--North Brabant
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Cap Gris Nez
France--Œuf-en-Ternois
France--Chantilly Forest
France--Nieppe Forest
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1946
1944-06-27
1944-06-28
1944-07-01
1944-07-04
1944-07-06
1944-07-07
1944-07-12
1944-07-15
1944-07-16
1944-07-28
1944-07-29
1944-07-30
1944-07-31
1944-08-01
1944-08-03
1944-08-04
1944-08-05
1944-08-07
1944-08-08
1944-08-09
1944-08-10
1944-08-11
1944-08-12
1944-08-15
1944-08-16
1944-08-17
1944-08-25
1944-08-26
1944-08-27
1944-08-28
1944-08-31
1944-09-03
1944-09-09
1944-09-10
1944-09-11
1944-09-12
1944-09-25
1944-09-26
1944-09-27
1944-09-28
1944-09-30
1944-10-06
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
Mike Connock
158 Squadron
1666 HCU
425 Squadron
90 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Luftwaffe night-fighter airfields (15 August 1944)
Cook’s tour
flight engineer
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Lissett
RAF Stradishall
RAF Tholthorpe
RAF Tuddenham
RAF Wombleton
Stirling
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1457/44425/MTowersG2205169-151002-04.1.jpg
d40756d212a68f6ac6bd72a99b92756e
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
Towers, Geoff
G Towers
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
2015-10-02
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
Towers, G
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. The collection concerns Geoff Towers (2205169 Royal Air Force) and contains documents. He flew operations as an air gunner with 158 Squadron.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Geoff Towers and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
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
Remembering sixty years ago
Description
An account of the resource
Recollections and thoughts by Geoff Towers about his service with 158 Squadron, he was a rear gunner and flew in the Halifax, he flew 40 operations. He lists his crew, Bill Sharp Pilot, Mick Miller Bomb Aimer, John Sessions Navigator, Georg Fairless Flight engineer, Ken Casey Wireless operator, Fred McCarten M Upper gunner, Geoff Towers Rear Gunner.
He also summarises 158 Squadrons war achievements.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Geoff Towers
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
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. Memoir
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One typewritten sheet
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MTowersG2205169-151002-04
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
158 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
flight engineer
Halifax
killed in action
navigator
pilot
RAF Lissett
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1567/32534/MWindmillSA174076-160422-03.2.jpg
9489db0a346f852d0896e48b8c19ffe9
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
Windmill, Stan
Stanley A Windmill
S A Windmill
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
2016-12-02
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
Windmill, SA
Description
An account of the resource
Eight items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Stanley 'Stan' Windmill DFC (Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, photographs, metal brevet badges and a record of service document. He flew operations as a pilot with 158 squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Peter Windmill and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[Stan Windmill – record of service]
ACRC (AIRCREW RECEPTION CENTRE) LONDON. SEPT 1941.
No 2. ITW (INITIAL TRAINING WING) CAMBRIDGE. OCT – DEC 1941.
No 22 EFTS (ELEMENTARY FLYING TRAINING SCHOOL) TIGER MOTHS CAMBRIDGE. JAN 1942.
LAKELAND. U.S.A. RYAN PT17. 2 SEAT TRAINER MAY – JULY 1942.
GUNTER FIELD. U.S.A. VULTEE BT13 2 SEAT TRAINER JULY SEPT 1942.
CRAIG FIELD U.S.A. BEECH AT6 2 MOTOR ADVANCED TRAINER SEPT – NOV 1942 (GRADUATED, RECEIVED PILOTS WINGS).
No 11 AFU (ADVANCED FLYING UNIT) OXFORDS. SHAWBURY MARCH – JUNE 1943.
No 19 OTU (OPERATIONAL TRAINING UNIT) WHITLEY. KINLOSS JULY – SEPT 1943.
No 1658 CU {CONVERSION UNIT) HALIFAX II, III. RICCAL OCT – NOV 1943.
158 SQDN. ‘B’ FLIGHT. HALIFAX III. NOV 1943 – AUG 1944.
No 7 FIS (FLYING INSTRUCTORS SCHOOL) OXFORDS. UPAVON NOV 1944 – FEB 1945.
No 6 (P) AFU (PILOTS ADVANCED FLYING UNIT) WINDRUSH OXFORDS. LITTLE RISSINGTON MARCH 1945 – MAY 1945.
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
Record of service
Description
An account of the resource
Covers all postings in service including training in England and the United States and operations on 158 Squadron flying Halifax after which he was a pilot instructor.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One page handwritten document
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
MWindmillSA174076-160422-03
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--London
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Gloucestershire
Scotland--Moray
England--Yorkshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Gloucestershire
United States
Florida--Lakeland
Alabama--Montgomery
Alabama--Selma
Florida
Alabama
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
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
158 Squadron
1658 HCU
19 OTU
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
bombing
Flying Training School
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Harvard
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Kinloss
RAF Lissett
RAF Riccall
RAF Shawbury
RAF Upavon
Stearman
Tiger Moth
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1822/32379/LWellsRG1686349v1.1.pdf
845721e657e86c45caa0c997eec33a96
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
Wells, Ray
R G Wells
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-03
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
Wells, RG
Description
An account of the resource
51 items. The collection concerns (1686349 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents and photographs in a separate album. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 158 Squadron. <br /><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2029">Wells, Ray. Album</a><br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Carole Dukes 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
Ray Wells' Pilot’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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LWellsRG1686349v1
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
R G Wells Flight Engineer’s Flying Log Book covering the period 16 April 1944 to 30 September 1944. Detailing his flying training and operations flown as flight engineer. He was stationed at RAF Riccall (1658 HCU), RAF Lisset (158 Squadron) and RAF Leconfield (96 Squadron).Aircraft flown in were Halifax II and III. Targets were Oisemont, Le Grand Russignal, Les Catillieres, Wanne-Eickel, Foret de Nieppe, Chapelle Notre Dame, L’Hey, battle area, Dijon, Kiel, Brest, Sterkade, Duisburg, Essen, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Domleger, Marquise, Caen, Bois de la Haie, Etaples, Eindhoven, Homberg, La Porchintie, Le Havre, Gelsenkirchen, Nordstein, Boulogne and Walcheren. His pilot on operations was Flight Sergeant Meaden. He flew 20 day operations and 17 night operations with 158 Squadron.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Brest
France--Caen
France--Dijon
France--Etaples
France--Le Havre
France--Oisemont (Canton)
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Homberg (Kassel)
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Netherlands--Eindhoven
Netherlands--Walcheren
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Domléger-Longvillers
France--Nieppe Forest
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Terry Hancock
158 Squadron
1658 HCU
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Luftwaffe night-fighter airfields (15 August 1944)
bombing of the Pas de Calais V-1 sites (24/25 June 1944)
flight engineer
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Heavy Conversion Unit
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Leconfield
RAF Lissett
RAF Riccall
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2029/32554/PWellsRG17010003.2.jpg
8197b353c259375dc549131ac6f432bf
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
Wells, Ray. Album
Description
An account of the resource
26 items. Photographs of Ray's service including pictures of post war Germany.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-03
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
Wells, RG
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
THE BOYS BEFORE OUR FIRST TRIP – OISMONT – FRANCE
[underlined] HALIFAX B-BAKER 158 SQUADRON [/underlined]
[black and white photograph of seven airmen standing at the rear of a Halifax Bomber]
LEFT TO RIGHT.
FRANK – BOMB. A.
MAC – WOP/AG.
AL – NAV.
FRED – SKIPPER.
RAY – F/E.
RON – MID UPPER
DAVE – REAR GUNS.
[set of seven signatures]
FRANK 1546913 Flt Sgt Bomb Aimer Frank JONES DFM
MAC 1074431 Flt Sgt Wireless Op Marcus Arthur HARRIS
AL 184380 Pilot Off. Navigator Alfred John SHORTER DFC
FRED 182868 Flying Off. Pilot Alfred William MEADEN DFC
RAY 1886349 Sgt Flt Engineer Raymond Geo. WELLS
RON 1650129 Flt Sgt Air Gunner Ronald L EVANS
DAVE 1577161 Flt Sgt Air Gunner David G LOCKYER
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
Ray Wells' Crew
Description
An account of the resource
Seven airmen at the rear of a Halifax. Each man and his position are annotated on the photograph and underneath. Each man has signed his name on the photo.
At the top is 'The Boys before our first trip Oisemont - France Halifax B-Baker 158 Squadron'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph on an album page
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PWellsRG17010003
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.
France
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
France--Oisemont (Canton)
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
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
158 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
Distinguished Flying Cross
flight engineer
Halifax
navigator
pilot
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1822/32652/MWellsRG1686349-170403-08.1.jpg
bac2afa7759cec326a6e6d44fe7add41
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
Wells, Ray
R G Wells
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-03
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
Wells, RG
Description
An account of the resource
51 items. The collection concerns (1686349 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents and photographs in a separate album. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 158 Squadron. <br /><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2029">Wells, Ray. Album</a><br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Carole Dukes 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
Ray Wells' Career Summary
Description
An account of the resource
A brief list of Ray's RAF career on an RAF form.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One typewritten sheet with handwritten annotations
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Service material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MWellsRG1686349-170403-08
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Scarborough
England--Torquay
England--Devon
England--Yorkshire
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
158 Squadron
aircrew
flight engineer
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Heavy Conversion Unit
RAF Leconfield
RAF St Athan
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2029/32556/PWellsRG17010005.1.jpg
c805b53c6acddba69336e17df1e5c6ac
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
Wells, Ray. Album
Description
An account of the resource
26 items. Photographs of Ray's service including pictures of post war Germany.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-03
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
Wells, RG
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Ray Wells, Crew and Girlfriend
Description
An account of the resource
Photo 1 is Ray Wells, trainee airman.
Photo 2 is Seven airmen and five ground crew under the nose of their Halifax, captioned 'Halifax G -George and Crew. RAF Lisset. 158 Squadron. 1944. 37 Operations - Europe.'
Photo 3 is a side head and shoulders portrait of a man with a religious quote printed underneath.
Photo 4 is Ray's girlfriend annotated 'Ferriby'
Photo 5 is Ray and his girlfriend annotated 'Sheffield'.
Photo 6 is Ray annotated 'Hull'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Six b/w photographs on an album page
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PWellsRG17070005
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
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
England--Hull
England--Sheffield
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
158 Squadron
aircrew
ground crew
ground personnel
Halifax
love and romance
nose art
RAF Lissett
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1822/32656/PWellsRG1708.1.jpg
e9eef4487c7e98911ac79f830974caec
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1822/32656/PWellsRG1710.1.jpg
91aba9badce3fed30eef9f7b9b10b77c
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
Wells, Ray
R G Wells
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-03
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
Wells, RG
Description
An account of the resource
51 items. The collection concerns (1686349 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents and photographs in a separate album. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 158 Squadron. <br /><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2029">Wells, Ray. Album</a><br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Carole Dukes 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
Ray Wells and Crew
Description
An account of the resource
12 airmen under the nose of a Halifax. In a second identical image 'Ray Wells F/E 158 Sqd' has been annotated.
The nose has 56+ operations marked on. A cartoon character is dropping bombs and DFC and DFM ribbons have been painted on.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two b/w photographs
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PWellsRG1708, PWellsRG1710
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
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
158 Squadron
aircrew
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Flying Medal
ground crew
ground personnel
Halifax
nose art
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2180/38355/S102SqnRAF19170809v30004.2.jpg
0f26e8c4299edd80c9bd443de3ae042c
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
102 Squadron Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Thirty-one items.
The collection concerns material from the 102 Squadron Association and contains part of a Tee Emm magazine, documents, photographs, accounts of Ceylonese in the RAF, a biography, poems, a log book, cartoons, intelligence and operational reports, an operations order and an account by a United States Army Air Force officers secret trip to Great Britain to arrange facilities for American forces.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Harry Bartlett and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-05-23
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
102 Squadron Association
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Operations order from 4 Group
Description
An account of the resource
Detailed operation order from group to 102, 77, 10, 158, 466, 640, 76, 78, 51 and 578 Squadrons with numbers of aircraft required. Target "Whitebait". Gives detailed instructions, routes, bomb loads, wave orders, fuel loads, window carriage, route markers, Pathfinder target and spoof marking, bombing instructions. List aircraft involved from other groups.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
4 Group Headquarters
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-02-15
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-02-15
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Berlin
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
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One page typewritten document
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription. Allocated
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
S102SqnRAF19170809v30004
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
1 Group
10 Squadron
102 Squadron
158 Squadron
3 Group
4 Group
466 Squadron
5 Group
51 Squadron
578 Squadron
6 Group
640 Squadron
76 Squadron
77 Squadron
78 Squadron
8 Group
bombing
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Pathfinders
RAF Driffield
RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor
RAF Pocklington
RAF Snaith
target indicator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1763/30609/SJenkinsonLP1316403v10046-0001.1.jpg
7f36315e71fa8ff2912150b85e64c134
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1763/30609/SJenkinsonLP1316403v10046-0002.1.jpg
edd98d13dfcf9e29a2f490eef8924cd7
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1763/30609/SJenkinsonLP1316403v10046-0003.1.jpg
4a842a986c6af0ed8868b06701464ed5
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
Jenkinson, Peter and Leslie. Philip Jenkinson
Description
An account of the resource
56 items concerning Leslie Philip Jenkinson who served as a mid-upper gunner on 10 Squadron Halifax and was shot down on 6 September 1943 and taken prisoner. Collection contains documents, research, memoirs, maps, correspondence and photographs.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-24
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
Jenkinson, LP-PR
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined]LOSSES ON MUNICH RAID 6/7 SEPTEMBER 1943[/underlined]
[underlined]9 SQUADRON LANCASTER III ED975 WS-Y[/underlined]
CRASHED NEAR HORNCASTLE, LINCOLNSHIRE 0435 – CREW SURVIVED
[underlined]10 SQUADRON HALIFAX II JD166 ZA-G[/underlined]
2 KILLED 5 SURVIVED
[underlined]10 SQUADRON HALIFAX II JD364 ZA-T[/underlined]
LOST WITHOUT TRACE 7 KILLED
[underlined]12 SQUADRON LANCASTER I ED392 PH-D2[/underlined]
CRASHED IN SEA NEAR SPURN POINT AFTER ENGINE FAILURE 2 KILLED 5 SURVIVED
[underlined]76 SQUADRON HALIFAX V EB250 MP-R[/underlined]
2 SURVIVED 6 KILLED (CREW OF 8)
[underlined]77 SQUADRON HALIFAX II DT793 KN-E[/underlined]
LOST WITHOUT TRACE 7 KILLED
[underlined]78 SQUADRON HALIFAX II JD454 KY-E[/underlined]
5 KILLED 2 SURVIVED
[page break]
[underlined]102 SQUADRON HALIFAX II JB921 DY-B[/underlined]
3 KILLED 4 SURVIVED
[underlined]106 SQUADRON LANCASTER III EB819 ZN-[/underlined]
7 KILLED
[underlined]156 SQUADRON LANCASTER III ED926 GT-[/underlined]
LANDED SAFELY BUT STRUCK OFF CHARGE AFTER SEVERE DAMAGE CREW SURVIVED
[underlined]156 SQUADRON LANCASTER III ED990 GT-[/underlined]
7 KILLED
[underlined]156 SQUADRON LANCASTER III JB177 GT-[/underlined]
4 KILLED 3 SURVIVED
[underlined]158 SQUADRON HALIFAX II [/underlined]
3 KILLED 4 SURVIVED
[underlined]427 SQUADRON HALIFAX V DK255 ZL-[/underlined]
7 KILLED
[underlined]427 SQUADRON HALIFAX VLK928 ZL-[/underlined]
5 KILLED 3 SURVIVED (CREW OF 8)
[underlined]428 SQUADRON HALIFAX V DK196 NA-Z[/underlined]
1 KILLED 6 SURVIVED
[underlined]434 SQUADRON HALIFAX V DK251 IP-F[/underlined]
7 KILLED
[underlined]434 SQUADRON HALIFAX V DK262 IP-R[/underlined]
7 KILLED
[underlined]TOTAL[/underlined]
19 AIRCRAFT LOST
87 KILLED
29 POW
6 INJURED (9 SQUADRON 1 ESCAPED INJURY)
7 UNINJURED (156 SQUADRON LANCASTER ED426 GT-)
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
Losses on Munich raid 6/7 September 1943
Description
An account of the resource
Lists squadron, aircraft type and serial number, reason for loss if known, number killed and number survived. Consists of 19 crews from 13 squadrons with 6 Lancaster and 13 Halifax.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three page handwritten document
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
SJenkinsonLP1316403v10046
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--Munich
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-09-06
1943-09-07
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
10 Squadron
102 Squadron
106 Squadron
12 Squadron
156 Squadron
158 Squadron
427 Squadron
428 Squadron
434 Squadron
76 Squadron
77 Squadron
78 Squadron
9 Squadron
crash
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 5
killed in action
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
prisoner of war
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1457/44427/MTowersG2205169-151002-050001.2.jpg
d99c412675938248edb95a30f6358211
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1457/44427/MTowersG2205169-151002-050002.2.jpg
42056e0950f6d048a0ae8b402a9a4f2c
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
Towers, Geoff
G Towers
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
2015-10-02
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
Towers, G
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. The collection concerns Geoff Towers (2205169 Royal Air Force) and contains documents. He flew operations as an air gunner with 158 Squadron.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Geoff Towers and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
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
List of operations
Description
An account of the resource
Page is titled 'Operational details of raids carried out over Germany, Holland and France, details of our flight log book of bombing raids.' It is in the form of a table recording Date, Target, Country, Duration and Comments. The summary at the end is First operational tour completed, analysis, 13 Daylight operations, 27 night operations (nr), 40 operations total, 236 hrs 6 mins operational flying time. there are hand written annotations, on first page Warrant Officer G Towers 158 Squadron and on the second, extracts from Bomber Command war diaries.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-09-17
1945-03-18
1944-10-06
1944-10-09
1944-10-14
1944-10-21
1944-10-23
1944-10-28
1944-10-29
1944-10-30
1944-11-04
1944-11-06
1944-11-16
1944-11-18
1944-11-29
1944-11-30
1944-12-12
1944-12-05
1944-12-06
1944-12-30
1945-01-01
1945-01-02
1945-01-05
1945-01-06
1945-01-14
1945-01-16
1945-01-28
1945-02-01
1945-02-02
1945-02-07
1945-02-09
1945-02-14
1945-02-18
1945-03-03
1945-03-08
1945-03-11
1945-03-12
1945-03-13
1945-03-15
1945-03-18
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
France
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
Germany
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Essen
Netherlands
Germany--Freising
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Jülich
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Hagen (Arnsberg)
Germany--Soest
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Hanau
Germany--Saarbrücken
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Germany--Goch
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Leipzig Region
Germany--Kamen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Wuppertal
Germany--Witten
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. Personal research
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two typewritten pages
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MTowersG2205169-151002-050001, MTowersG2205169-151002-050002
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.
158 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
RAF Lissett
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/319/8273/ERaettigMDRaettigDW460721.2.pdf
5b8d5a081cf31c017acd47c5a5afde44
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Raettig, Dennis
Dennis William Raettig
Dennis W Raettig
D W Raettig
D Raettig
Description
An account of the resource
72 items. The collection concerns the wartime service of Leading Aircraftman Dennis William Raettig (b. 1920, 1136657 Royal Air Force). Joining the Royal Air Force reserve in 1941 he trained as a flight mechanic (Engines) before being posted to 104 Squadron (Wellingtons) at RAF Driffield. This squadron number was later changed to 158 Squadron flying Halifax at RAF East Moor, followed by moves to RAF Rufford and Lisset. The collection consists of a memoir, correspondence with family and acquaintances, family history, service and personal documentation, lucky charms,personal items, cap, boots, squadron tie, research on bombing in Hull as well as photographs of air and ground crew and aircraft. It also includes an oral history interview with Joan Raettig (Dennis Raettig's wife).
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Sue Burn and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-23
2016-07-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Raettig, DW
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[postmark]
[stamp]
Mr. D. Raettig,
158. Beverley Road,
Kirkella,
Nr. Hull,
E. YORKS.
[page break]
59. Tarrant Crawford,
Nr. Blandford,
Dorset.
21st. July.
Dear Denny,
Well old timer you certainly did spring a surprise when you sent me that very welcome letter. It is over two years now since I left you & all the lads. During that time a lot has happened dont [sic] you agree. [sic]
Thanks very much for your detailed account of the old gang. I have been in touch all the time with “Staff’ Evans (ex Q) & he has kept in contact with Jack Spargo, so you can see I have managed to glean some more of 158 news from that channel.
Needless to say Den, I was very reluctant to leave 158, but it was the start of my homeward march.
As you may recall, I was sent to 1669 Con [Conversion] Unit at Langar which is
[page break]
[circled 2].
About 10-12 miles from Nottingham.
Whilst there I did very little for the first six or eight weeks. There were no kites & when they did arrive I got a shock. They were old battered Halifax IIs & Vs. & what a sample after coming off an ops station.
Any way we were soon to be relieved of them and restocked with reasonable conditioned Lanc IIIs. However they wer’nt [sic] to last long because within six months of the station being opened it was closed.
My next step was way down south. Yes Den it was to be planted 31 miles from my home & in a district I know very well – No1 Aircraft & armament Experimental Establishment – Boscombe Down near Salisbury. By the way you must remember Sammy Wolfe & Harry Wi [insert] l [/insert] cox from “C’ & A flights – well they were down there with me.
[page break]
[circled 3].
Now you may wonder what I was doing on an experimental station, well we were given the all conquering Avro Lincoln to fly inside out. How ever [sic] the trials were very successful & lasted a year for me because I accepted Class B demob & got out eight months in advance of my Class A.
Well I’ll try and tell you all I know of the lads who were posted with me.
Remember Staff Evans, well he is soon to be demobbed & is at a place called 103 staging post, where that is the Lord only knows. Then there is “Swede” George Evans safely back in Gloucestershire with his wife & family. Cpl Alf Hope has been demobbed a long while and so has Sam Wolfe.
Now before I sign off old pal I want to ask you a favour
[page break]
[circled 4].
You must remember Cpl. Brown who was with us on “R”. Do you happen to know his address home or service as I like to contact him.
Now I’m going to say cheerio because being a married man & having a home of your own there is always something to be done. Still get married as soon as you can. It’s much better than single life.
Thanks for writing Dennis & I’ll be only too pleased to answer any more you may like to write
Cheerio then
& All the best
[underlined] Don [/underlined]
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter to Dennis Raettig from former colleague from 158 Squadron
Description
An account of the resource
Letter date 21 July from 'Don'. Reply to letters sent two years after Don left the squadron. Notes that he is in touch with some other squadron members and recounts what happened to him after he left the squadron. He went originally to 1669 Heavy Conversion Unit at Royal Air Force Langar firstly with Halifax and the later with Lancaster. However, the station shut down after six months. He then went to the Aircraft and Armament Experimental Establishment Boscombe Down working on testing of the Avro Lincoln. He then tells of other acquaintances and asks after other friends.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1946-07-21
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four page handwritten document and envelope
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ERaettigMDRaettigDW460721
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Civilian
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Dorset
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1946-07-22
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.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Robin Christian
David Bloomfield
158 Squadron
1669 HCU
Heavy Conversion Unit
RAF Langar
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1953/36870/OHitchcockJS740899-170926-030001.1.jpg
bd407dec5e96dfce67eea58d919e635e
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1953/36870/OHitchcockJS740899-170926-030002.1.jpg
842bbafc7ecac12b1ffd8758120238f0
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1953/36870/OHitchcockJS740899-170926-030003.1.jpg
10d92775a0b8164746af0e5666f3e6ff
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
Hitchcock, John Samuel
J S Hitchcock
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
2017-09-26
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hitchcock, JS
Description
An account of the resource
87 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant John Samuel Hitchcock (740899, 106813 Royal Air Force) and contains his decorations, log books, uniform jacket, sunglasses, parachute logbook, documents and photographs. He flew operations as a pilot with 37, 57 and 78 Squadrons. <br /><br />The collection also contains <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2142">an album</a><span> from his training in North Africa.<br /></span><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by P J Hitchcock 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
John Hitchcock's Officers' Record of Service
Description
An account of the resource
John's service record as an officer.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Dorking
England--Surrey
Egypt
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Service material
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three printed sheets with handwritten annotations
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
OHitchcockJS740899-170926-030001, OHitchcockJS740899-170926-030002, OHitchcockJS740899-170926-030003
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. Air Ministry
158 Squadron
78 Squadron
aircrew
Distinguished Flying Cross
Operational Training Unit
pilot
RAF Shallufa
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/753/31389/LCotterJDP168678v1.1.pdf
2e158e31a5b92398f6315ebfee77f5de
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
Cotter, John David Pennington
J D P Cotter
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. The collection concerns Wing Commander John Cotter DFC (b. 1923, Royal Canadian Air Force) and contains an oral history interview, his log book and a memoir. He flew operations as a pilot with 158 and 640 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Cotter 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
2018-08-28
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
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Cotter, JDP
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
J D Cotter’s Royal Canadian Air Force pilots flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Royal Canadian Air Force pilots flying log book for J D Cotter, covering the period from 11 January 1942 to 22 April 1944. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RCAF Caron, RCAF North Battleford, RAF Swanton Morley, RAF South Cerney, RAF Lulsgate Bottom, RAF Wymeswold, RAF Marston Moor, RAF Lissett and RAF Leconfield. Aircraft flown were, Tiger Moth, Oxford, Wellington and Halifax. He flew a total of 34 operations. One operation with 28 operational training unit, one with 1652 conversion unit 19 with 158 Squadron and 13 with 640 squadron. Targets were, Rouen, Cologne, Hamburg, Mannheim, Peenemunde, Leverkusen, Berlin, Modane, Hannover, Bochum, Kassel, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Stuttgart, Leipzig, Schweinfurt, Trappes, Le Mans, Nuremberg, Paris and Tergnier. His first or second pilots on operations were Sergeant Mottershead and Pilot Officer Maxwell.
Format
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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
LCotterJDP168678v1
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 Canadian Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
France
Germany
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
England--Gloucestershire
England--Leicestershire
England--Norfolk
England--Somerset
England--Yorkshire
France--Le Mans
France--Modane
France--Paris
France--Rouen
France--Tergnier (Canton)
France--Yvelines
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Peenemünde
Germany--Schweinfurt
Germany--Stuttgart
Saskatchewan--North Battleford
Saskatchewan--Regina
Saskatchewan
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1943-05-04
1943-05-05
1943-06-28
1943-06-29
1943-07-24
1943-07-25
1943-07-27
1943-07-28
1943-07-29
1943-07-30
1943-08-02
1943-08-03
1943-08-09
1943-08-10
1943-08-17
1943-08-18
1943-08-22
1943-08-23
1943-08-24
1943-08-25
1943-09-16
1943-09-17
1943-09-22
1943-09-23
1943-09-24
1943-09-27
1943-09-28
1943-09-29
1943-10-03
1943-10-04
1943-10-05
1943-10-08
1943-10-09
1943-10-23
1943-10-24
1943-11-03
1943-11-04
1943-11-22
1943-11-23
1943-11-25
1943-11-26
1943-11-27
1943-12-02
1943-12-03
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
1944-03-06
1944-03-07
1944-03-08
1944-03-15
1944-03-16
1944-03-30
1944-03-31
1944-04-09
1944-04-10
1944-04-11
1944-04-17
1944-04-18
1944-04-22
1944-04-23
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
158 Squadron
1652 HCU
20 OTU
28 OTU
640 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
Flying Training School
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Leconfield
RAF Lissett
RAF Marston Moor
RAF South Cerney
RAF Swanton Morley
RAF Wymeswold
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/739/10740/PChubbWF1814.2.jpg
9ad96adf799e34984e84b6082e705c18
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/739/10740/AChubbWF180417.2.mp3
cf5c51719b9aae0d055855609fbf4424
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
Chubb, William Frederick
W F Chubb
Description
An account of the resource
Twelve items. An oral history interview with Flight Sergeant William Chubb (b. 1925, 1890485 Royal Air Force) his log book and photographs. He served as a flight engineer with 432 Squadron RCAF.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by William Chubb 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
2018-04-17
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
Chubb, WF
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 17th of April 2018 and I am in Polegate near Eastbourne, talking with Bill Chubb, flight engineer, about his life and experiences. So Paul, so Bill, what were your first recollections of life?
BC: Well I must have started school at five years old. I hadn’t been at the infant school very long when I fractured my thigh and I was in Lewisham hospital for fifteen weeks, in South East London, with me leg strung up for the fifteen weeks. When I left, when I came out of the hospital, it was quite some time before I could actually walk again. So, and then that, I go on to when I was twelve years old, my father, who had rheumatic fever during the First World War, he finished up with a weak heart, and at twelve years old, 1938, he dropped to the floor in front of me. Well, that was 1938, at twelve years old. So 1939 war was declared, so there was just me mother and I, my three sisters, and the oldest one [clock chiming] was fifteen years old when I was born and they were married. I started work at the, how I got the job I don’t know, but I started work at the British Ermeto Corporation, which was government sponsored, and the main offices were in Victoria, London, with a warehouse and works not far from there. I started that job and they was doing AID inspection, learning me how to use a chrom, um -
CB: Chronometer.
BC: A chronometer and another one, what was the other one? I forget the other one, and then war was declared so the whole of the firm, lock stock and barrel, was moved down to Slough and I went with them, and I only used to come home of a weekend. Well after we’d been there a few weeks the firm was moved on again, into Maidenhead, further away from London cause the firm was getting bigger and I, I stopped coming home and I, one particular week cause me mother was on her own I wanted to stay with her, so I wouldn’t go back and my mother had various letters from that firm, hoping that I would return, because they offered me a permanency in the draughtsman’s office, but I still didn’t go back. So I left and I got a job in Hatton Garden, in a silversmiths. Now the war was at its height then with the bombing so at times I couldn’t even get there. I didn’t like the job but for the sake of, you know, bringing a bit money into the family, the two of us I stayed there for a while. But then my future brother-in-law, he was a butcher and he knew a lot of people and he got me a job in the County of London Electric Supply Company with, I stayed training as a electrician and I was still keen on the Air Force anyway, so eventually my papers came through and I left and started ground crew. What happened then?
CB: Where did you report?
BC: Pardon?
CB: Where did you report?
BC: Um, oh, er I’m getting confused now.
CB: We’ll just take a pause.
BC: Time I’ll always remember, we was working at a factory the Old Kent Road and all hell broke loose around about lunchtime, and we were being sprayed by in Focke Wulf 190s, going up and down Old Kent Road, spraying everything and they bombed the childrens’ school at Hither Green and killed many, many children. But there was a rumour back that they actually got him before he hit the coast, actually brought him down. Well then after that I was called up, and I went to, for me training, as a um, I was in for a armourer’s assistant, but course I had to do me foot slogging first, before I started. And er, hold on I’m getting a bit confused. I did make some notes.
CB: Okay, fire away.
BC: When I was finally called up for aircrew, I went to Skegness, and, to do my training.
CB: Initial training.
BC: Oh, I got posted from there after that, and I went to Cullerton Cross in Devon: Number 1 Balloon Centre. I always remember the Station Commander was, Captain, Group Captain Pendlebury he was about four foot high [laughter] and every Monday morning, cause I was wearing a white flash, cause I’d been accepted for aircrew, he asked me who I was and what I was doing. Well then I got posted from there and I went to [pause] 158 Squadron at Lissett and that was operational. But I was only there a matter of, a matter of weeks and I got my posting and I went to St Athans, I went to St Johns Wood, for ACRC.
CB: That’s it. Yup.
BC: From there I posted to No 1, No 4 S and TT, St Athans for my engineering training. [Pause] From then, after me training, and I passed out as a flight engineer, I went to the 1659 Halifax Unit and that’s where I met Bill Miller.
CB: This is the Heavy Conversion Unit.
BC: Heavy Conversion Unit, where I met Bill Miller and his crew. There was an objection to me joining the crew, by one of the crew.
CB: Because?
BC: Because I wasn’t Canadian. But he was over-ruled, and I remained with the crew. The skipper, never, ever [emphasis] heard of that, otherwise he’d have told him he can go. But I remember going to Heavy Con Unit because, to meet the crew, and there were so many men there and the flight engineers were mostly English anyway, they were, being associated with a Canadian crew. And there was this guy, who the, who’s this, hell, Bill Miller, who’s this hell Bill Chubb, a flight engineer? And of course he was a Flight Lieutenant, and I’m saying that’s me sir, it’s me sir! [laugh] And me and Bill were pals till we left the air, till it was all over. That’s how we got on; we done twenty six trips. One of them was not counted because we came back early, so.
CB: In general, the Canadian squadrons seem to have used British flight engineers because they weren’t training flight engineers.
BC: No, in Canada, were they. When they went from two engine stuff to four engine. There was a, one or two, not many.
CB: No.
BC: And I think they must have been engineers, ground staff, that knew a lot about aircraft and they remustered to, and that’s how they came over. Because many people have asked me why was it that you flew with a Canadian squadron, so many people, even when I went to Aces High, there was a lady there who asked me that same question.
CB: It’s because they didn’t train them. So how was the crew?
BC: Spot on. I’d do it all over again, if I was with that crew.
CB: Which was the one who objected?
BC: The wireless op, because his ancestors were French. The rear gunner, the rear gunner was Polish and I still correspond with his niece and I can show you a picture of that that I’ve got because I still contact the bomb aimer, er the navigator, Barry, he lives in Vancouver. He must be about ninety, ninety six or seven, I think, Barry. He got married, he remarried again at eighty six [laugher] and he’s still going strong.
CB: Such energy! We’ll pause there for a mo.
BC: There’s only the two of us left now.
CB; Now what about the pilot?
[Whisper] It’s recording.
CB: What about the pilot, what was he like?
BC: Bill Miller? Well after the war he went back to Canada, and he married an English girl, they got married and he wasn’t, flying was in his blood and he didn’t like the job he had, so they saw an advert for the RAF wanting pilots. He came back to England, re-joined the RAF and he stayed on until he retired.
CB: Did he.
BC: And then he done quite a time with the MOD.
CB: Right.
BC: That’s what Paul was, MOD.
CB: Yeah. Your son Paul. Your son Paul, works for the MID, MOD. Now who’s the, you are one of two survivors, who’s the other survivor?
BC: Is Barry Hall, the navigator. [Background talking]
CB: Where does he live? Vancouver?
BC: Vancouver.
CB: Right.
BC: He lives on Vancouver Island.
CB: Okay, we’ll pause there for a bit. So just two of you left, but over the years, how many reunions have you had?
BC: Our first reunion was in 1988, in Winnipeg and that’s where I re-met all of the crew except for the wireless operator and the rear gunner, anyway the rear gunner had passed on, anyway. But the wireless op, he just didn’t want to know anything about, you know, after the war.
CB: Didn’t he?
BC: Didn’t. Then the second one was four years afterwards and same place, Winnipeg and we had really, cause the bomb aimer’s daughter lived in Winnipeg so she supplied all the you know, all the private stuff. The parties and that while we was out there. And that second one, we booked another holiday while we was in Canada and the wife and I, we had eight days helicopter flying over the Canadian Rockies!
CB: Amazing!
BC: And It was quite an expensive holiday because all those what were in there were either Americans or Canadians, they were solicitors, doctors and all that, and one of them, when we first met he asked me you know, a lot about what I’d done and why was I in Canada and I said well cause of the reunion, and he said, oh, well he said I’m a DA, he said being English, you wouldn’t know what that was. So I said I do. So he said what’s that? I said a duck’s ass! [Much laughter] It shook him rigid.
CB: But he really meant District Attorney.
BC: But we were friends for the rest of those eight days, believe me. [Laughter] But it was a hell of a holiday. It really was.
CB: Yes. Fantastic.
BC: It was the holiday of a lifetime. And I still correspond with one of them ladies that was on that holiday, even now, every Christmas. They really, you know.
CB: Can we just go fast backwards to the interesting situation of the French Canadian wireless operator. He vetoed your joining the crew but was over-ruled you said. What was his attitude after that?
BC: Naturally enough, eventually he got his commission and that made him even a bit more, against me, I don’t know, but with this throwing out of the Window, you know, the silver paper lark, I always found that when we was going, that was always piled up in my position where it was only a foot away from his position in the aircraft. And I have a book, I still don’t know who was responsible for putting out that Window. Cause when we was on leave once, when I came back they said oh the position for throwing out the Window is in a new position. Well what we had to do, there was a kind of a funnel, but cause it was in the floor when you go down into the nose of the aircraft, and it was in the floor. Well for me to do it, it meant I kept on picking up the bundles and bending down to put them down through the floor. Well while we was on leave, someone thought of the idea of if they made a funnel that went into the hole in that floor, it would save that purpose. But it had to be stored. Well, being on leave, I didn’t hear all, any of this so when we came back, we were flying that night. So, and I was showed where the funnel was, strapped up, well I thought that was the permanent position. But it wasn’t the permanent position and when I started throwing out that stuff, I was jamming it down this funnel that was strapped on the bulkhead behind my position and eventually it became full up with silver paper and the whole lot collapsed, and we had an aircraft full of silver paper. [Laughter]
CB: This is a Halifax, yes.
BC: I didn’t know. But I wasn’t involved, I wasn’t told because of being on leave. And that’s where it was. Actually, cause I thought the hole was in the side of the aircraft, so where they put it, and it was quite, you know, quite large, but the idea was to get that funnel and put it in the floor of the aircraft. And that would have been another [emphasis] obstruction for actually getting out fast.
CB: So we’re talking about a Halifax. Moving from the front to the back, the bomb aimer’s right in the nose, who is nearest next? [Clock chime]
BC: Who is?
CB: Which. Who’s comes after the bomb aimer, moving backwards, who’s behind him?
BC: Navigator.
CB: Right. And behind him?
BC: The wireless op.
CB: And the pilot’s upstairs.
BC: Over the, over the wireless op.
CB: Right.
BC: And then my position was behind the pilot, or on the wall.
CB: Upstairs.
BC: Yup.
CB: Okay, right. We’ll pause there.
BC: It’s used in all phases of war, where the Lancaster wasn’t. It was a good aircraft, I’ll give you that. [background talking] But I still think the radial engines were one over on the Rolls Royce. I do. And I think if the war had gone any longer that would have been more so. Because the engines on the Halifax, fourteen cylinder Hercules, was being changed to eighteen cylinders on the two, on the two inner engines. So you had two eighteen cylinder engines, either side the fuselage, and then the two original fourteen cylinders, and that would have, I think it would have run rings round the perishing Lancaster, as well as the ceiling and the climbing ability but of course it never came to that because of the war ending. [Sounds of cups and saucers] But one of the reasons why I did choose the Halifax, I thought there was more chance of getting out of a Halifax than there was a Lancaster and I proved it time and time again by reading these books, about that, and they all say the same. In this particular book I’m reading, that Paul gave me, they reckon the ability to get out [emphasis] of a Liberator was sixty percent, and a Fortress. But when you come to the Lancaster it was down to fifteen percent. That’s in black and white, and I’ve marked that book for anybody reading that book later on.
CB: So is that to do with the size of the hatch, the placing of the hatch or what? The location of the hatch.
[Other]: Think it was the wing spar.
BC: I think the placing of the hatch, because the one near the pilot on the Lancaster was only very small, for anybody in trouble, trying to get out, probably quite easy normally, but in an emergency, like that, they’d, it would be a hell of a job, it was a hell of a job anyway, [emphasis] but to, you know, to get out of an aircraft like that. That was one of the reasons why I plumped for the Halifax, after the PBY, cause that’s the one I really wanted to fly.
CB: Catalina.
BC: I’ve never flown in one. it’s a beautiful aircraft, that Catalina. I’ve never actually seen it flying.
CB: Now the challenge for the bombers was not just flak, it was attacks by fighters, so you practiced dealing with fighters: fighter affiliation. How did that work? You were on the lookout.
BC: I was on lookout, out in the astrodome, yeah, you know.
CB: So where’s the astrodome in the Halifax?
BC: It’s just, it would be above the engineer’s position. The instruments are, the pilot’s there and that’s the astrodome.
CB: And when the navigator needed to take a fix then he’d come along with his sextant.
BC: Sextant.
CB: Yeah. Right. So how did the fighter affiliation work then? What were the responsibilities of the crew and what did the pilot do? The fighter comes in -
BC: It was mostly controlled by the, by the two gunners, wasn’t it, you know, [clock chimes] cause Pete was very good, he was extremely, you know.
CB: But you’d have your head in the astrodome looking out for the fighters, wouldn’t you, giving an added pair of eyes. [Clock string]
BC: Yeah, it was you know: corkscrew port go, and all this business.
CB: So that’s called, then what happens with the aeroplane, when they corkscrew, what happens?
BC: Well you have to hold on tight to start with, especially with Bill! Cause I always remember, we had, I don’t know why they was changing, but there was a crew that flew on Lancasters, and it was Squadron Leader MacMurtry, and he wanted an engineer to be with his engineer when they first flew in a Halifax. So of course dear Bill, being friends, said my engineer will come with me, I will fly with ‘em. When we came back I said I don’t want to bloody well fly with him no more, I think he thought we had a ruddy Spitfire! [Laughing] Yeah, he really, you know, he was doing, I suppose okay, it’s a, whether a Lancaster done that what he was trying to do with that Halifax, but my skipper wasn’t, you know, wasn’t that, he probably could do it if he wanted to but he didn’t. But when this MacMurtry bloke, oh mate, I thought I’m not flying with him no more. they all laughed their heads off. That was one. Another thing I remember, when we took off on different trips according what type of day it was, all circled the drome and all set course at the same time. If took off early and you were circling the drome quite a bit, I tell you what I did notice, I’m sure I saw the rockets being fired from wherever they were, cause I seen the vapour trails going up, when we was up there, and we was up in Yorkshire. I saw that quite a few times.
CB: So when they were going up, this was in Northern Europe you could see, in the dark.
BC: Yes, you see the vapour trails of the, I suppose V -
CB: V2s. Because we’re talking about later in ’44.
WB: Yeah. Well most of my stuff was in ’44.
CB: Indeed. Now there are all sort of hazards in flying aeroplanes and sometimes bombs didn’t go when they ought to.
BC: Oh yeah, we had that on our third trip, I think it was on Bochum, I think that’s how you say it, and we got diverted coming back, but before we got diverted we had a terrific crash [emphasis] and we thought we’d had a collision and I was going round with a, an oxygen holder, a portable oxygen with a torch taking out the floor panels, you know, trying to find what could have caused that, and we didn’t find anything, and I didn’t find anything but everything was still okay. It was okay, so we came back and I got diverted. I can’t remember where it was, it’s in there somewhere.
C: In your log book.
WB: Castrock Rock Salt, That’s the name of the trip we had, we were diverted to Wombledon coming back, with this terrific crash, which I never found out what it was. So we landed at the place allocated for us and switched off the engines, dropped the flaps, opened the bomb doors and a thousand pounder fell out, [clap] boom, on the ground!. It had iced up on the racks of course, coming back dropping low and, you know, that finished up on the floor. Thousand pound bomb!
CB: So the bang was the bomb falling from its, onto the bomb doors.
WB: Well we realised that, that was the big bang we heard, with it falling on the bomb doors, you know.
CB Lucky to hold them. Right, now what about shrapnel?
BC: Pardon?
CB: What about shrapnel? Was there lots of flak? How often did you get caught?
BC: Not too large lumps, but smaller stuff, specially one bit that came through, I think it was the Perspex above the skippers head, missed him, luckily, came back and walloped me on the floor, on me boot, but no damage. But talking about damage, the rear, the mid upper gunner, he had an injury, but it wasn’t through enemy action. We came out, it was around about our twenty second trip, I think it was, twenty second or twenty third, and we came out and we nearly always had Q Queenie, we came out, done the necessary and the skipper wasn’t happy with the main compass. So we were picked to go a second aircraft. We piled all the stuff onto the truck and we went to the second aircraft, but when we started up the port inner engine, which the hydraulics were worked off of, as we started off, so the hydraulics blew and I was covered in hydraulic fluid. So that was number two aircraft: unserviceable. So we all piled out again, piled out and went round to the third one. Well, time was getting a bit short, so we put all the stuff on the truck, the truck came, the WAAF took us round to the next aircraft. In the panic of jumping off the truck, it was one of those that had a tarpaulin cover, with down the side of each lock, truck, had these hooks, one up and one down. Arnie, the mid upper gunner, he jumped, but he caught his finger where he had a ring, on that, and pulled his finger off and we were just standing there looking and the WAAF driver came round, said what was we doing and we said looking for his finger on the floor and she went [sound effect], she passed straight out. Anyway. He, we still wanted to go. Well I think it was Wing Commander France, I think that’s who it was, said after all the trouble we had had, we could scrub that, but Bill, the skipper, still wanted to go. I mean took Arnie off in the blood wagon down to York, Bill wanted to go so we went. We all volunteered to go, but we needn’t have done because of the problems we had had. I think that was our twenty second trip, I thought that was our twenty second, what that was. But um, it was Harburg, Harburg Runinia, yeah Harburg Runinia. That was that trip. We never saw Arnie any more, and later on, it was only a few years ago, that he wrote about going back to Canada. He went back on the liner, the Aquitania. Well the Aquitania, when I was at school, they took us on a school journey, to Southampton and we went to Southampton and that was the boat that took us on, the Aquitania, and it took Arnie back to Canada after the war, before it was broken up. But he never did [indecipherable] was a character on his own, Arnie. He had ancestors that were Scottish. And when we went to the reunion, the first time, that was 1988, in the convention centre in Winnipeg, you know, there was over, there was five thousand at that reception, including the wives and Arnie disappeared and I knew what was going to happen. And when he appeared, he had his, all his regalia on for a Scotsman, you know, and his kilt and all that and he used to be able to get a balloon, used to blow, and they were what, anything, massive length and he used to play a mouth organ and how he worked it, I don’t know, but he was using the air of the balloon to, for the mouth organ like a, you know, and he really had ‘em going, he rally did, he was funny, that way. He always had something, and we, not at this house, but the other house we were, in Bromley we had ‘em cause we went to see the plaque in the, in London, the, what church was it? It was the RAF Church.
CB: St Clement Danes.
BC: That’s it. We had a plaque put in the floor. They all came back to us, in Bromley, you know. That’s where he, up and down the garden with his kilt, [indecipherable] he was a real character, I say that book of poems, that’s what he used to do. When he wasn’t when he was in the mess of a night, when we weren’t flying, he was either writing poems, cause his whole [emphasis] family wrote poems, his father and his, and it was either writing to them, or sitting there, with a poem, it was brilliant. Oh, another thing he done, we had a reunion up in York and a coach of Canadians come over here and all stayed in a hotel, but Arnie stayed with us and he, I’m talking to him about the Old Kent Road and he had an ambition to be able to talk like a London Cockney. And he used to drive barmy while he was here just coming up the Old Kent Road! I took him up there in the car when we went up to York once, but he was a real character. We got on well together the two of us, you know, but he really, [clock chime] he could certainly write poems, as I say. If you want to borrow that book, you can borrow it.
CB: Looks very interesting. Let’s pause there for a mo. So the aircraft on their hardstandings have got the ground crew looking after them. What was the relationship between the crew of the aircraft, the aircrew, and the groundcrew?
BC: Extremely, well, they worked all hours, you know, to get those aircraft going. In all weathers. I mean some of the weather up in Sc, Yorkshire is atrocious. I mean I remember clearing the runway, you know, with picks and shovels, to enable us to fly off into Germany, you know. And that was, talk about kind of rubbing it in, you know but if you couldn’t take off, you couldn’t fly, but they had us all out there, and we did, when, this business of the Halifax bearing off to starboard when you first take off.
CB: Ground swing.
BC: Yeah. I often wondered, did that apply to Lancasters? Did it?
CB: Well I think it applies to all aircraft where the torque is taking it round, but it’s worse on a Stirling because it has no airflow over the fin because it’s a single fin, until you get the tail up. Better on the Lancaster and the Halifax.
BC: I’ve often wondered that.
CB: So on, that’s a point, on take off: what was the role of the flight engineer on take off?
BC: Assist the skipper as regards to counteracting that business of the starboard engines being opened up slightly before, you know, at an angle to counteract that swing.
CB: So you put your hand on the throttles at an angle so the take up on some of them is slower than the others.
BC: Just keep that bit from going that way.
CB: So for take off how much responsibility did the flight engineer have for controlling the throttles?
BC: With Bill, he was always there, he was always there to kind of, you know, cause he was always looking for, you know, things that might happen, you know. He was a good pilot, a really good pilot. I think that, because I always remember a letter from Barry that he wrote to me once, cause I’ve got arthritis, in me spine, and Barry made the comment cause we were talking about it you know, I’ve had it so long, and he said well don’t blame it on Bill’s landings because you never knew that you was down!
CB: So gentle.
BC: He was so gradual old Bill, the perfect pilot as well as being a very nice bloke. My wife, she liked Bill and they got on very well together.
C: So where did you meet your wife, and when?
BC: Well I belonged to the ATC, Air Training Corps, and that was even before I went in to the Air Force, and with the dances that used to, you know, of a weekend at the Artillery House in Bromley Road and that’s how I come to meet Freda. But at that particular time, when we first met, Freda was with a friend of mine, a Ron Miller, who was also in the Air Force, and I took Freda away from Ron Miller [chuckle] and never saw Ron Miller at all after that, once they parted. Cause they always seemed to finish up arguing, until I came along.
CB: You were their salvation. So how did you keep in contact after that? Because she was in London when you joined, so you joined up in the RAF and what happened then?
BC: Well Freda had her sister who was four years older than her, and her sister used to look after her as regards stockings and things like that because the Yanks were around for you know, for the stockings and that.
CB: They were big on stockings.
BC: They wanted to go to this dance, and it was in London. So Freda went with her sister, Elsie, to this dance, and while the dance was taking place a raid developed, so they couldn’t make it home, so they had to go into one of the underground shelters, which was, for her mother and father, it was absolutely horrendous. But they came home the next day, thinking you know, and they wouldn’t let them go again, not, you know, those sort of things happening. Course when the war first started, Freda, her mother, and her sister, they moved to Guildford; they had an aunt in Guildford. And of course her sister being four years older than Freda, she was eighteen, so Freda was only just fourteen to start work, and her sister got a job in, it was a brewery, she got a job in the brewery, in automation with the bottles going round and sticking the labels on the bottles. Well Fred worked in a firm, they got her a job in the to do with tablets, you know. And these tablets were affecting her in a, of a night.
CB: What, purifying tablets were they?
BC: Yeah, they couldn’t, she couldn’t keep awake, so they made her leave. So Elsie spoke for her in this brewery, so she got the job in the brewery. Well evidently, the girls working there had to take turns in getting the glue for the bottles, and they showed Freda where the glue was kept, and you know, when she started working there, when her turn came round where she had to go to pick up the glue and it was in a large barrel. So it came to the time when it was Freda’s turn to go and get the glue, so she went, she toddled off to get the glue, and she was gone a long time. Well evidently, this glue was in this large barrel you had to [indecipherable] down to ladle the glue out and I’m afraid Freda went head over tail into the glue pot, into the glue barrel and that’s why they couldn’t make out where she was! And she was upside down in the bloody pot! [Laugh]
CB: Lucky to survive I should think.
BC: And they had to cut all her hair off, to get the glue, because they never, with her hair they would never get it out so that’s what they had to do, but she was only fourteen years old. [Laugh] And the few times, that I, you know, we were married for sixty five years.
[Other]: Were you?
CB: So when did you marry?
BC: And that was a, you know, [indecipherable]. We, Sixty five years we was married.
CB: When did you get married?
BC: When?
CB: Yup. And where?
BC: 1947, at St Lawrence’s Church, Catford, South East London [pause] and there’s my son.
CB: How many children? Number one son.
BC: Number one son. Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without him. Honestly, I just .
CB: Brilliant. So how did you keep in touch with your wife to be throughout the war while you were in the RAF moving about?
WB: Well only when I came home on leave. Letters were the only thing we had. And when we came, actually when I finished flying and they disbanded 423 Squadron same as they did with the other Canadian squadrons.
CB: Yeah, because they were repatriated.
BC: I was sent on a driving school, up to Blackpool and I finished that, when I came, when I passed out, I got me driving licence, I was put on embarkation leave and I’ve got a picture here somewhere, of us. I was on embarkation leave and er -
CB: Stop there for a mo. We’ve just been talking about how you got together. When VE Day happened on the 8th of May 1945, the squadron was about to be disbanded because of that, but what happened? What was the general feeling around at the time? Were there celebrations?
BC: Well to start off with [indecipherable] they burnt the flag pole, they set light to the flag pole. [Laughter] I think the Canadian Air Force was a bit different to the RAF, you know, they were a bit more relaxed. And then it was after that that I was sent on this driving school. Cause what else could we do.
CB: Of course. When, after the driving school, what did you do after that?
BC: Well I was put on embarkation leave.
CB: Yes, you went on embarkation leave, but you never actually went to the Far East, did you.
BC: No, no. I went down to, I was given embarkation leave and I went down to Torquay because Freda was staying with an aunt who lived in Torquay,, how long we stayed there I don’t know, then of course we came home, but then when I went back I went into hospital because of me ears and I went in about three times, but I still, so finally I was taken off the draft and let go, and I was discharged. Now being discharged medically, failing to fulfil RAF physical requirements, I thought I’d be entitled to a pension, which I applied for, but it was taken, it was turned down. So the matter was taken up with the British Legion and again it was turned down; so that was it. Well after a while I kept on going to see my doctor, a Doctor Hopman, and one day he turned round to me and said Mr Chubb, I cannot attend to your ears any longer, he said you’ve got a problem. And he sent me to the Ear, Nose and Throat hospital in Gravesend Road and I’ve had trouble with me ears ever since. Well we moved down, I don’t know how it started, oh, we went, when we went to Canada first time for the reunion, they couldn’t make out why I never got a pension, and so Bill, me skipper, he took it up. He took it up and when we came home, cause he lived over here then, he lived in Buckden in Cambridgeshire and we hadn’t been associated together very long, when we came back here and he gave me an address and they sent me some forms. I filled them forms in and sent them back and in a year’s time I got a pension and that was forty odd years after I left the RAF.
[Other]: Blimey.
BC: I got a twenty percent pension. Well then we moved here in ’95, 1995 and we hadn’t been here very long and I got a letter, to go to Brighton, they had one of these caravan efforts, you know, with, they moved around the country and I had more tests and that’s when this ear was involved as well. I don’t wear this one, it’s a bit, you know, noise it’s, you know, but I can’t, I can speak to you normally as we’re talking now and I can understand what you’re saying, but if it’s coming from that or on the telephone, I don’t stand a chance. When, where there’s electricity involved in speech, even with me hearing aids, I can hear it, but I can’t understand what they say. So, I watch the news, I watch the news, but unless their diction is so, I don’t hear what they’re saying. Yes please! Cup of tea?
CB: Fascinating. Can I go back to other times when you’re flying and before then. Nowadays it’s called something different, but in the war, where people failed to perform as required they were banded LMF. Lack of Moral Fibre. Did you ever come across or hear of any of that?
BC: Not once. Not once, cause I don’t think there was any. Not that I knew of, really.
CB: And did the crews, did the squadrons know about it?
BC: I think so, must do, but I never heard of anybody being, you know, court martialled. Oh, in a book I’ve got, there is a story of that, it’s about the RAF at East, not East, was it Eastbourne, probably, anyway it’s in this book. It was about this chappie who flew on his first, he was in the squadron and he’s written in, and he flew on his first trip and he felt as though the aircraft was lop-sided all the time, so he couldn’t remain in his seat. He was a rear gunner I think, he couldn’t remain in his seat and he said that he would like to change crews, but they said no, we could not do that. So they took him to the CO and the CO said you, you’re refusing to fly. He said I’m not refusing to fly, he said I just want, don’t want to fly with that particular crew. But they wouldn’t give in and that crew went on an op that night, with a spare gunner, and he was put in the guard room for overnight. Well then the next morning he had to go and see the CO, where he was going to be all rigged up for a court martial. But when he went into the CO’s office, his attitude had changed and the CO couldn’t have been nicer and the reason why: that crew ever came back. And he got, at the end of his tour, which he finished.
CB: With another crew. He finished it?
BC: Yeah. He got the DFM.
CB: Did he.
BC: But he was going to be treated, the CO wouldn’t have that he didn’t want to fly with that crew. He said you’re refusing to fly. He said I’m not refusing to fly, I’m just refusing, I want to fly with another crew, I don’t feel happy with that crew. They didn’t come back that night, so next morning, it was, he said the CO couldn’t have been nicer to him. Other than that, I don’t really know anything about, you know, cause I never met anybody. But I did, whether I read it or not, I don’t know, but if somebody did go LFM they were sent to, to um, Sheffield. I know they was stripped of all, you know, rank and everything, yeah. What was actually Sheffield, what was it?
CB: It was a prison in the middle of Sheffield.
BC: It’s a?
CB: A prison.
BC: Oh, was it. Cause on the First World War they got shot didn’t they. They used to shoot them. But I mean I always think, you know, I can’t remember I was, it was one particular trip I think that I was very dubious about on the run in, and that was Magdeburg, when we were in, and that was a long trip, where it was really going when we actually got there and that’s about the only trip I really thought about, you know, but we were lucky, I think we just, we weren’t more skilful than any of the others, but we were just lucky that we got away with it each time.
CB: So you’d arrive at the aircraft at dispersal in a truck or a bus?
BC: Hmm?
CB: You’d arrive at dispersal, before an op, in a truck, or in a bus, which did you arrive in, in a bus?
BC: A truck.
CB: Right. And so you got out of that, what did everybody do before they got to their stations? Any rituals?
BC: Can’t say really.
CB: Did you keep any mementos, souvenirs, keepsakes?
BC: No I didn’t.
CB: Or did you water the fence and the rear wheel?
BC: Pardon?
CB: Did you water the fence or the rear wheel?
BC: Oh yeah, there was all that in it, you know, we were quite a, especially when you got all keyed up for a trip – scrubbed. And you start over again the next day. I think that was one of the worst things.
CB: What effect did that have on the crew?
BC: Well good in a way, because the, you know, yeah, thank Christ for that, kind of thing, that’s one we got away with. But I think it’s been such a long time ago that you tend to, you forget how you felt each time, but as I say, I think my skipper was an inspiration to me. I was the youngest one of the crew. The rear gunner was there with us, Pete, Pete Potaski, and being the youngest one in the crew, I don’t know whether they, I didn’t feel as though I wasn’t doing me bit, cause I was, you know, but they were all.
CB: Now when you joined the RAF it was in a ground mechanic engineering role. What prompted you to volunteer for aircrew?
BC: I wanted it right from the very beginning. Because when I went to Ennisdale Road, to the recruitment centre, later on I had a medical and I had an aptitude test and I was approved, okay, pilot, navigator, bomber. But of course I was too young, my age was, I think I must have been about sixteen and a half or seventeen, my age was against me I couldn’t do nothing about it, that’s when, I did hear that there was a more chance of getting in the Air Force, cause I definitely didn’t want the Navy and I definitely didn’t want the Army, [chuckle] but that’s why I, you know, I really wanted aircrew, but as I say I always thought that by the time, if I’d have stuck with that and waited until I got, I wouldn’t have got anywhere near, I wouldn’t have done ops. Cause I reckon, I mean I’m ninety three in couple of days, well if you’re any younger you didn’t actually do operations. [Clock chime] Cause there is, in the High Street there’s Archers, the Estate Agents. Now I got involved with the chappie in charge down there and I took some photographs down there and asked if they’d reprint them for me and we got chatting and he said my father was a pilot on Liberators, Coastal Command. I said oh. He wasn’t in the war, it was just after the war, whether he’s alive or not now, we got chatting, we got quite friendly, you know. I said have you got any kind of memories, only he said, you know, he’s got no mementos, nothing like that, I thought ah! I wrote to these chappies who send all these photographs to me and I said could you possibly get a photograph of a Lancaster, of a Liberator and he sent me not one, but an airfield full of ‘em! So what I done, I went down to the Salvation Army place and I bought a frame for this picture and I framed it and I put it in a box, and took it down there. And I said I know you don’t believe in Father Christmas, this was just before Christmas, I said I know you don’t believe in Father Christmas but there’s a Christmas present for yer, open it if you want to, so he did. And he was absolutely, you know, he couldn’t thank me enough.
CB: Gobsmacked.
BC: Anyway, on the Christmas, Christmas week I was there on me own, thinking about just, you know, and the bell rang. So I went to the door and there was this man standing there and I looked at him and I thought, do I know you. I didn’t, so he said Archers, in the High Street. I said h yeah! He said, here y’are, present for yer, gave me a bottle of whisky!
CB: We’re going to take a pause there.
BC: We see him a few weeks ago, didn’t we, in Sainsburys, yeah. He don’t do so many days now.
CB: Right. It’s time for your cup of tea. When we, you had a mixed officer and NCO crew, so how did that work, socially?
BC: Quite, it was very good, we got on very well, extremely well together, the only thing, the problem was, the wireless operator, wasn’t, we weren’t kind of against one another, cause he knew his job and you know, we kind of, I still don’t know now, it’s in this book I’ve got about flying with Eastmoor, whether it was his job to throw out, because his position was right next to where this chute was and I think it was him, and there’s a chappie who was a flight engineer, I did ring him last year, I think meself, he’s gone a bit. Cause when we finished, we started up the Eastmoor Family, and he was that one who that done all the necessary and got a write up every three months or something like that, course he’s now ninety odd and course he’s not writing now, but, you know, he really, mean skipper was involved with it as well and they called it the Eastmoor Family and our, what’s his name, Ivan, Ivan Mullet, he was good at his job, what he was doing and you know, he was so interesting and this book that he’s written that, where I got a lot of information from. It went on for quite, about four years, he’s so old now he’s had to pack it in. So we haven’t got anything. Course Bill’s passed away, as I say I was hoping to show you them photographs.
CB: I’m pausing again. Can you just explain, clearly in the aircraft having officer and sergeant ranks was not a problem because there’s a cohesion in the crew with their individual tasks, but when you go out into the social environment, first of all on the station, socialising on the station but also outside. How did that work? Was it different, socialising on the station from outside?
BC: No, don’t think so because it seems with the Canadians, they, I mean when I first met Bill he was a Flight Lieutenant and I was a made up Sergeant, but, you know, they didn’t want to know. They didn’t want to know anything like that type of thing [indecipherable]. Bill did, I did hear that he would have liked, he would like to have had, he wanted, eventually an all officer crew, but I’m afraid I let him down. But the rear gunner, he was made up Warrant Officer. But as regards, you know, I didn’t, I think it was due to the situation, the VE Day and all that business that I wasn’t granted, and I’ve never got over it really, because I really [emphasis] wanted the RAF as my, what I wanted to do, cause I would have, probably would have stayed in the Air Force. But I had no choice.
CB: So what did you do, when you left the RAF?
BC: Well I went back. There was a government scheme, that if a chap working for a particular firm, went into the services, if and when he came back, [clock chiming] his job would still be there. And that was put in operation, but in my case, when I came, course I came back slightly early being discharged medically and the Electric Light Company were getting the work coming in so they wanted, so I didn’t, I can’t remember how many days’ leave I was given, you know and I actually started back to work rather early to what I need have done. So, I got me job back. But the point was, as the weeks went past, other chaps were coming back, so therefore, at first of all, when it was you know, not many coming back and then it kind of, more were coming back because more had left who’d gone in the services, and so they finished up with more staff than what they wanted, so therefore, one night I just got me cards. But the point is, that applied to all electrical firms that they were getting back far too many, you know they couldn’t cope those who came back early were getting their cards back and take on the others that were just coming back. So I lost me job and I worked for London Transport for quite a while and I drove a London bus! Well then, I didn’t like the job, so in 1960, or ’59, I joined Post Office Telephones before, it, well before it became British Telecom, that’s the worst thing that could have happened to it, because I enjoyed my job, and I was there till I retired. Normally it was sixty five, retirement, but as I was a civil servant they said I would have to go at sixty, which I didn’t want to do, so at fifty five I was given forms to fill in to the fact that when I arrived, when I was sixty, I would carry on. Well this did happen, but not until I was sixty five. At sixty three they said, you’ve got to go. So that’s when I retired; that was 1988. But matter of fact, a few weeks, a few, couple of months now ago, I had a letter from BT to confirm that I am who I am, and I’m still around, because of my pension.
[Other]: He’s drawing his pension longer than he worked for them.
CB: Is that right! Fascinating.
BC: I had to confirm that I was, you know, cause I mean it does happen, no one says anything, chap passes on and they still pay the pension, so that had to be confirmed.
CB: Diverted to Hardwick, an American base.
[Other]: [indecipherable] Brake, brake, brake.
BC: We landed at Hardwick, diverted. It was an American, was an American base. Well, they sent an Anson out to repair our hydraulics, for the next day. So after that they [clock chime] took us up in a Liberator to fly, you know, so naturally enough we had to do the same, so when the hydraulics were repaired, we piled a few of them into the Halifax.
CB: Americans.
BC: And up we went, circling the drome and what happened the hydraulics went again, and burst! So we was there another couple of days when the weather turned out, so all together I think we was there five or six days. Well of course they ripped, they ripped our stripes off everything we wore -
CB: As a souvenir.
BC: As a souvenir, and also so we could use the, we was using the Officers Mess. That was the idea.
CB: Officers Cub
[Other]: That was very good.
BC: We was there five days. They really looked after us.
CB: What about the food. What was that like?
BC: Eh?
CB: What about the food?
WB: We found it quite good. I’ll tell you what we, I did like, I personally did like, and that was the, what they call them? Square.
[Other]: Waffles
BC: Eh?
[Other]: Waffles.
CB: Waffles.
WB: Waffles. Piles of ‘em! And every night,
CB: With syrup. Fantastic.
BC: Actually really, really great. And course, when we finally did leave there, after five days, the skipper really shot that drome up, he really did, he really went to town. He knew, whahw!
CB: Put it right down.
BC: I never really, thinking about it, I never thought he had it in him to do that sort of thing! But he was.
CB: He was a Canadian, so he was trying to make a point. How did, as the crew and the squadron was Canadian, how did they get on in the countryside with British people?
BC: Well we had a farm right near us, and I always remember a couple of the chaps went down there, to help that farmer get his machine going again, cause they, you know, they were really and also, I never went meself, but they got well in with the, one of the, in the village, one of the families and that and they used to go in there and play cards of a night, you know, when we wasn’t flying. It was really, another thing, a chappie, not with the crew, but on the course, we wasn’t far from York. So I didn’t know what pretty girls were made of, so, we went into York, because there was, it was Phyllis Dixie, the first stripper in England, or Great Britain, the first one, they took me to show me. This chappie I was with, took me to show her.
CB: You were quite young, weren’t you.
BC: Yeah. Phyllis Dixie, the first stripper in London! Yeah, I remember that.
CB: But you didn’t have anybody to report to in those days. [Chortling] Bill Chubb, thank you very much for a most interesting conversation. Much appreciated.
BC: I didn’t know what to expect, what was what, you know. Cause trouble is, like now, I’m all right for a while, I go to say something and I’ve forgotten it. Cause I looked after my wife, who developed dementia, for six years. She died seven years ago, my dear Freda, she really is. I looked after her, as much as I could, never want to go through that again.
CB: No. I can imagine.
BC: Six years. We started off down here, we came up ’59 and at 2001 we was involved in a major road accident.
CB: Were you?
BC: I always wanted a Rover car and that’s what we bought. We had a brand new Rover and I hadn’t it that long. Complete write off, and it’s a wonder we weren’t written off as well and it wasn’t my, none of my fault. But they blamed me for one third of the accident.
CB: So what happened?
BC: Some law, cause they reckon my blinkers were still working when we, when I went straight on. And that was the get out. Who invented that I don’t know. But that Rover car, a Rover 200 was a beautiful car. Anyway the one I’ve just got rid of, was a VW I’ve had seventeen years.
CB: Brilliant.
BC: Paul got it. Sold it for me, yeah, very good.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with William Frederick Chubb
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-04-17
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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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AChubbWF180417
Conforms To
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Pending review
Format
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01:26:52 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
Bill Chubb had several challenges in his early life and his father died when Bill was 12. After several jobs he joined the RAF as a flight engineer. He became part of a Canadian crew, despite some objection! Bill tells many tales of his RAF time, fighter affiliation, bombs that failed to drop and dealing with aircraft swing on take off. He had to press for his pension after he was medically discharged and went to a number of reunions with his wife of 65 years.
Spatial Coverage
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Canada
Germany
Great Britain
England--London
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Magdeburg
Manitoba--Winnipeg
Wales--Glamorgan
Manitoba
Contributor
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Anne-Marie Watson
158 Squadron
1659 HCU
432 Squadron
aircrew
flight engineer
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
military service conditions
RAF Lissett
RAF St Athan
training
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/494/8380/AColesT150928.1.mp3
afdd314d0db1e42b90593a4ae2f57c8f
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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Coles, Tom
Aubrey Tom Coles
A T Coles
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archvie
Identifier
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Coles, T
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Aubrey Tom Coles (1323812 Royal Air Force). He flew operations with 158 Squadron.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Aubrey Tom Coles and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
NM: Let me just make an introduction if I can.
TC: Ok.
NM: So, my name is Nigel Moore and I’m talking this morning to Flight Lieutenant Tom Cole.
TC: Yes.
NM: I’m in his house at [omitted].
TC: Coles. It’s plural.
NM: Oh is it?
TC: Yes.
NM: I apologise for that. I’ve got false information. There we go. I’ll correct that. So I’m at [omitted] Hertfordshire and it’s the 28th of September 2015 and it’s 11 o’clock in the morning…
TC: Right.
NM: So, Mr Coles, thank you very much for agreeing to do this, this interview. Interested to hear a little bit about your life growing up and before you, before you joined the RAF.
TC: Oh I went to the, obviously the junior school in Watford. I was born in Watford and I went from this school, I went to the technical school and I got a pass to Watford Tech and left there at fourteen, I think. Yes. And odd jobs. Nothing to speak of really until I joined up at, I was eighteen. I went to Oxford and had a successful thing there because I was, I asked for air gunner. It was only because my brother was already a LAC but they said, ‘No, we think we’re, two squadron leaders addressed me and they said, ‘No. We think you’ll be suitable for pilot.’ So, it was rather surprising to me but I hadn’t got enough ambition, I suppose, really at that age and from there I went to Lord’s. We were, when I was first called up, we went to a building, building of flats next to Lord’s Cricket Ground where we went for, we went for our medicals there. All these chaps lined up naked and a man, an army officer medico came along and, most peculiar, lifting things [laughs].
NM: [laughs] Right.
TC: And, you know, I’d not seen anything like that before but - where shall I go from there? I went from there to the first course, we were put on was down in Devon. Where was it? Crumbs my memory. Hold on. Newquay. And we did, I suppose, I’m trying to think how long we were there. Did a complete course there anyway and we were then sent to, in the end after all the fiddling about we went to Canada which, for our training, which you’ll see that [rustling of papers] this is all done from Canada and, [rustling of papers] if there is anything interesting there at the moment but -
NM: We’ll take a look at that.
TC: Hmmn?
NM: We’ll take a look at that after the interview.
TC: Ah. Right.
NM: Ok.
Other: Can I interrupt here?
TC: Yeah.
NM: Yeah, go on.
Other: You were asked what your life was like prior to going in the RAF. You were highly involved in scouting weren’t you?
NM: Yes.
Other: Scouts. Rover Scouts.
TC: Yes.
Other: You were highly involved in all that.
TC: Yes. Yes, well I suppose the only holidays we had in those days was scout camping. We were keen and my brother was also very keen and I just followed him and we, it was a great time. What else could I say about scouting? Well it saw me through to, till when I was married really. It was, we had our own campsite which was given to us by Lord and Lady Clarendon when they left their house near Watford and went to London. Retired. So we had a campsite there which we used very much every weekend virtually and -
NM: So -
TC: That again was just before I joined up and...
NM: So you were married before you joined up.
Other: No. We didn’t meet until -
TC: No. No.
Other: After he came out.
TC: Yeah.
NM: Ok.
TC: After. I wasn’t old enough.
Other: Because my brother was also in the Scouts.
TC: Yeah.
Other: And that’s how we met. Through the -
NM: Right.
TC: Yeah.
Other: As I say.
NM: OK.
Other: They weren’t little Scouts. They were all rover Scouts, you know -
NM: Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Other: Which is -
NM: Yeah. So you joined the RAF because your brother was already, your older brother was ahead of you.
TC: I think -
Other: Yes.
TC: That had a great bearing on it.
NM: That was your -
Other: Yes.
NM: The reason for your choice.
Other: Your brother.
TC: And my sister joined the WAAFs. Unfortunately, she died in, while she was in the WAAFs through lack of care in -
Other: Twenty seven wasn’t she?
TC: Yeah. A swampy campsite she was, camp she was in and that was very sad. Especially my parents, for my parents who were geared to the fact that one of us or both of us might get the chop. Never gave it a thought that my sister would suffer and it was all bad living conditions at the particular camp she was at, ‘cause she wasn’t the only one but that, that -
NM: Which camp?
TC: That messed us up a bit.
NM: Which camp was that?
TC: Pardon?
NM: Which camp was she on?
TC: Oh crumbs.
NM: This was during the war I assume.
TC: I can’t remember the name of the place now.
NM: Yeah.
TC: Yeah.
NM: Ok. So you were in Canada.
TC: Yes.
NM: And you’re doing your flying training.
TC: In winter in Canada and it was, we were flying and it was, I don’t know, about thirty below. We used to have a streak. Everyone took off and then it would stop when the air got warmer and they were, it was the only place I’ve ever been in the Air Force where they kept the aircraft in the hangars, heated hangars, otherwise they couldn’t have started them in the morning and they used to start them up in the hangar which was something, you know, you didn’t do in the Air Force, but they had to. And as they took off you had a great, what do you call it, streak and when we went on cross country’s we used to have to take all the gear that we would need if we pranged out in the wild and this, the thing that interested me was the way that we, none of this nonsense with clearing the snow off the runways. They just had a tractor with three big corrugated iron, about that diameter, about the length of this room and they had the three behind the tractor. It just took that amount of the runway up and they just went on it and crushed it down and none of this nonsense of clearing it and we used to fly on that. It was a, it was a bit dicey. I would have rather have gone there not in the winter. Everywhere we went we were freezing and from there, when we’d finished we came back to - what was the name? I can’t remember the name of the place now. Any case, the base that we went to when we went out, we came back to that and we sailed by boat and that was more or less, that was the training.
NM: So tell me about the progression from -
TC: I beg pardon?
NM: Tell me about the progression from basic trainers to multi engine.
TC: Yeah. Well where we are. I’m just trying to think of something. How it fed in. I changed on. First of all, one thing I did miss earlier on that we did a test. That we were sent down from Manchester where we were in a great park. We were gradually sent to see if we were worth training and we, we did a course of about six hours on Manchesters down near Reading and if you didn’t get through that you didn’t get pushed on to the thing. That was an earlier thing I didn’t mention. So, we’d been to Canada. Trained, passed, came home and then we went to, I went to Abingdon to fly on twin engine big ones. Oh crumbs. Wait a minute. Can you?
NM: Yeah.
TC: Wellingtons we flew there. Yeah. Wellingtons. And I flew them again later ‘cos I instructed, I went as instructor on them. They were the bigger aeroplane. They were operational. And after Abingdon we were posted to various things. I finished up at 158 Squadron and we operated from Lissett which was about six, seven miles down south of Bridlington. That was, they were all that area, were all Wellingtons as against Lancasters and that and the others and we, just trying to think of the sequence. I don’t want to mess you about. I did my tour from Lissett. It’s all in there.
NM: So tell me a little bit about when doing your training you could have gone, I guess, to fighters, single engines or multi engines. Why or how did you end up in multi engines?
TC: I’ll think about it. I don’t know. No. It was, we were all associated with Bomber Command right really from the beginning.
NM: Ok.
TC: Because that’s why we did training on these Wellingtons which were still operational in some sense. They were a very nice aircraft to fly though and then, ‘cause later on I was instructing on them. Yeah, they were very good but they were older obviously and they didn’t do many ops on Wellingtons by that time.
NM: So, what time was this, you were -
TC: I went on to -
NM: What stage did you join 158?
TC: What stage did I go there?
NM: What was, what was the time of year and what year?
TC: I don’t know.
NM: Ok.
TC: It might be in here. I’ll have to remind myself.
[pause]
TC: There we are.
NM: So your training was in -
TC: 1942.
NM: 1942.
TC: ’43. Ansons.
NM: So you were training in -
TC: Yeah.
NM: Late ’42.
TC: Yeah.
NM: Early ’43.
TC: This. Oh Halifax. There we are.
NM: We can get the dates later. That’s fine.
TC: Oh that’s the Con Unit.
NM: Yeah.
TC: Where -
Other: You used to tell me how you chose your crew.
NM: Well I was going to ask about that.
TC: Oh.
NM: I was going to ask. That was going to be my next question. So, right. Good timing.
TC: That’s easy.
NM: So how did, how did you get your crew together? -
TC: They put us all different ranks or trades into a, well, no, it was a big hall. It wasn’t a hangar but we just mixed and you saw a chap with a navigator’s badge and you liked the look of him you said, you know, ‘Would you like to join me?’ And it was as silly as that but it worked.
NM: It worked.
TC: It did work. Yeah.
NM: So as pilot did you feel you had to pick the crew or did anybody else sort of join up and then come and see you as a pilot and say we want to join you as a pilot? How did it -
TC: Yes they did, it was mixed up that way. The only boob we made was a wireless operator because he used to spend more time with women than anything else. He was, he used to get drunk and fortunately he went lack of moral fibre and he was whipped out. You don’t even see them go. He went. He was there one day, in there, and the next morning he’d gone and never knew what happened to him. We didn’t want to know. He used to drink and womanise. He would have been a [inaudible] and the man I got in placement of him was just the tops. Just the opposite.
NM: How did the crew feel about losing that wireless operator?
TC: I think they felt the same as me. Let’s get shot of him.
NM: And was this before any operations or -
TC: Yes. It was before, fortunately, and we, the station we were at, was at, oh crumbs, there’s so many places we went. Number 20 OTU yes. Yeah,it was, trying to think of the places. It’s still a, it’s still an airport, Royal Air Force station. Oh crumbs. I’m sorry. Scotland. It’s near Elgin.
NM: Leuchars?
TC: Loughbr – No.
NM: Leuchars?
TC: Hmmnn?
NM: Leuchars?
TC: No.
NM: Ok.
TC: Oh crumbs. Can you spare me a minute?
NM: Don’t worry. No, don’t worry about it.
TC: It’s old age.
NM: That’s fine.
TC: I’m sorry.
NM: And that was your conversion unit. OTU was it?
TC: Yes.
NM: On to Halifaxes.
TC: No. Wellingtons.
NM: You were still Wellingtons.
TC: Yeah. There they are. That was the Wellington.
NM: So did you convert to Halifaxes before you went to 158 and your first operation?
TC: Yeah.
NM: Or did you fly Wellingtons?
TC: Pardon?
NM: Or did you fly Wellingtons with 158? When you went to 158.
TC: No.
NM: Operations.
TC: Yes.
NM: You -
TC: Straight from Scotland.
And I picked up this wireless op en-route and it was, he was the best you could get really, and we did our first ops. Yeah. It would be here but -
NM: So describe what was life like on 158 Squadron when you, when you arrived and how did you feel?
TC: Oh yeah. They, they, I think what I did, I did a second pilot op just to get you in and I didn’t. I went, I was sent to, just before I got to the squadron, we were sent, two of us were sent to another squadron, an active squadron for, and we went with an experienced pilot, just as a passenger really, and I’m trying to think where we went to but it was a bit hairy. Lost, it wasn’t a big op but we lost twenty two aircraft,I can remember that and that was my first thing and a bit nervy. But you realise how little you’ve done near the enemy, really, when that happened and the man I flew with was an ex 158 Squadron and he’d gone to this station as an instructor actually. He was quite a squadron leader then but the only thing I can remember vaguely, very little about it, we were, there was aeroplanes, people flitting past us and the light from the fires enough to see that you could, there were a lot of aeroplanes around and all of a sudden one, I think it was an enemy fighter, came ‘wooooph’, like that, going the opposite way and over us and the pilot I’d got he said, ‘Keep your bloody eyes open.’ As if it was going to make any difference. He hadn’t seen it. I thought well this is good. Yeah. They were twenty two lost that night out of a small number going and I thought you know, this is, I’m not so sure whether I like all this. Well, but we settled down and we did, when I did that I was still at the training place for Halifaxes and the ground crew said to me, ‘You just missed,’ what’s his name? The famous -
Other: Cheshire.
TC: Cheshire. He was CO of this Squadron. Well, training, and they thought he was God. He said he was, even the chaps who used to do our hut up said he’s a marvellous man. He used to go out and play cards with the ground staff. He kept them happy you see and he had a marvellous reputation. He was really was.
NM: Even, even then.
TC: Even then. Yes. Yeah. We’d heard of him and he just disappeared and the bloke that replaced him wasn’t much to write home about. But so -
NM: So tell me about life at Lissett.
TC: Life at Lissett was quite good. There were, you know, the flight commanders were quite, they were quite good. Some of them had done two tours anyway you know, that sort of thing, so you always had some respect for them because you knew they, they were well ahead of you and it was quite pleasant except I got myself into trouble when I was not been there long. We used, when we used to go into the briefing we used to have a sheet of paper that told us what we were doing and the heights of flying and I went [inaudible] exit to the lavatory before I go and I dropped this piece of paper. Came out, I didn’t use it. It dropped out my hand and there was some nasty type, ground staff chap. He was a clerk or something in the office. He found it and he went in there and instead of coming up to me he took it to the wing commander. So there was an announcement in the briefing room of some idiot has done so and so and everyone knew it was me anyway, and the next day I had, there was a call on the, what’s the name? What do you call them, the outside not the radio but the, for me to report to the station commander’s office and that and as I went in and actually it turned out he was a jolly good bloke [inaudible] and as I walked in he said, ‘Oh Coles. Aren’t you a bloody idiot?’ I said, ‘Yes sir.’ And he said, he didn’t do anything really, he didn’t. He just said, ‘You’re a bloody idiot. Go on. Clear off.’ And that was it. And I always thought he was a decent bloke and, spoke to jimabout it once at one of the reunions we had and he wrote a very good book on the squadron. Anyway, that’s that. What else can I say?
NM: So back to operations. How -
TC: Yeah
NM: Tell me about your tour.
TC: I suppose we were pretty fortunate in a way ‘cause we, we made it. We got a bit of flak one night and the, the engineer and the bomb aimer both got bits, little bits of flak on them and there was a horrible smell actually, and it was the bomb aimer was overcome with the, with the flak hitting him and he said, he got, I said, ‘What the hell is that smell?’ And he’d got on the phone and said, ‘Gentlemen, I’ve shit myself.’ And that was [laughs] but he wasn’t the only one apparently. I think the flight engineer did as well. It was, I’d never heard of people going like that but probably the effect on them.
Other: Tell him about Andre.
TC: Andre le Leux?
Other: Yes.
TC: Yeah. He was, we got very friendly and he was a Belgian navigator, I think he was. Yeah. And -
NM: What? In your crew?
TC: No. He, but we got to know him because he was in the aircraft. When we were on leave he flew and they got hit in daylight and he was the only one that got out and I -
Other: They’d taken Y-Yoke hadn’t they?
TC: Sorry?
Other: They had taken Y-Yoke.
TC: Yeah they took Y-Yoke and that was our aircraft, yeah, but as I say they got the chop and he was the only survivor and he was always apologising to me when we used to meet. We got very friendly with him and his wife. He was Belgian. And er -
Other: They all used to come to the reunions.
TC: Yeah.
Other: Didn’t he?
TC: We used to -
Other: And he had nobody.
TC: Yeah and we, but I used to tell him off for losing our aeroplane and it went well, you know.
Other: You made him an honorary member didn’t you? It was a big meeting of your crew.
TC: Yes.
NM: So your tour lasted thirty operations did it?
TC: No. How many did I do? Thirty seven I did.
NM: Thirty seven.
TC: Yeah, and I was, my last one was going to be because we were the senior crew by then and we were going to daylight op on, [inaudible] German city, it was, it was well inland in Germany I know. I can remember that much. And it was our Squadron’s, I was going to lead our Squadron and it was our Squadron’s turn to lead in 4 Group and it was 4 Group’s turn to lead the op of all the Squadrons and I thought, ‘Crumbs, this is it.’ And, but the night before we were airborne for somewhere over near Kiel ‘cause Kiel, we were the nearest aerodrome to Germany because Kiel was just over there and we had an engine nuisance. It was, the ground crew said it was the plugs afterwards. They said, they said they were using, not using new ones. They were using revamped plugs and that one engine was going and I thought, well I’m not going. I’m not going all over there with a, with a, we had a bloody great bomb on. Just one. It weighed, it was a four thousand pounder I think. And I thought the engines, one of these engines was popping and I thought well I’m not going all there we’ll drop this in the sea and we made sure there were no fishing boats underneath. It was dark but you could usually see them and we dropped this and it it made such a bang it rattled every window in Bridlington apparently and that didn’t do much good for our reputation and I think that when I say I got back on that we got rid of that but it did, it was a hell of a bang and this other raid was coming the next day I think and I think they thought I needed to clear off so they, they finished our tour and we were, that was just, I only heard that just before this raid that was coming up that we would be in the front, I think someone thought, ‘He’s losing his nerve. We’ll put him off.’ It didn’t, it didn’t get me like that but it could have done I suppose. So we were posted. I went to Abingdon to fly Wellingtons which I’d trained on Wellingtons so that didn’t and I had a very enjoyable time there at -
NM: So at what stage were you awarded the DFC?
TC: Just after I finished.
Other: 1945.
TC: Pardon?
Other: 1945.
TC: Yeah. Well that would be just after -
Other: Yes.
TC: I finished.
NM: After you finished your tour.
TC: Yes. And the navigator got the DFC. He was a character. He was a policeman from Liverpool and he didn’t like the idea of being a navigator. He should have been a pilot you see and, but give him his due he finished up with his own aeroplane and he learned to fly and he was a private policeman. That was his living. He said, I used to, he said, ‘I get all sorts of funny things. I go up the islands, land on the beach. And he said, ‘I had to go around and find all these .’ It was nearly all divorce things. He said it got embarrassing sometimes finding out what went on and he also, he ran in the Olympics just after the war and he had second place in a sprint and he was well known. I’ve got a book on it that he’s written. The rest of the crew kept touch but we’ve lost touch now with one or two. One I’ve, one of the gunners I phoned last Christmas and he was going to find out about the wireless operator but I’ve heard no more from him so they’ve probably both popped off. But er -
Other: There’s three of you left isn’t there out of seven which as you’re all in your nineties is not too bad.
TC: Yeah. Yeah.
NM: So you still keep in -
TC: But I’m not sure now but that’s it. Yeah.
NM: So you finished your tour in ’45 and then went to Abingdon.
TC: Yeah.
NM: To instruct on Wellingtons.
TC: Yes.
NM: So -
TC: But I did a course on instructing. I’m trying to think where I did that. It was only a short thing. Yeah Abingdon. I was there quite a while and it was a good station and what else I could say?
NM: So, so back at Lissett tell me a little bit more about your off duty hours. What, between operations, what was life like between operations?
TC: Oh not bad. We used to go in to - where did we go?
Other: Bridlington.
TC: Hmmn?
Other: Bridlington
TC: Bridlington yes. And that was a few miles down the road. We had bikes or we, or we got lifts in but we usually biked in and that was it. We used to have drinks in pubs and usually had a meal because it was, there was a shop there that was two Italian women and they used to have queues outside their little café and if we walked up she used to, they used to say, ‘Come in,’ and we used to go top of the queue. We used to get some dirty looks from outside but the, yeah. It was usually drinking and laughing and it was good relief.
NM: You’d go in as a crew would you?
TC: No. Not all of us. It was usually, I think, three or four of us because the wireless op. What was his name?
Other: Dorian.
TC: Dorian. He didn’t, didn’t join in our drinking and that. So, I don‘t know what he did but -
Other: Still you kept in touch with him for -
TC: Yes.
Other: I mean we used to go to all the reunions up till a few years ago. Met them all.
NM: Was there much social mixing between the officers and the NCOs?
TC: Oh yes. That didn’t count for anything really especially if half your crew were. There was only the navigator and the bomb aimer were commissioned so the others we all went together. It didn’t make any odds.
NM: Was there a sort of special pride in 4 Group or 158 or Halifaxes?.
TC: We, well for Halifaxes and 158 really because you used to hear so much about the, well any of the other bombers. You don’t think of it. You get to the stage where, you know, yours is better than theirs but yeah. It was only, you could only go to Bridlington. We used to go to another little village up the road sometimes for a drink. That was all. Only two or three of us but there wasn’t with loads of other aircrew. It was just local bods so it makes a change, you know.
NM: So of your thirty seven operations are there any more particular targets or experiences that you had?
TC: Not really, I don’t think. It’s all in here. It’s worth a, you know, look through. Where we went.
NM: Yes, well I will.
TC: First operational tour completed. Thirty seven sorties.
NM: We’ll take a look at that in a little while.
TC: Yeah.
NM: If that’s ok.
TC: Yeah. And -
NM: So -
TC: We did thirty seven ops. And there were 246 aircraft lost on those ops that we did. I don’t know why I made that note and, well, it tells you quite a bit in there and I’ve got a good sign there.
NM: We’ll come on to that.
TC: Mmm?
NM: I’ll certainly take a look at that in a minute.
TC: Yeah.
NM: If that’s ok.
TC: Yes.
NM: So you went, you went from operations to Abingdon.
TC: Yeah.
NM: And how long were you at Abingdon for? Training. Or as an instructor?
TC: Crumbs. Till I, till I was demobbed. No. I got, I got another friend of mine and I we were, got posted to, what was it? It was a, they were, they were flying, oh crumbs, I’ve got it in here, I flew so many. Wellingtons, this was just before I, after I left Abingdon. Dakotas. 138, 1 Training Control Unit so I was only there a long while and I had blotted my copy book because I went up with one of their instructors in a Dakota one day and he was being clever and he’d been a pupil at Abingdon. I remembered him and didn’t think much of him but he, one day he was trying to show me something, oh, and he had another trainer with us and he lost, he lost control of it and I pulled it out, you know. He did something stupid and I thought, ‘No, I don’t want this.’ Well, myself and this other friend of mine, we were together there and we asked to be taken off the course. That brought the pains on because we found out that they’d had a whole load of people getting, asking to be taken off because they didn’t think much of it and they weren’t having any more and we got posted. We went to headquarters at, of the, that headquarters of that well, whole unit. You know, the whole thing and apparently so many had done it we got dismissed out of there and got pushed around and bullied and we, in the end there was, we were getting a lift there one day and a car stopped and there was a very high ranking RAF chap and his side and he was that man who lost his arm. Do you remember? He was a very well-known man, very highly decorated. He went to get a crew that had crashed or something and helped, went to get them or something and he lost an arm and it was him in the car. Took us down to the base. We got bullied around a bit, the two of us but then we were sent downstairs to an old wing commander, an old boy and he couldn’t have, he was just the opposite. He said, ‘I know what you’ve been through, you chaps. I’ll get you seen to.’ And he got us a little job each. Not flying but on ground staff and, that, that was towards the end and I was finished then really. Dakotas. That’s it. We got chucked off there and the only other ones I’ve flown I put those little marks on there, aeroplanes I’ve flown with. For instance I flew with Denham with my son Malcolm and another chap from Ipswich had a plane that we went in. And two gliders. And a Lynx at the Wattisham Army Air Corps. We, we were in a club of ex-RAF chaps at, when we went to Frinton and we visited this place and they were the army chaps and they said, ‘Come on, we’re going to get you blokes airborne.’ And we were up in these flaming helicopters. They didn’t seem very safe to me but it was quite, it was good fun. I’ve made a note of it. Ipswich. Dunstable. And we flew. You flew in a glider. [inaudible] So that’s, that’s it.
NM: So how did you find -
TC: I think -
NM: The transition from operations to -
TC: I beg pardon?
NM: How did you find the transition going from an operational unit to a non-operational unit back at Abingdon?
TC: Well I suppose relief really. They were all ex [inaudible] and they were all the same and they were a ragged lot and funny. Yeah. I enjoyed going to Abingdon.
Other: You made some good friends there didn’t you like Bob Withers.
TC: Yes. The flight commander. We bumped into him in Harrow didn’t we?
Other: Yes, we met.
TC: He took us home and, we, he’s not living but his son is and he’s on the, we’re going to arrange to meet him soon.
Other: Yes. He now -
NM:: So -
Other: Goes around schools talking doesn’t he?
TC: Yes. He’s a cripple but he does everything he can to push what his father did and he goes around the schools and dresses up in his dad’s old clothes and gives them talks. A good lad.
NM: So it’s -
TC: We’re supposed to be meeting him soon.
Other: Yeah.
NM: It sounds to me like you’ve kept in touch with squadron reunions and associations over the years.
TC: Yeah. Well we used to go to 158 reunion every year but then it dropped off hasn’t it? For us.
Other: That’s because the original crews -
TC: Were all popping off and there’s no one to organise it.
Other: Or the last time we went we didn’t know anyone because –
TC: No.
Other: They were nearly all the sons or the relatives of the actual veterans. They weren’t that many left.
TC: No and now they meet in fact –
Other: And it’s a long way to drive isn’t it?
TC: Yeah.
Other: Or go.
TC: Yeah. And to say we don’t, we didn’t, the last time we went we didn’t know anyone really.
Other: No. So there’s no point in going.
TC: Just sitting with strangers.
TC: And that was a few years back and, but they still, a little group of them meet.
Other: But we went for many -
TC: Half a dozen.
Other: Many years didn’t we?
TC: Hmmn?
Other: We went for many many years.
TC: Oh yes.
Other: And it was great.
TC: Yeah.
Other: It was lovely. The reunions.
TC: Yes.
NM: So you were demobbed in ’45. So what, what have you done since then?
TC: Went back to my old job with a one man, man who made instruments and didn’t, oh, he went down south for a while and I had to keep the thing going and we made timers for x ray machines. That was his main thing and then I lost touch. I didn’t want to go with him anymore and I got a job at -
Other: Rotax?
TC: No. No before then. I went to the, crumbs.
Other: Wasn’t it Rotax?
TC: No. It was instruments at, I’ve forgotten the name of the firm now. A big firm. You know. All I know is I was offered this job and I took it and I left and then found another job and they said anytime you want a job there will be one for you here.’ That was at a big firm at, oh God. I’m sorry about this. I can’t -
Other: When did you go to Rotax ?
TC: Oh crumbs. Yeah. Yeah I went to Rotax and got a job as a draughtsman really but I knew the man that gave me the job and he made me go around his house topping me up on my drawing which was good of him. No one else knew. It would have been a bit of a bother if he had but he was a friend of my brother’s really I knew. And that was at Rotax which was part of Joseph Lucas and they were taken over by another big firm and the whole lot just I left because this was all happening and they went, just went. I don’t know who took them over but it was Lucas of Birmingham but they, they went out and packed up. The last time I went past the place where I worked at Laverstock Green there was just, it was just bricks on the ground where they’d knocked the factory, and the factory was only built ten years before. Anyway, that’s not to do with this I’m afraid.
NM: So then you retired from that did you?
TC: Yes. What did I do last? Anything useful?
Other: You were just sixty weren’t you? Yeah.
TC: That’s it.
Other: When you retired.
Other: Being retired thirty three years.
TC: Yeah. So -
NM: When, you when look back and reflect on your time in Bomber Command what are your, what are your thoughts?
TC: I’m glad I did it. Yeah. Yes. I wouldn’t have, I wouldn’t have missed it if I’d had the chance because there are so many people that you got on well with. The ground crew and people like that. Yeah it was well worth it I think. I don’t know what good I did but as I say the fact that I did thirty seven ops was a bit peculiar because they, originally when they started they, I think they used to do twenty four but then things got perhaps a bit easier and they put that up. I’ve forgotten what number they put it up to but then they did it again and I should have done forty. They put them up to forty but the time I, when I was put off and I’d done that number [24] they went back to a more respectable number because there were not enough people to finish really but no, it’s, I’m glad I did it.
NM: And how do you think Bomber Command has been treated since the war in terms of history and recognition?
TC: Well I think a good example is Churchill when they bombed and the Americans bombed -
Other: Dresden.
TC: Dresden. Churchill didn’t want to know you know and it was him who’d been pushing us out and I’ll never forget that and I lost my respect for him. I thought he was good but he, like everybody else I suppose. Think of themselves but yeah that took the gilt off it.
Other: It still rankles doesn’t it?
TC: It does.
Other: That you haven’t got a medal.
TC: Yes
Other: Just got the soppy clasp.
TC: Hmmn?
Other: You got that soppy little clasp.
TC: Oh yeah. Yeah [laughs]
NM: So what did you feel about the clasp?
TC: You tell him about the clasp.
Other: It’s your interview.
TC: Well I’m trying to think what it is. I mean how do you describe it?
Other: The pin.
TC: Yeah. Where is it?
NM: In terms of recognition it doesn’t.
Other: Tell Them Tell them on the machine what you -
NM: What do you feel about the award of the clasp versus a campaign medal?
TC: Not a lot. No. That’s being polite.
Other: Most of you and your crew thought it was, it is an insult
TC: Yeah well only the navigator and I got a DFC. The others. Nothing.
NM: And how did the crew feel about that? Or how did you feel about it?
TC: I thought it was very unfair. They could have even had a decent medal for just being in the Bomber Command in that sense. I don’t think there is anything but I mean, why? The navigator I would have said deserved it but whether I did or not I don’t know. I suppose I did ‘cause I got them back safely but you know the others did a good job. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know what else.
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 Tom Coles
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Nigel Moore
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-28
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AColesT150928
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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
Description
An account of the resource
Tom Coles was born in Watford and signed up for the Royal Air Force at the age of 18. He went to Canada for training, a period saddened by the loss of his sister who was in the Womens Auxilliary Air Force. Tom flew Manchesters, then went to 158 Squadron at RAF Abingdon where he was on Wellingtons. He tells of his time at RAF Lissett, and off-duty social life at Bridlington. Discusses his service with 4 Group emphasising German anti-aircraft fire; by the time he left the Royal Air Force, he had completed 37 operations. Talks about post war life in the manufacturing industry, reunions for 158 Squadron, lack of recognition of Bomber Command veterans. Elaborates on the bombing of Dresden and on the role Winston Churchill had in that operation.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Oxfordshire
England--Yorkshire
England--Bridlington
Germany
Germany--Dresden
Canada
Format
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00:58:25 audio recording
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945
158 Squadron
4 Group
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
crewing up
demobilisation
Distinguished Flying Cross
fear
grief
ground personnel
Halifax
lack of moral fibre
Manchester
military living conditions
perception of bombing war
pilot
RAF Abingdon
RAF Lissett
recruitment
training
Wellington
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1142/11698/AStathamR160627.1.mp3
595eec4c7681578967589def030c70b7
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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Statham, Rex
R Statham
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Rex Statham (b. 1924, 1861640 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a flight engineer with 10 and 158 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-27
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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Statham, R
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AM: Well right. So, first of all we’re here in Luton and it’s Monday the 27th of June 2016. This is Annie Moody for the International Bomber Command Centre. I’ve also got Gary Rushbrook with me and we’re talking today to Rex Statham.
RS: That’s right.
AM: So, I’ll tell you what, before we start can you just tell me what your date of birth was Rex?
RS: Yeah. The 25th of January 1924.
AM: 1924.
RS: Yeah.
AM: Right. And where were you born?
RS: In Luton.
AM: You were, you were born in Luton.
RS: Yeah. I think it was 37 Princess Street. I think it was. I’m not quite sure the number. I can’t remember it.
AM: Yeah.
RS: I didn’t see it.
AM: What’s that?
RS: We moved across the road after that.
AM: Right. What did your parents —
RS: When my dad died.
AM: I was going to say what did your parents do? So, what was your early life like?
RS: Well, my father got killed. We moved across the road. I think it was 37 to fifty —no it wouldn’t be 37 but we moved up to 51. That’s where I, that’s where I was born. 51 Princess Street.
AM: And, and then? So, what happened to your dad? What sort of work did he do?
RS: Well, he was in the hat trade. He was in the hat trade. He used to sell ribbons and all that sort of thing.
AM: Yeah.
RS: I don’t know, I don’t know quite what, what, a shop or whatever or if he travelled for somebody.
AM: Yeah.
RS: I’m not quite sure about that.
AM: What about brothers and sisters? How many of you were there?
RS: Never, never had any brothers and sisters.
AM: So just you and you were an only child.
RS: Yeah.
AM: And you said your dad died. So how old were you then?
RS: Yeah. He died. He got, he got knocked off his motorbike. And he died after that.
AM: How old were you then Rex? ‘ish?
RS: Oh crikey. I can’t quite remember. I don’t really know. I was only small. I can only just remember him.
AM: Yeah.
RS: I can’t remember. Probably about five or six. Maybe. Maybe not quite as old as that.
AM: So, so young.
RS: Yeah.
AM: So, what, what was your life like then then with your mum?
RS: Well, when, when he died we moved. After a time we moved across the road. Yeah. It must have been because, earlier because I can remember I wasn’t at school. We moved across the road to live with my grandmother and grandfather. They had a hat factory across the road. We moved into that. In to their place with them.
AM: Yeah. Because we’re talking pre-war so pre-national insurance.
RS: Oh crumbs, yes. Yeah.
AM: Or widow’s pension.
RS: Oh yes. Yeah.
AM: Or anything like that.
RS: Yeah. I don’t think she ever got that.
AM: No.
RS: Yeah. That was that. Moved across the road and I know that, I know that I got, they had to go round and find some place that would let me go, take me. Like a school. Because I wasn’t old enough to go to school because apparently I nearly got run over by a lorry and they saw it and they got me in at some, it was a kiddie’s, a little kiddie’s school. You know. There was no such things as nursery schools in them days. It was a little school.
AM: Yeah.
RS: York House in Luton it was. I can remember that.
AM: So, what were school days like? Did you enjoy school?
RS: Not really. Well, I did and I didn’t. I weren’t a lover of school. I weren’t a lover of it. Definitely not a lover of it. Now, I went to, I went to Wallace Street School in Luton which was an ordinary council school you know. And then I went to the Modern School. I passed the exam to get in the Modern School and I went there. And then after that I went up to a place called Clarks College in London. It was [pause] and then the war broke out. I didn’t, you know —
AM: What, what were you going to do at Clarks College though?
RS: Well, it was just an educational place, you know. I really wanted to go in the Navy. That’s what I wanted to go in. I was absolutely barmy on going in that. I wanted to be an engine room officer artificer apprentice. That’s what I wanted to be but I never got there.
AM: So, what happened? Why the RAF then? How did all that come about?
RS: Well, it, it was during the war. War came along and they was after — and I, well I was working at Hayward Tylers. I was apprenticed at Hayward Tyler’s in Luton. And, I don’t know, everybody else was joining up and all that. And I just wanted to go and join up. So, I went and joined up as ground crew you see.
AM: Why the RAF though after you’d been so mad on the Navy?
RS: I don’t know. I don’t know really, why. And I don’t know. But —
AM: Maybe your mates were joining the RAF.
RS: Yeah. The boy who lived next door was in the RAF. And yeah. I joined up. I joined up as a flight mechanic. And —
AM: Where did you go to join up? Can you remember what, what —
RS: Yeah. Edgeware.
AM: What was the process?
RS: I joined up at the Drill Hall in Edgeware. I had to go up to Edgeware to join up. I had my medical up there and all the lot and then when I got called up, which was quite a long time after I had my medical and that I went, I went to Cardington. And from Cardington I went to Yarmouth on the foot bashing course. And the assault course which we went on. Used to go up and down the [pause] climb up and down the, you know, the funfair.
AM: In Yarmouth.
RS: A lot of nonsense really.
AM: Great Yarmouth.
RS: Great Yarmouth. Yeah.
AM: So, where you staying then? Where were you all in digs?
RS: Oh, we was all in civvy digs. I was in a house in Wellesley Road. I remember that. And the guard room was next door. That was another house. The guard room was the house next door. Yeah. That’s, that was, I remember doing my square bashing. I quite enjoyed that.
AM: Yeah.
RS: And —
GR: Did you know what you was going to be then? Did you know? Had you —
RS: Yeah. I knew I was going, I knew I was going in for, to be a flight mechanic but —
GR: So, as ground crew.
RS: You had to. Everybody had to that.
GR: Yeah.
RS: Initiation course. Initial course. You know.
Other: Could you pass me my handbag. There it is.
[recording paused]
RS: Yeah. I did that. And —
AM: So this is ground crew isn’t it?
RS: Yeah.
AM: So, you joined up.
RS: I joined up as ground crew. You see.
AM: You joined up to be ground crew.
RS: You see. And when, when we left Yarmouth I went to Cosford which was a flight mechanics course.
GR: Right.
RS: And it suddenly struck me that there was people was, as soon as they was passing as flight mechanics they was going overseas. I thought I’m not bloody going to go overseas. I didn’t want to go overseas. So they, they was recruiting for flight engineers. So, I went and re-mustered as a flight engineer.
AM: When you say you re-mustered what was the process then to do that?
RS: Well, it —
AM: You just told them.
RS: Well, actually nothing. You just asked if you could go and they give you an aircrew medical which was a farce really. He just came up and see if you was deaf and whispered in your ear. And I can remember him saying, ‘jam tart’ in my ear. Bloody stupid really. And then we went on this course which was, more or less, pretty much a fitters course but included air frames and that. We went on to that. So I passed out from that as a sergeant and I went from there. That was in Christmas 1943 that was. I went up to, come home, went home, come home for Christmas. And after Christmas I went up to Rufforth near York.
GR: Yeah.
RS: And we, we did our, you know — flying training up there. So, I’d never, never been an aeroplane before. We did our flying training and we was just about to go and be posted to a squadron and the pilot, which was a sergeant —
GR: Had you crewed, obviously you’d crewed up by then.
RS: We’d crewed up. Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
RS: We’d crewed up. He said, ‘I don’t want to fly bombers. I want to go on to Transport Command.’ That left us, we was messing about then for about three months doing nothing.
AM: How had you crewed up then?
RS: How was we crewed up? Well, it’s rather funny because they pushed us all in this big hut with all, there was officers and God knows what, all in this hut and they pushed us all in there. You just walked around and anybody you thought you fancied you just —it was a farce really. And we just crewed up. I crewed up with Spivey, you remember John, err Maurice Spivey.
AM: Maurice Spivey.
RS: Yeah. He was in it.
AM: Who chose? Who chose who? Did you choose him or —
RS: Well, no. You just went. You just went and spoke to them and said, ‘Did you want a flight engineer?’ And they sort of said, ‘Yes,’ so that was it. If you liked them.
GR: Yeah.
RS: If they was alright. Where [pause] and we had a, we got a pilot. He was a squadron leader the pilot was. No, a flight lieutenant. Sorry. A Flight Lieutenant Parry it was. And as soon as we got to — we, we passed out eventually after about another — fair while we passed out again. And we went to Lissett. And —
GR: So, this was when you’d been given a squadron.
RS: Yeah. Went to Lissett.
GR: With a new pilot.
RS: Yeah. Flight Lieutenant Parry.
GR: Yeah.
RS: And he, we got on to Lissett and about the second day we got on to Lissett the flight commander of C Flight which we were put in he, he crashed in Bridlington Bay and all the crew got killed. And they made, made Tom Parry up to a squadron leader. And we was the flight commander’s crew. Well, of course that was, that was heavenly because —
GR: So you hadn’t flown any operations yet.
RS: No.
GR: But straightaway you’re —
RS: No. Straightaway. But that was heavenly because you didn’t, you didn’t go on every night. One every night. You had spaces. Long spaces between them, see.
AM: What was your first operation to? Can you remember?
RS: Yes. I can remember. A place called Ferme D’Urville. It was on the night of D-Day.
GR: 5th of June.
RS: Yeah. In fact, when I, when I had to get the information to get that medal I wrote all those French trips out.
GR: Yeah.
RS: I’ve got it in the back room.
AM: Yeah.
GR: So the start of your operations.
RS: Yeah. Do you want to have a look?
AM: We’ll have a look afterwards.
GR: Yeah.
GR: Well we’ll just pause it for a second and we can.
AM: Oh. Alright.
[recording paused]
GR: So your first operation. On the —
RS: 5th of —
GR: 1st of June actually.
RS: I don’t know what that’s —
GR: Yeah. The first of June was to Ferme D’Urville.
RS: It was a gun sight. I remember that.
GR: What was it like though when you were first, when you were in the ops room or you were told — ?
RS: Well, it, it was alright. You didn’t think much about it, you see. The first one. You was a bit thrilled to get on it weren’t you? And it was right on the, right on the Pas de Calais area and it was only about, it was just like, shall we say about, well it was, it was as if the guns were firing over us.
GR: Yeah.
RS: They had to fire over the sea. We didn’t go in, you know we just —
GR: You hardly went over French territory. You just —
RS: Yeah. Only went over it. But then the next one we went on was a bit different. Went to Trappes.
GR: Trappes.
RS: Trappes.
GR: Yeah.
RS: Yeah. We lost five aircraft on that.
GR: What, 158 Squadron lost five?
RS: Yeah. It was, I think, I think that was quite a few aircraft lost on that. We went, we went after the marshalling yards to stop the Germans bringing the reinforcements in.
GR: Reinforcements up. Yeah.
RS: Yeah.
GR: And did anything happen to you on that raid?
RS: No.
GR: No.
RS: No.
GR: So even though you lost aircraft.
RS: We just lost aircraft. Yeah.
GR: Yeah. You were alright.
RS: Yeah. That was the first time I saw the Eiffel tower from up above.
GR: Not bombing it [laughs]
RS: No [laughs] We weren’t bombing it. No. We dropped, we went, it was a railway yard just outside Paris.
GR: That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. That was quite a famous target that was. Yeah.
RS: Trappes. Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
AM: What was it like then actually, actually seeing —
RS: What the Eiffel Tower?
AM: No. The railway yards. Actually seeing them and —
RS: I couldn’t see them because I was engaged in other things.
GR: Yeah.
AM: Right.
RS: I couldn’t, I was, I didn’t see most of the targets.
AM: What were you actually doing then?
RS: Well, I was, the pilot was like sitting in front of me and I was, there was this, like this partition and they, all my dials was at the back on an armour plated thing. And I was in there you know and I’ll tell you I was sitting in there but I had to do other things. We used to, we had Window. I don’t know if you know what Window was.
GR: Yes. Yeah.
RS: It was those metal strips. And it was my job to put them out and they went down the flare chute.
RS: Because that was to jam the German radar.
RS: That’s right.
GR: Yeah. Yeah.
RS: But I, what I did most of the time was taking these things out the packet and chucking them down the chute.
GR: Yeah. Did you have to do that on every trip?
RS: Yeah.
GR: So they dropped Window on every trip
RS: Yeah. Dropped Window on every trip.
GR: Yeah.
RS: Yeah.
GR: Now, looking at your list on the 6th of June which was actually D-Day you did two operations.
RS: Yeah. We did one in, one at night. One in the early morning and one at night.
GR: Right.
RS: Yeah.
GR: What was that like? Did you actually see the invasion fleet? Did you?
RS: Yeah. Yes. We saw, I saw the invasion fleet. Yeah. That was, it was about forty mile long.
GR: Yeah.
RS: It was massive. You know.
GR: As though the English Channel was full.
RS: Yeah. In the English Channel. Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
RS: Yeah. I saw that.
GR: And how did the raids go then? Was it, obviously the daylight one would have been your first daylight raid.
RS: Yeah. Yeah. The first daylight. Well —
GR: Was that different? Well, obviously it’s different but —
RS: It was. Yeah. It was, it was quite, you got quite enthusiastic about it really because you’d never done any. You’d never done it before. You know it’s the first one.
GR: Yeah.
RS: When you looked out. Yeah. That was [unclear] I remember that.
AM: What was that like then seeing all that invasion fleet there?
RS: Well, it was, it was quite something. You know, you had a job to take it all in if you know what I mean. There was so much of it and we were, we weren’t all that high.
GR: No.
RS: Because we wanted to get, to make sure to get this gun emplacement. I think we did get it. I don’t know. But they never sent back again so I presume we got it. It’s, it was quite, seeing all these vessels in the Channel was quite, quite something.
GR: Because obviously you knew the invasion was on.
RS: Yeah. You could see these merchant ships.
GR: Yeah.
RS: And then you saw the war ships on the side of them. It was quite, it was quite interesting really.
GR: Yeah.
AM: Could you actually see the men on the beaches?
RS: No. No. No. Couldn’t see that. I don’t think there was anybody on the beaches at that time.
GR: Yeah. The first one, the, your first raid, yeah on the Maisy gun emplacements was, yeah, dark.
RS: Dark.
GR: The daylight was to Chateaudun.
RS: Chateaudun. Yeah.
GR: In the daylight. Yeah.
RS: When, when we went to [pause] where was it? I forget where it was now. We went with Wing Commander Dobson. And he was a pilot. I don’t know if I’ve got it on there. I can remember that. And we was quite low and it was when we, we went to Caen.
GR: Yeah.
RS: And unfortunately they had crossed the river before we got there and we didn’t know our blokes had crossed the river and we dropped the lot. And it went on our blokes as well. It was a bit, it was a bit —
GR: Yes. That was the Canadians wasn’t it?
RS: Yeah.
GR: Mainly.
RS: That’s right. It was.
GR: Yeah.
RS: Yeah. Yeah. When we, when we sort of turned in a circle I looked out. I looked out of the side window and we was, well we was low enough to spot this German ack ack gun in a field. Saw that.
GR: They were, they were shooting up at you.
RS: They weren’t shooting at us. They was shooting up but not us.
GR: Yeah.
RS: At us. But they were shooting up there.
GR: And looking at it you did quite a few operations in support of the Normandy landings.
RS: Oh yes. Yeah.
GR: All the way through to August. Yeah.
RS: That’s right. Yeah. When we went, we used to go after, the Germans had their fighter ‘dromes around there. We used to go and try and bomb the fighter ‘dromes at night.
GR: Yeah.
RS: It was, it was quite, quite good.
GR: And after the Normandy campaign you obviously moved on to —
RS: Yeah.
GR: The industrial area in Germany.
RS: Yeah. We went, we went on to those flying bomb sites which was sort of a waste of time really.
AM: Why was that?
RS: Well, they was only like ramps and that and so small you had difficulty in hitting them. And the V-2 sites, they moved them about. So you —
GR: Yes.
RS: You just dropped where you thought, you know. We were told where to go but —
GR: Yes. The V-1 sites.
RS: Yeah.
GR: Were like the proverbial needle in a haystack.
RS: Yeah.
GR: You know. A small ramp in a —
RS: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah.
GR: Reasonably large area.
RS: And they could move them about.
GR: Yeah.
RS: Yeah. Did that.
GR: And on the operations across to Germany any near misses? Any close calls?
RS: Oh Christ, yes. Yes. Frightened me to death one night. We was going to Hanover. We got to Hanover. We was on the bombing run and a German fighter attacked a Lancaster which did a corkscrew and came up underneath us. There was a hell of a bang and apparently, I didn’t see him but the gunner said they went down because it must have squashed them. And we hadn’t got rid of the bombs. And what, I can’t quite remember, that Lancaster so Stan said was, went down. That, that went down, you know. That must have gone down and crashed. And crashed.
GR: He’d come up underneath the Halifax.
RS: It come up underneath. Like that.
GR: Yeah.
RS: Right underneath our bomb bay.
GR: Smacked into you. Yeah.
RS: And what happened then? There was, oh, there was another bang and the starboard inner engine went flying up in the air. Come up, bolts sheared off and engine went up.
GR: So you lost an engine.
RS: Yeah. Lost an engine. Yeah. Completely lost it. And we, I turned off, I shut off the fuel cock for the —
GR: Yeah.
RS: For the starboard inner. And we, we couldn’t open the bomb doors. Anyway, I pumped the bomb doors and pumped the bomb doors and where the, what do you call it switch, where the handle because the engine driven pump which opened the bomb doors had gone with the starboard engine.
GR: God.
RS: That was, that was driven off the starboard inner engine. And —
GR: Was the starboard outer still alright?
RS: Yeah. That was alright.
GR: That was still going.
RS: That was still going. And I managed to get the bomb doors open and we let the bomb, we dropped the bombs and, but when I went to check we still got the, I think, I think it was the four thousand pounder on there I think and that was still hanging up. And we were trying like hell to get rid of this and we couldn’t get rid of it. Anyway, we came back. We got back over the coast and we was going to land at Woodbridge but we weren’t, I was with this bloke. A pilot. McLennan. He wouldn’t. He said, ‘If you can’t get rid of that bomb you’ll have to jump out.’ Anyway, we, we managed to get rid of this bomb just as we almost got to Woodbridge, on the coast and it went. And we crashed it. We went to get the undercarriage down and of course one wheel come down. The other one didn’t and we crashed in the trees at Woodbridge. And that’s, that was how Maurice Spivey, he broke his fingers.
GR: Yeah. Maurice Spivey being obviously being obviously another member of the crew.
RS: Maurice was the wireless operator.
GR: Yeah. Maurice. Yeah.
RS: Somehow, I don’t know. He lost his fingers. He never flew again. He didn’t.
GR: Right. And that was because you were obviously coming in to land with just the one wheel.
RS: Yeah. No. He — I don’t know.
GR: But then you, you literally crash landed.
RS: Yeah. We crash landed. Yeah. Of course. It tipped over didn’t it? And we went into the woods there. Went into this big wood. I don’t know quite how Maurice got rif, got his fingers but I know he had them and then he had to, they cut them off in the hospital. I don’t know. I think he got frostbite as well because we’d got no, all the glass had gone out all one side of the kite you know. All one side of our Halifax. Where it was damaged with this bloody Lancaster.
GR: Yeah.
AM: What about the rest of the crew? When that damage happened.
RS: Well the mid-upper gunner was alright. The rear gunner was alright. But there was all the papers, you know. The maps and of course it was all like a shower of paper inside so it all blew back. Pat was alright and Geoff was alright. Did you know, did you know Geoff [Heatman?] and Pat [Carroll?]
GR: No, I didn’t. No.
RS: Didn’t you?
GR: I knew Maurice Spivey, but —
RS: Yeah. They were alright.
AM: You know you said you finally got rid of the bomb just before Woodbridge.
RS: Yeah.
AM: So you were over, over the Channel by now and in —
RS: Well, we was at the North Sea. Not far from —
AM: Right. So you dropped it in the sea.
RS: Not far from Woodbridge. We dropped it in the sea. Yeah. Pat managed to, I don’t know quite, I, I was working and trying, you know trying the bomb release. This screw. The big butterfly screw and I couldn’t do it and he happened to. Just was lucky and twisted it.
AM: Yeah.
RS: He got down and had a go twisted it and it just dropped.
GR: It was a good job because if you’d have crash landed with that on board.
RS: Well, we wouldn’t.
GR: No.
RS: We wouldn’t have crash landed.
GR: You would have jumped out. Yeah.
RS: We would have jumped out with our parachute.
GR: Did the whole crew, I mean obviously Maurice was injured. Did the rest of the crew get out all right?
RS: Oh yeah.
GR: Yeah.
RS: We all got out. We’d got, we’d got a spare gunner that night. A bloke who hadn’t, this was his first trip. A rear gunner. I can’t think what his name was now. And —
GR: That filled him with confidence then.
RS: Yeah. It filled him with confidence. He refused to fly again.
GR: Oh right.
RS: And the last time I saw him he was stripped and working in the cookhouse at Melbourne. Oh God, it was quite a, quite a do that night.
GR: Obviously. Yeah.
AM: Sounds it.
GR: But your crew went back flying.
RS: Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
RS: We had a new rear, another rear gunner because Arthur had, Arthur went sick.
GR: Yeah. So a new aircraft.
RS: Oh yeah, we had a new aircraft.
GR: New rear gunner. Yeah. Yeah.
RS: Oh yeah. That one wasn’t any good. That was a write off.
GR: Yeah.
RS: That was a right off. Yeah.
GR: And you carried on? Did you carry on to do, was it thirty operations?
RS: Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
RS: Yeah.
GR: Did a full tour.
RS: Yeah.
GR: When did your tour finish?
RS: Well, I’ll tell you. This was rather funny. I went. I had two to do and I went, I went to, I got posted to Melbourne to do the 10 Squadron, to do the last two. And I did one and then the last one I did was the last raid of the war. That was on a place called Wangerooge.
GR: That’s right. Yeah.
RS: I remember that.
GR: So why did —
RS: That was —
GR: Sorry. Why? If you’d done twenty eight operations at Lissett with 158.
RS: Yeah.
GR: Had the rest of the crew done twenty eight or had they done thirty for some reason?
RS: Well, some had done more because you see when, when you’re a flight commander’s crew you don’t, what can I say? They don’t do as many as how can I put it. They do. Tom Parry only had twenty to do because he’d done a tour before. So, that left us with ten anyway. And how can I put it? If, if all the crew, if all the crews, their crews were, you know healthy and that. You was just, you just didn’t have anything to do.
GR: No.
RS: And then they started messing about with these things, didn’t they?
GR: Yes.
RS: And saying that French trips would only, we’d got about three to one German and all that messing about with. But I was going to say on that last raid on Wangerooge I happened to look up, up and there was a Free French bloody Halifax above us and he dropped his bombs and it went and his big bombs went between our wing and the tail plane.
GR: Close call then.
RS: Close call that was.
GR: On the last raid.
RS: Yeah.
GR: Just going back a little bit. How did you feel about, obviously you’d been at 158 Lissett and then oh two more operations to go. Can I fly with another crew at 158? No. You can go to 10 Squadron.
RS: That’s right. Yeah.
GR: Melbourne.
RS: Go to 10 Squadron at Melbourne. Yeah.
GR: On your own.
RS: Yeah.
GR: None of the other crew went with you.
RS: No. They’d all gone. They’d all gone.
GR: Yeah.
RS: Stan Hibbert he, he went. He come back from leave to do his last few.
GR: Yeah.
RS: See. I was on leave when he, Stan finished. You see, we, we when Tom Parry went it was like they, like they took the pilot away from you.
GR: Yeah.
RS: You were spare.
GR: Yeah.
RS: You didn’t, you know.
GR: It just seems unfair to send you to a complete other squadron.
RS: It is. Well —
GR: Just to do two ops.
RS: Well they did. I did my last two.
AM: Can I ask you about, you know when you were talking when you just said they started messing about and France only counted — you had to do three France’s for one German.
RS: Yeah. They did. They started messing about.
AM: When did they start doing that then?
GR: After D-Day.
RS: It was, yeah. Way after D-Day when they started saying that they thought the French trips was easy. Well they weren’t. They were, they were just as hard as what the German trips were but they thought that, the powers that be thought it was a doddle and it wasn’t. That’s what they said.
AM: So they only counted it as a half an operation.
RS: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah.
AM: Right.
RS: That was the sort of things they did. They, they didn’t play fair with us in a way because what they used to say was Scarecrows when you used to see a lot of fire going up in front of you or on the side of you, you know. They said it was like, what can I say, like a flare which was put up and burst to look like a, you know like an aircraft or something. The Germans put it up. But it wasn’t. It was our blokes being shot down. It was. They weren’t fair. They weren’t fair to you really. We did our bit but some they, they weren’t all that —
AM: Why do you think they did that?
RS: Well, to stop people being frightened. It’s a bit harrowing when you, when you see an aircraft suddenly burst in front of you. Burst in to flame in front of you.
AM: I was going to say I can imagine but I can’t actually.
RS: It is. It’s a bit harrowing.
AM: Yeah.
RS: So they said it was, it was Scarecrows. What the Germans put up to frighten you.
AM: Yeah.
RS: And it bloody wasn’t. It was some of our kites going down.
GR: Yeah.
RS: Amazing really.
AM: So what, after that then, after the last operation, what happened then? So you’re at Melbourne then. Not at Lissett.
RS: Oh what happened then. Oh, that was great. I got sent home for three months. Sent home. Used to get my money through the post. Used to get your wages through the post every fortnight. It was great. And then, oh it, life became quite, quite pleasant. It was, I can’t think [pause] yeah what happened then was we, we was, I had to go back to Lissett for a re-assessment board. And they said, I said, ‘I don’t want to become a, to go back as a flight mechanic or anything like that. I don’t want to do that.’ So, anyway I didn’t hear any more. I got sent back home. The next thing I know I had to go down to Chivenor in North Devon. And I went back down there and we was there for about a fortnight and I got, I got posted up to Stranraer and, and I was on a fitter marines course which was, which when I, when I saw what it was I was quite enthusiastic. We was on these air sea launches. Air sea rescue launches. It was great. It was. And I was a fitter on these air sea rescue launches. And I went for, did the course. We did the course and I got posted up to Invergordon. And oh, it was great up there it was. It was lovely. And then what happened? I can tell you what happened. What was good. We had to [pause] — Alness, it was Alness, it was a Flying Boat Station which was further down, down Loch Ryan. And [pause] that, we had, they closed down and they got refuellers there which were boats filled with petrol and they used to refuel the Sunderlands. And we had to take these, these refuelers down to Dumbarton. We used to go to tow them down. Tow one down on the side of it, you know, lash it to the side of it, go through the Caledonian Canal right up to Dumbarton and come back again. That was a fortnight’s trip that was. But then, then I was engaged in a rather, an effort which I never did find out what, if it was any good to them. They filled a Sunderland up. That was before they took the refuellers away. They fuelled this Sunderland up and took it out in to the centre of the Loch and opened the taps and cocks, let the petrol out and I sat there and shot a verey light picture at it and set it on fire. And then we had to put it out. It was, we, we got these pumps and a water jet on us. Oh, it was.
AM: Why?
GR: Practice.
RS: Practice. What good it did I don’t know. What good it did, Lord knows. I don’t.
AM: I bet that was exciting though.
RS: It was. It was quite good. It was quite good. It was quite good. It’s, it was a bit dangerous and one time when they put the, they got the, put the boat out, our launch right up under the wing of the Sunderland. It could have blown up but it didn’t. But it wasn’t full up of petrol. Just enough to set it on fire and make a — because it was all around the water and everything. We used to spray, spray the water and get, put the fire out on the water. It was quite good. Quite interesting.
AM: And this, has the war finished by this point?
GR: Yes.
RS: Oh yeah. Yeah.
AM: So, yeah.
RS: It had finished yeah.
AM: So why are they doing all this if the war’s finished?
RS: Well, I suppose, I suppose it was for, what can I say? Well, I suppose they were still Sunderland Flying Boats about.
GR: Yeah.
RS: Not where we was anymore because they took them all away after that. But they was down at Calshot and at Pembroke Dock and all around there. I mean, if they had a crash and that the things we did could have been useful for them.
AM: Right. So it was —
RS: But whether it was I don’t know.
AM: It was to learn.
RS: Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
AM: Yeah. How long were you up there for then?
RS: I came out in 1947.
AM: So two years.
RS: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: After the war finished.
RS: Yeah. Yeah. It was quite good. I quite enjoyed it.
AM: And were you up there for the whole two years?
RS: Yeah. Come home. I was demobbed from there.
AM: Right.
RS: Invergordon. Went down to, overnight train down to [pause] oh near Liverpool. What was it? Padgate. And got demobbed from there.
GR: Yeah.
AM: Right. So what was demob? What was that like?
RS: Demob.
AM: What did you get?
RS: Well, a bit of a farce. What did I get? I got a suit. Which wasn’t, not really my style. And a shirt and a tie, I think it. And a pair of shoes. But it, you know, I think, I think I wore them for a little was while but then they went in the bin. Yeah.
AM: And what, what did you do after? Once you’d been demobbed?
RS: Once I’d been demobbed. Well, what did I do? Oh, I went to work at Brown and Greaves. I went in the offices in the purchase department at Brown and Greaves.
AM: What was that?
RS: Well, they used to make laundry machinery.
AM: Right.
RS: They used to make laundry presses and things, they used to make.
AM: So, I know that later on you became a chiropodist.
RS: Oh yes.
AM: How did all that happen?
RS: Well, I thought I wanted to do something else so I went to, you know decided I’d try something else so I went to one of these schools to learn to do it.
AM: Why chiropody though?
RS: Well, I don’t know really. I think it was because my late wife had a verruca and she went to this, she went to this chiropodist in Wellington Street in Luton and, you know I went with her and it looked an easy sort of job. And it was, what I thought, it was money for old rope. And so I applied to be one.
AM: So how long was the training for it?
RS: Oh, how long? About three or four months.
AM: Oh, only three or four months. Oh right, I thought it would be several —
RS: Maybe a bit longer than that at that time.
AM: Yeah.
RS: It’s two years or three years now because they turn to other things as well now.
AM: That’s, I thought that’s what I thought you were going to say.
RS: Yeah.
AM: So that’s it then. You did chiropody.
RS: Yeah.
AM: Right through.
RS: I did part one and part two of the course and that was it.
AM: Yeah.
RS: No. Part. It was a little bit longer than that. I think probably all together it was with a part one and two probably it was six or seven months.
AM: Yeah. When you talked about your late wife. What, what year did you get married?
RS: 1947.
AM: So after. After —
RS: Yeah.
AM: After demob.
RS: Yeah. No. Just before demob.
AM: Just before demob.
RS: What was I going to say? Yeah. She died. It was you who took the, I showed you a picture didn’t I?
GR: You did, yeah.
RS: And do you know I’ve lost them pictures and I can’t find them. I’ve got one on the computer. And I can’t find them.
GR: Of?
RS: Of me standing on her father’s houseboat.
GR: Right.
AM: Right.
RS: With her and her young sister.
AM: Yeah.
RS: You took, you took them off to snap didn’t you?
GR: Yeah. And there was the crew. I always remember the crew photo.
RS: Yeah.
GR: With you and Maurice in.
RS: Yeah. I’ve still got them.
RS: Yeah.
AM: You’ll find them.
RS: Yeah.
AM: And I know you went, you used to go to the 158 reunions at Lissett.
RS: Oh yeah. We used to go to that.
AM: Yeah.
RS: Yeah.
AM: Every year.
RS: Well yeah.
AM: Meet old friends.
RS: Until quite recently. Met my, it was about 1964 time. Yeah. We used to go there. Oh year after year. Used to stay in the Ransdale in Bridlington. We used to go up for a week. We used to. We used to have a week. Take a week off. Go up there for a week.
AM: Have you seen the Memorial? You know that, that —
GR: The 158 Memorial.
AM: The 158 Memorial.
GR: Yeah.
RS: Oh yeah. In the church. In the church yard. The cemetery.
AM: It’s near the, it’s, there’s another one that’s the men. A crew and it’s at the side of a field that’s got all the windmills in it.
RS: Yeah. I’ve seen that.
AM: You’ve seen that.
RS: Yeah.
AM: Yeah. Yeah. A good place to finish.
[recording paused]
RS: But at Bomber, at one of those Bomber Command signings a bloke named Ehrhardt or something.
GR: Rolf.
RS: Rolf Ehrhardt.
GR: Ebhart.
AM: Ebhart.
RS: Ebhart. Yeah. He was a German night fighter pilot.
GR: That’s right.
RS: On 110s and he said to me, ‘I might have met you.’ I said, ‘I’m bloody glad you didn’t.’
GR: That’s right. Well, I think we come and picked — me and Mick Cooper.
RS: That’s right. We went to a do, didn’t we?
GR: Yeah. And we picked you up.
RS: Yeah.
GR: And that’s it. You got talking to Rolf.
RS: Yeah. And he sent me a, he sent me a lovely picture of himself as a lieutenant in his uniform.
GR: Yes.
RS: And a picture of his aircraft.
GR: Because funny enough when I looked up your, in my little directory I’ve got.
RS: Yeah.
GR: Obviously I keep all the details. Addresses. And in brackets I’ve put, “Either friend or in contact with Rolf Ebhart,” under your name so I remembered.
RS: Well, he died didn’t he? He was a dentist.
GR: That’s right. Yeah.
RS: He died.
GR: Yeah.
RS: Oh, we used to correspond quite a lot.
GR: Yeah, see. Yeah.
RS: And he was going to come over and then all at once.
GR: Yeah.
AM: Gone.
RS: And now —
AM: And that’s it.
RS: I’m in touch with another one now.
AM: Can I, can I just ask then.
RS: Yeah.
AM: So, how does it, after all these years and you’re talking to the Luftwaffe guys.
RS: Yeah.
AM: What’s that like —
RS: Well, they’re no different to us. In fact, I have a lot of time for the German air force. A hell of a lot of time for them because towards the end of the war Adolf wanted to, they put a lot of these, now wait a minute, towards the end of the war Adolf wanted to shoot all the British airmen didn’t he?
GR: Yes.
RS: And the Gestapo was going to do it or the SS was going to do it and the German Air Force said no. They’re not going to. The German air force took them all into their bases.
GR: Yeah. Because apart from Stalag Luft III which was The Great Escape.
RS: Yeah.
GR: The Luftwaffe was still in control of all the —
RS: Air force.
GR: RAF.
RS: Prisoners.
GR: Prison camps. Yeah.
RS: Oh yeah. That was, I’ve got a lot of time for the German Air Force.
GR: Yeah. Because you met them at that first do at the Aces High when the Germans came across.
RS: That’s right.
GR: There was you. I can’t think who the others were but there were about, there were two or three Germans. Two Germans. Yeah.
RS: And the Germans have never shot, shot you know as they’ve come down in parachutes.
GR: German civilians during 1944.
[recording paused]
RS: My log got, I cut my finger, I had a big scar in my finger and it’s only just recently gone. On my little finger where I caught it on a jagged metal. And there was my, my log sheet and the folder it all got a lot of blood on it but I’ll tell you who’s got that. That’s gone to the air museum at [pause] oh where do you call it?
AM: Elvington.
RS: Elvington.
GR: Elvington.
RS: Yeah.
GR: Yes. The Halifax Museum. Yeah.
RS: Yeah.
[recording paused]
RS: Oh, he did give me a fright. He did. I really did. And he said, he said to me, ‘You can take this dog and walk it for me.’ And I had to take it on a lead and walk it around. Of course, I was, I was, you know, what can I say? They thought I was an idiot walking this bloody dog. That was —
AM: This was around the base you’re talking about here.
RS: Yeah. Around the base. Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
AM: So, just tell me again what happened on the plane? He was, he’s the group captain and he’s piloting it.
RS: Oh that was with an air test. That was an air test that was.
AM: Oh right.
GR: Yeah.
RS: That was an air test. What it was, the, the engine went, went wrong. It started spluttering so he decided, I said to him, ‘You want to feather it. Feather the propellers.’
GR: Yeah.
RS: You know what I mean?
GR: I do. Yeah.
RS: The propellers going like that they turn them into wind so the wind blew and it stopped the engine. He pushed the bloody button and instead of pushing it and letting it go he pushed it and held it down and of course it feathered and unfeathered, unfeathered and feathered, and all the oil went out the system. And of course it just flopped round and milled round. Ruined it.
AM: So what happened?
RS: Well, nothing happened because it was him. If that had happened to me I would have been, I would have been in the cart wouldn’t I? For ruining an engine. I’d have been put on a charge.
AM: And what was he? He was the group captain.
RS: He was the group captain.
AM: When I say what happened I mean how did you get back down?
RS: Well, we got another three.
AM: Oh right. So it was only one engine that he — right. I thought you meant all four.
RS: No. No.
AM: Did you, did you only ever fly in a Halifax? The Halifax. You never set foot in a Lancaster at any point.
RS: Yes. I did. I had a flight. It was either a Lancaster or a Lincoln. It was at Cranfield. I went to Cranfield with some air cadets once in Luton. From Luton. And I had a flight in either a Lancaster or, it was either a Lancaster or a Lincoln. I don’t know.
AM: So which did you prefer? That or the Halifax?
RS: Oh the Halifax.
AM: Why?
RS: There was more room in a Halifax to move about. With the Lancasters you had to crouch down and get through the spar, the main spar and all that. With a Halifax you just step over it. That’s why, that’s why I wanted a Halifax. Couldn’t get on with it.
AM: Yeah.
RS: Couldn’t get on with a Lancaster. Oh, I’ll tell you another thing. Group Captain Sawyer took me up in his Tiger Moth.
GR: Oh right.
RS: In Lissett. I was frightened to death. I was. Because he would perform, you know. Show off. He was quite a good bloke actually. He used to, he was, what can I say? Any of the aircrew blokes he, he always used to — sergeant, no matter what you was.
GR: He’d take you up and —
RS: Yeah. Yeah.
GR: He just wanted to show you how good a pilot he was.
RS: Yeah. Yeah, he did.
GR: Looping the loop and things like that.
RS: Yeah. Yeah. Well, our Wing Commander Dobson was alright as well. I can’t think, I can’t think who it was, I had a motorbike at the time and that was when there was a, there was a purge on for people using aircraft petrol in their motorbikes. It was a different colour. And when that purge had finished I had to go in to the adjutant’s office. The station adj, not the, not the aircrew adj, the station adj, and he got a load of petrol in there in bottles and he said, ‘Can you use that?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ He gave me all these bottles of petrol. It was all aircraft petrol so I used all that. Oh, it was, it was quite —
GR: Yeah.
RS: It was. The station adj and the aircrew adj was, well I don’t know. [unclear] him. The station adj, the station commander, the wing commander. They was all ever so good to you. They used to, well, talk to you.
GR: Good.
RS: And they weren’t like the army people — you mustn’t talk to the lower ranks, you know. They used to talk to you.
AM: Did you go out in to Bridlington? Did you have nights out?
RS: Oh Christ yes. I certainly did. Had lots of nights out and plenty of beer.
AM: And?
RS: Well, yeah, I had a few girlfriends but not a lot. You know, I used to go with a WAAF at one time. No, I didn’t, I didn’t have a lot of girls in Bridlington really.
AM: But you drank a lot.
RS: I used to have a few drinks.
AM: How did you get there from Lissett? On your motorbike?
RS: I used to go on the motorbike. Yeah. Or else you could go on a bus. The bus used to stop just outside the camp. I’ve been, I’ve been out there wanting to get a bus and Americans come along in a jeep and picked us up.
AM: Where were they based then?
RS: I don’t know.
AM: No.
RS: I don’t know. Oh, that, that was that was another story that was. The [pause] one night the weather was ever so bad down this, down this area and we had a load of American Air Force people. I think they was Liberators. I think that came up to, and we had, you know quite a few of them land at our aerodrome. They was there for about two days. And when they went, one, when they went to take off one, I don’t know what happened, it was a, I think his undercart collapsed or something. It didn’t crash but they couldn’t take off. They had to fetch it on a wagon and when they took, they’d got the Norden bombsight in it. And they took this Norden bombsight out and they, as the crew stood around they drew their pistols so as you couldn’t go around and get near it. Bloody idiot. That wasn’t, ours was a better bombsight than what theirs was. Yeah, I remember that. Because the people that came to us was based at Cheddington. Down here.
GR: Yeah.
RS: Yeah. Yeah, they all stood around this Norden bombsight with their pistols.
GR: Protecting it like the Wild West.
RS: Yeah. It was a load of rubbish anyway when you compared it with ours. Yeah. Right. Well that’s it.
GR: Right.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Rex Statham
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Gary Rushbrooke
Annie Moody
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-27
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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AStathamR160627
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:52:48 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
Rex Statham was born in Luton. His father died in a motorbike accident when he was very young. Although Rex had been very keen to join the Navy he volunteered for the RAF as a flight mechanic. When he realised that many trained mechanics were being posted overseas he decided to remuster as a flight engineer. He flew operations with 158 Squadron from RAF Lissett. On one occasion a corkscrewing Lancaster hit their aircraft. Although badly damaged, the crew managed to return and crash land RAF Woodbridge.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Great Britain
England--Suffolk
England--Yorkshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
10 Squadron
158 Squadron
air sea rescue
aircrew
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
crash
demobilisation
fear
flight engineer
flight mechanic
fuelling
ground crew
ground personnel
Halifax
mid-air collision
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Alness
RAF Lissett
RAF Melbourne
RAF Woodbridge
Scarecrow
Sunderland
training
V-1
V-2
V-weapon
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/753/10751/ACotterJDP180828.2.mp3
e9a1567a26e03578b2f197371ed79bd9
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
Cotter, John David Pennington
J D P Cotter
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. The collection concerns Wing Commander John Cotter DFC (b. 1923, Royal Canadian Air Force) and contains an oral history interview, his log book and a memoir. He flew operations as a pilot with 158 and 640 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Cotter 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
2018-08-28
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
Cotter, JDP
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JC: Yes, here we are.
PS: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Patricia Selby and the interview is John Cotter and the interview is taking place at his home. Can you give me your address [tone] and the time is 2.25. Where, when were you born John?
JC: They came over to England.
PS: No, when were you born?
PS: Yes, when we came over to England. Apparently I was, my mother was pregnant with me on the voyage over and when we got here they put me in to St Mary’s Hospital Paddington, where I was born.
PS: So Paddington. So how did your childhood go on from there?
JC: They bought a house in Hendon, just by Hendon Central tube station, a brand new house, on a mortgage and they were surviving on my mother’s money really. My father decided he’d leave the sea, big mistake of his, and he had a little tobacconist by the station and things went downhill from there. And eventually the Halifax Building Society foreclosed on the mortgage in about 1928, by which time I was five, and they repossessed the house and so they moved to a, the family to a flat in Finchley Road, near Swiss Cottage, and I remember that clearly because we were there about a year and things hadn’t got any better and my father had had to take commercial jobs going round selling things and in 1930 we had to, my parents were Christian Scientists and they got help from the Christian Science Church. When they were completely broke, had no money at all, all my mother’s money had gone, we had to go down to a place called Roe Green in, near Colindale and people, Christian Scientists, in council houses for example, were putting us up and the family was split up a couple of times with my brother and my mother in one house and my father and myself in another house. Eventually my father must have got a loan and he purchased a car in 1932, a little Swift, 1923 Swift, and he paid five pounds for it, I remember that. And he started selling eggs from this car. He’d go round the villages, selling eggs. And from that he progressed to a dirty garage, in Baker Street, where he was fitting tyres. We had the car at home and he would be spending his days fitting tyres on car wheels, motor cars, and eventually he got his own business and he bought it at Neasden, in Blackbird Cross at Neasden, he had a shop called the Boat House Tyre Service I think. And he had about three employees there, including one of my uncles, who’d also fallen on hard times, and things were going very well and so we moved into a very large flat in Edgware, with four huge bedrooms and three living rooms and it was up on the third floor of a block and we were over a block of shops, and we were over a shop called Gilbert Reeves in Edgware, Station Road, Edgware and we were now living very well. I passed my scholarship to a grammar school and in 1935 I went to the Kingsbury County School, grammar school. I’d done very well at ordinary school, elementary school, I’d always been top of the class. I now, for some reason, became almost the bottom of the class in the grammar school. I found that the competition was very heavy and I wasn’t doing very well. However, I hung on and I started in, there in August ’35 and August ’39 came along and war was declared in September the 3rd, by which time I’d decided I was going to join the Junior League of Oswald Mosley’s Fascist movement. Outside Edgware Station, which was a big station, the end of the Northern Line, so a big station, and one side of the station would be the Communist Party, workers selling the Daily Worker, and the other side would be the Fascists, Oswald Mosley’s man and I always liked him better, Oswald Mosley’s men, always looked better, smarter. And civil war in Spain had been going on for some time and we, my parents had a great friend called Mr Auty, who was a Spaniard and an olive oil importer and he said that the Fascist Party were the only hope for Spain and so I supported General Franco and led to numerous fights with me at school as nobody else seemed to support General Franco, except me. By the time the war broke out I was coming up to sixteen and that year I was supposed to take my School Certificate and I knew I’d do badly at it, so the war was a sort of relief for me. But I decided I’d better not join the Fascist Party as they’d now declared war on Hitler and my parents might be upset about that, me joining Oswald Mosely. Anyway the schools were closed, no sign of opening, so I said to my mother I’m not doing very well at school, I’d better get a job, and she said yes you should get a job and then you support the household by giving some rent. So I didn’t get a job, cause I didn’t know how to get a job, so she got a job for me. Mummy got me my job in a paper firm in Upper Thames Street, just off Blackfriars in London, at twelve and six a week and I went up there and worked there. And then mummy was always saying to me, John, you must get a job with a pension, you must have a pension. So she decided that the job in Upper Thames Street wasn’t paying, going to pay a pension so she’d get me a job in the Civil Service, which she did! She produced this job for me in the Clothing Office, in Whitehall and she said you start there in I think it was June 1940, which I did. And it was quite nice job, with a pension [chuckle] and I had my own responsibilities there, I was doing something all day. I was dealing with, the war was on, so I was dealing with requests from all the colonies when we had a big Empire then, for permission to export goods to certain countries were banned from receiving any goods, anything from Germany, so they had to apply to London. They come down through me, a little sixteen year old in the clothing office, and I was then circulating them to the correct department. I was quite happy doing that and the bombing started. I used to walk down Whitehall in the evenings, six o’clock in the evening, when we finished work, and the bombing had started, mainly in the East End, but some in the centre of London, and I’d get on the tube at The Strand, to go home, and I’d come out at the end of the tunnel which was at Golders Green, and you’d immediately be into the bombing again, because you’d been safe while you were in the underground but now the bombing had started. You’d see the searchlights and it was all going on, and I got fed up of this and then they started rationing as well. Whereas rationing hadn’t been very severe and I’d had plenty of chocolate and things like that to carry on with, you could get them in all the shops, now things started disappearing and you couldn’t get them any longer. I used to attend parties where a lot of, this is in Edgware, where a lot of the people, the youngsters, were joining the services. I saw these advertisements which said: ‘You too can bomb Berlin” and advertising for pilots and I got interested in this and I noticed that the qualification to be a pilot, to be in training as a pilot, if you were selected, you had to have an education up to School Certificate standard. Didn’t say you had to have the School Certificate, you had to be educated to the standard. So, mind [indecipherable], look around and thought jolly good, I could join the Air Force and I decided I would join and take the invitation to go and bomb Berlin. ”You too can bomb Berlin” and it showed you a man in pilot’s uniform, officer’s uniform, standing and leaning on a post in a nice building in Berlin and the building was crumbling from the bombing, and so I said to my younger brother who was about eighteen months younger than me, I said to Paul I’m going off to bomb Berlin, join the Air Force and he said right, I’ll come as well. I said you can’t, because you’re too young, you’re fifteen and the minimum age is seventeen, which I was, and he said I know, but what about if I put on my age to seventeen and you put, I said I’d have to put my age up and he said yes. So eventually we decided yes, he could join with me and I said you haven’t got to school certificate standard and you won’t have it. He said doesn’t matter I’ll join as well, I’ll try and join. So in February 1941, the two of us went down to the Air Force Recruiting Office in Deansbrook Road, Edgware. And we went in and I went in first and the recruiting sergeant asked me what I wanted to be and I said I wanted to be a pilot, and he said where were you educated, and I said Kingsbury County School, just about to take the school certificate and of course the schools were closed and so I left. He said that’s good enough, he said yes, we’ll send you up to Uxbridge and you’ll be interviewed there and if you’re satisfactory, you’ll be a pilot, you’ll be training for a pilot, I was nineteen according to my reckoning, and out I went and my brother went in after me. He was accepted as well, but not as a pilot, they said he could be a rear gunner, or a gunner, or a wireless operator. So he said he’d be a wireless operator do they said you’re going to Uxbridge as well. Funnily enough, a friend of his who was the correct age completely, went in after him, was sent back to his mother to get his birth certificate. They hadn’t looked for my birth certificate, or Paul’s. So we both went to Uxbridge the following day and there we were assessed and I was accepted for training as a pilot and Paul was accepted for training as a wireless operator and we were told to go home, carry on with our jobs and they’d call us up when they had room for us. That was in February, and I waited, carried on at the Clothes Office and I waited and waited and couple of chaps at the Clothing Office had, friends of mine, who’d also joined the Air Force, they were called up and I was still waiting. Anyway, the time came: July 7th 1941. I was told to report to Lords Cricket Ground, St Johns Wood, and I did, and there I was taken into the Air Force and I’d been a great cricket fan. Am I going on too long?
PS: No, it’s fine. It’s really good.
JC: Great cricket fan and I’d been to Lords many times and in those days only the poshest amateurs, proper amateurs were allowed to use the main pavilion at Lords. The professionals, the really top class cricketers, the p[professionals, had to use the side gate and this pavilion at Lords was a place that only MCC members were allowed in and I met some cricketers. And we were all marched in on the second day there at Lords, into this temple, where only amateur players were allowed in. Told to drop our trousers round to our ankles and lift our shirts up to our necks while a Medical Officer walked down the line inspecting us. [Chuckle] Then we were passed fit, obviously, and we used to go down to, you got, billeted in flats, blocks of flats that had obviously been commandeered and the tenant told to leave, and we were billeted in these flats and we used to march down to the zoo for our meals and march back again. So you’d march down for breakfast, and back to wherever you were working, march down for lunch and dinner. And then we were sent on an Initial Training Wing course and I went across to a proper RAF station at Brize Norton, which is still going, for my initial training course and when I came back from that, I was sent down to Brighton here, into the Hotel Metropole to await further instructions And obviously the further instructions were going to be to train, start flying training. We were obviously going overseas for that because most of the flying training was in Canada or South Africa. And I was down here for about four weeks in the Metropole Hotel and then I was shipped off to Manchester for a while, and from Manchester I was taken up to the docks at Glasgow, and put on a little old ship that had been carrying cargo obviously and we now had about twelve hundred chaps on board, and we were setting sail for North America and we were in a convoy, and it took us twelve days to get across the Atlantic. And the first four days I was so sick, I used to lie upstairs on the deck, near the lifeboats, and hope that the submarines would come and torpedo us, so put me out of my misery. After four days I perked up and I’ve never been sick since. We were billeted down in the holds with a lot of rough men who swore most of the time. I’d never heard much swearing in my life, certainly not at school, and swearing and cursing, these rough chaps were. They weren’t aircrew, they were going out to do other jobs, whatever they were. Some in the Navy and a lot in the Air Force obviously to man RAF stations in Canada or North America and I finished up in Saskatchewan, Moosejaw, Saskatchewan, for my initial flying course on Tiger Moths. You had to be capable of going solo on the aircraft after six hours training and the maximum you could do was twelve hours, and if you hadn’t gone solo after twelve hours, you’d, you weren’t considered good enough to be pilot and you’d be sent off for training as a navigator possibly, or something else, and after twelve hours I hadn’t gone solo. All the other people, all my friends had failed, as pilots, and I had no friends left there, they had all failed and gone off, sent off somewhere, and so it was only me and the people who’d gone solo, going flying away on little Tiger Moths and me, not allowed to go solo cause I wasn’t good enough. My instructor must have had faith in me because he asked the CO if I could have another two hours and the CO said yes, but after two hours, if I hadn’t gone solo I would be off, off the course, and after fourteen hours I still hadn’t gone solo so he asked to CO again for a further extension, he must have had great faith in me, and the CO said I’ve got to go to Calgary, get a message through to Calgary ask permission from the C in C, and got that permission and I had one last flight and he sent me solo. And I went solo and on my third landing I landed on top of my friend, who was in another plane and smashed the planes up. But they’d had such a time getting me through so far, they let me carry on. None of us, neither of us were injured, but we’d done considerable damage to the planes. I landed on top of him, I hadn’t seen him, on the runway, he was beneath me and I was landing my Tiger Moth, I thought I was clear on the runway, there was a big crunch and I hit his plane. However they had spent so much time getting me there to this stage they thought I’d carry on, so I carried on and finished the course and passed out, quite well, and I was sent up to another base at Saskatoon and, North Battleford actually, and did an Oxford course where I had no trouble whatsoever. I went solo in about four hours and finished the course quite well and at the end of the course, because they needed pilots in Canada and North America because there was training in, over in the States as well though the war hadn’t started in, America wasn’t in the war yet, most of the pilots who passed out were, thought they were going to stay in Canada or North America as instructors or staff pilots, except for the bottom sixteen of us, who were to go home, and I was sixteenth from the bottom of course, so I was one of the ones that came home. And this time instead of going across the Atlantic on an old steamer, we were sent down to New York by train and we arrived in New York one evening at about six o’clock and we were marched from Pennsylvania Station to the other station in New York, erm, not to the other station, to the docks, and we marched down to the docks and on board, and marched on board the Queen Mary, which was empty except for us, which was about sixty of us and nobody on board. And twelve of us were sent to this cabin, one large cabin, and said we were in this cabin and we said well the place is empty why can’t we have some, a cabin each? They said no you’re twelve of you in here. There are only six bunks and so the arrangement is you will have a bunk every other night and the rest of the time you sleep on the floor. And this is the Air Force so you had to be, do as you were told. And then on the first night we were there, just started to sleep and we heard this marching and boots coming on, and the Queen Mary was filling up with American troops: war had broken out and they were one of the first detachments to come to England. They filled up the plane, the ship completely, so much so that we realised why we were all in this one cabin, cause everywhere else were American troops. The Queen Mary set sail, in four days and we were across the Atlantic. Didn’t come in a convoy, just set sail by itself, and it went so fast that it crossed the Atlantic in four days and discharged all its troops and then came whistling back. Did this all throughout the rest of the war and neither the Queen Mary nor the Queen Elizabeth were sunk. So they got all the troops across. So we were back in England now and after many tribulations I got up to [pause] Wymeswold to start my training and that’s where I start that, in February 1943.
PS: So you did more training again, when you got back to England.
JC: Oh yes. Yes. You’d only done enough training on small aircraft. So now they were deciding where you were going and it was pretty obvious that most of us would be going into Bomber Command because it was a big command now. They’d had the Battle of Britain. The fighter boys had defeated the Germans in the Battle of Britain, by air, and now Bomber Command was getting all the impetus, raids started on Germany and German cities. And I never had any trouble at all, after all that trouble with my first solo, I never had any trouble at all from then on, in training, and I eventually found myself on a squadron, after. I’d come back in August 1942 and I arrived on the squadron a year later, nearly a year later. So I’d done a lot of training, obviously.
PS: That was 158 Squadron.
JC: 158 Squadron, yes. And I joined a crew, and, a very good crew, there’s a photograph of them out there in the hall, very good crew. Seven of us and certainly myself, I never [emphasis] worried about not coming back from an operation or anything like that. There were people who were worried but I never had any trouble with, at all with my crew, they were all marvellous chaps. We used to go out on our operations and come back, and, as you’ll see in there, we were, we got ourselves, because the accommodation at Lissett was tin sheds, huts, we got ourselves accepted in to an Army Sergeant’s Mess in Bridlington where we lived in a nice house with proper fires and a brick built building on the sea front, at Bridlington which was an Army Sergeant’s Mess and we were adopted, our crew were adopted there and the Army provided, it was a Company Sergeant Major who arranged it, the Army Company Sergeant Major who arranged it, and he said anything you want, and if you’re called back to base, you’ve got to go back to base quickly, we’ll give you the transport back. So they fed us and beered us, gave us beer and we had a marvellous time, our crew. There were, I remember once, we used to go out, say seven thirty in the evening, and we’d all be taking off for a target and there’d be a queue waiting for take off on the runway, and once, just in front of us, something happened. We couldn’t get past this aircraft, it wasn’t moving. It was a great friend of mine, Doug Robinson who I knew was the captain of it, and eventually the Flight Commander came out from Operations and spoke to them on board and then a closed van came out as well, followed I think, and this closed van was there about five minutes and then off it went and the plane then turned round, oh, the plane then turned round and taxied off the tarmac, on to the grass, to allow us to pass. We just passed it and he was sitting there on the grass. And the reason that it had happened, one of his crew came up and said he couldn’t carry on, described he was too much.
PS: Too frightened.
JC: Too much, too frightening, yeah. I learned that the closed van that had come up, he was put in the van and whisked off and taken off basically, and that was what happened in the war, if you, it was known as Lack of Moral Fibre. Wouldn’t happen now of course, but, wouldn’t call it Lack of Moral Fibre, but in those days, LMF we called it. They were taken off the base immediately because they didn’t’ want him mixing with anybody else. Fortunately nobody in my crew were like that and you see there, we went through the war with no problems whatsoever. Whereas most of our friends were having trouble, you know, getting very damaged aircraft, [pause] horrific experiences and we had nothing like that.
JS: How did that make you feel?
JC: Hm?
JS: How did you feel about that?
JC: We were very callous, in the war. When you came back from a trip and you found that three or four aircraft were, hadn’t come back, and it’s friend of yours on one, friends on another aircraft and you would say they’d gone for a Burton, which meant they’d been shot down and killed possibly. Very callous, you’d say: “Well you shouldn’t have joined if you can’t stand a joke.” When shot down, things like that. Horrible really.
JS: I was going to say, how did you, now, looking back how did you?
JC: Horrible.
PS: It was your way of coping, presumably.
JC: Yeah. But you see, you see there every six weeks we got leave; a weeks’ leave. We lived like kings really. We got petrol, there was no petrol for other people, we had petrol, we had cars, or motorbikes. You had a petrol allowance. So you’d have enough petrol from Bridlington to go down to London for the weekend. I never did because none of my crew had cars, but other crews had somebody had a motor car and they’d do that, so. We had meals which were eggs and bacon and sausages and goodness knows what, but you couldn’t get in civilian life, you were rationed to all that. And after every trip we had this before we left and when we came back.
JS: But you were out for a long time, you must have been hungry when you got back.
JC: Oh, we were hungry, yes.
PS: You said every six weeks you had a break, in the weeks that you, those six weeks, how many raids would you do? Roughly.
JC: I depended, it depends I suppose. I would say when you, you’d go back and you’d do about five raids and then six weeks had gone by, or maybe, or sometimes, we started off our time at the squadron on the Battle of Hamburg. Hamburg, the main port, we did four raids on the city, in about four weeks. Gave them a very heavy raid every week and we reckoned we’d demolished the major part of the city by the end of that time and then we, Bomber Command switched, possibly I think Berlin, or Frankfurt, mainly Berlin after Hamburg, in my time. You’ll see there that I did raids on a lot of German cities, Kassel, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, all over the place. And you did, I did my way, it was all very exciting, all very exciting. And at the end of my tour I was, I remember the last trip I did was to Dusseldorf, and I got back from Dusseldorf and at the briefing, debriefing, you walk into this hut and the Station Commander, whose name was Group Captain Waterhouse, would be standing at the entrance to greet you as you came in, and that last trip he said to me, well young Cotter, that’s you finished. I said I’d like to carry on, sir. He said we’ll see about that. I hadn’t asked my crew, I was so exuberant, hadn’t asked my crew. I think my crew would have followed me on, I hadn’t asked them, I just assumed they would. Anyway we didn’t get it, I didn’t get my request, because within four days I was shipped up, sent on leave for a week then shopped up to the north of Scotland to a place called Lossiemouth, which I had never heard of before. I’d never been to Scotland apart from when I’d gone to Glasgow to board the ship. I was sent up to this place Lossiemouth, to train the, where they were training the French Air Force who, to be in Bomber Command. These were Frenchmen who were from Algeria, French officers and men from Algeria, which hadn’t been conquered of course by the Germans, and they’d had the Free French Air Force there, and now they wanted to operate in Bomber Command and that was my job to help train them, which I liked. Couldn’t speak a word of French cause I’d been a duffer at school where I learned French, but I got on well with them. And I was there till the end of the war. I kept saying to the Wing Commander Flying, I’d like to get back on operations and they used to tell me to get out of the office and not waste their time. And the last one was a nice Wing Commander O’Dwyer and he obviously thought well of me because he commanded a station later and when I wanted to stay in the Air Force when the war ended, he arranged that I got a good job, and I stayed in the Air Force. I’d been married, to my first wife, in July 1945 I got married, and I went for an interview with BOAC and I was accepted by BOAC, and I met my wife who was working in King’s Road, Chelsea. We met in a pub at, in Chelsea, and said, in her lunchtime, and I said I’ve got this job with BOAC and Margaret said how much are they paying you? And I said well initially they’re paying me, I think it was, three hundred and eighty pounds a year as a trainee. She said you’re getting more than that in the Air Force and I said well I am, yes and she said well it’s no contest is it, you stay in the Air Force. I took her advice, because she was older than me, and sensible I thought, so I stayed in the Air Force, and for another twenty years and did quite well there and finished as a Squadron leader and twenty years later, I got a chance to go into civil flying, to retire from the Air Force with a small pension and go into civil flying and that’s what I did. So I went to a firm called Dan Air and I was there for the, till I was sixty, when I, you had to retire as captain of aircraft in those days so that.
PS: So you really enjoyed your flying.
JC: I did enjoy my flying.
PS: You were awarded the DFC. Would you like to tell me how that came about?
JC: Yes. In 640 Squadron, oh, 158 Squadron at Lissett, we were C Flight. There were three, two, three flights in the squadron: A, B and C, and we were C Flight and in December 1943 they decided that we would convert onto a more efficient mark of Halifax with new engines, better engines, and C Flight would go across to Leconfield, permanent station, near Beverley, about twenty miles or so from the city, and form a new squadron. And we formed the new squadron called 640, the number 640 and the Squadron Commander was a chap called Ruby Ayres who was very nice, a very good fellow and he’d been sent to Australia in the war, at the beginning of the war, to get the training scheme over there sorted out. So he’d now come back and taken command of 640 Squadron. Brand new squadron and after about six months or so, no about four months, he decided that they’d been through all these operations and nobody had been, got a decoration. So unbeknown to me, I was suddenly called up into the Wing Commander’s office, Wing Commander Ayres, Squadron Commander, and he said now Cotter, you had a difficult time the other night, a difficult time this night, is that right, I said yes, but nothing serious sir, he said no, but it’s very difficult, you carried on, all of this. I didn’t know what he was talking about but anyway, what he was doing was deciding that I would have the DFC, first one in the squadron. And about three weeks later, or four weeks later, I was asleep in the mess after lunch which I normally did, cause they had chairs like this and used to go to sleep, and I was woken by Alan Smart one of the other, my colleagues, who’d had a terrible time in the war, he’d been shot up to pieces and managed to get back each time, and he came in and shook my shoulder and said you’ve got the DFC, John. I said what, he said you’ve got the DFC. I said oh, thanks and went back to sleep as far as I remember. [Laugh] And then, and then I was eventually called to Holyrood House. This is when I was at Lossiemouth, I’d gone to Lossiemouth and I was called to Holyrood House in Edinburgh and I was given the DFC by King George Sixth, think it was the sixth.
[Other]: What had you done to get it? What have they said that you’d done?
JC: Where’s the book, which I got out, big one there, you see, that one
PS: Because I don’t think they just give them out for, sweeties. I’ll, ‘John Cotter. This officer has proved himself to be a most capable and resolute captain of aircraft. He has participated on a large number of attacks on well defended targets, including several against Berlin and Hamburg. One night in February 1944, Pilot Officer Cotter took part in an attack on Schweinfurt?
JC: Schweinfurt.
PS: On the outward flight, engine trouble developed, but despite this Pilot Officer Cotter continued to target and bomb it and afterwards flew the aircraft back to this country where he made a safe landing at an airfield near the coast. His determination to complete this mission successfully was highly commendable.’ So you did it on three engines. Out and back. That must have made you very tired.
JC: Well it was, yes. I remember that, one you were talking about there. I landed at Tangmere, along the coast here. Used to be an airfield there.
PS: So what did, after the war when you stayed in the Air Force, what sort of things did you do then?
JC: [Laugh] Now, the, they’d just decided, after the war, to have exchange postings with the Americans. Some Americans would come over here and serve with us and some of us would go over there and the first stage postings took place in February 1940, [pause] 7, 1947, and I was on it. They selected me, to go out there and on to an American base. I was a married man of course by this time. The first year they said you can’t take your wife, cause you’re only going to go for a year, you don’t know where you’ll be in America, and they sent us down to, there were four Flight Lieutenants and five Wing Commanders going. Wing commander being about three steps higher than a Flight Lieutenant. Four junior offices and five senior officers. And I remember the four junior officers got together and went down to Air Ministry for a briefing. We got to this briefing at Air Ministry in Kingsway, London and it consisted of this Group Captain coming in and saying now, the best paper for football, English football results, is the New York Times so get that while you’re over there and you’ll get all the results, and that was about it: that was the briefing. So the next thing we knew we were on this liner about to go, going to America. We landed in New York, we landed in Halifax actually, Halifax, Nova Scotia and we were trained down to New York. We got there and they put us up in hotels there, called the Lexington. Lexington Hotel, on Lexington Avenue, known as the Sexy Lexy in the Air Force, the Air Force always used it, and we were there, and of course back home things were, as the war had finished things were even worse than they were during the war. The rationing was more severe and we were really, those post, immediate post war years were a bit thin for food and things and we’re now going to America, the land of plenty, and so we enjoyed ourselves in New York. We were there about four days and then we were bussed down then, down to Washington, Washington DC, and to the Pentagon Building, which is the big military, American Military Headquarters where we had an RAF delegation there. And the things we noticed, I noticed, straight away, was all WAAFs, the Women’s Air Force, were very, very smart, and chic. Where the WAAFs at home had woollen stockings because of rationing of course they couldn’t get silk stockings, all the WAAFs in Washington had silk stockings, or nylon stockings I suppose they were, certainly much smarter and looked a lot cleaner and more with it than our malnourished crowd back home. And so I was sent in to see this Air Marshal, and the first thing he said to me, he said when you come in to see me you are dressed correctly, you don’t have the hat on the back of your head. Go out and dress correctly and come, wait for [indecipherable] to back again. So out I went with my tail between my legs and looked at this very smart WAAF that I’d been admiring, I no longer admired her, cause I thought she should have warned me about that and I did have, my hat on the back of my head, as I had in there.
PS: Yeah.
JC: Yeah. And it’s not smart, that’s wartime stuff, and I was still on wartime stuff and I quite deserved what I got. Anyway, he decided I wasn’t, I wasn’t suitable material for Washington, for the American Air Force so I was sent home, in disgrace, basically, tail between my legs. Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one, there was one of the Wing Commanders as well sent back, some reason. [laughter] So I came back, quite miserable feeling, on the same boat, almost. But again, we were, like the Queen Mary during the war, we had to share cabins, everybody was cooped up. I mean in the cabin on the return journey I remember there was a chap from Preston and his wife. Preston in Lancashire they came from. They’d been in America twenty two years and he was coming home, he and his wife, they’d had enough, you know, of America, after twenty two years. They’d gone out there just after the First World War and he’d been working as a painter and decorator and now he was coming home, he and his wife. Don’t know what they did when they got home, but anyway. We got home and it was the making of me.
PS: Pardon?
JC: It was the making of me, because I got to Air Ministry and I said [pouring of tea] I’d like to have a good postings, overseas. And they said not a chance! I said why not, and they said, I haven’t been overseas yet on a posting and they said we need people like you. I said why, said you’re a good instructor and we need, and it was just when we were building up the Air Force again, thank you darling.
[Other]: Let me give you that.
JC: After the war Stalin, er, Churchill had said there’s an Iron Curtain coming down over Europe. Churchill had been out in Washington and he announced it quite, quite strongly there: there’s an Iron Curtain coming down, and so we had started to rearm against the Russian Menace. They needed instructors because they were recruiting people who had just been discharged from the Air Force, and had been working and hadn’t liked it and were coming back in the Air Force and so I obviously was thought of as a good instructor, which I think I was, because I never lost my temper with anybody; I explained things calmly. So I was given this instruction job up in, flying, flying, up in Yorkshire, back in Yorkshire again, in a place near Ripon, Yorkshire, and I progressed from there and I did very well in the Air Force. And when I asked for a permanent commission, a General List Commission as a permanent officer, I got what I wanted and I had no reason to want to leave the Air Force except that I’d been sent to Birmingham, University, to take charge of the University Air Squadron and I was flying light aircraft there, Chipmunks, and I realised that that was, I wouldn’t progress any further getting back on to heavy aircraft again in the Air Force. And so the chance came up for a, after 1962, when I could retire on a small pension and so I arranged with Dan Air to join them. I had friends in Dan Air and so I left the Air Force and retired and became a civil pilot and did that for the rest of, stayed with Dan Air.
PS: Do you think staying on in the Air Force made it easier to sort of drift back into normal life after the war?
JC: Yes, yeah. I had a very good, very good career. Never out of work, so, never at the Employment Exchange. [Laughter]
[Other]: But you lost your brother, didn’t you, sadly, in the war.
JC: Hmm?
[Other]: You lost your brother, sadly.
JC: I lost my brother.
PS: So wasn’t without, was some sadness. Was that at the beginning or had he done?
JC: No, he’d been sent out to Canada. He’d been, hadn’t been taken into the Air Force. We’d joined together if you remember, but I’d been called up July ’41, he wasn’t called up till ’42, early ’42 and he was a wireless operator, wireless operator/air gunner and he was sent to Canada to join a squadron there, nearing the end of the war and they realised that when Germany collapsed they’d still have Japan to fight. So they’d build up the squadrons in the facing, in the areas facing Japan Vancouver and places like that and my brother was at Vancouver. And one night the aircraft they were in taxied back in again cause it had a fault, and my brother and another chap got out, to have a fag, you weren’t allowed to smoke in RAF aircraft then, in those days, and as happened many times actually, it happened up at Lossiemouth this type of thing as well, the aircraft taxied into them, accidentally [gasp] and they were cut to pieces by the propeller, unfortunately.
PS: That must be even harder to cope with.
[Other]: He was very young. Where were you dad when this happened, dad? Were you in Scotland, at Lossie?
JC: I was in Scotland. I was flying actually, was about two in the morning and I was flying with a French crew and I was called into Control Tower, so I brought the aircraft in, shut it down and I got out, went into the Control Tower and it was my sister on the phone to me from London, saying they knew that Paul had been killed, in Canada, and would I come home, if possible, to support my mother? And I said I will do what I can and I went and saw the CO and he said, “I can’t let you go for very long,” he said, “you can go for the weekend.” So I had to come down for, just to London for the weekend from Scotland, so it was a case of coming down one day and going back the next day basically. But I came down and supported my mother because my father was in the Navy so, in the war, so.
PS: She needed someone.
JC: Yeah. And my sister was only about seven, no, she was about twelve, twelve.
PS: A lot for her to cope with.
[Other]: You also told us, do you remember, stories before you joined up when everyone was going down the air raid shelters, when London was being bombed, and you didn’t, did you, your family, you’d drive out to the countryside.
JC: No. Oh yes. My father insisted that when the air raids started, in earnest, September 1940, we must [emphasis] go out to St Albans, somewhere clear of London completely. And he used to drive the car out to St Albans and park in a field there and my mother and sister would go and I refused to go and my brother refused to go, and my mother had a Great Aunt, a sister, known as my Great Aunt Nellie, who was mentally deficient, and my mother had brought her back from Australia with her and she looked after all the, I suppose it was a condition of the, her parents’ will that she look after Nellie. So Nellie used to be there with us. She was a nurse maid for us as kids and she was still with us at Edgware and I remember nanny, when the bombs used to start Nellie used to go out on the veranda, look up at the sky and shout: “Bugger you Mr Hitler!” [Laughter] Then she’d come back in again. Well my father and mother used to go to the field at St Albans, and we were admittedly on the fourth and fifth floor of the buildings and nothing happened to us, and there used to be a saying in the war: the bomb won’t hit you unless your name’s put on it or your number’s on it. And I didn’t go into air raid shelters cause it was very smelly.
[Other]: What happened to the field where your dad used to drive?
JC: Oh. Bomb dropped in the next field!
PS: Oh no!
JC: Yes! Yes!
[Other]: So they all stopped going as well!
JC: So they stopped going, yes. [Laughter] So they all came back to the flat.
PS: So you’ve enjoyed your life, on the whole.
JC: Oh yes. Yes, had no employment problems. I was, I spent half my life in the Air Force. You see the Air Force was the making of me; it educated me really. I was sent on numerous courses in the Air Force: on how to write properly and how to do this, that and the other. I enjoyed my time in the Air Force and again I enjoyed my time in civil flying, flying all over the world.
PS: You have been such a pleasure to interview. I’ve really enjoyed interviewing, well I haven’t interviewed you, I have let you talk, [Laughter] it’s been really informative. Thank you very much indeed. Is there anything else you want to talk about, or need a break?
JC: Not really, you’ll see in there -
[Other]: Would you like to show Pat your medals?
PS: Yes.
JC: Oh. In there. Fijians, who were in the Army, and taking them up to Malaya to fight in the jungle with us. Because we were fighting communists, Chinese communists in the jungle.
PS: Was that after the war?
JC: This was after the war, this was 1950 ish. So when you would have been about five, this was going on.
PS: Yes. Do you mind if I do this? Now, I’ve got you and your medals. That’s lovely, thank you very much. It doesn’t hurt for me to have them as well.
[Other]: Exactly.
PS: They are lovely. Did they give you this think to put them?
JC: No, no.
[Other]: They were hanging off dad.
JC: Yeah. I often used to go to my reunions and they medals would be hanging half way down.
[Other]: With a nappy pin. [Laughter]
JC: This allows you to put, this goes in your pocket.
PS: Oh I see!
[Other]: Had it redone recently, haven’t you dad.
JC: This is a chap over in East Sussex somewhere, just past Eastbourne.
[Other]: Eastbourne.
PS: He’s very clever.
JC: Yes. He’s ex-Army.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with John David Pennington Cotter
Creator
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Patricia Selby
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-08-28
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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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ACotterJDP180828
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:16:47 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Free French Air Force
Description
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John was born in London, Hendon. His family fell on hard times in his early years. John and his brother, Paul, joined the RAF in 1941 as a pilot and wireless operator respectively. After initial training at RAF Brize Norton, John was trained in Canada, returning to Britain on the Queen Mary with the first detachments of American troops. In 1943 he did more training at RAF Wymeswold, then joined 158 Squadron at RAF Lissett. They carried out several operations to German cities. As part of a new 640 Squadron, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. John then trained the Free French Air Force at RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland. He stayed in the RAF for 20 years, finishing as squadron leader. He later became a civil pilot at Dan Air. John’s brother was killed in a propeller incident in Vancouver.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-02
1941-07-07
1942-08
1943-02
1943-12
1944-02
1945-07
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Germany
Great Britain
United States
Atlantic Ocean
England--London
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Hamburg
Saskatchewan--Saskatoon
Scotland--Moray
Saskatchewan
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Contributor
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Anne-Marie Watson
Sally Coulter
158 Squadron
640 Squadron
aircrew
Distinguished Flying Cross
ground personnel
lack of moral fibre
Oxford
pilot
RAF Bridlington
RAF Lissett
RAF Lossiemouth
training
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force